When Falcons Fall

by C. S. Harris

  And educated, Sebastian reminded himself. Her killer was obviously well educated. Which eliminated not only Reuben Dickie and his brother, Jeb, but also a considerable portion of the village population.

  A glint of sunlight on glass in the grass at Sebastian’s feet caught his attention. Reaching down, he picked up the small laudanum bottle from where it must have fallen when Constable Nash removed Emma’s body. The bottle was too common to tell them anything about the killer. But the fact that it had simply been abandoned here disturbed Sebastian enough that he spent the next half hour crisscrossing the meadow, looking for anything else that might have been missed.

  He found nothing.

  That evening, as the sun slipped toward the western hills and the sky faded from a hard blue to a pink-tinged aquamarine, Hero left Simon with Claire and climbed the lane that wound gently past the ancient Norman church, to the top of the low, round hill that overlooked the village of Ayleswick. The air smelled fresh and clean, a cool breeze rippled through the long grass, and a hawk circled effortlessly overhead.

  At the crest of the hill she came upon the crumbling remains of what looked like a medieval watchtower, the upper reaches of its once-massive sandstone walls now broken and tumbled across the daisy-strewn grass. She sat on a large block still warm from the heat of the dying day and let her gaze rove over the surrounding countryside.

  From here she could see the ruins of the Priory of St. Hilary nestled in a green dale threaded by a sparkling stream. Beyond that stretched the extensive, carefully cultivated park of the vast estate known as Northcott Abbey, its grand Tudor house built by whichever ambitious nobleman had managed to acquire the monastery after the Dissolution. The Grange, home of the young Squire, lay at the base of the hill to the east. Half-timbered except for a single stone tower and still partially encircled by a moat, the Grange was both several centuries older and considerably more modest than the Seatons’ vast estate.

  She had thought those the only two grand houses in the area. Now, as she gazed toward the river, she spotted the brick chimneys of another large house soaring above a clump of trees near the crossroads and closer to the river. Then she realized the chimneys were blackened, the brick walls broken; the house was a ruin.

  Once, the fields surrounding the village would have been owned and worked in common, with common meadows for hay and livestock, and wasteland used by the villagers for collecting everything from furze and turf to berries and nuts. But the enclosure movement that had been under way in fits and starts for centuries had vastly accelerated in the past thirty or forty years. Now she could see only ghosts of the old medieval ridges and furrows, lost mementos of a past long since vanished. And she felt a wave of nostalgia sweep over her, as useless as it was sad.

  The rattle of a dislodged pebble brought Hero’s head around, and she found that she was no longer alone. A boy stood near the entrance to the old watchtower. He looked to be about ten years old, dark haired and handsome beneath the fine layer of fresh dust that coated his face. He wore a brimmed hat, sturdy trousers, and a short coat, all of which were obviously both new and expensive, although the collar of his white shirt was awry and grimy, his stockings were falling down, and a large rent showed in one knee of his trousers. And even if she had not seen Emma Chance’s sketch, Hero would have guessed who he was, for the resemblance to his famous, feared uncle was inescapable.

  “Hullo,” she said with a smile.

  He came forward, leaping gracefully from one fallen stone to the next until he came to a halt some ten feet away. “You’re the Viscountess, aren’t you? The one whose lord is looking into that gentlewoman’s murder?”

  “I am, yes. You’ve heard about that, have you?”

  “I found her.”

  He said it matter-of-factly, as if stumbling upon dead bodies were an everyday occurrence—although she noticed a muscle twitch along the side of his jaw.

  “Ah,” she said. “Then I think I know who you are. Monsieur Charles Bonaparte, yes?”

  He hopped off his stone and landed in a crouch before straightening slowly, his head tilted, his large brown eyes solemn as he regarded her fixedly. “It doesn’t bother you? That he’s my uncle, I mean.” There was no need to specify which he they were talking about.

  “Of course not. Why should it? I hope no one would think to hold me responsible for the actions of all my relatives.” Especially my father, she thought.

  He gave a delighted laugh. “Are they infamous?”

  “Some. It’s inevitable, you know. We all have them.” Some more than others.

  He came to sit on one of the stones beside her, his dangling feet swinging back and forth, his gaze sweeping the skies. There was an alertness, a watchfulness about him that intrigued her.

  She said, “Do you come here often?”

  He nodded toward the peregrine circling overhead, its long, pointed wings blue-black now in the gloaming of the day. “It’s a grand place to see birds at sunset.”

  “You’re interested in birds?”

  “Oh, yes.” He tipped back his head, his expression rapt as he followed the falcon’s soaring flight. “It’s a female, I think. They’re bigger than the males, you know. I’ve read they can go over two hundred miles an hour when they dive. Can you imagine? Two hundred miles an hour!”

  “However did anyone manage to time them?”

  The boy laughed. “I haven’t the slightest idea.” Then he sat forward eagerly. “Look! There she goes.”

  Together they watched as the falcon folded back its tail and wings, its yellow feet tucked up as it launched into its stoop. At first, Hero couldn’t see what it was after. Then she spied a single hapless dove flapping desperately toward the clump of birch on the side of the hill.

  Oh, hurry, hurry, she thought, even though she knew it was already too late.

  The falcon hit the dove in midair, striking its prey with clenched feet and then neatly turning to catch the dove as it tumbled, dead, toward the earth.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” said Napoléon Bonaparte’s precocious nephew. “Although . . .” He hesitated. “I know the peregrine needs to eat, but I can’t help feeling sorry for the dove.”

  They sat together in silence for a moment, contemplating the necessary cruelty of nature.

  Then the boy went very still and nodded carefully toward one of the tower’s crumbling walls, “Look! It’s a pied flycatcher. Did you know you can tell an insectivore by its broad, pointed bill?”

  “You know a lot about birds,” said Hero, watching him with a smile.

  “I want to be an ornithologist when I grow up. I want to travel all over the world and discover new species no one has ever identified before.”

  Hero studied his sun-browned, eager face. It was an endearing and oddly compelling ambition for a boy whose uncle dreamt of his family ruling the world.

  “I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be able to,” she said.

  He pulled a face. “My uncle says princes don’t become ornithologists.”

  “I don’t know about that. Peter the Great of Russia was fascinated by everything from shipbuilding to clock making. And George III was always passionately interested in farming.”

  “Yes. But he went mad,” said Charles Bonaparte.

  “True.”

  A flicker of movement near the stand of birch caught the boy’s attention. She saw his eyes narrow and thought at first he must have spied another bird; then she looked closer and saw the angular line of a top hat silhouetted against the shrubbery.

  “Bah,” said the boy under his breath. “It’s him again.”

  The man’s face was still obscured by shadows cast by the overhead branches, but she could easily discern the fashionable, military-like cut of his coat and his carefully tied snowy white cravat. “Who is it?”

  “He calls himself Hannibal Pierce. He followed us here
from Thorngrove—our house in Worcestershire. He watches us. Mainly he watches my father, but sometimes he watches me. Follows me. Papa says he works for your government.”

  “Was he following you this morning?” asked Hero as the man stepped out of the copse of trees into the fading light.

  “I don’t think so. But I don’t always see him. Sometimes I throw rocks at him and tell him to go away, but Mama says I shouldn’t do that.”

  The man called Hannibal Pierce paused, one hand coming up to adjust his hat. He was making no attempt to keep out of sight or to conceal his interest in his subject. Just quietly waiting.

  Then he turned his head to stare directly at them, and Hero sucked in a quick breath.

  She didn’t say anything. But the boy was watching her now, and Charles Bonaparte was a very observant young man.

  He said, “You know him?”

  “I believe I may have seen him before.” She hesitated, then added, “In London.”

  What she didn’t say was, He works for my father.

  Half an hour later, Hero was in their private parlor at the Blue Boar, a branch of candles at her elbow and Emma Chance’s sketchbook open on the table before her, when Devlin walked in, bringing with him the scent of meadows and mud and country mist.

  “Find what you were looking for?” she asked.

  “No. Not a bloody thing.” He took off his hat and whacked at the leaves and twigs still clinging to his breeches. “What are you studying there?”

  She turned the sketchbook around to face him. “This.”

  He came to lean his outstretched arms on the table, his features intent as he gazed at the portrait of a man wearing a beaver hat and fashionably tied cravat. The face was rugged and big-boned, with a prominent jawline and a long, aquiline nose. Hero had seen the portrait before, when she first glanced at the sketchbook. But she hadn’t thought to associate this sketch with the man she’d occasionally seen in London. Now she realized that either Emma Chance had been an incredibly intuitive portraitist or she’d known the man. He was drawn as if staring at the viewer; yet there was something about his demeanor that struck one as secretive, almost furtive.

  “Who is he?” asked Devlin.

  Hero leaned back in her chair. “His name is Hannibal Pierce and he used to be a captain in the dragoons. He now works for my father—doing the sort of things men like Pierce do for Jarvis.” Jarvis was famous for his network of spies and informants.

  Devlin frowned. “Pierce is here? In Ayleswick?”

  “He is. I saw him. According to young Charles Bonaparte—who is quite the clever and engaging young chap, by the way—he’s here to keep an eye on their family.”

  “Interesting.” Devlin pushed away from the table to walk over to the chest near the door that held glasses and a bottle of Bordeaux. “Although I’m not surprised to hear that Jarvis is keeping an eye on Lucien. He is Napoléon’s little brother, after all.”

  Hero said, “Hannibal Pierce is one of the few people whose portraits Emma Chance didn’t identify by name.”

  Devlin poured himself a glass of wine. “Perhaps she didn’t know it.” He went to stand with one arm resting along the mantel, his gaze on the cold hearth.

  “What?” she asked, watching him.

  He looked over at her. “We keep asking why anyone would want to kill a young widow who came to their small, rural village simply to sketch. But what if her interest in Ayleswick’s charming old buildings and landscape vistas was merely a ruse? What if she was here for a different reason entirely? Something that has to do with Lucien Bonaparte.”

  Hero closed the sketchbook and set it aside. “It fits with what the abigail, Peg Fletcher, told you—that she didn’t think her mistress’s name was actually Emma Chance.”

  “Your father has women working for him, I assume?”

  “He does, yes—although I doubt I’d recognize any of them.” She hesitated, then said, “Of course, she could also have been sent by Napoléon. He must surely have someone here as well, watching his brother.”

  “More than one, I should think. He must be nervous, having a brother under English control.” Napoléon’s popularity, like his rise to power, had always depended on his brilliance as a general. But after two brutal decades of nearly endless war, France was running out of soldiers. The loss of some half a million men in his disastrous invasion of Russia had reduced the Emperor to filling his ranks with schoolboys and old men. And with all of Europe turning against him, it was surely only a matter of time before the Allies reached the frontiers of France itself.

  Hero said, “I have heard . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “There are whispers on the streets of Paris that the only way for Napoléon to save France is to abdicate in favor of his infant son. Some are suggesting the Allies are grooming Lucien to act as the child’s regent.”

  “Good God. Did you get that from Jarvis?”

  Hero smiled. “Not directly.”

  Hero’s mother, Annabelle, Lady Jarvis, had always been considered more pretty and vivacious than clever, even before she suffered a severe apoplectic fit in the wake of her last, disastrous pregnancy. The incident had left her ill and incapacitated and easily dismissed by her husband as an imbecile—which she was not. It had always struck Hero as odd that her father—normally the most wise and insightful of men—had never understood or appreciated the complexities of his own wife.

  Hero said, “If Napoléon has heard the rumors—which I’ve no doubt he has—and if he thinks Lucien is behind them . . .”

  Their gazes met.

  Devlin said, “You’re suggesting Napoléon could have sent Emma Chance here to kill his own brother?”

  “It’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes, it’s possible.” He drained his wine and set the glass aside. “I think I need to have a talk with Captain Hannibal Pierce.”

  Chapter 13

  The taproom of the Blue Boar had changed little from the days when devout pilgrims made the dangerous trek through the wilds of the Welsh Marches to pray at the feet of the priory’s miraculous Virgin. Heavy beams darkened by centuries of smoke supported a low ceiling; oak wainscoting covered time-bowed walls, and patrons jostled one another on crowded benches pulled up to ancient trestle-and-board tables. The air was blue with tobacco smoke and heavy with the malty-sweet scent of ale. Men’s voices and laughter rang loud.

  But at Sebastian’s entry, the room hushed and faces went slack as men turned to stare at him. The conversations started up again almost at once, but voices were noticeably quieter, more circumspect than before.

  After some twenty-four hours in the village, Sebastian recognized many of the Blue Boar’s patrons—burly Constable Nash and sharp-faced Alan the Ratcatcher and some of the other men who’d volunteered for that afternoon’s search along the river. But even without Emma Chance’s sketch, Hannibal Pierce would have been easy enough to identify.

  He stood alone at the counter, a tall, broad-shouldered man in polished Hessians and a well-cut coat that could only have come from the hands of a London tailor. He was half turned away, seemingly focused on his own thoughts and the drink he nursed. But Sebastian knew he was alive to every conversation and interaction, every subtle nuance in the room. It was, after all, the reason Pierce was here.

  Several dozen men’s gazes followed Sebastian’s progress as he crossed the room to Pierce’s side and ordered a brandy. Pierce stiffened but said nothing. Anyone who worked for Jarvis would know who Sebastian was.

  Sebastian rested his forearms on the scarred old countertop. “Tell me about Emma Chance.”

  Pierce paused with his glass halfway to his lips. “What makes you think I know anything about her?”

  “Your portrait is in her sketchbook.”

  Pierce took a slow swallow of his drink, his lips pressing into a tight wet line as he shrugged.
“I’m not surprised; she was drawing everything and everyone around here.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why?”

  Sebastian turned his glass in his hand, the tawny liquid glowing gold in the flickering light. “I would think you’d know. After all, you do observe people for a living.”

  Pierce cast a quick glance at the crowded room behind them and drained his drink. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  Outside, the night was white with swirling mist, the air throbbing with the strange, almost metallic whine of mating frogs. The cool, moist air smelled of manure and warm horseflesh from the nearby stables and peat smoke from the chimneys of the surrounding cottages. An unnatural hush lay over the village, as if those not in the Blue Boar’s taproom were huddled behind closed doors, quiet and afraid.

  “I take it Lady Devlin recognized me this afternoon?” said Pierce as they turned their steps toward the dark bulk of the old Norman church up the lane.

  “You weren’t exactly making an effort to stay out of sight.”

  Pierce twitched one shoulder. “In London—or even someplace like Ludlow—one can be discreet. Not in a village the size of Ayleswick. The Bonapartes know exactly why I’m here. So why play games and attempt to pretend otherwise?”

  “I would think a servant placed within the Bonaparte household would be in a better position to watch them.”

  Pierce hesitated an instant too long before answering, a delay that told Sebastian he was right—that Jarvis had at least one more agent in place, someone posing as a servant. “In some ways, yes,” said Pierce. “But servants’ movements are constrained by the requirements of their duties, are they not?”

  “True.”

  The vicarage loomed beside them out of the fog, its slate roof slick with moisture, its windows dark. Beyond it stretched the churchyard, the aged tombstones ghostly in the mist. Sebastian said, “So what about Emma Chance? Was she sent here from London? Or Paris?”