‘I suppose not, or why would they have lied about the job?’
The café door opened and a clamour of voices and music and light poured out. Two drunken students lurched off and the door closed again.
‘What if we’re making a mistake? When you and Ada and Al and I started the battalion, this isn’t what we had in mind.’
‘Isn’t it? We rescued someone innocent from an awful fate. I rather thought that was the whole idea.’
‘You know what I mean. We’ve got caught up in something we can’t even begin to understand. Who should I be protecting, my battalion, or a stranger?’
‘We all signed up for a dangerous life, Camille. We get to make that choice for ourselves.’ Guil pushed back the brim of his hat and scratched his forehead. ‘If Olympe wants her freedom, then who are we to take it from her?’
‘Even if it’s dangerous? Even if it puts us all at risk?’
He laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité.I believe it still means something to us. I was an idealistic young recruit fresh to Paris when I met you two years ago, right here at the political clubs, but I knew straight away that you were one of the bravest and strongest people I’d meet in my life. I came back to you after I deserted because I knew you. I knew I believed in you, that I trusted you.’
‘I don’t know if I’m worth that trust.’
His eyes flashed. ‘That’s my choice to make. When I left my family in Marseilles to join the Revolutionary Army my father was disappointed that I would not be following him into his business. But he understood that I did what I did because I believed it to be good, and true, and right. I was naive.’ His mouth twisted and it took him a moment or two to collect himself. ‘I deserted because I couldn’t keep serving a political force I didn’t believe in. This terror dressed up as revolution is not something I could put my name to. I was crushed, the dream I’d held of fighting for freedom and change and liberation was a lie. But then you and Al and Ada and I came together and that dream became something real again.’
She scuffed the toe of her boot against the cobbles, dangerously close to tears. With the back of her sleeve she scrubbed at her eyes.
‘You have too much faith in me.’
‘I don’t think so.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘After all, who else is trying to keep people from the guillotine? No one. Only you.’
‘Only us,’ she corrected.
The adrenaline from her escape earlier had finally faded, and she was left feeling a low, creeping dread.
Her father’s pistol hung heavy and insistent at her side.
‘Back then, did you ever think things would end up like this?’
‘Like this?’
She shrugged. ‘Messy.’
‘No. No one ever does.’
‘Sometimes I wonder what my parents would think if they could see me now. Would they think I’m doing enough? Would they be proud of me?’
‘We make the best decisions with the information we have. You know the right thing to do. It will always be difficult and require compromise. But you know, Camille.’
Her parents had stood up for what they believed in, even when it had been messy and complicated. They had stood their ground – and lost their lives.
Camille’s hand dropped to her father’s pistol.
He’d never gifted it to her – shooting was no business for a well brought-up girl – but she’d taken it when she had tried to rescue him. On her own, without the battalion she’d yet to form, she had failed.
She’d kept the pistol. That, and a locket of her mother’s, buried in the back of a drawer, was all she had left of them.
She couldn’t fail again.
She had to stand her ground too, and live.
‘We’re going to have to help this girl, aren’t we?’
‘Yes.’
