At that point Isabelle turned on me. “What did she mean, it’s still here?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“What happened in the crypt?”

“My candle blew out. I tripped and fell.”

“What about Soeur Alfonsine?”

“I don’t know.”

“She says you do.”

“I can’t help that,” I said. “She makes things up. She likes the attention. Ask anyone.”

But Isabelle was far from satisfied. “She was trying to tell me something,” she persisted. “You stopped her. Now what was she-”

“For God’s sake, can’t this wait?” I had almost forgotten LeMerle, artfully positioned in a chance shaft of sunlight, with Soeur Alfonsine gasping like a beached fish in his arms. “For the moment we must take this poor woman to the infirmary. I presume I have your authority to lift her penance?” Mère Isabelle hesitated, still looking at me. “Or perhaps you would prefer to discuss the matter in your own good time?”

Isabelle flushed slightly. “The matter must be investigated and dealt with,” she said.

“Of course. When Soeur Alfonsine is in a condition to speak.”

“And Soeur Auguste?”

“Maybe tomorrow.”

“But mon père…”

“By Chapter tomorrow we will know more. I’m sure you agree that it would be unseemly to act in haste.”

There was a long pause. “So be it. Tomorrow, then. At Chapter.”

I looked at him then, to find his eyes on me again, bright and troubling. For a fleeting moment I even wondered whether he had known what was going to happen in the crypt, had arranged it in some way in order to bring me further into his power…I would have believed almost anything of him then. He was uncanny. And he knew me too well.

Well, whether he had planned it or not, this had been a demonstration. LeMerle had shown me that without him I was helpless, my safety as perilous as a frayed rope. Like it or not, I needed his help. And the Blackbird, I knew of old, never sold his favors cheap.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.“

At last. Confession. How good it feels to hold her captive like this, my wild one, my bird of prey. I can feel her eyes on me from behind the grille, and for a troubling moment I am the one who is caged. It is a curious sensation; I can hear her quickened breathing, sense the enormous effort of will that keeps her voice level as she intones the ritual words. Light from the window above us filters dimly into the confessional, painting her face with a harlequin pattern of rose and black squares.

“Well, if it isn’t my Ailée, giving up her wings for whiter ones in heaven.”

I am unused to such intimacies as this, the casual exposure of the confessional. It makes me impatient-sends my mind wandering down overgrown paths best left forgotten. Perhaps she knows it; her silence is that of a confessor, and not a penitent. I can feel it, drawing out reckless words I did not intend to speak.

“I suppose you still hold that business against me.” Silence. “That business at Épinal.”

She has withdrawn her face from the grille and the darkness speaks for her, blank and unremitting. I can feel her eyes on me, like irons. For thirty seconds I feel their heat. Then she folds, as I knew she would.

“I want my daughter.”

Good. It really is a weakness in her game; she’s lucky we’re not playing for money. “I find myself obliged to stay here for a while,” I tell her. “I can’t risk you leaving.”

“Why not?” There is a savage note in her voice now, and I revel in it. I can deal with her anger. I can use it. Gently I feed the flame.

“You’ll have to trust me. I haven’t betrayed you, have I?”

Silence. I know she is thinking of Épinal.

Stubbornly: “I want Fleur.”

“Is that her name? You could see her every day. Would you like that?” Slyly: “She must be missing her mother. Poor thing.”

She flinches then-and the game is mine. “What do you want, LeMerle?”

“Your silence. Your loyalty.”

That sound was too harsh to be laughter. “Are you mad? I have to get away from here. You’ve seen to that already.”

“Impossible. I can’t have you spoiling things.”

“Spoiling what?” Too fast, LeMerle. Too fast. “There’s no wealth here for you. What’s your game?”

Oh, Juliette. If only I could tell you. I’m sure you’d appreciate it. You’re the only one who would. “Later, little bird. Later. Come to my cottage tonight, after Compline. Can you get out of the dorter without being heard?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Till then, Juliette.”

“What about Fleur?”

“Till then.”

She came to me just after midnight. I was sitting at my desk with my copy of Aristotle’s Politics, when I heard the door open with a soft click. The glow from the single candle caught her shift and the copper-gilt of her cropped hair.

“Juliette.”

She had discarded her habit and wimple. Left them in the dorter, no doubt, to avoid arousing suspicion. With her hair cut short she looked like a beautiful boy. The next time we dance the classics I’ll cast her as Ganymede or Hyacinthus. She neither spoke nor smiled, and the cold draft from the open doorway swept between her ankles unnoticed.

“Come in.” I put down my book and drew up a chair, which she ignored.

“I would have thought it more appropriate for you to study some improving work,” she said. “Machiavelli, perhaps, or Rabelais. Isn’t Do what thou wilt your motto now?”

“It beats Thy will be done,” I said, grinning. “Besides, since when were you in any position to preach morality? You’re as much of an impostor as I am.”

“I don’t deny it,” she said. “But whatever else I may have done, I always stayed true to myself. And I’ve never betrayed a friend.”

With an effort, I bit back a retort. She had touched me on the raw. It was a knack she’d always had. “Please, Juliette,” I said. “Must we be enemies? Here.” I indicated a cut-crystal bottle on the bookcase beside the desk. “A glass of Madeira.”

She shook her head.

“Food, then. Fruit and honey cake.”

Silence. I knew she had spent the day in fasting, but she seemed unmoved. Her face was masklike, perfect. Only her eyes blazed. I put out my hand to touch her face. I never could resist playing with fire. Even as a child it was the dangerous games that appealed to me-walking the tightrope with a noose about my neck, firing wasps’ nests, juggling knives, swimming the rapids. Le Borgne called it chasing tigers, and scorned me for it. But if there’s no risk from the quarry, then where’s the joy of the chase?

“You haven’t changed,” I said, smiling. “One false move and you’d take out my eyes. Admit it.”

“Get on with it, LeMerle.”

Her skin was smooth beneath my palm. From her cropped hair I could smell the distant fragrance of lavender. I allowed my fingers to move down onto her bare shoulder.

“Is that it?” she said contemptuously. “Is that what you wanted?”

Angrily I withdrew my hand. “Still so suspicious, Juliette. Don’t you realize what I have at stake here? This is no ordinary game. It’s a scheme of such daring and ambition that even I-” She gave a sigh, stifling a yawn beneath her fingers. I paused, stung. “I see you find my explanation tedious.”

“Not at all.” Her inflection was a precise parody of my own. “But it’s late. And I want my daughter.”

“The old Juliette would have understood.”

“The old Juliette died in Épinal.”

That hurt, although I had expected it. “You know nothing about what happened in Épinal. For all you know I might be completely innocent.”

Indifferently: “As you say.”

“What, did you think I was a saint?” There was an edge to my voice that I could not subdue. “I knew you’d manage to get out of it; if you hadn’t, I’d have thought of something. Some kind of scheme.” She waited politely, eyes averted, one foot turned out in a dancer’s gesture. “They were too close, damn you. I’d tricked them once already, and now they were onto me. I could feel it: my luck was running out. I was afraid. And the dwarf knew it. It was Le Borgne who set the dogs on me, Juliette. It could only have been him. In any case he was ready enough to trade your necks for his own, the bastard, and to deal me a foul blow with a poisoned knife. What, did you think I’d deserted you? I would have come back for you if I’d been able. As it was I was lying sick and wounded in a ditch for days after your escape. You felt a little pique, perhaps. A little anger. But don’t say you needed me. You never did.”