The Worm in Every Heart by Gemma Files Page A

sweat.
    His “old complaint,” he called it, during that brief evening’s consultation with Dr. Keynes. A cyclic, tidal flux, regular as breath, unwelcome as nightmare—constantly calling and re-calling a blush, or more, to his unwilling skin.
    And he wonders, Jean-Guy, just as he wondered then: why look at all? Why bother to hide herself, if only to periodically brave the curtain and offer her unmistakable face to the hostile street outside?
    But—
    â€œYou aristos,” he remembers muttering while the Chevalier listened, courteously expressionless. “All, so . . . arrogant.”
    â€œYes, Citizen.”
    â€œLike . . . that girl. The one . . . ”
    â€œAt Dumouriez’s window? Oh, no doubt.”
    â€œ . . . but how . . . ” Struggling manfully against his growing lassitude, determined to place the reference in context: “How . . . could you know . . . ?”
    And the Chevalier, giving his version of La Hire’s shrug, all sleek muscle under fine scarlet velvet—
    â€œBut I simply do, Citizen Sansterre.”
    Adding, in a whisper—a hum? That same hum, so close and quiet against the down of Jean-Guy’s paralyzed cheek, which seems to vibrate through every secret part of him at once whenever the blood still kept sequestered beneath his copper-ruddy mixed-race flesh begins to . . . flow . . .
    . . . for who do you think it was who told her to look out, in the first place?
    * * *
    In Martinique—with money and time at his disposal, and a safe distance put between himself and that Satanic, red-lined coach—Jean-Guy had eventually begun to make certain discreet inquiries into the long and secretive history of the family Prendegrace. Thus employed, he soon amassed a wealth of previously hidden information: facts impossible to locate during the Revolution, or even before.
    Like picking at a half-healed scab, pain and relief in equal measure—and since, beyond obviously, he would never be fully healed, what did it matter just . . .
    . . . what . . .
    . . . Jean-Guy’s enquiries managed to uncover?
    Chevalier Joffroi d’Iver, first of his line, won his nobility on crusade under Richard Coeur-de-lion, for services rendered during the massacre at Acre. An old story: Reluctant to lose the glory of having captured three hundred Infidels in battle—though aware that retaining them would prevent any further advancement towards his true prize, the holy city of Jerusalem—the hot-blooded Plantagenet ordered each and every one of them decapitated on the spot. So scaffolds were built, burial pits dug, and heads and bodies sent tumbling in either direction for three whole days—while the swords of d’Iver and his companions swung ceaselessly, and a stream of fresh victims slipped in turn on the filth their predecessors had left behind.
    And after their task was done, eyewitnesses record, these good Christian knights filled the pits with Greek fire—leaving the bodies to burn, as they rode away.
    Much as, during your own famous Days of September,
a familiar voice seems to murmur at Jean-Guy’s ear,
three hundred and seventy-eight of those prisoners awaiting trial at the Conciergie were set upon by an angry horde of good patriots like yourself, and hacked limb from limb in the street.
    Eyes closed, Jean-Guy recalls a gaggle of women running by—red-handed, reeling drunk—with clusters of ears adorning their open, fichu-less bodices. Fellow Citizens clapping and cheering from the drawn-up benches as a man wrings the Princess de Lamballe’s still-beating heart dry over a goblet, then takes a long swig of the result, toasting the health of the Revolution in pale aristo blood. All those guiding lights of Liberty: ugly Georges Danton, passionate Camille Desmoulins . . .
    . . . Maximilien Robespierre in his Incorruptible’s coat