“We have dug tunnels. We have knocked holes in walls. It is not impossible.”
But there is no time to dig tunnels. We both know this.
I can think of nothing. This time, when it means so much, my mind is empty.
Jean-Paul took up the next sketch. “The Widow Desault. Lives alone with a dog of noble aspect. Shares a wall with the convent. Again, it’s the chapel wall. Some of the guards are sleeping in the chapel apparently. This next one . . .”
He went through them all, one after another. He had done masterful work, he and the others. A dozen members of La Flèche had been at it all night and all morning. Her own plan of the prison lay on the makeshift table. The corridors and the cloister and the cells were laid out, each with the distances she had counted off. Adrian’s contribution was exact and careful, adding rooms she had not seen.
It can’t be done. Not through the walls. Not tunneling under the earth. There is no time.
She would not let herself despair. She started walking. Jean-Paul went to sit in his chair, glaring out the window.
Séverine said, “Is your friend in very much trouble? The one who is a walking lump?”
“As much as can be.”
The child said, “The times are difficult. We must all be patient and clever.”
“You speak a great truth. I will not be patient, exactly, but I will try to be clever. If I were Sinbad and I did not have my roc handy—”
“What’s a roc?”
She stopped and knelt down. “That is a good question. A roc is a great white bird with wide wings. They would stretch from one side of the market square to the other if a roc landed there. They eat only elephants and ginger, and if you ask one nicely, he will give you a ride upon his back. They are especially fond of little girls who dress in blue. Did you know that? Is that why you wore a blue dress today?”
The child folded her giggle up inside herself and enjoyed it there. She was not shy, but she was careful and self-contained and did not laugh out loud. “I wore my blue dress because my green one is being washed.”
“That is also a very good reason. But as I say, if I were Sinbad, who was a sailor, and I did not have my roc at hand, I would fly out in a balloon, way up over Paris. I would look down and toss out my anchor . . .” She pantomimed tossing an anchor. “And let down a long, long ladder. My great lump of a man would climb up to me and we would sail away.”
Séverine approved this. Jean-Paul grunted and got up to sort through the sketches and plans again. He would not be blighting. He knew that her mind held a great deal of nonsense.
She got up to pace.
They could tunnel a foot an hour, in good soil. Shovels, boards, teams of men, burlap bags, bribery, silence . . . but it was never that easy. Thirty feet might take a day and a half. Or a week.
She had planned many rescues. She knew in her bones what was possible. What was impossible.
Jean-Paul put the sketches away. They’d be burned, now that they had both seen them.
She said, “We don’t have time to dig into the prison. None of the walls will work.”
“I know.”
Séverine also followed her with her eyes. “Will you tell me another—”
She had heard nothing in the storeroom below, but suddenly Adrian hauled himself up through the trapdoor.
He crawled out onto the loft floor, one-handed, his other arm wrapped in a fold of his jacket. When he opened that up, he was bloody.
“Adrian.” She pulled him the last of the way up. “What is this? Show me.”
She pulled open his coat so she could see. His sleeve was ripped in thin slashes. When she eased his coat down from his shoulders, the arm of his shirt was soaked red. He was bleeding, drop by drop onto the floor.
“You’ve left a trail,” Jean-Paul snapped. He swung past them out the trapdoor and down the ladder.
“I didn’t,” Adrian called after him. He grumbled the same thing to her. “I didn’t leave a trail. I’m not an idiot. I wrapped it up good half a mile before I got here. Not a drop. I wouldn’t lead them here.”
She said, “Of course. I’m sure you were careful.”
It was startling to turn and find Séverine holding the heavy water pitcher with both hands. Setting it down carefully. Running back for the basin and towels.
What kind of life does she live, this small child, that she knows immediately what must be done when a man is stabbed?
Adrian peeled his sleeve back and uncovered four long parallel slashes on the outside of his right forearm. Shallow, clean cuts. The coat had protected him from worse.
He was stoic and entirely adult while she examined the wounds. He didn’t wince when she washed and washed and made certain all was clean. Water trickled over him and fell red into the basin. His face was so studiously blank he might have been somewhere else entirely.
When she tried to rip a towel to make bandages, he produced a knife from behind his back and offered it to her. That was a clever trick. She tied pads over the worst of the cuts. “I won’t need to sew this, if you keep it bound tightly.”
There was boy in him still. She saw it in the way he accepted her words without a blink, trusting her to know these things.
“You are carrying a knife.” Séverine came closer, fascinated.
This wasn’t the sort of thing a child should be seeing. It was too late to do anything about it. She wrapped linen around everything and tied it in place.
With perfect gravity, Adrian said, “I have several knives, but Maggie only needs one at a time. So that’s all I gave her. Does Justine carry a knife?”
Séverine regarded him with a closed expression and said nothing.
“You’ve already learned the first rule. Say nothing.” Adrian tilted his head, watching. “You don’t answer any questions about Justine.”
Marguerite tied the last knot. “Justine?”
“She’s Justine’s sister. See the eyes. And her mouth. Can’t be a daughter. Has to be her sister.”
She could see it, now that he pointed it out. Séverine had more gold in her hair than Justine. Her eyes were green, not brown. But they were sisters.
There were two of them she must take away from this house. Both Justine and this beautiful child. When she had freed Guillaume, she would set about it.
The clatter and squeak was Jean-Paul, climbing the ladder. He boosted himself out, sat on the floor, and swung his legs around. “You’re right. You left no trail.”
Adrian showed his teeth and didn’t answer.
“We get these bloody rags out of here.” Jean-Paul was already gathering them up. “And make sure there’s nothing splattered on the floor. Why were you fighting?”
“Me? I’m innocent as an egg. I was trying not to fight. Not my fault somebody wants to poke holes in me.”
“Who?”
“He’s named Paxton.” There was a cold bleakness in the way the boy said that.
Another Englishman. The Englishmen in France seemed a bloodthirsty crew. “In a city of so many Frenchmen I would think it was one of them trying to kill you. Why is Citoyen Paxton poking holes in you?”
“Now that is something I didn’t get around to asking him, being busy jumping around and staying alive at the time.” He took his knife back from her, since she was no longer using it, and handed it, hilt first, to Séverine. “Here. You can play with this if you don’t cut yourself. It’s sharp. Make marks on the floor.”
Séverine proceeded to do exactly that, kneeling, using both hands to hold the knife. She cut slanting lines on the boards.
I should probably put a stop to that.
“Look. You want me to deliver this message from Doyle or not?” Adrian said it exactly as if she had been shushing him to silence for the last ten minutes.
“Speak, by all means.”
“He says, ‘Maggie. It’s done. I’ve played Cadmus with the boy’s papers. Stay off the streets.’ ”
Guillaume could send her such a message, knowing she would understand.