Rook (32 page)

“Hello, Gerard,” she said, low in his ear.

Renaud slid to the rear of the crowd, where LeBlanc was standing, and whispered in his ear. A dark-skinned woman in a simple high-waisted gown was providing the singing entertainment for the Hasard engagement party, the cityscape twinkling behind her. LeBlanc did not like the woman; she was blocking his view of the moon. He straightened as Renaud finished his whispering.

“Then we can assume the Red Rook has flown, Renaud, and that she has taken my little bird with her.” He laughed softly, though loud enough that a few heads turned, frowning at the interruption. LeBlanc glanced about him once, flipped open the top of his pendant, then shut it after a quick glance. More than halfway to middlemoon.

“It is earlier than I thought. I think I will spend a little more time in my flat, Renaud, at least until the execution bells. I am curiously happy. That slap was very convincing, wasn’t it? And it is Sophia Bellamy’s last night to fly. I will listen to the performance, and enjoy the thought of the Red Rook’s struggles as she tries to find her brother.” He sighed with satisfaction. “All is as Fate has ordained. There is no hurry.”

Enzo sat on the other side of the room, not listening to the singer perform, instead watching the one-sided conversation between LeBlanc and his secretary. He frowned, leaning forward just a little, waiting for an opportunity to leave his chair. He had the sudden feeling that he might be in a hurry.

Gerard could not move from his chair.

“I have no time for negotiations, Gerard. Do we have a deal?”

He couldn’t nod. The sword at his throat did not allow it. “How do I know I can trust you?” he whispered.

Sophia was using the gruff voice of the holy man. “Should you trust the one who puts the people in the prison, Gerard, or the one who breaks them out? I will cut your throat, but LeBlanc will cut you up, piece by tiny piece. How is your finger healing?”

Gerard glanced down at the bandage on his hand. “I will lose my job!”

“You will lose your head. And, frankly, you’re due a career change, Gerard.” The Red Rook waited, and when Gerard didn’t respond she gave him a tiny prick with the sword edge.

“Yes, yes! I will do it!”

She eased the sword away from Gerard’s throat. “Your wife will thank you. Now remember the rules. Clear the prison of gendarmes but for the two I have named, and then you are to unlock the doors. Understood?”

He waited in his chair, shoulders shaking as he breathed, the sword in her hand tickling the place between his shoulder blades. “Are you a man,” he whispered, “or a spirit?”

The Red Rook smiled. “I am neither, Gerard.”

“He knows you are coming.”

She gripped the sword hilt harder, feeling a last tiny something shrivel up inside her. Where had that treacherous little bit of hope been hiding, and why had it existed? LeBlanc would have known she was coming for quite some time now. “I know he does, Gerard. But I am going to outsmart him, and you and your wife will have a new life in Spain. Now stand up. And leave your sword on the desk. Do it!”

He did.

“Call your man and give the orders. Stay behind the desk, keep him in front. Your man will not see me. Do you understand?”

“Claude? Claude!”

A jingling noise indicated a guard coming toward LeBlanc’s door. The gendarme who had cut off Gerard’s fingertip strode into the room, stroking his tiny mustache.

“We have new orders,” Gerard said. “Bring the tunnel leaders to me. One at a time, if you please.”

Sophia glanced out the window from where she was crouched behind Gerard’s desk, the sword tip now at the back of his knee. A round, rising middlemoon was just cresting the edge of the cliffs.

L
ight
that was almost to middlemoon poured through Sophia’s bedroom window before Spear stopped talking. René stood still, inhaling five full breaths before he turned and went to the clothes cupboard, yanking open the doors and ransacking Sophia’s dresses until he found the white underskirt.

Andre frowned, still worrying his tooth. “What is this man talking about, René? What is happening? And if you put that on, I’m telling Émile.”

René didn’t answer. He rifled through the cloth, going still when his fingers slipped through the fresh white rent made by Sophia’s knife, where the firelighter had been.

Benoit opened the door to a soft knock and Enzo slid inside, taking in the scene with a swift glance before he crossed the room to his nephew. “René,” he whispered, “why does LeBlanc think your fiancée is the Red Rook? I thought it was her brother.”

René clutched the cloth in his hand. “He has said so?”

“Yes, to that little viper of a secretary.”

René looked down at the golden carpet, his hand through the cut in the white cloth. Then he turned his face to Spear. Spear was still tied to the chair, defiant, ears intact but with blood flowing from the corner of his mouth.

“You understand that you have killed her,” René said.

No one spoke. Andre and Peter shifted their feet, curious and impatient, while Benoit, who had been inexplicably searching Sophia’s suitcase, suddenly held up a ring with a single pale stone. René threw down the white cloth, walked across the room, and kicked the legs out from under Spear’s chair.

“Oh, really, René,” said Madame Hasard from the doorway. She shut the bedroom door behind her. “Stop being so dramatic. Pick that man up again and we will discuss what is to be done.”

“Yes,” René replied, glaring down at Spear lying sideways on the floor, jaw clenched so tight he could hardly speak. “Yes, pick him up, Uncle Andre. And someone hand him a sword.”

“René! I …”

“Shut up, Maman!” He threw off his jacket while Spear was cut loose from the chair, yanking off his cravat and tossing it to the floor.

“Great Death, René,” said Peter at the sight of his neck. “Who tried to strangle you?”

“That,” René said, eyes on Spear, “would be his fault, I think.”

Spear just smiled as he got to his feet, wiping the blood from his mouth onto his sleeve, swinging some feeling back into his hands. “Not me.” He took the sword Andre handed him, sizing it up. “But I wish it had been.”

“Men,” muttered Madame Hasard, though none of the men present paid any attention to her. “You cannot have a proper duel in a bedchamber. It is ridiculous.”

“I will be happy,” Spear continued, “to slice you to pieces, Hasard. But I want you to know I won’t wait. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

René’s grin lurked as he lifted his sword. “I also have an appointment, Monsieur.”

“But it is certainly worth a few moments of my time,” Spear continued, “to carve up any man who lifts a hand against Sophia Bellamy.”

“How much we have in common.”

Spear brought up his blade and they watched each other, blue gaze on blue gaze, one of ice and one that was fire. René struck first and Spear blocked with a clang of metal.

Gerard walked the subterranean passage, keys clinking, the heavy locks clanging as they were turned. Light from the ever-rising moon poured down the drains from a prison yard that was empty of everyone, even his guards. He was not whistling this time, or searching for the right door. He was unlocking them all. Silence spread from hole to hole as the people inside tried to understand what was happening. There would never be a promotion, Gerard thought, but it certainly was a fine night for an execution. His.

One brave prisoner finally pushed open her door.

Sophia found the door to prison hole number 522 deep within the Tombs and thrust it open, scattering the rats inside, panting from her run and from the stench. The prison was a maze, the numbers nonsensical, and it always took some time to stop smelling the tunnels; she’d never yet been able to stop smelling a cell.

But there were no prisoners in here. This hole was being used as a storage room, for distributing the little food that LeBlanc chose to dole out. Sacks of potatoes, a few evidently rotting, sat beside the door, a water cask and buckets in the corner, and an unusual number of barrels of the hard, almost bread-like
pain plat
. Most of them, Sophia knew, did not contain
pain plat
. They were full of her father’s Bellamy fire.

She set the lantern far away from the barrels and drew the cord with the hanging firelighter over her neck. She was surprised to find the casks still here, but since René was the one who was supposed to set the firelighter—the task he had so carefully made sure was his—she supposed LeBlanc thought there was no danger. Or maybe he wanted to study the powder’s uses for Allemande. Another very good reason for blowing it all up.

The noise of prisoners being released was coming to her ears, and the cries of those who did not yet know if they would join them. Time to go. She scanned the dim, dank room. Would René find the firelighter gone, and try to come in time to turn it off? She was certain he would. And she had no intention of making it easy for him to find.

Sophia turned the pointing finger to middlemoon, or just a little before, the time she hoped it was now. She’d told René to set it for dawn, so she turned the wheel to the full, silver circle of highmoon. They should be away by then, the prison yard still empty before the execution that was not going to happen, and that would give René the least amount of time to find the firelighter and turn it off again.

She pulled out the knob. When the moon reached its height, the Tombs would explode into chunks of rock and wicked dust, and LeBlanc would be explaining the loss of a prison to Allemande.

Or maybe it would be just a little before.

The entertainment was over, the low hum of conversation resuming. LeBlanc settled down on the settee, Renaud standing, as ever, just a few paces behind. LeBlanc leaned back, taking in the view of his city outside the curving windows. Almost middlemoon. The gates would be opening soon for the Festival of Fate, a few carefully chosen leaders of the mob given the addresses of those that still required removal from the Upper City. Quick work, and for what would have otherwise taken him weeks of paperwork for Allemande. He smiled, studying the windows, mentally measuring them for new hangings.

The guests were also watching the moon. They seemed reluctant to go, even if the couple they had come for had just publicly fought and now disappeared, perfectly content to drink and listen to music while the gendarmes guarded the street entrances downstairs. But there was a bubble of isolation around the settee, an aura of something unsavory that kept even Allemande’s allies at a distance. Except for Émile. Émile made himself at home in the chair opposite, handing LeBlanc a glass of wine that had just been delivered by Benoit.

“Do you play games, Albert?” Émile asked.

LeBlanc’s pale eyes flattened just a bit as he accepted the glass. “I believe that would depend on the game, Émile. What sort do you have in mind?”

“Games of strategy. Chance. You are a student of luck, are you not?”

“Luck is the handmaiden of Fate, Émile. There is no ‘chance.’ ”

“So you do not play games?”

“Strategy is for implementing the will of the Goddess, not discovering it.”

“Tell me,” said Émile, “how do you determine the will of Fate? How does she make her wishes known to you?”

“Why, one only has to ask,” said LeBlanc, as if he were sniffing out a convert. “Just this middlesun, I was uneasy in my mind. A decision weighed on me. And so I did the proper honorifics, asked my question of Fate, cast the die, and received my answer.”

“And what was your answer?” Émile asked, sipping his own wine.

“That my timing was imperfect. That highmoon was the proper time for certain festivities. Isn’t it fascinating, Émile? Fate reached out her finger and tipped the world into its proper position.” LeBlanc’s smile was smug as he drank. He sat back, the pendant dangling against his chest from its silken cord.

“Fascinating,” Émile agreed, glancing at how much LeBlanc had swallowed. His eyes roved through the mass of people that were milling about the flat, unwilling to leave. He could not see Enzo.