He said, “Shouldn’t somebody else do this? An apothecary?”
“That would be nice, but I prefer to make my own mixtures.” After a minute, Owl said, “He is dead, then?”
“Last night, about two. I waited outside the house till I was sure.”
“And his accusations toward you?”
“I bribed the footman to give me the letter. Anything he said, they took as the ravings of a dying man.”
A mortar with a handful of green powder in it sat on the table. She pulled it to her and put it in her lap and began to grind. “I am not sorry. Perhaps there is a woman somewhere who is more forgiving than I am. I feel only relief that this is over.”
He sat down in the chair across from hers and sniffed the powder she was working with. “There was a time I could have killed three bastards like Cummings before tea and enjoyed doing it. I didn’t enjoy this. I’m getting soft.”
“Not noticeably. I would not put that vial too close to your nose.”
He set it down. “Poison?”
“We have dealt too much in poison lately. That will only make you sneeze. It is a fine antiseptic, though. That is what I am making here.” She kept grinding. “I hope his wife was not there.”
“She took off years ago.” He wondered whether to tell her, and then decided he would. “He was at it awhile, dying. Couple of hours. His sons didn’t come.”
“It is the death he intended for me.” She didn’t quite shrug. “He was an evil man. You intended this from the first hour, when I was struck by that poison. That is why you did not clear the knife.”
“Yes.”
She was doing some deep thinking, apparently, so he left her to it and began to sift powder into bottles. There were five papers already measured, so he tapped them into the next bottles in the row. He didn’t scatter much around. Either he was doing it right or she was being mannerly.
“He would have escaped justice?”
“We couldn’t show anyone that book. I’d have talked to Liverpool and Cummings would be out of Military Intelligence. Doyle would see that he had to resign from his clubs.”
“He was right, then, in saying that nothing much would happen to him. That we could not touch him.”
“Well, he’s dead, you see. So he wasn’t entirely correct.”
He helped himself to the kettle and topped the bottles up with hot water while neither of them talked for a while.
“I think the world needs people like us to destroy evil men,” she said. “It requires people who are not entirely good to do this.”
“Sounds like me.”
“That is what I was thinking.”
The grinding was going to take a while. He ran out of green powder to put in bottles, so he stood up to wander around her parlor. She had some of her knife collection up here. The kris was pretty to look at but wouldn’t throw worth a damn.
It was peaceful, being here, watching her work. A couple strands of brown hair started off at her forehead, let loose, and fell down almost straight till they made little hooks at the end. She kept brushing them off her nose and they kept coming back. Even her hair was stubborn.
It was just impossible to say how much he loved this woman. It felt like he’d been waiting his whole life to walk in a door and there would be Owl, doing something interesting.
She had a fine fire burning in the hearth, so he went over and sat down on the hearthrug and leaned against her, setting his head against her thigh, looking into the flames.
After a minute, her hand came down on his head, into his hair. She said, “I will come to live with you in your great mansion and be a lady again. I will be a DeCabrillac, and face down the world if they make accusations. I will shake out your haughty mansion like an old rag and make it comfortable to live in.”
“Funny. I was thinking I’d come to live with you here, over the shop. It’s an easy walk to Meeks Street.”
“The Head of the British Service must live somewhere grander than this little appartement. But we could come here sometimes.” She took a deep breath. “I would like to marry you, ’Awker. I have loved you for many, many years.”
“Well. That’s fine then.” He turned his face to the cloth on her lap. Beneath the dress she wore, she was energy and strength. She seduced the hell out of him.
They met halfway. Him, coming up to kiss her. Her, leaning down to take his lips.
He drew her down from her seat. She flowed over him like water, refreshing him and filling every empty part of him. Her face was enchanting, infinite in its secrets.
Clothing wasn’t a problem. They had coupled hastily in the most ridiculous situations. Here there was silence and safety, privacy and a warm fire, the hearthrug under one back and then under the other as they touched and resettled. It was right. It was simple. He’d come home.
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SHE WAS WILLING TO DIE, OF COURSE, BUT SHE HAD not planned to do it so soon, or in such a prolonged and uncomfortable fashion, or at the hands of her own countrymen.
She slumped against the wall, which was of cut stone and immensely solid, as prison walls often are. “I do not have the plans. I never had them.”
“I am not a patient man. Where are the plans?”
“I do not have—”
The openhanded slap whipped out of the darkness. For one instant she slipped over the edge of consciousness. Then she was back again, in the dark and in pain, with Leblanc.
“Just so.” He touched her cheek where he had hit her and turned her toward him. He did it gently. He had much practice in hurting women. “We continue. This time you will be more helpful.”
“Please. I am trying.”
“You will tell me where you have hidden the plans, Annique.”
“They are a mad dream, these Albion plans. A chimera. I never saw them.” Even as she said it, the Albion plans were clear in her mind. She had held the many pages in her hands, the dogeared edges, maps covered with smudges and fingerprints, the lists in small, neat writing. I will not think of this. If I remember, it will show on my face.
“Vauban gave you the plans in Bruges. What did he tell you to do with them?”
He told me to take them to England. “Why would he give me plans? I am not a valise to go carrying papers about the countryside.”
His fist closed on her throat. Pain exploded. Pain that stopped her breath. She dug her fingers into the wall and held on. With such a useful stone wall to hold on to, she would not fall down.
Leblanc released her. “Let us begin again, at Bruges. You were there. You admit that.”
“I was there. Yes. I reported to Vauban. I was a pair of eyes watching the British. Nothing more. I have told you and told you.” The fingers on her chin tightened. A new pain.
“Vauban left Bruges empty-handed. He went back to Paris without the plans. He must have given them to you. Vauban trusted you.”
He trusted me with treason. She wouldn’t think that. Wouldn’t remember.
Her voice had gone hoarse a long time ago. “The papers never came to us. Never.” She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. “You hold my life in your hands, sir. If I had the Albion plans, I would lay them at your feet to buy it back.”
Leblanc swore softly, cursing her. Cursing Vauban, who was far away and safe. “The old man didn’t hide them. He was too carefully watched. What happened to them?”
“Look to your own associates. Or maybe the British took them. I never saw them. I swear it.”
Leblanc nudged her chin upward. “You swear? Little Cub, I have watched you lie and lie with that angel face since you were a child. Do not attempt to lie to me.”
“I would not dare. I have served you well. Do you think I’m such a fool I’ve stopped being afraid of you?” She let tears brim into her eyes. It was a most useful skill
and one she had practiced assiduously.
“Almost, one might believe you.”
He plays with me. She squeezed her lids and let tears slide in cold tracks down her cheeks.
“Almost.” He slowly scratched a line upon her cheek with his thumbnail, following a tear. “But, alas, not quite. You will be more honest before morning, I think.”
“I am honest to you now.”
“Perhaps. We will discuss this at length when my guests have departed. Did you know? Fouché comes to my little soiree tonight. A great honor. He comes to me from meetings with Bonaparte. He comes directly to me, to speak of what the First Consul has said. I am becoming the great man in Paris these days.”
What would I say if I were innocent? “Take me to Fouché. He will believe me.”
“You will see Fouché when I am satisfied your pretty little mouth is speaking the truth. Until then . . .” He reached to the nape of her neck to loosen her dress, pulling the first tie free. “You will make yourself agreeable, eh? I have heard you can be most amusing.”
“I will . . . try to please you.” I will survive this. I can survive whatever he does to me.
“You will try very, very hard before I am finished with you.”
“Please.” He wanted to see fear. She would grovel at once, as was politic. “Please. I will do what you want, but not here. Not in a dirty cell with men watching. I hear them breathing. Do not make me do this in front of them.”
“It is only the English dogs. I kennel some spies here till I dispose of them.” His fingers hooked the rough material of her dress at the bodice and pulled it down, uncovering her. “Perhaps I like them to watch.”
She breathed in the air he had used, hot and moist, smelling of wintergreen. His hand crawled inside the bodice of her dress to take hold of her breast. His fingers were smooth and dry, like dead sticks, and he hurt her again and again.
She would not be sick upon Leblanc in his evening clothes. This was no time for her stomach to decide to be sincere.
She pressed against the wall at her back and tried to become nothing. She was darkness. Emptiness. She did not exist at all. It did not work, of course, but it was a goal to fix the mind upon.
At last, he stopped. “I will enjoy using you.”
She did not try to speak. There was no earthly use in doing so.
He hurt her one final time, pinching her mouth between thumb and forefinger, breaking the skin of her dry lips and leaving a taste of blood.
“You have not amused me yet.” He released her abruptly. She heard the scrape and click as he lifted his lantern from the table. “But you will.”
The door clanged shut behind him. His footsteps faded in the corridor, going toward the stairs and upward.
“PIG.” She whispered it to the closed door, though that was an insult to pigs, who were, in general, amiable.
She could hear the other prisoners, the English spies, making small sounds on the other side of the cell, but it was dark, and they could no longer see her. She scrubbed her mouth with the back of her hand and swallowed the sick bile in her throat. It was amazingly filthy being touched by Leblanc. It was like being crawled upon by slugs. She did not think she would become even slightly accustomed to it in the days she had left.
She pulled her dress into decency and let herself fold onto the dirt floor, feeling miserable. This was the end then. The choice that had tormented her for so long—what should be done with the Albion plans that had been entrusted to her—was made. All her logic and reasoning, all her searchings of the heart, had come to nothing. Leblanc had won. She would withstand his persuasions for only a day or two. Then he would wrest the Albion plans from her memory and commit God knew what greedy betrayals with them.
Her old mentor Vauban would be disappointed in her when he heard. He waited in his small stone house in Normandy for her to send word. He had left the decision to her, what should be done with the plans, but he had not intended that she give them to Leblanc. She had failed him. She had failed everyone.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was strange to know her remaining breaths were numbered in some tens of thousands. Forty thousand? Fifty? Perhaps when she was in unbearable pain later on tonight, she would start counting.
She pulled her shoes off, one and then the other. She had been in prisons twice before in her life, both times completely harrowing. At least she had been above ground then, and she had been able to see. Maman had been with her, that first time. Now Maman was dead in a stupid accident that should not have killed a dog. Maman, Maman, how I miss you. There was no one in this world to help her.
In the darkness, one feels very alone. She had never become used to this.
The English spy spoke, deep and slow, out of the dark. “I would stand and greet you politely.” Chain clinked. “But I’m forced to be rude.”
It was a measure of how lonely she was that the voice of an enemy English came like a warm handclasp. “There is much of that in my life lately. Rudeness.”
“It seems you have annoyed Leblanc.” He spoke the rich French of the South, without the least trace of a foreign accent.
“You also, it would seem.”
“He doesn’t plan to let any of us leave here alive.”
“That is most likely.” She rolled off her stockings, tucked them into her sleeve so she would not lose them, and slipped the shoes back on. One cannot go barefoot. Even in the anteroom to hell, one must be practical.
“Shall we prove him wrong, you and I?”
He did not sound resigned to death, which was admirable in its way, though not very realistic. It was an altogether English way of seeing things.
In the face of such bravery, she could not sit upon the floor and wail. French honor demanded a Frenchwoman meet death as courageously as any English. French honor always seemed to be demanding things of her. Bravery, of a sort, was a coin she was used to counterfeiting. Besides, the plan she was weaving might work. She might overcome Leblanc and escape the chateau and deal with these Albion plans that were the cause of so much trouble to her. And assuredly pigs might grow wings and fly around steeples all over town.
The English was waiting for an answer. She pulled herself to her feet. “I would be delighted to disappoint Leblanc in any way. Do you know where we are? I was not able to tell when I was brought here, but I hope very much this is the chateau in Garches.”
“A strange thing to hope, but yes, this is Garches, the house of the Secret Police.”
“Good, then. I know this place.”
“That will prove useful. After we deal with these chains,” he clinked metallically, “and that locked door. We can help each other.”
He made many assumptions. “There is always the possibility.”
“We can be allies.” The spy chose his words carefully, hoping to charm her so she would be a tool for him. He slipped velvet upon his voice. Underneath, though, she heard an uncompromising sternness and great anger. There was nothing she did not know about such hard, calculating men.
Leblanc took much upon himself to capture British agents in this way. It was an old custom of both French and British secret services that they were not bloodthirsty with one another’s agents. This was one of many rules Leblanc broke nowadays.
She worked her way along the wall, picking at the rocks, stealing the gravel that had come loose in the cracks and putting it into her stocking to make her little cosh. It was a weapon easy to use when one could not see. One of her great favorites.
There was a whisper of movement. A younger voice, very weak, spoke. “Somebody’s here.”
Her English spy answered, “Just a girl Leblanc brought in. Nothing to worry about.”
“. . . more questions?”
“Not yet. It’s late at night. We have hours before they come for us. Hours.”
“Good. I’ll be ready . . . when the chance comes.”
“It’ll be soon now, Adrian. We’ll get free. Wait.”
The mindless op
timism of the English. Who could comprehend it? Had not her own mother told her they were all mad?
It was a tidy small prison Leblanc kept. So few loose stones. It took a while before the cosh was heavy enough. She tied the end of the stocking and tucked it into the pocket hidden beneath her skirt. Then she continued to explore the walls, finding nothing at all interesting. There is not so much to discover about rooms that are used as prisons. This one had been a wine cellar before the Revolution. It still smelled of old wood and good wine as well as less wholesome things. Halfway around the cell she came to where the Englishmen were chained, so she stopped to let her hands have a look at them as well.
The one who lay upon the ground was young, younger than she was. Seventeen? Eighteen? He had the body of an acrobat, one of those slight, tightly constructed people. He had been wounded. She could smell the gunpowder on his clothes and the wound going bad. She would wager money there was metal still inside him. When she ran her fingers across his face, his lips were dry and cracked, and he was burning hot. High fever.
They had chained him to the wall with an excellent chain, but a large, old-fashioned padlock. That would have to be picked if they were to escape. She searched his boots and the seams of his clothing, just in case Leblanc’s men had missed some small, useful object. There was nothing at all, naturally, but one must always check.
“Nice . . .” he murmured when she ran her hands over him. “Later, sweetheart. Too tired . . .” Not so young a boy then. He spoke in English. There might be an innocent reason for an English to be in France, in these days when their countries were not exactly at war, but somehow she was sure Leblanc spoke truly. This was a spy. “So tired.” Then he said clearly, “Tell Lazarus I won’t do that anymore. Never. Tell him.”
“We shall speak of it,” she said softly, “later,” which was a promise hard to fulfill, since she did not expect to have so very many laters. Though perhaps a few more than this boy.
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