By Jenny Guttridge

This is for Dominique and my friends in the REGiment and is dedicated with gratitude and affection to Richard E Grant.

At last, the seemingly endless rain had stopped, but underfoot the streets were still slick and water could be heard running freely in the gutters and drains. Already the perpetual dank miasma of Paris had started to rise again into the newly washed air; the stench of massed people, of unwashed bodies, of the sick and the poor; of rot and death and decay; of fear and fire and blood.

Elsewhere the city was bright with bonfires, this night as every night, but here a single lantern lighted the street. Long shadows lay along the walls and filled each nook and doorway. A chill gust of wind ruffled the surface of a last puddle. A lean dog snuffled in a corner, then cringed away and slunk off.

In the darkest shadow something stirred.

A figure emerged, deeply hooded, heavily cloaked in shabby wool, stooped and hunched, clutching a staff in a rag wrapped hand. For a moment he hesitated as if listening. From the depths of the hood quick bright eyes scanned the street. Finding it empty, now even of the dog, the figure turned and hobbled with remarkable speed to the nearby corner and vanished round it.

Limping rapidly and using his stick to probe his way in the darkness he made his way along the backs of several small hovels huddled together in a row. With amazing nimbleness he avoided the heaps of garbage, a stinking unseen carcass, and the patch of sticky, slippery mud where slops were thrown and came finally to the rear of a larger, more imposing but equally ill kept structure of brick and wood and iron.

He looked round again, carefully, and then, finding himself unobserved, he began an amazing transformation. The stooped back straightened to reveal surprising height, the hunch unwound into shoulders of elegant breadth, the hands, unwrapped, lost their crippled appearance.

Discarding the staff with the rags the figure stepped close to the stout wooden door that recessed into the back wall of the building. His hand touched the lock and in a moment there came a double click that sounded loud in the night. The door eased open and the figure slipped silently inside.

Movar De’ Mere paced the small cellar room that had become his prison. Three full strides one way, a sharp turn, and three back the other. Just room to avoid the pile of blankets that were his bedding, the slop bucket and the little table that held a single candle stick – the meagre flame his soul comfort. His mind was in turmoil. So far, apart from some pushing and shoving and the damage done to his shirt, they’d done nothing to him, but he knew that wouldn’t last. Soon now, maybe even tonight, they would come for him and take him to the dark cells beneath the Palace of Justice. Then the pain would begin. Fists clenched.

De’ Mere paused in his pacing and squeezed his eyes tight shut against that thought and the images it provoked. After that, of course, would come trial and inevitably, execution. He swallowed hard, feeling already in his imagination the cold kiss of steel on the back of his neck.

With a release of pent breath he resolutely opened his eyes and resumed pacing. Death was something he had resigned himself to in recent hours. His Lord knew that he deserved it. Had he not sold the lives of his brother and his brothers’ wife into the hands of the red capped Peoples Army? It was cold comfort indeed that he had managed in the hot, confused aftermath of the arrest to snatch their three children and send them and their nurse fleeing towards the Spanish border. His sole resolution now revolved around his determination not to reveal the route of that flight for as long as he possibly could.

But when the torture began how long would that be?

Sweat broke from his skin again and De’ Mere mopped his broad featured face with the ends of his ragged cravat.

Five men sat in the improvised guard room. Their seats were upturned barrels and their table an old wooden box. They had three bottles of brandy to share between them. Three of them sat with heads bent over a board game, passing the dice and the brandy round, talking in low tones, occasionally laughing loudly. The fourth man puffed on a long stemmed pipe and watched them play. The fifth snoozed in a corner. Their muskets leaned in a row along the wall. None of them saw the wraith that flitted unseen, unheard, past the open doorway.

De’ Mere turned in mid-stride. His eyes widened with fear and the sweat ran cold on his skin. There had been a sound at the door. They had come to fetch him to terror and death. Now. Already. Before he was properly prepared…

The noise came again – a sort of scratching. And then the lock turned and the door swung slowly inwards.

De’ Mere took a step backwards, his hands half raised in a posture of defence. He stared, the breath stopped in his throat. There was no squad of blue coated guards. No rabble of red capped revolutionaries. A single figure stood in the doorway. A grubby, dishevelled figure whose height and posture belied his appearance. De’ Mere screwed up his eyes, it was hard to see in the poor light of the candle. He didn’t know who his visitor was but he knew instinctively that this nocturnal call had nothing to do with Robespierres’ Committee of Public Safety, nor yet the thugs of the C.G.S.

“Who are you?” he breathed at last.

The figure glanced behind him into the passageway, then came into the cell and pushed the door closed. “Who I am does not matter. I have come to give you freedom” The French was perfect, aristocratic, without any trace of accent.

“Freedom?” De’ Mere was bewildered “But…”

“But you do not deserve freedom” The other finished for him. He folded back his hood and the candlelight threw soft shadows across his face. It was a face neither old nor young but the sort of face that would stay forever in memory, creased and folded with a long scar that lifted the lip towards the ear. A mass of dark hair flew wildly around the head. The voice hissed softly “This I know. But for the sake of the children you attempted to save, you must remain silent. One way or another” The last, a threat, was offered with quiet venom.

The room was small, they were very close. De’ Mere looked into the eyes. They were bright and a vivid blue. They held nothing for him but contempt “Death?” he asked “Is that the freedom you bring me?”

“No!” His visitor laughed and a quick smile transformed the face “Not unless you choose it. Come with me and I will lead you out from this place” The smile faded “But we must be quick. The night passes apace”

“Very well” De’ Mere drew himself up. “But why?”

The blue eyes regarded him a long moment as if a variety of answers were being considered, “Because I can”

“Tell me what I must do”

The eyes gazed at him a moment longer as if considering still, the alternative. Then, “Follow me. Stay Close. Do precisely as I tell you and nothing else”

His rescuer moved to the door, opened it a crack and then wider, slipping out into the passage.

The journey through the bowels of the building became a living nightmare for De’ Mere. The cloaked figure, his hood now back in place, led the way unerringly from doorway to doorway, from shadow from shadow, little more that a shadow himself. And De’ Mere followed, clumsily he knew, but doing the best he could to be quick and quiet.

As they approached the guard room the figure suddenly held out a restraining hand, drawing

De’ Mere back into the darkness. Within the lighted square of the doorway a shadow moved. A guard appeared, yawning and stretching. The hooded figure stood quite still in the gloom, watching, but De’ Mere was staring at something else entirely. Incongruously, the hand that held him back bore upon the smallest finger a ring, finely wrought in gold, bearing the emblem of a tiny flower. De’ Mere Knew that emblem. The whole of France knew that emblem, and the implications of it took his breath away. He was being rescued from his much deserved fate by the Scarlet Pimpernel!

The guard yawned again and looked around, and seeing nothing disappeared back into the light. Ghost-like, the two moved on.

De’ Mere stood in the lamp light at the steps of the fine building. A shabby cloak was about his shoulders and a short staff was in his rag wrapped hands. It was starting to rain again and he was cold and hungry and he had no money, but at least he was free.

A fine carriage drawn by two grey horses drew up beside him, splashing the gutter water over his feet. Soaked, De’ Mere stepped back. At the top of the steps the doors were opened by servants. A tall, handsome figure emerged, pausing in the doorway while he pulled on his gloves. His head turned and he caught De’ Meres’ eye. De’ Mere gasped and stared. It couldn’t possibly be. This mans’ face, long of jaw and brow, was shaved and powdered, his dark hair drawn smoothly back and tied with black satin into the nap of his neck. His clothes were of deep red brocaded velvet beneath a greatcoat of black broad cloth. But it was the eyes that held De’ Meres’ attention. They were a bright, bright blue.

The gentleman slipped a finger into his waistcoat pocket and flipped De’ Mere a coin before stepping into the carriage. Automatically he picked it up, fingering the edge as he watched the carriage pull away. Not until it had disappeared from view did he look down at what he held. It was an English guinea.

N.B The character of the Scarlet Pimpernel is the creation and sole property of Baroness Emmuska Orczy and this text is intended in no way to infringe upon her copyright or that of her heirs or descendants.

Potters Bar 2000

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