Rook (4 page)

She relaxed, both from the relief at the lack of weight on her head and Orla’s ministrations. Her room, at least, felt unsullied. She pulled out hairpins one by one while St. Just completed his investigation of her shoes, approved, and returned to his basket.

“Your Banns was tolerable, then?” Orla asked.

“Intolerable, I’m afraid.”

“And Monsieur?”

“My father’s choice of business partner is very handsome, knows it, and does not possess an intelligent thought. And he has some very nasty relatives.”

“Your father or your fiancé?”

“Very funny, Orla.” She felt uncharacteristically close to crying. “He brought one of his cousins to visit me tonight. Would you like to guess who was just downstairs?” She caught sight of Orla’s questioning face in the mirror. “Albert LeBlanc.”

Orla’s fingers paused on the laces. “And he came as a relation, I suppose? Family duty?”

“I think not.” Sophia watched worry press down on Orla’s mouth. “Well, at least now we know why the Hasards haven’t lost their heads to Allemande. Or their business. It’s good to have friends in high places, don’t you think, Orla?”

Orla didn’t answer; she was too busy frowning. Sophia pulled the last pin from her hair and ran a hand through the damp, thick curls, shaking them all out once like a dog. The sight made a little line appear between the paint on her eyebrows. Jennifer Bonnard had been so young when Sophia saw her last, with those wide eyes and that freckled nose. Sophia wouldn’t have dreamed Jennifer would recognize her, dressed in a man’s clothes and with her hair cut like a boy’s. The other Bonnards certainly hadn’t.

“And what else has happened?” Orla asked. St. Just lifted his rust-colored head and whined once from the basket. He knew her moods as well as Orla.

“I think Jennifer Bonnard might have recognized me last night. She … It’s very possible that she knows who I am.” The Bonnards were half a mile away, and LeBlanc had walked right into her house.

“Are they safe?” Orla asked.

“For tonight. Spear is making certain.”

“And where is LeBlanc?”

“He said he was going back to the city, I would guess on the ferry that leaves at highmoon. Tom was watching, and Cartier will follow. We should know where he goes, and when he leaves.” Sophia grimaced. “It’s all quite lovely, isn’t it? A dream come true. Perhaps René and I will send the children to spend their summers.”

Orla ignored the bitter tone. “Well, I suppose you’ve had a relative or two with a bad name, child, if you’re wanting to cast stones.”

“There haven’t been any thieves in the family for two hundred years, Orla.” Sophia rolled her eyes. Three centuries earlier, every Bellamy in the Commonwealth had been a pirate, before they stole enough to turn to more civilized trades. “Or not the bad sort of thief, anyway. So I hardly think that counts.”

“You know best,” said Orla, in a voice that meant the opposite.

Sophia shook her head. Orla really could be too practical. She put a finger beneath the edge of her dressing table and a drawer that had not been there before sprang out from the decorative carving. It disappeared again with a soft click, the ring from her forefinger and the silver key with it. The bodice finally fell away, and Sophia breathed deep.

“Now, then. I’ve left your newspapers on the table and your breeches on the bed,” Orla said. “And you can be shaking the sand out of them yourself this time, if you please. I plan to be in my bed when you come back. Where decent people ought to be by this time of night.”

Being excluded from Orla’s definition of “decent” made Sophia smile in spite of herself. “And what makes you think I’m going down to the beach tonight?”

Orla had a sharp face, a sharp nose, and now a voice to match. “Just what do you think I’ve been up to for the past eighteen years, child? Do you think I don’t know you at all?”

The highmoon was rising above the secluded cove, making a pale, undulating path across the surface of the sea. A dense growth of bushes and salt-stunted trees made the cliff edge hard to find, the narrow strip of sand below almost hidden by overhanging rock and jagged rows of tumbled stones. Over the rolling surf and spray came a faint clang on the wind, steel on steel, and a silver flash that was the glint of metal catching the light. Parry, thrust. Parry and thrust.

“She works on her parry, Benoit,” said René, his Parisian very quiet. He was flat on his stomach, surrounded by the thick branches, holding an eyescope trained on the beach below. Benoit sat beside him, a small man, nondescript, dressed as a servant, elbows balanced on knees. “The room was searched?” René asked.

Benoit nodded. “Very neatly done, nothing out of place. But the thread across the doorway has been broken.”

“The lock was picked?”

“No scratches.”

“Ah. And the hinges oiled before we arrived. That is excellent planning.” He passed the eyescope to Benoit. “Tell me what you think of the brother.”

“He trains her with the arms only, as he should,” Benoit said after a moment. “But the leg, it changes its stance some, I think?”

“Perhaps it pains him?”

“Or pains him not at all. Who can say?”

René took the eyescope and turned it back to the beach, where he watched Sophia expertly relieve her brother of his sword. He smiled.

“I think we should follow Cousin Albert’s advice, Benoit. This Miss Bellamy seems a much more interesting fiancée than I had first thought.”

S
pear
Hammond stepped down out of the landover, looking left and right, making certain there was no one else on the road. A slate-colored sky hung low over the trees, and the wind gusted, tearing at his long coat, air whipping past with the feel of a storm on it. He didn’t like this plan; it was risky, more so than usual. But he also didn’t have a better one. He left young Cartier in the driver’s seat of the landover, holding tight to the nervous horses, and hurried across the A5 lane, approaching a structure that had at one time been called a bungalow. Now it was a ramshackle tumble of stone and scavenged concrete, the roof caved in on one side.

The doorway of the ruin stood black and empty, but when Spear reached it, the tip of a sword appeared from one side of the darkness, just touching his chest. He paused and held out his hand, palm open, showing a single red-tipped feather. The sword lowered, and the face of Ministre Bonnard appeared in the opening, a frightened boy peeking out just behind him.

The Bonnard family was herded quickly into the landover, the door shut, the window curtains closed, and Cartier cracked his whip over the heads of the horses. Rooks cawed from the treetops, protesting the noise. Spear watched the wheels of the landover rattle fast down the lane, toward the turning to the Caledonian Road, where the buildings and fields of the Rathbone farm sprawled out along the banks of a wide river. He shook his head, promising himself again that this would be the last time. He knew he wouldn’t keep that promise. Sophia would only have to ask him again. When the road was empty, he walked away past the bungalow, taking long, fast strides down the A5.

Sophia Bellamy took leisurely strides down the A5, away from the Caledonian Road and the Rathbone farm, picking her way around the massive ruts that were the result of dozens of landovers parading to her Banns the night before. Before the printing presses were taken, most of their friends would have been able to walk to Bellamy House. Now the road was lined with deteriorating bungalows.

Brown leaves blew past as she peered up, gazing at the steel sky beyond the oak trees, one hand holding a straw and ribbon hat on her head. The wind was sharp. She wondered if she could smell a storm, or if the rooks could. They were making an unholy noise. She adjusted the basket on her other arm, and then she paused, seeing what was disturbing the peace of the rookery. There was someone else on the lane. Her hat came off, dangling by the ribbons as she waited for the man’s approach, one hand held near the filigree belt she wore around her waist. The rooks screamed.

“Monsieur LeBlanc,” she said when he stood before her. She made her face look pleasant. “I thought you were sailing back to your city last night.” She’d thought it because Cartier had followed him all the way to the ferry in Canterbury.

LeBlanc bent over her hand, allowing Sophia to study the odd streak of white hair in the natural light. He wore a large signet ring on his smallest finger. “Good day, Miss Bellamy. I had meant it to be so, but while on the boat I inquired of Fate and the Goddess most unexpectedly directed me to stay in the Commonwealth.” Sophia felt one of her eyebrows rise. “Do you walk alone? Is that wise? Where is René?”

Sophia forced a laugh. “Your cousin is likely flat on his back with an aching head, Monsieur. And I often walk here alone. This is my land.”

“Your father’s land. Is that not so?” When she did not answer, LeBlanc said, “I believe I saw Monsieur Bellamy’s landover drive by a few moments ago. You do not take the landover?”

“No.” She kept her smile neutral while her pulse picked up its pace. “It was going to the smith for repairs, I believe. And I like to walk.”

“And where do you walk to, Mademoiselle, when the weather threatens?”

“I’m bringing a basket to one of our neighbors.” She lifted the arm with the basket slightly.

“And which neighbor is this?”

“Mr. Lostchild,” she lied without hesitation. “He’s very old, and one of the few we have left. We like to take care of him.”

“And what do you bring him?”

“Cake. Left over from the Banns.” Sophia tilted her head. “Would you also like to know exactly when I left the house?”

LeBlanc laughed very softly. Sophia hid an involuntary shiver. “You will forgive me for being so inquisitive, Miss Bellamy. It is my nature to ask questions. Would you allow me to walk with you to see this Mr. Lostchild? It would ease my mind if you were not alone.”

Sophia inclined her head, trying to hold an agreeable expression while every muscle in her body rippled with tension. They began walking down the A5 together, Sophia keeping one hand unobtrusively behind her basket, near the filigree belt.

“I am surprised to hear that you bring food to your elderly. Does that not go against your Commonwealth doctrines of self-reliance, Mademoiselle?”

“Only if Mr. Lostchild is liable to become dependent on cake, Monsieur.”

LeBlanc gave her a sidelong glance, as if trying to decide whether she’d meant to be impertinent. She had. “May I say you look very well today, Miss Bellamy. I think I prefer it to your more formal attire.”

He was approving of the ringlets in her hair and the neckline of her shirt, which was significantly higher than her Banns dress. Sophia said, “I take it the fashions of the Commonwealth offend your Allemande tastes? If so, then your cousin must be a puzzle to you.”

“It is true that in the
Cité de Lumière
we do not prefer the new ways.”

“You mean the old ways that have become new again?”

He nodded, acknowledging the reference to his words the night before. “In the city, we do not see the need for excess. We prefer sensible dress and the honest work of the human.”

“And yet machines are the work of humans, aren’t they, Monsieur?”

LeBlanc’s smile was once again indulgent. “Machines take away the means for the poor to earn their bread. And eventually, as it did with the Ancients, dependence on technology takes away even the most basic of skills, like the ability to find one’s own food. That is not something Premier Allemande can condone.”

No, he just condones cutting off the heads of those with the money to fund such technology, Sophia thought. Whether they had ever thought of funding it or not. She wondered just how often Premier Allemande found his own food.

LeBlanc was frowning. “You speak like a technologist, Miss Bellamy, as if you would see the world go back to the weaknesses of the past. Has your father or your brother been teaching you this?”

Sophia gave him a pretty, false smile. “Oh, no, Monsieur. Technologists are not popular here at all. I think the Commonwealth dislikes proponents of machines even more than the Sunken City does.” She watched LeBlanc’s expression smooth back to tranquility.

“I am glad to hear you say so. René has gone rather wild of late, as young men often do, and his mother hopes for a marriage that will tame him. Are you … how do you say it here? Are you ‘up for the job’?”

She laughed again, but did not answer.

“It is a gamble, is it not?” LeBlanc continued. “We hope that you will teach René his responsibilities and bring strong blood to the family, while you hope the Hasard fortune will save the Bellamys from ruin.”

Sophia stopped their stroll and turned to face LeBlanc. Behind him, across an overgrown yard, stood a ruined bungalow with half a roof and an empty front door. “Exactly what do you want to say to me, Monsieur?”

LeBlanc’s smile spread slow across his face. “I would like your help, Miss Bellamy.”

She waited, the hand that was behind her basket on the filigree belt buckle.

“I want information on the man known in my city as the Red Rook.”

Sophia smiled, and then she said, “Are you also looking for landovers that drive by themselves? The Rook is only a story.”

“The Red Rook is not a myth, Mademoiselle. He is a man, and …” He lowered his oily voice. “… I know he is near.”

Sophia blinked. “You interest me. Go on.”

“I know that he has landed two boats within three miles of this estate, boats I believe to have been filled with traitors to Allemande. I know he speaks two languages, for how else can he blend so well into the people of our different cultures? I believe that he is a man of some wealth, or that he is supported by one, so that he can come and go as he pleases. I believe he has a group of men around him that will obey without question. And your father’s estate, Miss Bellamy, must be near where such a man might live on this isolated stretch of coast.”

A small silence followed this speech, interrupted only by the cawing from the high branches of the oak trees. Sophia smiled.

“I believe your imagination has run away with you, Monsieur.” She took a step away, but LeBlanc reached out like a striking snake and grabbed her arm.

“You do not understand me, Miss Bellamy. When I said I wanted information from you, I was not making a request.”

Sophia pulled her arm away and stepped back, the basket now hiding the small knife that had been secreted in the filigree of her belt buckle. She held it loose in her hand. LeBlanc’s smile spread.

“Let me explain to you. Your father is in need of the ten thousand quidden your marriage to a Parisian will bring him. But perhaps you do not know that the Hasard fortune is not at all secure? Premier Allemande does not like such inequalities of wealth in his city. The Hasard money has only remained intact because of his … benevolence.”

Which meant that LeBlanc had made sure it stayed intact. For himself.

“I can ensure that the goodwill of Allemande continues,” said LeBlanc, “but I will wish to receive something in return. Give me the Red Rook, and you can be certain that René will bring your family a marriage fee, and that your father will not see the inside of a debtor’s cell.”

Sophia stood stock-still on the road, wind whistling through the rubble of the empty building, the smooth handle of the knife in her concealed hand. “You would have the fortune of your own family confiscated?”

LeBlanc shrugged. “We have never been close.”

“Monsieur LeBlanc,” she said, “I am very sorry to disappoint you, but I know nothing of this matter. I have nothing to give you. Nothing at all.”

“But I think you do. Or that you very soon will. You will see. You will discover. You will listen to the talk in the kitchen. Women can do these things. Succeed, and you will have your marriage fee. Fail, and you will lose your father and your home. I trust that these instructions need no more explanation?”

When Sophia said nothing, he bowed his head slightly and turned to walk away down the lane.

He was several steps away when Sophia called, “Have you spoken to your cousin about this?” LeBlanc spun slowly back around.

“Do you believe in Luck, Miss Bellamy? I do, most fervently. Luck is the handmaiden of Fate, and I think I will try my luck with you.” He began to walk again down the A5, calling over his shoulder, “You will find me at the Holiday, Mademoiselle. For one week. That is all the time I can spare!”

Sophia watched LeBlanc’s retreating back, wind stirring little tornadoes of dirt and fallen leaves, waiting until the rooks had hushed and the lane was empty again. Only then did she slide the knife back into her belt, its handle part of the buckle’s decoration. The trees behind her rustled, and she turned her head.

“You heard?” she asked as Tom came limping out from the undergrowth.

“Yes,” he replied. “Enough.”

He stood beside her as they both stared down the empty road. “I’m thinking misdirection,” Sophia said quietly. “You?”

“Yes, possibly. But we are going to have to play a very careful game, my sister.”