Claude dropped his gaze from the middlemoon, stroking his tiny mustache. The Seine Gate had opened and he was making his way up the cliff road and out of the Lower City with a seething, raucous mass of humanity, his gendarme’s jacket stuffed into his bag. It did not do to wander about in uniform on your own. Especially in this crowd. But he could not get the sound of the execution bells out of his head. He stopped, letting the people roll by him.
LeBlanc always allowed the gendarmes to come to the executions, even if they were on duty, as long as a replacement could be found. But today he had been sent away. And he’d seen other guards going as well, running off to the wine and women of La Toussaint. Or the Festival of Fate, whatever they were calling it now. Then he thought of Gerard, standing behind his desk with his bandaged finger, sweating face, and that nervous tic.
Claude turned and pushed his way back down the clogged cliff road, alongside some others who had changed direction at the call of the bells. A row of landovers with the Allemande seal were coming fast through the gate, down into the Lower City. He followed them, found a clear path, and broke into a run to the Tombs.
The twins carried an insensible Jennifer quickly past Gerard’s closed office, past the lift and to the prison yard door.
“Are the landovers arriving?” Sophia asked.
“Not yet, but they will be here soon because …”
“… the Seine Gate has just been opened.”
“Do you know how many?”
“No.”
“The boy knows.”
They meant Cartier. She had no idea who was speaking anymore. The twins seemed to share most thoughts, and divide up the duty of conveying them. She peeked out the doors into an empty prison yard that, thanks to the execution bells, would not be empty for much longer. She wondered if those bells were for Tom, or Jennifer, or for her. “How many prisoners do we have?”
“The boy has counted two hundred and fifty-eight.”
She glanced at Jennifer’s lolling head. Perhaps it was no wonder there were only two hundred and fifty-eight left.
“Do either of you know where Tom Bellamy is?”
“Wasn’t he down there?”
“Those cells were empty. Where is Gerard?”
“Shaking like a leaf in his office. He thinks you’re going to …”
“… pop up out of nowhere and cut his throat.”
“Right. The yard looks clear. Hurry and get her to the warehouse and see if anyone there has any medical training. I’ll be coming with Tom Bellamy. Tom and Jennifer get into a landover first, or if Tom’s not there … They must get away first, and Gerard gets on the last. The very last. And then you need to disappear, everyone gone well before highmoon. Do you understand?”
“And you?”
She wondered where Cartier had found these two, what they were doing in such a horrible place as the Tombs, and how they had ever gotten drawn into the machinations of the Red Rook. “I’ll come soon.”
And Cartier would know what to do if she didn’t. She refused to consider what would happen if Spear did not get out of the flat with the passes. With any luck they would be out of the city and on their way to the coast by nethermoon.
Or maybe luck served only LeBlanc tonight.
LeBlanc swayed just slightly on the settee, trying to explain the workings of Luck. Émile grinned, enjoying himself while Renaud wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“But have you no faith, Cousin Albert?” Émile said, tossing a coin up and down in one hand. It landed on face every time. “Show me how your Goddess works. I want to see it with my own eyes.” He watched Andre and Peter slip in, skirting around the violinists.
“Fate,” said LeBlanc, his voice thick, “is not … a game. They began it when … the machines fell … out of the sky. The survivors … they knew when the satellites fell … that only Fate was in control. Not a game.”
“I am not playing a game, Albert. I am learning about your Goddess. She is real, isn’t she?”
LeBlanc stretched out a hand and took the coin. Peter was not far away, his arm around the woman with the turban, and Andre had just picked up a glass from a tray.
“The tradition of the Goddess states that when … when using the coin the … facade …” He turned the coin over, to show the facade of the premier’s building. “… means … no. Face means … is …” LeBlanc held the coin between his palms without finishing his sentence, fingers lifted to rest just below his odd eyes. Émile leaned in, Renaud watching closely, Peter and the woman with the turban laughing as they danced. Andre had moved behind LeBlanc, bending to observe the proceedings.
“Goddess, does … does …”
“Émile,” Émile supplied.
“Does Émile … truly … want to learn of you?”
LeBlanc flipped the coin into the air, and at the same time Peter and the woman with the turban bumped into Andre, knocking him into LeBlanc, then spinning into Renaud, spilling a goblet of wine between them. LeBlanc caught himself on the tabletop as the coin hit the glass and rolled, settling with a clink that was almost unheard in the aftermath.
“Oh, I am sorry, Albert, let me fetch a man to clean you up …”
LeBlanc looked around to see Peter brushing the red liquid from Renaud’s front, and with a smooth, unseen movement, Émile flipped the coin to face. LeBlanc turned back to check the will of Fate, his face lighting up at the sight of “yes.” He didn’t seem to be aware that the pendant with its hidden clock was no longer around his neck.
Sophia slipped the sword up to Gerard’s neck without him realizing she was there. He’d had his back turned, examining the window, but he went still at the chill of steel. Gerard sighed, and slowly raised his hands.
“Who will die at highmoon?” She didn’t even bother with the gruff voice of the holy man. There was no time.
“Tomas … Bellamy. And the Bonnard girl.”
Sophia tried to breathe through her anger. “And where is Tom Bellamy?”
“I do not know!” Gerard sounded frightened now. He probably thought she was about to run him through, now that his usefulness was expiring. “When I came to the Tombs … he was not in his cell.”
“Then think, Gerard. Where would LeBlanc take a prisoner he didn’t want the Red Rook to find?”
“I do not know!”
“Listen to me,” Sophia said. “I do not want to hurt you. I will if I have to, but I don’t want to. Your wife is waiting for you, and you’re about to be gone from this place. Help me. Where does LeBlanc go when he comes to the prison? What does he do?”
The firelight was almost gone, the room smoky and dim. Sophia glanced out the window. Well past middlemoon. She poked Gerard just a tiny bit with the sword.
“There is one thing,” he said. “But I do not think … I do not know if …”
“Tell me.”
“The lift,” Gerard whispered.
“Tell me!” Sophia prodded.
“Sometimes the lift comes down from LeBlanc’s office. But then … there is no one on it.”
She stood still for a moment, thinking. She’d set the firelighter for highmoon, and now LeBlanc had set an execution for that time. That meant there would be people gathering in the prison yard. Would René, or someone else, be coming to find the firelighter and turn it off? If she reset it for a later time, did it just give them more of an opportunity to make sure it did not go off at all? But it was a long way down to the storage hole, and she had to find Tom.
Gerard whimpered beneath her sword.
“Quiet, Gerard,” she ordered. “I have to think.”
“Quiet,” said Benoit, and the arguing in the gold bedroom instantly ceased. Even Spear fell silent, though mostly from surprise. Benoit sat on the edge of the bed.
“You are fighting over what you should do, when you have not considered what the Red Rook is going to do. These are the things we know. We know that she is not going to follow the plan she told Hammond, because she is not going to give up freeing
LeBlanc’s prisoners, correct? And she is not going to follow the plan she told René, because she believes René has betrayed her and told all to LeBlanc.”
René and Spear exchanged dirty looks.
“But because she thinks this, she will also know that LeBlanc knows her identity, even if her reason is false. She will not be walking into the Tombs blind.”
“That is true,” René said slowly.
“So,” said Benoit, a mere shadow of a person next to the larger-than-life Madame, “other than emptying the Tombs, what is the one thing we know that Sophia Bellamy is going to do?”
“She is going to set that firelighter,” said Madame Hasard.
“Yes,” said Spear, “I think you’re right.”
“I told you this was a decent young man, René,” said Madame, making Enzo chuckle.
“She told me to set it for dawn,” said René thoughtfully, “but she will not do that now …” He was on his feet, pacing like a wild dog in a cage.
“So she will have set it for highmoon,” said Enzo, “to keep you from unsetting it. It would have been the only safe time. Unless she heard the execution bells first.”
“No,” Spear said. “She’ll know the prison yard will be full at highmoon. If she set it for that time, she’ll turn it off.”
“Unless she is already gone,” said René. Spear turned to face him.
“Or maybe she never got to set it in the first place.”
“Or perhaps she did, and can’t turn it off because she is caught,” said Madame. There was a small silence in the bedroom. If that was so, then Sophia was going to die.
René looked to Benoit. “So I will go and make certain she is away, and turn off the firelighter, if it is set at all. She will think it a betrayal again, that I am preserving LeBlanc and his prison. But she will not forgive herself if the people in the prison yard …”
“No,” said Spear. “I built the firelighter. I should go.”
René’s grin was not a look of humor. “Oh, no, you should not.”
“You’re going to stop me?”
“I know where the Bellamy fire is.”
“You will tell me where it is, then,” Spear said, eyes narrowed.
“No, I will not.”
“I promised Tom …”
“I care nothing for what you promised her brother! I will honor my promise to her.”
Benoit cleared his throat. “Take Hammond with you, René.”
“No!” they both yelled.
“And which of you is willing to stay behind?” asked Madame Hasard. There was no reply. “Then I have made my point.”
“Maman!” René yelled at the same time that Enzo said, “Well, I’m not going …”
“Enough,” said Benoit. “Your mother is right, René. It is foolish to go alone when you do not know what you will face. Have you forgotten that the gate has opened? The mob is coming.”
“The passes,” Spear said suddenly. “They won’t get out of the gates …”
“Are we not in a flat full of smugglers, Monsieur?” Madame Hasard leaned back on one arm. “We will get the passes to the gates.” Spear looked around the room, dubious.
“I do not think he trusts us,” said Enzo cheerfully. “And if you want to say something, Hammond, say it aloud.”
Spear opened his mouth to say something very aloud, but Benoit held up a hand.
“Hammond, set your grievances aside. There is no one in this family who would wish to see LeBlanc or Allemande win this round. We would prefer they did not live through the night. Can you believe that?”
Spear hesitated, then he nodded once.
“Then we will keep LeBlanc here as long as possible. Andre has stolen his pendant clock to set back the time, and Émile is attempting to drug him again. It was difficult to know how much of the powder in Mademoiselle Bellamy’s ring was appropriate. If we would not have all of Allemande’s troops come down on our heads, I would make sure it was poison.”
René looked to Benoit. “What does Uncle Émile think he is doing?”
“Keeping LeBlanc busy while we get back the signet ring. There has not been time to enlighten him further. He has been busy questioning Fate. We will give you as much time as we can, but in any case, I think LeBlanc will miss his scheduled highmoon execution. Madame and I will take care of the gates. Are we agreed?”
The silence confirmed it. And then the people of the room scattered, moving quickly to their assigned tasks. Spear caught René’s arm and said, very low, “One wrong move in that prison, Hasard, and I will kill you.”
“Take your hand from my arm,” René replied, “or I will kill you now.”
LeBlanc looked at Émile’s hand on his arm, at the coin he was trying to place back in his palm. His glassy stare had become wary. Like the way he was eyeing the table and the twinkling candles.
“More wine?” Émile asked.
LeBlanc shook his head.
“Oh, come, Albert,” Émile said, smiling. “You are quite safe here. Ask the Goddess whether the Red Rook will live beyond the dawn.”
Renaud still stood at his post, a respectful distance from the settee, feet aching and sweating profusely, not daring to interfere. The dancing had begun again; the partygoers just danced around him. Émile glimpsed Peter flitting out the front door dressed in the blue cloak of a city courier. He raised a brow, and then Andre walked by the settee and gave Renaud a little bow.
“Oh,” said Émile suddenly, “that is your pendant, Albert, is it not?” He leaned down beside LeBlanc, where the cushion met the back of the settee, and held up the symbol of Fate. “Your cord has frayed, I think.” Andre had done an excellent job of fraying it.
LeBlanc’s pale eyes widened and he snatched the pendant, instantly flipping it open to the little clock. “Just past middlemoon,” he said, stumbling on the words. “We should have time.”
Renaud glanced nervously at the full moon shining from high in the sky behind him. LeBlanc tied the pendant around his neck and reached for the coin, holding it to his lips in an attitude of prayer. Émile gestured to Andre, who came to the settee and put his elbows on the back of it, as if to watch LeBlanc. Émile leaned close.
“Tell René that if he does not come out here and explain to me what is happening, I am going to slash his gold brocade coat to ribbons and perhaps also his throat.”
“You had better queue up,” Andre replied. “He was busy dueling with that big brute from the Commonwealth until Adèle dumped water on his head. I believe his little fiancée is in trouble.” Andre’s voice dropped to almost nothing. “Did you know our nephew is engaged to the Red Rook, Émile?”
“Goddess,” LeBlanc was saying. “Will the Red Rook live beyond the dawn?” He flipped the coin onto the table, the clink of metal on glass adding to the music of the violins.
Sophia shoved Gerard out into the prison yard and shut the door behind him, the clink of the turning lock the only sound in the Tombs. She was eerily alone, running down the corridor toward LeBlanc’s lift. Tom first, she had decided. She would get Tom into a landover, come back, and then deal with the firelighter. And if she didn’t find Tom, she didn’t care if the firelighter went off or not. Not for herself. Maybe the highmoon crowd would disperse if there was no execution. Maybe they wouldn’t. She paused in front of the first stairwell that led down into the Tombs, pulled a small bag from her vest, and upended it. Red-tipped rook feathers floated, scattering over the stinking stones. Then she ran again, skidding to a stop before LeBlanc’s private lift.
This was nothing like the lift to the Hasard flat. A plain wooden box with a simple bell pull, large enough for three or possibly four people. Gerard had said that sometimes the lift came down, but no one was in it. So if he wasn’t lying, where was LeBlanc getting off the lift? On an upper floor? But if so, why would the lift come down, if LeBlanc had rung the bell to get off somewhere else? It made no sense. Unless there was another way off the lift.
She stepped inside. A lantern hung from
the ceiling, still lit, though the oil was getting low. She ran her fingers over the planks of wood that formed three sides of the lift, smooth with use, the corners braced and riveted with strips of iron. Nothing seemed loose, or wished to slide. The ceiling was too far over her head to reach, but a panel in the ceiling did not seem reasonable, either. The lamp would have to be removed, and how to put it back? There was a straw matting on the floor, but she could find nothing beneath that but dirt, and something that looked suspiciously like dried blood.
She took a deep breath, willing away panic. She had to be calm if she wanted to find Tom. She started over again. There had to be something she’d missed.
Sophia ran her hand again over the wood, and then over the iron bracing and the rivets. She did notice that the two front pieces of bracing were actually one piece of iron each, bent into an L-shape to create the corners, while in the back, the bracing was made of two pieces of iron, a tiny gap in the angle. She looked at this more closely, sliding her fingers down the gap all the way to the floor, where it continued beneath the matting, running horizontally, separating the floor from the back wall, continuing again as high as she could reach on the other vertical side.
She ran a hand down the iron, quickly, this time along the rivets, stopping at about halfway down, where a rivet was missing. The missing rivet left a small, round hole. She stuck her finger in and smiled. The back of the lift was a door, and this was a keyhole. She knelt down in front of the hole in the iron and began peeling off her gloves, where she’d sewn in her picklocks.
Claude knelt in the shadows, watching Gerard scurry across the flagstones of the prison yard and bang on the locked door of the empty warehouse opposite. A building where no one should be. The door opened, shutting again as soon as Gerard had entered. Claude fingered his small mustache.
The execution team had arrived to prepare the Razor, torches sputtering to life all around a scaffold that had become a shrine. Ribbons and black and white flowers, like in the cemeteries, trailed along the bloodstained wood. There was a stone altar set up on the scaffold now, too, the sort you saw in Upper City chapels, and above it hung a gigantic flat wheel, painted half black, half white, made to be seen from the farthest reaches of the prison yard. They were going to spin it, Claude supposed, so Fate could choose the two out of three. That should be interesting. And was further proof that no gendarmes should have been dismissed from the Tombs that night. How would they get so many to the scaffold with only Gerard? It made the situation obvious. Gerard must be in league with the Red Rook.
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