The Black Hawk Read Online Free PDF Page B

his forehead, black and straight as poured ink. He was always pushing it away as an annoyance, casually, without thought, the way an animal might toss back its mane. He was a good-looking boy in a dark, exotic fashion.
    He said, “I suppose you’re keeping busy lately.”
    It was an oblique reference to her many activities. “I am.”
    “How’s the sprat?”
    Because she had involved herself with British spies, they now knew more of her than she wished. Hawker knew the most. He had met Séverine. “She does very well. You should not wear that waistcoat.”
    He frowned at her. “I like it.”
    “I had supposed so, since you are wearing it, but it does not go with what you are pretending to be, which is a tradesman’s son. Unless you wish to portray that you have no taste at all.”
    “I might be.” A minute later, “No stripes, huh?”
    “Not stripes of that color. It is vulgar.”
    “Thanks for pointing that out. Sometimes, when I’m talking to you, I get a revelation as to why certain folks meet a grisly end.”
    They had met one week ago. She had learned much about him and surmised more. He was the most novice of British spies, an ingenious boy who learned with frightening speed. He was of the lowest class of English. He had very little patience. She had not seen him show fear. He possessed a dozen rare skills, some of which she needed very badly. This was what she knew of him.
    In the same time, she had allowed him to learn almost nothing about her. He knew she was one of the great, secret smuggling chain that slipped refugees out of France, saving them from that very guillotine. He might not know she was also of the French Secret Police.
    Pigeons strutted up and down the platform of the guillotine, self-important as sentries. Bold boys climbed and dodged up and over and around the steps where Robespierre, Danton, Desmoulins, Lavoisier, and Herbert had walked to death, and before them, the king and queen. Every few minutes, a bored soldier would come over and chase the boys away. The pigeons scattered. In a while new examples of both returned.
    “I got your note,” Hawker said. “I must be stupid. I’m here.”
    She had left messages at a café Hawker knew and at a stand on the Rue Denis where she had seen him buy a newspaper. Citoyen Doyle, who was Hawker’s master and an English agent of the most exemplary type, would not have returned to those places. He would not have been lured by her beckoning. Hawker was less wise.
    “You are kind to come. Especially when I did not tell you why.” Of course she had not told him why. Even in the short time she had known him, she had learned his great weakness. He could not resist a mystery. What Frenchwoman worthy of her salt could not make of herself a mystery?
    She was thirteen, but she was a Frenchwoman. Really, he stood no chance against her.
    “I know why. You want something from me.” His eyes slid to her . . . and away. “You’ll get around to asking for it in a while.”
    She did not contradict him. Side by side, they looked across the Place, watching for anyone who might take undue interest in them. There was a certain camaraderie.
    “You ever see anybody chopped?” He jerked his head toward the platform. “Up there?”
    “Once. When I was eleven.” She had come to La Place de la Révolution alone, in a cold rain, and she had been colder inside than any rain that fell from heaven.
    Hawker glanced over, prying at her face. “Somebody you knew?”
    “An enemy.” They had dragged Monsieur Grenet from the tumbrel, the third in line of fifteen who would die. The demon who had defiled her shamefully for so long had become a shaking, white-faced old man, held upright between soldiers. She had been savagely glad to see him so diminished.
    She had been too small to push her way close to the block. The crowd seethed and shifted between her and the execution. She did not get to see everything. She had heard the shrill whine of the blade dropping. Heard