Joanna Bourne - The Black Hawk

“Move a bit. Let me . . .” Justine took a bag from the pocket under her skirt. “I have brought this to you, through perils uncounted.”

The bag was filled with twists of paper, a little discolored by water. Inside each paper, sugar drops. The first one she opened was blue and white and red, colored like glass from Venice.

“They are from Paris,” Justine said. “They may taste of salt. I had the merest whiff of difficulty coming ashore.”

If Justine brought them, they would be the most perfect of their kind. The seawater was not important. Not at all.

She sat on the ground and leaned against Justine’s knees and sucked upon a peppermint drop. Justine said, “I’ve been in Italy. That’s why it has been so long since I came to you.”

“There is a war there.” When Papa was home, he read to her from the newspaper, after dinner, when he and Maman sat close together with her on the sofa in the salon.

“The fighting is over for a while. There will be a treaty.” Justine put one arm around her. They watched barn swallows swooping over the lawn that ran from the parterre down to the river. It was not really raining if the swallows were out. “This is a pretty place. I like to think of you being here, in that house.”

“I will think of you in Paris, if that is where you will be.”

“Perhaps.” Justine’s voice said she would not be in Paris. She would be somewhere more dangerous.

She could feel Justine getting ready to leave. Quickly, she said, “Wait. Just a minute more. Did you get my letters? All of them? I sent you pictures.”

“I have all of them. They were in Rome, at the embassy, when I came through.”

“I have three letters from you. The one with the canary, the one with the black-and-white cat, and the one with the bowl of broth.”

“There will be six more, if they all come. Alas, they never do.” Justine made a gesture. She was very French in her gestures, like Maman. “I must go, petite.”

She held Justine tight, loving her and always, always frightened for her. “You will be careful.”

“There is no need. My life has been boring as a piece of bread these last few months. I sit and drink coffee in the café. I write reports and walk in the countryside all day. It is a healthy life, I assure you.” The last thing, as always, Justine kissed the top of her head. “You will tell Marguerite I was here.”

“After nightfall.” That was as always. Justine would not let her keep secrets from Maman.

When she had watched until Justine was gone and the bushes were quiet again, she went to catch Friquet. He did not much mind being caught because he knew they were going to the stable where they would fuss over him and give him bran mashes and carrots. He was muddy up to his hocks from wading in the stream.

Because she wanted to make the meeting with Justine last as long as she could, she walked through the meadow and up the lawn, leading Friquet home, sucking a peppermint drop, remembering every word.

She would tell Maman about Justine’s visit after dinner. They would not find Justine.

JUSTINE DID NOT LINGER NEAR THE HOUSE OF WILLIAM Doyle. He knew she came here from time to time to see her sister. So far, he had not tried to stop it. She did not fool herself into thinking she would come so close to his stronghold unless he allowed.

Just lately she had not endeared herself to the British. There had been an incident in Italy. The English really should not involve themselves in the wars of Italy.

The route of her retreat involved much crawling through mud. She followed the small stream and the cover of bushes. In the day and a half she had waited for Séverine, she had spotted several men patrolling. There were two now, one in the garden and one on a hillock in the woods, who made only the smallest pretense of working. And . . . Yes. She pulled back a stand of gray-green weed. The grim young groom who accompanied her sister everywhere leaned at the wall of the stable, polishing the metal of a bit, his attention on the patch of bushes where he had left Séverine.

Her sister was well cared for. She was held within that mansion as in careful cupped hands. She was given the pretty riding habit and the sleek, playful pony. Given the tutor—he had been a great scholar in France before he was broken and tossed aside by the Revolution. That was another soul Marguerite gave refuge to. Alert, dangerous veterans of the war, some missing an eye or an arm, patrolled the perimeter. Three monster dogs coursed the grounds after dark. If there were any peace and safety in the world, William Doyle folded it around his wife and the children in his house.

She came to the green swath of lawn where the river widened. When Séverine arrived at the house there would be less scrutiny in this direction.

Rain fell around her, soft and intricate, the tap of it becoming indistinguishable from the splash of the stream. It was not possible to tell where gray sky ended and gray rain began. After so many months in Italy, England seemed very wet.

She stood with her back to a tree, letting emotions run over her and around her as if she were a rock in a river with the water going past. There was a hardness at the core of her life, like a rock. A spy of her sort is very alone. She never felt so alone as when she had been with her sister for a short time and they must part again.

It was weak of her to keep coming back this way, just to talk to her sister. It would be kinder to make a clean break while Séverine still loved her. Before she understood what her sister had been. Before Séverine asked questions and Marguerite must tell her about the brothel in Paris.

The drizzle thickened. Mist rose and all was hidden. Another minute or two and she could—

Cold metal bit at her throat.

A knife point. Fingers gripped her hair, pulling her head back to expose her neck. The instant closed around her in terror.

A man stood behind her, with death in his hand. She did not flinch. It is not wise to flinch when someone holds a knife to your throat. A sensible woman does not move at all. Hold still. Breathe. She wavered in place the smallest amount with the pounding of her heart.

A voice said, “Owl?”

No one else called her that anymore. “’Awker.”

It was his body, immovable behind her. His breath on the back of her neck. She should have recognized it somehow.

The moment throbbed with danger. Hawker would not kill her. She was sure of that. Almost sure. But he might well drag her off to prison. One does not lightly invade England. One does not capriciously approach the household of important British agents, however much it is the home of one’s sister.

The knife no longer pricked at her throat. Roughly he turned her around to face him. “What are you doing sneaking around?”

“What do you think I am doing? Bird-watching? I come to Séverine.” Calmly. She spoke calmly. No mean feat. It was a hard, dark, unforgiving face that confronted her, devoid of humor. And there was the knife.

She had seen him six months ago, in Verona. Their eyes met across the Piazza dei Signoria. They were both pretending to be Italian. France held the city, but matters were complicated by the Austrian army marching about the countryside trying to take it back, and the Veronese hated all foreigners equally, which was not unreasonable of them. She and Hawker had both deemed it prudent to turn in the opposite direction and walk away.

He had grown since she last stood this close to him. He was not tall. He would never be tall. But he was now taller than her.

She said, “I must see her, you know. I do not come here often.”

Hawker put his knife away in an inner jacket pocket, a single ingenious disappearance. He gazed upon her, looking dangerous. Looking familiar and being very much a stranger. “You shouldn’t be here at all. Now what do I do?”

“You will let me go, of course. I am not spying upon all these fields of cows. I have no work in England at this time. Do you think agents do not take holidays?”

It had begun to rain harder, which was the favored choice of English weather. Hawker was bareheaded and water dripped down his forehead, pulling his hair into thin black lines, sharp as the knives he was so menacing with. He was becoming very wet. This would not sweeten his temper.

He said, “The trouble dealing with you, Owl, is that there’s no way to tell whether you’re lying.”

“What use would I be to my country if any passing British Service agent could tell I was lying? I will admit it puts me at a disadvantage when I happen to be telling the truth.”

“Fortunately, that doesn’t happen often.” He looked around as if the dripping woods and the little running stream would give him advice. “This is awkward. I should probably take your weapons off you.”

“A cautious man would do that, certainly.”

“But I don’t think you’ll stab me a couple hundred feet away from Sévie. It’s surprisingly difficult to get rid of a body in Oxfordshire.”

“As you will know by experience, no doubt.”

He would not harm her. The possibility of that had passed. He also would not drag her into William Doyle’s house in disgrace and indignity. “Neither of us will do anything to hurt Séverine. It is the most perfect of truces, is it not?”

He only growled at her, less pleased with this stalemate than she was.

She said, “Why are you here, anyway? It is very strange of you to be wandering in the damp shrubberies of Oxfordshire. Me, I would be inside in front of one of your English fires on a day like this.”

He wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket. “Right you are. I don’t know why I’m standing in the rain anyhow.” He turned his back on her and stalked off into the drizzle.