Tara Across Time--NaNoWriMo

Chapter Three

After half the night of love making, Captain Renault stood the next morning over Tara.  Uncovering her naked body, he said, "I just wanted to see something incredible before escorting prisoners to the Place de la Bastille."

"Who are the prisoners?" Tara said.

"They have Louis XVII, who'd be King were we not a republic now."

"Love," Tara said, "There's a little bit of the kingdom in you, isn't there?" Tara covered her breasts. "I have seen it on your face every time you have to escort an aristocrat up the scaffolding to the Guillotine."

"I cannot speak treason, it could get back to Robespierre."

"You love France?"

"More than my life, Tara."

"Would you allow an innocent boy to lose his head? His very life?

He paused, looking around. Then back to Tara. "Okay, you must keep this quiet.  I'm in touch with a Monsieur Flaubert to spirit Louis from Calais to Santo Domingo, where a sea captain will change his name and spirit him to New York."

"He will be John J. Audubon?" Tara froze after that anachronistic slip.

"Did Robespierre by stealth send you to me?" He drew his sword and held it out.

"No, I must explain. I was not born in the America of the Colonies. But two hundred twenty-five years later."

Tara said, "Order our carriage, let me explain along the way."

Tara spoke with softness so the driver would not hear.  Not until she showed him her smart phone with solar collector for power did he begin to believe her wild story. Then Tara allowed him to read about the soon-to-come Napoleonic Wars. With difficulty he understood her.

"Why are you here during the French Revolution, Tara?"

"The Visitors sent me here to do what is right. They didn't say I couldn't have a benefactor, but that's not what I think they expect." She whispered, "Saving an innocent boy is right, love."

"What do we do?"

"You can get orders to receive arms from America?"

"We can, Tara." He thought. "I can arrange my wealth to be secretly transferred to Lloyds of London, then draw on it in America where I will seek asylum. Will you be with me there, Tara?"

"You have a safe house in Calais, I know you do."

"You have me right, Tara. I have secretly resisted the Revolution because it has turned brutal."  He looked see if his driver was listening. "The Assembly sentences innocent people to the Guillotine. I have to get the boy King out of France."

At the prison Captain Renault arrived in a different carriage with secret compartment where he and Tara managed to bribe the guard who would then substitute a dead body for the boy King.  Once in carriage, Captain Renault and Tara placed the boy in the secret compartment where he lay without making noise all the way to Calais.

The Revolutionary Guards at the entrance to Paris halted their carriage. It frightened them that they took longer than usual to clear them. However, the Captain's orders bore Robespierre's seal. The skeptical guards had no further reason to delay them.

Soon they were driving down the bumpy, narrow dirt road to the coast.  At Calais there were guards at the city gates and at the port. Their ship, the "Bon Homme Richard," was waiting for the high tide while they spirited the young Louie on board.

"Let us enjoy a loving good-by, Tara, in event we are separated or killed."

The Captain paid for a night together at an inn by the harbor. They made passionate love for hours. The next morning they were finishing a breakfast of bread, wine, and cheese when there were rumors of the Revolutionary Guards looking for the Dauphin.

"We have to go, love," he said.

So Tara said, "You board the ship. The guards may detain me but not kill me. You need the time to sail out of port and out of cannon range. It would take hours for them to dispatch a ship to chase you."

So Tara remained behind where she was taken by two guards. She looked to the ship and back. "They need more time," she thought to herself.

She lowered her top, revealing enough of her breasts to see traces of her nipples. "Capture these, Citizens."

The guards couldn't help themselves and followed her to her tavern's room. There she allowed them to take turns having sex with her. She looked at her watch. The Dauphin needed more time.

"Tired, my handsome Citizens?"

They each slept with her again.

The next day the guards were taking her back to Paris in their rented rented cart.

At the Assembly of Citizens she stood while they read the charges and called witnesses.

"Guilty!" The Assembly proclaimed. She was taken to the prison. There she received decent treatment because Captain Renault had arranged to pay for decent food. No one asked questions because Tara was scheduled to be executed in a week.

Her wagon creaked along the cobblestoned streets as the mobs jeered and threw stones and spoiled fruit at her.

She screamed.

The guards looked back.

Tara was gone.