by C. S. Quinn
His door is at the top of the stairs and I turn the handle without knocking.
As it opens, I’m greeted by the familiar sharp smell of sealing wax. This is the heart of it all, where it all happens.
The most illegal of legal things in England.
Forged pardons, authorizations, safe passage in every language are issued from here. Maps and city plans, stolen and duplicated from the four corners of the earth, are rolled and filed.
The room is filled with smoke and at first I can’t see Atherton. My heart beats faster. It’s been almost a year since I saw him last. We wrote to one another whenever we could, but I know there are things he wouldn’t tell me by letter.
The haze clears and there he is.
Atherton. Sitting behind the same desk. Wearing the same blue and gold naval coat, his thick brown hair just as unruly.
A rush of emotions hit me.
His shaggy head is lowered, deep in concentration, fiddling with a tiny brazier of burning coals. Floating before him, like dancing angels, are three paper lanterns, bobbing in the air. Each belches a trail of black smoke, rather ruining the celestial effect.
I watch him reach out a long finger and tap one of the hovering lanterns. It lifts gracefully, propelled by the heat of the brazier burning on his desk. Atherton’s lanky frame is twisted awkwardly on his chair and twin walking canes rest against his withered legs.
‘If you must play with fire, Atherton,’ I say, ‘you should find an office with higher ceilings.’
He looks up confused, then his face changes.
‘Attica?’ He stands with effort, his light green eyes lit with joy, a smile stretched across his narrow face. ‘Those bloody French have mastered the hot air balloon,’ he explains. ‘King Louis tests them with convicts. They got one halfway across the English Channel before it mercifully combusted.’
Something like relief catches in my throat to find him so unchanged. I half-run at him and we hug tightly and for too long because there’s no one watching.
‘I thought you were dead,’ he says.
‘How could I be?’ I say. ‘I promised you I would return.’
‘You’ll stay?’ He slides his hands from my shoulders, takes my hands in his. ‘Longer than a week this time?’
I feel my heart squeeze. My eyes settle on his wedding ring.
‘I can’t,’ I say, shaking my head.
‘For a few days, at least.’ Atherton makes the disarming smile I love, his green eyes tilted up, straight mouth drawn wide.
We’re staring into one another’s eyes, my hands still on his shoulders and his on mine. If we were reunited lovers, we would kiss now, I think.
Could we? Just once? I picture Atherton drawing closer, see myself doing nothing to stop him.
A blaze of flame behind us shocks me into my senses. One of his lanterns has caught on fire.
‘Your flying balloons need more work,’ I tell him, moving to extinguish the flames. ‘Shouldn’t you use silk, instead of paper?’
CHAPTER 7
ONCE I’VE EXTINGUISHED ATHERTON’S AIR BALLOON experiment, I take in his office.
It’s different to how I remember it. It was once full of fashionable furniture, Chinois style, all red and gold and looping shapes. But things have been cut down, altered, removed. His old desk is still here, though – heavy black, with a scattering of different-sized drawers at the front, painted with gold-lacquered flying birds, willow trees and rivers from a far-flung land he’ll never see. But bolted solidly to the top are two wooden handles, rough-hewn things for a cripple to grip at.
On the wall is a portrait of him five years ago in the Navy, before his illness began, standing tall in his admiral’s uniform and tricorn hat. I wonder how he can bear to have it here still.
‘Your office looks awful.’ I grin, knowing he’ll appreciate my honesty. ‘Couldn’t you have kept your limbs working a little longer?’
He laughs. ‘It’s been a long time since you decorated,’ he says, smiling back at me. ‘I became bored of good taste.’ The smile fades away. ‘You’ve been gone a long time, Attica,’ he says. I see in his face a little snatch of how it must feel to be stuck here with someone you care for far away.
‘That doesn’t change things,’ I say, squeezing his fingers.
I drop my hands down to hold his, reluctant to move apart.
‘How are you?’ I ask.
‘Good and bad,’ he admits, shifting his twisted legs. ‘The rubber stoppers you got me come in useful on Whitehall’s waxed floors. Fortunate those Caribbean pirates never found you.’
He gives me a mischievous glance.
‘How did you ...?’
‘How did I know you risked your life to steal them? Let’s just say it’s my job to know things.’ He taps his nose.
Atherton plants his palms on his walking sticks and shuffles with difficulty to his desk. When his condition first deteriorated he told me in no uncertain terms not to treat him like a cripple. I’ve always respected his wishes, but it’s not always easy.
I wander around the office, taking in the changes. I reach up to a little cabinet, all little-gold-leafed drawers. It bears all the markings of one of Atherton’s puzzle boxes.
‘You’ve altered the pattern?’ I guess, reaching up and pressing on a gold-leaf. It recedes into the wood.
‘I’ve made a few improvements.’
I nod, pushing in a few other sections in sequence. I only just duck in time, as a drawer shoots free, sending a whirling blade winging across the room.
‘Very good,’ I enthuse, noting how far it has lodged in the wall.
‘The spring is a great deal stronger,’ agrees Atherton, pleased.
I move to the opposite side of the room, where the blade has embedded, twanging menacingly with the impact.
‘Anything else?’ I ask, prodding it.
‘Oh yes!’ Atherton’s schoolboy energy always lights him up when speaking of his inventions. He opens a drawer and then another, hidden inside.
After a moment’s frowning search, he removes what look like some little pieces of wood. Their tips are coated in a yellow substance.
I look closer, then grin at him.
‘They work?’
Atherton sits back proudly. He lifts one.
‘Self-lighting fire-sticks,’ he says. ‘Drag them against any rough surface and they will fire on their own.’ He picks one up carefully and drags it against the edge of his desk. It flares. ‘Instant flame, and you can hide them in all kinds of places you couldn’t fit a tinderbox.’
I stare at the fire, transfixed. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘They fail if you get them wet, mind,’ says Atherton, blowing it out. ‘I’m still working on how to fix that. Perhaps a different mix of chemicals at the tip.’
We share a smile; two strange people who love ciphers and mechanics.
I didn’t realize quite how much I’d missed Atherton.
‘You must at least stay long enough to drink with me,’ he decides. He manoeuvres himself to his desk with impressive dexterity and using the wooden handles he opens the largest of his drawers.
‘Sailor’s finest,’ he beams, lifting out a battered bottle. Atherton’s vice is the filthiest of cheap naval rum, a throwback to his days warring at sea with common sailors.
I lift a chair and seat myself next to him. I lean forward and collect two glasses from inside his drawer and fill them both much too full. The sugary tang of strong alcohol fills the air.
Atherton takes one appreciatively and we sit side by side, our chairs touching. Through his large first-floor window I can see the pale stone of Whitehall streets and buildings and down below the wigged men hurrying to court.
He swigs deeply. ‘Ah,’ he says happily, ‘the taste of the seven seas.’
I sip, shaking my head. The dark rum is as terrible as it ever was.
‘This is why sailors die so young,’ I say, my eyes burning from the fumes tunnelling up my nose.
; ‘You’ll appreciate it when you’re older,’ he adds, enjoying my wincing expression. His favourite thing is to joke about the age gap between us, which seemed very great when we first met. Atherton tutored me in code-breaking and lock-picking talents ten years ago when I was thirteen and he was twenty-two.
I feel suddenly choked with emotions and take a clumsy mouthful of rum to hide my expression. I want to tell him how I dreamed of the moment I’d see him again, almost daily, in Russia, gathering information for the Crown. That even though he was far away, I knew he was doing everything he could, helping me, keeping me safe, and that knowledge made me happy. But somehow the words don’t come.
Instead, I say: ‘I always liked this view,’ in a cold little voice that doesn’t sound like me.
Atherton eyes me sideways and I wonder if he knows what I’m thinking.
‘So what brings you back to England? King and country?’ he suggests.
‘The usual reason. I’ve come to ask for your help,’ I say, sipping rum. I feel the alcohol burn my stomach, a warm comfortable glow. ‘I need papers. I uncovered a trail of slave trading leading to Madrid. I think there’s a big market hidden there.’
He hesitates. ‘You’ve already been assigned. It’s not my decision. Lord Pole’s office has higher authority.’
My eyes flick to his.
‘Since when did Lord Pole involve himself in Sealed Knot business?’
‘The man you rescued from Russia, Gaspard de Mayenne, we think he’s in danger,’ he says quietly. ‘Lord Pole needs you to get him to Versailles.’
I’m looking hard at Atherton, wondering what it is he isn’t telling me.
‘What business could Gaspard de Mayenne have in Versailles?’ I say. ‘What did you bloody schemers do?’
I’d forgotten, in English intelligence there’s no such thing as a simple rescue.
‘Thanks to you, Gaspard owes us a favour,’ says Atherton. ‘His daughter has a position in the Palace, close enough to get to the Queen.’
‘So you want this girl to smuggle something in?’ I deduce, sipping the bad rum. ‘What?’
Atherton hesitates.
‘Have you heard about the lost diamonds of Marie Antoinette?’
CHAPTER 8
THE LOST DIAMONDS OF MARIE ANTOINETTE. I’M TURNING Atherton’s words over in my head. An image forms in my mind: a newspaper sketch of extravagantly looped and tasselled gems. The description comes back to me.
‘Constructed from two million francs’ worth of diamonds and commissioned by the late French King for his working-class mistress,’ I say, reciting from memory. ‘When he died, his son wouldn’t honour the debt. Marie Antoinette refused a necklace of such vulgar provenance. It was stolen, four years ago.’
‘You’ve a good recall,’ Atherton says. ‘A confidence trickster convinced the jeweller that Marie Antoinette had changed her mind, disguised a prostitute as the Queen and stole the jewels. The thief was caught and the ensuing court trial became a national scandal.’
‘Lèse-majesté,’ I say, it was all flooding back now. ‘The Queen tried to convict not just the thief but the jeweller, too. She accused him of disrespect for daring to believe she would have met a man alone and at night. But she lost the case.’
‘It was all but decreed by law that Marie Antoinette was debauched,’ agrees Atherton. ‘After that, the gossip was unstoppable. The ripples of real discontent began back then. People thought that Marie Antoinette was venal, vengeful. The jewels vanished. Rumours started up that the Queen had taken them.’
‘They’re something of a legend now, aren’t they?’
‘So people have been led to believe,’ he says. ‘But whilst you’ve been in Russia, we’ve been working to find the missing jewellery. We got hold of it in London, before it was to be broken up and sold.’
‘Impressive,’ I admit. ‘You tracked the necklace for all that time, through all the smugglers and shadowy jewellers whose hands it must have passed through. Wait until everyone thought it lost for ever. Then pounce. So,’ I pour him more rum, ‘I imagine you plan to smuggle it back into Versailles? Make it appear the Queen kept it all along.’
‘I’d forgotten how clever you are at guessing plots.’ He smiles at me over his glass. ‘The French King and Queen are hated. It will take only the slightest push for the French people to revolt. A scandalous diamond necklace appearing in Versailles,’ finishes Atherton, ‘is just the pressure needed. Put the diamonds back, let the right servants see it ...’ He waves his glass to suggest the ease with which this could take place.
‘This is Lord Pole’s doing?’ I say. ‘He’s still trying to stop the French King sending troops to America.’
I can always smell my uncle’s schemes a mile away; they have a distinctly cold-blooded reek to them. I picture Lord Pole, a spider in his web of intrigue, making plans, weaving futures for the unwitting.
‘He has a genius for plots of this kind.’ Atherton’s tone is as disapproving as mine.
‘It all sounds very interesting,’ I admit, ‘but I’ve saved Gaspard once. And there’s a slave-trading ship docked off Portugal that needs my attention.’
Atherton rubs his face in the way he does when he’s exasperated.
‘I don’t have a choice in this, Attica. Lord Pole has the highest authority in the Sealed Knot.’ He says it in a way that means: ‘You don’t have a choice.’
‘This is apprenticeship level,’ I protest. Humiliation is blooming.
‘We didn’t mean for you to vanish into Russia and start organizing our embedded men without permission,’ he continues.
‘I saw an opportunity. I took it.’
‘It was a daring and brilliant mission,’ says Atherton, ‘in many ways a great success. But there is more to freeing slaves than fieldwork. And if you can’t take orders ...’
I glare at him. I am so tired of hearing how people should wait a little longer in servitude whilst well-fed men decide their fates by warm fires.
Atherton sighs. ‘It’s Lagos slave docks all over again, Attica. You can’t just go in burning things down for your own agenda.’
‘A youthful grudge, now behind me.’ I try for a winning smile.
‘I took a chance on you, Attica. Everyone knows women aren’t suitable for active service. You’re proving them right.’ He takes my glass, fills it, pushes it back into my hands. ‘If you complete this mission, they’ll let you back at the slave rings. Just prove you’re willing to do as you’re told.’
‘You’d have me playing bodyguard? Those people in Russia have their eyes gouged out for looking at the wrong person.’
I toss the rum back in one, grab the bottle and pour myself another measure.
‘I won’t do it,’ I say, as the alcohol burns. ‘It’s taken years to get inside those slave rings. I know Lord Pole. This is his way of putting me in my place, making sure Lord Morgan’s daughter doesn’t get above herself.’
‘Maybe,’ admits Atherton. ‘But you know how clever he is.’ There’s a warning in his green eyes that makes me snap to attention.
‘He knows I’ll refuse,’ I say, tracking Lord Pole’s likely thought processes. ‘I’ll bet he’s put some penalty in place.’ I drink more rum, feeling suddenly confident. ‘There’s nothing he can do to make me go to France.’
Atherton has a strange expression on his face, almost as though he’s wincing.
‘What?’ I demand.
‘If you don’t go to Paris and deliver this necklace,’ says Atherton, ‘Lord Pole will have you married off.’
I’m absorbing this when something else occurs to me.
‘The unrest in Paris,’ I say. ‘Customs gates are on high alert. Lord Pole would have needed someone trustworthy to smuggle the diamonds into France.’
‘I don’t know who was sent,’ says Atherton. ‘Why do you ask?’
A horrible feeling slides into my stomach.
‘Atherton,’ I say, ‘do you remember my cousin Grace?’
‘The
chubby girl who won’t stop talking about politics? Small-pox scars?’ He gestures around the eyes. ‘How could I forget?’ His expression darkens. ‘The pair of you were absolute savages, digging forts in the tennis lawns and stuffing that old cannon with goose feathers. Wasn’t it Grace that had you both using mud as warpaint?’
‘She was absolutely fearless,’ I say, grinning. I’d forgotten Atherton had been around back then. ‘Grace kicked my slave terrors right out of me. I think my father must have known she would. We were kindred spirits.’
‘Fortunate she grew out of it all,’ says Atherton with feeling. ‘It’s far harder, nowadays, to bribe prison officials.’
‘Grace is from a poorer branch of the family,’ I say, ‘so perhaps she considered she didn’t have a choice. Her lack of nobility also makes her a natural target for Lord Pole’s nefarious schemes,’ I add pointedly. ‘Grace wasn’t at my father’s wedding; I was told she was shopping for her wedding trousseau ... In Paris.’
I feel suddenly uneasy for my clever cousin.
‘Grace does as she’s told now,’ I say. ‘If you had absolutely no conscience, you might consider her an excellent choice to smuggle diamonds.’
We look at each other for a long moment.
‘No.’ Atherton is shaking his head. ‘He wouldn’t have. Not even Lord Pole would stoop to that.’
CHAPTER 9
JUST OFF THE COBBLES OF RUE PIGALLE IN PARIS IS A LITTLE dirt track, culminating in a clutch of rickety wooden shacks. In the twilight, candlelight glows through the gaps in the ill-fitted planks.
Inside one of the shacks sits Grace Elliott, speaking animatedly to Gaspard de Mayenne, her face alive in the soft flame.
Gaspard’s face is now shaved, his greying head once again topped with a wig. He has exchanged the aristocratic clothing of his past life for more muted tastes: a black coat, fawn breeches and leather boots.
He watches the fair-haired English girl in her floating muslin dress, a simple ribbon beneath the bust. She hasn’t stopped talking since she arrived.
‘… and Attica shouted, “Run!”’ Grace explains happily. ‘And it just exploded! The groundkeeper was furious with us. Of course I am not at all wild now,’ she counters quickly. ‘I shall write all my husband’s speeches. He is an aristocrat like you, who speaks against the old order. Did I tell you, I will wed Godwin only next week? That is why I am come to Paris …’