The Black Hawk Page 5

  “They’re a glut on the market lots of places.” The streets of every city ran full of strays in various stages of starvation. He knew. He’d been one. “Common as lice.”

  “These children are not so common. They are the clever ones. Some are so beautiful they make the eye ache. They are brought there at eight or nine or ten years and it begins. In that house, every spoken word is English. They eat English food and learn the lessons and games of little English schoolchildren. You would not know they were born French. They are trained to fanatic loyalty to France and to the Revolution. Then they are sent to England, to be spies.”

  Interesting. “Not much use sending kids that age, if you ask me.”

  “You say that, you, who are younger than many of them. I would be amused if I had leisure to be amused with you.” She shook her head. “Think, ’Awker! Someday, they will not be children. They will be grown men and women who have worked their way into the circles of power.”

  “That’s planning a long time ahead.”

  “We speak of the Secret Police. Twenty years is a nothing. Governments rise and fall, but the Police Secrète remain.”

  “And that is a thought to take home and have bad dreams about.”

  “Do not smile at me in a superior manner. We speak of dangerous matters here, not foolery.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Probably not, but I will speak anyway.” She bent her head closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. “The children are reborn in the Coach House. The Tuteurs strip away from them all they have, even their names. When a place is found for them, they are sent to England and pass as orphans, or as children lost from English families. They are so young, no one questions whether they are what they appear to be.”

  That was a satchel of news to bring home to Doyle. Kids planted in England, waiting to be let loose someday. Spies still in the pod. “You know a lot about it.”

  “It is part of my charm to be knowledgeable in many fields.” She batted his arm. “Move aside. I want to go out into the light to speak of this.”

  He didn’t budge. “Why did you bring me here?”

  “We will put an end to this. You and I. Tonight.”

  He said a couple of French words he’d learned recently. He wasn’t sure what they meant, but it was something obscene. “Don’t tell me your people couldn’t have stopped that, Chouette. Any day. Any week. If you gave a damn about—”

  Her hand twisted into the cloth of his coat. She held him, furious, snarling into his face. “We did not know.”

  “You knew.”

  “Écoute-moi, Citoyen ’Awker. You are the newly minted spy. You strut about with your insouciance and your black knife and you understand no more than a flea. This is the battle of shadows we fight here in Paris. There are a hundred factions. There are secrets the Secret Police themselves do not know. Men too powerful to be challenged.” She let go of him. Pushed him away. “The Tuteurs who rule the Coach House were such men. They were untouchable.”

  She stood, breathing heavily, her teeth gritted. If he kept quiet, she’d get to the rest of it.

  She did. “Three days ago, the Head of the Coach House followed Robespierre to the guillotine. Now, secrets creep into the daylight. Men say openly that the Tuteurs of the Coach House have committed the most evil acts.”

  “What exactly does that mean when you put it in plain words? Being as I’m an expert in evil, I take a certain interest in the variety of depravity in this—”

  “Do not play the dunce. You are not the only connoisseur of evil here. We have all waded deep in blood since the Revolution.” Her voice was brittle as glass. “You may accept my judgment. The men who placed those children in England were monsters. They have committed enormities. The Secret Police themselves are appalled.”

  “What enormities?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Go ahead. Name them. Impress me.”

  She set her fist to the wall. Just set it there and looked at it. “Many of the Cachés—most—became children built of smoke. False names and false histories. English children who never existed. But some were more solid than that. Sometimes, the Tuteurs traded a child for a child.” She hit the wall, suddenly, with the side of her fist. It must have hurt. “Stand aside. I will go out from here. I am sick of darkness.”

  He let her shove him away. When he followed her outside, she was waiting for him at the iron railing that separated the churchyard from the road, holding onto one of the bars with her free hand, looking at the ground.

  He said, “Now you tell me what that means. A child for a child? What’s that?”

  She breathed deeply. Twice. “Sometimes, the Cachés became real English children. They became orphans without close family, sent to live with distant relatives.” She let go of the railing. “How do you think so many very convenient orphans are created? Walk beside me. I must tell you what we will do tonight.”

  “Hell. Are you saying . . . ?”

  “I am not saying anything. Now, attend.” She strode down the street, every bit of her the firm, busy, basket-on-her-arm house servant. A kitchen maid in a hurry. Not one speck of spy showed. “These Tuteurs must close that house if they wish to avoid an accounting for what they have done. They must place the last children in England, and do it quickly and brutally. I will not allow this.”

  “Because you’re so concerned about England.” He lengthened his stride to keep up with her.

  “Because they will choose the easy placement. There will be no false persona prepared for the Cachés who are left. They will take them to brothels in London and sell them to important men.”

  He shouldn’t have felt it like a punch in the stomach. Kids in St. Giles sold themselves every day for food and a roof overhead. Lots of the girls he’d grown up with ended up in brothels. Some of the boys too. He didn’t like to think how close he’d come to it.

  Deliberately, he slowed down, making her slow down too. “You think this is my business, somehow.”

  “I have made it your business. You cannot forget what you have seen.”

  She’d taken him up to that tower to see that skinny girl with her braids flapping out, dodging and hiding. He was supposed to think about that girl, locked up in a brothel.

  Owl was a fool if she thought any of that made a difference to him. He said, “I can’t do a damned thing about it, anyway, so—”

  “But you can. We can. Tonight, I will go into that house and take the children out. I have laid my plans. All is prepared. You will aid me in this, or you will not, but do not tell yourself there is nothing you can do.”

  “I’m not going to help you.”

  She stopped and turned to confront him. She looked so bloody innocent. She had a face like a flower, pale and open. Fine threads of her hair fell down alongside her face, picking up sunlight, shining. “I will be at the bookstore on the Rue de Lombard at sunset. If you are there, we will together perform this little theft of the property from an arm of the Secret Police.” She smiled, all winsome, not fooling him and not trying to. “It would be a brave and wily act to take so many potential agents from the French, would it not?”

  “It would be a good way to get myself killed.”

  “Then stay at home tonight and pull the covers over your head. Perhaps you will be safe.” She considered him keenly, and she changed her basket from right to left arm. “I shall expect you at sunset. Wear something . . .” she twiddled her fingers toward him, “unobtrusive. Au revoir.”

  She walked away from him with a spring in her step, looking like her basket held five rolls and an apple instead of a gun, field glasses, picklocks, and God knew what else.

  Seven

  JUSTINE DID NOT GO TO THE FRONT DOOR OF THE brothel. She walked around to the back entrance, to the kitchen.

  Men come to a brothel for the women, but they stay for the food. Babette, who ran the kitchen with a spoon of iron, was worth several times her weight in whores. Senior members of the Police Secrète schemed to lure Babette to their
kitchen.

  The grooms who kept the horses and swept the yard—Joseph, Jean le Gros, Petitjean, and Hugo—were sprawled at the big table by the kitchen window. René, who was an agent, very clever though he was young, was at the end of the table beside his cousin Yves, another agent, newly come from the country.

  They called to her as she walked by.

  “Justine. Ça va, petite?”

  “What’s the news, girl?”

  “Over here, love. I’ve kept a warm spot on the bench for you.”

  Their clogs scuffed the floor as they bunched together to make room for her. The plate of cheese was pushed forward enticingly. The bread indicated. Jean le Gros patted the space beside him and grinned. He was a man of many words and few teeth.

  She had topped up her basket with news sheets. One must look very innocent when carrying a gun. She tugged a Journal de Paris loose and tossed it in René’s lap as she passed by, to read aloud for everyone. The grooms loved to hear about the men who came to this house. Nowhere in Paris were politics more hotly and intelligently debated than in Babette’s kitchen.

  Many times Jean le Gros and the others passed to Babette interesting words one fine visitor had said to another in the stable yard when there was no one to hear but the horses and a stupid old groom. Political revolutionaries spoke a great deal of the equality of man, while continuing to act as if servants had no ears.

  It was hot in here, with the coals of the hearth raked to orange under the copper pots and chickens simmering down to stock. Babette stood at the long board, up to her elbows in flour, dough plump and obedient under her hands. Séverine was beside her, standing on a chair, wrapped in an apron many times too big for her, her front and her arms powdered with the flour, a very small round of dough before her, somewhat lumpy.

  It was good to be home. She would enjoy a day of the mundane and familiar before she must embark upon her dangerous enterprise. One does not take the small joys of life for granted when they may not be granted tomorrow.

  Séverine glowed. Too wise to bounce about on a kitchen chair, she contained all that joy inside herself, spilling it out in words. “Justine. Justine. I made rolls and we ate them for breakfast. Madame had a roll and Babette and Belle-Marie and I had a roll. Four rolls.” She held up a white hand, showing five fingers, then pointed to the shelf with the salt box and the smaller mortars. “I saved one for you.”

  She had indeed. Oddly lopsided, it sat on a little blue-patterned plate. It was impossible to guess what path her sister’s life would follow, but Séverine would not become a cook.

  “That was a lovely thought and it is a beautiful roll. I shall take it upstairs with me.” With any luck, she would feed it to the sparrows who inhabited the roof outside her bedroom window. If Séverine came with her, she’d eat and praise every rock-hard bite. The others, including the doll, Belle-Marie, had done so.

  “Babette is letting me make tarte aux pommes with her. See. Next, we peel apples. I can almost peel an apple. Will you be here for dinner, Justine? They will eat vol-au-vent of chicken upstairs, and we are having oxtail stew in the kitchen, even though it is very hot today. Madame said that everyone will need sustaining food in times of momenterous changes. Babette let me chop carrots. And we bought parsley and I helped wash it.”

  For three days . . . four days, maybe longer, she had spent no time with Séverine. The overthrow of Robespierre, in which she had played a small part, seemed a poor excuse for neglecting her sister. Now there were Cachés to rescue. She would be busy all night.

  There was always more to do. Spying would eat you alive if you let it.

  She leaned across the kneading board to kiss Séverine on her forehead, keeping her basket stretched to the side so it would not get floury. It is hard to clean flour out of guns. “That is a very pretty ribbon.” Séverine had red ribbon tied in a loose bow around her braid, the long ends trailing. “Did Babette give it to you?”

  “It was the man on the stairs who wanted to take me for a walk with him. He knew you. He said he hoped I would grow up to be as pretty as you are.” She lowered her voice. Séverine had already learned that some words must be kept quiet. “I did not like him, but Babette said it would be polite to wear the ribbon until the man leaves the house.”

  Babette said, “Leblanc,” and then, quickly, “I was there at once.” It was spoken softly so the men at the table would not overhear. “He had some business to conduct and wanted to take a woman and the little one with him as disguise. I did not allow it.”

  Leblanc dared to approach Séverine. Rage was cold as ice, empty as night. She had never understood why people spoke of the heat of anger. “Thank you,” to Babette, who would know the complexity and depth of her thanks.

  She set her basket on the floor and went to Séverine. She picked at the knot in the ribbon with her fingernails, keeping the cold deep inside, so Séverine would not sense it. “I will put this away, safe.” I will give it to the old woman who sweeps the street.

  If Leblanc had laid a finger upon Séverine, she would shoot him. “He was with her only a moment?”

  “Less than that.” Babette cut the ball of pastry with a knife.

  “I brought her away and kept her by my side. I pay no attention to the orders of that canaille. Then Madame returned sooner than he expected, and his plans came to nothing. He is with Madame now.”

  Maybe she would shoot Leblanc anyway. He was an annoyance to Madame. It was a good time to dispose of enemies, this, when there was much disturbance in the city.

  Séverine had acquired a smear of flour upon her cheek. Justine brushed that away with the tail of her apron and took the moment to hold her sister and kiss her face and become very floury herself in the process. They both admired the small, nubbly roll that was for her and she tucked it carefully into the pocket of her apron.

  “I will eat it tonight with my dinner, before I go out.” She sent a glance to Babette, saying she would be gone late into the night. Babette nodded. Séverine would be cared for, protected by that great bulwark of peasant strength.

  Tomorrow, she would spend the whole day with her sister. Perhaps they would go to the Tuileries Gardens, if there were no riots, and Séverine could chase the pigeons.

  MADAME’S sitting room was on the second floor. The halls were quiet. The women of the house were napping in their rooms or chatting in the salon. A few would be out, even in this heat, strolling the parks to loll prettily on a bench in the shade and smile at gentlemen.

  Justine had changed from her housemaid clothes to a pretty dress in the new soft style, the waist high, the bodice crossed with a drape of fabric. It made her look older than she was and it was immensely fashionable.

  She scratched upon Madame’s door and entered, her footsteps making no sound on the deep pile of the rug. Madame, who was aware of everything that happened around her, glanced up and smiled. Leblanc pretended he did not notice her.

  He had taken Madame’s most spacious chair and sat with his boots up and splayed crudely on the embroidered footstool. His clothes were expensive but vulgar. He was of a family of provincial pig farmers. He carried about with him a hint of the sweet stench of pigs and, in his eyes, something of their bustling intelligence and arrogant self-interest.

  Leblanc was one of the new men of the Revolution, violent and shrewd. He had risen quickly in the Secret Police. He was a powerful man. Even Madame was cautious around him.

  “Madame.” She curtsied deeply. These days it was a political statement to curtsy. It aligned one with the Girondists and the moderates, against the Jacobin fanatics of Robespierre. This was a comfortable political place to be when Robespierre’s blood was scarcely dry upon the guillotine.

  She held her chin high and made the dip of the knee that was exactly appropriate to greet a jumped-up pig farmer. Leblanc was a Jacobin. It would do no harm to remind him of the current weakness of his position.

  If Leblanc were compounded of farmyard dirt and rancor, Madame was spun of steel. She
wore a pale lavender dress, cut so low across the bodice that her breasts were clearly visible. Her dignity was such that it did not seem indecent. It was as if she came from a pagan time when the human form was sacred and nudity was without shame. Her hair, black and smooth as ebony, was swept up with silver combs and allowed to fall free in the back. She wore no jewelry whatsoever. Not the least ring or trinket.

  Madame stood at the rosewood secretaire holding a letter. She noted every nuance of both curtsies and, in the deeps of her eyes, approved. “My dear. Your work went well?”

  “Oh, yes. All is prepared.”

  “Good. We will discuss that in a moment, when Jacques has left.” Thus she set Leblanc in his place. “He brings a letter I have been awaiting. You will read it in a moment.”

  “Is that necessary?” Leblanc frowned.

  “It is always interesting to hear your opinions on the management of agents, Jacques.” Madame folded the letter. “I will think about this before I reply. I must consult Soulier.” She dropped it to the blotter on the writing desk.

  Leblanc followed her gesture with cold eyes. “Tonight, then.”

  “Not tonight. You need not concern yourself with this. If you wish, you may return to the amusements of the parlor. My women will see to you.”

  “I am not amusing myself.” He stood up, brushing his sleeves, as if to dislodge the contempt Madame’s glance had left there. “I do not play with whores when the Republic is in turmoil. I am gauging the temper of the city. Important men come to your salon.”

  “To play with my whores. Sordid, is it not? One trembles for the future of rational government. For Justine, I will repeat what I said before. No one in my household is available to you for your work. Not the scrub maid. Not the cat in the stables. No one.”

  “You make a great fuss over a trifling matter.” Leblanc shrugged. “I would have returned the infant in an hour or two. Now I must detach experienced agents from other work to accomplish my business. You inconvenience everyone with your insistence on—”