Rogue Spy

Forty-eight

Cami drew out the watch Uncle Bernardo had given her a few hours ago. It was gold, enameled in indigo flowers, very pretty and very old, smooth and cool in her hand. Uncle Bernardo said it had belonged to her grandmother. She clicked it open. “Twenty minutes. Then I walk out and play the tethered lamb.”

Pax said, “The tethered tiger. You’re nobody’s lamb.” He smiled. “You should check your powder.”

She did, to please him, and because it gave her something to do in these last long minutes. The powder was dry. It was a warm and sunny day for London.

She put her pistol away carefully—the dress she wore had several spots for concealing such weapons.

They stood in the rough track beside the grocer’s. She didn’t bother to hide because she was expected. Pax kept himself against the wall, in the lee of a drainpipe, where he was inconspicuous. He was so close she could have stretched out a hand and touched him. But there were already many eyes on her so she didn’t.

They could see Number Fifty-six from here. When she crossed the street and went to her appointment, Pax would be watching.

“Everyone in place?” Pax turned his head to say that to a space farther down the alley.

“Ready and accounted for.” A man emerged, unaccompanied by any sound. Hawker. He wore a blue workman’s smock and carried a basket under one arm, where a few sheets of window glass were packed in straw. “They’re placing bets whether the Merchant will show up at all.”

Pax said, “We’ll find out.”

Hawker set the basket down at the mouth of the alley. “The guns are on top.” He shoved straw aside to show a line of pistols, nose down in the straw. “Don’t cut yourself on glass.”

She said, “Several guns. Do you think we’ll need them?”

“Hard to have too many guns,” Pax said.

“I use knives myself.” Hawker shifted his gaze to her. “A more elegant and reliable weapon. I’ll teach you to throw knives when I get a chance.”

That was unexpected. “Thank you.”

“You’re going to be with Pax, looks like. He’ll need somebody who can watch his back. Today, we’ll watch yours. Now I will blend into the passing scene by repairing a window.” He inspected a small, dirty window that led to some cellar room. “This one, I think.”

“It’s not broken,” she said.

Hawker’s sideways kick was too fast to see. There was little noise and most of the glass fell inward.

Hawker said, “Now it is.”

“I don’t suppose you actually know how to fix a window,” Pax said.

“No idea.” Hawker was already taking a sheet of glass and a half dozen miscellaneous tools out of the basket. He squatted to inspect the window. “That is why I am just going to pretend to fix it.”

Her watch fitted into one of the little pockets sewed into the sleeve of the dress. She took it out again, as much to hold it as to open it and read the time.

“How long?” Pax said.

“Fifteen minutes.” Now that the time was so short, she wished it would hurry by. “This’ll be over, one way or the other, in an hour.”

“We’ll go back and eat afterward, I imagine. What are they cooking?”

“Cooking?” Her mind seemed perfectly blank. She knew someone had talked about this. “I don’t—Fish. We’re having fish. Whatever they found at the market. And soup with sausages. I’d forgotten how much I missed soup with sausages.”

“Then we’ll eat soup, and revel in it.” Pax held her in his complete attention. He also watched Semple Street with that same complete attention. As did Hawker.

As did she. Semple Street looked almost unreal. Like a stage setting waiting for the actors. “There’ll be something with apples for dessert. There was a big bowl of them beside the sink.”

A portly citizen—he was completely a civilian and bystander in this matter—emerged from his house and turned left, walking briskly, leaving the scene and the interesting events to come. He lifted his hat politely to a pair of women who stood at their door, chatting and wearing particularly ugly bonnets.

Carriages passed, but none of them contained the Merchant. Not yet.

Pax said, “I like apples. I remember the time we went over the wall, hunting them.”

At the Coach House.

They must have been mad. Thinking back, that was the only explanation. But the two of them used to slip over the wall and go stealing in town. They stole food. The Cachés were kept hungry.

The apple expedition had been especially satisfying. They’d stolen a few dozen from vendors in the market on the quai de la Tournelle and sneaked a basket back over the wall. Then all of them had gorged on apples—two apiece, an amazing feast—in the back of the practice field behind the targets and bales of hay and old benches. Not a scratch on anyone. No one beaten for it. A wholly successful operation.

A good thought to carry with her today.

Reluctantly, she opened the watch and turned the face to Pax, silently. She felt cold inside and strange.

“It’s time,” Pax said.

She’d planned to walk away from him, calmly and bravely, as a soldier parts from a comrade to go to battle. But he took her wrist and pulled her to him and kissed her, strongly and thoroughly.

He said, “I love you. Be careful. We’ll move in when you give the signal.”

She’d been cold, so cold, inside. Now she carried that fire away with her, in her belly.

Pax returned to his selected piece of shadow where his choice of clothes made him invisible.

Hawker went on repairing the window, looking knowledgeable, using the tools pretty much at random. “It’s not the code,” Hawker said, just loud enough for him to hear. “It’s her.”

“I know.” It had been obvious from the start the Merchant was after Cami. “She knows.”

“There’s about no documents to decipher from Mandarin yet. It’s too new.” Hawk tap-tapped at jagged glass. “And we’d stop using it the day she disappeared from Goosefat-on-Tweed anyway. She could hand the real code over this morning, down to the last orange pip, wrapped up in a red bow and stamped by the post office. Everybody’s warned. It’s worthless.”

“If he wanted codes, he would have kidnapped one of the Leylands and beaten it out of an old woman. This is too elaborate for that. He’s wanted Cami, and only her, from the beginning.”

“Now he’s got her.” Hawk went on calmly scraping putty. “He’s brought Cami to this street, this morning, at this hour. We can assume that’s exactly what he wants. I’m glad somebody’s pleased with this morning’s work.”

“We’ve handed her over to him.” But that wasn’t quite true. Cami had handed herself over to the Merchant. She walked toward him now, without hurry or any sign of nervousness. The wind was strong enough to pull at the curls of her hair. Grey would have to compensate for that wind when he shot. She wore no cloak, no bonnet to get in the way if she had to fight or run.

Carts, horses, and the occasional carriage passed. Men and women went about their business on Semple Street. A child rolled a hoop down the street. The background hum of London filled the air. It was a bright day, an hour short of noon.

Hawker said, “There are a number of us keeping her alive. And she’s deadly competent all on her own.” He picked up a small trowel. “Good choice, by the way.”

“I think so.”

“Probably kill you on your honeymoon, but you’ll die happy.”

“I agree. Hand me that pistol, will you? Is it loaded?”

“Why do you ask questions when you know the answer? Of course it’s loaded.”

He didn’t care how careful and wise and deadly Cami was. A piece of lead the size of his fingernail could take her from the world forever. One bullet. Break the goblet, and life pours out.