Read Chapter 22: The Masked Benefactor

The narrow street off the Rue Saint-Honoré smelled of rain and horse dung, the kind of smell Thomas had almost learned to ignore in the two weeks since he had crossed into France. He was walking back to his lodgings, a bundle of cheap linen samples under his arm—the merchant cover was holding, so far—when a figure stepped from a doorway ahead of him.

The man wore a black velvet half-mask, the kind fashionable ladies wore to masquerades, and a cloak of the same deep darkness. He stood perfectly still, hands clasped before him, as if he had been waiting for Thomas to pass this exact spot at this exact hour.

“Thomas Finch,” the man said. His voice was low, cultured, vaguely familiar in a way Thomas could not place. “You carry the look of your father about the eyes. I would have known you anywhere.”

Thomas’s hand went to the knife at his belt. “You have the advantage of me, sir.”

“I have more than the advantage.” The masked man spread his hands. “I have been your benefactor these four years past. The coin that saw you apprenticed to Master Pettie came from my purse, not your father’s. Your father could not afford such a placement—he was struggling even then.”

The words struck like a physical blow. Thomas had read the neighbor’s letter a hundred times since receiving it, had turned its claims over in his mind, trying to understand who else might have paid for his apprenticeship. He had thought of Cecil, yes, but only as a possibility among many.

Hearing it spoken aloud, by a stranger, in a foreign street—it made the world tilt.

“Why?” Thomas managed.

“Because your father asked me to watch over you. And because I owed him a debt that coin could never repay.” The masked man stepped closer, and Thomas caught the faint scent of incense and old parchment. “But I did not come to reminisce. I came to warn you. The men who once served Geoffrey Arden are in Paris. They have your description, and they have instructions to take you alive.”

Thomas’s grip tightened on his knife. “Geoffrey is in the Marshalsea.”

“Geoffrey was in the Marshalsea.” The masked man’s voice carried a grim note. “He escaped three days ago. His allies at court arranged it—you were foolish to think Cecil’s authority extended to every locked door in London. Geoffrey has friends in France, Thomas. Powerful ones. And he knows you have that letter.”

The Gilded Quill letter, still folded in Thomas’s pack, still unexamined. He had been so focused on following his father’s trail that he had not—the thought was interrupted by the sound of boots on cobblestones behind him.

Two men emerged from the alley to his left. Another from the right. They wore plain clothes but moved with the unmistakable purpose of men who did violence for coin.

“Run,” the masked man said.

Thomas did not need to be told twice. He bolted down the street, the bundle of linen forgotten, his boots slapping against wet stone. Behind him came the thud of pursuit. The street twisted, narrowed, opened into a small square with a fountain at its center—and men waiting on the far side.

He was surrounded.

The first attacker came at him with a cudgel. Thomas ducked, felt the wind of the blow pass over his head, and drove his knife into the man’s thigh. The man screamed and fell. A second rushed him from behind, and Thomas spun, catching a glancing blow to his ribs that sent pain lancing through his side.

Then the masked man was there.

He moved like a blade himself, quick and economical, dispatching two attackers with brutal efficiency before Thomas could even register the shift. A knife appeared in his hand from somewhere, then disappeared into a man’s shoulder. A third man turned to flee, and the masked man let him go.

The square fell silent except for the groaning of the wounded.

The masked man wiped his knife on his cloak and turned to Thomas. His voice, when he spoke, had lost its cultured edge. It was harder now, gruffer. “Come with me. We have to move quickly.”

Thomas hesitated, his ribs screaming, his mind reeling. Who was this man? Why had Geoffrey’s men been waiting for him if he had only just arrived in the city? Unless—unless the warning had been a lure.

“Who are you?” Thomas demanded.

“I told you. Your benefactor.”

“A man who cannot show his face tells me he has been paying for my life, then saves it in the same breath. Forgive me if I doubt the purity of his motives.”

The masked man laughed, a low sound that carried no mirth. “You have your father’s caution too.” He reached up and pulled the mask free.

Thomas stared.

The face beneath was scarred, weathered, older than he had expected—but the eyes were the same grey as the man who had trained him in swordplay as a boy, the same grey as the one man his father had called friend without reservation.

“Captain Roan,” Thomas breathed.

Roan nodded once. “Geoffrey escaped with the help of men above Cecil’s reach. He wants that letter, and he wants you. And he knows exactly where your father is hiding—because your father is not in Paris, Thomas. He never was.”