Free Rogue Spy by Joanna Bourne Page A

you even see?”
    â€œI see fine.”
    â€œYou’re not lying well. That’s worrisome. I’ll get you to Luke. No—Maggie’s in town. I’ll get you to Maggie. She’ll know what to do. And these upstanding citizens have found us a hackney.” Hawker dropped coins into an outstretched hand. “My tips are making Fetter Lane rich today. Let’s get out of here before somebody puts a bullet in you.”
    He sopped water out of his hair with the dry towel. Tossed it aside. “Need my coat. Gun’s on the ground someplace.”
    â€œNot even stolen. I have collected your various belongings. We will now depart. This way.” Hawker got under his arm and steadied him.
    â€œI can walk.” He stumbled, saying it.
    â€œYou can dance an Irish jig as far as I’m concerned. Never known such a bloody-minded, damn-your-eyes bugger. And will you cod-sucking idiots get out of my
way
!” Hawker shed his upper-class accent and let himself drop into deep Cockney when he wanted to make a point.
    Pale faces, the solid brown of a horse, bright dresses. When he blinked, the street was lines of color that shattered and broke. He’d paint this with mad, slapdash color. Lay down thick, writhing rivers of paint, like the man El Greco. He’d seen three El Greco canvases. Two in Paris. One in Venice. It needed searing color to capture this mad derangement of vision, this street. He’d paint it with—
    If I can paint again . . .
    Don’t think about that. Do the job. Everything else comes later.
Tell Galba about the Merchant. Start the hunt.
    He had a single clear view of the square block of the hackney coach, till he blinked and blurred it. His sight was coming back.
    He needed enough sight to kill a man.
    The monster walked under the sun. The French called him Le Marchand, the Merchant, but he was every dram and inch of him a monster. Even the Police Secrète were glad when he died.
    I got roaring drunk the night they brought news the Merchant was dead. I was in Paris with Carruthers and Althea and the others in the house on the Right Bank. The kitchen filled up with agents and friends and we celebrated till dawn. I thought I was free.
    He’s alive. He’s been alive all this time.
    Rage set him shaking. Or maybe he shook with cold.
And maybe I’m afraid.
“I’m wet clean through. That woman kept slopping buckets over me.”
    â€œWorkmanlike job of drowning you,” Hawk agreed. “Let’s get to Meeks Street before you catch pneumonia.”
    A half dozen paces to the coach. Colors jostled madly, detached from meaning. Faces floated against the gray-brown buildings. Shirts, dresses, and coats flowed and rippled white, umber, cinnabar, indigo. And, in the confusion, one streak of dull sienna brown stood still.
    That exact and particular burnt sienna.
    Vérité. She’d made a mistake and they had her.
You know better than this, girl. Never look back. Weren’t you paying attention when they taught us that?
    No reason for her to be here, except that she was worried about him. Damn Vérité.
    He lowered his head so she wouldn’t see his lips move. “She’s twenty feet away. To my left at ten o’clock.”
    He didn’t have to say, “Don’t turn and look at her.” He didn’t have to say who “she” was. Hawker knew.
    There was too much anticipation in Hawk’s voice when he said, “I’ll follow her. We get in the coach. I’ll spill out of the coach after we start.”
    â€œI’m coming with you.”
    â€œYou can’t see.”
    â€œIf I don’t keep up, leave me behind.” He pulled himself up, through the door, into the coach while Hawk gave instructions to the driver.
    Hawk climbed in behind him, already sloughing off his own coat and reversing it. “He’ll slow down past the corner.”
    â€œYou take the lead. She knows