'The black cab,' she said faintly.
One of the masked men laughed. 'So she had noticed it! You were right, she is much more dangerous than she seemed. Come now, we must be off.'
'One moment. Just because she is dangerous, we must make sure of her. Letting her breathe is one thing—'
'But what have I done?' Marianne protested as the second man was binding her hands swiftly with a silk scarf. 'Where are you taking me? And why?'
This was ridiculous! Anger was now beginning to overcome her fear, reviving her instinct of self-preservation.
'That, mademoiselle, you will be told when we reach our destination,' the man answered. 'For the present, you will best keep silent. We should not like to have to kill a woman—'
She was suddenly aware of the long-barrelled duelling pistol gleaming in the man's gloved hand, the muzzle pressed close to her left breast. The threat was serious.
'I'll be quiet,' she breathed.
'Good. Now, if you will excuse me—'
Another scarf was bound across her eyes, so tightly that no ray of light showed through. After this, her kidnappers took an arm each and guided her to the carriage. She felt other hands reach out to her from inside, and pull her up the steps. The door slammed. Marianne found herself sitting on a seat that was not uncomfortable. She could hear someone breathing beside her and guessed that this was the person who had helped her into the carriage. Outside, she heard someone say:
'The muff! There, by the water. We cannot leave it there. The chief said: "Leave no traces."'
'Why not? They might think she was drowned.' 'Leaving her muff carefully on the opposite side! Fool!' A few seconds later, the door opened again and she felt someone push her bound hands into the muff. The man sitting beside her spoke for the first time and she repressed a shudder. His voice was like steel, hard and merciless. 'Such care for a renegade!'
'Our job is to take her, not to judge her,' the first man said firmly. 'If she is guilty, she will die, but she need not suffer unnecessarily. We have to get her to the chief in one piece!'
The door banged to and the carriage moved off, speeding to a gallop as it plunged into the thickets of the wood. Marianne could hear the four hoursemen galloping behind. She wondered who was this chief to whom they were taking her.
The journey in the carriage was comparatively brief but it was followed by a much longer one on foot. Two of Marianne's captors seized her arms and half carried her along. The way seemed endless. And it felt to Marianne as though she were being dragged down a fearful, slippery and evil-smelling slope. The air was cold and dank as though at the bottom of a tunnel and a smell of rottenness assailed her nostrils. No light was visible below the bandage over her eyes, although the rubbing against the cushions of the coach had loosened it a little. Neither of her companions had spoken since leaving the river bank and Marianne found herself moving in a wholly dark and silent world. Only the strength of the hands holding her upright and the sound of men breathing told her she had not been spirited away by ghosts. From time to time, in the course of this nightmare journey, she heard the sound of a cat yowling or the trickle of running water somewhere. Her feet in the pink satin slippers were like ice and bruised unmercifully as she stumbled blindly along the stony path. She would have fallen had not the phantom riders held her up. Her blood congealed with terror and there was a tight ache in her throat. This hideous adventure, coming so soon after leaving the enchanted pavilion where she had known such happiness, was like a nightmare from which she knew that there was no awakening. She was like a trapped bird flinging herself against the bars of her cage but only succeeding in hurting herself.
A door banged suddenly. They had entered what must be a lighted passage because Marianne could see a yellow gleam of light. Then came some kind of muddy court or garden, followed by some crumbling steps. Someone whistled three times, then knocked twice on a door. It became suddenly warm. Marianne felt a floor beneath her feet. A smell of cabbage soup and sour wine filled her nostrils. At last, the bandage was taken from her eyes.
She looked about her fearfully. Five men stood around her wearing black masks and dressed in black, but with a certain elegance. There were two more, evil-looking fellows in dirty smocks and oilcloth caps. The figures stood out grimly against the background of a wretched wine shop, lit by two smoking lamps. The walls shone with grease and sweat, there were rickety tables, chairs losing their stuffing and, in one corner, an ancient trunk covered with moth-eaten fabric. Only the glasses and the row of bottles that stood on a shelf looked clean and new. But most of all, the prisoner was struck by the appearance of an extraordinary old woman who rose up suddenly out of the shadows, leaning on a cane. She was so bent and broken that she looked at least a hundred and on her powdered hair she wore a massive lace cap, torn and filthy, in the fashion of twenty years before, as was the greyish muslin fichu crossed on her breast. Her stained gown must once have been a handsome violet silk and a great golden cross gleamed on her bosom. The old woman's face was so criss-crossed and veined with wrinkes that it resembled the bark of some ancient tree, but although her sharp nose all but met her chin, the eyes very nearly as green as Marianne's own, were bright and young like new leaves on an old withered trunk.
This ancient creature dragged her rheumaticky limbs painfully up to Marianne and looked her up and down with a wicked grin.
'Fine game, baron! Very fine game—' she cackled. 'Satin and ermine, mark you! To say nothing of what's underneath! Do you really want to send all this to the bottom of the Seine with a stone around its neck? Do you know what a waste it is?'
A trickle of cold sweat ran down Marianne's back at the fearful sound of the old woman's cackling laugh. But the man she had addressed as baron, who seemed to be the leader of the band, merely shrugged.
'The court will decide. I carry out my orders, Fanchon-Fleur-de-lis. I've had trouble enough laying hands on her. She never went out but by day and with a good escort. Until tonight's little affair.'
'We need not regret that,' another broke in swiftly and Marianne recognized the voice of the man who had been with her in the carriage. 'We were able to confirm what we suspected that she was meant for him. We took her on the road from Butard. And God knows we waited long enough! He must have found her to his liking.'
Once again, Marianne's hackles rose at the cackling laughter of the old woman with the curious name.
'I've had enough of this!' She burst out suddenly. 'More than enough! Tell me, once and for all what you want with me! Kill me if you insist, but do it quickly! Or else let me go!'
Her protests ended in a cry of pain as the old woman struck her sharply across the knuckles with the knob of her cane.
'That will do!' she snapped shrilly. 'Speak when you are spoken to! Otherwise, keep silent – or I might forget myself and kill you myself! And I'd be sorry afterwards because if the court will listen to me, my beauty, they'll give you into my keeping and I'll take good care of you. I have a little house at Ranelagh where I entertain some gentlemen of substance. Your favours would fetch a high price! An imperial whore! I hope he's a good lover, at least?'
'Who? What do you mean?' Marianne said in a choked voice.
'Why him, of course, the Corsican ogre! You must not be so modest. In the profession I have in mind for you, it will be something to be proud of—'
Marianne decided the old woman must be mad. What was she talking about? What was this about an ogre? In her bewilderment, she was even able to ignore the creature's sordid threats. Nothing made any sense.
'You are mad,' she said with a pitying shrug.
'Mad, am I? You wait—'
She raised her cane again but the Baron intervened.
'That's enough! I have already told you, Fanchon, it is not for us to judge. Leave her alone. We will go down now.'
'Maybe,' the old woman muttered obstinately, 'but I'll speak to the chevalier. She'll see then if I'm mad! I'll tan the hussy's hide for her before I put her to work—'
'Must you really let this woman insult me?' Marianne cried angrily.
There was a moment's silence, broken only by the sniggering of the two men in overalls. The baron took his prisoner by the arms.
'No,' he said sternly, 'you are right. Come – you Requin, open the trap – and meanwhile, let Pisse-Vinaigre outside make sure we have not been followed.'
One of the rough looking men went to the back of the room and, grasping a large iron ring, lifted up a trap-door leading apparently to the cellar. The other went outside. The baron untied Marianne's wrists.
'The trap-door is only wide enough for one,' he said briefly. 'You would fall otherwise.'
She gave him a pale smile of thanks and rubbed her sore wrists gently to restore the circulation to her frozen hands.
'You are very kind,' she said bitterly.
The man's eyes studied her closely through the slits in his mask.
'And you,' he retorted, after a moment, 'are braver than I thought. I prefer that.'
As he thrust her not unkindly towards the trap-door, Marianne thought that he was quite wrong. She was not as brave as he believed, in fact she was half dead with fright but not for anything in the world would she have shown her fear. Her pride kept her upright, her chin held high before these unknown men beneath whose masks she divined aristocrats like herself, men of her own class, even if by some absurd series of misunderstandings she had become their prisoner, though accused of what or why she did not know. In a way, she even felt a kind of impatience to find herself confronted with this mysterious court to which they kept referring, in order to find out at last why they had captured her and why they threatened her like this.
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