The “Sew On and Sew Forth” as the shop was named, was a large establishment employing many workers, some engaged in cutting the cloth, others in creating the patterns used for the apparel, and others doing actual sewing. Many of the workers sat at tables placed in front of the windows to take advantage of the daylight.
Rodrigo had been an excellent customer over the years, and the owner of the Sew On and Sew Forth came out personally to greet him. The tailor was deeply saddened to hear of Rodrigo’s loss and immediately drew him over to view the somber-colored cloth worn by gentlemen in mourning.
After selecting the fabric, Rodrigo next had to decide upon the pattern for the coat, and he and the tailor were soon absorbed in leafing through the pattern book, talking of the styles being worn in court, determining the proper trimmings, and then taking measurements.
Stephano sat on a tall stool, watching his friend, glad to see Rodrigo finding comfort in the familiar routine and remembering with a pang when Benoit had brought Stephano his own suit of mourning clothes. He had flown into a rage, slicing up the black coat with his sword until he fell onto his knees sobbing—painful gasps of grief and rage. He remembered Benoit putting his arms around his shaking shoulders and saying, “I can’t take his place, lad, but I will always be here.”
Stephano stood up and walked over to one of the windows where he stared out, unseeing, into the street. He was forced to turn back to assist Rodrigo in deciding whether to add velvet trim to the collar or stay with satin. When all was finally concluded and the suit had been ordered and paid for, with strict instructions to have it completed as swiftly as possible, Rodrigo pronounced himself ready to leave.
“Feel better?” Stephano asked, as they emerged into the bright sunlight and began to walk down the street.
“I do,” said Rodrigo. “I have only to write to my mother with an explanation. God knows what I’m going to say to her.”
“There’s a café across the way,” said Stephano. “Let’s discuss it over a bottle of wine.”
“And they make an excellent roast capon served with new spring potatoes and the first crop of asparagus,” said Rodrigo.
The two walked across the street.
The café, known as the Four Clovers, was near the inn that was called, unimaginatively, Threadneedle Inn. The café catered to the patrons of the inn, as well as to the tailors, the wives of ironmongers, and men of affairs. On fine days, the owner placed tables and chairs on a patio in a garden that separated the inn from the café. Trees provided shade. Flowers scented the air. The small wooden tables were crowded close together to provide room for as many customers as possible, which meant that diners were seated so close they sometimes knocked elbows with their neighbors.
The café was crowded, for it was dinnertime. Many of the shops and businesses in Westfirth closed at noon, allowing owners and employees to dine at their leisure and then refresh themselves with a nap. The shops would reopen in the late afternoon and remained open until the lamps were lighted.
Dubois sat in the park beneath a linden tree. His bench faced the street and the entrance to the inn where Harrington was staying. He was astonished beyond measure to see Stephano de Guichen and Rodrigo de Villeneuve enter the tailor shop, the Sew On and Sew Forth, which was directly across the street from the inn.
Far from being glad to see them, Dubois swore beneath his breath and consigned Stephano de Guichen and his friend to the bottomless pits of Hell. James Harrington, alias Sir Richard Piefer, lodged in the inn.
At that moment, James Harrington, wearing the fashionable clothing of a man-about-town, left the inn. Dubois prayed to God and every saint in the calendar that the captain and his friend would not look out the window. Dubois’ prayers were answered, apparently, for Harrington entered the Four Clovers café without attracting any notice.
Four Clovers café. Dubois shifted his thoughts from Captain de Guichen as the report of one of his agents came to mind—Harrington had purchased a bouquet of clover from a street vendor and left them on a gravesite.
The clovers were a message for Sir Henry! This café was the meeting place!
Feeling a thrill of anticipation, Dubois watched until Harrington had found a seat, then he had hurried to the café and entered and asked for a table. He located James Harrington, sitting by himself. Dubois cast a glance around the people in the café and recognized the elderly priest with a hunched back seated at the table next to Harrington as Sir Henry Wallace.
Sir Henry had deliberately selected a table in the back near the garden wall with few other tables around it, which meant that Dubois could not acquire a table near enough to the two to eavesdrop on their conversation.
He found a table as close as possible and gazed with envy at the sparrow pecking at crumbs beneath Wallace’s chair, wishing he could change places with the bird. That being impossible, Dubois ordered a plate of cold meat and a flagon of wine and settled himself to wait for Sir Henry to leave, at which point Dubois would track his quarry to his lair.
Dubois had not forgotten about Captain de Guichen and his friend. He saw them leave the tailor shop with relief that was short-lived, soon replaced by horror.
Captain de Guichen and Rodrigo de Villeneuve were coming to the café.
Dubois had once witnessed a runaway wagon crash into a carriage containing a wedding party. He had seen the wagon rattling down the street; he had watched the carriage driving straight into its path. He had known a disastrous wreck was imminent, and he had been helpless to prevent it.
He felt the same way now as he had felt then.
Captain Stephano de Guichen was going to walk into this café and the first thing he would see was the man who had tried to kill him and his friend.
And all Dubois could do was sit there and watch.
Chapter Thirty
Rule 23. If the cause of the meeting be of such a nature that no apology or explanation can or will be received, the challenged takes his ground, and calls on the challenger to proceed as he chooses; in such cases, firing at pleasure is the usual practice, but may be varied by agreement.
—Codes Duello
SIR HENRY SAT AT THE TABLE IN THE CAFÉ in his guise as a benign old priest and dunked bread into his beef-and-barley soup with a palsied hand. He liked the disguise mainly because the fake infirmity of a bent spine allowed him to take inches off his height, while his mild and gentle demeanor earned “Father Alfonso” much goodwill from customers and wait staff. Sir Henry had already established the character of the elderly priest in the Four Clovers. He had dined there several times before in this guise, telling the owner in his best Rosian accent that he had traveled to Westfirth from Caltreau to observe the building of the new cathedral.
“I won’t live to see it finished,” he said cheerfully. “But I wanted to see it started.”
The elderly priest had immediately become a favorite. He was given his usual table and a glass of dandelion wine, compliments of the house. At his feet was the worn leather satchel he always carried everywhere with him. He said the satchel contained notes on a biography of Saint Stanislaus, notes he would drag out and read during his meal, offering gladly to expound upon the life of the saint if anyone made the mistake of asking. Concealed in the satchel, beneath the pages and pages of documents, was the pewter tankard. Sir Henry carried the tankard with him wherever he went by day and slept with it beneath his mattress at night.
The Four Clovers was known among Sir Henry’s agents as a place where they could meet with him if an emergency arose. The sign was a bunch of clover left at any one of several locations throughout the city. Every agent had his own color of ribbon. A black ribbon around the clover indicated the request for a meeting came from James Harrington, who was supposed to be in Evreux, but who was at this moment now in Westfirth.
Harrington was in his guise as Sir Richard Piefer, wealthy and rakish Freyan nobleman. He doffed his hat and made a graceful bow to a party of three ladies and two gentlemen seated at a table beneath a
rose tree. He stared balefully at several Rosian naval officers and gave them a cold bow, which the officers returned just as coldly. Rosia and Freya were nominally at peace, but the wounds from the last war were still raw and bleeding.
Harrington sauntered over to the table near Sir Henry, sat down with a languid air, and adjusted the long and frilly lace at his cuffs so that it would not come into contact with his food. He flirted with the serving girl, who gave the handsome nobleman a sweet smile, and brought him a flagon of red wine.
Harrington then exchanged a friendly greeting with his closest neighbor, the elderly priest, who smiled upon him beatifically. Harrington inquired politely what the priest was studying so intently. Sir Henry asked if the “young gentleman” would be interested in hearing about the life and travails of Saint Stanislaus. Harrington, with a wink for the serving girl, indicated that he would like nothing better.
“But I believe, Father,” said Harrington, “that you have mislaid one of your documents.”
Sir Henry glanced down to see a sheet of paper lying at his feet. The paper was covered with handwriting—not his, Harrington’s. A written report. Henry reached a shaking hand to pick it up. Harrington politely intercepted the elderly man, picked up the report, and gave it to Sir Henry, who felt, hidden beneath the single sheet of paper, a folded, sealed note.
“From Sloan,” Harrington said in a low voice.
Sir Henry knew immediately something was wrong. Sloan, his confidential secretary, would not have risked writing unless the matter was of the utmost importance. Sir Henry’s first concern was for his pregnant young wife. Had something happened to her? He longed to read the note, but he dared not in such a public place. And he needed to know why Harrington was here in Westfirth. Sloan could have sent the letter by courier.
Sir Henry, shuffling and rattling papers, began to ramble on in a cracked voice. He was, in fact, reading the report that Harrington had just handed him. Harrington flung himself back in his chair and drank his wine, affecting to listen. As Sir Henry read, he began to frown. He stammered to a halt, pretending to have lost himself in his notes. Harrington heard the ominous silence and shifted uneasily in his chair and ordered more wine.
“Won’t you join me, my son?” Sir Henry asked with a smile. “I have something here I think will be of interest.”
Harrington did not evince any great pleasure at accepting this invitation, but he did not have much choice. He shifted his chair to the old priest’s table. Sir Henry shuffled papers and leaning close said in a tone of barely controlled fury, “What the Hell were you thinking?”
“I initiated part two of the Braffa scenario as you ordered, sir,” said Harrington. “The assassination of Ambassador de Villeneuve went as planned.”
“Of course it did,” Sir Henry stated coldly. “Because I planned it. I did not plan for you to murder young Valazquez and try to murder the son of the Countess de Marjolaine!”
He flicked his hand at the report. Harrington squirmed, his attitude became defensive. They both stopped talking as the serving girl brought a plate of cheese, grapes, apples, and walnuts and set it down in front of Harrington. He began ripping grapes off their stems and tossing them moodily into the bushes.
“You told me, sir, I was to act on my own if I saw anyone snooping around about Alcazar. When I saw that she-bitch of a countess set her whelp on the trail, I figured you’d want him off it. At the same time, I could remove Villeneuve, who might prove to be a nuisance if he started asking questions about his father’s death. My idea was that a duel involving Villeneuve would have solved everything—take him from the picture and upset the countess’ son. He’d forget he’d ever heard the name Alcazar. That damned imbecile Valazquez ruined everything.”
“Valazquez ruined it,” said Sir Henry.
“Yes,” said Harrington sullenly, hearing the sarcasm. “If he hadn’t gone softhearted—”
“—then you wouldn’t have gone softheaded,” Sir Henry finished.
The elderly priest leaned close to the young nobleman, as if about to enlighten him on a discovery of immense importance about Saint Stanislaus. The old man wore a smile on his lips, but the look in his dark eyes caused Harrington to shove aside his plate and fiddle nervously with his fork.
“Who was the third man?”
“What third man?” Harrington asked uneasily, his eyes on the fork.
Sir Henry referred to the report. “The man who shot at you from the woods, knocking the gun from your hand as you were about to kill the captain.”
Harrington again shrugged. “I assumed he was one of my hired guns who was a bad shot or maybe of the countess’ agents looking after her bastard son. How should I know?”
“It is your business to know,” said Sir Henry. “Especially as you have undoubtedly led this man right to me. He could be sitting in this café this moment.”
Harrington looked shocked. “No, sir! I swear to you, sir—”
“Shut up and listen to me.” Sir Henry rattled his papers and held them up to his face and peered over them, concealing his lips.
“Your plan might have succeeded, but you lost your nerve. You have imperiled an operation on which I’ve worked for years, laying the groundwork so that Rosia would be sucked into war over Braffa, expending money and resources while Freya remains neutral. We watch Rosia bleed and when she is weak and gasping, we strike.”
Sir Henry touched the satchel containing the tankard reassuringly with his foot. The time for Freya to strike might be closer than even he had anticipated.
“So much depends on this and now . . . Now, because of your bungling, the son of my most implacable enemy, who was only moderately interested in Alcazar before you shot at him is now intensely interested in finding him and probably more in finding you! And what do you do? You come straight to me!”
Sir Henry was about to continue when he caught sight of the very man they had been discussing. Stephano de Guichen, accompanied by Rodrigo de Villeneuve, entered the Four Clovers.
Not unnaturally, Sir Henry leaped to the conclusion that Stephano was on the trail of Harrington and that Harrington had led the captain to him. Henry was somewhat comforted by the fact that the captain and his friend appeared astonished to see Harrington. Rodrigo de Villeneuve gaped at Harrington in astonishment and went quite pale. Stephano de Guichen flushed an angry red.
Harrington was sitting with his back to the door and had not seen the two come in. Sir Henry rose to his feet and began hastily gathering up the papers on the table.
“God has an amazing sense of irony, my son,” said the elderly priest.
He thrust the papers into the satchel and pushed back his chair. Bending over Harrington, Henry whispered, “If you survive, you know how to reach me.”
Stephano and Rodrigo had entered the café when Stephano saw the three naval officers he’d previously avoided enjoying their after-dinner port. He made a face and started to leave.
“We’ll eat somewhere else,” he said and then he saw Rodrigo’s eyes widen, his face go white. “Rigo! What’s wrong?”
“It’s . . . him,” said Rodrigo in a strangled voice. “Piefer.”
The patio was filled with people, but Stephano saw only one—the man he knew as Sir Richard Piefer. He was seated at a table with an elderly priest, who was shoving papers into a satchel. The priest had apparently observed the fact that Rodrigo was staring fixedly at his dinner companion, for he said something to him which caused Harrington to shift in his chair.
Harrington saw Stephano and rose to his feet.
The patio was crowded with tables and chairs, some empty, others occupied. A table occupied by several ladies and gentlemen was between Stephano and Sir Richard. The three naval officers were to his right. A group of students was seated at a table near the back and to his left. A fellow who looked like a clerk was seated in the shadows of a hibiscus.
Stephano laid his hand on the hilt of his rapier.
“You, sir! I promised we would meet again!
” cried Stephano.
“Are you mad?” Rodrigo gasped. He seized hold of his friend’s arm, trying to prevent him from drawing his weapon. “Leave him alone! They’ll send for the constables—”
“Let them!” Stephano said grimly.
James Harrington cast Stephano a glance of contempt. He began to adjust the lace at his cuffs. “If you have a quarrel with me, sir, let us settle the matter in some less public place.”
Stephano did not see Harrington. He saw young Valazquez, missing his face, lying in a pool of blood. He relived that nightmarish chase through the streets, a bullet in his shoulder. He remembered how near he and his friends had come to sinking into the Breath.
“Stay out of this, Rigo,” said Stephano harshly and he took off his coat, tossed it to the ground, and drew his rapier.
By now, of course, everyone in the café was watching. The ladies were whispering in thrilled horror behind their fans. Their gentlemen stood up, looking uncertain. The naval officers had all lowered their glasses of port. One of them tried to intervene.
“Gentlemen, please—”
“This son of a bitch is no gentleman, sir,” Stephano said. “He is an assassin who murdered a man in Evreux and tried to murder me. If one of you will oblige me by calling the constables, I will see to it that he does not escape justice.”
Harrington had been keeping his own hand near his sleeve, smoothing the long lace that fell over his wrist. His hand darted swiftly into the cuff of his coat and came out holding a small pistol.
Stephano saw the flash of sunlight off metal. He stiff-armed Rodrigo, giving him a shove that sent him reeling backward into one of the serving girls. They both went down together with a crash of crockery.
Harrington fired. Stephano ducked. The bullet whistled harmlessly over Stephano’s head and smashed into a post.
The café was in an uproar. One of the women fainted. Her companion cried out that she had been shot and then she fainted. The third woman screamed and went into hysterics. The two gentlemen had taken cover under the table, where they were endeavoring to assist the ladies. A serving girl ran to the aid of the elderly priest, who seemed on the verge of collapse, while the other patrons made a mad scramble, overturning chairs and upending tables. The clerk tried to leave, but found his way blocked by an upended table to his right and the naval officers on his left.
Shadow Raiders Page 49