The Black Hawk sl-4

by Joanna Bourne

  At the end of this gallery, the steps going up were more goddamned marble. A hell bitch to run on. Carved marble grapes and cherubs frolicked around the banister, flight after flight, all the way up. Pax followed him up, keeping an eye behind. If anybody had a gun, he and Pax were going to get holes shot in them on these stairs.

  On the second floor, they met two men jabbering their way along the hall, all excited.

  “Get back in your office. Stay there.” It was enough to send them skittering. Ten years of war and riot had taught people to get out of the way fast when somebody barked orders.

  Outside, shouts and cheering echoed sharp on the stone. Napoleon must have walked out into the courtyard.

  Pax said, “The First Consul of France escapes again. Let joy be unconfined.”

  “I should have put a knife in him as I passed by. There are some opportunities it is just a sin and a shame to miss.”

  Pax whispered, “We do not assassinate foreign heads of state.” They were at top of the stairs, backed to the wall. He leaned to look down the row of doors. “Without orders.”

  “I would have saved ten thousand English lives on the battlefields of Europe.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Listen.” Somebody was up here. Footsteps. The middle door opened, and a man ran past, headlong.

  Got ’im. He grabbed the man’s coat. Swung him to crash against the wall. Now we do a little talking. Twisted an arm behind his back. For all the brute size and muscle, it was easy to force the gasping, thrashing ape to his knees. “Who’s in it with you? Talk to me, you bastard.”

  Pax grabbed the man’s hair and pulled his head back so they could see him.

  From the man, in English, “I don’t understand. I don’t speak French.”

  This wasn’t the man in charge. This was somebody’s cat-spaw. This was the fool. Le fou. He switched languages, “Who are you working for? Give me their names.”

  “You’re English!” Relief filled the man’s face. “Thank God. You have to get me out of here. They’ll be after us in a minute.”

  “Who sent you to France?”

  “I can’t be taken by the garde. I have important work to finish.”

  Killing women and kids. “Who gave the orders?”

  “I have to get away. He has to be stopped.”

  “Who gave you the fire starter?” He ratcheted the man’s wrist tighter. It was pointless. The stupid lump was incoherent with fear and frenzy. He didn’t feel anything. “You didn’t think of this yourself.”

  “Napoleon must die. No peace till he dies.” He was fighting, trying to get up, sputtering, “Have to try again. I’ll get him next time.”

  Pax had his head to the side, listening. “They’re coming. A lot of them.”

  The man was spewing English loud enough to tell the world they were up here. “He killed my boy. Killed my Roger. Roger Cameron, Lieutenant of The Valorous. My boy died at the Battle of Aboukir. He killed my boy.”

  A man willing to murder a hundred innocents because his son died in a naval battle. He’d do this again. The next bomb might go off in the middle of the Comédie-Française.

  Shouts from below and the tromp that meant soldiers. They were about to deal with the French authorities.

  “Napoleon must die.” Spittle and gasps from the Englishman. “Only way to save England. The army’s behind me. Important men. Highest levels. They know what he is.”

  “Give me the names.” But this man didn’t know anything. He was a tool in somebody’s hands. He hadn’t been sent here to kill Napoleon. He’d been sent here to be captured and talk.

  “I’m doing this is for England. For England.”

  Casus belli. This blind idiot, this bull-headed, stupid animal would be the cause of war.

  Soldiers shouted back and forth in the marble halls downstairs. No getting the Englishman away where they could question him. Only one choice.

  “Get back.” He wouldn’t make Pax part of this. He’d keep the load on his own conscience.

  It didn’t take strength. It took knowing how to balance the weight. It took being used to the work of killing. It took being the Hawker.

  The Englishman rolled over the banister with chilling grace. The man let out one yelp on the way down. He had a second to be scared. Probably less.

  The body sprawled faceup at the bottom. It had a cleanly broken neck, among other things. A fast and clean way out of life. Better than dying in a fire.

  Better than what the French would do to him and Pax, if they caught them. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  They took off with the soldiers pounding up the stairs after them.

  Thirty-eight

  THE GALLERIES OF THE LOUVRE WERE ALMOST DESERTED. Pax didn’t see anyone as he strolled past a fine collection of art looted from Italy. More of Napoleon’s contribution to the history of plunder. The statue of Laocoön wrestling a snake took most of the end of the hall. A reminder he wasn’t the only one with problems.

  He and Hawk had been spotted killing the Englishman. The soldiers had their description. Time to run.

  “Paxton.”

  Carruthers. She wore crow black, all the respectable widow. At her side, Althea was in a neat dress and heavy fichu that said “comfortable, old-fashioned maidservant.” God help the man who thought that’s what they were.

  “The Englishman is dead,” he said, skipping the preliminaries.

  “We heard.” Carruthers was disapproving. “A regrettable accident to mar the general rejoicing for the First Consul’s escape from the fire. Did you learn anything before killing him?”

  “We didn’t have much time.”

  “That is unfortunate.”

  “You, my dear boy, are sought as one of the radical Jacobins who set the fire.” Althea smiled. She’d filled a handkerchief with gray ash from the fire. “You were seen and described. Your hair is most impressively memorable.” She moved behind a plinth which carried a Roman copy of a fifth-century bust of Pericles. “Lean down, please. That’s right.”

  He took his hat off and let her dust gray into his hair.

  “Not wholly convincing at close quarters.” She brushed at his face with the back of her fingers. “It will do from a distance. There. Turn around. I’ll tie your hair back.”

  Carruthers stood, concealing them. “At least his death will placate the French. They’ll know we tidied him up. Adrian?”

  “Took off the other way. I don’t know where he is.” Althea had picked up an art pencil from one of the easels standing around. He couldn’t speak while she drew lines on his face.

  “Enough.” Carruthers looked him over. “Let us dodder harmlessly away.”

  The Head of Section for Paris at his side, a senior agent of the British Service trailing behind, he hobbled down the long gallery. In the jubilation at Napoleon’s narrow escape, no one paid attention to an old man, overcome by excitement.

  The guards at the door argued over whether a dead Englishman had been shot or tossed out a window and didn’t even glance up as he shuffled down the stairs.

  Down the Rue de Rivoli, left, two streets over, and one up. They entered the alley behind a boulangerie. It was stacked with old barrels, smelling of flour and yeast, hot from the bakery ovens. This led to a storage room that was one of the safe houses of the British Service.

  Carruthers said, “I’ll send the fiacre for you at dusk. You will grace England with your presence for a while.”

  He put out a hand. “Wait.” And he told her he was a Caché.

  Thirty-nine

  JUSTINE FOLLOWED LEBLANC INTO THE CROWD, keeping an eye out for any dark, slim man decorated with ashes. She saw no one of interest, neither Hawker nor his friend with the so-obvious hair. The fire in the Pavillon de Marsan had dusted everyone with bits of black. If Hawker had stupidly remained to hide among the crowd, he would blend in.

  “He was seen,” Leblanc pointed, “headed that way. We go to the main building.”

&nbs
p; Two guards followed them, armed. “Yes, monsieur.”

  It was dim inside, after the bright sun of the courtyard, even with the long windows that reached to the ceiling. They passed no one. All the world was in the courtyard, cheering the arrival of the pumping engine. The galleries of the Louvre led one into another, endless canyons of paintings, studded with statues. It was as good an escape as most, and Hawker would not linger to admire the artwork. He was gone from here. Long gone.

  Leblanc muttered to himself, “I saw him at the presentation. Just before the fire. I’ll know him when I see him again.”

  With luck, Leblanc would not see him again.

  While Hawker had killed his Englishman, two men from the Department of Antiquities came out to the stairs and looked. Leblanc had questioned them closely. They wore flamboyant cravats and chattered and were as shocked and pleased as if they had done the deed themselves. They were, unfortunately, observant and exact witnesses. They were also artists. Leblanc would soon have pencil sketches of Hawker and Paxton.

  Leblanc said, “He set the fire and escaped from the room.”

  She shook her head. “I do not think so. He was trapped with the rest of us.”

  “You are wrong. It is the work of a great operative to see these things, Justine. You would do well to take your lessons from me.” Leblanc limped mightily from some small injury acquired in the panic of the fire. She hoped it hurt. “The English fight among themselves. One spy has disposed of his accomplice and fled. That is the cause of this murder.”

  “Or it is Jacobins,” she said. “In any case, they are not here.”

  It was eerie to be in the great vaulted halls, alone. She could have stolen the artwork of centuries at this moment and walked out with it under her cloak. She did not mention this. The guards, following, were unlikely to recognize the theoretical nature of this observation. Leblanc would probably steal something, if it were once suggested to him that he could.

  Leblanc said, “You. Search that way. You. Down there.” And the guards went to obey. She hoped they would not shoot someone entirely innocent. She also hoped they would not shoot Hawker.

  In a gallery at the end of this corridor was a small picture by Vouet that had hung in her bedroom when she was a child and the Mademoiselle de Cabrillac, an aristocrat. The Republic confiscated it when the chateau was sacked. She was not certain whether she would steal it back or not. How strange to almost be given the chance.

  Leblanc stalked along, wincing, keeping a half step in front of her so he should look like he was leading. He managed to look both sullen and dangerous, like a spoiled five-year-old playing with munitions. “The First Consul did not listen. I told him it was English spies. I will give him English spies.”

  He won’t thank you for it.

  They came to a dead end where a large marble snake strangled several naked men.

  “Not here,” Leblanc hissed. “Go back. He will escape the other way.”

  In the distance, an old couple followed by their servant left the hall of sculptures. A museum watchman passed, looking at them curiously.

  “I will salvage something from this debacle,” Leblanc said. “If only more dead spies.”

  She saw him then, dark on the white stairs, illuminated pitilessly by the skylight above. He had nowhere to hide in all this grandeur. Slight, black-haired, all ardent grace as he took the steps two at a time. Hawker.

  “There. There he is.” Leblanc shouted, “Shoot.”

  Leblanc tore a pistol from his jacket pocket. She stepped in front of him, blocking his aim, and took out her own gun. Raised it. Strange how it seemed so absolutely silent.

  “Kill him,” Leblanc said.

  She held the gun in both hands before her. Shifted, as if by accident, into Leblanc’s path. He couldn’t get a clear shot.

  Her finger found the trigger. She lowered the barrel to her target with the deliberate care of a marksman. She aimed well to the left of him. Her finger tightened. Softly.

  Hawker half-turned. In a single snap, their eyes met.

  “Out of my way.” Leblanc shoved her from behind. And she shot.

  Hawker still held her eye. She saw the impact. Blood blossomed on his chest. The bullet hit him high, between heart and shoulder. Blood trickled down over the bright stripes of his waistcoat.

  No! No. No. “You spoiled my aim,” she heard herself say to Leblanc.

  Hawker stayed, standing still, the space of an intake of breath. Shocked with getting hit. Shocked that it was her bullet going into him. Then he turned and ran.

  She spun clumsily and managed to knock into Leblanc. Her pistol, empty now, knocked his arm aside.

  “Stupid bitch.”

  She snapped, “He’s hit. He can’t go far. Get the garde. Search the apartments upstairs. He’ll be hiding in one of them.”

  She ran up the steps.

  Hawker had left a trail of blood. He’d turned down this hall. One of the curtains was pulled back unevenly and the window was open.

  Even Hawker with his legendary skill could not . . .

  But there was blood on the stone outside. Had he managed to climb down? She searched the ground below, but he was not there. The men and women walking the Rue de Rivoli gave no sign a man had passed, dripping blood. Somehow, he had ambled away, blending into the crowd.

  Hawker was alone in Paris, desperate and wounded.

  He thought she had tried to kill him.

  Forty

  1818

  Meeks Street, London

  JUSTINE WAS DETERMINED TO ARISE AND COME TO breakfast. She was entirely weary of meeting men in bed when she was wearing no clothing.

  She came downstairs, holding the rail. Séverine went before her, ready to throw her body down to cushion any fall. Surely no child wavering onto its feet for the first time was ever so closely watched.

  The banyan robe she wore slithered under her feet when not persuaded otherwise. Silk brocade lipped about her bare legs, too heavy to cling. The crimson of it was a shout, a strident trumpet of a color. One could imagine confronting the emperor of China in such a garment. It was Hawker’s and smelled faintly of tobacco, sandalwood, and black powder.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the carpet was chilly under the arch of her foot. Three doors were open into the hall and a light wind blew through. At the back of the house, men’s voices rumbled. She would head in that direction. If anyone was talking, it was probably Hawker.

  Séverine said, “Catch your breath. Sit for a minute.” She gave other prudent advice.

  “When I sit down, I will not want to stand up again. I am weak as pudding.” Ah, the beauty of great truths. They can be stated so concisely.

  It was not so long a journey from the front of the house to the back. She set her right hand upon the wall from time to time and rested because there was no one to impress and she would need all her strength to deal with the men who awaited her at the end of the hall.

  Séverine opened the door into a small, perfect dining room with Chinese wallpaper, graceful mahogany furniture, and quite a nice collection of English spies. A mound of untidy gray fur occupied a square of sunlight on the rug. This was the huge dog that visited her room several times a day, sniffed at her, and departed, grave and silent as a physician. The table held breakfast dishes and stacks of notes, folded newspapers, a teapot and cups, and a pair of black knives.

  “. . . the witness statements. So far, we’ve talked to—” Doyle swung around in his chair.

  Hawker, at the head of the table, looked up.

  Silence. She took two . . . three . . . slow breaths and walked through the door to discuss various matters with the British Service.

  Hawker was in shirtsleeves. He wore stark white linen of the finest quality, a cream waistcoat, and the impassive containment of a Byzantine icon. He was even thinner than he had been long ago.

  He said to Séverine, “You had to bring her, didn’t you? I do not understand why nobody ever says ‘no’ to this woman.”
/>   Séverine said, “She can faint as easily downstairs in company as upstairs alone. At worst she will topple over and bloody her nose. At best, one of you can catch her.” She went around the table to kiss Doyle on the cheek in a daughterly manner.

  “And ain’t that a wonderful prospect for a man trying to enjoy his breakfast in peace.” Doyle had chosen to be scarred and unshaven today. It would suit his peculiar sense of humor to sit in this exquisite room in the rough, patched clothing of the barely respectable poor.

  On the other side of the table, Paxton was a pale, ascetic scholar this morning, wearing shabby black. He had spectacularly proven his loyalty to England many years ago and paid full price for the right to sit among them. It was legend in the circles of spies, how greatly he had redeemed himself from suspicion.

  The last man she also knew, though she had never exactly met him. He was the ingenious, insouciant agent known as Fletcher. She knew him only by sight, having avoided a closer introduction.

  They had been discussing important matters. All the signs were there—the interrupted gesture, the bodies leaned across the table, the papers and coffee cups pushed aside carelessly. They were wondering, rather obviously, what she had overheard out there in the hall.

  Everywhere, she met with suspicion. She, who was an honest shopkeeper. One may retire from spying, but not from one’s reputation.

  Hawker pushed his chair back from the table and strode over to circle her. “Sit.”

  “I am hardly in need of advice to—”

  “Sit the bloody hell down.” He was the sleek animal who flashed from stillness into attack. He did that now. Without pause, without seeming to hurry, all in one long glide of intention, he scooped her up and deposited her in the chair. “Before you fall over.”

  He used not one feather of force beyond what was needed to take her off balance, to support her as she sank back.