A French Harlequin. Born Jacques Borchardt in the 1950s. After his prostitute mother was stabbed to death and his father was arrested for arson of a Left Bank café, Jacques went to live with an uncle in Marseilles. He learned about his Harlequin ancestors during this period and "picked up the sword" at the age of twenty. The young Frenchman named himself after a tree with heart-shaped leaves. Linden was a close associate of the German-born Harlequin, Thorn, and saved Thorn's life after the disastrous North-West Frontier Incident in Pakistan.