The village church of Saint-Mère smelled of damp wool and old incense.
Rain hammered against the stained glass, drowning out the murmurs of the congregation.
I wasn't there in person. I was in Paris. But I saw the scene clearly through the report on my desk.
"Read it again," I said.
Robespierre adjusted his spectacles. The rain outside my office window matched the rain in the report.
"The Official entered the church at 9:00 AM," Robespierre read. "He was accompanied by two National Guardsmen. He approached the pulpit."
I closed my eyes. I could imagine the silence. The tension.
Saint-Mère, Normandy (Sunday Morning)
Father Pierre gripped the wooden lectern. His knuckles were white.
Below him, fifty peasants sat in the pews. They looked scared. They looked at the soldiers standing by the door, muskets grounded but loaded.
The Government Official, a man named Citizen Leblanc, stepped into the nave. He wore a tricolor sash over his coat. He didn't take off his hat.
"Father Pierre," Leblanc announced. His voice echoed off the stone walls.
"I am in the middle of Mass, Citizen," the priest said softly.
"The Mass is suspended," Leblanc said. He pulled a document from his coat. "By order of the Administrator and the National Assembly."
He walked up the aisle. The peasants shrank away from him as if he were carrying the plague.
"The Civil Constitution of the Clergy requires an oath," Leblanc said, stopping at the altar rail. "Do you swear loyalty to the Constitution, the State, and the Law?"
Father Pierre looked at the crucifix hanging above the altar. Then he looked at the official.
"I swear loyalty to God," the priest said. "And to His Vicar in Rome."
"The Pope is a foreign prince," Leblanc recited, bored. "He does not pay your salary. The State does."
"Then the State can keep its coin," Father Pierre said. "I will not serve two masters."
Leblanc sighed. He had done this in ten villages today. He was tired.
"Very well," Leblanc said. "Hand over the keys."
"The keys?"
"To the building. This church is state property. If you are not a state employee, you are trespassing."
The congregation gasped. A woman in the front row began to weep.
Father Pierre trembled. "You would evict God from His house?"
"God is welcome to stay," Leblanc said, holding out his hand. "But you are leaving."
Slowly, painfully, Father Pierre reached into his cassock. He pulled out a heavy iron ring of keys. He dropped them into Leblanc's hand. The clink sounded like a gavel striking.
"Get out," Leblanc said.
Father Pierre walked down the aisle. He didn't look at his flock. He walked out into the rain.
The soldiers locked the doors behind him.
The Tuileries, Paris
"The village is quiet," Robespierre finished. "No riots. The stomach is stronger than the soul."
I opened my eyes.
"For now," I said.
I looked at the map of France pinned to my wall. It was covered in pins.
Blue pins for Constitutional Priests—those who took the oath.
Red pins for Refractory Priests—those who refused.
"What are the numbers?" I asked.
"Fifty-five percent took the oath," Robespierre said. "Mostly in the cities. In the countryside... it is worse. Brittany and the Vendée are almost entirely Red."
"Forty-five percent," I muttered. "That's an army."
"An invisible army," Robespierre noted. "The Refractory Priests are holding Mass in barns. In forests. They are telling the peasants that the government is the Antichrist."
"Let them preach in barns," I said. "It's cold in barns. Let's see how loyal the flock is when winter comes."
"There is something else," Robespierre said. He pulled another paper from his folder. "We intercepted a letter. From Rome."
I took it. It was written in cipher.
"We cracked it?"
"It wasn't hard. A simple substitution code. The Vatican is behind the times."
I read the translation.
To the Faithful in Lyon:
The Shepherd is coming. Prepare the flock. The wolves will be hunted.
— C.R.
"C.R.," I whispered. "Cardinal Ruffo."
"The Warrior Cardinal," Robespierre said. "He is organizing. He isn't just sending prayers, Alex. He's sending gold. Gunpowder. Spies."
"He's building an insurgency," I said. "Using the priests as a spy network."
I stood up and paced the room. My heart fluttered—a quick, erratic beat. Thump-thump-pause.
I ignored it.
"We need our own eyes," I said. "If he uses the confessional to gather intelligence, we need to be in the confessional."
"I have agents," Robespierre said.
"You have auditors," I corrected. "I need predators."
I walked to the door and opened it.
"Send for Joseph Fouché."
Robespierre stiffened. "Fouché? The man is a snake. He would sell his own mother for a secret."
"Exactly," I said. "I don't need a saint. I need a sinner."
The Ministry of Police
Joseph Fouché did not look like a monster. He looked like a math teacher. Thin, pale, with eyes that never seemed to blink.
He sat across from me, his hands folded on the table.
"You want to create a Secret Police," Fouché stated. It wasn't a question.
"I want to know what is said in the barns," I said. "I want to know which priests are praying and which are plotting."
"Information has a price, Citizen Administrator."
"I'll pay it," I said. "But I want results. Cardinal Ruffo is building a network. Dismantle it."
Fouché smiled. It was a cold, thin expression.
"I will not only dismantle it," Fouché whispered. "I will make them fear the shadow of their own steeples."
The Paris Stock Exchange (La Bourse)
While I fought a war for the soul of France, the heart of my new empire was beating elsewhere.
The Bourse.
It was a temple to the new god: Mammon.
The building was new. Neoclassical columns. Marble floors. A vaulted ceiling that echoed with the shouts of traders.
A delivery wagon rattled over the cobblestones outside. The driver pulled his cap low over his eyes.
"Delivery for the Telegraph Office," he grunted to the guard.
"What is it?" the guard asked, poking the crate with his bayonet.
"Parts. Gears. Optical lenses."
The guard waved him through.
The driver carried the crate into the basement. It was heavy.
He set it down behind a stack of unused ledgers.
He pried the lid open.
Inside, nestled in straw, was not a telegraph part.
It was a device.
A brass cylinder. Glass vials filled with a thick, oily liquid.
And a clock.
But not a normal clock. It had wires connected to the vials. Gears that turned with a soft, menacing rhythm.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The driver reached into his pocket. He pulled out a pocket watch.
The hands on his watch were moving backward.
"The timeline is fraying," the Watchmaker whispered.
He wound the timer on the bomb.
He set it for 9:00 AM. The Opening Bell.
"Reset," he said.
He turned and walked out of the basement, leaving the ticking death behind him.
Above him, on the trading floor, men were shouting prices.
"Francs are up! Gold is down!"
"Buy! Buy! Buy!"
They were trading futures.
They didn't know that their future had just been set to expire in twelve hours.
Back at the Tuileries
I felt a sudden chill.
I looked at the clock on my mantelpiece.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Why did that sound so loud tonight?
"Are you listening, Alex?" Robespierre asked.
"What?" I snapped out of my reverie.
"I said, Fouché will need a budget. Unauthorized funds."
"Give it to him," I said, rubbing my chest. The ache was dull, constant.
"We are fighting a war on two fronts, Maximilien. The Pope in the south. The Luddites in the north."
"And the economy in the middle," Robespierre added.
"The economy is fine," I said confidently. "The Stock Exchange opens tomorrow with the new railway bonds. It will be the biggest trading day in history."
I looked out the window at the lights of Paris.
"Confidence is high. The system is stable."
I didn't hear the ticking.
I didn't know that the system was sitting on top of a bomb designed by a man who shouldn't exist.
"Go home, Maximilien," I said. "Tomorrow is a big day."
"Yes," Robespierre said, gathering his papers. "Tomorrow we will see if the market holds."
He left.
I sat alone in the dark.
I pressed my hand to my heart.
Thump-thump-pause.
It was failing. I knew it. But I had to hold on. Just a little longer.
I had to finish the audit.
I closed my eyes.
And somewhere in the city, the Watchmaker smiled.