The Black Hawk sl-4 Page 7

  “We both work,” he said.

  She picked up the chisel and pushed herself away from Hawker till her backbone rubbed the splintery wood of the crossbeam. “Then do not be clumsy.”

  “I’ve done this before.”

  The candle of the dark lantern spread a circle of light barely six feet wide. Within that space were boards laid down to make a floor and the ribs of the rafters. Beyond was an ocean of darkness. They could not afford more light. Some crack in the eaves might gleam down to the coach yard below. Too much light would leave them blinking and blind when they entered the hallways of the Coach House.

  At the far end of the attic, Hawker’s friend knelt in the dark and kept an eye on the street. He was called Pax. She had met him briefly once before, though he gave no sign he remembered that. Tonight he pushed his way into this operation to protect Hawker’s back. The spies of England did not trust her to the width of a thread.

  Citoyen Pax was the first of many unforeseen difficulties. Possibly she would find some use for him.

  She wiped sweaty hands on these pants she wore. She had scrambled through many attics and basements in them. They were less indecent than skirts, but skirts would be cooler.

  She took up the chisel, holding the shaft slack in her fist, tapping the butt with the flat of her other hand. Softly. Carefully.

  The attic ran above the workshop where men had once constructed coaches. This end—this wall under her hand—was shared between the workshop and the old house where the master coachbuilder and his apprentices had once lived.

  She had plotted to free the Cachés since the first moment Madame discovered what was being done here. This was her second night of sweating and choking in the close air, chipping away at the mortar between the bricks.

  Now everything was held in place only by a little plaster. The mortar was of some substandard sort. It crumbled from its brick in pea-sized morsels that she teased out with her fingers and laid into piles behind her. Each time she cleared a brick she chinked in a wedge of wood to hold everything in place.

  All was precarious. All was poised to give way. A single incautious pressure, and the bricks and plaster would crash into the upstairs hall of the house.

  Hawker was, indeed, deft in his work. He bent to the wall and set his forehead on it. His hair was tied back with a black ribbon. His face was grimy from crawling about in this attic and smeared with white powder from the mortar. His lips held a tight, intent grimace. He began scraping between bricks with the point of his knife.

  She said, “You will ruin that blade.”

  “I got lots of knives.”

  She watched him work for a moment, disquieted by the edged beauty of his face. Lines of his hair fell in thin slashes of black. His lips were strongly marked. He was like one of the old Celtic spirits who still lived deep in the woods in the province she came from. They appeared in twilight of high summer and tempted girls to lie with them. Her nurse had told her the old stories. Someday soon, Hawker would be admirably suited to tempting silly young girls.

  She said to him, “You will bring the Cachés this way. Not down the stairs. Through this opening. You understand?”

  “Right.”

  They had discussed this already, but it did no harm to repeat instructions. “And out to the street. Get across the street and around the corner. You will be met. That’s the end of your work. My friends take them onward.”

  “Where?”

  “They will be safe. I would not spend this much time and trouble to be careless at the end.”

  “I’ll find out. You might as well just tell me.” He chipped away.

  “You do not need to know.” All was prepared. The Cachés would leave Paris in hidden compartments of the barge now tied to the quay at the Jardin des Plantes. They were not the first human cargo smuggled out of Paris in that barge.

  They worked in silence for a few minutes. The loft was stifling. Sawdust from old carriage-making clogged her nose and lay on her tongue like cloth. The single flame in the lantern added to the suffocating closeness.

  Sweat from Hawker’s face dripped on her arm. His knee pressed into her side. He did not fidget, though he must be as uncomfortable as she was. He was a steady comrade for this work. Curled up, cramped, and hot, his concentration was absolute. Most obviously, he had dismantled many walls and broken into many houses. It was not an admirable history, but it reassured her at this moment. She had chosen him well.

  “Last row,” Hawker whispered. “We pull them out starting from the top.”

  Of course, he would try to take charge. “And you will be altogether silent, if you please. Starting now.”

  “Wait.” He stopped her hand. Released it. He reached out to open and close the door of the lantern, covering and uncovering the light.

  His friend materialized, crawling without sound from the dark, dressed in black, his hair darkened in an unconvincing way and his face smeared with dirt. Perhaps they thought she would not recognize him again. They were overly optimistic.

  “Go over it one more time,” Hawker said. “This breaks through into the upper hall.”

  “If I have calculated correctly. You will find the door to the attic. The Cachés sleep there, up under the roof. I have seen them looking out the window at dusk.”

  “And the door’s to the right.”

  “So I believe. When I was working here, doing this,” she touched the ranges of exposed brick of the wall, “I heard them pass. That way.” She gestured. “The door will probably be locked upon them. I have lockpicks.”

  “I brought my own.”

  “That does not amaze me. You and your friend—”

  “He’s not my friend,” Hawker said shortly.

  She let her eyes run over the British spy who had been foisted upon her. “You and your associate will convince the Cachés to leave. That is the whole of your work, to get them out of the house. Mine is to see that you are not disturbed while you do this. I will be downstairs.”

  “Those two men that I saw—the Tuteurs—they’re downstairs.”

  “Those two men at least. Maybe more.”

  “You’re going to stop them.”

  “If it becomes necessary. I have a gun. And I have brought a knife.” She swallowed the chalky air. In this small space, a great, hot silence closed around them and they breathed each other’s hot breaths, like animals.

  Hawker regarded her without favor. “Did you ever actually fight anybody?”

  “That is not your concern.”

  “It is when you’re guarding my back.”

  “I have killed.” She did not say that it was not with her own hands. “I know how to fight. I have trained with a man from the army.”

  “Lessons. Now I’m impressed.”

  “Matters are as they are. I suggest you accommodate yourself.”

  Hawker said a single word, very rude.

  “We will follow the plan as I have laid it out.” She waited. The single candle was hidden within the dark lantern. Hawker was compounded of various sorts of shadow—inky black, shadow like smoke, ash-gray shadow. The knife he held did not reflect the smallest particle of light. It was as if he held darkness itself.

  At last he turned away and touched the center of the upper row of brick. He did not answer directly. He flicked a last bit of mortar away. “Let’s break through.”

  He used a lockpick to make the first small hole and put his eye to it. “Good. They’re not dancing minuets on the other side. It’s dark and quiet.”

  They removed the bricks. Hawker’s skinny, untalkative comrade made himself useful. He accepted bricks from her and from Hawker in turn and stretched to the eaves to stack them out of the way.

  Eleven

  THERE’S A WAY INTO ANY HOUSE. YOU CAN KNOCK on the door and talk your way in, pleasant-like. You can kick the door down and tromp in with clubs and a gang at your back. Or you can crawl on your sly, silent, dusty belly for sixty feet, scrape some bricks loose, and chew your way in like a rat
. Hawker preferred the sneaking route to open and brutal force, which was why he’d become a thief instead of joining the army.

  The hole they’d gnawed through the wall came out in an empty hall—Owl was right about that—about six feet up from the floor. You couldn’t take a hold onto the bricks themselves, getting down. That was asking for the whole place to fall apart. You had to jump. Six feet wasn’t what you’d call a long way down, but it was a long way to drop and land soft as cotton, which was what they had to do.

  He went first, ignoring some gesticulating from Owl. He didn’t trust either of his cohorts when it came to the fine points of being quiet. He trusted himself. He hit the floorboards loose and springy and turned it into a roll and came down at the end, flat and limp as a doll. He didn’t make any noise.

  He was alone in a long corridor with closed doors. No sound of breathing behind any of them doors, which was what you might call an indication they were empty, but not a promise you could take to the bank. Light leaked out of the hole they’d made in the wall. He braced himself on the plaster wall, making a ladder for Owl. Letting her put her feet on his shoulders and climb down, hand and foot, over him. Then Pax did the same thing, only heavier. Nothing like breaking into a house together for getting to know somebody.

  Owl dressed right—head to foot in black, boy’s trousers, hair pulled back and braided, covered with a dark scarf, soft boots. She’d left her woman’s clothes in a bundle outside when they first came in. She wouldn’t pass as a boy, not close up, not to a blind man, but she could move fast and easy and nobody cared how she looked anyway.

  Pax brought a lit candle with him and left the lantern behind in the attic where it’d be useful in the escape. That was showing a modicum of common sense. Hawker’s old master, who’d taught him to thieve, used to say, “Always take pains over your escape route. It’s never wasted.”

  The minute she was down, Owl slipped off to the left, going from door to door, looking in, and leaving everything open behind her. Bedrooms. Men’s clothing. Lots of books and papers. They’d have those rooms to hide in and leap from ambush if they were hunted along this corridor. Pax ghosted off to do the same down the right side, setting his boots to the floor silent as philosophy. All of this with no need for a word between any of them. That was a good sign.

  This was a barracks-looking sort of house. No carpet in the hall. No furniture. No place for a cat to sit. Ten or twenty framed samplers on the wall. Not like anybody lived here at all. Not like it was somebody’s home.

  The door to the attic turned out to be next-to-last on the right-hand side. He went straight to it, which was half figuring out where it must be from long experience in the way houses were laid out and half luck. He hoped he impressed everybody.

  Owl had worked her way to the head of the stairs leading down. She stood, breathing slow, getting herself steeled up for what came next. When she’d done that a minute, she took a little gun out of the pouch under her shirt.

  He trotted down the hall—quiet about it—to intercept her. She looked mulish, but she stopped.

  He held out his hand and she gave him the gun so he could take a look at it. It was small, but not a toy. A serious gun, well maintained. A working weapon.

  When he gave it back, she held it right—low against her side, on the half cock, thumb on the hammer. She’d been well taught. She might last all of a minute and a half in a real fight.

  He mouthed, “Good luck,” and hoped like hell she wouldn’t need it.

  Then he headed for the attic to play his part. He passed Pax, still searching rooms. Taking the stairs upward was like climbing into a dark throat. What they had here was—what would Doyle have called it?—Stygian darkness, whatever the hell that meant. Funny how his old profession—stealing—and his new one—spying—both involved a lot of fumbling his way around in the dark.

  The fourth tread squeaked, like he’d stepped on something that objected. He’d been hugging along next to the wall just so that wouldn’t happen. It was a shame and pity the way some householders didn’t fix these little defects in their house.

  At the top of the stairs, he ran his hands up and down the doorframe. The door was not just locked, but barred, like they were keeping jaguars and highwaymen behind it. A board thick as his hand was laid across the door in iron holders. Serious impediments to exit on this door. They were keeping somebody in, not out.

  He put his ear to the wood and there was not a sound inside, which would ordinarily mean he was about to break into some furniture storage. In this case, it probably indicated somebody was going to stab him the minute he nudged the door open.

  He’d had the chance, once, to apprentice to a fence, him being handy with numbers and knowing a fair amount about stolen goods. He should probably have pursued that line of work.

  He lifted the bar up. Set it to the side, out of the way. Next on his list was this padlock. Nice and solid. Cold. Heavy. Expensive work, by the feel of it. His picks slipped into his hand with velvet silence since he kept them wrapped up nice and quiet. There was no feeling in the world sweeter than a fine pair of lockpicks between the fingers.

  Except maybe a girl’s breasts. Maybe the flower between her legs. That was the sweetest toy in the world. But lockpicks were a close second.

  He shouldn’t be thinking about girls when he was on a job. Doyle would have said something sarcastic and made him feel like a fool.

  He saw Pax before he heard him, since Pax was bringing the candle and he made about as much noise as the ghost of a mouse. Pax didn’t creak on that fourth step. Then he stood, not flapping his mouth, holding the light at a useful angle.

  Hawker’d admit it—Pax knew what he was doing. Didn’t make him one wad of spit more likable.

  The tumblers scraped. The lock clicked free. Pax cupped his palm around the candle flame so it wouldn’t blow out if they encountered any breeze in the course of their next activities.

  The door swung out smoothly, showing a tight, narrow room with no lights inside.

  A pack of kids stood together at the far side of the room. They were dressed in short, white nightshirts—the same for girls and boys. Counting quick, he summed it up as thirteen of them. The girl with blond braids, the one he’d seen fighting yesterday, was in front. On her right, a boy the same size. Pink and blond for the girl. Really beautiful. Brown and wholesome-looking for the boy.

  Still as doorsteps, every one of them.

  So far, so good. “We’re friends,” he whispered. “Give me a minute to talk . . .” before you start yelling.

  This wasn’t much of a room for a baker’s dozen of kids to sleep in. Slanted ceiling. The only place you could stand up was in the middle. The little window at the end had no reflection in it. No glass. Just a hole in the wall with iron bars across it. Too small to crawl out of even if you were a skinny kid.

  No beds. No furniture. No dressers. Blankets were parceled out in two rows, one on each side of the attic, on the floor. That was how they slept. One blanket under them. One over. No pillow. No padding. No sheet. Clothes stacked in a neat pile next each blanket, a pair of shoes set square beside it.

  It was hotter in here than outside. He knew all about attic rooms like this. Roast in summer. Freeze in winter.

  The bedrooms he’d seen downstairs were comfortable enough.

  The kids’ faces and bodies were honed down into hungry angles. Not a plump one in the lot. And they were locked in. He felt Pax behind him, being silent.

  The blond girl said, “Who are you? What do you want?”

  She was the leader then. It showed in the way the others kept an eye on her and ranged themselves out from a center, where she was. Street thieves in the St. Giles rookeries traveled in mean, dangerous little packs that acted like this. They were run by girls, often as not.

  He said, “I want to get you out of here.”

  “Why?” One blunt word from the boy at the front.

  “Does it matter?”

  None of them blinked.
Absorbed attention was the order of the day.

  He said, “Have they told you Robespierre is dead?”

  “We were told.”

  “Then you know everything’s changed. This Coach House of yours . . .” He didn’t spit on the floor. Doyle said gentlemen didn’t spit. That left him not knowing how to express his feelings with the eloquence they deserved. “This place. It’s done. Finished. Over. You’re the last.” He took a step into the room. He saw the girl think about attacking him and decide to put that off for the moment.

  He said, “This is what they didn’t tell you. There’s no place for you in England. Nothing’s prepared. There’s no one left to set you up. You won’t be put in families or schools. You’ll go to brothels.”

  The girl remained cold-eyed. “Why do you concern yourself?”

  Damned if he knew. But Doyle would do this. Maybe this was what a gentleman would do. “Stay, or get yourselves out of this kennel. You have three minutes to decide.”

  “They’re testing us,” a boy said. Another nodded.

  “It is the British.”

  “They will cut our throats,” a girl said in a sweet voice.

  The blond girl said, “We serve France. We will do whatever we are called upon to do.”

  “We are loyal to the Revolution,” the boy beside her said. The others murmured about loyalty and revolutionary ideals and steadfastness.

  He didn’t have an endless supply of time.

  Light slid in and out of corners of the attic room. The faces of the Cachés shadowed and unshadowed. Pax came up beside him. He said, “Is somebody downstairs?”

  There was no noise at all. No light coming up the staircase. That was just Pax being nervous.

  He turned in time to see Pax change the candle from left hand to right. “It is the least of my worries,” Pax stretched and closed his fingers, uncramping them, and looked from one Caché to the other, “whether you believe me or not.” He could have been talking about the cost of radishes for all the emotion in his voice. “Take what we offer, or stay and accept what will be done with you.” Pax looked from one face to the other. “This is no test. No trickery.”