The Silver Blade by Sally Gardner Page B

her. Heaven help all of us.’

Chapter Eleven

    T he leather box containing the key sat waiting on Remon Quint’s workbench. Even looking at it made his stomach churn. He regretted his lack of courage. He should have spoken out when he had the chance, told the man with the waxwork face and the poppy-red gloves that what he desired was impossible, that no man on earth had the power to make a key to a soul. Speak the truth and shame the devil! But he hadn’t. Instead he had listened, believing at first this was merely a rich man’s foible. After all, he’d worked with enough clients whose wealth was beyond the realms of most men’s understanding.

    Usually flattery persuaded them to see that what they had purchased was unique, yet he had the feeling that this man was in deadly earnest. Flattery would never satisfy his desire. He wanted a key to a soul and nothing else would do.

    The keymaker looked around his shabby apartment: a bedchamber, a workroom and a small anteroom. These poky, lopsided chambers were all he could afford now. It was stiflingly hot; the smell of rubbish and rotten meat wafted through his open window. Today there was no breeze, just an unbearable, claustrophobic, sticky heat that made everyone irritable. Below he could hear the cobbler and his wife bickering. He went to the cupboard and took out a half-empty bottle and a stale loaf, poured himself a glass of wine, carefully replaced the cork, broke off a piece of bread and said grace, as he always did. For all his new-found poverty, he remained a pious man. He took a sip of the wine and grimaced. It was sour.

    B efore the Revolution, when the power of prayer was believed in, his prayers had been answered. He had owned a shop in the fashionable rue du Labon district, had a fine carriage and servants, wore elegant clothes and wigs and was known for his hospitality. And he could boast that he had dined with the King of Keymakers, Louis XVI, whose obsession was labyrinthine locks. Oh, how he had picked his brains to know their secret. Those were golden days.

    He had entertained, held supper parties. When, with the dessert, he would bring out a mahogany toy guillotine, fashionable at the time, his guests delighted in taking turns to put little dolls under the knife and watch the miniature executions. The streams of red fluid that burst from them were merely perfume, to be caught on the handkerchiefs of giggling ladies.

    How foolish to think nothing would change. Now everything was lost, ankle deep in blood.

    T he row between the cobbler and his wife had spilled into the courtyard. A man yelled at them from an upstairs window to shut up, otherwise they’d be for it.

    Only a fool wouldn’t know what was meant by that remark, thought the keymaker. In this dog-eat-dog world everyone was food for the Tribunal, the tumbril and the guillotine. No man’s neck was safe.

    The keymaker knew he was doomed. Maybe it would be best if he were arrested and taken to prison. His life was hanging by a thread, like a child’s tooth. One yank and it would be gone. At least in prison, he thought, there would be old friends to reminisce with, and he would be free at last to say what was on his mind. It would make no difference. The guillotine would be waiting to embrace him whether he kept quiet or not. Instead here he was, at liberty, but lonely and wretched, plagued by voices in his head. This was Death’s waiting room. Every time he heard a tread on the steps up to his apartment he told himself it was the Grim Reaper.

    If only he’d had the wit to leave after the fall of the Bastille as so many of his clients had done, conveniently forgetting to pay their bills. But he hadn’t had the foresight to see what a revolution was capable of doing. He had agreed with those who were in favour of a constitutional monarchy. Once that was in place, the keymaker was sure it would be business as usual. In a time of such political upheaval, instead of keeping an eye on events,