The Spymaster's Lady sl-1

by Joanna Bourne

  She was in the vegetable market near the docks, admiring oranges—they were so perfectly round, with the shallow dimples and a color strong enough to warm the hands; she had never appreciated oranges before—when she noticed the squint-eyed man beside a pyramid of apples, watching her. When she wandered away to visit vegetable marrows and onions, he followed. Such interest.

  She had been careless, sauntering around this town. If she had still been a spy, under orders, she would have realized sooner she was being followed.

  Tiens. This was not good. Was this the English authorities already finding her, or did Fouché’s long arm reach for her across the Channel? Or was Squint-Eyes only a common rapist or thief? In any case, she did not want to encounter him.

  She ducked under the red and white striped awning of a stall and dodged staid matrons and baskets full of cabbages. Mon Dieu, but she missed boy’s clothing. A boy her size could run like a deer without anyone taking note. A woman collected stares. They marked her path behind her, as heads turned in her direction.

  Out of the market, then, and away from these many eyes. She found small streets. She had not yet seen any part of Dover that was beautiful, but this section was distinctly unlovely. She ran hard now, taking left and right at random in this twisting maze of narrow lanes. The squint-eyed man, who must be French for the speed of his feet and his cleverness, was still behind her. Gaining on her.

  She could not avoid a confrontation. Better to choose her own ground for it than to stumble into some blind alley.

  Let it be here. She skidded to a stop and lifted her dress to tug Adrian’s knife from the cloth that bound it to her thigh. It fitted reassuringly into her grip, a sneaky, five-inch blade, balanced for throwing, utterly characteristic of Monsieur Adrian. She pulled the kerchief off her hair and tossed it aside, shrugged out of her shawl, and lowered the knife against her skirt.

  The alley walls rose up on either side in ragged, poorly laid brick. Piles of rotting garbage heaped the cobbles. The alley lay between mean stone houses, the windows small and shuttered, the doors locked. No one would come to help her if she screamed. No one would see what passed here.

  Squint-Eyes rounded the corner and halted, startled to find her waiting. He glanced around quickly, then at her, suspicious, and saw only a woman alone. He groped under his jacket and fingered out a skinny dagger and began a slow advance.

  She held her ground. Let him come to her. “Why do you follow me? I do not wish to speak to—”

  Behind her, a boot gritted on stone. It was a tiny, sharp, malevolent sound, and it terrified her. She whipped around. Henri Bréval blocked the light. He blocked her escape. She was trapped.

  She had walked into this like an idiot. She faced her death.

  Not like this. She threw herself against the brick wall, protecting her back, keeping both of them in sight. I am the Fox Cub. I have not walked a million miles through hell to die at the hands of these canailles. She hissed short, short breaths through her teeth to drive fear out. It was not hopeless. There were only two of them. She would stick her knife into Squint-Eyes, push past, and run for her life. A simple plan, but a good one. Henri was no greyhound in the chase. She would be lightning.

  She readied her little knife.

  Henri smirked. Out of sight, someone approached with deliberate, unhurried steps. Her stomach turned cold and sick. It could not be…

  From behind Henri, from the shadows, stepped Leblanc.

  Panic broke across her like a wave from the cold sea. Leblanc, with his throwing knife and cold malice. Leblanc, who could not afford to let her live. I know what happened at Bruges, but I cannot say one single word. It is Vauban’s death if I tell.

  Down the length of the alley, Leblanc saw her fear, and he smiled. But he did not draw his knife and throw and kill her. He motioned Henri forward. He was so certain of her silence that he could toss her to his henchmen like a bone for the dog. She would not be given a clean death.

  Three men. Three knives. She had no chance. No chance.

  “Come, poulette.” Henri beckoned with little flicks of his knife. “Come, we only want to talk to you. Only talk.”

  Here in England there would be no talk. No underground cell. No torture. No leisurely destruction of her mind and spirit. On this foreign soil, Leblanc was the intruder. His influence was nothing. Here, Leblanc would forgo the Albion plans and settle for her death and the concealment of what he had done in Bruges.

  “I let you live, Henri Bréval.” Her voice shook all by itself. No pretense was needed. “Remember that. Twice, I let you live when I could have killed you.”

  “My thanks.” He gave her an ironic salute. She could read her short future in his voice. Leblanc had promised Henri the rape of her before they slit her throat. Already Henri saw her helpless and struggling beneath him. He was cutting her clothes away in his mind.

  Let him fill his thoughts with that pretty picture. It would make him unwary. She risked a glance behind. Squint-Eyes held his knife extended, as if he offered a cup of tea. Had no one told him she knew how to fight? This was the weakest of them. She shuffled away from Henri, toward Squint-Eyes.

  “You shrink from me?” Henri smiled. “You will only make me angry.” He had decided to make a game of it, drawing his pleasure out.

  “I beg you. Je vous en prie. Henri, I will do anything.” She gained a long pace. Two.

  “So shy, little Cub?” He snaked the knife at her playfully. Leblanc should tell him not to enjoy himself so much.

  “If you will only listen to me. Only let me explain—”

  In the middle of a word, she twisted and struck at Squint-Eyes. She cut downward, fast and precise, to slice the tendon at the base of his thumb. He squealed. His knife wheeled away, glinting red, into the gutter. He fell to his knees, clutching his hand and shrieking.

  It was a small, expensive victory. Henri attacked instantly, slashing, driving her back from the mouth of the alley. There was no way to break past him. She had no chance to run.

  There would be no more games from Henri.

  Pitiless sunlight shafted into the narrow alley, glinting off the steel Henri held. Leblanc was a monstrous, dark presence. In the dirt behind her, Squint-Eyes wept like a woman. She retreated, knife held close to her waist, her other arm extended for balance. She had seconds, only, before she was defeated. She would use them to cripple Henri, if she could.

  So she launched herself at him. He evaded. In the moment he was off balance, she tossed her knife to her left hand and jabbed, fast as fast, where he would not expect. His hand was a small target, but she hit it. Slashed. Opened a crimson streak across his knuckles. Blood spilled down his fingers.

  He will have a scar to remember me by. She backed away.

  “Salope!” He shook his hand, and drops of blood scattered vivid on the cobbles. When he brought the knife up, it was wrapped in a red grip. He held it at the height of her heart. “I will hurt you. I will carve your face to pieces before I kill you.”

  He slashed at her eyes.

  She saw a silver blur. Jerked back. Instantly, he cut again. Steel whisked by her ear. Cold terror shot through her. She turned and ran down the alley.

  Leblanc came to meet her. His knife was a cold, gloating streak, slicing, slicing at her. Never quite touching. Making her jump and dance. Forcing her back toward Henri.

  No escape. No possible escape. Her lungs pumped pain after pain. She tried a feint that didn’t work. Nothing worked. Leblanc was a master with the knife. I cannot win. I am a child against him. He forced her back and back. Back to Henri.

  She retreated. Her back touched the wall, and Henri closed in. This is the end. It will hurt. It will hurt very much, dying. She braced upon cold brick, her knife before her…

  Black pain hit her belly. Henri’s fist knocked her breathless. He twisted her knife hand to an unbearable agony. “Drop it.” Her hand opened. Her knife fell. It was over for her.

  Henri’s muddy brown eyes exulted. The point of
his blade lay at the pulse in her throat, at her breath. He didn’t press it home.

  She thought, He will rape me before he kills me.

  HE was in time. Barely.

  Grey heard the sound of a scuffle and a woman moaning in pain and took the last thirty paces at a flat-out run. Turned the corner into the alley…

  A man hunched on the cobbles, nursing a bleeding paw. He was the one crying. Leblanc lurked at the far end of the alley. Annique was pushed to the wall with Henri’s knife at her throat.

  Attack. Grey roared and charged in. Rammed Henri midbody. Pulled him off Annique before he could slit her throat.

  They went over together and slammed the wall, jarring bone and flesh. Henri’s knife spun away, end over end. They hit the ground and rolled and grappled, smashing against the bricks and boards of the wall. For all his size, Henri wasn’t good at body-to-body, rough-and-tumble fighting.

  They were on their feet. Close up, inside Henri’s ape-long arms, Grey punched—one, two, three—short, stiff-armed punches to the belly. Henri turned red in the face, then went pasty white when Grey cracked a knee into his groin.

  He backed away. Henri folded, boneless, to the ground. The fight was finished. It had taken less than a minute.

  He kicked Henri’s knife away, out of reach. He’d make sure the Frenchman was out of commission for a while. He jerked Henri up from his knees and bounced him off the far wall, aiming the shoulder foremost. Lots of small, breakable bones in the shoulder.

  He would have finished the job, but Annique kept leaving the bastard alive for some reason. He’d defer to her judgment.

  A startled cry. He spun round.

  Leblanc swayed, his face twisted in pain. His blade rang and jittered on the cobbles where he’d dropped it. The hilt of a throwing knife stuck out of his expensive coat, and blood ran down his sleeve.

  Annique had put the knife into Leblanc—into his arm, not his throat—before he could throw. No telling which of them Leblanc had planned to kill.

  Leblanc broke and ran, skittering down a side alley, trailing blood, clutching his shoulder, fast as a rabbit. He had a thirty-foot head start. Henri Bréval staggered to his feet, scooped up his knife left-handed, and headed in the opposite direction. The whining fellow at the mouth of the alley wobbled off, still mewling.

  There was nothing to do but stand and swear and watch them get away. He couldn’t take prisoners when he had no men to control them. And if he turned his back on Annique, she’d disappear like smoke.

  She sagged against the wall, breathing hard. If he’d come into that alleyway five minutes later…The thought of her, bleeding her life out in this filth, hit like a body blow.

  Idiot, idiot woman. What the hell were they thinking, everybody who went around praising her to the skies and calling her a master agent? She let herself get backed into an alley. She’d done minor injury to one man, hadn’t followed in for the kill, then just about missed Leblanc altogether. She could throw better than that. She was game enough, but she lacked edge. If she’d been his agent, he wouldn’t let her off the front steps without a keeper.

  “He has taken Adrian’s knife away with him,” she said clearly. “How am I to cut vegetables?” She stared down the alley where Leblanc had disappeared.

  Those were the first words he heard her speak in English. She had a beautiful voice—fluent and husky, the French of her buzzing under every syllable. A caress of a voice. The woman couldn’t breathe without enticing him.

  “But I would not have wanted to cut vegetables with it, would I, if it had Leblanc’s blood upon it.” She put her fist over her mouth and began to giggle.

  Battle nerves, that laughter. She’d need a wall behind her to hold her up for a while.

  He’d lost his knit fisherman’s cap during the fight. He bent and picked it up and beat it on his trousers, watching her. She’d run as soon as she pulled herself together.

  “He would not have wanted me to cut vegetables with it, in any case, the man who gave me the knife. He would be delighted where that knife is. He does not like Leblanc—my friend does not—the friend who has so many knives.” She pushed glossy strands of black hair off her forehead and peeked up at him. For the first time, he saw Annique looking out of her eyes.

  She didn’t know him.

  Frank and charming, pale as parchment, she smiled. “Thank you very much. Thank you very, very much.”

  He played the black knit cap through his fingers and waited for her to recognize him. That would be the end of the joy in her. He’d drag her out of this maze of streets and wipe the brightness from her and carry her off to London. There was a bleak, nasty fight coming in a few minutes, inevitable as sunset. He’d win. She’d lose.

  She ran her eyes over his face, his hair, his shoulders, the whole length of him in his smelly fisherman’s jersey and trousers. Appraising. Approving. She said, “It is a strange thing. I can speak five languages, and I cannot think of a single way to say how grateful I am that you have saved me.”

  Why don’t you know me, Annique?

  She trembled with the shocky aftermath of terror, and laughed, and thanked him politely again and again, and she didn’t know him at all.

  My God. You’ve never seen me, have you? You don’t know my face. You don’t know the color of my hair or the shape of my nose. I could be anybody.

  She didn’t know who he was. If he left her free, and followed her, she might lead him straight to the Albion plans.

  Could it be done? The more he considered it, the better it sounded. She knew where the plans were. He was sure of it. Somehow, after that bloody debacle at Bruges, Annique had been left holding the Albion plans.

  She didn’t bring anything from France. He’d been following her since she stepped out of the fishing boat at the docks, empty-handed. Could the Albion plans already be in England?

  Where are the plans, Annique? Are you headed for them right now? Going to take them to Soulier, I bet.

  If she led him to the plans…It was the cleanest way that could be. One instant of shock, and it would be over. No long, well-practiced interrogation. No poisoned intimacy as he stripped her secrets away, hour after hour. No clever, painless coercion that would leave them both feeling sick.

  At Meeks Street, in his comfortable prison, he’d loosen her hold on the plans, inch by inch. He was expert. He’d take them from her. He’d get dirty fingerprints all over her soul, doing it.

  He could leave her free. It was tempting on every level. If he left her free, he’d have days with Annique when she wouldn’t be his enemy. Maybe she’d keep looking at him like he was some kind of white knight. Maybe that was what he wanted.

  She knows my voice. But I can change my voice.

  Growing up in deepest Somerset, he and his brothers had run tame in the stable, copying the grooms’ speech and getting clouted for using it in the parlor. Broad Somerset still came easily to his tongue when he went home.

  He pitched his voice deep and spoke in the familiar West Country cadence. “Are you hurt?” He didn’t sound like himself to his own ear.

  “Not in the least, thank you. It is very brave of you to attack so many men, three of them, when they were armed.”

  He shrugged. He wouldn’t talk much. She couldn’t recognize his voice if she didn’t hear it.

  “You are modest as well. But it is because of you I am not gutted like a herring, for which I am unendingly appreciative. It is heroism on your part, to throw yourself into a fight with such eagerness, when you do not know me at all.”

  “Anybody’d do the same.” He kept expecting the next word to wake her memory and tell her who he was.

  “Perhaps. There is much altruism in the world.” She pushed herself away from the wall and staggered over to pick her shawl up from the dirt. “But it does not always arrive promptly and with such useful muscles. A friend gave me this, that her mother knitted for her.” She shook out the shawl. “It would have been found beside my body, if you had not come.”


  He made a noncommittal noise. He could fool her for a day or two, if he was careful. That might be all he needed.

  “I have been very lucky this morning, have I not? I cannot begin to think of how I will thank you.”

  She smiled at him. If she kept being grateful to passing strangers, somebody was going to bundle her into a bedroom at the nearest inn and lock the door and let her prove exactly how grateful she was.

  When she walked unsteadily down the alley, stumbling and setting her hand on the wall from time to time, he walked with her, keeping an arm’s reach away. He didn’t try to help. He didn’t lay a finger on her. A single touch, and she’d recognize him with her skin.

  HER sense of direction had not deserted her. She backtracked down one long street and made a right turn, and they came to the small market square with wharves behind it. At the side was a line of stone benches. She sat and closed her eyes and felt the world spin around her. When she opened her eyes, the tall man in the black fisherman’s sweater was still there.

  It overwhelmed her continually, the intensity of seeing. She could have counted the individual dark hairs upon his cheek, and every one of them was beautiful.

  He wiped his hands upon his sweater that smelled so of fish and said, “You don’t look well.”

  His accent was different from the English smugglers she knew. His voice grated harsh from his throat. That would be from those years at sea, probably, or heavy drinking ashore.

  “I am fine.” But she shook in every fiber. It was good to have a clean place to sit. “It is only that I have been frightened to the core, you understand, thinking I would be killed, which could terrify anyone and is a thing I have never become used to.”

  The sailor was a large man, and obviously strong as an ox, which was doubtless useful on boats. He might have been twenty-eight or thirty. His brown hair was cut close to his skull and lay in layers, like shingles. His eyes were a dark, colorless mixture of shades, like the sea itself, a sort of gunmetal gray. The lower half of his face was dark with stubble. None of this should have made him handsome, and yet, to her, he was.