‘I also said turn up on time and don’t tell anyone you’re coming. But you failed on both those counts.’
‘I didn’t tell anyone.’
‘You told someone ten minutes after our deal. Or were you too drunk to remember telling Guil, here, that you could make good money selling your uniform to mad bitches in trousers?’
Guillaume smiled pleasantly from where he blocked the exit of the garret they’d rented opposite the Conciergerie.
The soldier cursed.
‘Ten livre.’ She pushed the coins across to him.
He snatched them up and Guil stepped aside to let him slope away.
Guil put on the uniform and took Camille’s pistol from her, tucking it into his belt. The uniform suited him; the blue and white tailored to his strong physique, the colours crisp against his dark skin. Suited the soldier he had once been. He was the oldest of her battalion but his months at the front in Germany made him seem far older, more authoritative. She was relying on it to get them into the prison.
Her disguise for the job was easier to come by: cheap canvas trousers, a worn-through shirt and a tattered jacket. She paused in front of the spotted mirror, scrubbing her hair into a rat’s nest and rumpling her clothes. Her pale face was already smudged with dirt, completing her look.
Frowning, Guil crossed to the window.
‘Camille – you ought to see this.’
She joined him at the window.
Above the prison, the last scrap of balloon disappeared from sight. Her stomach sank.
‘Did you tell Ada to do that?’ asked Guil.
‘Definitely not.’
‘I said Al should have stayed behind. He cannot be trusted with such a responsibility.’
Camille fell back from the window, fingers twisting in the cuffs of her shirt. She’d told Ada and Al to cause a distraction with the balloon, not crash the thing. Ada would be fine – she was clever, resourceful – Adahadto be fine.
The memory of Ada lighting the balloon’s burner in the Jardin du Luxembourg came unbidden to her, the warm rush of flame catching, lighting Ada’s brown skin, picking out the tawny flecks in her eyes. Ada’s fingers sliding against hers, comforting, intimate, gentle. They’d stood side by side watching the balloon slowly inflate and take shape. Before they’d cut the tether, Ada had leaned down and tucked a stray lock of Camille’s hair behind her ear, running her thumb along her jaw. When she got her hands on Ada again she didn’t know what she was going to do first, kiss her or yell at her for frightening her so badly.
She made a decision.
‘Get ready. We move now.’
Outside, the crashing balloon had gathered a crowd along the banks of the Seine, a mix of dockworkers and shop girls, university students and Paris Commune members all wearing tricolore cockades and leaning up against the stone embankments. After five years of revolution and an endless string of riots, coups and public executions, it took something special to bring Paris to a standstill. As Camille had hoped, a hot air balloon was just the thing – and the commotion meant no one was paying much attention to a soldier hauling a prisoner over the Pont au Change. Guil had his hand clamped firmly around her arm and, with a look of stern indifference, was jostling a path through the crowd.
The day had started auspiciously, dawning crisp and clear ready for the balloon. After launching Ada and Al into the skies, Camille and Guil had just had time to prepare their half of the plan. It was a variation on the battalion’s favourite theme: the sleight of hand, the performance, the distraction. Make everyone look in one direction, while you do something in the other. It had worked for them half a dozen times or more. From forging documents and stealing identities, to fabricating a plague outbreak, Camille knew curiosity and fear were the two easiest weapons to wield.
This time would be no different. The crash was an unforeseen risk, but it had happened and it was certainly a distraction. They’d pulled off enough prison breaks together to know how to adapt on the run. Between her own strategic thinking, Al’s contacts in old aristocratic circles, Guil’s military knowledge and Ada’s scientific problem-solving, Camille knew she could trust her battalion to get themselves out of whatever they’d got themselves into.
The Revolution had lost its way, the Terror ensnaring too many innocents. The battalion saved people because it was the right thing to do. And it didn’t hurt that they were damn good at it.
Camille and Guil crossed the ancient bridge over the broad, dark water. On the far side, the Conciergerie soared like a cliff from the edge of the Île de la Cité, all looming gothic arches and spindly towers. At the other end of the island was its echo in the Notre Dame cathedral and its countless gargoyles and spires.
The Conciergerie: the fortress prison, seat of the Revolutionary Tribunal itself and last staging post for those condemned to die. The last time Camille had been there was to rescue her father on her own, before she’d had the battalion to back her up. She’d failed. Now she had a second chance. An innocent girl needed her help. If she managed this, her demanding father might have even been proud.
The last scraps of balloon fabric were slipping over the roof when they reached the iron gate set into the stone wall. They mounted the steps and Guil rapped the handle of his pistol against the bars to get the attention of the single guard on duty. That was two less than had been there when she’d made a sweep that morning. The guard tore his eyes away from the commotion in the courtyard behind him. Camille’s muscles were so tense she felt as if her bones might snap. That must be where the balloon had crashed.
Guil knocked on the bars again and the guard finally gave them an assessing look.
‘What?’
‘Found a stray one hiding in a flop house down the Rue Avoye, dressed as a boy.’ He hefted Camille by the armpit, showing her to the guard.
