This time, it was a long moment before Marianne uttered a word. She knew the place so well, the place whose name she bore, that she almost felt, listening to this terrible story, that she had experienced it herself, or at least been there to see. It did not surprise her when she saw the other woman brush away a tear, furtively, with the tip of one finger. Only when she thought that her companion was a little recovered, did she busy herself again with the tea-tray, and as she handed Eleonora her cup, asked: 'You never went back?'

'Yes, once, in 1784, when my mother was dying. She had never left the estate, but she had long ago forgiven me for my flight. I think, at heart, she was glad that I had got away from that dreadful house, where she had seen so much that was tragic. It was she who brought up Prince Ugolino, and she was there at the time of the fire which burned down the temple and in which Lucinda met her own, terrible, though self-inflicted, end. Yet she had hoped, then, that the future would be better once the familiar demon of the house had gone. And for a time, it seemed as if she were right. A year after Lucinda's death, her son Ugolino married a charming girl, Adriana Malaspina. He was nineteen and she sixteen and it was a long time since anyone in those parts had seen a more perfectly matched pair, or one more in love. For the sake of Adriana, whom he adored, Ugolino mastered his naturally violent and difficult nature. As ill luck would have it, he took very much after his mother but, wolf though he was, he made himself a lamb for his young bride. It seemed to my mother that the evil days were indeed gone for ever…

'When, after a little more than a year of marriage, Adriana found herself with child, Ugolino surrounded her with all imaginable attentions, guarding her day and night, even going so far as to have the horses' hooves muffled in case they should disturb her rest. Then the child was born – and the evil returned. When my mother was dying, she wanted to unburden her heart a little and, before sending for the priest, before she received the last sacrament, she told me of the twofold tragedy of that spring of 1782.'

'A twofold tragedy?'

'Yes. Only two women were with Donna Adriana when Prince Corrado was born: my mother and Lavinia. But,' she added, seeing the sudden light in Marianne's eyes, 'do not imagine that my mother revealed to me the secret of his birth. That secret was not hers to tell and she had sworn on the cross never to reveal it, not even under the seal of confession. What she did tell me was that, on the night after the birth, Ugolino strangled his wife. He could not touch the child, however, for Lavinia, fearing for its life, had carried it away and hidden it. Two days after this, Don Ugolino was found lying in one of the stalls in the stables with his skull smashed in. His death was naturally accounted an accident but, in fact, it was murder.'

'Who killed him?'

'Matteo. Ever since her marriage to Ugolino, Matteo had been passionately in love with Adriana. He lived for her and he killed his master to avenge the woman he loved. From that day onwards, he cared for the child with jealous fondness, he and Lavinia.'

The thought crossed Marianne's mind that perhaps, in spite of what Eleonora had said about her love for her husband, Donna Adriana might have returned Matteo's passion? What if the child were his and it was this resemblance which had unleashed her husband's fury? But then, if that were so, why had he not killed Matteo first?

She had no time to ask her final question. The door of the room opened to admit Quintin Crawfurd. Talleyrand was with him and at once the tragic shades of Sant'Anna fell back before the cares of the present. It was true that the Scotsman's appearance, supported on two sticks with his gouty foot swathed in a mountain of bandages, was funny rather than anything else, but the Prince of Benevento's grim expression was enough to dispel any tendency to laughter. It seemed that once again the news was bad.

With a bow to the two women, Talleyrand silently held out an open letter on which, ominously, the scrawled signature of Napoleon was clearly to be seen. Marianne took it.


***

'Sir,' the Emperor had written, 'I have received your letter which I read with some displeasure. While you were my Foreign Minister I was prepared to overlook many things. It grieves me, therefore, that you should raise matters which it has been my wish to forget.'

The letter was dated from St Cloud, 29 August 1810. Marianne returned it to Talleyrand without a word.

'You see,' he said bitterly, refolding the sheet. 'I am in such bad odour at court that I am now suspected of attempting to defend one of my foreign friends! I am deeply distressed, Marianne, most deeply and sincerely distressed.'

'He wants to forget!' Marianne said through clenched teeth. 'I dare say he would like to forget me also! But he shall not get away with it so easily. I will not let him destroy Jason. I will see him, whether he likes it or not, I'll force my way in, even if they do put me in prison afterwards! But I swear by my mother's honour that the Emperor will hear me! And before very long—'

She was already half out of the room when Talleyrand stopped her. 'No, Marianne. Not now, at this moment. If I am any judge of the Emperor's mind, you would be as good as condemning Beaufort on the spot!'

'Would you rather I waited – sat here calmly drinking tea, until they kill him?'

'I would rather you waited at least until he has been tried. It will be time enough to act after the verdict. Believe me. You know that I desire our friend's release as much as you. Be calm, then, and wait, I beg you.'

'And what of him? Have you thought what he may be thinking in his prison? Is there anyone who has ever told him to wait, to take heart? He is all alone, or so he believes, at the mercy of this devilish plot. I want him to know at least that while I live I will not abandon him! Very well, I agree not to try and see Napoleon – for the present. But I want to see Jason. I want to get inside La Force.'

'Marianne!' Talleyrand exclaimed, alarmed by her excited state. 'How can you do that?'

'Nothing could be simpler.' It was Crawfurd, coolly intervening. 'For a long time now, I have had turnkeys in every prison in Paris in my pay.'

'You have?' Talleyrand appeared genuinely astonished.

Shrugging his heavy shoulders, Crawfurd eased himself with a sigh of relief into the armchair which Marianne had quitted, and drawing a low stool towards him tenderly placed his gouty foot upon it.

'It is a useful precaution,' he said, with a small chuckle, 'when one has had, and will doubtless continue to have, friends under lock and key. It is a practice I have been familiar with for a long time. My first – er – clients were two of the gaolers in the Temple, and after that at the Conciergerie. Since then, I have maintained the habit. It is not difficult, if one has money. So you want to see your friend, little Princess? Well, I, Crawfurd, promise you that you shall.'

Marianne, trembling with happiness, could scarcely bring herself to believe in the miracle that was being offered her. To have the gates of Jason's prison open to her, to see him, talk to him, touch him, tell him – oh, she had so many things to tell him.

'You would do that for me?' she asked huskily, as though trying to convince herself.

Crawfurd raised a pair of china-blue eyes to her and smiled:

'You have listened to all my stories with such patience, child, that you deserve some reward. Besides, I have not forgotten what my Queen owed to your family. It is one way of paying the debt. Leave it to me. Before a week is out, you shall be inside La Force.'

CHAPTER EIGHT

An Odd Kind of Prisoner

The cab turned out of the me St-Antoine and entered, at right-angles to it, a short stub of a street no more than thirty yards long and ten broad, blocked at its farther end by a low, grim-looking building on one floor surmounted by a mansard roof nearly as high again, behind which rose another, taller building. In the darkness, the few peeling houses which gave on to this close, which was called the rue des Ballets, had a sinister appearance and a bleary lantern fixed above a fat stone bollard bound with iron at the farthest corner of the street, almost opposite the entrance to the prison, shone on the greasy cobbles, slippery with the mud and filth left by the rain which had fallen in the early part of the evening. A deep gutter running down the middle of the street was intended to drain off both the water and the refuse but in practice constituted only an additional hazard in the uneven surface. The cab lurched and the driver brought his horse to a stop under the lantern, alongside the squat, round bollard, and, with a weary, automatic gesture, leaned down and opened the door on Marianne's side.

Crawfurd, with a swift movement of his stick, hooked it shut again.

'No,' he said roughly. 'Get out my side. Let me go first.'

'Why? The bollard will help—'

'That bollard,' the old man cut her short grimly, 'is where the mob dismembered the body of the Princesse de Lamballe. You will soil your gloves.'

Marianne turned with a shudder from the worn stone and took the hand which her companion was holding out to assist her from the cab, taking care as she did so not to put too much weight on it. Crawfurd's gout was better than it had been, but he still walked with difficulty.

Seeing them descend from the cab, the guard who had been dozing in the noisome sentry box beside the gate, his gun between his knees, got up and straightened his shako:

'Who goes there?'

'Now then, soldier,' Crawfurd said in a low voice, instantly, much to Marianne's surprise, slipping into a strong Normandy accent. 'No need to shout. Keeper Ducatel is a countryman of mine and we have come, my daughter Madeleine and myself that is, to have a little supper with him.'

A large silver coin gleamed for a moment in the fitful light of the lamp and roused an answering gleam in the eye of the guard, who uttered a shout of laughter and pocketed the coin:

'You should've said so right away, man. He's a right one, old Ducatel, and been here long enough to make a few friends, eh. I'm one on 'em. In you go, then.'

He banged vigorously on the low door which stood at the top of a pair of worn steps and was surmounted by a heavily barred fanlight.

'Hi there! Ducatel! Someone to see you!'

While the driver of the cab was still engaged in turning his horse in the narrow rue du Roi de Sicile, preparatory to waiting for them by St Paul's, the door opened, revealing an individual in a brown woollen cap holding a candle in one hand. This candle he raised until it was practically under the noses of his visitors and then, having apparently recognized who they were by this time, he exclaimed: 'Ha! Cousin Grouville! You're late! We were just going to eat without you. And here's my little Madeleine. Come you in then. You've grown a fine big girl now!'

Endeavouring to sound as provincial as possible, Marianne managed to utter a word of greeting. Ducatel, still continuing his flow of welcoming chat, assured the guard that 'a nice mug of Calvados' should be sent out to him as a reward for his trouble, and then shut the door behind them. Marianne saw that she was in a narrow entrance passage ending in a turnstile. To the right was the guardroom through the half-open door of which four soldiers could be seen smoking and playing cards by the lights of a couple of lamps. Still talking loudly, Ducatel led his guests up to and through the turnstile, then opened a door into another darkened room at the far end of which was a second turnstile. Here, Ducatel paused.

'My lodging looks on to the rue du Roi de Sicile,' he said in a whisper. 'I'll take you there, M'sieur, and we'll make a little bit of noise so that the guards know we're at supper. I'd've had you in by my private door, but it's always best to look open and above board.'

'I can find my way alone, my good Ducatel,' Crawfurd replied in the same tone, nodding approval as he spoke. 'You take the lady to the prisoner you know of.'

Ducatel nodded his understanding and opened the gate:

'This way, then… He's an important prisoner so he's not in the new building. He's been put with the "specials" in the Condé room… very nearly by himself.'

As he spoke, Ducatel unlocked a further door and led Marianne across a courtyard. Crawfurd, meanwhile, turned to the left in the direction of the region known as the Kitchen Court, an appellation more than justified by the powerful smell of greasy soup emanating from it, beyond which lay the keeper's quarters.