Hunting for Silence

23. The Peaceful French Countryside

I leaned over to Mr Ambrose. 'Who,' I asked out of the corner of my mouth, 'are those people?'

'Revolutionaries.'

'What?'

'Well, perhaps it is not quite correct to call them that at the moment, seeing as there currently is no revolution in progress. But these are what the French generally refer to as sans-culottes.'

'Err...naked butts?' I translated.

Mr Ambrose threw me a look. 'While sans-culotte does indeed mean "without breeches", that does not mean they run around with bare posteriors, Mr Linton. It simply means they wear long trousers instead of the breeches which, at one point, used to be the fashion among French aristocrats. These are the poorest of the poor. The most desperate, decrepit people you could find in Paris.'

'Ah. I see. So...why are we here, exactly?'

'If you must know, back when I first came to Paris, I was looking for a reasonably-priced place to stay. I ended up here, at Monsieur Jacques' boarding house for the economically disadvantaged. For some reason I cannot explain,' Mr Ambrose said, glancing down at his ten-year-old mint condition tailcoat with its decorative scuffed sleeves, mended holes and bloodstains, 'they seemed to assume from my appearance that I was one of them. Since they offered me room and board at a very reasonable price, I saw no reason to disabuse them of their misconception.'

'Of course not.'

'You can rest easy, Miss Linton. Dalgliesh will never consider looking for us here. We are as safe as houses constructed by a competent architect.'

'Unless, of course, these nice people here find out who you really are and decide to slit the throat of the dissembling capitalist pig.'

'There is that possibility, yes.'

I made a face. 'Besides, staying out of sight won't do us any good. We need to find some way to stitch up that wound of yours, and then we've got to move! Like you said earlier, by going after a guard we've drawn attention to ourselves. Dalgliesh will soon figure out what we need the uniform for, and then he'll send a messenger to intercept the governor-general. If the messenger reaches him before we do....'

'True. But don't worry. Hiding people who don't want to be found isn't Jacque's only specialty.'

Turning to the scraggly Frenchman, Mr Ambrose started speaking rapid, concise French. It was quite amazing how, even when speaking in the language of love, he made everything sound like an ultimatum chiselled in stone. My worried gaze staying on the slowly growing bloodstains in his shirt, which neither Jacques nor any of his guests seemed to find particularly disquieting, I leant closer to Karim.

'What's he saying?'

The big bodyguard eyed me for a moment. I could tell he was struggling with whether such an outrageous demand for classified information from a nosy female was worth answering. Finally, he caved.

'He's asking for clean bandages and horses.'

I glanced around the room, which appeared to contain only one thing free of dirt: a small spot about three inches above the door lintel. Everything else was covered in various layers of...substances. Even on the cobwebs, there was growing mold. 'There are clean things in this place?'

'Apparently.'

Jacques clucked his tongue and nodded at Mr Ambrose's shot wound in a universal 'bad luck' gesture. A few quick words in French followed.

'He asked who's after us,' Karim translated.

Mr Ambrose's reply was characteristically concise. 'Des Aristos.'