Joanna Bourne - The Black Hawk

Hawker came out a few minutes later, wiping his face with a towel, and sat on the bench next to where she worked. He’d brought a whetstone with him, which he had found somewhere, and picked up one of her knives and began refining the edge. “Have I ever talked to you about your knives?”

“Frequently.”

“It’s all in the angle. You feather out the edge every so often, because there is nothing more dangerous than a dull knife. Armies have been brought down by dull knives.”

“That is unlikely.”

“Absolute truth.” He did not test her knife with his thumb. That was for those who wished to go about with little cuts across their thumb. He lifted the edge of newspaper and sliced that, separating an illustration of bust improvers from a column of news. “Tell me this clever thought you’ve had.”

“We have words. La dame. La tour. Le fou . . .”

He nodded. He was attending to the knife, raising a rhythmic, slow grinding as he perfected the edge of the blade. One would say he was absorbed in that unless one saw his eyes. They were thinking of other things. Whirring with calculation. “Tell me.”

“Tarot.”

The single word, and his head snapped up. He stared at her, not seeing. “Nom d’un nom.”

“The card of the queen is called ‘the lady.’ La dame. The card of the tower. La tour. The card of le fou—the fool. I do not say we are wrong about chess. But that is another possibility.”

“Tarot cards. Gypsies. Gypsies come to the Palais Royale.”

“Sometimes. Mostly they are chased away again. But sometimes they bribe the gendarmes and are left in peace for a day or two to tell fortunes up and down the cafés. I did not see any yesterday.”

He set her knife down on the newspaper. He was perfectly still, going over this in his mind. He shook his head slowly. “They don’t mix in politics. Or assassination. Doesn’t make sense.”

“It does not. And yet I must explore this. I have friends among the Rom, but they come and go. I will have to track them down in the poor quartiers to the east of Paris.”

“I’ll ask around the Palais Royale. See when and where the Gypsies have been.”

“It will take days. We do not have days.” She rapped her gun impatiently upon the news sheet. Grains of black powder peppered the schedule of the First Consul’s activities for the day.

Egyptian artifacts restored to the Louvre . . . La Dame du Nil. The Lady of the Nile, brought from England . . . incomparable artwork . . . gift to the people of France . . . celebration of peace.

It was a pity peace did not really come from gifts of pretty statues.

Hawker said, “What I need is Paxton. He’s the one who knows the Rom. They take to him like a long-lost cousin, which he’s not, with his coloring. If I had him here—”

She said, “You do.”

A man stood at the window, looking in. Monsieur Paxton, who should not be here. Who should be miles away by now. “He did not have the sense to leave. Truly, I have no fear for the secrets of France if the British Service is composed of such—”

“The key,” Hawker snapped. He found it himself, instantly, on the counter. Opened the door and pulled his friend inside.

They spoke low, being vehement. Arguing. Paxton was determined upon his course. He would not run. He would surrender himself to his superiors in some madness of honor. Hawker was to accompany him and speak for him. Save him, if he could, and be with him, at the last, if he could not.

It was altogether brave and damnable of both men.

She did not wish to see Hawker’s face as the two men spoke together. Anger, she could look upon. This pain—it shouted from both of them—she did not want to see.

She measured powder into the barrel. Wrapped the bullet in a wadding of paper. Tamped it down. The gun and her knives went back to the pockets of her cloak, ready for use.

Beneath her work, scattered with black grains, a drawing looked up at her. La Dame du Nil, a statue, stiff and Egyptian. The paper read, “The director of antiquities of the Louvre, Monsieur Julien Latour, prepares to greet La Dame du Nil in her historic journey to Paris as she is restored to French hands. Napoleon will receive the English delegation at eight o’clock in a private ceremony . . . expressions of amity and friendship between nations . . .”

Latour. La tour.

“Mon Dieu.” She grabbed the paper. Back powder spilled across the table. “Look. No. Be silent. None of that matters. Look here.” She thrust it under Hawker’s eyes. “La tour. Latour. La Dame du Nil. That is la dame. The Englishman. He is the fool. Le fou. The madman. This is the assassination. Here. Now. God help us. What time is it?”

Paxton dragged a watch out. Clicked it open. “Seven.”

“We are too late.” Too late. They would never get there in time.

“Not yet.” It took Hawker one instant to take in the whole of the article. Less than an instant to know what to do. “There’s no ceremony in the history of the world that’s started on time.” He passed the paper to his friend. “Get to headquarters. Tell her I need men. I’ll go stop it. If it’s too late, we make sure that Englishman is dead before he gets questioned.”

It would be their foremost concern—that there was no Englishman. That there was no cause for war. But she must save Napoleon. She threw her cloak about her. Set her hand upon the barrel of her gun.

Hawker followed her out the door. He said, over his shoulder, to Pax, “Go. I’ll leave a trail inside the Louvre.”

THE LOUVRE WAS HALF ART MUSEUM, HALF CHAOS. In one gallery, scaffolding and ladders, paint buckets and sheets over the statues. In the next, the bourgeois inspected art.

Nobody knew anything about Napoleon’s visit or Egyptian antiquities or La Dame du Nil or a ceremony. Museum caretakers, guides, guards, passing artists carrying easels—none of them knew a thing. All stupid as mice.

In the courtyard between the buildings of the Louvre a dozen families strolled under the wide, serene sky. She stood with Hawker, both of them out of breath, surrounded by the peaceful and ordinary. Disaster was about to strike France. It would happen here, somewhere within a few hundred yards of her, and she could not find it.

“It hasn’t happened yet.” Hawker searched door to door, window to window, with cold, impatient eyes.

She’d sent one of the guides running to the post of the Imperial Guard, another to the offices of the Police Secrète in the Tuileries, to Fouché. But they would not be in time. She knew it in her bones.

One minute too late, or a century too late, it was all the same.

Think. She must think. “He is not in the public galleries. Not here, in the main buildings. If Napoleon had come to the open, public rooms, all these people would be trying to get a glimpse of him. They would be full of chatter, pointing, hurrying, watching.”

“Big place.” Hawker studied one flank of the buildings, dismissed it, moved on to the next.

“The Louvre is immense. A city in itself.” If she planned such a ceremony, where would she hold it? Where?

On both sides of the courtyard, carved gray stone and tall window stretched to the Tuileries Palace. The Louvre was filled with the offices of government, workshops, lecture halls, apartments. “This is an endless labyrinth with a thousand obscure corners.”

“They’re not holding this donnybrook in some dark corner. What’s substantial?” He made one of his complex gestures. “What’s fancy?”

“He will not be far from the Tuileries. He will review the troops at ten.”

“Where?”

“In the courtyard of the Tuileries Palace.” She pointed south. “I think . . . I think he will not go to the Louvre, with its long delay of meeting so many people. He will stay in the palace itself. On the ground floor there are a dozen salons and reception rooms, all of them famous. The king of France lived there once.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “We have to guess. You take the left side, I’ll head down—”

“No. Look. There is a guard. Standing there, doing nothing. That is the only door with a guard. That’s it. That door.”

She ran. Hawker stayed an instant to mark another arrow in charcoal on the paving stones.

A hundred yards away, where the Pavillon de Marsan connected to the Louvre, the door was open. The guard eyed her suspiciously. “Entrance for the public is at the front. Go back the way you came. Turn, and go through the big door on the left. Walk around.”

Hawker came up beside her and slashed a huge, black arrow in charcoal on the stone wall.

“Here now. You can’t do that. It’s against the law to deface public buildings. There’s a fine for—”

Overlooked, she slipped through the door. Sometimes, it was an advantage to be dressed like no one in particular. To be so obviously of no importance.

The Pavillon de Marsan, here in the Tuileries Palace. It would be here. Yes.

Ancient halls covered with gilt and mirrors. A dozen years ago the sister of the king of France had lived in the apartments here. Where else was so secure, private, and close to Napoleon’s quarters? She could even name the room. Any such ceremony would be held in the Green Salon. That was worthy of a presentation to Napoleon.

Not far.

Hawker caught up to her in the long corridor. She did not ask him how he had dealt with the guard.

One soldier guarded the door of the Green Salon, stiff and proud, gun on his shoulder, very serious, but so young he scarcely merited his mustache. Did the First Consul of France deserve only one infant to guard him?