Rook(92)

“I have had Andre and Peter detain him. They have him in her room.”

René opened the last door in the corridor. He walked past Uncle Peter, who had a split on his cheek that was going to bruise, and Uncle Andre, who was gingerly pushing upward on a loose tooth, going straight to Spear. Spear had his hands behind his back, arms and legs tied to a chair. Benoit shut the door and turned the lock while René leaned down over the big man’s face.

“Tell me what you have done, you great, lumbering bag of filth, or I will cut off your ears.”

Spear looked up, and then he smiled.



It was a long time before Sophia found the bottom of the laddered hole, the ground coming as a surprise beneath her boot. She looked up into the darkness and smiled. Too bold. That’s what Tom would have said. She didn’t care. She had to feel with her hands until she found the next tunnel. The opening was small, not a real opening at all, probably an erosion of concrete. She wiggled until she was through, careful with her sword and the firelighter, and then moved quickly, first stooping, and then crawling in complete blackness, until she came to a paler shade of night from a drain above her.

She counted three more of these, and on the fourth, instead of following the tunnel as they’d planned, she carefully pushed up the grate of the drain, panting from her efforts. She saw a back alley behind a squalid structure of ill-formed bricks, one of the buildings that formed the loose open square of the prison yard. It was also the building that squatted over the entrance to the Tombs.

She pulled herself up to the surface, hugging the dark, replacing the grate with the soft scrape of iron on stone. Then she slipped around the corner and crouched down, where the shade of the scaffold hid her from the rising moonlight and the gendarmes patrolling the yard. The scaffold had been decorated, she saw; there were shadows hanging from it, twisting around the timbers and fluttering in the breezes like tattered souls. She wondered if those decorations were for her. She waited for the guards to pass, then circled the building, slowly lifting her head to peek through a lit window.

A stout man sat with his back to her before a rickety desk, the fire low and smoldering in the hearth, his head tipped forward and still. Either sleeping or dead, Sophia thought. Silently she pushed open the window—why did no one ever think of the windows?—grateful that the holy man had had the foresight to grease it before rescuing the Bonnards. She dropped to the floor without noise, shut the window again, drew the curtain and her sword, and moved toward the man’s back. He woke with a start, a red-tipped feather before his eyes and a blade at his throat.

“Hello, Gerard,” she said, low in his ear.



Renaud slid to the rear of the crowd, where LeBlanc was standing, and whispered in his ear. A dark-skinned woman in a simple high-waisted gown was providing the singing entertainment for the Hasard engagement party, the cityscape twinkling behind her. LeBlanc did not like the woman; she was blocking his view of the moon. He straightened as Renaud finished his whispering.

“Then we can assume the Red Rook has flown, Renaud, and that she has taken my little bird with her.” He laughed softly, though loud enough that a few heads turned, frowning at the interruption. LeBlanc glanced about him once, flipped open the top of his pendant, then shut it after a quick glance. More than halfway to middlemoon.

“It is earlier than I thought. I think I will spend a little more time in my flat, Renaud, at least until the execution bells. I am curiously happy. That slap was very convincing, wasn’t it? And it is Sophia Bellamy’s last night to fly. I will listen to the performance, and enjoy the thought of the Red Rook’s struggles as she tries to find her brother.” He sighed with satisfaction. “All is as Fate has ordained. There is no hurry.”



Enzo sat on the other side of the room, not listening to the singer perform, instead watching the one-sided conversation between LeBlanc and his secretary. He frowned, leaning forward just a little, waiting for an opportunity to leave his chair. He had the sudden feeling that he might be in a hurry.



Gerard could not move from his chair.

“I have no time for negotiations, Gerard. Do we have a deal?”

He couldn’t nod. The sword at his throat did not allow it. “How do I know I can trust you?” he whispered.

Sophia was using the gruff voice of the holy man. “Should you trust the one who puts the people in the prison, Gerard, or the one who breaks them out? I will cut your throat, but LeBlanc will cut you up, piece by tiny piece. How is your finger healing?”

Gerard glanced down at the bandage on his hand. “I will lose my job!”

“You will lose your head. And, frankly, you’re due a career change, Gerard.” The Red Rook waited, and when Gerard didn’t respond she gave him a tiny prick with the sword edge.

“Yes, yes! I will do it!”

She eased the sword away from Gerard’s throat. “Your wife will thank you. Now remember the rules. Clear the prison of gendarmes but for the two I have named, and then you are to unlock the doors. Understood?”

He waited in his chair, shoulders shaking as he breathed, the sword in her hand tickling the place between his shoulder blades. “Are you a man,” he whispered, “or a spirit?”

The Red Rook smiled. “I am neither, Gerard.”

“He knows you are coming.”

She gripped the sword hilt harder, feeling a last tiny something shrivel up inside her. Where had that treacherous little bit of hope been hiding, and why had it existed? LeBlanc would have known she was coming for quite some time now. “I know he does, Gerard. But I am going to outsmart him, and you and your wife will have a new life in Spain. Now stand up. And leave your sword on the desk. Do it!”