by Will Thomas
I stood and stretched. Raking stones is not as easy as raking leaves, and it is difficult to get the circles perfect enough to satisfy the Guv. I looked over and saw Rebecca with a look of distaste on her face, waving a hand in front of her.
“What is it?” I called.
“A mosquito,” she answered. “Or a dragonfly. Something keeps buzzing by my ear.”
I turned my head. The little grotto in the corner where the miniature trees are kept is mostly in the shadows. I was looking for something in particular and found it almost immediately: two or three very small rays of light coming from the fence behind her. The kind made by bullets. I cleared my throat and saw Barker turn his head.
“Darling, do me a favor?” I asked casually.
“Of course.”
“Go over and stand inside the standing stones.”
She looked alarmed but immediately crossed the bridge and stepped into the shelter of the trio of stones. I walked along in the other direction, circling the pond and passing our back door. I was walking by the large plate-glass window when it suddenly shivered and fell into bits. Running to where Rebecca stood, I crouched behind a stump. Inside the house, Etienne Dummolard began a tirade in mixed English and French, using words I hoped my wife couldn’t hear.
“What’s happening?” she called.
“Nothing important,” I assured her. “A window broke.”
The gardeners had flattened against the fence by the Moon Gate entrance, but Barker just stood there as if he was convinced no one would dare shoot at him.
The madness of it all was that it was early morning. The sun was shining, birds still sang in the trees, and outside one could hear the milk float trundling by, delivering bottles to the residents of Newington. No one would dare break the spell of a beautiful July morning, would they?
“Sir!” I called. “Have a care!”
He grunted, and as a concession, moved a yard closer to the fence.
“Thomas, I’m frightened,” Rebecca whispered from inside the relative safety of the stones.
“It’s going to be fine.”
“She’s shooting from the bell tower,” Barker called.
“She?” I heard Rebecca ask.
St. Luke’s to the east was not large but it had a bell tower wide enough that someone could stand in it. The rest of the Elephant and Castle district was no more than two stories tall as a rule, our house included. St. Luke’s looked down over all.
“I don’t see anyone in the tower!” I called.
We all went silent. One minute. Perhaps two. Time is relative when one is being shot at. Barker consulted his scarred old turnip watch. Then he crossed the bridge and went inside. The assassin could have been waiting just as we were.
It was my turn. I had to protect Rebecca, even at the expense of my life. I took her hand and crossed the bridge again, guiding her ahead of me. There was a terrible itching between my shoulder blades and I kept remembering Bayles’s head exploding. For a brief second, my life flashed before my eyes. Well, not mine, but my wife’s. A widow twice over. Who would marry her again? Not that I wanted her to marry again. I decided she could remember me fondly and do good works for the rest of her life. I needn’t have bothered worrying. The assassin had abandoned the tower and we stepped safely into the back passage. Mac stood there with his sawn-down shotgun, which would have done little damage at thirty feet, let alone a quarter mile.
We went into the kitchen. Etienne was still cursing in voluble French and was holding a round dish in his hand. The shattering window had caused his soufflé to fall. Glass had landed all over the breakfast table and the floor underneath. It is very expensive to make a sheet of window glazing so large, but Barker is a rich man and we had a glazier on retainer for such emergencies, which had happened enough times that it was less than an emergency.
Etienne ran into the backyard with a copper pan in his hand as if he would volley back any bullet heading his way. It excited Harm, who rushed about the backyard barking to protect his property. Cave canem.
I closed the door. It has a metal bar on the hinge side that can be brought down and locked into a bracket on the opposite wall. We had been too often intruded upon and I had demanded it be put in when I first brought home my bride. I’d have braced it now if Etienne and Harm were not running about the garden like savages.
“Thomas, what happened?” Rebecca asked. I could see the alarm on her face.
“I think you know what just happened,” I said.
“Someone just shot at me,” she said. “Someone tried to kill me.”
“You were shot at, but no one tried to kill you, or you’d be dead,” I reasoned. “Someone wants to frighten you.”
“Someone is succeeding,” she replied. “But why is someone shooting at me? What have I ever done to make someone shoot at me, besides marrying you?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“You have a dangerous occupation, Thomas! More dangerous than anyone’s, I think. A soldier expects to be shot at on the battlefield, but when he comes home he doesn’t expect someone to be shooting at him and his family over the hedgerows.”
“I told you how dangerous my work is before we married,” I said. “In fact, once I even tried to talk you out of it for your safety’s sake.”
We were standing in the narrow passage. Etienne returned with his pan and Harm followed him inside. I pulled Rebecca into the library.
“I thought you were exaggerating about the danger, that you were being overdramatic and romantic,” she said.
“I was warning you, Rebecca. But I never suspected you to be shot at. From St. Luke’s, no less.”
She turned, crossed to the mantelpiece, and grasped it as if reassuring herself that it was real. She stared down at the fan of feathers and dried flowers that adorned the grate in summer. Then she turned back and looked at me.
“Mr. Barker distinctly said ‘she,’” she said carefully, looking at me. “Do you think it was a woman?”
“We’re not certain yet, but that is our current theory.”
“Do you know who it is?” Rebecca asked.
I nodded. “I believe it is the daughter of one of Barker’s sworn enemies, the late Sebastian Nightwine.”
“What is her name?”
“Sofia Ilyanova,” I said.
“A Russian,” she murmured. “I should have realized. Why on earth is she shooting at me now?”
“Nightwine trained her as an assassin. He was a twisted man. I thought she had given it up after he died, but apparently not. Her father had expensive tastes and always required more money. Perhaps she is following in his steps.”
“Wait,” she said, lifting a hand. “Why would you think she had given up her training? Have you spoken to this woman?”
I sighed. It all had to come out now.
“I was shot a couple of years ago, and while I was unconscious, she kidnapped me. She chained me to a bed, dosed me full of morphine, and put some sort of herb concoction on my wound.”
Rebecca stepped forward and I did not like the look in her eyes.
“Why did she do that?” she asked.
I stepped back and nearly fell into a chair. “It’s complicated.”
“Why would an assassin bother to attempt to heal a man she just shot?” she persisted. “That is, unless she fancied him. Did she fancy you, Thomas?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I answered. “She doesn’t think like other people. She’s half mad. Her father ruined her.”
She stopped in thought and stepped over to the window, looking out.
“Come away from the window,” I said. “It’s dangerous.”
“I should say it is, Thomas. A girl who fancies you is shooting at your wife. Why do you suppose she is doing that?”
“I really don’t know,” I said.
“Don’t you? It sounds like jealousy to me.”
“She’s been shooting at me, as well!”
“Yes, to get your attention. To show you how sh
e feels. She went off to wherever she was and when she returned you were married. She was hoping for a reunion, but her hopes were dashed.”
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “We did not have a great amour. She drugged me and put leaves on my chest and then she let me go, or rather, Barker saved me.”
“He saved you?” Rebecca said frostily. “You mean that if he hadn’t you’d still be there right now?”
“Of course not!”
“It seems to me you are in a better position than I. She’s probably the one who shot at you, too. She must hate me.”
“Believe me, Sofia does not love me. No doubt whatever feeling there was has curdled to hate and she is venting her spleen by taking potshots at me.”
She looked up sharply. “You called her ‘Sofia.’ Had the two of you progressed to addressing each other by your first names?”
“At some point, I suppose. I don’t remember. It’s been so long.”
“Were you lovers, Thomas?”
“Rebecca, I assure you we weren’t. I was injured and drugged.”
She put her hands on her hips and she was a terror to behold, all five foot two of her. “Does that mean you might have been if you weren’t injured?”
“No!” I insisted. “She’s just trying to rattle me.”
She stepped forward and stared at me. “What does she look like?”
“Bizarre,” I replied. “She’s very pale and her hair is almost white. She wears kohl to darken her eyelids and brows. Her eyes are almost yellow, rather vulpine looking.”
She stamped her foot. “I’ll be certain to look up the word ‘vulpine’ when I have a moment between flying bullets. What of her figure?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Is she thin, is she stout? Does she have a nice figure compared to me?”
“Rebecca, no one is comparing her figure to yours! You are the one and only girl for me. I love you with all my being. I certainly don’t have any feelings about her, save for anger and repulsion. If she had any for me, I never did anything to encourage her. My god, do you think I would desire an attachment to the daughter of perhaps the worst man I’ve ever met? He exuded menace. Nightwine twisted her, stunted her. He debased her and made her do his bidding.”
“It sounds to me as if you’re defending her,” she remarked.
I moved forward and sat on the edge of my chair. “Rebecca, listen. I’ve done nothing to encourage the girl, then or now. I want nothing to do with her. I loved you then, even before we met again. I love you now. Please stop tormenting yourself. She won’t hurt either one of us. She’s here to kill Nicholas. She’ll succeed or she’ll fail. She’s made her point, that you are vulnerable. Now she’ll move on.”
“Not before she’s spoken with you face-to-face, Thomas,” she said. “If you think otherwise, you don’t understand women at all.”
I sighed and drooped. “I don’t want to understand women, Rebecca. Just one woman, you. She can go jump in the Serpentine for all I care.”
“I don’t like this, Thomas. I don’t like it at all. She has become obsessed with you. No one stalks someone and shoots at them and their family on a whim. Perhaps she hoped you would know it’s her, only you were too thick to understand the message.”
“Too thick?”
“Give me a pistol. I shall go out and shoot her back. No doubt she’s hovering in the area looking for another chance. Will it be flattering to have two women fighting over you?”
“Rebecca,” I said, standing.
She put both hands up, warning me. “I have a headache. I believe I shall lie down. Tell Mr. Barker if he wants to have his bushes trimmed he can get one of his gardeners to do it.”
I watched her leave. What could I say to assure her? Do I follow her? Do I not follow her? This was not simply an argument about men and women. There was an assassin involved.
I fell back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. “Did you get all that, Mac? Or shall I bring Rebecca down again so she can repeat it?”
The door to Mac’s chamber discreetly closed. I stood and looked at Barker’s library. Actually, it was a communal library. Some of the books were mine. I reached for a title on Ceylon, on the second shelf from the bottom on the left. I opened it. There was an envelope in the middle of the book. I opened that as well, and unfolded a letter.
14 May 1886
Dear Thomas,
I am sitting here on the veranda of a quaint little bungalow overlooking the Mahaweli and thinking of you. I hope Mr. Barker has recovered from his ordeal and your lives are no longer turned upside down as they were. I should be sorry, I suppose, for the events I helped to facilitate, but then if it had not happened I should never have met you, and I am glad I did. Kidnapping you from the priory was a whim, but our time together during your recovery may have been the best moments of my life. I have given over my father’s body to a Buddhist monastery for burial and am now free to live as I choose. I have money enough to last until I decide what that life shall entail. Your chastisement of me for the murder of Andrew McClain was the first regret I have ever had for a death at my own hand. I would like to think it was my last, and that I may in time forget the training that was forced upon me. And yet, I understand I am my father’s daughter. I have always liked shiny baubles, and I’m not very good at penurious living. If I return to my old habits, you must share in the blame for not coming to rescue me from it. I should not need to make the only sacrifice. And yet, dear Thomas, you have given me a seed of hope. Perhaps I may live a normal life yet. Certainly, it was what my mother wished and prayed for. Ceylon is so peaceful, and it would be wonderful to live here forever, working with my hands by day and sitting on the veranda at evening’s end, watching the sun go down. I wish you could be here to enjoy it. But don’t worry. I do not expect you.
Sofia
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Barker and I were approaching Craig’s Court the following morning when I heard a grunt of displeasure from my partner’s lips. I looked ahead and saw a man waving at us from the step of our offices.
“It’s Colonel Waverly,” I said. “I thought you’d sent him on his way.”
“So I did, Thomas,” the Guv replied. “It appears he’s not convinced of our seriousness in refusing his offer.”
“He did say he’d give us a few days to consider it, sir. Perhaps Philippa has been politicking. You should be careful or she’ll be speaking to you again.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Waverly cried as we stepped down to the curb. “Hail fellow well met. Have you a minute to spare? The Home Office says you have insinuated yourselves into the tsarevich’s good graces.”
“Such as they are,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Come, Colonel,” the Guv said, motioning him into our chambers. “Would you care for a cigar?”
The remark was not said with enthusiasm.
I was pulled up short. I’d been around Nicholas too much and had been rude. Barker had shown decorum and politeness to a guest in his office. I would make an effort, as well.
“How are you, Colonel?” I asked as we shook hands.
“Never better, Mr. Llewelyn. Good to see you, boy.”
Boy. Lad. There it was again. I suppose I should be flattered. I was eight-and-twenty now, and a married man, but then I was with two fellows whose experiences went far beyond mine. I believe the queen’s equerry did not earn the rank of colonel in the diplomatic corps.
“A good Dunhill is a marvelous thing,” our visitor said. I assumed it was a rhetorical remark.
“What can the agency do for you, Colonel Waverly?” Barker asked. “One does not often receive a visit from a royal equerry thrice in one week.”
Waverly blew out the smoke. “First of all, to encourage you to reconsider and accept your ascension. I understand Baroness Ashleigh was going to mention it to you.”
Barker glanced my way and I pretended to look at a scrape on my polished boots.
“Thank you, no, sir,” he a
nswered. “I’ll accept no medal at this time.”
“And you, young man,” Waverly said, looking at me. “You refuse, as well?”
“I do, sir.”
It was tempting and I thought of Rebecca’s face if I returned that evening with good news, but I still could not accept.
“Very well, I shall press on,” the colonel said, tapping off an inch of ash into the glass ashtray on the Guv’s desk. “I’ve got to say you are more subtle than one would think by your appearance. The notes I have in your file did not mention this. I can only conclude that the authors were not subtle men. Your remark only came to me that night after dinner when I was having a cup of tea by the fire. A single word, sir. You said, ‘I’ll warrant that…’ You want a warrant. That is to say, a royal warrant.”
I smiled to myself. The old duffer had mistaken us again. He was grasping at straws, trying to understand why he had been refused. Then I looked at Barker and realized that it was I who had been mistaken; I who had not been subtle enough to read the signs.
A full half of the facial expressions Cyrus Barker makes are no expression at all, but I had become by default the world’s expert on reading him. He looked as if he were simply sitting in his chair, mildly interested in what the colonel would say, but I knew better. He was like a cat purring to himself.
