Rook (18 page)

“It is not nothing. Tell me. I am suffering.”

Nothing made René Hasard suffer more than information he could not have. It was a good thing he wasn’t aware of just how much she denied him. She let him fidget for another few moments before she said, “It’s just that I was nearly killed by an old rope once, that’s all.”

“And this makes you smile?”

“Yes.” She bit her lip, smiling even more. She knew she needed to be careful, that she was vulnerable, that keeping René at arm’s length and focused only on the business at hand was the best thing for her. But one glance at the grin in the corner of his mouth and she succumbed.

“Tom stole a rope once. He was going to bring it back, of course, but he wanted to measure exactly how far the Sunken City had sunk, to know how high the cliffs were for our map.”

“You went to the city every summer?”

“Yes. Tom and Spear and I. Father took us. Since I was too small to remember.”

“And you often climbed down into the Lower City?”

“Nearly every day. I had … there were people there, Mémé Annette and her son Justin, Maggie and the baby, they were like family to me. I think I was all of eight years old before I realized that Mémé Annette wasn’t actually my grandmother. I used to help her sell oatcakes on Blackpot Street.”

“Oatcakes,” René repeated. “On Blackpot Street?”

“Oh, yes. I thought it was great fun. Do you know the market there?”

“I do.”

She glanced at him again from the corner of her eye, a little surprised, though perhaps she shouldn’t have been. Smugglers might very well know the Blackpot market. René had stopped drying and was just watching her talk, all his energy focused on her face.

“So the three of us climbed the fence, snuck past the guards at the Seine Gate, where there is a little path down to the waterfall …”

“Yes, I know the place.”

“And Tom dropped his rope over, only it was a cool night, and there was so much fog coming off the river we couldn’t see if the rope had reached the bottom. So Tom decided to climb down and find out. Spear and I were to let out more rope if he tugged once, and pull him back up when he tugged twice. Or Spear was supposed to, anyway, since he was so much bigger …”

“How old were you?”

“Nine, maybe. I think Tom was ten, Spear eleven. But Tom never tugged the rope. And I was so jealous that he’d gotten to do the measuring down the cliff …”

“You went down after him,” René said.

“We had a bet on how far it was, and I was afraid he might cheat. But when I got near the bottom I found out why Tom hadn’t tugged. He was talking to a woman, telling her the most ridiculous story about night fishing.”

“In the Seine?”

“I said it was stupid. But then I realized the rope above my head was fraying, untwisting bit by bit. I tried to climb back up above the weak place, but the rope snapped, and if I hadn’t landed on Tom’s head, I probably would have broken mine. As it was, I left us in a pile on the ground.”

“And what did Tom do?” René asked, grinning.

“He picked me up, dusted me off, and apologized beautifully to the woman. And then, being the helpful sister I was, and because no sane person would believe the story he’d been telling, I told the woman that we were actually in secret training for the circus.”

René laughed, which made her smile. “Who was she?”

“No idea. But she was Lower City, and she must have known we were Upper. Tom’s hair wasn’t cut. She could have called the guards, though I don’t suppose they threw children into the prison in those days. Instead she told us to climb back up and practice more or we’d be the worst circus act the Sunken City had ever seen. Tom gave me such a smack when we got back to the top.”

René laughed again, and Sophia laughed with him. It felt good to laugh. But the feeling died away as she rinsed another plate. What would she do without Tom? He should be here right now, at the kitchen table, correcting the details she’d gotten wrong, telling her when she was being an idiot. And when she wasn’t.

René said, “Sometimes, Mademoiselle, it is a torture to me, trying to decide what is inside your head. And then at other times, I can see just what you are thinking.” His voice lowered. “Should I tell you what you are thinking now?”

She rinsed the same plate again, suddenly aware of proximity, of the arm next to hers, the smell of cedar wood and that little beat of pulse at the base of his neck, just at the level of her eyes, close enough to touch. He’d moved up to daughter-stealing before she’d realized. No. She really didn’t want him to tell her what she was thinking.

“I will say, then, and you will tell me if I am wrong. You fear that this plan will fail, that this will be the first time the Red Rook does not come out of the Sunken City with her quarry, and that this is the one time you cannot live with such a failure. But that is not so difficult to see, is it? Who would not fear that in your place? But I think I will tell you what you truly fear.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was even softer. “You fear what will happen if your plan succeeds.”

She stood still, her fingers dripping. She didn’t dare look up.

“If your plan succeeds, will you come back to a father imprisoned and a home lost and a life that is uncertain? Or no? Will there be a marriage fee, and a husband instead? And if there is, what will you do with them, this husband you did not ask for, a brother who cannot provide, and a father whose mind is not whole?”

Sophia let her wild hair fall about her cheeks where it would hide her face, her body paralyzed. How could he know that? These were things she hardly admitted to herself.

“But even if none of that were so,” he went on, “if there was no husband, your father restored, and home secure, if Allemande fell on his own sword and the Tombs were empty and the Razor torn down tomorrow—if you could have everything you have ever allowed yourself to wish for, you would still lose, would you not? Because you would go back to being Sophia Bellamy before the Red Rook, and I think you fear that just as much as failure. Now tell me I am wrong.”

She could not tell him he was wrong. And it was mortifying. He reached up a finger and hooked a long curl, moving it away from her face. She felt her gaze pulled upward. René’s hair was russet and mahogany in the window sun, his expression serious, the blue eyes heated and focused and intent on hers.

“Do you know why I know these things you do not say? It is because you are like me. That is why I can see. I know what it is to live as someone else, where others can never know you.” He was making free with her hair on one side now, letting the strands spiral around his fingers while he ripped secrets straight from her soul. “But have you never thought that there could be a life you would want after the Rook?”

She should go. Some part of her mind knew this, was telling her to put an end to it, that she’d been caught in his spell unawares, that she was allowing what had happened in the sanctuary to happen again. But she couldn’t speak. She breathed in as his hand moved to her neck, thumb running along her jaw, tilting her chin to steady her gaze.

“Shall I say more truth to you? You have never thought there would be a life you would want, because you think all that is possible is only what you have seen. That anything sweet is like the honey in a trap.”

The universe had narrowed to the inches around Spear’s kitchen sink, to the lack of space that was between them. He brought his other hand up to her neck, cradling her head so she could look nowhere else. Her pulse was racing, the feel of his hands, the path of his thumb along her cheek negating her will to move.

“But what if Sophia and the Rook did not have to be two separate people, but could be one and the same?” His gaze looked hard into hers. “You are a risk taker, Sophia Bellamy, and I wonder, if you believed anything I am saying to you now, what would you risk for such a life?”

If she believed. Hadn’t she entered into this arrangement with René Hasard knowing she could not believe? That he could bewitch her like this if he wished? That she could not afford to be taken in just because she was aching to know what would have happened if she’d turned her head that day in the sanctuary, what would happen right now if she leaned forward just the slightest bit?

“But you do not believe me, do you?” he whispered. “Do you?”

Her lips parted, but she had no words. And then he stepped back a pace, dropping his hands, the smile in the corner of his mouth now bitter.

“Or do you choose not to believe, Sophia Bellamy?”

And she fled. Out the back door and into the muddy yard, crisp air hitting her panting lungs, clearing away the cobwebs of her trance. She looked left past the well, at the small barn and the loo and various sheds, and then to her right at the harvested cornfield, brown and crackling with stiff, dead stalks. The hill to the view was straight ahead, but she rejected all of these and instead turned and took hold of the house stones.

She pulled herself up, the flinty rock rough and still cold from the night, finding purchase for her side-turned feet as she grabbed, clawed, opposite leg, opposite arm, pushing her body away from the ground. She felt the ache in her muscles, so pampered the past nine days, and a protest from the wound in her side. She welcomed it. Again and again she stretched up, and then there was roof thatch in her hand. She got a leg over, rolled, and found herself lying flat on the roof, heat pouring down on her from a bright blue sky. She put a hand to her stitches, but she was whole.

What had just happened? What had she nearly allowed to happen? Her skin was tingling, pulse still racing, and not from her climb. She closed her eyes, letting the sun burn the lids. When she was a child she’d seen molten glass once, a glowing, fiery mass that looked soft and moldable like clay, but amazingly translucent, lit from within, so alluring that she’d ached to touch it even though she knew it would burn. And that was exactly how she’d been thinking of René Hasard, something tempting but off-limits for her own good. But what if he did not burn? He’d just said truth to her, more truth than she’d known what to do with. She touched her neck where his hands had been. Or what if he was just that good at the game?

Then she was up on her elbows. The kitchen door had been kicked hard from the inside, bouncing back into the wall stones she’d just climbed. She craned her neck and saw René striding across the farmyard, untucked shirt billowing with his speed. He went straight into the toolshed, coming out again with a curved, rather wicked-looking scythe, his face hard and white as a chalk cliff. When he got to the cornfield he tossed the blade aside, stripped off his shirt, wadded it up and threw it on the ground, picked up the scythe, and took a mighty swing. Down came the cornstalks in a scythe-wide swath. Once more, and again, each new swing of his arm ending in a little Parisian
uff
. The muscles of his back stood out with the effort, smooth movements repeating over and over until he was shining with sweat, red hair blowing wild in the wind. It was true. He was beautiful.

Sophia lay back down on the roof thatch, listening to René cut the remnants of Spear’s cornfield.
Swish, uff! Swish, uff!
What if he could be believed? What if she could believe him? She’d already pulled out those scales again, this time weighing her future against two-thirds of the souls in the Tombs. That was done. An easy choice. But did she really know what she was giving up? And what if, somehow, she managed to come out again?

She closed her eyes, feeling a finger move her hair, a thumb brush the skin along the edge of her jaw. No matter how many times she told herself that René Hasard was a liar, the simple truth was that she desperately wanted him not to be.

“T
om?”
Jennifer called.

Tom brought his knees up to his chest, huddling for warmth, though he knew his leg was not going to like that for long. The cold down here had a way of seeping into the bones, making them ache. “I’m here.”

“Are you afraid to die?”

“No,” he said. “But I hate the idea of not living.” He’d had Jennifer talking for a long time. He liked it when she talked. It kept her from terror and kept him sane. When she was quiet, he was consumed by the irrational fear that someone had spirited her away without him knowing.

“Tom,” she said again. Tom concentrated on her voice in the dark. He could hear the change in it. “I …” She paused a long time. “I told LeBlanc that it was you. The day they cut me. I knew it was Sophie, but I told them it was you. I didn’t want them to catch her, and I needed … I needed them to stop.”

Tom sighed. He knew. But Jennifer hadn’t done any different than he had, had she? “You did the right thing,” he said. When she didn’t answer he said, “It was right, Jen.”

“But in here …” Tom leaned nearer the door, straining to hear. “When LeBlanc came, I told him it was Sophie. Because I couldn’t … make myself live through that. Not again.”

Tom lifted his hands, wrists heavy with the shackles, and rubbed his bearded cheeks. He’d thought as much. Then it was certain that LeBlanc knew the identity of the Red Rook. And he would be a fool not to know that the Red Rook was coming for her brother.

“Tom, I’m sorry …”

“Jennifer, listen to me. None of this is your fault. I don’t want you to think about it again. Not for another moment.” He didn’t know if he would have risked her anger and resentment if the circumstances were reversed. It would be too much of a loss. “And if you don’t stop thinking about it, I’ll be forced to sing you a song.”

The darkness of the Tombs pressed down. “Oh, no,” Jennifer said, her voice small. “Please, Tom. Anything but that.”

They laughed, a weird, incongruent sound in that place. But if LeBlanc knew Sophie was coming, Tom thought, then what was there to prevent him from taking her now? From her bed in Bellamy House, or the Channel ferry, or an Upper City street? What would keep him from just killing her on the spot? He couldn’t think of a thing. And LeBlanc seemed to have allies in the Commonwealth that none of them had been aware of. His sister had enemies on every side, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Now close your eyes, Jennifer,” he said slowly, “and imagine you’re on the balcony of your flat. The tiles are cold, but you’ve got a blanket wrapped around you. You’re camping out, like you and Sophie did when you were little. The sky is black, and you can hear the water of the Seine falling down the cliffs. And I’ve brought you a light, so you won’t be frightened …”

LeBlanc lit his last candle and stepped back, admiring his work. He stood inside a giant circle of fire, dozens of tiny, blazing flames that lit the polished floor of his private rooms, sending bright, flickering light onto the black-painted walls. LeBlanc’s flat, connected by a door to his office, looked like the rooms of a holy man, or a hermit. Serviceable, plain, unadorned. But he knew Fate was soon to offer him better.

His new black and white robes rustled pleasantly as he moved to a table in the center of the circle, draped with a cloth that had been stitched together, half white, half black. It matched the streak in his hair. A coal fire burned in a small brass brazier, and swinging above this, suspended on a tripod, hung a burnished pot filled with water. LeBlanc looked up as Renaud entered.

“You have brought it, Renaud?” The secretary approached and presented a small vial of rust-brown liquid over the candle flames. “Good. Very good. The blood of the brother should be perfectly adequate.”

He set the vial beside the pot. Tiny wisps of steam were beginning to curl into the air. Then he clicked the latch of a plastic box, not reformed, but Ancient, smoothly ribbed and shining black. Inside was a row of four small plastic bottles, also Ancient, two partially filled with a dark liquid, two with white, all fitted with a heavy wax seal. LeBlanc chose one of each color and lifted them to the light. Formed into the plastic of each bottle was the word
HILTON.

“This is a dear sacrifice, but I think it is needed, Renaud. When to kill the Red Rook is a decision that lies heavy. But what will be, will be, and therefore has already been. The Goddess will show the path.”

He set the bottles to one side, picked up the vial Renaud had brought, and began pouring Tom’s coagulated blood into the pot that was just beginning to boil. And then the door to LeBlanc’s office creaked open slowly. LeBlanc paused, paralyzed, still in the act of pouring Tom’s blood, while Renaud slipped farther into his corner. Premier Allemande stood looking at them, blinking at the dozens of candles dripping wax onto the floor.

“There you are, Albert,” said Allemande, voice as soft as LeBlanc’s. He was a small man, unassuming, in trousers that were just the slightest bit too long for him. He turned and waved a hand, instructing his escort to wait before he shut the door on them.

“You did not come to the viewing box tonight, Albert. And the last one was so lively, too. She gave us quite a show.” He indulged in a muted chuckle as he removed his spectacles, cleaning them with a handkerchief. The viewing box had been built with such proximity to the Razor that occasionally there was spatter. “We can only hope your Red Rook will be half so entertaining,” he continued. “I am disappointed you missed it. Very disappointed. Or perhaps you have lost interest in the justice of the city, Albert?”

“I apologize, Premier,” LeBlanc said, steadying himself against the table. LeBlanc’s reply was just as soft as Allemande’s, only his voice betrayed a tinge of fear. “Forgoing something enjoyable is often a sacrifice required by Fate. The greater and more personal the sacrifice, the more the Goddess will attend us.”

“While I am of the opinion that official executions should be attended by my ministres,” stated Allemande, holding up his spectacles to the candlelight, “especially my Ministre of Security.”

LeBlanc bowed slightly, a move of both apology and deference.

“I take it you have an important question to ask of your Goddess?”

LeBlanc glanced once at Renaud, and then at the boiling pot, the edges now ringed with brownish foam. If Allemande discovered that the man rotting somewhere deep below them was not the Red Rook, then it would be the Ministre of Security’s head that the officials of the city would enjoy watching roll across the scaffold. He could always allow Tom Bellamy to die as the Red Rook, of course, have the sister quietly killed, and Allemande need never be the wiser. Sophia Bellamy could be dead by the next dusk if he chose. But would that displease the Goddess? Or no? Fate had not removed Luck from him, and he would not choose the death of the Red Rook without consulting her. Who he would not be consulting was Allemande. He set down the vial.

“Yes, Premier. I do have a question for the Goddess.”

“Well, by all means,” Allemande replied. “Let’s hear it, then. I am always in need of amusement.”

Renaud stiffened in the corner where he had retreated, watching his master carefully, but LeBlanc only smiled, a creeping crack that widened across the bottom half of his face. He stood a little taller. What did he have to fear from an unbeliever like Allemande? Was he not fated to become all that Allemande was, and more? Was he not marked by the sign of the Goddess in his own hair?

“I will be happy to, Premier. Perhaps you would allow me to show you.” LeBlanc picked up the Ancient plastic bottles as Renaud seated Allemande in a chair. “Yes,” LeBlanc said, holding up the bottle of white liquid, “and no.” He raised the bottle of black. “Life and death. Those are the answers of Fate. One of these answers she will give us, and show us what is to be.”

He looked to the air, where the steam from the pot was rising. “Goddess, is it your will that I kill now, while the Red Rook is in my hand? Or do I wait, and grant life until the proper time, that the Rook may become a sacrifice to you?”

He waited, bottles raised to the Goddess, then dropped them simultaneously into the bubbling pot.

Sophia paused on a small stone bridge, water churning and splashing beneath her feet, rushing on its way to the sea cliffs. She thought she’d heard a faint rustle in the trees to her left, but the noise did not come again. She looked skyward. The north lights were muted tonight, faint undulating waves of pale green and a bit of red, the sky behind them spangled with the last of the stars. That’s what Tom had always said: spangled with stars. The stars, he said, were from Before. She wondered if Tom had gotten her note, if he knew she was coming for him. If he didn’t, then he didn’t know his sister at all. But she’d wanted to make sure he hadn’t forgotten to hope, like their father. Their father had forgotten everything but despair.

She’d sat for a long time on the floor of Bellamy’s room, coming up through the trapdoor beneath his rug—Bellamy House was full of such oddities—watching his back as he gazed out the black and empty window. It had been very quiet, only Nancy snoring faintly in the other room. She thought her father had been asleep as well, but it was hard to tell. Nancy said there wasn’t much difference either way.

But strangely enough, she’d felt better sitting there, huddled on the floor. Her father was ill in his mind and becoming so in his body. Seeing that had made it easier to let go of words that reflected nothing more than sickness and grief. She decided not to remember them. And so instead she’d thought about what René Hasard had said in Spear’s kitchen, just as she’d thought about it while he swung his scythe in the cornfield until there were no more stalks. The way she’d thought about it when he sat down in the kitchen, doggedly finishing the invitations, while she made her escape from the roof and into the toolshed, where she’d spent the entire span of highsun sharpening her sword and every one of her knives. After that she’d shut herself up in her room, sewing her picklocks into the seams of her gloves, not thinking about what René Hasard had said at all. Instead she thought about what he’d done: his slightly calloused hands on her hair and her neck, the way his thumb had moved, as if he liked the feel of her. She paid zero attention to Orla’s shaking head and knowing looks.

And when she finally had encountered him, coming up the stairs as she was going down, she hadn’t been able to think about anything at all; her eyes had dropped immediately to her feet. “I owe you an apology, Miss Bellamy” was all he’d said before moving past her up the stairs. Thinking about that had kept her restless and kicking the furniture until, when the much too observant Orla had finally fallen asleep in her own room, Sophia had thrown open the window, dropped out a rope, and taken off to Bellamy House.

The water beneath her feet was noisy, the rookery sleeping and quiet, the north lights fading almost to nothing. There were no portents, signs, or balls of fiery machinery shooting across the sky, either. Mostly there was the wind, which smelled just a little like the sea. And winter. Sophia pulled her coat closed over the filigree belt she wore, just in case, and glanced once at the trees on her left.