The French House by Helen Fripp (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📕

statue destroyers to the ground and handcuffed them. A roar of protest tore through the crowd.

The Comte’s powdered wig and white face made him look like a menacing ghost and his cool, fixed expression was more disturbing than the crowd’s anger. His voice boomed over them, but he wasn’t shouting.

‘These vandals have committed a crime and will rot in jail for the remainder of their days,’ he said calmly to the desperate bystanders who’d been innocently queuing at the rabbit stall. ‘The rest of you are charged with poaching and will be severely punished.’

‘They’re hungry, you can spare them,’ Daniel shouted back.

‘Hush, milaya,’ Natasha beseeched her husband, hugging Nicole to her.

‘Name, scum?’ said the Comte, pointing the gun at him.

‘Daniel. From the boulangerie.’ He pointed to the smashed window.

Behind him, the priest creaked open the big cathedral doors and raised his hand.

‘Calm, in the name of Jesus!’ he bellowed.

Someone threw the horse’s ear at the priest and ran before a soldier could react.

Nicole screwed her eyes tight and waited for lightning to strike. The gargoyles would come to life and scream hellfire and they’d all burn for eternity for throwing stones at the priest. But God did nothing. The priest staggered back inside and slammed the church door. He was supposed to be in charge. Coward!

The Comte waved his gun at Daniel. ‘You, tell your comrades to disperse. Those rabbits are stolen goods.’

Daniel folded his arms. ‘These people are starving. The rabbits are already dead and decaying. They’re no use to you.’

‘Daniel, look out!’ shrieked Nicole as the Comte cocked his gun and shot.

The baker slumped, clutching his chest. Natasha flew to him, black hair streaming. She tore open his shirt and screamed, her hands slippery with blood.

Don’t die, don’t die, prayed Nicole, cowering behind the counter.

Natasha cradled him, ripped her skirt and pressed wads on the wound, but blood leached over her fingers. The old widow from Aÿ untied her scarf to make a bandage and limped stiffly towards them.

‘Don’t move!’ the Comte bellowed.

She halted, face tight. Everybody stopped dead.

Natasha was alone, keening like a madwoman in the sudden silence. Nicole sneaked out from behind the counter and ran to them.

‘Bordel de merde, stop I said!’ the Comte yelled at her.

A bullet shot past her ear and the crowd roared again. She flung her arms around Natasha’s neck. The air was so thick and hot, it hurt to breathe. Daniel’s eyes were open, but unseeing.

‘Is he dead?’ she whispered.

Natasha didn’t answer.

‘Take aim!’ ordered the Comte.

The soldiers shouldered their guns and pointed them at the horrified crowd. Surely God would intervene now? The cathedral door stayed locked.

Natasha cradled her husband in her lap, appalled, a pietà in the square. Nicole huddled behind her back.

‘Go home and don’t look back, little one,’ said Natasha steadily.

Nicole got up, straightened her skirt and walked slowly towards the Comte. He kept his gun on her, adjusting the sights as she came closer.

‘You killed him,’ she spat.

‘These people are thieves and that, little girl, is called justice.’

‘I will never forget,’ she said quietly, ‘and neither will they.’

She kept her eyes on him and walked on. She belonged here, with Natasha and her dead husband, with the workers and their scraps of stolen meat. She ducked behind the pump in the rue de la Vache and turned to watch. She would be their witness.

‘Let this be a warning,’ shouted the Comte. ‘Go back to your work. Anyone who defies the rule of law will die like your friend. Men, let’s go!’

The statue defacers were bundled into a cart and beaten with rifle butts as they were driven off, defenceless and handcuffed. The soldiers melted away and the Comte followed in his carriage, wheels crunching gravel.

The widow from Aÿ was the first to reach Natasha. She crossed herself for Daniel and whispered in her ear. Natasha nodded and allowed two men to carry Daniel back to the bakery, holding his hand to her cheek. He looked heavy, like his soul was gone, vulnerable, bloody and raw as the dead rabbits.

Men slid off their caps, women bowed their heads and the crowd stayed rooted in respectful, stunned silence until Daniel and his makeshift cortège disappeared inside. Then the rabbit queue erupted, hurling the table of meat in a swarm of flies and heaving over the urns of withered geraniums.

Peeking from behind the relative safety of the pump, Nicole saw Xavier rip a torch from the blacksmith’s, igniting a hay bale that sprung wild flames in the stifling heat. The crowd smashed the windows of Moët’s wine merchant, poured stolen brandy on the flames and chucked in the bottles, glass popping and exploding in the fire. A new gang set upon the king’s statue, more organised this time, a foreman yelling instructions, until it toppled to the ground and crumbled into pieces.

‘Goodbye, mon grand,’ Nicole whispered to herself, a farewell to the broken horse, but she was glad about the smashed-up king. The Comte deserved to be smashed up, too – vive la révolution!

She jumped up to run home through the chaos.

‘Watching the poor suffer for fun, rich girl?’ One of Xavier’s friends blocked her way.

‘No! The baker was my friend.’

‘The Comte spared his own though, didn’t he? No bullet in the belly for you. You’re one of them, a rich, spoilt little aristocrate who’d kill us for a rabbit.’ He slapped her face.

She spat in his eye and ran, cut down the snicket, his footsteps close behind. She darted sideways down allée Libergier, then swerved along rue du Cloître towards the convent. A spooked horse reared, towering over her. She detoured left, past the silversmith’s broken windows, dodging a mother dragging her wailing toddlers and then – bang! A body encircled her. A greasy waistcoat and grubby britches. She kicked hard.

‘Ai! Putain, you can pack a punch for a squirt!’ He dragged her through a doorway. She struggled and scratched like a cat. The door slammed shut. ‘It’s me for fuck’s sake!’

‘Xavier!’

Nicole fell to the ground and sobbed.

‘Daniel’s