The Black Hawk

Twenty-two

SHE WAS IN HAWKER’S ARMS. SHE KNEW THAT before she knew where she was. It was rare and important, being with him.

Even now, after so many years, she dreamed of him. Sometimes, when she first woke up, she’d think he was with her. She’d feel his arm under her head, his body naked beside her. Then the day would come and wash dreams away. Then it was not his arm under her. It was a pillow. It was not his body. It was the rolled and tumbled blanket. Time after time, she slid out of a dream and she was alone, but for an instant, the bed smelled of him.

This time, it wasn’t a dream.

She lay awake for a time before she opened her eyes, hurting and vaguely angry about it.

She was in bed, in a quiet room, under a soft blanket, held by Hawker. She glided back to consciousness, riding the currents of that certainty. She was with Hawker, so she was safe. In all the world, there was no flesh, no bone, no sound of breathing she would mistake for Hawker’s.

“I can tell when you’re awake,” he said.

Her mouth was dry. “You always could.”

“A matter of being cautious.” He unwound from her and tucked the blanket into the space he’d emptied. The bed moved. He sat up to lean over and look down at her. “I never quite trusted you, you know, not even when we were closest. I just thought it was worth the risk. You were always worth the risk.”

I was stabbed because I came to warn you. “You do not trust me. Wise.”

“We did well enough, for enemies.” His smile pulled down at the side and didn’t reach his eyes. He shifted his weight, careful not to joggle her. “You’re harmless for the moment. You were about half dead for a while.”

“How long?”

“It’s been three days. A little more.”

So long? She thought of days frittered away, like small coins out of a pocket. Pouring from her mind, like grains of silver. “I don’t remember.”

“Just as well.”

Someone had put her in a night shift. Her left arm was an ache from shoulder to fingers. Under the bandage, she itched. She held her hands up. So heavy. Her joints felt like old iron wheels and gears that had lain abandoned for a long time and were now set moving again, creakily.

Bruises circled her wrists and ran in regimented lines, forearm to elbow. Blue finger marks showed where someone had held her.

“I am bruised.” Events took shape in her mind like shadows in fog. She had been in Braddy Square, trying to get to Hawker, to warn him. She remembered being stabbed. Staggering toward Meeks Street. “Who did I fight?”

“I held you down when you were being sewed up. You objected to that for some reason. And later, when you were out of your head with fever.” He rolled smoothly off the bed and stood over her. “I hurt you doing it. No choice.”

His voice said how little he had liked hurting her.

Oh, Hawker. We have hurt each other so much.

He was unshaven, which always made a ruffian of him. He wore trousers and a loose shirt, open halfway down his chest. She had felt it next to her as she slept, cradling the edge of her dreams—the warmth of him, the creases of the linen of his shirt, the old, familiar comfort of his skin.

He poured from a pitcher to a small cup. “Everybody wants you to drink this. I have seldom encountered such unanimity of opinion. I’m going to slip in next to you and hold it up. You sip out of the side here.”

It was not water, but lemonade. Exactly right. She was very thirsty.

They looked at each other while she drank. He was deeply tired. His face was pared to the bone, to sarcasm and deadliness. He had watched her come very close to death, she thought.

“That’s better.” He eased her down to the pillow again. “You almost slipped away from me. There was one time there, you stopped fighting. I thought it was over.”

“It was not. Not this time.” When she lay still, the pain was not great. There was much to be said for holding still. “Lie beside me, if you would. For comfort. I am in pain and I’m cold.”

“My pleasure, anyway.”

She started to laugh and took the warning her body gave and did not. “The papers? You have them. Important.”

“I have them.” He lifted the blanket and crawled in beside her. So many times, he had done that.

“I will tell you what I saw . . . when I wake up.” One more thing to say. “Do not send for Séverine.” She would come all this long distance and worry about her. “It is unnecessary.”

“Go to sleep, Owl.”

“Do you know? You are the only one in the world . . . who still calls me Owl.”

The darkness was huge and friendly. She would rest in it awhile.