The Black Hawk

by Joanna Bourne

  “There’s a Frenchman.” Luke ran his hands over Justine’s ribs, feeling them expand with the air. “Frenchman. Can’t remember his name. Wrote a monograph. Lay her down.” He put the heels of his hands below her breasts and pressed down all his weight. Air whistled out of her. “Blow in again.”

  She was trying to breathe. Hawker did it for her.

  “This Frenchman talked about doing this for drowning men.” Luke pushed down. Her breath whooshed out. The bed sagged. “I didn’t think it would work.”

  The air had to get out of her, before he could put more in. They needed a hard surface. “The bed’s too soft. Get her down on the floor.”

  She flopped on the rug like a rag doll. He knelt at her head.

  “She’s bleeding under the bandage,” Doyle said. “Bleeding bad.”

  “Then stop it,” he snapped. He gave her air.

  “More. More,” Luke said. “Enough.” He waited a beat. Shoved downward on her chest. “Good. Again. Let me know when you start to feel light-headed.”

  Another breath into her. “Damned if I’ll let you die.” He knelt beside her and breathed for her.

  They took turns keeping her alive. Past midnight, she started taking in air on her own. When she got reliable at it, they lifted her back to the bed and set chairs around it. They just sat there, staring at each other, exhausted and relieved.

  At three in the morning, the fever began.

  SHE felt so hot. Her arm ached, sharply. Pain radiated through her body, into her chest. Pain had been in the dreams with her.

  She was on her back, naked and damp. Her skin crawled with heat. Itchy with the heat. The light coming in the window said it was dawn. Still raining.

  Someone had followed her in the rain and stabbed her. She had never been careless. Her attacker must be very, very good.

  “It was one man. I didn’t see his face. Just a glimpse.” Her throat was dry. She made almost no sound. “Water.”

  “Don’t move. I’ll help you drink.”

  “. . . Papers.”

  “Safe. Downstairs. We’re drying them out. Drink this.” She ached hollowly, as if a bell of pain clanged in her chest. He put an arm behind her and let her drink. Then she was flat again, looking up at the ceiling. He looped her hair around his hand and laid it to the side on the pillow, out of the way.

  There was no square foot in the hallways of her body that did not hurt. The covers were hot. Stifling. It was too much trouble to move. Easier to just be too hot. She closed her eyes.

  She was safe. Hawker would not let anything happen to her.

  Sixteen

  DOYLE FOUND PAX IN THE STUDY, SITTING CROSS-LEGGED on the hearthrug, toasting wet newsprint on an ash shovel. Three clippings, dry, crinkled and curling at the edges, lay on the bricks.

  Doyle came over to watch. “Hawk sent me down to see how you’re getting on.”

  “It’s slow. How’s the breathing?”

  “Good. She’s breathing easy. That part looks over with.” Doyle brought a pair of glasses out of his jacket pocket and hunkered down. He pushed the clippings into line and looked at them. “The fever’s worse.”

  “How bad?”

  “Bad. She’s out of her head with it.” He rearranged the papers, smallest to largest. “I hope Sévie gets here in time.”

  “She’ll hurry.”

  “I wish Maggie was upstairs, keeping Hawk’s woman alive.” Doyle put on his glasses and picked up the first clipping.

  “I was wishing for Camille. Hell of a time for wives to be working in France. You sent messages?”

  “It’ll be finished, one way or the other, before they get the letters.” Doyle turned a clipping over and then back again. “Looks like this is cut out of the Times. It is the obituary for one Antoine Morreau, bookseller in Paternoster Lane. ‘Dead, suddenly, at his place of business.’ No desolate family is mentioned, so we will assume he is unmarried. A respectable address, so we will assume he is prosperous. Why did our Justine find this particular death of interest?”

  “He got himself murdered, if that’s interesting.” Pax took up the ash shovel and went back to dealing with damp newsprint.

  “Not in and of itself, ’specially.” Doyle took up the next page. “‘Monstrous Crime in Paternoster Lane.’ ‘Shopkeeper murdered in a wanton daylight robbery.’ Our bookseller had his throat slashed and his money box broken. We continue . . .” He picked the last sheet. “It looks like a dark-haired man did the deed and ran off. ‘Neighborhood shocked.’”

  “I read that. More than a week ago. Ten days, I think. You were still in Scotland. I didn’t think it was worth filing, even with the French link.”

  Doyle ran a considering finger along stubble on his chin. “Paternoster Lane. They do not normally stab citizens over their shop counters in that part of town.” He picked up another piece of paper. “This is the Observer, reporting the same thing, the bottom half of which is no doubt interesting but we can’t read it. Felicity can hie herself off to the Strand to their office to make a copy. And I will drop by Bow Street to see what they know about our dead bookseller.”

  “Cummings will be annoyed.” Pax tested wet newsprint with the point of his knife. The top sheet wasn’t ready to separate off. “London murders fall into his territory.”

  “Annoying Military Intelligence and Cummings is jam on the bun.”

  Pax offered a view of the paper he was lifting loose. “Another somebody, bloodily dead.”

  “‘An incident in Finns Alley.’ That’s off Dean Street in Soho. I’d stab somebody in Finns Alley if I was setting about the business. ‘The public is asked to come forward with any information.’ They don’t mention outrage and shock, that being in short supply in Soho. ‘The body is identified as . . .’ Looks like Monsieur something.”

  “A Monsieur Richelet. This is yesterday’s Times.”

  “Justine’s collecting dead Frenchmen. Everybody should have a hobby. This one died late Sunday night. Day before yesterday.” Doyle glanced up to where light was coming through a break in the curtains. “No. Two days ago, now. We’ll still have the paper upstairs.”

  “I’ll catch George before he burns it. It looked like just another random death. Only showed up in the Times because one of the witnesses was an army man of some distinction.”

  “A sad commentary upon the human condition.”

  Pax set the shovel flat on the hearth. The upper sheet was mostly dry. He freed the last corner and eased it away. The page below was still wet. The general gray tinge made it hard to pick out words. He said, “The Courier, I think.”

  “With a more complete account of the same murder. ‘A Stabbing in Soho.’” Doyle took the handle of the shovel and slanted the writing toward the fire to get better light. “And what else do they have to say? ‘Violence in the foreign community. When will it end?’ That is something I ask myself daily. According to eyewitnesses, a slight, dark man of foreign appearance fled the scene.”

  “This,” Pax rested the point of his knife on a line near the bottom of the clipping. “This is what Justine came to tell us.”

  “‘Do sinister Eastern assassins threaten our streets? The curious black knife left in the body—’ ” Doyle stopped. “God’s avenging chickens.”

  “Exactly.”

  Seventeen

  TWENTY-ONE YEARS BEFORE

  1797

  Oxfordshire, England

  FRIQUET WAS SMALL AND BROWN WITH DELICATE hooves and a way of nosing gently among the tangle of grass and weeds that grew along the bank of the stream, taking this plant and leaving another. When Séverine rode out with Pascal the groom, she could not allow Friquet to indulge himself in weeds. Pascal had strong opinions about what ponies should eat and worried about Friquet’s digestion ceaselessly.

  Pascal was French, though he had no accent. He had a sad history and had been sent here to be healed by Maman, although he did not know it. Eventually he would stop being nervous and angry and go away to school. There had be
en several such grooms.

  She was not supposed to know that part of his job was to protect her. Papa worked for the government and was very important. He was a spy. Her friend Hawker was also, though he was less important because he was younger. There were always several men working in the garden or the stable who protected everyone.

  Pascal had gone onward to the stable. She was allowed to be by herself once she had crossed the stream and was within sight of the house. Friquet waded into the water and ate his watercress and chickweed in peace. She could pick her own watercress to eat and think about things. Pascal could not say she was not allowed to eat plants from the stream, but he looked disapproving.

  It was raining a small amount, but that did not bother her. She sat under the tree where it was all moss and she would not get her dress muddy. The tree kept most of the rain off. It was an oak and had probably been here when Cromwell burned the manor in Thinch. One night, when she was out with Papa and they were hiking quietly through the woods, finding their way around using the stars, Papa had showed her where Cromwell’s troops marched over Thinch Hill and explained why they had come that way instead of another.

  She ate watercress, putting it leaf by leaf on her tongue. Papa was in France, being clever against Napoleon, although she was supposed to tell anyone who asked that he was in Bristol on business. They didn’t know about Papa in the village.

  Down the stream where the bushes were thick a hand emerged from the greenery, and then a face under a black shawl, and then...

  “Justine!” She did not run headlong through the slippery wood to her sister. She looked around first to see no one was watching, then tangled Friquet’s reins in a bush and walked, fast but oh so carefully, along the bank. She dipped her head and ducked into the bushes and crawled between the leaves and scratches. They were together inside the arched, dark space. “Justine.”

  Justine had beaten down the ground between the bushes to sit and wait for her. There was room for both of them. When they had embraced and Justine sat down, she climbed into her lap. She was far too big for this now that she was seven, almost. It was comfortable for neither of them. But still she did it. When she took Justine’s face between her hands and studied her, their heads were on a level. Justine’s skin was cold, so cold. “You are well? You have not been hurt?”

  “But those are my words, petite. Are you well? Are you happy? Tell me everything.”

  There was so much to say and they had very little time. Justine was an important spy for France, though she was only sixteen. When she came here and concealed herself in these bushes, it was no game. She must not be found on English soil. It was especially dangerous for her here, near Papa’s house. Papa and her sister must never, never meet.

  So much to say. There had been a trip to Oxford to the dentist with Molly, who was the upstairs maid and had a toothache. There were puppies at Mr. Richard’s farm, and she had been allowed to pick which one she wanted. It was a bitch puppy and she had named it Harmony. It would come home with her in two weeks, when it was old enough. She was reading La Fontaine with Monsieur Rochambeau who sniffed and sniffed when he went into the rose garden.

  She snuggled close to her sister, trying to warm her.

  “La Fontaine.” Justine stroked her hair. “I carried a book of his fables for a while, until I lost it. I have them memorized.”

  More news. The kitchen cat had kittens in the barn. A girl had come to be the nurserymaid. She was like Pascal the groom, one of those called the Cachés, which meant “hidden,” because they were French but pretended to be English. She cried a great deal in all the corners of the nursery, but then the old ladies who were not really her aunts missed her and decided that it did not matter that she was an imposter. “Hawker came to take her back home. He said she was a right little misery and we were well shut of her.”

  Friquet pulled his reins free and wandered off to sample the banquet upstream.

  “Move a bit. Let me . . .” Justine took a bag from the pocket under her skirt. “I have brought this to you, through perils uncounted.”

  The bag was filled with twists of paper, a little discolored by water. Inside each paper, sugar drops. The first one she opened was blue and white and red, colored like glass from Venice.

  “They are from Paris,” Justine said. “They may taste of salt. I had the merest whiff of difficulty coming ashore.”

  If Justine brought them, they would be the most perfect of their kind. The seawater was not important. Not at all.

  She sat on the ground and leaned against Justine’s knees and sucked upon a peppermint drop. Justine said, “I’ve been in Italy. That’s why it has been so long since I came to you.”

  “There is a war there.” When Papa was home, he read to her from the newspaper, after dinner, when he and Maman sat close together with her on the sofa in the salon.

  “The fighting is over for a while. There will be a treaty.” Justine put one arm around her. They watched barn swallows swooping over the lawn that ran from the parterre down to the river. It was not really raining if the swallows were out. “This is a pretty place. I like to think of you being here, in that house.”

  “I will think of you in Paris, if that is where you will be.”

  “Perhaps.” Justine’s voice said she would not be in Paris. She would be somewhere more dangerous.

  She could feel Justine getting ready to leave. Quickly, she said, “Wait. Just a minute more. Did you get my letters? All of them? I sent you pictures.”

  “I have all of them. They were in Rome, at the embassy, when I came through.”

  “I have three letters from you. The one with the canary, the one with the black-and-white cat, and the one with the bowl of broth.”

  “There will be six more, if they all come. Alas, they never do.” Justine made a gesture. She was very French in her gestures, like Maman. “I must go, petite.”

  She held Justine tight, loving her and always, always frightened for her. “You will be careful.”

  “There is no need. My life has been boring as a piece of bread these last few months. I sit and drink coffee in the café. I write reports and walk in the countryside all day. It is a healthy life, I assure you.” The last thing, as always, Justine kissed the top of her head. “You will tell Marguerite I was here.”

  “After nightfall.” That was as always. Justine would not let her keep secrets from Maman.

  When she had watched until Justine was gone and the bushes were quiet again, she went to catch Friquet. He did not much mind being caught because he knew they were going to the stable where they would fuss over him and give him bran mashes and carrots. He was muddy up to his hocks from wading in the stream.

  Because she wanted to make the meeting with Justine last as long as she could, she walked through the meadow and up the lawn, leading Friquet home, sucking a peppermint drop, remembering every word.

  She would tell Maman about Justine’s visit after dinner. They would not find Justine.

  Eighteen

  JUSTINE DID NOT LINGER NEAR THE HOUSE OF WILLIAM Doyle. He knew she came here from time to time to see her sister. So far, he had not tried to stop it. She did not fool herself into thinking she would come so close to his stronghold unless he allowed.

  Just lately she had not endeared herself to the British. There had been an incident in Italy. The English really should not involve themselves in the wars of Italy.

  The route of her retreat involved much crawling through mud. She followed the small stream and the cover of bushes. In the day and a half she had waited for Séverine, she had spotted several men patrolling. There were two now, one in the garden and one on a hillock in the woods, who made only the smallest pretense of working. And . . . Yes. She pulled back a stand of gray-green weed. The grim young groom who accompanied her sister everywhere leaned at the wall of the stable, polishing the metal of a bit, his attention on the patch of bushes where he had left Séverine.

  Her sister was well cared for. She was held wi
thin that mansion as in careful cupped hands. She was given the pretty riding habit and the sleek, playful pony. Given the tutor—he had been a great scholar in France before he was broken and tossed aside by the Revolution. That was another soul Marguerite gave refuge to. Alert, dangerous veterans of the war, some missing an eye or an arm, patrolled the perimeter. Three monster dogs coursed the grounds after dark. If there were any peace and safety in the world, William Doyle folded it around his wife and the children in his house.

  She came to the green swath of lawn where the river widened. When Séverine arrived at the house there would be less scrutiny in this direction.

  Rain fell around her, soft and intricate, the tap of it becoming indistinguishable from the splash of the stream. It was not possible to tell where gray sky ended and gray rain began. After so many months in Italy, England seemed very wet.

  She stood with her back to a tree, letting emotions run over her and around her as if she were a rock in a river with the water going past. There was a hardness at the core of her life, like a rock. A spy of her sort is very alone. She never felt so alone as when she had been with her sister for a short time and they must part again.

  It was weak of her to keep coming back this way, just to talk to her sister. It would be kinder to make a clean break while Séverine still loved her. Before she understood what her sister had been. Before Séverine asked questions and Marguerite must tell her about the brothel in Paris.

  The drizzle thickened. Mist rose and all was hidden. Another minute or two and she could—

  Cold metal bit at her throat.

  A knife point. Fingers gripped her hair, pulling her head back to expose her neck. The instant closed around her in terror.

  A man stood behind her, with death in his hand. She did not flinch. It is not wise to flinch when someone holds a knife to your throat. A sensible woman does not move at all. Hold still. Breathe. She wavered in place the smallest amount with the pounding of her heart.