“Not short of knocking them over the head and tying them up, you won’t. You think anything else, and you’re just stupid. I don’t think you’re stupid.”
He listed the reasons this could not be done. He would not be silent, though she interrupted him and sneered at him. Everything he said, she already knew and did not want to admit to herself. He battered her mind with his certainty. His relentless common sense.
He ended up, “. . . at which point those Tuteurs are going to come pounding up the stairs and gut you like a fish.”
“I have been taught to fight.”
“I don’t care if you’ve been taught to fly like a bird. They’ll kill you. They won’t even raise a sweat doing it.”
The night was silent and heavy with heat. Tiny and far away, Blackbird gestured to the children. Each in turn slipped around the corner, out of sight, moving as small, slight darknesses rippling the greater darkness. Ten of them.
I have saved only ten.
Those last three would not be persuaded. She knew that in the pit of her belly. In her heart, in the cold reason of her mind, she knew that. She shivered under her skin, sick with the bloody murder she had done and this corpse that waited at her feet. Sick with failure. “If I do not go back, I condemn them to hell.”
“Close enough.” There was light to see his lips twist. To guess at the expression in his eyes. She did not want pity from him. “You can’t save them.”
“I must try.”
“That’s not running an operation. That’s a complicated way to commit suicide.” He let her think about that. “Either way, you’re dragging me along with you.”
“This is nothing to do with—”
“If you go in, I go in. You decide if you lead me in there to get killed.” He did not look like a boy when he said that. She did not doubt for one instant that he would follow her back into the Coach House.
On the stage of her mind, she could see many ways to die. Nowhere did she see a way to save the last three Cachés. “They are children.”
“They’re not any younger than you.”
She stood with her hands empty. It was defeat. “You are a bastard.”
“My mother always swore she was married. I kind of doubt it. Owl, I’ve had longer to think about this than you. If I could come up with any way—any plan at all—we’d do it.”
“I will not forgive myself for leaving them behind.”
“Most of us have something to keep us awake at night.”
“You make light of—”
“The hell I do. You think I don’t have nightmares?” They stood awhile, looking at each other. He said, “If they weren’t trained fighters, I’d try it.” He nudged the valise with his foot. “You get rid of this.”
She would scatter the belongings of a dead man across Paris. Leave a shirt rolled behind a drain spout. Stuff a boot into some gutter.
She realized, suddenly, that her hands were covered with drying blood, sticky and somehow slimy. The lantern disclosed the slumped dead body. Overhead, the stars burned steadily, pitiless in the night sky, watching her, knowing her for what she was. Not brave. Not passionate. She was so much the realist, so cowardly, that she would leave three children to fall into hell.
If she had still possessed a soul, it would have died tonight.
Down the street, the drama of the Cachés’ escape was coming to a close. The children were gone. Blackbird followed, limping around the corner, playing the feeble old woman. Citoyen Pax stepped back and disappeared into shadow.
She said, “Your friend Paxton is headed this way.”
“We’ll start carrying corpses out of the vicinity. Hold a minute.” Hawker shifted his body, not blocking her path, just getting her attention. “Take this.”
He had pulled a knife from somewhere, like magic. He held it by the blade, offering her the hilt.
“Your knife?”
“You shouldn’t walk around without one.” Neither of them glanced to where her knife reposed in the chest of Citoyen Drieu. “Go ahead. I have a couple more on me.”
“You are very provident.” His knife was warm from being next to his skin. She felt this when she tucked it away beneath her shirt. “I will return it to you.”
“Keep it. We aren’t going to see each other again.” He had become entirely sober. Greatly serious. “I got something to say.”
He was wrong in that much. They would meet again. In the small world of spying, it was inevitable. And the next time they met, they would no longer be allies. “Tell me.”
“Go with the Cachés.”
“It is my intention. I will follow till they are safe. You need not worry.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean, go back to that brothel you call home, you collect your sister, and get out of France. The Cachés are going. You go with them.”
How strange this hard young English spy was in agreement with Madame. He said almost what Madame had said. “I have no intention of leaving France.”
“Then you’re a fool. You’re living in a goddamned whorehouse. You’ve got your sister there.” He chopped his hand down. “You’re trying to be a bloody damn spy. Of all the stupid—”
“You are a spy. True, you are only the very junior, new spy. The damp chick of a spy, fresh from the shell. But—”
“Will you be quiet and listen?” He ran his fingers up into his hair. His eyes swept left and right as if the words were floating in the air. “We’re not talking about me.”
“We are not talking about me either. At least, I have no wish to discuss this.”
“When I go spying, it’s better than what I was. Better than what I used to do. I’m making something of myself. But you’re not like that. You’re . . . you’re books and eating neat and using a handkerchief. You have all that inside your skin.”
“I have not the least idea what you are talking about.”
“You’re quality. Stop playing with the notion of spying. Go to England. Be quality.” He shook his head, impatient.
It was so simple. Why did he not see? “’Awker, I am a whore. I have been a whore for two years.”
“Then leave that damned brothel and stop being one.”
“I do not mean yesterday and the day before. They do not touch me at the Pomme d’Or. No one, not in the least instance. Not one finger.”
“Then you’re not a whore.”
“It does not change anything. It is too late. I cannot become clean again. I cannot be—”
He snorted. “You can be any damn thing you want to be. Go to England. Change your name. Lie through your teeth.”
“For some things, there is no lie big enough.” Did he imagine she had not thought of this? The knowledge of what she was lay down at night to sleep beside her. Stared at her from the mirror every morning. “I was a child whore in the most fashionable and degenerate house in Europe. Many men came to me while I was in that dreadful place. There will always be men who know me.”
That silenced him. It was the truth, and they both knew it.
She said, “I can escape France, but I cannot escape what I am.”
Hawker raised his hand as if he would touch her, but stopped, deliberately short. He let his hand drop. “What about Séverine?”
“I will take care of her. I have always taken care of her.” She knew what she must do, of course. She had made her decision. The sorrow of it expanded in her chest so she could barely breathe, it was so huge. Before she turned and left she said, “I will protect Séverine. I will do whatever is necessary.”
Fourteen
WHEN THE FIRST LIGHT OF DAWN CRAWLS OUT OF bed and staggers over the horizon, evildoers head off home and solid citizens take to the streets. In his disreputable past, Hawker would have been yawning his way back to his own den of thieves as the sun came up, having finished a long night of assault with intent or maybe breaking and entering.
He’d reformed, even if he still headed home at daybreak. Last night, he’d disposed of a corpse, picked himself a heavy pouch of coin off the dead man, and palmed a packet of documents, some of which might turn out to be interesting. It wasn’t much different than his old life, when you came right down to it.