Rook (28 page)

“The linen room?” Sophia said, a little amused. She set the candle on a small table for folding as he shut the door. “Couldn’t we have just gone to yours?”

“It has been a long day, Mademoiselle, and still I hope to avoid fighting a duel for your honor before the night is out. I do not think we will be bothered in here.”

“I brought you this,” she said. It was a thin knife, tiny, for opening letters.

“You will allow me to look?”

She lifted her shirttail cautiously, and René got on his knees to untie the knotted bandage, unwinding it from her middle until he could see the bare swath of skin with her stitches. The air was cool, giving her goose bumps. Sophia tried to slow her breathing, not an easy thing when her heart was slamming such an unnerving tattoo against her chest. René’s expression was controlled. Set. Like the day he’d cut the cornfield. He held the candle close, studying.

“Do they hurt?” he asked. “Even a little?”

“They itch like the devil.”

“Good.” He rose from his knees, more slowly than his usual spring, and picked up the small knife she had set on the table. He began running it through the candle flame, as he’d done with the needle. He smiled at her look of mild alarm. “We have done so well, no need to ruin all of my good work.” When he judged the blade to be clean, he said, “Ready?”

She nodded, still holding up her shirt.

He knelt down again. “Be very still, yes?” He slid the knife carefully under the first knot, the metal hot against her skin, and, with a firm tug, pulled free the first piece of silk.

“Ow!”

René eyed the thread’s tiny hole before he looked up at her. “You are ridiculous, you do know this? I gave you twenty-two stitches, poured alcohol straight into the wound, an act that has earned me a fist in the eye from my uncle Émile, and you did not make a sound. And now you cry out like a child?”

She shrugged. “That was pain, this is discomfort. It’s hardly the same thing.”

“Well, if you are not quiet now, we will have Hammond breaking down the door. Or my
maman
.” He sighed in mock exasperation. “Hold back my hair for me. It is in the way and I do not have a tie.”

Sophia moved the hair away from his face, gathering it into her hand, fascinated that it felt like hair—it was so red and male she’d half thought it might feel like something different.

He turned her body to the light, and then slit a thread and pulled, slit and pulled, and now that she knew what to expect, she was quiet. When he was done he sat back on his heels. A pinkish-red line, neat and straight.

“Finished,” he said.

“Thank you.”

René was still on his knees. “You should keep it well tied tomorrow,” he said, “to be certain it will not tear.”

Sophia didn’t answer. She also didn’t move, and neither did he; she still had his hair in her hand, the other holding up her shirttail. The candle flame wavered. René closed his eyes, brow furrowed. Sophia held her breath, and the hand with his hair pulled just a little, the smallest of tugs. The lines in his forehead deepened. She pulled him again and this time he relented, leaning in to lay his cheek on the new scar.

He sighed and she breathed, his face warm, prickling the sensitive skin, arms coming up around her legs as she held him in, both hands now full of his hair. Then he slid to his feet and took her head in his hands.

“Look at me,” he said, the blue of his eyes blazing in the candlelight. “You are sure?”

“Yes.”

“There is no money.”

“I don’t care.”

Her breath was so short she could hardly speak. She had one hand on his chest, the rhythm of it fast and hard beneath her palm. He was so beautiful, and so unsure, and she had never been more so.

“Sophia …,” he whispered.

She slipped her other arm around his bruised neck and put her lips on the pulse at the base of his throat.

He made a noise somewhere deep in his chest, and then he had his mouth on hers, hard, holding her head still as she was pressed back, rattling the shelves, and then back again until she hit the wall. All at once she was boiling, frantic, trying to kiss him more, hold him closer with fistfuls of his shirt, pinned by his body to the painted plaster. He seemed to have forgotten his worries about noise. It was a long time before his lips broke away and he put his forehead against hers, breath coming fast.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered into the pause, chest heaving against his. “We’re betrothed.”

He actually laughed before he kissed her again, this time exploring her neck, her ears, cheeks, and both her eyelids before wandering back to her mouth. Everything about him felt good: her head still resting in one of his hands, as if she might try to get away, his other hand tracing the curve of her side, her fingers through his belt loops, the foot she had hooked behind his knee. Sophia wondered how she could have ever wanted to be anywhere but inside a linen closet.

When he broke away again, his cheek was next to hers. “I do not know what will happen after.”

She stroked his back. “It doesn’t matter what happens after. Not anymore.”

“You will stay with me?”

“Yes.”

He leaned away to look in her eyes. “You believe me?”

“Yes.”

“Together, then?”

She felt the smile on his mouth when she kissed him in answer, and this time she was able to feel how right this was. Like circling the earth, opposing forces all brought into balance. Then his warmth was gone and he had her hand.

“Come with me,” he said, like he had a little while before, only now he was smiling. He took the candle they had miraculously not knocked over, leading her past the scattered pile of once-folded towels and sheets that they had, to the other side of the room where an iron ladder was attached to the wall. She followed him up through the ceiling and he took her hand again, helping her pick her way through a dim, dusty space that ended in a soot-stained window, one of the round decorative ones she’d seen intersecting the roof spire from the ground. She’d been right to think it was enormous. The window was taller than René.

The window creaked on heavy hinges as he pulled it open, and there was the leaded roof of the building, a gentle, curving slope ending in a gutter and a very long fall. And beyond that was the Sunken City, thousands of twinkling candles and lamps both low and high, mirroring the thousands of stars shining through the north lights, a hazy green and purple dome across the sky.

They sat on the attic side of the windowsill, an ice wind blowing from so high, but Sophia wasn’t cold. René had her surrounded with his arms, and it was his lips instead of the breeze making her shiver.

“René,” she said, “we can’t tell Spear. Not until we get them out.”

“I know it,” he said from against her neck. “My love.”

She leaned her head back. What a different meaning those words had now. “René?” she said again.

“Yes, my love?”

“I don’t want to talk about anything else.”

She felt him smile again when he kissed her. And the highmoon bells rang out across the city.

When the dawn bells rang, Sophia rolled over on her pillow, looking across the expanse of gold carpet at the empty room. There were heavy footsteps walking down the hall. She hadn’t been in her bed until past nethermoon, stepping carefully over the thread strung outside her door. But someone else had been present while she slept. The thread she’d strung across the connecting door to Madame Hasard’s room was broken, floating gently in the draft.

“The thread across the front door has not been broken,” said Benoit softly and without preamble as he slipped into René’s room. René lay fully dressed on a still-made bed, one arm behind his head, candle burning low.

“And yet Hammond has returned,” he said. “I could not mistake those footsteps. The back stairs, then? Was the drop bar not in place?”

“It was in place. I would say that Monsieur thought to have paper, string, cord, and a metal hook in his pockets.”

“Ah. I thought that was your trick?” René pinched the candle flame away as Benoit opened a curtain to the dawn.

“I keep telling you not to underestimate Monsieur Hammond.”

“Did he go to him?”

“I do not know.” Benoit scratched his thinning hair. “The bellman said he came from the other direction, but that might not matter.”

“Or the bellman has been paid. What about Uncle Andre?”

“He missed him in the dark.”

René swore. “How can you miss Hammond, even with the streetlights out?”

“I say to you over and over that he is more clever than you think.”

“And yet I do not think he will hurt her. Me, yes. Her, I think not,” René mused. “Sophia might be able to find out. Or it may be interesting to see what he tells her about being out of the flat all night.”

Benoit looked at him closely. “You are very cheerful this morning, René.”

“Can a man not be cheerful?” He was grinning from both sides of his mouth.

Benoit shook his head, but he was smiling as well as he pulled the rest of the curtains.

“So we watch him,” René said. “As ever. Do you not agree, Benoit? There is only the day and the night left, and then she is beyond his reach.”

S
ophia
found Spear and Madame Hasard on the dining end of the large main room, bathed in smoggy sunshine, having what seemed to be a very friendly breakfast. The staff had arrived, and the place was already busy, smells coming from the kitchen, a girl in a white apron arranging flowers on the table beside the door. René was stewing, she saw, or pretending to. He was unshaven, in the same clothes as last night, arms behind his head and feet hanging off the settee. It was difficult to hold in her smile. She left him to it for the moment and sat down to a table of Parisian coffee and rolls.

“This is a delightful young man,” Madame pronounced, patting Spear’s arm.

Sophia looked up and smiled at them both. “Mr. Hammond is like family to my brother and me.”

“He has told me of this business with your brother.”

“Yes.” Sophia buttered a roll, trying to keep her tone neutral. “We don’t like to speak of it. Do you plan to attend the party tonight, Madame?”

“René says that Monsieur LeBlanc has been invited.”

“That’s so.”

“And so you ask me to celebrate my son’s engagement beside the man who has not only had me imprisoned and taken my flat—the flat in which we are celebrating—but also stolen the very francs that would make such an engagement possible?”

“I thought perhaps you wouldn’t approve.”

“I cannot think of anything I would enjoy more, Miss Bellamy,” she said, spreading sarcasm like the marmalade on her breakfast roll. “Though I think it a strange time for a party, with your brother going to the Razor at dawn.”

Sophia cringed inside. Tom would not be going anywhere near the Razor, but the words hurt just the same. “I believe René thought it would be a distraction for me.”

“And we will have the mob on us tonight, when the Seine Gate opens,” Madame stated. “Really, the timing in all this is impeccable.”

Spear had been engrossed in the newspaper, which he now folded in half and handed to Sophia over the table. “Pages two and six,” he said.

“My son, is it?” said Madame Hasard knowingly. “You have been making the papers again, I see!” she called across the room. “A trial to the heart of your mother!”

“I was taught by the best, Maman!” René yelled.

Sophia handed the paper back to Spear. “I’ll just take him a coffee,” she said. “He can be so irritable first thing, don’t you think?” She ignored Madame’s raised brow as she moved across the gleaming floor, skirt rustling and cup in hand, to sit on the edge of the settee next to René’s prostrate form.

“She will come,” René said quietly, hidden by the couch back, “and will put herself in the thick of things. So we must consider that in our plans.” He put an arm behind his head and gave the cup she handed him a dubious glance. “Is it safe?”

“You are so witty.” She let her loose hair fall down, hiding her face from the side view. “I dreamed last night that I was in a linen closet.”

“Did you?” He stealthily took her hand, cup and saucer balanced on his stomach, and pressed her fingertips to his lips. “And was this a good dream, my love?”

She closed her eyes for just a moment, hoping no one at the table could see her expression. “You bruised my lips.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I am very sorry.”

“You are not sorry at all.” She thought she could feel the gaze of Madame Hasard. And possibly Spear. “Your
maman
was in my room last night.”

“And I was not.” His tone was glum.

“It is so frustrating not to be able to hit you when I want.”

“Just wait for the party, my love.” He swung his dangling feet back and forth over the end of the settee. “Benoit says Hammond left the flat before the luggage came up last night, and that he did not return until dawn. Did he have business in the city?”

Sophia darted a quick glance at the table while René sipped his coffee. Spear and Madame Hasard appeared to be deep in conversation.

“There were some tickets to be taken care of. But I don’t think he could have done that at night. How did he get in again?”

“The back stairs, which he unlatched. From the other side.”

“Did he?” Sophia looked again at Spear. How had he managed that?

“I think you are very beautiful,” René said, “especially when you are admiring mischief.”

“You must think that every time I look at you, then.”

He gave her all of his grin. “You admire me, Mademoiselle?”

She bit her lip against her laugh. “I am going to hit you whether your mother is watching or not.” She stole another look at the table and found Madame’s sharp gaze on her, watching their conversation. She moved her eyes to the other end of the room, where a tall display cabinet stood, taking up most of the wall. René nodded once, and Sophia got to her feet and strolled over to the cabinet to study its contents until he joined her.

Most of the cabinet showed pieces of decorative glass, plates, and goblets in jewel reds, blown into scallops and waving shapes like rippling water. There were even one or two fluid-looking human figures, some clear, some shot through with colors. But it was the plastic that amazed her. An entire bowl complete with lid in a beautiful, translucent green, a row of small, stylized human figures, and no less than eleven mirrored disks like Tom’s. And there was a miniature house. She knelt in front of this. A little like Spear’s farmhouse, only with a white roof and chimney, a large chunk missing from the upper corner. One side had faded almost completely, but where you could see it, the color was shocking. A vibrant pink, bright like a rose, or a hibiscus flower. What must the world have looked like in the Time Before, to have houses of such colors? You would have needed a shade for your eyes just to walk the streets. She felt René come up behind.

“Did you nick any of these?” she asked quietly.

“It is not wise to display what has been … acquired,” he replied.

“Of course not. So did you?”

“The bowl, and two of the little blue men. Foreign sellers, and not collectors, so very little danger in showing them here. And they were getting cheated by the melters. The blue is much more valuable than they were told.” He paused. “I spoke with Maman this morning about selling them.”

Sophia glanced over to see his expression, but it was sanguine.

“Getting their full value would take time, of course, and we would have to look outside the Sunken City, but we could get half the price quick. Maman seems to think, however, that we will need the money to live on. She has shut down Hasard Glass. For the time being. There is some worry whether the Upper City will survive the mob that will come through the gate at middlemoon. Uncle Peter and Uncle Francois have been here already; they run the factory more than our … other concerns. They are not happy. And yet Maman is right in this, I think, if not in other things.”

Sophia straightened from her examination of the plastic house, looking over the other items in the cabinet while the girl with the flowers passed behind them with another arrangement. When she had gone Sophia whispered, “Will you have trouble getting back to set the firelighter, if there is fighting in the streets?”

“I will get there, and you shall be tucked into your bed, exhausted by our very public spat, Tom and Jennifer and a throng of prisoners on their way to the coast. LeBlanc will never know that you have left.”

“That will depend on the signet ring. I will have to seal the forged passes to get them all out of the gates, and in time for Spear to deliver them.”

“It will be done by the party. How do you want me to set the firelighter?”

“For dawn, don’t you think? Unless the crowd hasn’t gone. The prison should be empty by highmoon, or a little after. The guards will be on the hunt for me. If there is no one to execute I hope the mob will be on their way.”

“I will go to the prison just after nethermoon, to be certain before I set it. Then I will come back to the flat, we take our things, and by dawn we will be out of the city.”

She looked around when he didn’t speak again and saw his gaze set on one of the little human figures. There was an expression there she recognized. She saw it in the mirror when she thought of Bellamy House.

“René, I am sorry,” she whispered.

“I had looked forward to showing you the flat,” he said. “I had thought of you living here someday. With me.”

She turned back to the cabinet, so no one across the room could see her face. Why would he choose her, and all the complications that came with her? It had not escaped her thoughts that there must have been many gaggles of women, fluttering their fans in the Sunken City, women who did not come with a price tag. And she still hadn’t stopped being surprised that she had chosen him back. She wished they were in the linen closet again.

“I have been wondering,” she said aloud, “what your mother’s signature might be worth when LeBlanc loses the Red Rook, a Bonnard, the Tombs, and all its prisoners in one night.”

“It will not matter if you are caught. You cannot be reckless. Promise me you will not be reckless.”

“I won’t have to be reckless,” she said. The middlesun bells rang, a sweet noise echoing out over the city. Her smile was grim. “But I am going to break him, René. LeBlanc has no idea what is coming to him.”

LeBlanc listened to the middlesun bells, pacing the black floor of his rooms, unquiet in his mind. He had decided to accept his cousin’s invitation, curious to know what sort of game the Hasards played. It should have given him satisfaction. At dusk he would attend a party in a flat he had just acquired, a party given for an enemy he was about to destroy, celebrating an engagement for which he had personally removed the finances. And at the next dawn, he would end the Festival of Fate by putting the Red Rook to death along with her brother and the Bonnard, and by giving two out of three to the Goddess. The myth of the saints destroyed, and so many destinies to choose. Fate could not fail to put the city in his hands after such a gift. It would be as had already been decided, as he’d known it would be, ever since his mother crooned the words into his ear after his father had left them to shift for themselves on Blackpot Street. Since the white had grown slowly through his hair. He could not understand his lack of contentment.

He opened a drawer and picked up his pendant, a thick, round metal disk enameled half black, half white with the sign of the Goddess, suspended from a silken black cord. But one push of a tiny button on the side and the pendant flipped open to show a small clock, the symbols of day and night inlaid with onyx, pearl, and crystals of glittering yellow; the finger in the center pointed to middlesun. The secret clock made a satisfyingly soft
tick
,
tick
in his hand, like a heart. What was the Goddess trying to tell him? What was Fate prompting him to do?

Suddenly LeBlanc hurried to his wooden table, sweeping it free of books and papers, took chalk from a box of reformed plastic, and drew circles of white and then black, white and black, smaller and smaller, until the tabletop was covered with them. Then he removed a single eight-sided casting piece, molded in rare, solid white by plasticians, painted with the sun and moon symbols of his clock, one on each side. He rolled the piece gently between his palms, then dropped it onto the circles.

He smiled, his doubt draining away like blood from a severed neck. The Red Rook was to die at dawn. Fate had decreed it to be so. But neither Tom Bellamy nor Jennifer Bonnard was the Red Rook. How could he have been so blind? Allemande would not be pleased, of course, but the premier’s time was nearly over. Fate had decreed this as well. The Goddess ruled the city, not Allemande, and surely there was no need to inform unbelievers of these matters?

He gazed at the symbol on the casting piece. Highmoon. Tomas Bellamy would go to the Razor at highmoon, Jennifer Bonnard after him. The Red Rook would come, thinking to rescue her brother, but Tomas Bellamy would already be dead. Or she would search for him until he was. And then, at last, Albert LeBlanc, soon to be the premier of the Sunken City, would have her. The Rook would be his. Fate had spoken, he would obey, and the world had been nudged into place.