The Scar-Crow Men

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO




RUSHING TO THE WALL, MEG FEARED WILL HAD PLUMMETED INTO the churning grey water below. Plucking her wind-whipped hair from her eyes, she peered into the dark. She could just discern the spy edging along a rain-slick ledge barely as wide as the span of a hand with only a cornice at head-height for support. Beneath him, the river eddied around the stone columns of the arches, calling for him to plunge into its lethal currents.

‘You are a fool, Will Swyfte,’ she breathed, with a grudging respect for her companion’s courage.

As she watched him disappearing into the gloom, an unsettling confusion of feelings washed through her. Ever since she was a child standing over the bloodied bodies of her elder brothers, she had felt she knew herself, and that she understood the strict rules of life. Survival was paramount. Freed of weak emotions, she had learned her trade well. She had needed for nothing. There were small joys to be had, here and there. And she had aided her countrymen well in the bitter wars they had fought, among themselves, against the English and, in secret rebellion, against the Unseelie Court. The loneliness that had crept up on her like an assassin in the night had troubled her only intermittently and she had succeeded in keeping it at bay through the diamond-hard edge of her will.

She had been able to maintain her life of red blades, and joyless coupling, and heart-rending deception, with the conviction that only one solitary path was open to her, and that no one else could ever understand her oceanic depths. But now she realized everything had changed.

Hammering one small but strong fist upon the stone wall, Meg let out her unfocused rage for one moment and then tore her gaze away from the bridge. Swyfte was lost to the night.

The wind blasted along the river, stinging her pale skin with stone-hard rain. Her skirts and bodice were soaked through and she was filled with a bone-deep chill that belied the summer warmth. The storm was getting stronger. Lightning flickered around the hills as if the gods were circling the city.

Further along the road that bounded the river, she glimpsed movement, pale figures flitting here and there. At a distance the Unseelie Court had all the substance of moon shadows. It was only up close that they took on the lethal presence of hunting beasts.

Eyeing their comings and goings, she decided there was not enough cover there at the edge of the river and she turned and ran back to the shelter of the tall merchants’ houses on the other side of the street. Though candles still gleamed in the windows, she saw no comfort anywhere. The Enemy were all over Paris, wherever she looked: carriages rolling silently along the street on the far side of the Seine, the spectral fleet bobbing on the choppy waves, riders emerging from the winding, narrow streets on to the large riverside thoroughfare and groups locked in conversation here and there, oblivious to the downpour. Secure in their control of the city, the Unseelie Court were not looking out for enemies. Perhaps there was hope the two spies could escape France with their lives.

But as Meg eased into the shadowy depths of a rat-infested alley, lightning flashed and she saw the silhouette of a figure on the roof of the first house on the Pont Notre-Dame. It was Xanthus, hunched on the edge of the house like a gargoyle, peering down into the street.

He had seen her.

Her heart thumping, Meg gripped her dagger tightly though she knew it would be useless.

Seemingly untouched by the tearing winds, the ghostly stalker raised himself up, balancing on the balls of his feet. As the Irish woman prepared herself for his descent, he turned and bounded like a wolf up the orange tiles and away across the connecting roofs of the houses on the bridge.

The Hunter wanted only Will Swyfte.