The Black Hawk

by Joanna Bourne

  “Which is obvious. Only a mad fanatic would attempt this assassination. It tells us nothing. The supply of fanatics is inexhaustible.”

  “And we come to the Englishman.”

  “Of which there is also an endless supply. We have nothing.”

  Under the canopy of linden trees in the great courtyard, women chattered like exotic monkeys. They pushed their chairs close together and leaned against each other and passed something back and forth to coo over it. Something small that glinted in the sun. She could not see exactly what it was—a jewel, a gilt box, a painted miniature, a bottle of perfume. One could buy anything in the shops of the arcade of the Palais Royale.

  They were some years older than she was, entirely lighthearted and pleased with themselves. They made her feel centuries old.

  Hawker had barely touched his apple tart. Delicately, she slid his plate to her side of the table and began to eat, using his fork. “I have questioned three senior officers of my service, also several operatives who feel the pulse of Paris in their blood. They know nothing. All morning I have rolled a madman, a lady, an Englishman, and the Palais Royale around in my mind like so many peppermint drops in a mouth. I am no wiser.”

  “I spent the last three hours talking to Millian’s idiot friends at the British embassy. Nobody was with him. Nobody knows where he was when he overheard all that.”

  “Gaming rooms, restaurants, shops. There is a whorehouse, also, though it calls itself a club. He might even have been here where we sit. The Café Foy is the veteran of many conspiracies.” She pointed with the fork to the arches of the colonnade. “See there? Desmoulins stood on that table and sent the mob marching on the Bastille. It was the first great strike of the Revolution. Men are impelled to rashness by the coffee of the Café Foy.”

  “Might be. But I wouldn’t conspire here if a damn Englishman was sitting at the next table.”

  “I would not also.”

  “Cross off the cafés. You’d go someplace with men coming and going, crowded together, talking. The gaming rooms.”

  But he spoke almost at random. The feral animal inside him looked out of his eyes. He reached out. “You have sugar. Here.” He touched the side of her mouth. When he took his fingers away, she saw the fine sparkle of sugar grains. He licked his fingers.

  She knotted inside and scooped in a sudden breath. She . . . wanted. This will stop. When I accept that I cannot have him, this will stop.

  He said, “It’s been a while since we sat and drank coffee.”

  The Piazza San Marco of Venice. Carnevale. He had worn the costume of a corsair, his shirt open at the neck, a red sash at his waist, a small gold ring in his ear. The saber was quite genuine.

  She was avoiding the corrupt and brutal police of the Austrians that night. England was the ally of the Austrians. But Hawker had taken her to the pensione on Via Ottaviano, saying, “The town’s overrun with French spies. You’re my spy. Let them find their own.”

  For all of Carnevale they had strolled the city together, masked, and pretended they were not enemies. She’d kissed the pirate ring in his ear, tasting gold and the hint of blood. He’d pierced himself to wear it. He was always a man of precision in his disguises. The taste of Hawker was . . . She swallowed and remembered. The nights had been a rough insanity and the tenderness that follows madness.

  Hawker watched her from the hot core of his eyes. “You’re distracting me.”

  “We distract one another. This must stop. Talk to me about the Palais Royale. If it is our only clue—”

  The waiter approached, bringing her a second cup of coffee, taking away the old, glancing into the bowl that held its small lumps of sugar. He came and took himself and his small round tray away, all in a single movement as expert as the transit of a hummingbird to and from a flower.

  Hawker said, “I’ll come back tonight with some men. We’ll walk around, listening in the gaming hells. You do the same with those dozen people you got.” He pulled at his lower lip, something he did when he was thinking.

  I know his lips. I know the taste and texture of them at every hour of the night. I have kissed his lips a thousand times.

  Never again. Never. Never. Never. She made herself pour water from the carafe into her glass. Made herself drink. The fabric of her dress scraped her breasts when she breathed, she had become so sensitive.

  Hawker’s hand slid across the table till it just touched her, the back of his hand to the back of hers. “I’m not pushing you, Owl. It’s your choice. Always been your choice.”

  “But you will be persuasive.” At the core of her body, the memory of him inside her arose, sweet and tenacious.

  “I am that.” He grinned. “We are about to be invaded by the English.”

  She could hear them. From the shops of the arcade, commenting loudly in their native language, a pack of four young gentlemen approached. They swaggered in a line, arms linked, loud, expensively rigged out, unkempt, pushing everyone from their path. They came from the gambling rooms on the floors above where they had spent the night drinking and losing money.

  She murmured, “I see why Mr. Millian met the end he did. It is surprising the English are not more frequently defenestrated.”

  “You’re too harsh.”

  Englishmen swooped upon the Café Foy in a jangle of fobs and a great clumping of riding boots, the many capes of their coats flapping as they walked, the lapels of their jackets wide as outspread wings. They would take breakfast, they said to one another and all the world. The waiter tried to lead them to a spot distant from anyone, behind a pillar, but they ignored him and shoved their way between chairs toward where she sat with Hawker. They sprawled into seats at the next table, bare inches away, close enough to share their reek of drink and tobacco.

  The waiter brought brandy and glasses for them without being asked and was rude, addressing them as ‘tu,’ which they did not have knowledge enough to resent. He pretended to understand no English in the hopes they would go away to find their beefsteak and ham elsewhere.

  They were persistent. Beefsteak they would have or know the reason why. Really, what sensible man would eat food served by a waiter he had offended?

  The waiter bowed apologetically to her as he left, then to the old woman nearby who had picked up her dog into her arms protectively.

  The café was allowed to listen to a recounting of the nighttime exploits of four well-to-do foreign louts. They were frank in their opinion of the women of the Palais Royale and Frenchwomen in general. The old woman and her dog departed. The pretty young ladies under the linden trees arose and went back to shopping their way down the arcade.

  Then the Englishmen became interested in her. “Pretty little bird,” one said to the other, staring at her rudely. “Damn, but that’s a fine pullet. Think she’ll come back down when she’s finished servicing the black ram?”

  “I know where I’d like her to come down.”

  “Come down for breakfast. She can breakfast on me.”

  “She can wrap those sweet lips around my sausage anytime.”

  Men of such high good humor. Did they imagine no one spoke English?

  She shrugged ruefully, “It is my fault, ’Awker, that our peace is done. I will leave.” It was a tame surrender, to be chased from their coffee by such apes, but agents do not engage in public brawls. “I must arrange for this evening, in any case. Shall we meet at—”

  If Leblanc had not been furtive, she would not have noticed him.

  Leblanc stood fifty feet away, half hidden by a column, inspecting the merchandise of a seller of opera glasses and scientific instruments. The hunch of his shoulder shouted hidden purpose. The angle of his head spoke of surreptition.

  He had not followed her here. She would have noticed. He came because he knew she would, to interest himself in her investigations and to snoop into her sources.

  He was no practiced field agent, Leblanc. He was a political and scheming animal. He had not even changed his coat from their m
eeting this morning.

  “Do not turn around,” she said. “Face more to the right.”

  Hawker was so instantly upon guard, the snap of fingers took longer. His arm remained relaxed upon the back of a chair. His dark, ironic expression did not change in the least. But his fingers went to close over his cane.

  “Why should I not look left?” he said genially.

  “I do not choose to share your face with others. Their curiosity is intrusive.”

  He slipped a coin on the table, under the edge of the plate. “Someone is interested in us? How delightful. Do we know who it is?”

  “A man I know. Do not turn to look.”

  His snuffbox held a polished mirror inside. He already held it in his hand and examined the world behind him. “The gentleman with an interest in opera glasses. Who is he?”

  How annoying he should spot Leblanc at once. “If you do not know him, I will certainly not enlighten you. Stand, bow once, walk away, and do not show your face. I will meet you at the shop that sells fans, at the end of the arcade, at sunset.”

  “We’ll be more creative than that. Watch.”

  “Do not—”

  He took up the cane as he stood. “Ma chérie, let us go.” He was so gentlemanly. He bowed as he took her hand. His cane . . .

  One of the Englishmen had tipped his chair back on two legs so he might sprawl even more inelegantly. Somehow Hawker’s cane encountered the chair.

  The chair spilled backward. The Englishman fell with a yelp and a flailing of arms. Hawker sprang back to avoid him and knocked into another Englishmen. Stumbled. Was tossed against a third.

  Oh, the consternation. Hawker in his heavily accented English helped one man to his feet, brushed another, unaccountably bumped into the last. Apologizing. Explaining. Dropping his cane. Picking it up. And never showing his face to Leblanc.

  Oh, the annoyance and outrage of the Englishmen. The spilled brandy. The curses.

  “I make ten thousand apologies.” Hawker bobbed from the waist. “It is my fault entirely.”

  “Watch yourself, damn it.”

  “I hurry myself. I did not see. I am only concerned to take my lady away from here and I do not notice the so-English polite gentlemen. Come, I will leave coin with the waiter to pay in some small way for this inconvenience I cause you. See. I call for more brandy.” And he waved.

  “Clumsy oaf.”

  “I am clumsy. Yes. Unforgivably so. But I think only to avoid the petty thieves. It is the hazard of this place, that it is replete of pickpockets. I forget myself in my fear of them.”

  “What do ya mean, pickpockets?”

  “They are everywhere. Like the ticks of the dog. And this morning, most of all.” Hawker reassured himself, pocket by pocket, as he spoke. Pat. Pat. Vest and jacket. “Yes. All is well still. The waiter tells me he recognizes a most notorious pickpocket. A man called the Swift Finger he is so well known.” His gesture led the eyes toward the distant Leblanc. “He comes close, that one. Brazen. You, yourself, have passed him not a moment ago. It is a scandal that such fleas prey upon us, is it not?”

  And her Hawker slipped fingers into the last man’s pocket. No one saw but her. He let her see.

  Sometimes, in a play, there will be a single scene that makes it memorable. The actors reach a height of art that surpasses all others. Hawker’s bow, as he kissed his hand and bid a ceremonious farewell was that moment. “I wish you an interesting visit to Paris, gentlemen.”

  He took her arm to lead her away. They had gone perhaps a hundred steps before the first of the Englishmen noticed his watch was missing.

  “We just keep walking,” Hawker murmured.

  “I am not an infant in these matters. I know what to do.” So she did not look over her shoulder to see what happened, only listened to the outraged boots inexorably headed in Leblanc’s direction.

  Twenty-nine

  THEY STROLLED, ARM IN ARM, NOT DAWDLING, NOT hurrying, away from the distant commotion that was Leblanc discussing with four Englishmen the theft of . . . “What did you take, ’Awker?”

  “A little of this. A little of that. Not everything.” He sounded regretful. “I took a ring from the man who talked about your lips.”

  “He should not have called you a ram, meaning an insult.”

  “I took that as a compliment, but I took his ring too. Nice heavy piece of gold.” His head was up, like a hunting dog scenting the wind. “Let’s get out of the open for a while.” They passed a shop that sold music boxes. The next displayed violins and violas, in mellow womanly shapes of maple wood.

  He pressed something metal into her palm, cold and heavy. “Turn it on your finger, facing in.”

  Which told her the bare bones of his plan. She put the ring on her left hand, third finger, and faced the signet inward so it was hidden. Only the band showed. That easily, she was a married lady.

  The shops of the Palais Royale lined up one after another under the arcade, each one bright and inviting. All the booty of the world was gathered together here, and every example was the best of its kind. Jewels, fans, handkerchiefs, dressing tables, ribbons, ivory carvings, whores. If you could not buy it within the Palais Royale, it was probably not worth buying.

  He chose a shop a dozen feet onward and drew her into it. This one sold rugs from the Orient. These were not carpets to cover the floor, but works of art to be displayed on the walls.

  A long mahogany counter separated the shop from the walkway of the arcade. The owner, a wizened man who was also the color of mahogany, leaned his elbows on one of the gems of his collection, thrown over the counter. A brass samovar and tiny china cups stood ready at his right for the entertainment of clients. Behind him, two hundred—three hundred—rugs were piled one upon the other in stacks as high as a man.

  Hawker was already at the counter, negotiating. “. . . her husband follows.” A gold coin appeared between fingers. “He is a dolt. A selfish brute.” It would be a coin Hawker had just stolen, of course. A coin from one of the drunken Englishmen. “. . . a man without the taste to appreciate his gentle flower.”

  Gentle flower? We stray into the realm of fairy tale.

  Hawker was speaking now in another language. Arabic? Hebrew? Turkish? He was endlessly curious. It would not amaze her to discover he had involved himself in studying any of these.

  The words in his own tongue surprised and delighted the rug merchant. The coin disappeared. They were bowed into the rich cave of a shop, to walk on rugs crossed two and three deep.

  “Here. Behind the counter. If you will . . . Yes. It’s quite soft. Very soft. These are the finest.” A dozen rugs were piled upon one another, laid flat. The brown hand waved. “Sit. No one will see you.”

  The topmost rug was a checkerboard of squares, each with the design of a flower. Soft as silk. Perhaps it was silk. Rugs could be made of silk. A memory came of her home, the chateau, in the country and long ago, stroking a rug like this, soft as a kitten.

  “My cousin keeps the gold shop, there. See. No one will be surprised if I drink tea with him for a few minutes. This time of the morning I am less use in this shop than the cat.” The cat, a black fellow with not a hair of white on him, had been motionless on the highest tower of carpets. He sprang down from stack to stack and made a regal exit as the iron lattice rattled its way across the entrance of the shop.

  Hawker spoke again in the same language, a phrase that called forth laughter. Then he ducked down behind the counter, beside her on the pile of rugs. They were together in the dimness of the shop.

  “Five or ten minutes should do it, then we’ll double back on the trail. We’ll leave separately.” Hawker let his head rest back against the wood. His knees were folded in close with his arms resting on top. “Our merchant is across the way, and he’s watching. Don’t try to make off with one of the rugs.”

  “I had planned to stuff a few in my bodice and disappear into the alleyways. How much did you lighten those Englishmen, mon vieux?”

&n
bsp; “Couple of watches, two little sacks of coins, and that ring you’re wearing.”

  It was half light inside this shop, like dusk, but she could see him clearly. Everything smelled sleepily pleasant. Cardamom, tobacco, and some thick musk she could not identify. Possibly that was the smell of sheep. “It is a valuable ring. You should dispose of it and the watches. Also any banknotes you have acquired. They are incriminating.”

  He turned his head, lazily, toward her. “You’re teaching me the thieving trade now, are you?”

  “I would not presume.”

  “You’d presume to teach the devil to make fire. What’s the name of this man we’re hiding from?”

  “He is someone I do not like.” She allowed herself to smile. Allowed herself to relax, entirely, against this barrier of wood behind her. Truly, when she was with Hawker she lost all sense of prudence. “You set drunken Englishmen upon him. With any luck, they will call the gendarmes. I am altogether delighted with you.”

  “Are you in trouble, Owl? With your people?” He could have been staring through her like glass, staring into her bones, the way he studied her. “I’m not prying for secrets. I just want to know.”

  “All is well with me.”

  “They set somebody to following you—that man who came into the arcade. You’re scared of him.”

  “I am wary of him.”

  He touched her shoulder lightly, as if he could read what was inside her with the skin of his fingertips. Perhaps he could. “This is fear. I never saw a service eat its own people like the Police Secrète does.” He pushed her hair back behind her ear, so he could look at her. “I make your life difficult, don’t I? I put you in danger.”

  “I have a hundred explanations ready if anyone connects us. I will tell them I seduce secrets out of you. They will believe me.”

  “It’s still not safe. I’m like a boy with honey cakes. I’m hungry—starving really—for you. I don’t think.” He took his hand away and sat back.

  “You are not alone. ’Awker, I starve myself for you as well.”