Where the Light Falls(69)

There was no signature, but no signature was necessary. Jean-Luc instinctively knew, by the blood throbbing in between his ears, who had written this note. He put the letter down, far away from him on his desk, as if the paper posed some threat to his work, to his very well-being.

Lazare had made no contact since Jean-Luc had accepted the case, and the two men had exchanged no correspondence. How Jean-Luc wished, now, in this dark office, that he had never opened the letter.

At the very bottom of the page lurked a curious postscript, also in Lazare’s handwriting. Jean-Luc lifted the paper once more and read it:

Recall what I once told you: I would tear down any man guilty of the people’s false worship. Keep your eyes on the journals in the coming weeks. I think you shall happen upon some news that may be surprising. Even wildly entertaining. A word of advice: I would avoid any contact with the Jacobin Club, if I were you.



Jean-Luc found this last statement bizarre, incomprehensible. And yet, it stayed with him for the days to come. Each morning, when he arrived at the office and looked at the morning’s journals, Jean-Luc sought out some news that might make sense of Lazare’s veiled and strange prophecy.

It wasn’t until weeks later, on the morning of July 28, that Jean-Luc finally discovered what Lazare had meant. There, on the front page, the words leapt out at him. Illogical words. Impossible words. His legs collapsed into his chair before he could master them.


Maximilien Robespierre, Leader of the Jacobin Club, Guilty of Treason and Traitor of the Revolution, Will Be Guillotined Today!





Summer 1794

André returned to the capital the evening before the trial of Christophe Kellermann. The guards at the southern barrier had been ornery, unhappily marching out of their guardhouse into the rain that had pelted André for hours. One of them held up a lantern, inspecting André’s leave papers, turning his gaze back and forth to inspect the stranger. The other, a large pike held in one arm, chewed on a piece of soaked bread. André was doubtful that either of them knew how to read.

With a wordless grunt and a half-hearted salute, the guard with the lantern waved André through, and his horse splashed through the mud under the gates and into the city. Hoping he was not too late, André made his way directly to the large Right Bank building near the Palais de Justice, where Jean-Luc had told him he would be working, preparing the case for the next day.

“I can’t tell you what a relief it is to finally meet you, Captain Valière.” Jean-Luc’s dark hair was disheveled, his eyes sunken with fatigue, but André had the distinct impression that his was a face he had seen before. He blinked, trying to pluck the receding image back into the fore of his mind from behind the gossamer veil where it lurked. And then he knew: a year earlier, the night he had first kissed Sophie, on the footbridge spanning the Seine. But before he could say so, Jean-Luc was speaking: “I’ve seen you before, Captain Valière.”

“Please, call me André.”

“It was at the Café Marché. Months ago. Years even, perhaps. You were escorting a drunken man out.”

André laughed. He knew exactly to whom the lawyer referred. But the night could have been any number of occasions. “My brother, Remy.”

“Ah. Well, I remember only because it was the first night I met Maurice Merignac—a work associate, I suppose you could say. He was rather…opinionated about it.” Jean-Luc smiled. His face was open and earnest, betraying no glimpse of design or intrigue, and yet the man clearly possessed an active mind. “Please, come in, André.” With that André slipped off his drenched riding coat and placed it on a hook on the office door. He set his tricorn hat on top of his coat and took in his surroundings. Jean-Luc’s office was littered with papers and opened books, dimly lit by a lone candle on the desk.

“Can I offer you anything to drink?”

“Just a bit of coffee, if you have any,” André said, his entire body damp and aching from the long ride from his quarters in the south.

“Of course.”

Each of them settled with a mug of coffee at the large desk, its surface a battleground of papers, spent inkwells, quills, envelopes, and cups in varying degrees of fullness. “I work amid chaos,” Jean-Luc said, picking up a quill and dipping it into the inkwell.

Perhaps that was correct, André mused, but his expression was one of grave determination. André took a liking to him immediately.

Together, the two men discussed André’s statement for the following day. André was under no circumstances to get into a political debate with the opposing lawyers. Especially, Jean-Luc pointed out, given the fact that he himself had noble blood. “Nothing we can do about that, if it comes up,” Jean-Luc said with a sigh.