Rook(31)

“And what makes you say this man was hurt?” Tom asked.

LeBlanc’s grin curled. “Because there was blood on the dead man’s sword. And I do not think this man stabbed his own sword into his own lung, do you, Monsieur Bellamy?”

“I don’t like such conversation,” Sophia’s father said, frowning. “Especially at dinner …”

Sophia watched Tom set down his glass, a little smile playing over his face. Of course he had already thought of this. And of course there was blood on the man’s sword. Her blood. The blood that was seeping through her dress at that very moment. She should’ve taken care of the sword at the time. Would have, had she been in a fit state. But she had not been in a fit state. Blimey, she was tired. Her head was pounding to a beat of its own.

“Am I right in thinking this man, this thief who was killed, was a Parisian, Cousin?” René was asking.

LeBlanc nodded. “You are correct.”

“Then perhaps you are the victim of a plot from our city, and should be looking for another Parisian? A traitor to Allemande?”

“Why, yes, René. It is indeed an enemy of Allemande that I seek. But it is a Commonwealth enemy, I think, not a Parisian one. Which brings me to an uncomfortable question, Monsieur Bellamy.”

This time he was addressing their father, who Sophia was certain had not been paying attention since the talk of a stabbing. She leaned back in her chair. The lights behind the glass were wavering, blurring her vision.

“I apologize for asking during your excellent dinner,” LeBlanc continued, “especially as we are to be family. But I have a witness who will swear to a Bellamy horse riding away from the inn after the murder of the Parisian. And this witness will also swear to a Bellamy being on the back of this horse.”

More silence at the table. Sophia’s pain multiplied, a persistent pressure trying to split open her forehead. Not Tom. Anything but Tom. She knew she had to do something, but she couldn’t think what.

“A horse …,” said Bellamy, voice trailing away in confusion.

“Sophie, are you all right?” Tom said, at the same time that René spoke something soft and harsh beneath his breath. The word had been “liar.”

LeBlanc leaned forward. “What did you say, Cousin?”

“I said I believe your witness to be a liar, Monsieur. I have already said that both Monsieur and Mademoiselle Bellamy were with me last night. Unless you are accusing their father, of course?”

Spear’s boots came back into the glowing dining room, their noise an extra ache in Sophia’s head.

“I think, young René,” said LeBlanc, “that we should be very careful who we are calling a liar here. And I also think you should perhaps look to your fiancée. She appears to be in distress.”

Sophia felt herself sliding from her chair. The world had shrunk to little pinpoints of glass and light, fear and fractured thoughts. Then there were arms around her.

“No, Hammond. I have her. Put that shawl over her.”

She smelled wood and resin. Good. René knew not to rip her stitches. Not to show the bloodstain. No one could see the bloodstain.

“Women,” LeBlanc said from some distant place, “are always prone to such things when upset …”

The starry pinpoints of light behind her eyes shrank, brightening once before they went out.



One of the flames behind the glass over LeBlanc’s head went out, a puff of smoke glazing the triangular pane with a thin film of black. Tom watched René carry Sophia out of the dining room, Spear and their father following close behind. Tom kept his hands beneath the table. Then he turned back to LeBlanc.

“We should have a conversation, I think,” Tom said.

LeBlanc’s smile came slow. “Indeed.”

“Here?”

“There is no such time as the present. And there is someone I would wish for you to meet. Paul!” LeBlanc called loudly. “Paul! You may come in now.”

The other, seldom-used door to the Bellamy dining room opened. Out of a long-abandoned pantry came a large man dressed in rough cloth, and he was dragging a girl behind him. Her short blond hair was bedraggled, freckled face tear-streaked, blood running down both her lower arms and dripping onto the rug. Paul ripped the gag from her mouth, her sobs becoming louder as four more men came into the dining room, swords drawn.

“You’ve been making free with my house, I see,” Tom said.

LeBlanc shrugged. “The Goddess has sent Luck to me in abundance.”

Tom shook his head. “Don’t cry, Jennifer.”

The girl cried harder. LeBlanc continued to smile, a livid, swollen thing on his face, and no one noticed Tom replacing the table knife onto the cloth beside his plate. The tip of the knife was now one more thing in the dining room that was bloodstained.





Sophia opened her eyes to a late, slanting sun shining through the windows. But it was sun coming from the wrong direction. And the mattress was wrong—sheep’s wool, not feathers—and the sheets smelled like wood. Cedar, now that she thought about it …

She sat up, gasping at the instantaneous pain in her side. She was in the north wing. A pile of clothes, male clothes, lay strewn across the seat of one of the great window arches, her burgundy dress over a chair, a sheathed sword flung onto the floor nearby. And there was a stranger, his hair just turning to gray, startling awake on a chair beside the bed.