The Companion - Time For Eternity Part 29

She poured a good portion of the bottle down his throat.

Francoise woke slowly. She was hot. She cracked her eyes and shaded them with her hand against the glare.

"Are you awake, ma pet.i.te?"

Gaston. She nodded and sat up. She'd been cradled in his lap.

"Good, for it is my turn at the oars." He whipped a handkerchief from his coat pocket, miraculously white. "Perhaps you could soak this in the water, and give Pierre some comfort?"

Francoise nodded. Her eyes felt like scratchy, dry pebbles. Gaston relieved one of the older aristocrats at the oars.

"I'm hungry," a little girl wailed.

"Soon, ma cherie," her mother whispered with frightened eyes.

Francoise looked around. They were moving through the countryside northwest of Paris, among the barges. There were other boats, but their own, heavily loaded craft looked conspicuous. Who would not realize they were fleeing?

She got up and knelt beside Pierre, who was sitting up, but looked gray. "How are you, my kitchen wizard?" she whispered. His limpid brown eyes held despair. He shook his head slowly. She dipped the handkerchief over the side in water noticeably less foul than in the city. The river was bigger here too, having taken on several tributaries on its way to the coast north. "Jennings will get us away."

"Who will appreciate my magnificence? No one had so discerning a palate as his grace."

Francoise had trouble breathing for a moment. She could not answer him, but instead wrung out the cloth and dabbed at his head.

Jennings pulled at his oar. He looked exhausted. She gave her handkerchief to Pierre and crawled over several people to get near him. She raised her brows in inquiry.

"What?" he gasped, bending his back and reaching forward.

"We are rather conspicuous."

"Avignon's barge should be coming upriver somewhere between here and Rouen. Closer to Montes-la-Jolie if we're lucky."

"Is that the plan?"

He nodded, pulling at the oar. "We'll take the barge to Le Havre. If we're lucky the Maiden Voyage will just be coming in. If not, we pull out into the Channel. We'll find her. And then it's to England." He said the word reverently.

She sighed. For him England meant life. She had the worst feeling that what meant life to her was on the way to the guillotine.

The drugs she'd brought back from her future were a means to his end, if the wounds he sustained and the sunlight were not. And there seemed to be nothing she could do about it. The path of history was like a river, flowing inexorably back into its course. She crawled to the back of the boat and sat in the stern, looking back toward Paris.

Well, you got your way, Frankie, she thought. We aren't vampire. And if Henri's dead, he can't ever make you vampire.

So why doesn't that feel good?

I don't know.

Maybe because a good man died. One I love. You never loved him like that, did you?

I thought I did. Frankie was pensive. But it was just infatuation with the wicked duc. I never really knew him. Not like you do. You were right. When I thought I was abandoned ... I automatically blamed him.

So why do you think I looked for the real Henri this time around? Something was niggling at Francoise's brain.

Maybe it took both of us together to see the truth. My experience and your ... your optimism.

Francoise chuffed a bitter laugh. A kind word for naivete. I'm not optimistic now. A weight settled on her, doubly heavy because it settled on Frankie too. Her future had changed and yet it hadn't. She was going to be just as disappointed, as cynical as Frankie. She'd just achieve it in a single lifetime.

Wait.

She sucked in a breath. Frankie, you're still here.

I know what you're going to say. It's just one of these time-travel-conundrums. If Robert Heinlein couldn't figure it out, I sure can't.

Francoise pulled herself up, thinking hard. No, you said it yourself. Frankie, you only exist if I am made vampire. If I die in a single lifetime, there is no you. So it's still possible that Henri makes me vampire.

Silence.

I'll take that as an affirmative. Which means he's not dead yet. Francoise inhaled and felt a power over her own destiny fill her lungs. We could still save him.

No, no, no, no, no. We are not going back there. You can't risk being made vampire.

What's so bad about it? He doesn't kill people to get blood. You didn't either, once you understood how to do it. And you didn't do anything with your powers because you were frightened and you hated yourself. But Henri helped people with his powers.

A drop in the bucket.

Better than no drop at all. Look around you. What would the world be like if these hundred people had died?

Probably better off, Frankie grumbled.

Francoise stared pointedly at Emile, his thumb in his mouth, being cradled by Christophe Navarre.

Okay, okay. The world isn't ever better off beheading children.

Exactly. Or as you would say ... Bingo.

You're going back to try to save him, aren't you? Frankie seemed disgusted but resigned.

But that was a problem, wasn't it? Francoise swallowed. But how to get off the boat? I don't swim.

A silence ensued. Francoise could feel Frankie holding something back. At last Francoise heard Frankie 's muttered, I do. I swim.

Francoise let certainty wash through her. That was her answer. Gaston and Jennings would try to stop her. But when night fell, she could slip over the side. She still had coins from the roulades she had used to bribe the guards in the pockets tied inside her skirts. She'd hire a carriage. She might not be in time. But how could she not try?

Like you're going to break into the Conciergerie. She's drugged him. He was wounded. You'll never get him out.

I'll think about that later.

You'll get made vampire and I'll have come back here for nothing. Talk about bitter.

If he isn't guillotined, maybe things turn out differently. Maybe you have lifetimes of love with him. Maybe you're happy.

Frankie snorted. You heard Marianne Vercheroux. He doesn't love women. Especially not twenty-one-year-old almost virgins.

Francoise swallowed. Henri didn't love her. It didn't matter. You must make a stand somewhere, she thought to Frankie. And that was it, wasn't it? You must try to get what you wanted. And Francoise wanted Henri alive. No matter the cost. No matter if he loved her.

She loved him and that was all she had for certain. How far she had come from her girlish infatuation with the wicked duc. If she had ever guessed that the wicked duc was actually vampire, she would have run screaming from Paris. If she had guessed that he was a good man, she would have been equally shocked. But there it was. He was both a monster and a good man, and "wicked duc" didn't come close to compa.s.sing the depth, the complexity of him. It was that complexity she had fallen in love with. She hadn't even known what love was when she had mooned over her delightfully forbidden next-door neighbor. Now her love would go unrequited, and maybe she'd be vampire. Would she end up bitter and jaded like Frankie?

No, she wouldn't. This was her choice. That made all the difference.

Looks like you'll be stuck with me, Francoise thought.

They call that multiple personalities, and it means you're insane.

What's more insane than time travel?

They could kill you, you know.

And worse. Madame Croute had tortured Henri. "It doesn't matter," she whispered to herself, as much as to Frankie. I'll hate myself if I don't take this chance. And you of any know what that does to one.

At least I'm a good swimmer?

Francoise smiled. Frankie had just given in. She could feel Frankie's conflict, her doubt. But there were always doubts. One just had to absorb the doubt and ... and do what had to be done anyway.

The carriage changed horses at Poissy for the last time. It was near dawn by the time she reached Paris, just twenty-four hours since she'd seen Henri fall under the swords at the quay. Croute could not have sent him to the guillotine the same day. She'd want to toy with him. Francoise held to that. Her clothes were almost dry from her swim in the Seine, but her money was gone. That meant she had only one thing to barter for her entry to the Conciergerie. It was that thought that gave her the idea for how to get Henri out.

Lunatic plan.

"How appropriate for us."

Don't count me in on this one, baby doll. You'll get made vampire somehow, and then ...

"Then you don't cease to exist. That's good, isn't it?" Silence. Maybe. Maybe not.

Francoise leaned out the window and asked the driver to let her out by the Quai de l'Horloge at the far end of the Pont Neuf just next to the Conciergerie.

She made her way straight to the gatehouse. No one would expect visitors at this unG.o.dly hour. She was wearing one of Fanchon's creations-a befrogged day dress in blue and black that she knew made her eyes even bluer. It might be the worse for wear, but no one could mistake its line, the drape of the fabric, the costly braid, or the expensive brooch that looked like a military medal. It would do. A huge iron grate had been lowered in the stone archway in front of the gatehouse. She leaned up against it.

"Alors," she called. "Is there a man inside?"

A sleepy head poked out of the guardhouse. Thank the Lord, it was the guard whom she had first bribed. He looked around for the source of the call. "Ici," she called. "I am here."

He frowned in recognition. "You again?"

"But yes. With the same purpose."

The young man shook his head. "Not this time, sweetling. Croute's got your ... whatever he is ... locked up tight, at least until she sends him down to get his hair cut."

Francoise gasped. "He is going to the guillotine? Today?"

"Can't say I'm sorry about that. So no more visits. Regardless of the price."

Don't believe him. They all want what you're going to offer. He'll take you up on it, even if he doesn't intend to deliver his part of the bargain.

Francoise grabbed for what courage she could. "I'm afraid I don't have any money."

Bat your eyelashes, honey. They love that.

Francoise hated herself. She blinked several times. "Is there nothing I can trade for a visit?"

The young man stared at her. Then he cleared his throat and wandered over to the iron grating. "It does get lonely guarding the sc.u.m of the earth for the people of France. I ... I could use a little company."

"Surely a hero such as yourself does not lack for company." Francoise laughed.

He leaned against the iron strapping from the other side. His voice was husky. "Well, as you say. But with a demanding job like this, a little comfort is always welcome." They're all alike, aren't they?

No. They're not. Just some. Be grateful for that. "Well, I could give you ... company."

The young guard grinned slowly. He fished out the keys that hung on a ring on his wide leather belt and opened a side door.

Francoise smiled at him. The sun was rising. The courtyard of the prison beyond was still in shadow, but it would be filled with sunlight soon. She had to get Henri out before full light. The guard pulled her into his arms. His breath smelled of cheap wine, the kind made with alcohol and red dye, not grapes.

"Oh, monsieur," she protested, turning her head away. "The light-there will be no privacy here." She turned and took him by the hand, pulling him through the door and along the stone corridor. The open cells were quiet at this early hour. She glanced over the guard's shoulder. Someone must be awake. She saw a shadow s.h.i.+ft inside the cell and another. She reached up and put her hands around the guard's neck. He took her invitation and bent to kiss her hungrily. His wet mouth covered hers. She let his tongue pry open her lips and search her mouth. One hand cupped her bottom through her skirts. She pressed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against him and swabbed his tongue with hers.

Gack. Frankie gagged.

Francoise kissed him as though she were kissing Henri. Which she was, in a way. She let her weight fall against him. He stepped back. Not far enough. She pulled her fichu from her neckline. The dress hardly covered her nipples now.

"Merde, but you want it from me, don't you, little bird?"

She nodded even as she pulled him down to kiss him yet again.

"Right here?" he asked, gasping.

"Right now," she murmured into his mouth.

He fumbled with the b.u.t.tons on his breeches. She rubbed the hard rod beneath the flap even as she kissed him frantically. His erection sprang free.

Are you going to do this?

If I must. She lifted her skirts above her hips. "Brace yourself. You mustn't drop me."

He grinned and stepped back, dragging her with him. Still not far enough. There was nothing for it. All depended on the next moment. She pushed the guard with all her strength. He stumbled back against the bars.

An arm snaked out of the cell and wrapped around the guard's throat. His head jerked back against the bars. His eyes widened in shock. A hand gripped the wrist of the arm across his throat. He opened his mouth to yell for help and Francoise pushed a fistful of her fichu into it. He grabbed her shoulder, his fingers digging into her flesh. Other hands now reached through the bars, pulling at his arms, pinning his legs to the bars. He struggled, but he didn't let her go. His face turned red, then pale, then red again. Revulsion shuddered inside her. Inside the cell there was no sound.

The guard's grip on her shoulder relaxed as he slumped, held upright only by the disembodied arms from inside the cell. The one brawny arm across his throat was pulled even tighter by the hand at its wrist.

"Don't kill him," she whispered, rubbing her shoulder. "We have what we want."

The hands withdrew and the guard slumped to the ground. Francoise knelt quickly and fumbled at his belt for the key ring. The clink of keys seemed to echo against the stone. She looked quickly up and down the corridor. Other hands had appeared on the bars of other cells, waiting. But no guards.