Rook

by Cameron, Sharon

  The guests were also watching the moon. They seemed reluctant to go, even if the couple they had come for had just publicly fought and now disappeared, perfectly content to drink and listen to music while the gendarmes guarded the street entrances downstairs. But there was a bubble of isolation around the settee, an aura of something unsavory that kept even Allemande’s allies at a distance. Except for Émile. Émile made himself at home in the chair opposite, handing LeBlanc a glass of wine that had just been delivered by Benoit.

  “Do you play games, Albert?” Émile asked.

  LeBlanc’s pale eyes flattened just a bit as he accepted the glass. “I believe that would depend on the game, Émile. What sort do you have in mind?”

  “Games of strategy. Chance. You are a student of luck, are you not?”

  “Luck is the handmaiden of Fate, Émile. There is no ‘chance.’ ”

  “So you do not play games?”

  “Strategy is for implementing the will of the Goddess, not discovering it.”

  “Tell me,” said Émile, “how do you determine the will of Fate? How does she make her wishes known to you?”

  “Why, one only has to ask,” said LeBlanc, as if he were sniffing out a convert. “Just this middlesun, I was uneasy in my mind. A decision weighed on me. And so I did the proper honorifics, asked my question of Fate, cast the die, and received my answer.”

  “And what was your answer?” Émile asked, sipping his own wine.

  “That my timing was imperfect. That highmoon was the proper time for certain festivities. Isn’t it fascinating, Émile? Fate reached out her finger and tipped the world into its proper position.” LeBlanc’s smile was smug as he drank. He sat back, the pendant dangling against his chest from its silken cord.

  “Fascinating,” Émile agreed, glancing at how much LeBlanc had swallowed. His eyes roved through the mass of people that were milling about the flat, unwilling to leave. He could not see Enzo.

  The tunnel was in confusion, people everywhere, propping each other up, some carrying one another, all unsure of the way, all wanting out. Sophia pushed her way through the melee, her shouts ineffectual. Then there was a clang of metal up ahead, someone hitting two swords together rhythmically, calling the prisoners to the upper tunnel and the exit. The throng surrounding Sophia turned as one to the sound and gradually began a steady pace, the stronger moving ahead of the weak, an avalanche of humanity sliding sideways and up through the muck and dark of the rough tunnel.

  If the gendarmes came back, if even one of them saw something they shouldn’t, these people would have nothing but their numbers to defend themselves. But surely, Sophia thought, nothing could have been worse than what they were facing the moon before. She held up her lantern, steadying the arm of a woman stumbling next to her. The woman looked up once, glassy-eyed, but any curiosity Sophia saw there was quickly eaten by the panic to get out.

  A gendarme stood at the highest bend of the tunnel, where there was a crossroads of sorts, and this caused a palpitation of fear through the prisoners. But when it was obvious that this gendarme was also holding a light, waving them on and up, calling that there were landovers arriving to take them out of the Sunken City, they moved on again. He must be one of her twins, Sophia thought; an ally she’d never even seen before tonight. The clanging was still going on somewhere beyond him.

  She broke away from the stumbling herd into a side-branching tunnel before the gendarme spotted her. This passage went down again, ending in a locked metal door. Sophia brought out the key Gerard had given her, turned the lock, and started down a long, winding set of stone stairs. LeBlanc’s special cells, for special prisoners. That’s what the twins had written.

  Cartier would be out there somewhere, helping the twins direct the prisoners to the temporary safety of the warehouse across the prison yard. The Lower City was emptying for La Toussaint. With no executions soon, he should be able to get the prisoners safely loaded into the landovers Allemande was so thoughtfully providing for their trip to the Upper City and out the gates. As long as Spear got out of the Hasard flat quick enough, delivered the forged passes to the gates, as long as she could get everyone out before René or LeBlanc realized the Tombs were completely empty of gendarmes …

  She stopped on the stairs, stomach twisting as she looked at LeBlanc’s signet ring, now filthy but still on her index finger. René knew about the passes, and he’d made sure the ring came into her hands. Or had he made sure she had the ring to fully gain her trust, and not told LeBlanc he was doing so? Such a double cross was not unthinkable. And then she felt another hard wrench in her middle. René was providing the ships. That meant there wouldn’t be any ships.

  The prisoners would just have to scatter; it was all she could do. At least she would have gotten them to the coast. She could only hope that René would not want to admit he’d helped her forge passes, and that Spear had gotten out of the Hasard flat with his life.

  She doubled her pace down the stairs, boots making quick, tapping echoes against the shadowy walls, like her heart, like the ticking of the firelighter she’d left behind, a machine that felt nothing, knew nothing but the job at hand. And then the steps ended in an open space of rough brown rock. The dim light of her lantern showed five stone carved arches, all in random directions, heavy wooden doors with locks fitted into the openings. What this place had been Before Sophia couldn’t imagine; there were faint traces of paint in the deep crevices of the walls. But if these cells had numbers, she could find no trace of them.

  “Tom? Tom Bellamy?” she called. It was silent under the Sunken City. She took Gerard’s keys and put one to a lock, trying each until she found a fit and flung the door open. Empty, except for the dirt. She tried keys in the second door, turned the lock when she chose the right one, and there was a crumpled mess of thin arms and legs and hair that might be blond.

  “Jennifer,” she whispered. The girl didn’t move.

  Sophia came inside with the light, and held it up. Low, rough ceiling, a floor thick with dirt and rubbish, and, oddly, a small hearth. Special cells, the twins had said. She guessed those hearths were not put there for comfort. Jennifer lifted her head, squinting her eyes against the light.

  “Jen,” she said again, coming close. “It’s Sophia.” Jennifer raised a dirty hand to cover her face. The cuts and burns on her arms were a mass of festering sores, red and running, streaking up beneath the skin and past her elbows. Sophia pulled Jennifer’s hand away and touched her forehead. Dry, and burning hot. And she was shackled by both wrists. Sophia heaped a thousand silent curses on LeBlanc’s head.

  “I’ll be back, do you understand?” she said “The door is open. I’m coming straight back.”

  Jennifer didn’t answer. Sophia left her where she lay and put a key to the next cell. It was empty. And so was the next. And so was the next.

  Sophia stood in a ring of open cell doors, heart beating faster and faster until it was slamming against the wall of her chest. Tom wasn’t there.

  René’s back hit the wall of the bedroom hard, and hit it again, but he twisted away before Spear could get a real blow in. The men of the room were lined up against the window wall, while Madame Hasard sat on the opposite side in a chair, her legs crossed, looking both elegant and disgruntled. Spear was surprisingly fast for someone so big, as René had quickly learned, and he had reach. But at his best, René was faster. The room was quiet but for the clang and scrape of blade on blade, both men intent on inflicting bodily damage as soon as possible.

  They were so intent that neither noticed Madame Hasard, not until she threw the contents of the water ewer over her son’s head.

  Jennifer’s water bucket was empty, and Sophia had a feeling it had been that way a long time. She tossed it down in the dirt, got on her knees with Jennifer behind her, took hold of the girl’s upper arms, and pulled Jennifer up onto her back. Sophia staggered to her feet. She hadn’t realized Jennifer had actually grown taller than her; she had to bend almost double to bear
her weight, stay balanced, and prevent the girl’s bare feet from dragging.

  There was no way to carry the light, so they started up the winding stairs in the darkness, Sophia’s jaw clenched. It had taken time to pick the locks of Jennifer’s shackles, and the need to hurry, to find Tom, was like fire in her limbs. But she could go only so fast without sending them both tumbling backward down the stairs.

  “Jen,” she panted, trying to rouse her once again. “Where is Tom? Can you tell me where Tom is?” She pushed her legs, one after the other, climbing by feel in the dark. For the first time Jennifer made an incoherent noise. “Where is Tom?” Sophia insisted.

  “Gone,” said Jennifer.

  The slamming in Sophia’s chest stopped and became a squeeze. “Gone where? Keep talking, Jen. It’s Sophia. I need to know where Tom is.”

  “They … took him,” Jennifer heaved. It almost sounded like crying. The banging in Sophia’s chest started up again.

  “Where, Jennifer? Where?”

  But there were no more sounds from her, though she could still feel the girl’s breath faint against her back. Taken. Where had LeBlanc taken him? She had no time for this. No time at all.

  Sophia’s legs were shaking, and she was covered in filth and sweat, muscles begging to stop, about to stubbornly do so without her permission. Then she heard the squeak of metallic hinges, the whisper and shuffle of feet. She called down an additional thousand curses on LeBlanc’s head, laid Jennifer gently on the ground near the wall, and pulled out her sword from where she’d thrust it through her belt. She started slowly up the steps, legs still shaky, hugging the wall.

  Light blossomed from around the bend, and then two gendarmes came down the stairs, swords out, freezing when their lantern found her. One of them was the gendarme she’d seen earlier. And so was the other.

  “Wait,” she said, holding out her sword but also her other hand. She let them watch her slowly draw a black-and-red feather from her vest. The two men relaxed, though they did not put away their swords.

  The first one said, “You’re …”

  “… a girl!” finished the second.

  “And I suppose you’re my twins?” Everyone was stating the obvious. “Help me,” she said, hurrying to Jennifer. She heard swords being sheathed, boots on the stairs behind her. One twin got Jennifer’s legs and the other hooked his elbows under her arms.

  Then they paused, three sets of eyes darting up to the ceiling of the passage. A faint clanging of bells was coming down the drains and into the tunnels from the prison yard, through the open metal door above them. Harsh, discordant notes that made their way straight into Sophia’s stomach. Not the middlemoon bells. They were the execution bells. Someone was going to die at the next moon. At highmoon.

  She looked to the twins, questioning, but they shook their heads in perfect synchronization. This meant the mob would be arriving soon—surely not all of them had gone to pillage the Upper City—and the execution team. Allemande, LeBlanc, the other ministres. One of them was going to realize the guards were gone. And all the prisoners. She gritted her teeth, held the lantern higher, and they moved on, faster, the clanging of the bells echoing in the Tombs. She had to find Tom.

  The execution bells rang through the Upper City, echoing against buildings and stone, overcoming the soft hum of idle chat in the Hasard flat. LeBlanc set his wineglass unsteadily on the table. It was only half full now; Émile wished it had been empty. He saw Enzo coming down the stairs from the gallery.

  LeBlanc looked at the pendant he wore, frowned, and suddenly it snapped open to show the clock inside. Renaud, who had been hovering, took a step forward, then thought better of it.

  “Middle … moon,” said LeBlanc, seeming surprised at the difficulty of saying the word. “And the bells are ringing, just as they should. And the gate … is opening … and they have their list. The leaders … of the mob know where to go. Renaud gave them addresses. I will have to go. Cannot miss … highmoon …”

  “What happens at highmoon, Albert?” Émile asked casually.

  “The Razor and Tomas … Bellamy. He dies at the Razor, and she will be coming … for him … too late …”

  “I see.” Émile smiled, and laid a coin carefully on the table. “Albert, I have a question I would like to ask the Goddess …”

  While LeBlanc struggled to focus on the coin, Émile, very low, so LeBlanc could not hear, whispered, “Enzo, tell René that Tom Bellamy dies at highmoon, and tell Andre that I need him to steal LeBlanc’s pendant.”

  The execution bells stopped ringing.

  The noise of the bells faded, and Madame Hasard lowered her hand. Spear and René were staring at each other from opposing chairs, René’s hair dark with wet, the powder nearly gone, hands on his head as if the noise of the bells had been physically painful. Madame Hasard crossed her legs on the edge of the bed, a sword in her hand. A semicircle of Hasards and Benoit stood in a ring that blocked escape. Benoit was deep in thought, his forehead wrinkled.

  “Now, Monsieurs,” said Madame Hasard. “The rules of armistice are as follows. Neither of you shall speak unless spoken to by me. That is the only rule.”

  “Maman, those bells were … Ow!”

  Madame Hasard resettled the sword in her lap, having whacked René in the leg with the flat of it. “Now that we have an understanding. Monsieur Hammond, are you working for the weasel-ferret creature known as Albert LeBlanc?”

  Spear eyed the sword. “No. But he thinks I am.”

  She turned to René, who was rubbing his leg and glaring at Spear. “And you, are you working with the weasel-ferret creature known as Albert LeBlanc?”

  “No!” Madame gave René a raised brow. “He thought I was, of course, but he does not think so now.”

  Spear made his disbelief clear, René leaned forward, and Madame raised the sword. René threw up his hands. “Listen to me, both of you! And do not hit me with that sword, Maman! I am going to talk and you are going to listen because there is no time.”

  “Permission to speak is granted,” said Madame.

  “I will speak slowly, Hammond, so that my words may penetrate your thick skull. I have never betrayed Sophia Bellamy or her brother to LeBlanc. Someone has. But it is not me. And I am not the one who will get her killed tonight …”

  “And you think I will!” Spear yelled, looking at the ring of uncles. “When you’re the ones keeping me here, not letting me get her out of the city as we’d planned!”

  “You do not have the first idea what Sophia had planned,” said René. “She was not going to the Tombs only for Jennifer and Tom. She is emptying the prison. All of it.”

  “What?” This had come from Andre.

  René held up his hand. “LeBlanc was to put two out of three to the Razor at dawn. So she will empty every hole. Then, she is going to set the firelighter you made and use it to ignite the Bellamy fire she has been having delivered and stored in the prison. The Tombs are going to explode.”

  Madame sat back, her eyebrow incredulous, and there was some shuffling of feet among the uncles.

  “She can do it,” René said, looking at them hard.

  “Yes,” said Benoit. “She can.” That made them go quiet.

  “Oh, she can do it,” Spear agreed. “Whether she was planning to or not …”

  “She was. And she is.”

  “René,” said Madame, her painted mouth turning upward in the same half grin as her son’s. “Tell me, did I engage you to the Red Rook?”

  René ignored her. “Listen carefully, Hammond. This was going to be a dangerous business. She was going to stay in the Tombs and play cat and mouse with LeBlanc until the mob dispersed and she could set the firelighter. It would have been a miracle if she was not caught. But I convinced her to let me go, to let me set the firelighter once the chase was on in the Upper City, while she was asleep in her bed and with no one aware that she had left the flat at all. But you have just told her I sent the Bonnards to their deaths. That I am the �
�con man’ she once accused me of being. That I have lied and taken advantage of her in every way. And now she has taken the firelighter with her, Hammond. She wants the Tombs destroyed and she wants to take down LeBlanc.”

  The room was silent.

  “When Tom Bellamy told you to acquire that document, you thought it was going to have my signature, did you not? Or one of my family’s? I took the original out of your pocket. But when it did not, you had a forgery made. You thought you were doing what Tom would want, protecting her from me. You think you still are. But now she has taken the firelighter and gone on her own. She is hurt, and reckless. I do not think she will be coming out of the prison with the others. And now the execution bells have rung, Hammond.”

  Spear shook his head, running his hands through hair that was usually so perfectly in place. “I don’t believe you. Only that sounds so much like Sophie that I almost do.”

  “But that is not all. Enzo has seen LeBlanc tell his secretary that Sophia is the Red Rook. He knows she is coming …”

  “Because you told him!” Spear yelled.

  “I told LeBlanc nothing!” René’s voice dropped low. “Are you certain that you did not? Because she rejected you?”

  Madame Hasard’s warning went unheard because Spear’s chair had pushed back, René already on his feet. Then there was a knock at the door. Benoit answered and Enzo appeared.

  “What is happening?” Enzo said, running an eye over René’s wet shirt and the fight that was about to erupt. “You are all doing something strange every time I enter. Whatever it is, put it aside. LeBlanc is drugged, but not drugged enough. He does not seem to prefer our wine.”

  “Then give him one he does prefer,” said Madame Hasard reasonably.

  “And Émile needs you, Andre,” Enzo went on. “He wants you to steal LeBlanc’s pendant, I have no idea why, and he wants to tell you all that Tom Bellamy does not die at dawn. He dies at highmoon.”