He stood, gave a small bow. ‘Your pardon for the intrusion, Mademoiselle. May I suggest that you close and lock the door?’
She stared at him, fear and then – the chin coming up and the eyes hardening – something like defiance. Very charming curls, and very lovely dark eyes under the dark hair. She closed the door, and locked it. ‘Who are you?’ It was a murmur, but hard; fear and defiance to match the expression.
‘I am your guest, Mademoiselle, but may I invite you to sit? The conversation might be more congenial.’
She ignored it. ‘Who are you?’
‘A gentleman traveller abroad, Mademoiselle, with leisure to wonder why a charming and apparently innocent woman, with every advantage, should be so scared.’
‘You make many assumptions in a short sentence.’
‘Your manner throughout your stay has been more than furtive. You are registered as Monsieur Bertin of Versailles, and his niece Mademoiselle Terray. Unfortunately for you, I think I came across the family once; I’m fairly sure that the uncle’s dead, while yours still looks pretty spry, and I know that the niece curdles milk at a goodly distance, while you’re distinctly lovely.’ She felt the colour coming into her cheeks, and it only stiffened her dignity. ‘One of your few public appearances in the last twenty-four hours was – in a sudden show of boldness given the number of people in earshot at that moment – to announce with elaborate clarity your desire that your trunk be stowed in the storeroom because you would be here for a few days at least. I’ve had an odd life, Mademoiselle, not without disreputable moments, and I know the preparations for a backstairs bunk when I see them.’ Her eyes were hard and wide and she gazed at him. ‘Above all, your reaction now. You’re scared of who I might be – you’re scared of who anyone might be – and you don’t risk drawing any attention to yourself. That’s why you haven’t screamed the inn awake, and nor alas have you shown any temptation to take the proper advantage of an Englishman and a closed door.’
Still the chin was high. ‘I maintain my options, Monsieur. Depending on who I find you to be.’
‘Charmante . . . I compliment you, Mademoiselle, for your spirit as well as your curls.’
‘You have a name?’
‘Not tonight, Mademoiselle. And I do not ask yours.’
‘What then?’
‘Merely to assure you, Mademoiselle, that there are two Englishmen in this hotel whom you may trust, and to urge you and your father to call on me if I may be of service.’
It seemed to warm her. He saw it in her face, and the way she breathed in and out more deeply. ‘I thank you for it, Monsieur. There is no – That is to say, at the moment our plans are not clear. But I will . . . ’ – her eyes dropped, and came up again – ‘it would give me pleasure to be able to call on you.’
She let him kiss her hand with genteel courtesy, and her fingers stayed there long enough to suggest that warmth was starting to overcome fear.
The young would-be assassin’s name was de Boeldieu, and though he stopped sobbing soon enough he continued to shiver, so much that Kinnaird wondered if he might actually have a fever as well as the beginnings of a monstrous headache. He straightened the man’s coat, led him to a different inn and bought him a cognac.
He sat in silence, watching the young man, and waited.
The young man stared at the cognac, took a mighty gulp of it, and slowly lifted his head to look at Kinnaird. Then he closed his eyes in some pain – his head, or his memory.
He pulled his shoulders, and then the troubled head, to a poised vertical. ‘I should thank you, sir,’ he said.
It was a good face, Kinnaird thought. Good bones; something left of the leanness of youth. The coat, and the shirt beneath, had once been good too.
‘I hope you’ll forgive an impertinence, sir,’ Kinnaird replied, ‘but you don’t sound grateful.’
A slow, uncomfortable, heavy smile. ‘You have saved a life, and no doubt you deserve credit for it.’
‘Two lives, perhaps,’ Kinnaird said.
‘I’d rather both were extinct than neither.’
Kinnaird considered this. The young man took another mouthful of cognac, and once again pulled himself up.
‘I apologize, sir. You have done a deed of the worthiest intention, and bravely.’ He thought for a moment, then said with greater weight, ‘That swine murdered my father.’
Kinnaird frowned. ‘You don’t seem a family for street brawls.’
‘By the bastard process of their bastard regime he murdered my father. I . . . ’ – again the closed eyes, again the pain – ‘I was not a good son. I swore I would be a better after his death. I am training – there’s a man in the district – I was trained with the sword when younger, but I paid no attention; now I will train like a prodigy.’ He glanced down, clenched and unclenched his hand; another wince, the memory of the clumsy attack with the knife.
He took one long breath, and at the end it threatened to break into a sob again. ‘I have waited for such a chance. Mourned. Waited.’ Kinnaird saw again the figure slumped at the counter. A sharp breath; pain. ‘I failed.’
Kinnaird began to ask him about his family. They talked for hours.
Benjamin slipped back along the corridor alive to every creak of the inn’s wood, to every whisper of air. He was straining to notice movement around him so much that he only half-noticed that his door opened without the key, and by the time he’d fully noticed it he was in and the door was closed behind him and he was looking at the stranger sitting in a chair by his bed.
For a moment the stranger was alert, body poised, watching for his reaction. But Benjamin stayed silent and still, and the stranger picked up a glass of wine from the floor beside him, and took another sip. His eyes stayed on Benjamin.
Benjamin said, ‘Comfortable?’
‘Tolerably, thank’ee.’
Benjamin nodded, and looked carefully around the room from where he stood.
‘You’ll pardon me if I seem over-curious or inhospitable, but who are you, and what the devil are you doing in my bedroom?’
The stranger hesitated before replying. Benjamin took half a step forwards.
‘I’m a man like you: with a knife and the knack to open a lock with it.’
‘You’re English, I think.’ No comment, no denial. ‘And for some reason it amused you to sneak in here while I was sneaking in there.’
‘I wasn’t about to intrude, and I ain’t about to ask any questions. Did she survive the experience?’
‘I’ve a pistol as well as a knife, if you’re planning on getting discourteous.’
‘A pistol, indeed? Among the footpads and philanderers of Évreux you must be a very king.’ Benjamin scowled; considered him. A young man: late twenties? Simply but well dressed. Dark dressed. The cloak was hardly necessary for the weather.
‘It seems I’ve something you want, anyway.’
The stranger sat up. ‘Quite right, Sir Raphael!’ And he smiled and sat back. ‘I want you.’
‘You’ll get more of me than you want, boy, and you’ll be lucky to make it back to Boulogne on a stretcher.’
‘A typically reckless wager on your part, that. If there’s a chance you could restrain your tap-room bravado for five minutes, at least, I’ll – ’
‘Who are you?’
‘The man who’s been pulling your strings the last nine months.’
‘You said what?’
‘Can I please encourage you to sit, Sir Raphael?’ Benjamin did not sit. ‘I have been steering Henry Greene, and he has been steering you.’
‘Hah.’ But Benjamin was listening.
‘In May he appeared to become rather drunk with you – perhaps not an unusual proceeding – and coaxed you into a most amusing bit of sport, didn’t he? You set up as highwaymen for a night, and stopped a coach coming in from Rouen, apparently at random. You and he and your friend Pinsent shared a purse – enough to keep you in port and whist a month at least. Greene didn’t share with you the leathe
r portfolio he’d taken, did he? Said it was nothing, said he’d got rid of it as soon as he could.’ The stranger shook his head at his own words. ‘The contents came back to me, and via me to London. In July you were in the Low Countries. Change of air, bit of sport. Greene subsequently sent me some most interesting observations regarding the state of the fortresses between Dinant and the Channel. On the fourth of September, at Greene’s direction you stirred up a riot around some surveyors in St-Denis. On the night of the sixth you broke into La Force – stout work that was, by the way – to liberate the charming Mademoiselle de Tourzel, and you were back the next night to bring out her mother. I could name another half a dozen such incidents. Some of them you knew were Greene’s idea. Some you probably thought were your own. All were actually mine.’
Benjamin stared at him, refusing to show a reaction. He took a breath, walked to the chest of drawers and poured a glass of wine. Then he kicked a chair into place, and sat.
‘Now, Sir Raphael, you’re too much of a gentleman to believe that you’ve ever accepted payment from Greene for this work. But you’ve accepted his generosity blithe enough, haven’t you? Fruits of his business speculations, and so forth, shared among friends.’
Benjamin took a fat mouthful of wine. ‘So, I repeat: who – or what – are you?’
The stranger smiled mildly. ‘I’m the British Government, Sir Raphael. Or, at least, the only bit of it that’ll ever talk to you.’
Benjamin’s eyes scanned him. ‘You ain’t diplomatic, and you ain’t military.’
‘No. Nor am I the parish clerk, a London waterman, or ever like to get into the House of Lords. I’m a department of the Crown you wouldn’t recognize if you heard the name; and you probably never will at that.’
A slow nod. ‘And you’re here to . . . what? Snoop on the Revolution?’
‘This and that. His Majesty’s Government is naturally concerned to understand what’s happening in France. The threat.’ He smiled. ‘The opportunity.’
‘And that’s got harder since Gower closed the embassy.’
‘Indeed. And sometimes we like to avoid embassies, anyway.’
‘Quite right; the wine was always damned average. And you broke into my room because you got a touch lonely and wanted to hear a familiar acce-’ He caught himself. ‘No . . . ’ Benjamin smiled. ‘No, you’re here for them, aren’t you? My poor hunted neighbours: the old man and that glorious girl. I’ll bet His Majesty’s Government is falling over itself to welcome escaping royos. Think of all the loot they’ll stump up for you.’
‘We will show that in one country, at least, property and the proper order may be respected.’
‘Don’t preach to me about the proper order, boy.’
‘Your speculations about my motives are irrelevant here, and best kept to yourse-’
‘I reckoned they were planning a midnight flit. But it’s smarter than that, ain’t it? You . . . You would be the coachman I saw, shouting about the old man and his sick wife.’ The stranger watched Benjamin’s brain working, faint amusement. ‘And the old man and the sick wife, they’ve . . . what? Disappeared somewhere in town now, I presume.’ He considered the stranger’s face. ‘No . . . No, they don’t even exist, do they? But they will soon, won’t they, when you sneak my neighbours down into the coach and make for the Channel?’
Now the smile was wider. ‘You sound almost impressed, Sir Raphael.’
Benjamin swallowed the scowl. ‘Credit where it’s due. I took you for a messenger; a clerk, an errand-boy. But this is man’s work.’ His mouth twisted. ‘May I offer any assistance?’
The stranger considered him, as if the suggestion were impolite, then shook his head. ‘I thank you no.’ Benjamin waited. Gods, the arrogance of this puppy. ‘My plans will pass well enough, without assistance.’
‘So what do you want, then? Before I kick you down the stairs.’
A sneer on the stranger’s face; and then a moment of doubt as he considered the possibility of this. ‘I want your loyalty,’ he said.
‘You want what?’
‘You understand the meaning of the word?’
‘By all means describe to me, privy-sweep, what your government has ever done for me to expect my loyalty.’
‘It ain’t a contractual arrangement, Benjamin.’
‘Fine by me. Good luck on your trip to the Channel. Hope you don’t get buggered to death by any syphilitic revolutionaries.’
‘You’ve been busy, Benjamin. Every scheme, every outrage – even the ones we don’t arrange – we suspect you. Greene was reported to have been at the Garde-Meuble when the royal jewels disappeared. And when we heard it, we assumed that he had shrewdly recognized their value – ceremonially, politically – and got himself involved. But now there are doubts. Greene turns up dead and rotting. And I ask myself: what if he wasn’t at the Garde-Meuble? What other Englishman might have been involved?’
‘What do you take me for?’
‘Precisely what I know you for. You wish me to list your previous escapades? Chronologically, categorically or geographically?’
Benjamin smiled, grim. ‘Well, ain’t you the smart boy? But if you’re expecting co-operation, you’ve a damned ill manner for it.’
‘There was a time, Sir Raphael, when France must have seemed a jolly place for a gentleman on the lam. All that Continental tit and no questions asked about where your gold sovereigns came from.’ He crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap. ‘But now the sovereigns are running down, and the prices are going up, and after the last couple of weeks even the whores’ll think twice before letting an Englishman lift their petticoats. You got your friend Pinsent out of La Force, and a hell of thing it was too.’ He leaned forwards. ‘Who’ll get you out when it’s your turn? Who’ll save you from the guillotine?’
‘Make your point, damn you.’
‘A man might be starting to think that home ain’t so bad after all. A man might be starting to think of what he might do, to regain enough credit with the authorities that they might overlook certain past . . . indiscretions, and let him slip ashore at Folkestone one dark night.’
Benjamin’s face was bleak. He knew himself hooked; hated it. ‘You have that power?’
The stranger didn’t reply, didn’t even smile. The face glowed, hardened with the arrogant certainty.
Benjamin took a deep breath.
‘I’ll bear it in mind.’
The stranger nodded, considering his face. ‘Do,’ he said, and stood. ‘Royal jewels and royal secrets, Benjamin. A couple of months ago, the stuff of an evening’s sport. Now they’re the stuff of empire.’
‘So?’
‘A man could gain his reputation over them. Or lose his head.’ He lifted the sash window. ‘Think on’t, would you, old fellow?’
By now, every inn in France has one or two of the poorest lads in the district who lurk in the rankest corner of the yard at the most unsociable hours of the clock, desperate to beg a sou for an errand, or just to steal it. You have to have spent a fair bit of time in the inns of France to have recognized the invariability of the arrangement.
Sir Raphael Benjamin had done so. Curiosity kept him awake that night, had him watching from an unlit window in the small hours when the coach appeared at the opened gate to the inn yard. From this vantage point, he saw movement in the darkness of the yard.
Soon, the man calling himself Monsieur Bertin was handing the woman calling herself Mademoiselle Terray up into the coach. Then he stepped in behind her, the coachman lurking and urging speed with murmurs. The door clicked shut, and the coachman began to climb up into the driving position.
From the other side, ‘Mademoiselle!’ A face thrust up into the window and Mademoiselle’s heart thundered in her chest. She felt her father beside her, heard unformed protest starting in his mouth. ‘A coin for a poor man, I beg of you!’ The coach was swaying on its springs as the coachman made it up on top. She heard herself starting to refuse, to refuse everything, to refuse
the idea that they might have been caught at the moment when safety seemed possible at last. Her father’s arm coming past her to push at the head in the window. Then a hand around the back of her neck and she was yanked forwards into the window opening. ‘Or a purse for your pretty neck!’ And something flashed in the gloom and pressed sharp against her throat.
‘What’s happening down there?’ Hoarse whisper. She could only choke. Something like a moan from her father, called out of the nightmare.
‘Throw your money out, or I cut her throat!’ The coachman was straining to look and the coach was swaying again. The robber glanced up, but his knife stayed at her throat. He pulled her head down farther, knife at throat, and ducked closer to the coach so he was shielded from above. ‘Now! Money or her neck!’ She could smell his breath, feel its heat against her face. The old man was reaching for his purse and the coach was swaying wilder.
The knife dropped away, and the robber groaned as his arm was wrenched around. She saw him twisting, the shadow distorting in front of her. She felt the night air fresh against her face. The shadow continued to turn and there was another shadow behind it, and they seemed to be dancing and she knew from their taut corners that they were straining for the knife. Then an arm came high and swooped and the robber went stumbling back, and the second shadow slid forwards and punched again and the man went down and still.
Another face loomed at her out of the night, out of the second shadow. ‘Benjamin, Mademoiselle; at your service always.’ It was said loud enough for the coachman to hear. She recognized him, sighed long in relief, and Benjamin stepped in closer.
His voice was lower, faster; his face was close to hers, so they became a single shadow. ‘When they welcome you to London, insist on meeting the most senior man responsible for your escape. And give him this.’ She gasped: something cold had pressed against her chest, and now he was pushing it down between her breasts. ‘A gift for His Majesty, from the King of France and from Sir Raphael Benjamin. Yes?’
She nodded.
‘Good; thank you. But don’t,’ he added, ‘give him this.’ He pressed forwards and kissed her hard.
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