The Black Hawk (14 page)

“There’s nothing I can do,” Luke snapped. “Her muscles aren’t working. Not even any reflexes. The diaphragm can’t—”

She needed air. He’d give her air. He opened her mouth with his fingers and blew air inside her, hard.

It puffed back out. He blew in again.

Luke said, “Do that.” He leaned over to look in her face. “Do that again.”

The air was getting inside her. She was less desperate.

“There’s a Frenchman.” Luke ran his hands over Justine’s ribs, feeling them expand with the air. “Frenchman. Can’t remember his name. Wrote a monograph. Lay her down.” He put the heels of his hands below her breasts and pressed down all his weight. Air whistled out of her. “Blow in again.”

She was trying to breathe. Hawker did it for her.

“This Frenchman talked about doing this for drowning men.” Luke pushed down. Her breath whooshed out. The bed sagged. “I didn’t think it would work.”

The air had to get out of her, before he could put more in. They needed a hard surface. “The bed’s too soft. Get her down on the floor.”

She flopped on the rug like a rag doll. He knelt at her head.

“She’s bleeding under the bandage,” Doyle said. “Bleeding bad.”

“Then stop it,” he snapped. He gave her air.

“More. More,” Luke said. “Enough.” He waited a beat. Shoved downward on her chest. “Good. Again. Let me know when you start to feel light-headed.”

Another breath into her. “Damned if I’ll let you die.” He knelt beside her and breathed for her.

They took turns keeping her alive. Past midnight, she started taking in air on her own. When she got reliable at it, they lifted her back to the bed and set chairs around it. They just sat there, staring at each other, exhausted and relieved.

At three in the morning, the fever began.

SHE felt so hot. Her arm ached, sharply. Pain radiated through her body, into her chest. Pain had been in the dreams with her.

She was on her back, naked and damp. Her skin crawled with heat. Itchy with the heat. The light coming in the window said it was dawn. Still raining.

Someone had followed her in the rain and stabbed her. She had never been careless. Her attacker must be very, very good.

“It was one man. I didn’t see his face. Just a glimpse.” Her throat was dry. She made almost no sound. “Water.”

“Don’t move. I’ll help you drink.”

“. . . Papers.”

“Safe. Downstairs. We’re drying them out. Drink this.” She ached hollowly, as if a bell of pain clanged in her chest. He put an arm behind her and let her drink. Then she was flat again, looking up at the ceiling. He looped her hair around his hand and laid it to the side on the pillow, out of the way.

There was no square foot in the hallways of her body that did not hurt. The covers were hot. Stifling. It was too much trouble to move. Easier to just be too hot. She closed her eyes.

She was safe. Hawker would not let anything happen to her.

Sixteen

DOYLE FOUND PAX IN THE STUDY, SITTING CROSS-LEGGED on the hearthrug, toasting wet newsprint on an ash shovel. Three clippings, dry, crinkled and curling at the edges, lay on the bricks.

Doyle came over to watch. “Hawk sent me down to see how you’re getting on.”

“It’s slow. How’s the breathing?”

“Good. She’s breathing easy. That part looks over with.” Doyle brought a pair of glasses out of his jacket pocket and hunkered down. He pushed the clippings into line and looked at them. “The fever’s worse.”

“How bad?”

“Bad. She’s out of her head with it.” He rearranged the papers, smallest to largest. “I hope Sévie gets here in time.”

“She’ll hurry.”

“I wish Maggie was upstairs, keeping Hawk’s woman alive.” Doyle put on his glasses and picked up the first clipping.

“I was wishing for Camille. Hell of a time for wives to be working in France. You sent messages?”

“It’ll be finished, one way or the other, before they get the letters.” Doyle turned a clipping over and then back again. “Looks like this is cut out of the
Times
. It is the obituary for one Antoine Morreau, bookseller in Paternoster Lane. ‘Dead, suddenly, at his place of business.’ No desolate family is mentioned, so we will assume he is unmarried. A respectable address, so we will assume he is prosperous. Why did our Justine find this particular death of interest?”

“He got himself murdered, if that’s interesting.” Pax took up the ash shovel and went back to dealing with damp newsprint.

“Not in and of itself, ’specially.” Doyle took up the next page. “‘Monstrous Crime in Paternoster Lane.’ ‘Shopkeeper murdered in a wanton daylight robbery.’ Our bookseller had his throat slashed and his money box broken. We continue . . .” He picked the last sheet. “It looks like a dark-haired man did the deed and ran off. ‘Neighborhood shocked.’”

“I read that. More than a week ago. Ten days, I think. You were still in Scotland. I didn’t think it was worth filing, even with the French link.”

Doyle ran a considering finger along stubble on his chin. “Paternoster Lane. They do not normally stab citizens over their shop counters in that part of town.” He picked up another piece of paper. “This is the
Observer
, reporting the same thing, the bottom half of which is no doubt interesting but we can’t read it. Felicity can hie herself off to the Strand to their office to make a copy. And I will drop by Bow Street to see what they know about our dead bookseller.”

“Cummings will be annoyed.” Pax tested wet newsprint with the point of his knife. The top sheet wasn’t ready to separate off. “London murders fall into his territory.”

“Annoying Military Intelligence and Cummings is jam on the bun.”

Pax offered a view of the paper he was lifting loose. “Another somebody, bloodily dead.”

“‘An incident in Finns Alley.’ That’s off Dean Street in Soho. I’d stab somebody in Finns Alley if I was setting about the business. ‘The public is asked to come forward with any information.’ They don’t mention outrage and shock, that being in short supply in Soho. ‘The body is identified as . . .’ Looks like Monsieur something.”

“A Monsieur Richelet. This is yesterday’s
Times
.”

“Justine’s collecting dead Frenchmen. Everybody should have a hobby. This one died late Sunday night. Day before yesterday.” Doyle glanced up to where light was coming through a break in the curtains. “No. Two days ago, now. We’ll still have the paper upstairs.”

“I’ll catch George before he burns it. It looked like just another random death. Only showed up in the
Times
because one of the witnesses was an army man of some distinction.”

“A sad commentary upon the human condition.”

Pax set the shovel flat on the hearth. The upper sheet was mostly dry. He freed the last corner and eased it away. The page below was still wet. The general gray tinge made it hard to pick out words. He said, “The
Courier
, I think.”

“With a more complete account of the same murder. ‘A Stabbing in Soho.’” Doyle took the handle of the shovel and slanted the writing toward the fire to get better light. “And what else do they have to say? ‘Violence in the foreign community. When will it end?’ That is something I ask myself daily. According to eyewitnesses, a slight, dark man of foreign appearance fled the scene.”

“This,” Pax rested the point of his knife on a line near the bottom of the clipping. “This is what Justine came to tell us.”

“‘Do sinister Eastern assassins threaten our streets? The curious black knife left in the body—’ ” Doyle stopped. “God’s avenging chickens.”

“Exactly.”

Seventeen

TWENTY-ONE YEARS BEFORE

1797

Oxfordshire, England

FRIQUET WAS SMALL AND BROWN WITH DELICATE hooves and a way of nosing gently among the tangle of grass and weeds that grew along the bank of the stream, taking this plant and leaving another. When Séverine rode out with Pascal the groom, she could not allow Friquet to indulge himself in weeds. Pascal had strong opinions about what ponies should eat and worried about Friquet’s digestion ceaselessly.

Pascal was French, though he had no accent. He had a sad history and had been sent here to be healed by Maman, although he did not know it. Eventually he would stop being nervous and angry and go away to school. There had been several such grooms.

She was not supposed to know that part of his job was to protect her. Papa worked for the government and was very important. He was a spy. Her friend Hawker was also, though he was less important because he was younger. There were always several men working in the garden or the stable who protected everyone.

Pascal had gone onward to the stable. She was allowed to be by herself once she had crossed the stream and was within sight of the house. Friquet waded into the water and ate his watercress and chickweed in peace. She could pick her own watercress to eat and think about things. Pascal could not say she was not allowed to eat plants from the stream, but he looked disapproving.

It was raining a small amount, but that did not bother her. She sat under the tree where it was all moss and she would not get her dress muddy. The tree kept most of the rain off. It was an oak and had probably been here when Cromwell burned the manor in Thinch. One night, when she was out with Papa and they were hiking quietly through the woods, finding their way around using the stars, Papa had showed her where Cromwell’s troops marched over Thinch Hill and explained why they had come that way instead of another.

She ate watercress, putting it leaf by leaf on her tongue. Papa was in France, being clever against Napoleon, although she was supposed to tell anyone who asked that he was in Bristol on business. They didn’t know about Papa in the village.

Down the stream where the bushes were thick a hand emerged from the greenery, and then a face under a black shawl, and then...

“Justine!” She did not run headlong through the slippery wood to her sister. She looked around first to see no one was watching, then tangled Friquet’s reins in a bush and walked, fast but oh so carefully, along the bank. She dipped her head and ducked into the bushes and crawled between the leaves and scratches. They were together inside the arched, dark space. “Justine.”

Justine had beaten down the ground between the bushes to sit and wait for her. There was room for both of them. When they had embraced and Justine sat down, she climbed into her lap. She was far too big for this now that she was seven, almost. It was comfortable for neither of them. But still she did it. When she took Justine’s face between her hands and studied her, their heads were on a level. Justine’s skin was cold, so cold. “You are well? You have not been hurt?”

“But those are my words, petite. Are you well? Are you happy? Tell me everything.”

There was so much to say and they had very little time. Justine was an important spy for France, though she was only sixteen. When she came here and concealed herself in these bushes, it was no game. She must not be found on English soil. It was especially dangerous for her here, near Papa’s house. Papa and her sister must never, never meet.

So much to say. There had been a trip to Oxford to the dentist with Molly, who was the upstairs maid and had a toothache. There were puppies at Mr. Richard’s farm, and she had been allowed to pick which one she wanted. It was a bitch puppy and she had named it Harmony. It would come home with her in two weeks, when it was old enough. She was reading La Fontaine with Monsieur Rochambeau who sniffed and sniffed when he went into the rose garden.

She snuggled close to her sister, trying to warm her.

“La Fontaine.” Justine stroked her hair. “I carried a book of his fables for a while, until I lost it. I have them memorized.”

More news. The kitchen cat had kittens in the barn. A girl had come to be the nurserymaid. She was like Pascal the groom, one of those called the Cachés, which meant “hidden,” because they were French but pretended to be English. She cried a great deal in all the corners of the nursery, but then the old ladies who were not really her aunts missed her and decided that it did not matter that she was an imposter. “Hawker came to take her back home. He said she was a right little misery and we were well shut of her.”

Friquet pulled his reins free and wandered off to sample the banquet upstream.

“Move a bit. Let me . . .” Justine took a bag from the pocket under her skirt. “I have brought this to you, through perils uncounted.”

The bag was filled with twists of paper, a little discolored by water. Inside each paper, sugar drops. The first one she opened was blue and white and red, colored like glass from Venice.

“They are from Paris,” Justine said. “They may taste of salt. I had the merest whiff of difficulty coming ashore.”

If Justine brought them, they would be the most perfect of their kind. The seawater was not important. Not at all.

She sat on the ground and leaned against Justine’s knees and sucked upon a peppermint drop. Justine said, “I’ve been in Italy. That’s why it has been so long since I came to you.”