Free The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne

the brothel.
    The yard was kept in the most perfect order and cleanliness. Madame said—she was very practical—that men would expect to find clean girls in a clean house. Jean le Gros worked in front of the stable door, currying one of the coach horses, keeping an eye on everything. When she walked by eating her apple, he called, “La petite is off that way,” pointing to the shed, and, “That pig-faced piece of dung is gone.” No harm would come to Séverine while Jean watched.
    The storage shed hugged the back of the stable and held all things that were outworn but not yet useless enough to throw away. The loft above the shed was a considerably more interesting place. It was a very secret place, that loft. Hard-eyed men—and some women—came to shelter for a night or two and left under the cover of dark, carrying messages. Some were agents of the Police Secrète. Some were Madame’s own couriers, loyal only to her. Many were sent here by La Flèche.
    That had been her own particular work for La Flèche—hiding those who must flee France, taking them onward to the next link in the chain that would lead them to safety. Under Madame’s orders, she had become a trusted member of the great smuggling organization. That was a noble work in itself, of course. It was also useful to the Secret Police to have an agent within those counsels.
    When the loft was not occupied by desperate people, this was Séverine’s playhouse.
    The door to the storage shed was left open, always, as if nothing of importance happened here. The main room was dull and innocent. She picked her way between feed bags and wooden boxes. A ladder slanted up to the open square in the ceiling. She bit strongly into the apple, held it with her teeth, and climbed the ladder to emerge through the opening of the trapdoor.
    A path was cleared the whole length of the loft, from the small window at one end to the large window at the other. Lumber, broken furniture, shelves of old dishes, crates, barrels, and piles of moth-eaten blankets jostled together on both sides.
    In the relatively empty space below the window, where fugitives made rough beds of straw and blankets, Séverine had invited her favorite doll and a subsidiary doll to take luncheon upon a square handkerchief spread upon the floor. They were eating pieces of bread, small stones, and leaves from the chestnut tree, served on cracked plates.
    “You have come, Justine. I am so happy. We are having dinner, Belle-Marie and her friend and I. Here.” She patted the boards imperiously. “I will share my bread with you.”
    “I am just in time, then.” She pulled herself the last steps into the loft. “I am famished, you know. My morning was busy.” She came and sat and composed her skirts around her. It was not necessary to eat the somewhat dusty bread, only to raise it to her mouth and pretend to eat. “That is very good. You may finish this apple. I stole it from Babette.”
    “We will pretend Babette is a giant and you have stolen the apple from her castle.”
    “That is exactly what I did. I am too clever for any giant. I always escape with their treasure.”
    “You are immensely brave.” Séverine took a bite of apple and held it to Belle-Marie, who presumably ate some.
    “Belle-Marie is looking fashionable today.” The doll wore a little cap with real lace. One of the women of the house was skilled with a needle and had made that cap, and also the apron and the blue dress. Justine accepted the apple from Séverine and took a bite and offered it back.
    “It is Théodore’s turn now,” Séverine said.
    Théodore had been carved from a bit of thick board and wrapped in red cloth. His arms and legs were nailed on and could move. “Perhaps he does not like apples.”
    Séverine giggled. “Of course he does. Jean le Gros made him for me.”
    That was enough of an explanation, she supposed. There was a crude face carved on Théodore and a fine big mustache drawn on in ink. “He is a