Where the Light Falls(60)
Jean-Luc swallowed hard, feeling it wiser not to speak too strongly on behalf of a denounced marquis declared an enemy of the nation. He sat motionless and offered no reply.
Lazare continued. “You say that these aristocrats deserve fair trials. Did my mother have a fair trial before being damned to a life of shameful bodily enslavement?” Lazare asked, still looking only at Jean-Luc. “Did I have a fair trial before all of the beatings I received at that horrid school in which my father, the viscount, enrolled me?” And now, inexplicably, Lazare smiled. “No. A fair trial is only a right for a free man. But these nobles…their rights are forfeit. They are criminals, all. Complicit and culpable, stewards of a criminal system that we, as free men, have finally undone.” Lazare took a long, slow sip of wine, the red liquid blindingly bright against his colorless skin. The table was, once more, quiet.
It was Lazare who again broke the silence. “But now it grows late, and I fear that I have filled our time with such heavy matters. What is the hour?” Lazare looked to Merignac. Jean-Luc could not have guessed the time—whether an hour or ten hours had passed since he’d entered this strange, dimly lit study with these pale, wordless men he did not know.
“It approaches ten o’clock, Citizen Lazare,” Merignac answered.
“Ah! The time has gone so quickly with our spirited discussion.” Lazare looked around the table, his tone suddenly light, even cheery, as his eyebrows moved up and down on his chalky white face. “And now I must go, or else Maximilien will be kept waiting.”
It was Robespierre to whom Lazare referred, Jean-Luc realized.
“Citizen St. Clair.” Lazare fixed his eyes across the table. “I hope I have not overwhelmed you with this frank discussion. I am always eager to acquire a proper sense of a man’s character, as well as his ideals, should he have any. It was a trial by fire, you might say, but you held up quite well. Quite well indeed.”
Jean-Luc nodded, lowering his gaze. What did one say in such an instance?
“I quite enjoy a good debate, and I’ve enjoyed ours immensely.”
Jean-Luc offered a slight smile in reply.
“Maurice and the rest of my protégés are constantly trying to introduce me to bright young minds. Trying to find my next petit projet. I always say: ‘I’ll meet anyone once. But a second time? That is up to the man himself.’ ”
Jean-Luc nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“Not ‘sir.’ ” Lazare shook his head. “ ‘Brother.’ ”
“Indeed,” Jean-Luc answered, his voice quiet, his throat dry.
Lazare spread his thin lips in a smile. “Maurice told me that you live across the Seine, on the Left Bank.”
“I do, Citizen Lazare.”
“And how do you intend to get home?”
“I thought I’d walk, citizen.”
“No.” The old man shook his head. “I am going that way to meet Citizen Robespierre. Won’t you please join me in my coach?”
“I would not wish to trouble you.”
Lazare waved a bony hand. “It is no trouble. It’s the least I can do for such an idealistic young clerk who counts furniture and silver plates so diligently for our Republic.”
Jean-Luc swallowed hard as his cheeks flushed shades darker than his pale companion’s. “If you are certain that it is no trouble, then I thank you.”
Lazare rose from his chair, smoothing the front of his coat with his long, thin fingers. “The rest of you, carry on with your work. I need not remind you that our soldiers are fighting, our people are hungry, and our enemies dwell amongst us. The world is watching.”
Inside the carriage, Lazare looked out the window, his narrow frame bouncing and jostling as the horses pulled them over snow-slicked cobblestones. He did not speak, so neither did Jean-Luc.
Lazare fixed his gaze on his guest as they turned the corner, approaching Jean-Luc’s street. In the dark shadows of the carriage, Jean-Luc could just barely see pale lips and blond eyebrows against an unnaturally white face. The older man broke the silence. “I meant what I said.”
“Oh?” Jean-Luc met his stare.
“That I appreciated your spirited debate. None of them”—Lazare waved his hand—“none of them will ever engage with me. It’s as if…” He paused, sighing. “As if they are bridled by fear, or something else….” His voice trailed off.
Jean-Luc could have gasped in laughter—finding it fairly obvious that of course they were frightened of their leader, and understandably so. But he let Lazare continue.