Rook(48)

“She slapped you very thoroughly,” commented Benoit. “What did you do to her?”

“Teased her. About Hammond. But only a little. She is an interesting girl, do you not agree?” Benoit just shook his head, and René picked up the document. “I suggest we give it back, and see where he leads us. Do you agree to that?”

“I do,” Benoit said, and soon after, when Spear left his bedroom to investigate a noise at the front door, there was a folded piece of paper on the floor of his bedroom, just where it might have fallen from a shirt’s front pocket.



Tom glanced down and saw a piece of paper in the dirt beside him. He got a hand on top of it, only just clinking his chains, studying the two gendarmes that had come to his prison hole with Gerard. Which of them had dropped the paper while he’d been dazzled by the lantern light?

The younger gendarme of the two was carrying the water bucket, which he managed to bump and slosh onto Gerard’s shoes. Tom hated to see any of the water go, but they would have left it just out of his reach anyway. While Gerard fussed and the three of them argued, Tom unfolded the paper beneath his fingers and his eyes darted down. Very small, in red ink, was the shape of a feather.

Tom wiggled the paper into the dirt beneath his hand, stiffening as the younger gendarme approached. He’d drawn his knife. Gerard and the other gendarme, a man with a small, brown mustache, waited by the door. The young man squatted beside Tom, his back to the others.

“A pinprick, that is all,” he whispered.

“No talking to the prisoner!” Gerard snapped.

The young man winked, pushed up Tom’s filthy sleeve, and made a quick stab into his forearm with the knife tip. Then he held a small glass vial to the wound, squeezing and pushing a little to help the blood run into it.

They left him in the dark soon after. But Tom, having quickly learned to memorize the position of his water bucket, had seen the young gendarme nudge it to just within his reach. He listened for the metal door to bang shut from far above, and as soon as it did he called, “Jennifer?”

His voice echoed in the dark, oppressive quiet. A primitive sort of panic swelled in his chest.

“Jennifer! Are you there?”

“I’m here, Tom.” Her voice came through the little barred window of her door into his, and it was shaking. “Are they gone?”

“Yes, they’re gone.” He didn’t mention his bleeding arm; he was just now beginning to notice the sting of it. He found the tiny piece of paper and made for the water, drinking straight from the bucket, heart beating hard against his cracked ribs.

Sophie was coming. That’s what the paper meant. Part of him wished she wouldn’t, but surely he’d known she would. He wondered what she’d done about René Hasard, who seemed to be operating under his own flag, and if Spear had done what Tom had asked right before LeBlanc dragged him out of Bellamy House: to find out who had denounced the Bonnards. It could have been anyone, he supposed. But he wondered …

And why had LeBlanc sent in a doctor, and taken a vial of his blood, as Jennifer said he’d taken hers before? The doctor must have seen his limitations, which meant LeBlanc must know them now, too. LeBlanc had to at least suspect that he didn’t have the Red Rook. But then who did he think the Rook was? And why wasn’t LeBlanc down here right now, dragging information from his screaming mouth? So far their favorite way to torment him was to make Jennifer scream, which was very effective; he’d bit his lip bloody and pulled the hair from his scalp just trying to endure it. But no one had ever asked him any questions.

“Jennifer?”

“Yes, Tom?”

“Tell me about the time you went to Finland.”

She began to talk, hesitant at first, eventually losing herself in the story.

Now that he’d thought it through, it was clear that if LeBlanc had sent his cousin to them, then he must have been looking at the Bellamy coast long before the night that Sophie emptied the Bonnards’ prison cell. And someone must have given LeBlanc a reason to do so. It was this unseen enemy that frightened him. He hoped that his sister was being smart. That she was trusting no one.

He leaned his head against the rough stone, listening to Jennifer describe trees frozen like ice sculptures in the snow. He tore the piece of paper with the red feather into tiny pieces and ate them bit by bit.



Sophia ate a piece of bread at the table, tearing off chunks while looking out the kitchen windows, where the salt wind had been prevented from mounting a direct attack on the clarity of the glass. It was the quiet time after dawn, when the birds were awake and most other animals too sensible to be so. But she thought she’d seen movement on the hillside, a branch bobbing where there was no breeze.

The daylight grew, the remnants of mist lifted, and the woods remained tranquil. Spear’s horse whinnied in the stable. She wiped the crumbs from the table, moved softly down the passage, through the sitting room, and knocked once on Spear’s bedroom door before she poked her head in. She’d heard him moving about for some time.

“Spear, can I ask you something?”

Spear looked up, startled. He was on the edge of his bed, pulling on his boots. “Yes, but just let me …”

She slipped in and closed the door behind her, feeling rather daring, while Spear checked the order of his hair. She’d never seen Spear’s bedroom. It was neat. Spartan, even. And she had a suspicion there would be no stray balls of fluff roaming beneath the bed, either.