If I were a superstitious woman I would think of myself as a plague wind that blows death warmly, with affection, like the breath of a whisper. - Anne Boleyn, 'The Other Boleyn Girl'.

June, 1789

They had said she had driven a man so mad he self immolated. Another had said he'd been so moved by her charisma he could not bear to part with her person. One more had said that she stood bemused at the spectacle, with a smile that chilled the air around her while the man writhed and burned, flesh peeling and breeches smoking in his dance of death through the sparse Parisian streets; how her laugh, mirthful and bewitching, woke the dead from their chains and drove the living into theirs.

Sorcière was what the citoyens et citoyennes called her. A term seldom used in this supposed age of Enlightenment. Yet the incident was severe enough to warrant the insult, the label – and the truth of it had been clouded by rumour and whispers. No one and yet everyone wanted to speak about it: the étrangerère who bent to pick up a loose pamphlet from a playwright, hand extended, pleasantries on her lips, and accursed the man to that horrid death.

It was not the marshals who had brought her to the prison, but two members of the maréchaussé. She had been intended for La Grand Force, but someone had vouched for her. So it was that she was delivered in the early hours of June 2nd, 1789, to the uppermost stories of the Bastille.

So it was that Thomas, le fossoyeur and former garde français, would be the first to see her.

He'd served 15 years in his regiment, served a stint with the Swiss Guard and then played guard duty at Versailles when Madame du Barry was the lecher of court. His father had served in Fontenoy until a grapeshot took his leg and he was left a cripple. Two of Thomas' brothers died of the flux, and his mother passed from a fever when he was young. He was unmarried, had no children, and considered himself too old and too displeasing to the eye to be marriageable. His father, Pierre the Elder, stayed at the Hôtel des Invalides, and it was Thomas' obedience to the last dregs of his family's name to pay for his care.

He'd chosen guard duty at the Bastille when the pay did not put enough food on the table. It was an understatement that no one in France had enough money for anything. The country was flat broke, in debt, most of her population rural, illiterate and manic from hunger. La Belle France lagged behind her rivals in terms of scientific and military prowess, and it showed when Britain drove her to bankruptcy despite her losses (and France's quasi-victory) in America.

Bernard-René Jourdan de Launay, the governor of the Bastille, had taken his application papers with a raised eyebrow and fidgeting fingers. They resembled earthworms on his high forehead, the brown clashing with his powdered wig. The purse of his lips left a small hole in the middle of his mouth, the wrinkles turning this way and that as his mind processed information. Le Gouverner, so used to mundane events and boredom at this infamous prison, was skeptical of Thomas: how he slouched instead of standing straight, how his breeches were loose and strings were tied around his knees, how an eye twitched here and there at certain questions, as if the dust floating around his head irritated his sensibilities.

"No surname?" de Launay had asked, twirling the quill around in his fingers. His nails were recently filed and cleaned, unlike his own.

"Non, monsieur. I left that behind me when my family's named was blackened with dishonour."

There the eyebrows went up. More papers were flipped, more movements of mumbling lips. At last, they settled on the escritoire. "Je comprends." Not the best candidate he'd seen was what he wanted to say. But personnel was lacking and he needed more men. De Launay could not complain nor could he find the resources to complain to begin with. "You will be assigned the night shift. Honour the prisoners' requests when you can, even if they are...ridicule."

Clearly, he had been referring to the Marquis de Sade, the sexual libertine who'd spent his time trying on his elaborate wardrobe and asking Thomas advice on how to pitch his 'libertine' novels. Thomas knew de Sade on paper and from public perception before then, but never personally.

Now that he knew de Sade personally...Best to be professional.

"And if I can't?" Thomas had asked, steering back to the present.

"Tell them un mensonge. One more won't hurt them. It might make them sing their innocence even more."

A done deal. Mundane. Traditional. Thomas le fossoyeur didn't expect that duty to involve a sexual libertine's pornographic novel-to-be ('You can read,' he was teased, 'so come on and give me a taste of your thoughts! You're not that much of a prude.'), or paper and an ink well for the métis Autrichien. That insult did not come from Thomas himself, but from his fellow guards who'd picked up on the prisoner's heritage and promptly used it to bicker among themselves.

Astute Frenchmen, forever perfect yet imperfect. The chance to set upon someone who had a mark blacker than themselves was too good to miss, and considering the standing of Austrians in the French psyche, it was the best morsel they'd seen in years.

The prisoner heard about it soon enough, as insults and secrets never languished long in the Bastille, and retorted with a degree of sass Thomas had to admit was brilliant. Something to do with them being 'not good enough to serve in the army, but perfect for babysitting each other at night.' Among other more inflammatory barbs, bien sûr. How his comrades had turned redder than a Comtesses' rouge! Ah, he could breach his pay for all the breeches ruined from his muffled laughter.

The Bastille shift was, for the most part, quiet. Quiet bar the snickering of de Sade and the clack clack of the two prisoners that sparred from morning to evening. His shift was over by then, but Thomas would watch them spar for about ten minutes, maybe more if he wasn't bogged down by exhaustion or determined to visit his father. He'd take his daily impression of the two – fascinating, and terrific fighters they were – and leave before returning in the evening when they were finishing up their session. Maybe the larger one would ask him for something other than 'piss water'. His companion, the métis Autrichien, would ask him if he received any letters.

For about two weeks Thomas shook his head no. Watched the disappointment on the young man's face. Heard the cackles from de Sade as he toyed with the other guards.

Mundane. Traditional. Oh so boring. Disappointments feted by the leers of a naked man in the cell over. A constant stream of 'Pisspot' and grunts from sparring.

The morning of June 2nd had started off the same. The fencers woke up for their early morning session, the guards grumbled that it was too early (or too late) to have breakfast, and de Launay was somewhere, reading papers.

By 5 a.m., at the end of his shift, a maréchaussé was screaming down the stone halls, a long echo that rattled the mist off the stones. From the courtyard was a high pitched and rolling shriek like that of a sheep facing down the shear, increasing in pitch as the man struggled.

"The bitch took my finger! Get her off me!"

There was more yelling, and among the masculine throng of grunts and pained whimpering was a low-pitched growl that did not belong to persons of genteel birth. Thomas made his way to the main courtyard where all the feudal towers pressed in on one another like looming, dreaded birthday candles. There were four men, two gardes françaises like him, the cook, and the hussar who had delivered the prisoner. All four were struggling against the new arrival, who kicked and scratched at any bare skin that approached.

The maréchaussé with the missing finger – the ring finger, Thomas noticed - pointed at the struggling mass.

"Don't ever take that sack off her head! She'll use her teeth on your cheek!"

Thomas approached the wounded man. The blood from the gnawed appendage was darker than the red collar around his neck and gleamed in the early morning light. It blended into the dark blue of the King's issued uniform for the garde, staining what Thomas thought was freshly laundered clothes. The man's lips trembled from anger and from slight. His wig was on the ground, dirtied from stomping boots.

Thomas pulled a clean kerchief from his waistcoat pocket and gave it to the man. He earned a 'Merci' and no more.

The grunts, low and now distinctly feminine, were the only sounds in the mid-morning ensemble that were octaves over the pants and whooshing breaths of the men. In the break, Thomas managed to sneak a glance at the new arrival.

The décolletage of the white nightgown was an easy giveaway, albeit with the woman's bone-thin frame he was surprised the garment even stayed on her. Thomas couldn't assess how tall she was, how much she really weighed, or measure the bruises on her skin before another sack was thrown around her feet and tied with jute string the hussar had provided.

The sack over the woman's head then fell to her waist, covering her wrists and arms with the new addition coming up to her knees. Tied as she was, she still fought, swinging her head left to right, angry cries muffled by the brown cotton around her mouth. The hussar and the cook panted at the exertion.

"Mon Dieu, I don't think I've ever had so much trouble with such a weak woman." The cook shook his head. "A banshee. And they call this one the witch."

Thomas went to her left flank, opposite the cook. He looked at him. "How about it, Henri?"

The cook huffed. "You're going to have to pay me more if you want me to get close to her."

As if to offer their stay of executions, the hussar and the garde backed away. The former went back to his carriage, no doubt eager to pick up more pliant prisoners, and the latter needed to go to the infirmary over his missing finger. So, Thomas took the initiative. He picked up the woman from under her arms, while the cook, Henri, grabbed her legs. His apron, once snuffed with the few bags of flour they had, was torn from the hem, the scratches evident on the white cloth that trembled with his exertion.

"Hold her as you would a goat. She'll still be able to kick you."

"You're telling me, Thomas."

That was Thomas' introduction to the sorcière, an unnamed, indescribable thing that bit off a garde française's finger as if it had been a stick of candy. Thomas had not had the time or the opportunity to ask why the woman had bitten off the appendage, but he figured that with wine – copious amounts from de Sade's trunk, filched of course – he'd be swearing up and down the table about the encounter.

Said indescribable thing had gone quiet as Thomas and Henri the cook made their way through the courtyard and into the prison proper. Thomas felt her sag in his arms, her head finding a perch between his neck and shoulder. He could hear her breathing: shallow and quick paced but not weak. It was the paced breath of a seething, caged animal, displeased that they should be caught and prepared to use teeth and claws when they found vulnerable flesh. Through the sack it sounded like a deer felled by rifle shot that still thrashed with the will to fight. No doubt that if both sacks were removed someone would be tumbling down the steps of the Bastille.

Henri adjusted the woman's legs in his arms. Thomas watched him as he did so, making sure the sorcière's knees didn't snap and a foot went into Henri's nose. He was one of the better cooks, and stayed only because of the things Thomas pilfered for him from the other prisoners. It would be a shame to lose him. They couldn't afford any other cook, and Henri was diligent in making good food from the materials proffered him. He was limited in his endeavour, but Henri did not have many complaining prisoners. For that, de Launay kept him on.

Henri exhaled out the side of his mouth. "She was supposed to go to Bazinière Tower. Now she's going to the calottes."

Thomas huffed, adjusting the woman's weight. She was not heavy, but as the fight left her she became dead weight. He thought he could hear a sad sigh beneath her cloth bindings.

"Under the roof?"

"It's June. All the other prisoners complain about the heat. We won't keep her up there all night, unless she starts a small riot. She'll be moved to the lower levels once she's calmed down."

Thomas nodded. They were making their way past the cells, where the fencers were engaging in their play-fighting.

Clack. Clack clack clack. Smack.

"Aie!"

"What'd I'll tell you, Pisspot? Pay attention."

Henri quickened his pace. For a moment Thomas wondered why, until the sack moved against his shoulder. He could almost feel the woman's rapid blinking, see the thoughts racing through in her mind. When Thomas looked back up, Henri was shaking his head, his lips in a thin line.

'Keep her quiet,' that look said. He didn't want a riot to start over a strange woman. De Launay would lose his mind, his breeches and then his head in that order. They all would.

Thomas leaned his head near the nape of the woman's neck.. His stubble felt rough against her smooth skin. "Don't scream," he whispered. "Please don't make this harder than it has to be."

Thomas thought – though it could have been the sigh from the violinist, playing in a chair in the cell to their right, or the pants from the fencers or the huffs from Henri – that he heard a small, defeated moan. A slight tilting of the woman's head, the fabric slipping further down her chest, was the sign that she understood.

Clack. Clack clack clack smack.

"Pisspot, do I have to repeat myself? Don't let your guard down for a second - "

"Who is that?"

The mutual sigh of relief Henri and Thomas were about to share was dashed like the coffers under Madame Deficit. The métis Autrichien had noticed their new companion, peering out from his cell at the limp form in their arms. He watched them with inquisitive eyes, sure to ask questions later in the night when Thomas returned. When he made it to the bars of his cage to examine further, to see the ripples of the décolletage against the woman's chest (the white was what caught his attention; that one had an eye for colours), Thomas and Henri were already moving around the corner.

There was a light smack from a hand on a shoulder. "Where are they taking that one?"

A bark of laughter. Whole conversations could float through the Bastille, no matter how high up you went in the towers. "Hell no, Pisspot. What do you think that is?"

"There is no shortage of cells down here. Not as if we can't do with more company."

"That's because that's not a man, Pisspot."

It was a shame the ensemble couldn't see the young man's face: the 'O' of his mouth giving way to a quick frown and eyebrows bunched together in thought. "They allow women here? In the Bastille?"

"If you remember the Diamond Necklace Affair, yes, women can be prisoners."

"But why isn't she kept -"

"Pisspot. Just because this prison isn't full doesn't mean the men here are celibate. They'd kill for five minutes with a woman, more so if she's a pretty one. And that – " He had jutted his chin in their direction - "That one just took a man's finger."

'A family of dishonest blonds' was where Thomas had came from. Leftovers from the Norman invasion, they'd settled in Normandy before moving to Paris proper when William the Conqueror was finished with England. Thomas, his two brothers Eliot and Eugène and Pierre the Elder had been a decent family. They had a surname, even a 'de' at one point. When both brothers abandoned their posts at the army, catching flux from improperly boiled water and thereby infecting their entire regiment the family suffered a terrible dishonor. Only demure and obedient Thomas who served his army with all the nationalist pomp managed to salvage a meagre living from his family's tarnished reputation.

Thomas knew he would not sire a family. Even if he could court, the ruined name was unworthy of marriage even to the lowest of milkmaids. His physical appearance was lacking as well. His face was too square, resembling a loaf of bread fresh out of the oven, with muddy eyes and too thin lips above a tucked in chin with stubble both too coarse and too fine. His hair, once a dirty blonde, fit the 'dirty' description as it was crawling with lice half the time. Twice he'd sheared his locks, thrice the lice came back. He nearly gave up until he invested in a lice comb and tea tree oil from a washerwoman.

So far, it had worked. He'd had fewer nits in his hair than most noblewomen. Most Parisians. It did not mitigate the grease or the grime or the lye from working as a fossoyeur,a profession he thought would make the other guards turn up their noses at him. They'd regarded him with a quiet respect, instead. Not many ordinary men could bury so many dead, and with life expectancy so low from poor harvests and poor living conditions, anyone who could look upon the faces of the dead day by day deserved a modicum of silence.

Thomas was surprised la sorcière had been delivered so quickly. Under all other circumstances she'd have been beaten to death, that glorious ghost-like skin of hers purpled so dark it'd resemble passing night clouds. The playwright who'd self-immolated had reportedly been a fan-favourite; a voice for the people, a critic of the Ancien Régime. Weren't they all?

It'd taken two hours to get her settled into the calotte above the Bazinière tower. It was sparsely furnished, with a blanket at one end and even a few cushions that had been donated by Henri's sister. The rain and moisture had sucked the colour out of them: once a jovial yellow, they were now an ugly mustard. The calotte quarters, next to the dungeons, were the most unpleasant rooms because of their open access to the elements. Because it was June, it was pleasant up here; in fact the breeze from the window was refreshing, bar the ever present stench of sewage and Parisian filth.

There was an escritoire missing a leg. A few chairs with moth-eaten waistcoats thrown over them. The scabbard of a sword, peeled and rotten. There was even a looking glass placed in the far corner, so stained and cracked it resembled a faux diamond. The floors were as clean as they could be, considering that so few prisoners were ever brought up here and vermin preferred the warm confines of the lower levels.

The woman would need to have a cot brought in. If not that, a few more cushions and clean blankets so she would not have to sleep on the floor. Thomas could get some from a seamstress he knew who donated old clothing and materials to the needy. He could pilfer more cushions from de Sade's closets, provided the woman did not mind the scent of rose water and other scents that hovered over Versailles residents like flowery thunderclouds.

Henri watched the woman as she felt the moist stones beneath her, thin white fingers sticking out like spider's legs in search for her missing fly. Her nightgown fell further down her chest, revealing a boney v-neck and protruding ribs. She looked thinner than street urchins who skipped meals to feed their siblings. The sacks were still on her head and legs. Thomas glanced at him, cautious and curious at the same time.

"Should we take them off?"

"Do you want to lose a finger, too?"

Thomas frowned. "She'll need water. She's probably thirsty."

"You go get her some water, then. I'm not touching her. I need my hands to cook."

"Très bien. I'll do it."

The sacked head twisted in his direction like a stag hearing the crack of a twig in a silent winter wood as Thomas followed Henri out of the cell. Thomas spotted wild tendrils sticking out from beneath the sack, threaded twigs like the white ones roaming across the stone floors. He made a mental note to fetch another lice comb.

Neither Thomas or Henri heard as he shut the cell door the witch break out into a soft, tearful whimper.

La Sorcière de la Bastille. How fast the title swept through the prison and into the streets; it had spread faster than a plague wind. The immolated playwright – the now identified Luc Comtois – was spun into tales of passion, deception, courtship and murder. There had been few witnesses to the actual crime, but Parisians all around the Porte Saint-Antoine spoke about the crime as if it was a new Affair of the Poisons.

If Jeanne de Valois could occupy such a place in the prison and weave her way through drastic political scandals, why couldn't this one? The added intrigue was that no one aside from Comtois knew what the witch had looked like. Only the pallor of her skin was known: smooth, white and ghost-like, crept along the Seine like its evening fog. No one knew her personality, her wiles, her wit or where she came from. Like the hailstorm of yesteryear where large blocks of ice fell from the sky it was a sudden, bizarre appearance yet destructive all the same.

So, when Thomas returned that afternoon, with a sack full of laundered clothes, small cushions, and tins of water for the imprisoned woman, he was again confronted with a raucous scene: two more geôliers standing in front of a locked cell, one with blood dripping from his nose.

One of the geôliers twirled something between his fingers. When Thomas moved closer, he saw that it was a ring, an exquisite one with a white-gold band and a set of diamonds in a snowflake cut. In the poor light it shimmered as if outraged from being separated from its owner. It tumbled between the geôlier's gloved fingers, making his epaulettes and helmet look like pewter in comparison to its brilliance. The disgust on the man's face from the presence of this beautiful thing was evident.

Thomas did not have time to ask where the ring came from, as there was a series of knocks, then pounding, at the cell door.

"My ring! Give me back my ring! That is not yours to keep!"

Thomas blinked. The low, animalistic growls he'd heard that morning was replaced with a svelte, deliciously feminine voice sparked with ire. As the pounding increased in tempo, so did her voice: it went from a small, controlled timbre to one that tickled Thomas' chest with its anger. Was this from the same woman who burned a man alive and tore off another man's finger?

"That was my grandmother's bride price! It is worth more than you will ever know!" Her fists banged against her cell door, the hinges tat-a-tatting with the force.

"You got that right," the geôlier muttered, eyeing the wood. "I can buy an entire month's worth of food with this."

The witch (what good hearing she had!), upon catching that statement, threw her weight against the door. The fight Thomas had glimpsed at the courtyard was back. He could see the hinges rattle from her meagre weight.

"You son of a bitch! If you sell my ring, I'll never forget it!" Thump. Crack. "No one will ever find your grave when I get to you!"

The geôlier rolled his eyes. "Tough words for a weak woman." He then noticed Thomas.

"Guard duty for you, eh? Isn't your shift over?"

"Oui, but I didn't think it was right to leave her without comfort."

Both of the gaolers laughed, the plume on their helmets sashaying with their movements. The one on the left had a blackened front tooth. "Good luck. And it's a shame she's so thin. Those breasts of hers..." He motioned to his chest. "...succulente. With a little meat on her bones she'd be quite the looker."

Thomas blinked. "Wait. You've seen her without the sack?"

"Non," said the one on the right. "We only saw her chest and waist. We wanted to see if she was an old crone, so we came up here."

Thomas had to shake his head. His eyes burned from sleeplessness, but until now he hadn't paid much attention to it. Everyone had been thrown askew from the new arrival, and already she was being appraised like she was a Louis d'Or. That would make its way up the Seine once the geôliers retired for the day. Thomas himself only felt the woman's bony flesh, and here these men were dreaming of appraising and fondling her once she was taken care of. He supposed it was normal since they hadn't had a female prisoner since Jeanne de Valois. But she had been old, and a trickster passing herself off as an aristocrat. She could not be touched. This one, though...she was fair game. She was fair game and no one knew who and what she was.

Perhaps that was part of the intrigue. The fact that she drove a man to douse himself in oil and run screaming down courtyards in the middle of a mild June night was a smudge on an otherwise clouded reputation.

The geôliers moved to make way for Thomas. They hovered around him, watching him place the key in the lock.

He sighed. "Are you two really going to stay here?"

Both shrugged. Their plumes intermingled at the proximity, and Thomas was tempted to sneeze. He did not wear the plumed helmet like his fellow guards, and he felt that the waistcoat and white breeches were too decent even for an ex-military man. The leather cost too much to clean, the clothes too much to launder and re-dye. Not to mention feathers tickled his nose in a myriad of unpleasant ways.

He twitched his nose, willing away the sneeze. As he was about to turn the key, a thought came to him.

"Which one of you has the ring?"

"Moi." The one on his right, the one with – Thomas just noticed – a lazy eye. "What do you want it for?"

Thomas bit his tongue. He really, really did not want to do this. This was his pay advancement. He hadn't come across money like this, not in years. But the pitch of the woman's cries had gnawed through his chest like a mole through dirt. That ring was not merely a source of wealth; it was not merely a trinket. It held sentimental value, the memory of a family.

Why did he care? If you asked him, Thomas could not tell you. If it was for anyone else, Thomas would have shrugged and allowed the pilfering guards to keep as they pleased; God knew he kept quiet when they stole bread and cheese from the well-to-do prisoners or whistled baldy songs when they grunted with themselves at de Sade's 'interesting' literature.

A domino had been tipped over. There was a vibration in the air, not from heat or excitement, but an unexplained plucking at the strings of his being, telling – nay- commanding him to do this. He was the violin, and the étrangerère was La Folia playing through him.

He plucked a Louis D'or from his pocket. The lazy-eyed guard eyed it, the gold shinier than the diamond in his fingers.

"Ici. This will pay for your food." Thomas flipped the coin in the air, and the lazy-eyed guard caught it. He held out his hand for the diamond. "The ring, s'il vous plaît."

There was a moment when the guard, transfixed by the diamond setting, did not want to give it up. Thomas watched as the light glittered in the iris of the guard's good eye, the familiar hunger of greed and fascination present as a bloody scar. The other, the one with the black tooth and nose crusted with browned blood, shared a look with his friend.

"Nom de Dieu, just hand it over already. I'm tired and I need to piss," the black-toothed one said.

Lazy-Eye sighed, reluctant, before the gold subsumed his attention. "Whatever."

Dieu Merci. They were off to the lower levels, no doubt to harass the métis Autrichien. Tired as he was, Thomas wanted to see the woman as herself: no sacks around her head, no nails clawing at other's faces. With her ring, he could use it as a peace offering to get her to talk since she hadn't spoken until the guards had provoked her into her tangent.

He did not forget that lull in her ire, that lovely, feminine touch to her voice that was surreal in the Bastille. It sounded youthful, willful and strong, yet tempered with a darker emotion. Was it disappointment? Fear? Hopelessness?

Thomas would have to hope for the best, as the creak of the hinges gave way to the whistle of the wind, revealing the witch who stood in the centre of her new home.

Notes

My French is abominable. I used to speak it, but since I haven't spoken it in years my memory of it is completely shot. The translations are from my dictionary, as well as the few phrases I remember. Most of the words are recognizable to English speakers. The italics represents them speaking in French.

- fossoyeur - gravedigger

- étrangerère - Outsider

- métis Autrichien - Austrian half-breed. I don't actually hate Arno (far from it!) but considering he's Franco-Austrian I figured playing into that would add a layer of intrigue.

- maréchaussé - Marshal

- Sorcière - witch

- mensonge - lie