The lieutenant folded the paper, shooting Grey a sharp interrogative glance. Grey gave a slight nod; yes, he knew what the dispatch said.
The lieutenant glanced round at the men, then back over his shoulder, as though judging the distance across the valley to the British camp and the town beyond. Then he looked back at Grey, thoughtfully chewing his mustache, and shook his head slightly. He would not mention the matter of a succubus.
On the whole, Grey thought that wise, and inclined his head an inch in agreement. There were only ten men present; if any of them had already known of the rumors, all would know. And while the lieutenant seemed at ease with his command, the fact remained that these were Prussians, and not his own men. He could not be sure of their response.
The lieutenant folded away his papers and came to join the conversation. However, Grey observed with interest that the substance of the dispatch seemed to weigh upon the lieutenant’s mind, in such a way that the conversation turned—with no perceptible nudge in that direction, but with the inexorable swing of a compass needle—to manifestations of the supernatural.
It being a fine day, with golden leaves drifting gently down around them, the gurgle of the river nearby, and plenty of beer to hand, the varied tales of ghosts, bleeding nuns, and spectral battles in the sky were no more than the stuff of entertainment. In the cold shadows of the night, it would be different—though the stories would still be told. More than cannon shot, bayonets, or disease, boredom was a soldier’s greatest enemy.
At one point, though, an artilleryman told the story of a fine house in his town, where the cries of a ghostly child echoed in the rooms at night, to the consternation of the householders. In time, they traced the sound to one particular wall, chipped away the plaster, and discovered a bricked-up chimney, in which lay the remains of a young boy, with the dagger which had cut his throat.
Several of the soldiers made the sign of the horns at this, but Grey saw distinct expressions of unease on the faces of two of the men. These two exchanged glances, then looked hurriedly away.
“You have heard such a story before, perhaps?” Grey asked, addressing the younger of the two directly. He smiled, doing his best to look harmlessly engaging.
The boy—he could be no more than fifteen—hesitated, but such was the press of interest from those around him that he could not resist.
“Not a story,” he said. “I—we”—he nodded at his fellow—“last night, in the storm. We heard a child crying, near the river. We went to look, with a lantern, but there was nothing there. Still, we heard it. It went on and on, though we walked up and down, calling and searching, until we were wet through, and nearly frozen.”
“Oh, is that what you were doing?” a fellow in his twenties interjected, grinning. “And here we thought you and Samson were just buggering each other under the bridge.”
Blood surged up into the boy’s face with a suddenness that made his eyes bulge, and he launched himself at the older man, knocking him off his seat and rolling with him into the leaves in a ball of fists and elbows.
Grey sprang to his feet and kicked them apart, seizing the boy by the scruff of the neck and jerking him up. The lieutenant was shouting at them angrily in idiomatic German, which Grey ignored. He shook the boy slightly, to bring him to his senses, and said, very quietly, “Laugh. It was a joke.”
He stared hard into the boy’s eyes, willing him to come to his senses. The thin shoulders under his hands vibrated with the need to strike out, to hit something—and the brown eyes were glassy with anguish and confusion.
Grey shook him harder, then released him, and under the guise of slapping dead leaves from his uniform, leaned closer. “If you act like this, they will know,” he said, speaking in a rapid whisper. “For God’s sake, laugh!”
Samson, experienced enough to know what to do in such circumstances, was doing it—pushing at joking comrades, replying to crude jests with cruder ones. The young boy glanced at him, a flicker of awareness coming back into his face. Grey let him go, and turned back to the group, saying loudly, “If I were going to bugger someone, I would wait for good weather. A man must be desperate, to swive anything in such rain and thunder!”
“It’s been a long time, Major,” said one of the soldiers, laughing. He made crude thrusting gestures with his hips. “Even a sheep in a snowstorm would look good now!”
“Haha. Go fuck yourself, Wulfie. The sheep wouldn’t have you.” The boy was still flushed and damp-eyed, but back in control of himself. He rubbed a hand across his mouth and spat, forcing a grin as the others laughed.
“You could fuck yourself, Wulfie—if your dick is as long as you say it is.” Samson leered at Wulf, who stuck out an amazingly long tongue in reply, waggling it in derision.
“Don’t you wish you knew!”
The discussion was interrupted at this point by two soldiers who came puffing up the rise, wet to the waist and dragging with them a large dead pig, fished out of the river. This addition to supper was greeted with cries of approbation, and half the men fell at once to the work of butchery, the others returning in desultory fashion to their conversation.
The vigor had gone out of it, though, and Grey was about to take his leave, when one of the men said something, laughing, about gypsy women.
“What did you say? I mean—was ist das Du hast sprechen?” He groped for his German. “Gypsies? You have seen them recently?”
“Oh, ja, Major,” said the soldier obligingly. “This morning. They came across the bridge, six wagons with mules. They go back and forth. We’ve seen them before.”
With a little effort, Grey kept his voice calm.
“Indeed?” He turned to the lieutenant. “Does it not seem possible that they may have dealings with the French?”
“Of course.” The lieutenant looked mildly surprised, then grinned. “What are they going to tell the French? That we’re here? I think they know that, Major.”
He gestured toward a gap in the trees. Through it, Grey could see the English soldiers of Ruysdale’s regiment, perhaps a mile away, their ranks piling up on the bank of the river like driftwood as they flung down their packs and waded into the shallows to drink, hot and mud-caked from their run.
It was true; the presence of the English and Hanoverian regiments could be a surprise to no one; anyone on the cliffs with a spyglass could likely count the spots on Colonel Ruysdale’s dog. As for information regarding their movements … well, since neither Ruysdale nor Hicks had any idea where they were going or when, there wasn’t any great danger of that intelligence being revealed to the enemy.
He smiled, and took gracious leave of the lieutenant, though privately resolving to speak to Stephan von Namtzen. Perhaps the gypsies were harmless—but they should be looked into. If nothing else, the gypsies were in a position to tell anyone who cared to ask them how few men were guarding that bridge. And somehow, he thought that Ruysdale was not of a mind to consider Sir Peter’s request for reinforcement.
He waved casually to the artillerymen, who took little notice, elbow-deep in blood and pig guts. The boy was by himself, chopping green wood for the spit.
Leaving the artillery camp, he rode up to the head of the bridge and paused, reining Karolus in as he looked across the river. The land was flat for a little way, but then broke into rolling hills. Above, on the cliffs, the French presumably still lurked. He took a small spyglass from his pocket, and scanned the clifftops, slowly. Nothing moved on the heights; no horses, no men, no swaying banners—and yet a faint gray haze drifted up there, a cloud in an otherwise cloudless sky. The smoke of campfires; many of them. Yes, the French were still there.
He scanned the hills below, looking carefully—but if the gypsies were there, as well, no rising plume of smoke betrayed their presence.
He should find the gypsy camp and question its inhabitants himself—but it was growing late, and he had no stomach for that now. He reined about and turned the horse’s head back toward the distant town, not glancing at t
he copse that hid the cannon and its crew.
The boy had best learn—and quickly—to hide his nature, or he would become in short order bumboy to any man who cared to use him. And many would. Wulf had been correct; after months in the field, soldiers were not particular, and the boy was much more appealing than a sheep, with those soft red lips and tender skin.
Karolus tossed his head, and he slowed, uneasy. Grey’s hands were trembling on the reins, gripped far too tightly. He forced them to relax, stilled the trembling, and spoke calmly to the horse, nudging him back to speed.
He had been attacked once, in camp somewhere in Scotland, in the days after Culloden. Someone had come upon him in the dark, and taken him from behind with an arm across his throat. He had thought he was dead, but his assailant had something else in mind. The man had never spoken, and was brutally swift about his business, leaving him moments later, curled in the dirt behind a wagon, speechless with shock and pain.
He had never known who it was: officer, soldier, or some anonymous intruder. Never known whether the man had discerned something in his own appearance or behavior that led to the attack, or had only taken him because he was there.
He had known the danger of telling anyone about it. He washed himself, stood straight and walked firmly, spoke normally and looked men in the eye. No one had suspected the bruised and riven flesh beneath his uniform, or the hollowness beneath his breastbone. And if his attacker sat at meals and broke bread with him, he had not known it. From that day, he had carried a dagger at all times, and no one had ever touched him again against his will.
The sun was sinking behind him, and the shadow of horse and rider stretched out far before him, flying, and faceless in their flight.
Chapter 5
Dark Dreams
Once more he was late for dinner. This time, though, a tray was brought for him, and he sat in the drawing room, taking his supper while the rest of the company chatted.
The princess saw to his needs, and sat with him for a time, flatteringly attentive. He was worn out from a day of riding, though, and his answers to her questions brief. Soon enough, she drifted away and left him to a peaceful engagement with some cold venison and a tart of dried apricots.
He had nearly finished, when he felt a large, warm hand on his shoulder.
“So, you have seen the gun crew at the bridge? They are in good order?” von Namtzen asked.
“Yes, very good,” Grey replied. No point—not yet—in mentioning the young soldier to von Namtzen. “I told them more men will come, from Ruysdale’s regiment.”
“The bridge?” The dowager, catching the word, turned from her conversation, frowning. “You have no need to worry, Landgrave. The bridge is safe.”
“I am sure it will be safe, madam,” Stephan said, clicking his heels gallantly as he bowed to the old lady. “You may be assured, Major Grey and I will protect you.”
The old lady looked faintly put out at the notion.
“The bridge is safe,” she repeated, touching the religious medal on the bodice of her gown, and glancing pugnaciously from man to man. “No enemy has crossed the bridge at Aschenwald in five hundred years. No enemy will ever cross it!”
Stephan glanced at Grey, and cleared his throat slightly. Grey cleared his own throat and made a gracious compliment upon the food.
When the dowager had moved away, Stephan shook his head behind her back, and exchanged a brief smile with Grey.
“You know about that bridge?”
“No, is there something odd about it?”
“Only a story.” Von Namtzen shrugged, with a tolerant scorn for the superstition of others. “They say that there is a guardian, a spirit of some kind that defends the bridge.”
“Indeed,” Grey said, with an uneasy memory of the stories told by the gun crew stationed near the bridge. Were any of them local men, he wondered, who would know the story?
“Mein Gott,” Stephan said, shaking his massive head as though assailed by gnats. “These stories! How can sane men believe such things?”
“I collect you do not mean that particular story?” Grey said. “The succubus, perhaps?”
“Don’t speak to me of that thing,” von Namtzen said gloomily. “My men look like scarecrows and jump at a bird’s shadow. Every one of them is scared to lay his head upon a pillow, for fear that he will turn it and look into the night hag’s face.”
“Your chaps aren’t the only ones.” Sir Peter had come to pour himself another drink. He lifted the glass and took a deep swallow, shuddering slightly. Billman, behind him, nodded in glum confirmation.
“Bloody sleepwalkers, the lot.”
“Ah,” said Grey thoughtfully. “If I might make a suggestion … not my own, you understand. A notion mentioned by Ruysdale’s surgeon …”
He explained Mr. Keegan’s remedy, keeping his voice discreetly low. His listeners were less discreet in their response.
“What, Ruysdale’s chaps are all boxing the Jesuit and begetting cockroaches?” Grey thought Sir Peter would expire from suffocated laughter. Just as well Lieutenant Dundas wasn’t present, he thought.
“Perhaps not all of them,” he said. “Evidently enough, though, to be of concern. I take it you have not experienced a similar phenomenon among your troops … yet?”
Billman caught the delicate pause and whooped loudly.
“Boxing the Jesuit?” Stephan nudged Grey with an elbow, and raised thick blond brows in puzzlement. “Cockroaches? What does this mean, please?”
“Ahhh …” Having no notion of the German equivalent of this expression, Grey resorted to a briefly graphic gesture with one hand, looking over his shoulder to be sure that none of the women was watching.
“Oh!” Von Namtzen looked mildly startled, but then grinned widely. “I see, yes, very good!” He nudged Grey again, more familiarly, and dropped his voice a little. “Perhaps wise to take some such precaution personally, do you think?”
The women and the German officers, heretofore intent on a card game, were looking toward the Englishmen in puzzlement. One man called a question to von Namtzen, and Grey was fortunately saved from reply.
Something occurred to him, though, and he grasped von Namtzen by the arm, as the latter was about to go and join the others at a hand of favo.
“A moment, Stephan. I had meant to ask—that man of yours who died—Koenig? Did you see the body yourself?”
Von Namtzen was still smiling, but at this, his expression grew more somber, and he shook his head.
“No, I did not see him. They said, though, that his throat was most terribly torn—as though a wild animal had been at him. And yet he was not outside; he was found in his quarters.” He shook his head again, and left to join the card game.
Grey finished his meal amid cordial conversation with Sir Peter and Billman, though keeping an inconspicuous eye upon the progress of the card game.
Stephan was in dress uniform tonight. A smaller man would have been overwhelmed by it; Hanoverian taste in military decoration was grossly excessive, to an English eye. Still, with his big frame and leonine blond head, the Landgrave von Erdberg was merely … eye-catching.
He appeared to have caught the eye not only of the Princess Louisa, but of three other young women. These surrounded him like a moony triplet, caught in his orbit. Now he reached into the breast of his coat and withdrew some small object, causing them to cluster round to look at it.
Grey turned to answer some question of Billman’s, but then turned back, trying not to look too obviously.
He had been trying to suppress the feeling Stephan roused in him, but in the end, such things were never controllable—they rose up. Sometimes like the bursting of a mortar shell, sometimes like the inexorable green spike of a crocus pushing through snow and ice—but they rose up.
Was he in love with Stephan? There was no question of that. He liked and respected the Hanoverian, but there was no madness in it, no yearning. Did he want Stephan? A soft warmth in his loins, as though his
blood had begun somehow to simmer over a low flame, suggested that he did.
The ancient bear’s skull still sat in its place of honor, below the old prince’s portrait. He moved slowly to examine it, keeping half an eye on Stephan.
“Surely you have not eaten enough, John!” A delicate hand on his elbow turned him, and he looked down into the princess’s face smiling up at him with pretty coquetry. “A strong man, out all day—let me call the servants to bring you something special.”
“I assure you, Your Highness …” But she would have none of it, and tapping him playfully with her fan, she scudded away like a gilded cloud, to have some special dessert prepared for him.
Feeling obscurely like a fatted calf being readied for the slaughter, Grey sought refuge in male company, coming to rest beside von Namtzen, who was folding up whatever he had been showing to the women, who had all gone to peer over the card player’s shoulders and make bets.
“What is that?” Grey asked, nodding at the object.
“Oh—” Von Namtzen looked a little disconcerted at the question, but with only a moment’s hesitation, handed it to Grey. It was a small leather case, hinged, with a gold closure. “My children.”
It was a miniature, done by an excellent hand. The heads of two children, close together, one boy, one girl, both blond. The boy, clearly a little older, was perhaps three or four.
Grey felt momentarily as though he had received an actual blow to the pit of the stomach; his mouth opened, but he was incapable of speech. Or at least he thought he was. To his surprise, he heard his own voice, sounding calm, politely admiring.
“They are very handsome indeed. I am sure they are a consolation to your wife, in your absence.”
Von Namtzen grimaced slightly, and gave a brief shrug.
“Their mother is dead. She died in childbirth when Elise was born.” A huge forefinger touched the tiny face, very gently. “My mother looks after them.”
The Lord John Series 4-Book Bundle Page 38