Rook (16 page)

“Yes. I do have a ship.”

“And do you have two ships?”

“Yes, I do.” The grin had stretched to both corners before he added, “Mademoiselle.”

“Sophie?”

She looked around to Spear. He was leaning back on the door frame, holding a mug gone cold, blue shirt tucked into darker blue pants, not one hair straying from its fellows. He would try to stop her if he knew what she was going to do. He probably should. The whole idea was ludicrous.

“You’re sure this is what you want?” he asked.

“No, I’m not sure it’s what I want. But it’s what I think I should do. And, yes, I am absolutely certain about that.” There would be two plans: the one everyone knew, and the one known only to her. Spear was still gazing down into his mug, wrinkles in the marble of his forehead.

“Are you with me, Spear?” she asked. When he didn’t answer immediately she said, “You don’t have to be. Hasn’t that always been our bargain? Your choice, either way, and no blame.”

Spear’s face showed her nothing. “I’ve always been with you, Sophie. You know that.”

She hid her breath of relief. For a moment she’d been afraid Spear wasn’t coming. And she was going to need him; she’d never been to the Sunken City without him.

“Then we should plan to be in the city in something like twelve days. Orla, would you mind popping up to my room and getting Tom’s maps, since you won’t let me on the stairs?” Sophia was already sitting carefully at the low table, moving her knife and mangled boot and swiping away the bits of leather heel, purpose making her movements swift. “Spear, why don’t you come and sit down. And you, Monsieur,” she said, “what can you tell me about smuggling?”

Sophia did not have to force herself to remain at Spear’s table until highsun; she was still there at dusk, and long after nethermoon, sometimes with Orla, sometimes Benoit, always with René and Spear. Spear’s table was littered with sketches and lists, mugs and plates, but there was an acknowledged plan now, simple yet elegant. And there was an unacknowledged plan, too. Perhaps just as elegant, Sophia thought, but not at all simple.

René was stretched full length on the floor, hair undone, one arm behind his head, spinning a coin on the wooden planks, or sometimes tossing it to the air and catching it on an open palm. Sophia had been schooling herself not to notice this, even though his coin had been landing with Allemande’s face up ever since the moon set.

Spear rubbed his chin, voice scratchy and hair miraculously in place. “I don’t know, Sophie,” he was saying, “I’m just not sure it will work.”

The coin glinted and landed face up. “It will work, Mademoiselle,” René said.

“How are you doing that?” she asked him, curiosity too piqued to stop herself.

“The coin is weighted,” Spear replied for him.

René sat up on an elbow. “That is true. The spin is easy, but there is skill in the toss. I will show you sometime. If you wish.”

Sophia sensed danger and looked quickly back to the maps in front of her. “Well, I think the plan is brilliant, Spear. And, anyway, you’re forgetting our biggest advantage.”

Spear sighed. “And what is that?”

She smiled as she blew out their candle. “If LeBlanc thinks he has the Red Rook, then he won’t have any reason to expect that the Red Rook is coming.”

LeBlanc blew out his candle. Dawn was filtering through the tall stone windows, throwing yellow light on the plain, polished floor of his office. There was a light knock at his door. “Come,” he said softly.

Renaud ushered in an elderly Parisian in a neat black suit, the scent of the Tombs still hanging faintly about his clothes. LeBlanc stood, his politeness oily.

“Dr. Johannes,” he said. “Thank you for coming so early. Please, sit.” He gestured to Renaud, who brought a wooden chair before LeBlanc’s desk, the same chair Gerard had used ten days earlier.

“I’ll admit it was a surprise to be asked,” replied the doctor, who had woken to four gendarmes breaking down his door. He sat stiffly, mouth in a straight line. LeBlanc smoothed the long, black, white-collared robes he now wore instead of a jacket, positioning them so as not to wrinkle when he slid into place behind the desk.

“And what is your opinion of the prisoner?”

“A little dehydrated, nothing that access to water would not correct, and crawling with vermin, which is no different than the others. There is significant bruising, and three ribs on the right side are broken. I have wrapped them, and he will need to be still and left strictly alone if he is to walk upright, especially with the leg.”

“And what about the leg, Doctor?”

“A bad break that did not set well. Nearly two years ago, according to him, and that seems right. Still gives him a good deal of pain, I am sure.”

LeBlanc’s fingers tapped the desk. “So in your opinion, Dr. Johannes, could a man with a leg such as the prisoner’s perform … certain tasks? Sword fighting, for instance? Jumping, running, or climbing a wall?”

“There is nothing wrong with the arms, but anything that involves agile movement of the legs is in my opinion impossible. The limb will not bear the weight.”

“Could the prisoner walk without the limp? Even for a short distance?”

“No. The leg is physically shorter now, after the injury.”

“And the more recent cut? It was made by a sword?”

“If so, it was a small and dull one. There is no infection, though how that’s so I cannot say. But the edges of the skin are ragged, not clean. I’d say a knife. Serrated.”

“Like a table knife.”

“Just so. I have wrapped that wound as well.”

LeBlanc glanced toward the back of the room, where Renaud stood along the wall, his long face impassive, then at the doctor, grim and assured of his facts, hands on the bag of medical tools in his lap. LeBlanc smiled.

“Thank you, Doctor. Just one more question, to appease a little curiosity of mine. Some of these tasks we were discussing, could the more … arduous of them, could they be performed by a woman?”

“They could be done by anyone with the proper strength.”

“Even sword fighting, Doctor?”

“Size and muscular development make a difference, of course, but both the male and the female respond to training, Monsieur.”

“And the mental training that goes with such skills? The agility of the mind?”

“No difference under the sun.”

“I see. And others in your profession, would they say the same?”

The doctor, whose brows had gone up at the odd line of questioning, frowned now, confused. “Of course they would. Why shouldn’t they? The idea that women are not fit for certain tasks is based on cultural expectations, not the science of fact. It is an old-fashioned belief coming from the less civilized centuries after the Great Death, and has nothing to do with medicine. Any man of science knows that.”

“Oh, that is unlucky,” LeBlanc said. He waved a hand toward Renaud, who moved quietly forward. “Thank you, Doctor, for giving me so much to think on. Renaud will take care of you. And, Renaud, when you are done, I will need another message sent to our informant in the Commonwealth.”

LeBlanc drummed his fingers on the desk, contemplating one or two things he would have to say in his letter while Renaud came up behind the wooden chair and, with quick and silent efficiency, slit the doctor’s throat.

“N
ow
, Mademoiselle,” René said, adjusting the angle of her body carefully as they stood in front of the sitting-room fire, the slanting rays of nethersun glowing through the filmy windows. He was in his linen shirtsleeves, the plain jacket tossed onto a chair, hair tied. “Hit with an open palm, and aim for here.”

He put her fingers against the lower edge of his cheek. She’d wondered what that would feel like. It prickled.

“Do not hold back,” he instructed. “There must be no doubt that we are having a fight of passion. That will be essential. Unless you are pulling on your wound?”

She shook her head. She was going to slap him with her right and her cut was on the left, but overall she thought this situation particularly unjust. What she wouldn’t have given to do this one week ago, and René was ruining it with sheer willingness.

“Hit him hard, Sophie,” Spear said, chuckling as he watched from the couch. Even Benoit had come to see, a man-shaped outline easy to overlook in the corner.

René waited, almost daring her, while she was trying to ignore the little pulse beating at the base of his throat. It was beating rather fast. She took a deep breath, pulled her arm back, and slapped. Her skin on his made a solid, but faint, smack.

“Oh, no,” René said, shaking his head. “I do not think you meant that.”

“And he would know when a woman slaps him and means it, Sophie, don’t you think?” said Spear, still chuckling. He put a hand to his shirt pocket, as if checking to see that something was still there.

René was looking over his shoulder toward the couch, an amused half smile on his face, and something about the expression put Sophia in mind of their Banns, and Lauren Rathbone, and that gaggle of women he had so expertly flirted with.

This time her slap turned his head.

“Ah,” René said after a moment, hand to his cheek. “That was much better.”

He rubbed his face, where a patch of skin was beginning to show the shape of her hand. Sophia would have sworn the blue fire in his eyes was pleased. She almost smiled before she could stop herself.

“This will be about the timing, I think,” he said. “You should come across the room, pause, step one, two, three, and hit. Let’s do that, Mademoiselle, without the hitting …”

They did it without, and then they did it with, adding dialogue, working for the actions to be automatic, for René to turn slightly just in time to deflect the worst of the blow, until Benoit could tell them the level of preparation was not obvious. René would accept no one else’s opinion on that subject. She was afraid she must be bruising his face, but René’s enthusiasm, she discovered, was a force of nature, not to be diminished or controlled. They kept at it.

Spear seemed to forget that there was a rehearsal going on, and it made him bold. He flattered her, shielded her when it wasn’t needed, sat too close when she let René’s cheek have a rest. “Staking a claim,” that had been Orla’s single comment in her ear. Sophia did not want to be “staked.” And René was aware of it, too. He kept giving her that knowing look, as he had that first night in the farmhouse, which made him much easier to hit. Especially when she called up the image of the way he had smiled at Lauren Rathbone’s smudgy eyes.

The candles had burned low before Benoit finally gave his blessing. Spear banked the fire, thoughtful, while Sophia trudged up the stairs, tired and with a hand on her side, Orla behind her. Benoit and René were both out of sight. Spear allowed himself a smile. Things were going well. Sophie seemed to like the farm, she’d sat with him on the couch, and she’d been slapping the stuffing out of Hasard. Since dusk. And he knew Sophia Bellamy well enough to see when there was anger on her face. She’d never been that good of an actress. He had nothing to fear from Hasard. The knowledge lifted a weight from his mind. Spear put the poker back in place, still smiling, checked his shirt pocket once more for the rustle of paper, then headed toward the kitchen to blow out the lamps.

Hasard was just entering the narrow passage from the kitchen door, head down and preoccupied, barreling down the hall to stop only just short of a collision. They circled each other, Hasard’s hands going up in mock apology before they both moved on in their opposite directions. Spear smiled again. The man’s left cheek had been a very satisfactory reddish-purple.

René grinned as he walked away down the kitchen passage, rubbing his sore cheek, slipping the folded piece of paper from Spear Hammond’s shirt pocket into his own.

“What do you think, Benoit?” René’s Parisian was very soft as he knelt at the little table in his room, where Benoit was taking advantage of a strong lamp. Benoit ran the end of the eyescope over the now unfolded piece of paper, then held it up, peering at the light shining through.

“It is an official document of the Sunken City,” Benoit said. “Not a forgery, I would say.”

“And why would Hammond be carrying this particular document with him, do you think?”

Benoit didn’t answer. René had not expected him to.

“And where did he get it, Benoit? Had Tom Bellamy already acquired it, or did he get it from LeBlanc, perhaps?”

But René did not expect an answer to this, either. He scratched his stubbled chin, frowning once as he grazed his bruised cheek.

“She slapped you very thoroughly,” commented Benoit. “What did you do to her?”

“Teased her. About Hammond. But only a little. She is an interesting girl, do you not agree?” Benoit just shook his head, and René picked up the document. “I suggest we give it back, and see where he leads us. Do you agree to that?”

“I do,” Benoit said, and soon after, when Spear left his bedroom to investigate a noise at the front door, there was a folded piece of paper on the floor of his bedroom, just where it might have fallen from a shirt’s front pocket.

Tom glanced down and saw a piece of paper in the dirt beside him. He got a hand on top of it, only just clinking his chains, studying the two gendarmes that had come to his prison hole with Gerard. Which of them had dropped the paper while he’d been dazzled by the lantern light?

The younger gendarme of the two was carrying the water bucket, which he managed to bump and slosh onto Gerard’s shoes. Tom hated to see any of the water go, but they would have left it just out of his reach anyway. While Gerard fussed and the three of them argued, Tom unfolded the paper beneath his fingers and his eyes darted down. Very small, in red ink, was the shape of a feather.

Tom wiggled the paper into the dirt beneath his hand, stiffening as the younger gendarme approached. He’d drawn his knife. Gerard and the other gendarme, a man with a small, brown mustache, waited by the door. The young man squatted beside Tom, his back to the others.

“A pinprick, that is all,” he whispered.

“No talking to the prisoner!” Gerard snapped.

The young man winked, pushed up Tom’s filthy sleeve, and made a quick stab into his forearm with the knife tip. Then he held a small glass vial to the wound, squeezing and pushing a little to help the blood run into it.

They left him in the dark soon after. But Tom, having quickly learned to memorize the position of his water bucket, had seen the young gendarme nudge it to just within his reach. He listened for the metal door to bang shut from far above, and as soon as it did he called, “Jennifer?”

His voice echoed in the dark, oppressive quiet. A primitive sort of panic swelled in his chest.

“Jennifer! Are you there?”

“I’m here, Tom.” Her voice came through the little barred window of her door into his, and it was shaking. “Are they gone?”

“Yes, they’re gone.” He didn’t mention his bleeding arm; he was just now beginning to notice the sting of it. He found the tiny piece of paper and made for the water, drinking straight from the bucket, heart beating hard against his cracked ribs.

Sophie was coming. That’s what the paper meant. Part of him wished she wouldn’t, but surely he’d known she would. He wondered what she’d done about René Hasard, who seemed to be operating under his own flag, and if Spear had done what Tom had asked right before LeBlanc dragged him out of Bellamy House: to find out who had denounced the Bonnards. It could have been anyone, he supposed. But he wondered …

And why had LeBlanc sent in a doctor, and taken a vial of his blood, as Jennifer said he’d taken hers before? The doctor must have seen his limitations, which meant LeBlanc must know them now, too. LeBlanc had to at least suspect that he didn’t have the Red Rook. But then who did he think the Rook was? And why wasn’t LeBlanc down here right now, dragging information from his screaming mouth? So far their favorite way to torment him was to make Jennifer scream, which was very effective; he’d bit his lip bloody and pulled the hair from his scalp just trying to endure it. But no one had ever asked him any questions.

“Jennifer?”

“Yes, Tom?”

“Tell me about the time you went to Finland.”

She began to talk, hesitant at first, eventually losing herself in the story.

Now that he’d thought it through, it was clear that if LeBlanc had sent his cousin to them, then he must have been looking at the Bellamy coast long before the night that Sophie emptied the Bonnards’ prison cell. And someone must have given LeBlanc a reason to do so. It was this unseen enemy that frightened him. He hoped that his sister was being smart. That she was trusting no one.