Joanna Bourne: The Forbidden Rose

He supplied the words. “ Piquer. Broderie .” Stitching. Embroidery.

“This embroidery. You don’t see it. You feel it. And these little pearl buttons. Not fancy. It’s . . . quality. It matches her.” The boy shook his head impatiently. “The blood’s not hers. She’s not hurt. Not this much.”

“What else? What does your nose tell you? Go ahead.”

Hawker held it up and sniffed gingerly. “Blood. Dirt. Some kind of . . . perfume?”

“That blood’s a couple days old. Two or three weeks and you wouldn’t smell it the same way. The dirt’s because I found it rolled up small and hid under a bridge in the garden. That’s where she’s been sleeping. She left a trail back and forth.”

“Under a bridge. Sounds damp.” Hawker started to say more. And didn’t. He fingered the cloth and sniffed again. “Plants. Dirt. I’d know it’s been left outside. That’s soap, not perfume.”

“Lavender soap.”

The boy pulled the cloth flat between his fists, stretched out. “A handprint on the back. Somebody grabbed her when he was bloody.”

“And?”

“She got away. Citoyen Bloody Hand got the worst of that meeting, didn’t he?” Hawker looked off in the direction of the orangerie. “In the village they say one of the men from Paris got hurt during the fire. A knife slash. She doesn’t look the type to knife a man, somehow.”

“The best ones don’t.”

“You think she’s in it with her father? Part of the killings?”

“Well, somebody’s hunting down young officers and murdering them. It’s his list. She could be helping in a loyal, daughterly way. She’s got the brains for it.” Maggie was quiet in a corner, either sleeping or pretending to. “I wonder if she’s got the ruthlessness. I’ll go run a few errands. Always something to do when you have a woman to take care of.” He tapped the nightdress. “Burn this. Stir the ash. Toss the pearl buttons down the well.”

“I’ll make it disappear.”

“Don’t take your eyes off her. Don’t let her leave. Don’t hurt her. Don’t wave a knife in her face and terrify her.”

Deep irony. “I’m not the one she’s scared of.”

A pebble hit her arm. She heard it skip and rattle on the flagstones. She woke immediately. She had not flung herself deeply into sleep, in any case.

She faced a low, whitewashed wall. Above that, broken windows. She was in the orangerie. She lay on straw, on the floor, wrapped in a rough blanket.

The second small pebble bounced next to her with a clear ping. With it came, “Do not move. They can see you.” The words formed themselves in the patting of the rain, a whisper made of water. “If the wind is right, you can smell roses in the garden.”

The Crow’s messenger. At last.

Beyond the empty windows the bushes and trees were indistinguishable in the gray evening. The voice was almost as muted. Again came, “If the wind is right, you can smell roses in the garden.”

The fire made its accustomed small noises. She did not hear the boy servant breathing or turning pages. She turned a cautious inch to look. There was no one within the circle of light of the fire. No one in the open space of the orangerie, anywhere. No one in the shadowed patterns beyond the window.

She gave the reply, softly. “The roses are lovely, but it is forbidden to pick them.”

Leaves crackled, as if a body moved on the other side of the wall. “Ah. You are the one, then. You are Finch.” It was a child’s voice. “I was afraid you’d have the sense to be gone.”

“I expected you three days ago. You see the disasters here.” Marguerite took hold of the blanket. “I will come—”

“Stay where you are. The two men have stopped under a tree, not so far away. They are watching.”

The child was right. LeBreton would have his eye on her. He was not the man to let her just stroll away into the garden.

The whisper came again, with a child’s simplicity. “I do not need to see your face, Citoyenne Finch.”

The men and women and—yes—the children of La Flèche did not indulge in curiosity. No one could be forced to tell what they took care not to know. “That is wise.”

“I am entirely wise. I was watching from the woods when you were captured by that man. Do you want me to help you escape? It should not be impossible. You can travel with us, if you want.”

The men who burned the chateau were scouring the countryside for her. She would not lead them to the wagons of the Gypsies. To Crow’s family. “Thank you, no.”

“As you wish.” The shrug was unmistakable in that voice. The boy—surely no one would send a girl child on this errand—said, “I would not like to disengage myself from such a large man, entirely on my own. But Crow says you are wily in the extreme. Doubtless you have a plan.”

“Several. I am weaving them even as we speak.”

“Then I will deliver my message and go, before it is too dark to find my way through the woods. I am charged to say this—‘Finch, I saw your signal. I can’t go back the way I came. Skylark is on the run, with soldiers after him. Dragoons are stopping the wagons of the Rom everywhere west of Rouen, looking for me. It’s not safe for me to hold the sparrows. What are your orders?’ ”

It was worse than she’d dreamed. La Flèche was in disorder all across Normandy. Wren, Skylark, Crow. All unmasked. What was happening in Paris? How many of her friends were already arrested? Or dead?

“Tell Crow this—‘You are on your own, my old friend. I sent Heron away yesterday with the last of my sparrows. There’s no one left here. We are all scattered and in flight.’ ” She rubbed her forehead. “Tell Crow to go north and west, all the way to St. Grue. He knows the roads to the coast better than I do. I can’t advise him.”

“He will not like this. We do not—”

“There’s no choice. Say to him, ‘Pass the word everywhere. The chain is broken. Everyone is ordered into hiding. Send the sparrows westward as best you can.’ ”

The sparrows still in Paris—men and women condemned to the guillotine, hiding, struggling to get out of France—would have to wait.

“We cannot—”

“There is no other way. Now listen. We may have very little time.” She kept her voice to a bare thread. “At St. Grue, one mile south of the village, there is a shrine at the crossroads. The Lady’s face is broken. You will leave three white pebbles there, in a row. Pebbles the size of a baby’s fist. Camp in the dunes. Grebe will find you.”

Grebe was the last link to the smuggler who carried sparrows across the Channel. If Grebe had been taken, God help them all. “Let me say this again—”

“It is not necessary. My memory is excellent.” The brush outside did not quiver, but she felt a sense of readiness behind it. “You have given me a great basket of news to carry. You are sure you will not come with me to the wagons?”

“I am sure.”

“Then go with all good luck, Citoyenne Finch. I think we will all need a great deal of luck in these next days.”

No sound marked the transition, but she knew she was alone. “Be safe, child.”

She rolled over, to keep an eye upon happenings inside the orangerie. Silence gathered around her, with the smallest murmur at the bottom of it, like a cricket deep down in the well. She had lied about one thing. She had no clever plan for disengaging herself from Citoyen LeBreton.

After a time, the boy Adrian returned. She let her lids open, just a crack. She could see him sitting cross-legged next to the fire, his head bent, a book across his lap, his fingers tracing the line of words. He moved his lips when he read.

He limped from some injury. Perhaps she could outrun him.