Hot Ice

to know the facts on any job. I’ve been boning up on the French Revolution. Marie was playing politics and struggling to secure her position. She didn’t pull it off. By the time she wrote that, she knew she was almost finished.”
    With only a nod, Whitney went back to the letter. “He is more emperor than brother. Without his help, I have few to turn to. I cannot tell you, my dear valet, of the humiliation of our forced return from Varennes. My husband, the king, disguised as a common servant and myself—it is too shameful. To be arrested, arrested, and returned to Paris like criminals with armed soldiers. The silence was like death. Even though we breathed, it was a funeral procession. The Assembly has said that the king had been kidnapped and has already revised the constitution. This ploy was the beginning of the end.
    “The king has believed that Leopold and the Prussian king would intervene. He communicated to his agent, Le Tonnelier, that things would be the better for it. A foreign war, Gerald, should have extinguished the fires of this civil unrest. The Girondist bourgeoisie has proved incapable, and they fear the people who follow Robespierre, the devil. You understand that though war was declared on Austria, our expectations were not met. The military defeats of the past spring have demonstrated the Girondins do not comprehend how it is to conduct a war.
    “Now there is talk of a trial—your king on trial, and I fear for his life. I fear, my trusted Gerald, for all our lives.
    “Now I must beg your help, depend on your loyalty and friendship. I am not able to flee, so I must wait and trust. I beg you, Gerald, to receive that which my messenger brings you. Guard it. Your love and loyalty I must depend upon now that everything is crumbling around me. I have been betrayed, time and time again, but it is sometimes possible to turn the betrayal into advantage.
    “This small portion of what is mine as queen, I entrust to you. It perhaps will be needed to pay for the lives of my children. Even if the bourgeois are successful, they too will fall. Take what is mine, Gerald Lebrun, and guard it for my children, and theirs. The time will come when we again take our rightful place. You must wait for it.”
    Whitney looked down at the words written by a stubborn woman who had plotted and maneuvered herself to her own death. But still, she’d been a woman, a mother, a queen. “She had only a few months to live,” Whitney murmured. “I wonder if she knew.” And it occurred to her that the letter itself belonged safely behind glass in some tidy corner of the Smithsonian. That’s what Lady Smythe-Wright would have felt. That’s why she’d been foolish enough to give it and the rest to Whitaker. Now they were both dead.
    “Doug, do you have any idea just how valuable this is?”
    “That’s just what we’re going to find out, sugar,” he muttered.
    “Stop thinking in dollar signs. I mean culturally, historically.”
    “Yeah, I’m going to buy a boatload of culture.”
    “Contrary to popular belief, one can’t buy culture. Doug, this belongs in a museum.”
    “After I’ve got the treasure, I’ll donate every sheet. I’m going to be needing some tax write-offs.”
    Whitney shook her head and shrugged. First things first, she decided. “What else is there?”
    “Pages from a journal, looks like it was written by this Gerald’s daughter.” He’d read the translated parts, and they were grim. Without a word he handed a page to Whitney. It was dated October 17, 1793 and in the young hand and simple words were a black fear and a confusion that was ageless. The writer had seen her queen executed.
    “She appeared pale and plain, and so old. They brought her in a cart through the streets, like a drab. She revealed no fear as she mounted the steps. Maman has said she was a queen to the end. People crowded around and merchants sold wares as though at a fair. It smelled like animals and flies came in clouds. I have seen other people pulled in carts through the streets, like sheep. Mademoiselle Fontainebleu was among them. Last winter she ate cakes with Maman in the salon.
    “When the blade descended on the queen’s neck, people cheered. Papa wept. Never have I seen him weep before and I could only stand, holding his hand. Seeing his tears I was afraid, more afraid than when I saw the carts or watched the queen. If Papa wept, what would happen to us? That same night we left Paris. I think perhaps I