Rook(93)

He did.

“Call your man and give the orders. Stay behind the desk, keep him in front. Your man will not see me. Do you understand?”

“Claude? Claude!”

A jingling noise indicated a guard coming toward LeBlanc’s door. The gendarme who had cut off Gerard’s fingertip strode into the room, stroking his tiny mustache.

“We have new orders,” Gerard said. “Bring the tunnel leaders to me. One at a time, if you please.”

Sophia glanced out the window from where she was crouched behind Gerard’s desk, the sword tip now at the back of his knee. A round, rising middlemoon was just cresting the edge of the cliffs.





Light that was almost to middlemoon poured through Sophia’s bedroom window before Spear stopped talking. René stood still, inhaling five full breaths before he turned and went to the clothes cupboard, yanking open the doors and ransacking Sophia’s dresses until he found the white underskirt.

Andre frowned, still worrying his tooth. “What is this man talking about, René? What is happening? And if you put that on, I’m telling émile.”

René didn’t answer. He rifled through the cloth, going still when his fingers slipped through the fresh white rent made by Sophia’s knife, where the firelighter had been.

Benoit opened the door to a soft knock and Enzo slid inside, taking in the scene with a swift glance before he crossed the room to his nephew. “René,” he whispered, “why does LeBlanc think your fiancée is the Red Rook? I thought it was her brother.”

René clutched the cloth in his hand. “He has said so?”

“Yes, to that little viper of a secretary.”


René looked down at the golden carpet, his hand through the cut in the white cloth. Then he turned his face to Spear. Spear was still tied to the chair, defiant, ears intact but with blood flowing from the corner of his mouth.

“You understand that you have killed her,” René said.

No one spoke. Andre and Peter shifted their feet, curious and impatient, while Benoit, who had been inexplicably searching Sophia’s suitcase, suddenly held up a ring with a single pale stone. René threw down the white cloth, walked across the room, and kicked the legs out from under Spear’s chair.

“Oh, really, René,” said Madame Hasard from the doorway. She shut the bedroom door behind her. “Stop being so dramatic. Pick that man up again and we will discuss what is to be done.”

“Yes,” René replied, glaring down at Spear lying sideways on the floor, jaw clenched so tight he could hardly speak. “Yes, pick him up, Uncle Andre. And someone hand him a sword.”

“René! I …”

“Shut up, Maman!” He threw off his jacket while Spear was cut loose from the chair, yanking off his cravat and tossing it to the floor.

“Great Death, René,” said Peter at the sight of his neck. “Who tried to strangle you?”

“That,” René said, eyes on Spear, “would be his fault, I think.”

Spear just smiled as he got to his feet, wiping the blood from his mouth onto his sleeve, swinging some feeling back into his hands. “Not me.” He took the sword Andre handed him, sizing it up. “But I wish it had been.”

“Men,” muttered Madame Hasard, though none of the men present paid any attention to her. “You cannot have a proper duel in a bedchamber. It is ridiculous.”

“I will be happy,” Spear continued, “to slice you to pieces, Hasard. But I want you to know I won’t wait. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

René’s grin lurked as he lifted his sword. “I also have an appointment, Monsieur.”

“But it is certainly worth a few moments of my time,” Spear continued, “to carve up any man who lifts a hand against Sophia Bellamy.”

“How much we have in common.”

Spear brought up his blade and they watched each other, blue gaze on blue gaze, one of ice and one that was fire. René struck first and Spear blocked with a clang of metal.



Gerard walked the subterranean passage, keys clinking, the heavy locks clanging as they were turned. Light from the ever-rising moon poured down the drains from a prison yard that was empty of everyone, even his guards. He was not whistling this time, or searching for the right door. He was unlocking them all. Silence spread from hole to hole as the people inside tried to understand what was happening. There would never be a promotion, Gerard thought, but it certainly was a fine night for an execution. His.

One brave prisoner finally pushed open her door.



Sophia found the door to prison hole number 522 deep within the Tombs and thrust it open, scattering the rats inside, panting from her run and from the stench. The prison was a maze, the numbers nonsensical, and it always took some time to stop smelling the tunnels; she’d never yet been able to stop smelling a cell.

But there were no prisoners in here. This hole was being used as a storage room, for distributing the little food that LeBlanc chose to dole out. Sacks of potatoes, a few evidently rotting, sat beside the door, a water cask and buckets in the corner, and an unusual number of barrels of the hard, almost bread-like pain plat. Most of them, Sophia knew, did not contain pain plat. They were full of her father’s Bellamy fire.