The Confectioner's Tale by Laura Madeleine Page B

here when she’s done.’
    Gui tore himself away and dashed for the barricade. This time, Nicolas didn’t follow.
    On the right bank, the flooding was worse. Water bubbled from the ground in a noxious spew, widening through the streets until it was knee deep. The city was deserted. Those who did venture forth were drenched and desperate, carrying sandbags and bundles of planks. Roads that were ordinarily packed with carriages and motor cars were empty. In a street lined with shops, looters had taken advantage of the chaos; almost every window had been smashed. Gui waded past the destruction.
    The way was endless. In one alley he encountered a woman and a child, clinging to a set of metal stairs. Their basement home was underwater. Soon afterward, he met a small team of volunteers in a boat and directed them back, hoping that the woman would still be there.
    By the time he neared the Boulevard des Italiens, the shivering in his muscles had become a deep, constant shudder. The walk had taken hours. His trousers were sodden, the water in the streets sometimes reaching his thigh. He was exhausted from wading, tripping and wading again, but he pushed on. Nicolas’s words plagued him at first, but soon he found that it was easier to forget reasons and just keep moving. A few streets away from the pâtisserie he heard a commotion, sounds of a struggle: breaking wood, a woman’s scream. He quickened his pace as best he could.
    Ahead was a walkway, hastily constructed between buildings like a bridge. A figure in black, a girl, was half in the water where the planks had collapsed. Around her were three men. Two grappled with her arms, a third ripped something from her hand.
    ‘Hey!’ Gui yelled, ploughing forward. ‘Let her go!’
    He launched himself at one of the assailants, grasping a handful of threadbare shirt. The thief writhed free like a cat to wallow after his companions into the shadows. The fading light showed their faces: they were boys, thin and hungry, none of them more than fourteen.
    The woman clung to the planks, spluttering out the filthy water.
    ‘Guillaume,’ coughed Mademoiselle Clermont. He could not explain how, but he had known it would be her.
    ‘What happened here? Are you all right?’ he asked, trying to help her onto the walkway.
    ‘We are flooded.’ She scrabbled for purchase on the sodden wood. ‘The whole ground floor, the kitchens. If the water rises any higher the damage will be dreadful. I came out to find the task force, but then I fell and they—’
    She yelped in pain as he tried to lift her from the water, and clutched at his shoulders.
    ‘The boards collapsed,’ she said, teeth clenched. ‘I believe my leg is stuck, but I cannot feel, everything is numb.’
    He glanced down into the murky liquid, boiling up from the sewers.
    ‘Can you wiggle it free?’
    She tried and shook her head. He could see the panic in her eyes, already bright with tears. Gently he took her hands from his shoulders and placed them on the walkway before her.
    ‘Don’t let go of this plank,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to go under.’
    The cold air was nothing compared to the freezing water that closed around his scalp. Clumsily, he groped out for her legs. At any other time his heart would have raced as he brushed her calf through the floating petticoat, but all he wanted to do was get her free.
    He reached towards her ankle and found leather. Her boot was wedged tightly between two broken planks. His numb fingers felt like sausages as he tried to loosen the laces. It took a second breath of air and a third before they finally gave. Her foot squirmed free like a fish between his hands.
    On the surface, he coughed muck from his nose and mouth.
    ‘Do you think you can walk at all?’ he croaked.
    She leaned on her foot experimentally and her face flashed white with pain. Her lips had started to turn blue as she shook her head. He attempted to lift her, but they both nearly collapsed. Her waterlogged clothes