Part Two: London

September 1792
Matthieu

Sometimes Matthieu allowed himself to wonder how life might have been had he stayed with England. He imagined grey streets and dreary skies, drab faces drawn by black post-chaises—themselves drawn along beaten paths by bleak, dismal horses—yet there were also starched shirts and the perfect illusion of safety draped across the Channel in diaphanous gossamer. It wouldn't have been a colorful life, Matthieu thought, but at least it would have been secure. With his brother's hand clasped tightly in his, nothing would ever penetrate that thin veil.

But Matthieu's imagination brought only memories of days long past, days that could never be relived now that Alfred had let go of Arthur—now that Matt had been forced to let go of both of them.

It would have been useless to dream besides, for if there was one thing Matthieu learnt from his time spent in France, listening to François's stories, it was this:

Once wronged, London may change, but Arthur's heart rarely did.

On the surface the City appeared nearly the same as Matthieu remembered it from his stay over a century ago, if not a tad modernized since the Great Fire that razed a third of the old infrastructure to the ground, and his eyes skirted the new, rain-slick edifices with eyes trained to look far higher. They met only the overcast sky above, weeping indiscriminately upon the same long-faced horses, the same cab drivers with their cocked hats pulled low, the same translucent-skinned passerby.

Matthieu turned from the fogged glass window, looking around the shop he found himself in with François. Replete with dark, polished wood floors, shelving, and counter tops against deeply-hued walls, dimly lit by hanging lanterns, its traditional occupation appeared to be in that of jewel and silver polishing. No doubt, however, due to the influx of French refugees that roamed the City these days, the shopkeeper and his apprentices sensed bigger business in pawning old valuables that the aristocratic expatriates brought with them and morphed into a kind of bank for them, advertising immediate money in exchange for their luxuries.

Which was why Matthieu and François were in the shop, waiting in line with a dozen others. Their passage across the Channel and up the Thames had cost them nearly all the ready money they possessed, and while they had managed to scrape by these last three weeks with what remained, they were running out. As much as François disliked the idea of submitting his worth to the value of some silver and cloth, he disliked being impoverished more. They had no other option, ultimately.

Matthieu clutched their sack tighter to his chest and focused on the shopkeeper before them, haggling the price of a tangled collection of jewel pendants and broches with a French couple in wilted wigs and satin clothes. He was trying to undercut them, and he was starting to succeed. It didn't help that the couple's grasp of English was quite broken, and they didn't fully understand what they were agreeing to. Matthieu glanced at François, who was frowning, lips pursed in distaste. Although he wanted to, he would not intervene. For safety's sake, Matthieu had suggested leaving all necessary speech to him while residing in England. Thus far, François had kept his promise.

Matthieu passed the sack to him and stepped to the counter.

"Pardon," he interjected, earning puzzled and annoyed blinks from both parties. He ignored them and spoke to the clean shaven shopkeeper behind the acrid cloud of cigar smoke. "These jewels are worth more than you are offering them—seven pounds at the very least."

"Seven pounds!" The shopkeeper laughed, great bellowing sounds that belied unctuous greed beneath his starched linens and fine-lined exterior. If he was surprised by the boy emerging from the line of French exiles with his unaccented English, he masked it well. "I can't give that away to every lovely jewel that makes its way to my counter, boy. I've to make some money, I do, and survive as much as the rest of these foreigners here—"

"But these are comprised of pure silver and gemstones, sir. Surely not every man and woman who approaches your counter carries items of equal value." Matthieu held up the largest pendant towards the tired lantern on the wall above the shopkeeper's head. Though dim, it was just enough to display the depth of the emerald and flash enticingly. The jewel was heavy in his hand, rich in pigment with minimal cloudiness. This must have belonged to a high-ranking family. Perhaps its last remaining members stood beside him, watching in bewilderment. He set it back down. "Ten pounds, no less."

The shopkeeper, whose small, pale eyes had followed the emerald's glistening without reserve, snapped back to attention. "You said seven not a minute ago."

"Nine pounds and five shillings."

Grinning, he pulled the cigar from his mouth with two thick fingers. "Seven, even."

Keeping eye contact, Matthieu shook his head. "Nine pounds."

"Seven and half-quid."

"Nine pounds. You become the proprietor to priceless French heirlooms once possessed by a noble family for generations to sell to the highest bidder, and this couple has some means to survive for the next several weeks. Nine pounds. That is my lowest allowance, or this couple finds a seller who acknowledges value when he sees it."

The shopkeeper laughed smugly. "There's a lot of these heirlooms going round, boy, and they aren't going for half the price you're asking. But I consider myself a businessman of generosity, and I am proposing to give you double what any other jeweler would sacrifice for them. Seven pounds. That is my highest allowance."

Matthieu bit his lip and glanced at the couple. The man was late into his twenties, if he had to guess, with a long Roman nose and full lips to exaggerate his angular face, watching the exchange with wary, close-set eyes and a tense set to his shoulders, as though anticipating Matthieu to steal the jewels. Clasped to his hip clung a younger woman with skin the pallid translucence of a porcelain doll after it loses its sheen. In fact, she gave the overall appearance of melting as a result of the city's omnipresent drizzle, her washed-out wig sagging under the weight of the moisture, and the hem of her ivory silk dress mired with filth picked up on the street and dragging it across the hardwood. All color and softness seemed to leech out of her while Matthieu watched, much in the way boiling water imbued tea leaves and drained them of any further use.

Whomever they may have been, however well-to-do and coddled in their livelihood, they had been wrenched from that life now, and they needed help to survive as the common laborer did…as those who rose against them did.

"You may have heirlooms of royal propensity upon your counter, sir," said Matthieu consciously, levelling a firm stare at the shopkeeper. "Does that alter what your highest allowance for these jewels are?"

He raised an eyebrow at the couple, both discerning and intrigued. "Of French royal propensity, you speak?"

Matthieu nodded.

The shopkeeper pursed his lips, and then smirked. "All right, I'll give them nine pounds for this pile of frog's nonsense, but I want you out of my shop as soon as they're off, you hear? I don't need you and your lot"—he gestured flippantly at the line of patrons leading to the door, nearly all of them chatting with one another in French—"stealing every last bit of my monies simply because they want a 'fair price'. You ought to know that this city is not the sort of place to bestow it readily. The South Sea Bubble certainly saw to that, though I should suppose you're too young to know anything of that spectacle." He sniffed, jabbing the cigar back between his lips, and before Matthieu could get a word in edgewise, the shopkeeper swept the broches and pendants into his oily hands and clip-clapped through a door into the workshop interior.

At the alarmed looks of the couple following the disappearance of their last ties to wealthy life, Matthieu summarized the exchange and its outcome to them in French. Upon hearing that they were saved thus from devastating poverty, their expressions became possessed of such interminable gratitude that Matthieu felt rather sheepish—a sensation he experienced often when in the presence of his adopted home's aristocracy, landed or otherwise. Yet he held an advantage here in England that this noble couple had lost.

He made certain to iterate that nine pounds would be enough to last for some time, so long as it was spent wisely.

-/-

Farther down the largely residential Savile Street, Matthieu and François located a jeweler who accepted what remained of the valuables they had managed to stash in their sacks before leaving the Tuileries that fateful morning several weeks ago: two cups from the porcelain tea set—both of them broken now from their harsh journey, one chipped at the lip and the other sporting a long crack along the handle—the saucers, silver utensils and tray that were used with it—all of them were taken away and replaced with a price.

Four pounds, ten shillings, two pence. It wasn't much—hardly what the silver and porcelain were truly worth—but it would be enough to hold them over for a short while longer.

As the shopkeeper went to gather the money, Matthieu already configuring how he could split the amount to cover spending for necessities while saving for two tickets out of England, François spoke, in English, "Wait."

Matthieu turned to him, torn between shock and frustration that he had broken his promise after so many successful weeks, but the former won out as, unbelievably, François unhooked the red-banded medal from his greatcoat and set it on the counter.

"How much will this add to the total?"

The shopkeeper swept up the four-pointed medal and examined it, scratching at the beginnings of a grisly beard. "It appears well-made, a bit aged but otherwise well-tended…" He thumped the sharp-edged medal loudly on the wood several times. "And of sturdy composition. What does this signify?" he inquired, tapping the weathered seal with a blackened fingernail. In miniature, the crowned man hoisting laurels aloft was still in stark relief, though much of the paint and gild that adorned it had eroded. With time, with war.

"Un chevalier de l'ordre de Saint-Louis," answered François.

The shopkeeper frowned. "A what?"

"It represents membership to the Order of Saint Louis in France," Matthieu translated quickly, "rather similar to the Order of the Garter."

Recognition of the latter organization had the shopkeeper's bushy eyebrows shooting upward. "Well, blessed be." To François he blustered aggressively, "And you want to sell this decoration?"

Matthieu watched from his peripheral vision for a twinge in François's face, any sort of indication that he regretted this spur-of-the-moment decision. He was stoic, which was in of itself an unusual expression for him. Otherwise, there was nothing.

When he simply nodded, the shopkeeper's focus shifted back to the crimson fabric in his hand, rubbing his fingers back and forth along the strip in a way that would have made François cringe. "Bit old, isn't it?"

Matthieu had to keep himself from snorting in disbelief. Centuries old. He was the first to receive the medal—from Louis XIV himself.

And François was giving it up. Why?

When neither of them responded, the shopkeeper sighed. He was a fair man, Matthieu could tell—a bit heavy in the drink, from the smell of his breath as it blew toward him, but far from the vendor with the line of exiled nobles extending outside his door. Unlike him, he didn't have a sign posted outside his door declaring immediate cash for French valuables. He dressed without pretension in linen and a darned pair of breeches, his buckled shoes shining dully in the oil light from above.

This man took only what was given to him. Matthieu hoped it would be enough.

"I'll give you an extra twelve shillings for it—five pounds, two shillings and two pence total," he offered, glancing between the pair. "I should think I'll stand to lose for purchasing it at this much, but if it's important to you"—he said this directly to François—"you wouldn't be offering it unless you're desperate for the money, and you both are clearly in need, if you shan't mind me saying." He paused then, allowing for their consent or denial. The medal hung loosely in his open palm, almost as though he wanted them to take it back. Perhaps he did.

Matthieu waited.

"I am certain," said François, steadily. "I accept your price."

-/-

"Thank you," said François in low French shortly later, when the two of them were outside and huddled close against the rain, heading towards their lodgings on nearby Conduit Street, "for helping the Marquis—Monsieur de Gris against that horrid man."

Matthieu blinked back at his mentor. "You knew him?"

"Of course," François sniffed, as though offended Matthieu even asked. "He is a distant heir to the Bourbon line—not close enough to be crowned should, well…" François cleared his throat. "But I recall him as a young child, at the palace. His parents were cherished cousins of King Louis XV."

Matthieu opened his mouth to ask why, then, did he not set aside his request and step in to help with the first vendor, until François glanced sidelong at him, and he knew. The possibility that Monsieur de Gris would recognize him, even after so many years, was too great to risk.

People possessed long, vivid and often picturesque memories. Avoiding recognition after prolonged absence was a precaution Matthieu was still learning, despite how advanced his age was for his youthful body.

"You're welcome, Papa," he said ultimately.

The pair passed in silence along intersections at New Burlington and Boyle Streets, gliding like wraiths through the milling carriages, though inevitably they garnered attention from the well-off Londoners who did see them. Matthieu did his best to ignore the suspicious glances from well-acquainted passerby and the whispers behind ladies' fans, tuning his eyes to the street ahead of them, his ears to the drizzle, and keeping a tight grip on the stack of coins in his pocket. Any sound would make the pair a prime target for harassment and robbery.

When they slipped into the leaden alleyway that Savile Street narrowed into, sequestered from the rain and finally safe from prying senses, Matthieu asked, "Why did you sell the medal?"

Staring straight ahead, François focused on a pair of men slouched against the alley wall. Though they were clearly inebriated, dozing against the grime and brick, he waited until they were nearly at the opposite mouth of the alley before answering, simply, "We need the money."

"But you cherish that medal," persisted Matthieu, "and it meant far more to you than it did to that shopkeeper; he declared as much. I don't understand why you would still insist on selling it—or why you insisted upon that one rather than your American ones." Those that still clanked on his coat as they walked, keeping a dogged pace on the cobblestones.

François smiled and tapped one finger against his chest, above his heart. "Because I know what I am inside of here. And as for the American medals," he waved his hand and smirked, "Angleterre does not wish to remember ton frère's rebellion. They are worth nothing here, but they will aid us in a manner unparalleled when we arrive in l'Amérique."

They paused across the street from their lodgings, The Coach & Horses pub. It was a fine place, if not a tad underwhelming in its façade—the only distinguishment from the brick and timber residences around it was the creaking sign hanging from a wooden bar and two rusted chains above the door—but its location among the relatively well-to-do meant the fee per night would have been outside François and Matthieu's recent financial capacity. Nevertheless, François had charmed his way into a soft spot within the landlord's wife's heart. She then convinced her husband to give them a reduced rate on grounds of their émigré status and Matthieu's promise to help wait and clean tables (among other, less pleasant chores that the landlord was either too large, too busy, or too understaffed to complete himself).

Despite François's charisma and Matthieu's hard work, however, the food and drink were not free. The landlord hadn't been willing to compromise on that, stating the pub was a separate establishment from the rooms on the floors above. As such, and in no small part due to the lavish meals François insisted on eating, Matthieu hadn't been able to pay rent in a week, and the landlord was ensuring he felt the weight of it.

Shielding his face from the rain with a hand to his forehead, François surveyed the public house. "Go inside, Matthieu, see what work the man of the house has for you after you have repaid him. Surely it will not be much." He looked down at Matthieu, startling him with the spark of anger that accompanied his gaze. It vanished quickly as François tilted his head away, almost as though he feared expressing it in broad daylight for all to see.

Matthieu wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. "And what will you do?"

François grinned. "I will go to the docks. Perhaps they are in need of extra hands."

"Truly?"

"Oui."

Matthieu waited for François to say he was jesting. The docks were rife with anti-French rascals, men who would happily take their calloused anger and punch it through François's face. He would be incautious to ignore the risk. Matthieu harbored little doubt that his mentor could hold himself against a gang attack, but François's tongue also had a tendency to get away from him, and Matthieu feared that without him present to mediate a tense situation, he may find more trouble than he bargained for.

To utter his misgivings would be an exercise in futility, however. François always fought back when his pride was stung, and there was little stopping him when it was. That was as certain as rain was to London.

What he truly needed was something to occupy his mind, just as Matthieu had in the Tuileries, to keep it distracted from the volatility inside. François would never admit that, but Matthieu glimpsed it when the former thought he wasn't watching. He saw it ever more plainly at night, too, when he dreamt of Paris, tossing and murmuring in his sleep.

In the end, François did not mark his bluff, and so Matthieu said nothing save to bid his father goodbye and good luck.

They parted ways thus—both, it must be said, in worry.

-/-

François

He was being followed.

He felt it as soon as they left the jewelers, as Matthieu disappeared into the public house and as he went on his unmerry way south to the docks. François kept to the main thoroughfares and buried himself in the crowded footpaths, hoping to lose his pursuer, but alas, the sensation of a pair of eyes upon him remained ever while he neared the River Thames. Ordinarily, it would not be an unwelcome presence, but François was well acquainted with the petty English disdain for foreign-born nationals, and the flashy, mildly frayed epaulets atop his richly-hued coat, along with his decorations, soiled silk shirt and breeches, declared his status not only as a wealthy Continental, but as a Frenchman.

Many of those displaced had already made lives here, having fled when the Revolution began to pick up heat three years ago and since settling either into poverty or into a relative living working for the homeborn English. Teaching, weaving, sewing—they were all worthy professions, yet none of them suited François's true capabilities, and he would not settle for them.

He would not settle until he rectified the mess that his people had made of his country.

The King, his Queen and their children were arrested shortly after they fled. What precisely became of them after the Garde nationale handed them over, François lamentably knew naught beyond what gossip made it across the Channel, but it was unwise to delve so deeply back into Paris to find out the truth. His dreams, be as they may of the mob's cries, torn limbs, and the bleeding veins that had become the city's lanes, were haunting enough at night.

The English, of course, were having a field day with the tumult in his home—as was the rest of Europe. Once the initial horror wore away, each new revelation of burning and bloodshed, radical reform and dissolution of the old ways seemed only to fuel their machinations, maneuvering and thieving. Though he anticipated nothing less, François nevertheless found their revel in death not only distasteful, but abhorrent.

Yet, the worst of it was not that it made him a laughingstock or that he couldn't fight back.

It was that if he did, he would be fighting alone.

Casting a quick, nonchalant glance over his shoulder, François sidestepped into a muddy path carved between two timber façades. On the other side, the broad, gunmetal river flowed in tempestuous waves, appearing very much the throbbing artery that bestowed so much of Angleterre's greed. The nearer François drew, the briny smell of it blended with the filthy human refuse squatting against the alley walls and covered in maggots and flies. François covered his nose with his sleeve, breathed in the weeks-old stench of his own sweat and suddenly could not decide which was the worse evil to endure.

He did not have long to decide. Something—or someone—struck him from behind, and he stumbled forward, hand flying to the back of his head. No blood coated his fingers when he pulled them away, but the shock of the hit dazed him enough that when a second swung directly into his face, he was unprepared to block it.

François slammed into the brick on his left, cupping his throbbing nose. He forced his eyes to stay open and capture the scene before him: two scraggly, sallow-looking men—the same men, he realized, who were dozing in alcohol-induced slumber when he passed them ten minutes ago—both of them with their fists raised in unfocused clarity. Their chapped mouths curled ferociously around brown, dissipating gums, but their rheumy eyes were glassy and lacked any sort of emotion beyond general amusement in their target. Their stances, when François focused more closely, were loose, sluggish and clumsy in their inebriated state.

They were being paid to do this—to beat him, or worse.

All of this François absorbed in the moments it took for his two assailants to gather their collective wits. When they came at him again, mouths spilling slurs—"Feckless frog!" "Get back to the slaughterhouse 'cross the Channel where ye moneyed lot belong."—and reckless laughter, he was ready.

François dodged their throws easily, slipping beyond their reach and pausing near the alley entrance. By instinct, he sank into a fighting stance, hands curling at his sides. He yearned for the handcrafted sword he'd left at the Tuileries, surely now in the hands of some undeserving payson.

Underneath, François knew it was poor esprit de corps to regard his own people so harshly. His prized weapon of war was better left in their hands; had he dared to bring it across the Channel, it would have been relinquished upon entry.

Better in the hands of a savage French peasant than a godless Englishman.

There it was—rushing blood. The sensation of sturdy, unbreakable iron in his veins. François leveled a contemptuous grin towards the two Anglais and goaded, "Frogs cannot be slaughtered, unlike pigs."

He spoke in English, so they would understand, but when they looked at one another in plain confusion, François sniffed and, lamenting the waste of such a lovely and theatrical line, explicated, "You—the English—are the pigs."

Another moment passed while their dull brains processed this statement, then anger flushed their faces, and they charged. François caught them both with swift hooks to the jaw and turned to run back into the open lane—back into open light, however colorless it was—until one of them grabbed the back of his coat. Adrenaline told him to jerk him off and run. Pride screamed to preserve the last of his outward wealth and save his overcoat, all that remained of his medals.

The latter was louder, and that brief moment of hesitation cost him the victory.

The man who seized him tossed him into the wall and threw an unfocused punch. François parried it and slammed his elbow into his nose, earning a satisfying crack. He howled and stumbled away, blood gushing through his fingers. The other moved into the space he created, dodged François's next attack and landed his fist onto François's abdomen—onto his tender, re-opened scar.

The pain was immediate, sending shockwaves through his body. Molten fire erupted in his veins. François collapsed to his knees and subsequently gained a thrust into his nose. It didn't break, but the abrupt force of the scrawny man's knee threw him onto his back, splashing into the squalid marsh of rain, urine and feces.

Dazed, gasping for breath that wouldn't come through his paralyzed nerves, François became a stationary target, and the first man leapt onto it with leonine zeal. He was soon rejoined by his compatriot, still bleeding but snarling now that he had ample advantage to exact as much vengeance as he desired.

It wasn't long before François began to see red yet again—a burning scarlet color, vibrant against the otherwise ashen world around him.

It appeared, he managed to think, almost like a general's coat on a familiar body.

-/-

Matthieu

By the time Matthieu finished brushing the clientele's horses and cleaning their stalls in the courtyard behind the pub, the sky was an ashy dusk and he was shaking. He swiped a dripping forearm over his lips and forehead as the landlord surveyed his work, grunted reluctant approval and gestured for him to go inside.

Breathing his thanks, Matthieu disappeared quickly lest the gruff man decide he had another task for him. Matthieu had repaid his and François's lodging debt with interest that morning, but the portly landlord still gave him a slew of chores to complete, from adding coke to the pub fireplace to cleaning dishes and sweeping the carriage house. Perhaps it was the fact that they had taken so long to pay or because the labor was essentially free, but Matthieu was ready to collapse where he stood as he dunked his hands into the water trough beside the rear entrance and ran them through his hair. Once, not too long ago, this manual work wouldn't have exhausted him. He had been raised to care after himself as much as he could. He used to drag baskets of tools and hay bales without so much as a lost breath.

The only answer for it was that he'd grown soft in the thirty years he had lived with François. He grew into the luxury of François's lifestyle, indulging in the lightness of sustenance and burden, the sweet tastes of careless children. He was never left in want materially—François ensured it—and he lost much of his strength by embracing it.

As the water ran off his nose and chin, dripped into the trough and muddied his reflection, Matthieu thought only that though the life had been light, it had not been weightless.

The morning's drizzle had cleared sometime while Matthieu was in the carriage house. All that remained was a cool breeze that blew through the twisting streets, reaching up from the River Thames to tug at Matthieu's loose curls and soiled linen tunic. The added chill of the water on his face and streaming down his neck sent a shiver along his spine, and Matthieu stepped quickly inside the public house, heading immediately for the warmth of the fireplace.

The low-ceilinged, wood-resplendent dining parlor bustled with activity, quiet patrons in creaky stools scarfing down meals and ale—all save a noisy few surrounding the hearth. At the core, propped against the mantel, stood François with a broad, unusually proud smile on his face. Gathered around him were several men and women, a ragged gaggle by appearances—all wilted silks and drooping, powderless wigs—but there was laughter at the forefront of each of their pallid faces, and it was immediately clear that François's peculiar good mood was responsible for it. They all conversed openly in French—in itself shocking given the company. The Coach & Horses didn't bring in the most inclusive of patrons, and Matthieu spotted several surreptitious glances from the more solemn diners being cast in their direction.

As for him, he didn't so much as stop as pause before them, hesitant to intrude even for the sake of warmth. A part of him, as he stood shivering, hoped François would see him and welcome him in, invite him into the warmth of his camaraderie, but his mentor's gaze skirted straight over him, taking in the whole room rather than searching specifically.

Despite telling himself that it didn't matter, Matthieu felt himself begin to wilt.

"Psst, you—boy."

Matthieu spun. At the far reaches of the parlor, the landlord's wife poked out from behind the kitchen door and beckoned to him. He followed her great flexing finger without hesitation through the threshold into the kitchen.

It was sweltering. Several pots and a kettle simmered over the baking hearth while a slab of cod fried atop an iron grille. The hearth itself was the prized utensil and workspace of the landlady, who labored before it twelve hours each day. Besides that, there were two lonely tables for preparing food, and a single slatted chair tucked in the corner.

The landlord's wife, a kindly woman of large comportment, bustled past Matthieu with surprising agility and brought the chair to the table nearest the fireplace, swiping off charred bread crumbs with a rag that she then tucked into her apron's pocket. "Sit."

Matthieu did.

Snatching up a large, stained wooden spoon from the mantel, the woman popped off the lid from one of the pots and scooped a steaming lump of stew onto a concaved plate, setting it in front of Matthieu. One moment later, a chunk of dry, dark bread and a smaller, tin spoon joined it.

"Eat up, boy," she ordered congenially, patting him on his narrow shoulder. "This meal's on me."

Preoccupied salivating over the delightful heat of the lamb and cabbage in broth, Matthieu's head shot up at those words. "Oh no, please, I am happy to pay—"

"Willing is far different from happy, dear," the landlady interjected, stirring each of the pots and filling bowls. Each uncapped steam in hefty streams, disappearing into the chimney with the smoke and giving the cook's face a flushed sheen. "I know how my husband works you. It ain't fair, it ain't, an' it's not to do with you, either—not really."

It's the one with you—the Frenchman. The truth didn't surprise Matthieu, though he admitted to having hoped it wasn't. So much for faith and naivete.

The landlord's wife capped the last pot with a diminutive clink and straightened, wiping her hands on the rag, and cast Matthieu an almost conspiratorial grin. "Don't mean I don't have a say, though, now don't it?"

Matthieu found himself grinning back. "I should hope not. Your generosity is the reason my father and I are permitted to reside in this establishment."

"Oh, hush, you." The landlady swiped at his arm with the rag. "You've earned your keep. Now tuck in, 'fore it gets cold and hard. Then it's off to bed. You're sure to have a hard day on the morrow—best get your rest." She winked heartily, then swept her tray of bowls onto her shoulder and pounded through the kitchen door.

As it swung closed behind her, Matthieu heard a stream of laughter. François's voice floated above it, telling a story with his signature humor, wit and raconteur—a facet which Englishmen hardly understood or found funny but that left his people in tatters by the end. Matthieu couldn't say why it was, but the sound of François's happiness left him wanting. For what, he couldn't say, either.

All he knew was that willing was far different from happy, and in spite of his gratitude towards François for taking him in, for caring and teaching him how to be what he would someday become, Matthieu knew that he had lived in a state of merely willing for quite some time.

After supper, his stomach full and body warmed through, eyelids heavy, Matthieu climbed the old stairs to his and François's shared room on the third floor. During the day, the small space was illuminated by hazy sunlight, but the night brought indeterminate shadows that washed away the walls and made Matthieu stumble over the short bed frame, collapsing onto the stuffed straw mattress in a gangly heap. He kicked off his shoes and tore off his stockings before remembering that he needed to check their money store, to ensure nothing was missing—one of few ways in which he could grant himself peace of mind in these harsh days.

With a groan, he sat up and knelt beside the bed, fingers fumbling underneath the mattress for the velvet sack that rested near the head.

It wasn't there.

Awake now, Matthieu dove for the matches, struck one and lifted the mattress with one arm, holding the tiny, trembling light over the frame.

The sack was gone.

Matthieu tripped over his own bare feet, scraping his knees on the floorboards as he crashed onto them, lit their barely-oiled lantern and wrenched out the sack that housed his and François's meager possessions from under the foot of the bed. He tore through François's bloodstained tunics that Matthieu had yet to launder, through the spare breeches and heavy coat François had insisted Matthieu bring to London, searching for their second sack—the one that housed their spending money.

It was gone, too.

He heard a thump outside and looked up, panicked, as François stumbled into the room, alone but clearly inebriated or—more likely, given his distaste for ale—dead on his feet. He coughed once and winced, a hand going immediately to his abdomen in the shadows. Then he saw Matthieu hunched by the bed and stopped. Looked down and inhaled sharply.

Matthieu felt as though he was going to scream. His hands clenched the opening of the sack so tightly that the twine dug into his palms. His French came out ground like roasted coffee beans. "Where is it?"

François said nothing. His posture had become rigid.

Rising, Matthieu held up the sack. "Where is our money, François?"

His silence, more than anything, was proof, but Matthieu wanted an answer as to how all of their money—money that Matthieu had carefully and methodically divided and saved over the course of weeks, money that had become their only lifeline and means of survival—had vanished, and François's refusal to give him a direct answer in that moment pushed him over the edge.

With a cry unlike anything he'd ever heard come from his mouth, Matthieu charged at François, raising a fisted hand to throw, but his father caught his wrist easily and held, hard. He stepped Matthieu backward without a word, revealing as he did a ghastly black eye and split lip on the left side of his face. Matthieu gasped despite himself. In the penumbra of the dining parlor, the damage hadn't been visible, but now, in the fading light, his injuries were plain.

With them came comprehension for Matthieu, and while it weighted his anger, it hardly extinguished it.

Wrenching his arm from François's grip, he tossed the empty sack onto the bed. "I cannot believe you would do this." He tucked his head in his hands, trying to stamp out his rising panic.

Quite the opposite, François was eerily calm. "I was attacked by two vagrant Anglais—"

"And so you spent every last pence that we saved—that I saved—on luxuries we can't afford, all to salvage your pride from baseless and impervious prejudices?" Matthieu exploded, spinning back to face him. François shut his mouth, though his brow raised in surprise. "You are stronger than them, France! That money was our only way to America. Such an amount cannot be remade overnight. And how are we now to pay for our lodgings? How are we to pay for sustenance? You knew that we could not survive—"

"Yes, we can—"

"No, we can't," Matthieu pushed. He felt his hands folding into fists again, felt the blood in his face. He couldn't recall the last time he had been so out of control. "We cannot survive here—not while France is in ruins and it shows on your body. How could you have done this? How could you spend everything we had in one night—and for such vain and self-serving motivations? Your sacrifice of that medal means nothing now—!"

"Do not presume to tell me what I already know, l'enfant ingrat," snapped François, jabbing a finger at him. It retracted not a moment later, and François turned his head away with a pained expression. Whether for his physical injuries, his mental turmoil, or his behavior, Matthieu regretted that he couldn't be certain. He turned away, too, blinking back hot tears. For thirty years he had withheld his dissatisfaction of the way François behaved with him around his peers, suppressed his thoughts about his extravagant, unsustainable lifestyle—all for the sake of belonging to someone who truly cared for him. Now, as François battled with himself, he had the distinct sense that nothing he'd done had ever been for him or for his benefit.

Abruptly, like a stone dropping in his stomach, Matthieu missed his mother, one-hundred-and-eighty-years gone and probably dead. He missed his brother, whom he'd promised to take care of, who was paving his own path on the other side of an enormous, tumultuous ocean.

Unbelievably, because he had yet to experience them intimately, in peace beyond war, he yearned for his own lands.

"I—I am—" François sighed, and Matthieu could hear the sincerity in it, "You are right, Matthieu. I did not consider the consequences—as you surely must be aware, I do not often—and I apologize. Truly. It is simply that I am no longer accustomed to living…poorly."

Matthieu sniffed. "I know."

"Forgive my cruelty…please."

Matthieu turned slowly. François was slumped forward, lank hair covering his battered face. As he watched, François swiped a hand beneath it. When his hand dropped back to his side, it shone wet. His actions now belied a humility that in ordinary times no one—not even Matthieu—would ever be permitted to witness, and particularly not in England, his greatest enemy's homeland. But these were not ordinary times, and it forced Matthieu to rethink that, perhaps, he was apologizing for more than not knowing how to be impoverished wisely.

Matthieu believed he had a lesson to learn from this, too.

His innate sense of caution was becoming prohibitive. He needed to learn how to trust the people who showed him solicitude.

"I do forgive you, papa," he said. The acceptance was loud in the quiet of the night, and François's ensuing exhale almost let Matthieu set aside what he was about to add. But it was too important, his practicality reminded him; he couldn't. "My forgiveness will not replace our lost funds, however, and we need them in haste if we are not to linger in London. Arthur will learn that we are here shortly, if he has not sensed us already."

As soon as he uttered his former mentor's name, an idea—a mad, unlikely, utterly ridiculous idea—entered into Matthieu's brain, and when he looked at François with it written openly on his face, it took but a moment for him to understand. His shoulders straightened, and he curled his lip.

"Oh, merde."

-/-

Matthieu knocked on the door, the wood grain smooth under his knuckles. His and François's quarry had moved since the former had last been in England, but for all the man's lofty status in this country, it had been like prying teeth and nails over the past two days trying to track him down.

Matthieu should have guessed that he would relocate to the median point between St. James's Palace and the Prime Minister's residence, in the heart of the capital. All the better a position to act as interlocutor or barrier between them, the government and the people.

The architecture of the brick-and-mortar two-story residence was more modern than the ancient, crumbling remains Matthieu remembered from his time here in the middle decades of the seventeenth century, fully immersed in the newer Georgian period and replete with the austere furnishes and muted colors that defined colonial New England. François had scoffed immediately upon seeing it, muttering something along the lines of "murder for a little Baroque flourish."

"I believe the Baroque style is considered too florid here," Matthieu remarked quietly as they crossed the empty street. "Too Catholic. It was perceived the same in the Colonies. More functional, traditional homes were preferred, though I suppose their opinions could have changed now that you've helped them gain independence."

From his periphery, Matthieu saw François slide him a pensive glance. He said nothing, however, and stayed on the path while Matthieu reached the door and knocked.

Now, as they waited, he wondered idly if the door was made from American timber. Then it opened, and he was presented with a new problem.

From his slightly elevated position on the stoop, the footman standing before them stared down at the two inquirers as though they were vagabonds off the street. Behind Matthieu, François's posture ratcheted immediately, indignant, but he kept blissfully silent.

The footman's eyes slid to François and back, taking in the latter's fading blue coat, Matthieu's dirt-smudged cheeks and soot-blackened fingernails. He didn't bow; Matthieu thought he would have stabbed himself in the chest before subjecting to such humiliation. Instead, he cocked an eyebrow and said with unconvincing politeness, "Yes?"

Matthieu practically heard François's rolling eyes. He fought the urge to shoot him a dispelling look and cleared his throat. "We have traveled here to call upon your master"—damn, realized Matthieu in wild panic, what is his title again?—"Lord Britain, if he is available. He does not presently expect us, but we are, erm—" This time, Matthieu did glance back at François, only to find him staring bellicosely up at the shuttered windows. "We are familiar with him."

"My esteemed master does not wish to be disturbed," replied the footman acerbically, all but interrupting Matthieu. In his eyes, he was nothing more than a stupid, overeager boy, one who associated himself with the wrong sorts of people and wasn't worth a shilling for it. "Perhaps you ought to call when—"

"The present moment is acceptable," cut a commanding voice through the shadowed expanse beyond the footman's shoulders. "He is willing to permit an exception to his schedule."

Without any perceptible change in demeanor, the footman bowed aside, and the silhouette behind him stepped into the cool light of the drizzling sky. Matthieu swallowed.

Arthur Kirkland never ceased to project an intimidating visage. The most obvious reason for Matthieu's discomfort was his sheer strength—a fact never held in contempt by his enemies or his allies, even as it was ground through their teeth. Arthur had proved it too well and too frequently these last centuries to be denied. What few seemed to note, however, was that it wasn't entirely in his size, nor in the increasing scope of his influence.

Rarely did he lose control. Rarely did he lose possession of the polished grace that accompanied each movement, spiting his own unruly hair by forcing its mess into a loose pig's tail at the back of his head. Every action behaved as if it were purposeful. Intentional. Obtained from a thorough examination of every factor within the atmosphere. And it was this that consistently unnerved Matthieu whilst living under his wing.

The last time he had seen Arthur was in Paris, when—with clenched jaw and anguished eyes—he willfully signed into existence Alfred's independence as a nation, nearly ten years ago. Despite the loss, the past decade appeared to have done him well physically, if not economically. He seemed larger than Matthieu remembered, his once-slim shoulders straining underneath his shirt's soft fabric, and his calves bulging below his tailored breeches.

His eyes were as penetrating as ever. They were the one thing he could not conceal.

Presently they were not focused on Matthieu, however; in fact, he barely spared the boy a glance. As his arms crossed over his chest, the heavy signet ring on his finger glimmering, a bittersweet grin split his lips.

"You must be absolutely desperate to be seeking me out, France, of all the representatives."

Before Matthieu could stop him from rising to the bait, François's mouth was moving in grating, perfect, condemnable French. "Well, it is certainly not to entertain your charm and wit, Angleterre."

Arthur smirked, and his voice was as acidic as dour wine. "What, Spain wouldn't help you, after all that you've done for one another?"

Matthieu didn't have to look backward to know that François's glare was answer enough.

Arthur laughed, a short, sharp thing that made Matthieu nearly regret knocking on his door. "Ah, yes, he was a friend to the monarchy, and he doesn't have the money. How strange I should forget that—and in addition to the knowledge that you have even managed to anger him with your libertine politics." He was clearly enjoying it, the chance to flagellate François when he couldn't fight back, but as he finished, something hard and…broken—there was no other word for it—overtook his features, filled his verdant eyes with something worse than pride.

Swallowing the fear that rose inside of him, Matthieu turned and said forcefully, "François."

The man whom he ordinarily regarded as his father and mentor had opened his mouth to respond, having jerked up his chin in the haughty manner of which he was so deeply possessed, but upon seeing the stone emanating from his son's expression, he shut it and turned away.

Folding his fisted arms, he muttered, "This is pointless, Matthieu."

But we must try. Sighing mutely, Matthieu returned to Arthur, who hovered in the door frame and watched François with knifelike calculation, as though he needed to understand what made him desist, until Matthieu began to speak.

"You were aware that we had come here?"

"Of course," said Arthur curtly.

Matthieu frowned. "And you did not seek us out?"

François snorted obtrusively. For his part, Arthur's lip curled in semblance of a grin, gaze skirting over François's bruised eyes and nose with explicating satisfaction. The swelling in his face had dissolved considerably in the past two days. His skin now held a mottled distortion reminiscent of an artist's messy palate. It was enough to startle and convince their fellow dislocated denizens as to the depth and danger of English prejudices and sympathies, but François had not spoken a word of it or the attack since the first night. Now Matthieu understood why.

He pressed on. "It is true, François and I are in need of funds. We do not require much, only enough to purchase board of passage to Amer—" Matthieu paused, cursing himself for slipping. Quickly, he cleared his throat and finished, "To Montreal."

Matthieu should know by now that nothing escaped his former mentor. The only possible way he managed to deceive him before—disappearing in the night to provide François intel of British operations during the first dreadful years of war with them and their Indian allies—was because Arthur's focus had been elsewhere. Now, with his undivided attention upon him, what Matthieu nearly said was as recognizable as the water on his shoulders.

The change was nearly imperceptible, it was so swift. One moment Arthur's expression was passively stoic. In the next, there seemed to be a new depression in his features, tremors beneath his eye and around his mouth that Matthieu had never seen before, both betraying a wound within the resiliency and restraint he had always associated with this man—the reason he outlasted war after war with Europe's bickering brethren.

"You mean to Philadelphia." His voice was lower than the wind.

Mon Dieu.

Matthieu pressed his lips together and bowed his head.

Arthur's dead eyes narrowed further, flicked to François, and sparked. He moved into the rain, menacing towards him. Somehow—perhaps because Matthieu's heart was beating in his ears—Arthur's buckled shoes didn't make a sound in the puddles, but his voice, ordinarily so rigid and cool in the face of diplomacy, quavered when he spoke.

"Did you honestly believe, after everything you have done—everything you did to cost me my son—that I would lend so much as a farthing to you—help you abscond from rebellion that is of your own bloody making—and permit you to join him?"

François, who had taken a step back for every one Arthur advanced forward, at those last words finally tripped over a chipped cobblestone and fell with a squelch into the mud and dung in the center of the street, catching himself with a grunt on his elbows.

"It is not as if I have any other choice!" he burst, in pained English. It echoed down the lane, with its tidy houses and filth-blackened gutters. François grimaced at his own shakiness, but forced himself onward with a hiss, "They would have cut off my head, as they are—"

"As they are to every man who most deserves it, and to every woman and child least," Arthur interjected, the weighted vindication palpable in his voice as he towered over his lifelong adversary. "Perhaps it should have been a blessing had they cut it off, but tant mieux. Now you will have to learn how to live in a world where everyone, even your friends and allies, loathes you.

"I hope you're prepared for war. Both of you." Arthur inclined his head briefly towards Matthieu, paralyzed and helpless under the strength of his colonial master's quiet fury. "I intend to enjoy this one."

Within the beat of a second—while the rain beat down upon all three of them, while singular streams slid down Arthur's whitened knuckles—Matthieu realized the magnitude of his mistake. He had always known that Alfred, with his endless curiosity and sense of adventure, meant more to Arthur. He never understood quite how much more until now, as Arthur stood with his back to him and simmered with rage. Became this broken caricature of a man, incapable of feeling anything else. The one fisted hand Matthieu could see began to tremble.

Automatically, without any conscious pre-decision on his part, Matthieu's hand shot to his throat, as though to grasp his voice and feel it quiver in place, waiting to be severed entirely.

This is all my fault.

Arthur didn't wait for a reaction or response from François. He spun on his heel and marched for the overcast entrance of his home. "Get up, France. I know you can manage it, and you're ruining the décor." Vanishing back into the dark, he slammed the door behind him, hard enough to splinter the edges against the frame. The sound echoed out and evaporated. All fell dim.

Matthieu stood staring at those cracks for several moments before—hearing François move—he leapt from the stoop and knelt beside him the street. "I'm sorry. I knew this was unwise, I—"

François actually found the gall to laugh. "Do not blame yourself, mon fils. I expected nothing less." Shooing away Matthieu's proffered hands, he slumped onto his back with a sigh, and as his fair hair browned slowly with dirty water, as the horse dung his elbow rested in soiled his fine blue coat, whether out of defiance for Arthur or sheer gravity they remained the street.

François stared at the draining sky all the while, as though waiting for God to tell him what to do next.

-/-

Without assistance from Arthur, Matthieu continued to find work around the City. They had no other choice. The daily jobs all paid next to nothing—assuming they paid fairly at all—and yet it was better than nothing, for François could scarcely find employment himself. Once, perhaps, the English public had been welcoming to his exiled nobility, willing to give them spaces to work, skills to sell, means to live and food to eat, but no longer. That leniency had disembarked before François and Matthieu arrived, and neither expected it to return any time soon. Quite simply, it left François without a chance.

With his unaccented English and youthful face, however, Matthieu readily passed as an English boy merely looking for ways to feed his family, a deception he found little difficulty in convincing others of. Acting thus, he swept chimneys inside wealthy town homes and came back to the pub with a soot skin, hacking ash from his lungs. He scooped dung from busy roads, risked becoming mincemeat beneath a horse's hooves, and in the night climbed, shaking and exhausted, into his thin little bed. He hauled cargo and anchored ships at the docks of the Thames, and when twelve hours were done and the skies bordered on dark, he returned home with cracked and bleeding palms, splinters from the rough ship ropes wedged underneath his skin.

Home—if the room they were let for full price now could be considered that—was always where François could be found. After the loss of their funds, he was careful not to spend more than Matthieu permitted, nor did he stray far from the public house, offering free labor for the landlady in the kitchens instead. The friends he had gathered that night did not come around again, though it was unclear whether that was at François's insistence, of their own volition once they realized he no longer had money, or the landlord trying to preserve his reputation as a man abiding popular opinion. Regardless, they didn't come, and François didn't leave except to purchase necessities. Every night, when Matthieu added the few pence he'd earned that day to their fund (which he now kept hidden beneath a floorboard), he counted the proper amounts in their place.

His became such a life that François took to looking Matthieu over when he came through the door. He washed his face with a wet cloth and cleaned the cuts on his hands, then watched them heal faster than any mortal man's flesh would. In the dining parlor, he made certain Matthieu ate his portion of their shared meal—often, greater than François's portion, even knowing the landlord's wife snuck him dry bread and hard cheese in the morning.

Matthieu pretended not to notice the guilt in François's face while he did these things. Most evenings he was too exhausted to feel any sense of fulfilled retribution towards his father. In truth, he couldn't decide whether he was still angry, but then night came, and what Matthieu thought hardly mattered.

François continued to mutter and thrash about in his sleep, caught in the gory realities plaguing his people when his mind's defenses were stripped. In the morning, Matthieu often rose to strained cries and the sight of blood on François's lips, as though it was his head upon the pike—or, perhaps, severed by the new executioner, tested and installed near Place de la Grève not long before they escaped: the guillotine.

François never spoke of what he saw, and Matthieu never asked, but as the weeks went by, newspaper headlines began to creep in.

The revolt had been bloody from the beginning; Matthieu had witnessed the violence firsthand. Now, it seemed, veins of it—black and red—flowed through the streets at a catastrophic rate. If British reports were to be believed, (and many were hardly as reputable as they claimed, feeding after gossip and opinion rather than evidential truth,) the paranoia of the masses that haunted François and Matthieu's imprisonment like a noose in the Tuileries had spilled into the prisons and monasteries, leading to the "trial" and execution of hundreds for treason, insurrectionist fears of counterrevolution dying as their heads fell from their bodies. One eyewitness account in the Times detailed the grisly deaths of over two hundred monks, another the lynching of Madame de Lamballe, the Queen's Superintendent of the Household and one of her closest confidantes.

Not long after these reports arrived the news that the French monarchy was officially abolished by the National Convention, to be replaced by a Republic for the progression of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity—so they declared.

Of it all—the rumors, the misconceptions, the deceit—Matthieu didn't know what to believe beyond what he observed from the street and what he knew before. From the way François frowned when Matthieu relayed the news to him, however, he was thinking of the political consequences, of the impact the changes would have on his station around Europe, of the king he had known as a child. Perhaps he was considering the responses his friends and enemies would give, whether they would compare him to an overeager child like America or a dominating, arrogant tyrant like Britain. It was difficult to say. France's government had desired a style of government more akin to the latter in the beginning, during those first hopeful months, bolstered by the Marquis de Lafayette's presentation of a declaration of rights. After the arguing reached a standstill, the Third Estate declared sovereignty over all legislation as the unicameral National Assembly. Just before mobs took the place of proper representation.

Regardless, the whispers were everywhere, rumors of the baseness that the English gleefully and with visceral exposition believed the French had descended into: The mobs consume the flesh of their victims, roasting it to a crisp upon their fires—they lap up the blood of their murdered compatriots and fallen nobility from the streets. Like dogs! Can you imagine?—they… Even if it was true—and he knew the death to be, just not the manner of it; Death was everywhere in France. Watching, reaping—Matthieu ignored it, never repeating any of what he heard to François, though he was certain he heard it nonetheless. The Terrible Massacres, as the British papers were already naming the mass executions, had withered what little sympathy remained for those leading the revolution, replacing voracious hopes of outranking France as a world power with sheer horror at the stories that found their way across the Channel. Matthieu began to see more and more refugees sleeping in the streets, inside shabby carriages, under tables in pubs; sporting bruises and cuts all over their bodies, some with open wounds or limbs missing altogether. Whether they were newly arrived or evicted from their lodgings and beaten, it didn't matter. The message was the same: You are not, nor have ever been, welcome in our home.

Deep down, it infuriated Matthieu. It was a strange feeling, buried so low inside him that he had to will it to the surface in order to express it. Why didn't Arthur do something about this—this blatant bigotry and intolerance? Although he understood the answer, it didn't appease the passions that welled within him, the thought that Arthur's pride was nearly worse than François's for all that it was fueled by, old grievances and regret.

Matthieu never saw Arthur on the street, which was probably just as well, but he must have known they were still there, living off his land like leeches suckling on his skin. After overhearing rumors that Parliament was on the brink of instituting deportations of the French exiles in the country, some small, frightened part of Matthieu waited for an order to arrive at their doorstep, signed with Arthur's name. It didn't come.

Weeks passed. One month, two. Reports of mob violence and vengeful death continued to circulate. The nights grew colder and longer as autumn settled firmly into the city. François and Matthieu closed the shutters of their tiny room and huddled beneath their thin blankets, fitful in sleep. They praised the landlord and his wife's compassionate souls, thanked the Lord that they hadn't given into popular opinion and kicked them out. Matthieu developed deeper calluses on his palms and fingers, lean strength in his arms and legs. François found work (he never explained how) laundering the luxurious clothes of several well-to-do families in Savile Street and the surrounding area, bringing an additional six pence per day into their meager funds, and though the skin of his hands grew so red and chafed that he had to set them in cold water every evening, though he reeked of lye, he never complained. Their savings grew slowly—too slow for their doubts and fears—but they both knew that there existed far worse they could experience in London, more so in Paris. The re-opened scar on François's abdomen—still bleeding, still festering—made sure they understood this.

Then, finally, came his letter.

Matthieu arrived at The Coach & Horses late that evening, clutching his earnings from that day in his pocket and moving sluggishly across the cobblestones, but his mind was still sharp as he approached the entrance. The landlady sat beside the door with a knitted shawl of sheep's wool around her broad shoulders, watching the street and reaching out to prospective patrons with a friendliness her husband possessed little ability for, enticing them with a warm meal and good ale. It was a slow night, then. Matthieu greeted her quietly and made to go inside, hoping François was already waiting with a warm stew, but before he could, the landlady grabbed his arm and pulled him close, slipping an envelope into his hand.

"This arrived after you left this morning," she whispered hoarsely. Her breath smelled awful, but her tone was tender, as always. "Right thick, it is—held onto it meself so none would steal what's in it."

Matthieu looked down at his hand. The envelope was thick, but not because the parchment itself was particularly good quality, although there was a softness to it that suggested refined taste. It was also heavy—too heavy to be solely correspondence.

Then, he noticed his name. Specifically, how it was written, slanted and casually inked across the front.

Something in Matthieu's recognition must have expressed itself on his face, because the landlady chortled. "Good news, like?"

Matthieu looked up, a smile drawing on his lips. The gesture felt both foreign and relieving, and he realized that he couldn't recall the last time he had truly, fully smiled in the last several years. The thought made him smile more. "Yes, I believe so. Thank you for protecting this." He embraced the landlady, this unassuming, hardworking woman who had taken them in without reservation and offered them more kindness and hospitality than either he or François ever expected—or frankly, deserved—when they arrived in England. With a surprised laugh, she returned Matthieu's embrace, wrapping him briefly in her undying warmth, and then Matthieu was racing up the stairs, bursting through their door and proclaiming, "He responded!"

François lifted his head from the basin of water he was soaking his hands in and frowned. "Qui?"

Matthieu didn't answer, his attention focused on the envelope in his hand as he shut the door. His fingers trembled as he cracked the seal on the letter—the design impressed into the wax was a simple, swirling A—and opened the folds.

From them spilled not livres, not Prussian carolines or Spanish escudos, not the new American dollars that Matthieu had never seen, but pounds—blessed, gleaming British pounds. They clattered to the floor in a shining, moonlit mess. He gathered them, counted them slowly.

There was enough—more than enough, when combined with their funds. They could pay the last rent for their room, a meal and passage and still have enough remaining. It was a wonder the letter had made it to him intact with everything still inside. Alfred must have employed special connections to have it hand-delivered directly. It was the only explanation.

For the first time since stepping foot in this city, Matthieu began to feel more than desperation, more than happiness. He began to feel hope.

His gaze drifted upward to François, watched as his eyes grew wider and ran through a litany of emotions: elation to greed, to remorse, to apprehension, and finally, to hope, too. When he managed to tear away from the masquerading parchment and met Matthieu's gaping expression, it was a moment before the tears began to flow over Matthieu's cheeks. François drew his aching hands from the water to embrace him above the open wound on his stomach, and they collapsed against one another, the money between them abandoned for the moment.


Historical Notes:

The South Sea Bubble was the result of an investment frenzy in 1720, beginning with several English politicians who accepted shares from the South Sea Company (which made its profits from slave trading in Spanish-controlled South America, hence the name "South Sea") in exchange for declaring in speeches how they were "on the verge of making a fortune from Peruvian gold". This in turn encouraged investors to purchase shares and caused the price to rise quickly and enormously—from £120 to £1000 by one account—on the promise of an exorbitant return. Other schemes were launched simultaneously by various conmen and companies, with common practice being that shares were issued in the morning, investors met brokers to purchase them, the company sold immediately to snag the profit and then folded overnight, thus leaving investors out to dry with their net losses. Eventually the bubble burst with damaging economic consequence. The politicians whose loyalty had been bought lost their jobs, public confidence in the government was nearly obliterated, and the company's directors who initiated the mess had their assets confiscated (though it did survive until the 1850s after being restructured). (Clarke 293-95)

The Order of the Garter was an exclusive society founded in England by Edward III on 23 April 1349. Inspired by Arthurian legend, its creation served as a means of uniting the knightly community and rewarding their martial chivalry and service. It was initially designed as a form of propaganda to encourage service abroad and prevent a recurrence of prior failures to defend England's foreign territories by Edward's Plantagenet ancestors, caused largely by their poor relationship with knights and earls, many of whom disdained at their duty to serve (Jones 408).

The September Massacres: Known in France as La Terreur, or the Terror, this was a slew of political executions targeted at a number of industries, the clergy, and the poor. They allegedly began as the result of a rumor that counter-revolution was being planned in prisons to restore the monarchy, which led to mobs breaking into those around Paris and trying the inmates for treason, demanding they renounce allegiance to the king in order to spare their lives. Madame de Lamballe, Princess of Savoy, held at La Force prison following the arrest of the royal family in August, was one of the individuals who refused. These "trials" were quickly extended to anyone deemed an enemy of the state by Robespierre and Marat, among them priests, editors, judges, and prostitutes. Thousands were executed by the time France declared itself a Republic on 20 September 1792.

Declaration of the Rights of Man: A first draft of this was presented to the National Assembly by the Marquis de Lafayette on 11 July 1789, three days before the fall of the Bastille. Only a couple weeks earlier, on 27 June, Louis XVI had absorbed the three Estates of French parliament into one by the demand of the Third Estate, representing the common classes, and its supporters from the First and Second Estates, representing the Church and the aristocracy, respectively. The formal Declaration that served as the new government's interim constitution until 1791 would not be finalized until August, as the Grande Peur was taking off around the country.

French Translation Notes:
1. Ton frère's = your brother's
2. Garde nationale = National Guard (see ch. 1 footnote)
3. Payson = peasant
4. Anglais = Englishmen
5. l'enfant ingrat = ungrateful child
6. Mon Dieu = My God
7. Mon fils = my son
8. Qui? = What?

Selected Sources:
1. 1000 Years of Annoying the French, by Stephen Clarke
2. Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow
3. "French Revolution" – History. Com editors, last updated 26 October 2020, accessed 22 November 2020
4. The Cultural Life of the American Colonies: 1607-1763, by Louis B. Wright
5. The Plantagenets, by Dan Jones