The Spymaster's Lady

by Joanna Bourne

  Seventeen

  Dover, England

  AT TEN O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING, ANNIQUE and a great many flopping halibut came ashore at Dover. She wore the second-best dress of a French fisherman’s daughter and a pair of sturdy boots. A shawl, knitted from the wool of the kindly-faced black sheep of the salt marshes, wrapped her shoulders. Adrian’s knife was strapped to her thigh under her dress.

  She had eaten bread and cheese in mid-Channel, in the rocking darkness, with the smugglers. It was always interesting to talk to men of what they did for a livelihood, and now she knew more about hiding casks of brandy than she had known before. They waved at her now in a friendly fashion as she left, even Thadeus, the oldest, who had been dubious of her when she came aboard.

  She stood on the quay amid piles of flounder and mussels and felt a moment of complete happiness. England. It was very beautiful, England. She had admired its white cliffs, riding in, with the sails behind her.

  The noisy town of Dover stretched above her with its stone houses stacked one upon the other up the hill and the castle above everything. Around her, gray green water washed the pilings, splashing tiny explosions of light, spinning bubbles of silver and snow white. In baskets of fish, the scales shone in iridescent ripples.

  After months of darkness, brightness assailed her on every side. Color whirled and danced around her till she was dizzy. She was drunk with it. The line of stark shadow on a white stone wall cut like a shout. A crimson dress in the doorway of a tavern dazzled. Sometimes she could barely think, her head was so full of color and shape. She was lost in this riot of light, struck dumb by the beauty of a gull hovering over a sparkle of water. Never, never would she take the light for granted.

  This was to be her new country, this England.

  She had three pounds, sixpence, in English money hidden under her shift, her negotiations with the smugglers having consumed the rest of Henri’s valuables. She had no luggage and no roof to shelter her tonight. The thought came to her that in nineteen years of life, not one material object—not a scrap of paper, not a comb, not a gilt trinket—had succeeded in clinging to her. When she walked away from the wooden quay she might have been Aphrodite, rising newborn and naked from the sea. She would start with nothing. It had all been stripped away.

  She had been a spy for as long as she could remember. That was over. Whatever she did with the Albion plans, she would spy no more for France.

  This was her last turn at the Game. She would go to London and find safety with Soulier and make her choice. In a week, or two weeks, she would make her decision about these Albion plans that would try the patience of a paving stone, and perhaps give them to the British after all. Then she would slip away from Soulier and drop into England like a spoonful of water into the ocean. The deadly men who hunted her, both English and French, would never find her.

  She would seek out an obscure place and become plain and simple Anne, perfectly ordinary Anne, and take up work which did not decide the fate of nations. She would, perhaps, keep a cat. It would be restful, such a life.

  The rocks lining the wharf made a complex landscape of terraces, escarpments, crags, and valleys. They looked most exactly like the rocks of France, which was a philosophic truth of some depth, probably. As she walked the track up from the docks, she saw that in one of the wood shacks, someone had put yellow flowers in a blue jug on their windowsill. Flowers yellow as bright silk. Yellow as sunrise. It was her welcome to England.

  Dover city was a seaport like any other, a place of strong smells and many prostitutes. She did not wish to linger here and, in any case, she must go to London and meddle with great affairs.

  She had met a man, once, who juggled balls of fire. The secret, he told her, was to keep them in the air and never truly touch them. That way, they did not burn the fingers.

  The Albion plans were like that to her. She could not take one decision and hold it in her hands without being burned, but must keep them all in the air.

  To give to the English a few dates and tides and routes was useless. The French would learn of this—the Military Intelligence was a most perfect sieve of secrets—and change the dates and invade anyway. Or the English would be uncharacteristically stealthy and lay an ambush to welcome the invasion. That was not a satisfactory outcome. She could, of course, pass to the English the great compendium of the plans. The French would not dare to invade then…but so much knowledge would turn the course of many battles for years to come. She would stop the invasion, at the cost of many French lives.

  If she did nothing, of course, this town of fish and harlots would be a pile of rubble in the spring. There would be no brave yellow flowers in any window, nor any glass in them, nor any hand to set the blue vase upon the windowsill.

  She could have named countless statesmen and scholars who would have known exactly what to do in this situation without thinking at all. It was a great pity the Albion plans had not landed in their laps.

  Perhaps answers would occur to her while she walked to London. Montaigne, who was both wise and a Frenchman, had said that traveling produces a marvelous clarity of judgment. This had not yet occurred, but it still might, since there were many miles to London. She would buy a loaf of bread to carry with her when she left Dover. It is a false economy to starve oneself when one must walk a long distance.

  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 trap
ped.

  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 li
ke 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.