‘It is just ahead,’ said Langlois eventually, breaking the stillness. He nodded towards the horizon, where the road bent and rose. ‘There,’ he muttered as we approached. His voice had grown suddenly tighter and more anxious. ‘The wall is hidden beneath a growth of vines. Three trees stand before it.’

Indeed, I looked along the road and spied three sets of skeletal branches intertwined in a wintery dance.

‘Hurry . . . but do not run to it . . .’ he warned as we had started towards the spot. My heart quickened with my steps. I could hear it thumping in my head.

We were no more than fifty yards from the spot when all at once the sound of a horse and rider approached us from behind.

‘Citizens!’ came a cry from over our shoulders.

We immediately halted our steps.

I cannot say why I thought it so, but upon first hearing his call there seemed something familiar in it. My alarm was then instantly increased when Langlois muttered to me from the side of his mouth, ‘A soldier.

‘Good afternoon, captain,’ said the porter.

There was a silence and then the most terrific of fears gripped me: Captain Lestrange, the man who had bid me sing for him at the Vaugirard barrier. We could not have been more than a short distance from that place. I felt every limb stiffen with dread.

‘Citizen,’ said he again, ‘in which direction do you go?’

Langlois swallowed hard. I kept my head bowed, my heart pounding. The more I inclined my ear to the cadence and pitch of this man’s voice, the more certain I grew that he was Lestrange. I began to shake.

‘We are for Auteuil, captain.’

There was a thoughtful pause before he responded.

‘Do you live close by, citizen?’

‘Not far, captain.’

‘Then, certainly, citizen, you would know of an inn near to here, the Lyon d’Or? I am from Nantes and know nothing of these parts. I fear I have taken the wrong road.’

I heard Langlois draw a deep breath into his lungs. ‘No, citizen, you are on the correct road, it is but a mile from here, if you continue ahead.’

The guard saluted him and it seemed for a moment that he was about to kick his horse, when he paused.

‘Citizeness?’ said he, attempting to peer beneath my hat.

I did not move, but raised my eyes enough to see his boot, his breeches and the bottom of the cape he wore about his shoulders.

Then all at once a face appeared before me. He had leaned to the side and tipped his head so he might peep under the brim of my hat. A queue of mouse-brown hair fell against his shoulder, and then the pock-marked boy of no more than eighteen winked at me. He let out a roar of a laugh as he charged away at a gallop.