The Black Hawk

Four

THERE WERE NOT MANY PLACES FOUR TRAITORS could meet. Their long association and their shared past were secrets held close as the fingers of their hands. At first, that caution was the order of the man who brought them to England so many years ago. After he died—after he was killed—it became their own wise and suspicious practice. Now it was habit.

The man dressed as an executioner said, “He’s almost six, isn’t he? And he’s big for his age.”

“He’s old enough to have his own pony, of course.” One of the women spoke. She wore the extravagant dress and blank, uncanny mask of the Carnevale of Venice. “I was hoping for a more . . . ponylike pony.”

Two men and two women stood in a curtained alcove outside the ballroom. They were a little patch of French bindweed planted in the garden of England. They committed treason by breathing. But it was old treason. They were a conspiracy with the juice long since dried up.

Till the blackmail. Till the murders.

Violins, flutes, and a cello played. Fairies and pirates, shepherdesses and English kings skipped and bobbed a Scotch reel up and down the ballroom.

The woman in the Carnevale mask said, “I spoil him. We always spoil the youngest.” She folded and unfolded her fan. “He looks so small up on that brute of a pony.”

The woman dressed as Cleopatra looked away, bored. She had no children.

“He’s named it Palisade. What kind of a name is Palisade for a pony? That’s a wall isn’t it?”

“The defensive wall of a fort. Good name. Strong.” The compact, heavily muscled man wore the tabard and armor of a medieval Knight Templar. Underneath, he looked like the soldier he had been.

The Humphreys’ masquerade ball was always held the first week of May. It was one of the traditions of the Season. But Sir George was only a baronet and Lady Humphrey’s father was in shipping. The Humphreys cast a wider net than they might have liked. The company was less exclusive, the dancing more boisterous, the manners a shade less refined. Young squires from Yorkshire, who’d somehow missed making a splash in the ton all Season, paraded the fringes of the ballroom and thought themselves devilish fine fellows. Mamas brought awkward daughters, who would not be officially out till next year, to commit their first, inevitable gaucheries in anonymity.

French spies met behind the potted plants.

Carnevale Mask said, “I don’t want a strong pony. I want a docile one. It’s eating its head off, trying to grow. I catch a very sneaky look in its eye sometimes.”

The four talked and waited, half hidden by a heavy expanse of blue curtain. They spoke of the weather, scandal, politics, of a pony eating its head off in a stable near Hampstead village. They sipped punch. When it was clear no one lingered to overhear, they fell silent.

The one dressed as Cleopatra spoke first. “The surgeon left at five. They sent a boy to the apothecary. She must still be alive.”

“That was damnable work.” A fierce whisper from Carnevale Mask.

“Damnably stupid too. We’re all lucky he wasn’t caught.” Cleopatra’s face was hidden by a mask of feathers and beaten gold. She wore a black wig. Her arms were heavy with wide gold bands. “Or she wasn’t caught.”

The Knight Templar said, “Stabbed in the middle of Braddy Square, for God’s sake. It can’t be one of us. None of us would take that chance.”

“And yet, he succeeded,” Cleopatra said. “It was genius, in its way. The rain hid everything. He struck on the doorstep of Meeks Street and escaped. I’d call that bold, not stupid.”

The executioner said, “He condemned all of us to disaster. The British Service won’t forgive this. They won’t forget.”

“Maybe it’s a damn coincidence,” the knight said gruffly.

“The town’s full of sneak thieves. It could be—”

Cleopatra cut in, “I received my letter. I was told to be in the bookstore in Hart Street, waiting for the magistrate’s men. Ready to give evidence.” She let that sink in. “We all gave the same description. We implicated the same man. We all followed orders.”

The executioner said, “One of us held the knife. When she dies, it’s our murder.”

“Only one of us is guilty. Only one.” The woman of the Carnevale mask gripped her fan like a weapon.

“One murderer.” Cleopatra’s jewelry, the gold and the gilt, chimed as she lifted her glass and drank. “But three of us willing to lie and send a man to the gallows. Is there a hotter hell reserved for the murderer?” A sly look. “Will you save me a seat by the fire, Amy?”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“You’d say that if you had the knife stuffed in your corset. Shall we take it in turns, protesting our innocence?”

“I swear, I didn’t—”

“We are all so very good at lying,” Cleopatra said. “Swear, if it makes you feel better.”

The Templar held his hand up, silencing. He wore a chain mail hood and mask the color of steel. His armor was rings of silvered tin, bright and mobile as fish scale. When he moved, metal clicked against metal like the gears of a clock. “What do we know?”

“Military Intelligence saw nothing.” Cleopatra rolled the wineglass back and forth between her hands, gazing down into it. She was the most discreet of expensive courtesans. One of her men held a position high in Military Intelligence. “Their man who watches Meeks Street didn’t like the rain and had taken himself off to a tavern. They have heard only rumor. No one’s made the connection between Meeks Street and the killings. Do you know the name of the man we’ve been accusing?”

“Don’t.” The Templar spoke sharply. “We know. All of us know.”

“It is the Head of the British Service. The Black Hawk.”

“And that is why we will fall.” The executioner leaned on his ax, head bowed, gripping the two-sided head. “Justine DuMotier and the Black Hawk were lovers once. When she dies, he’ll hunt us down like dogs.” He raised his eyes, going from one to the other. “Perhaps he should. Gravois and Patelin deserved what they got. DuMotier didn’t.”

“She was Police Secrète. Like them.” Cleopatra shrugged.

“Like us.” Under the mask, under the helm, the Templar’s mouth drew a grim line. “She was a soldier fighting for what she believed in. She shouldn’t die like this.”

“We tell ourselves we have no choice.” Carnevale Mask followed one bright figure through the pattern of the dance. Her oldest daughter. “They’ve won, you know. We’ve become the monsters they tried to make us. We—”

A man dressed as Henry VIII paused at the curtains to the alcove and peered in. Cleopatra wore thin folds of pleated linen. Her pale body with its gilded nipples was clearly displayed beneath. She had become wealthy selling that beauty. Henry VIII gave a long, appreciative, lip-licking smile.

The executioner lifted his ax and tested the edge. Henry VIII decided to stroll onward.

When he was gone, Cleopatra said, “It’s too late. It’s always been too late. What can we do?”

The executioner said softly, “We can stop.”

They held a long conversation with their eyes. Four French spies, pretending to be the grandson of an earl, the widow of a baron, the bluff military gentleman, the notorious courtesan.

“I will stop this. Here and now,” the executioner said. “For me, this is the end. When the next letter comes, I’ll ignore it.”

“The end.” Carnevale Mask still watched her daughter. “No more. Whatever it costs.”

The Knight Templar bowed his head.

“Justine DuMotier will be the last to die.” Cleopatra went back to watching the dancers.

“If she dies,” Amy said.

Cleopatra said, “We were well taught. That knife will have been poisoned. She won’t live through the night.”

“I can’t believe one of us did this.”

“I believe it very easily,” Cleopatra said. “We’ve all killed. Even you, sweet Amy. And you always used a knife.”