“I suppose the news has spread,” he said. His own voice was hoarse with disuse; he hadn’t spoken to anyone in hours, and he cleared his throat. “Does the duke know?”
Hal grimaced, and took another drink. “Everyone knows, though the matter hasn’t been brought up officially as yet.”
“I suppose there will be a court-martial.”
“The general feeling among the high command is that it would be much better if there wasn’t.”
He stared at Hal.
“What the devil do you mean by that?”
Hal rubbed a hand over his face.
“If he were a common soldier, it wouldn’t matter,” he said, voice muffled. Then he took his hand away, shaking his head. “Court-martial him and hang or imprison him and be done with it. But he’s not. He’s a bloody member of the family. It can’t be done discreetly.”
Grey was beginning to have an unpleasant feeling under his breastbone.
“And what do they think can be done … discreetly? Try him and discharge him for some other reason?”
“No.” Hal’s voice was colorless. “That might be done if no one really knew what had happened. But the circumstances …” He gulped brandy, coughed, and kept coughing, going red in the face.
“ ‘Unfortunate,’ ” he said hoarsely. “That’s what Brunswick kept saying, in that precise sort of way he has. ‘Most unfortunate.’ ”
Ferdinand was more precariously placed than King Friedrich. Friedrich was absolute master of his own army; Ferdinand commanded a number of loosely allied contingents, and was answerable to a number of princes for the troops they had supplied him.
“Some of these princes are strict Lutherans, and inclined to a rather … rigid … view of such matters. Ferdinand feels that he can’t risk alienating them; not for our sake,” he added, rather bitterly.
Grey stared down at the tabletop, rubbing the fingers of one hand lightly back and forth across the grain.
“What does he mean to do?” he asked. “Execute Wainwright outright, without trial?”
“He’d love to,” Hal said, leaning back and sighing. “Save that that would cause still more stir and scandal. And, of course,” he added, reaching for the brandy again, “I informed him that I’d be obliged to pull our own troops out and make an official complaint to the king—or kings; ours and Friedrich—should he try to treat a British soldier in that fashion.”
The knot under Grey’s heart seemed to ease a little. The departure of Hal’s regiment wouldn’t destroy Ferdinand’s army, but it would be a blow—and the resultant uproar might well cause fragmentation among his other allies.
“What do they—or you—propose to do, then?” he asked. “Keep him locked up in hopes that he’ll catch gaol fever and die, thus relieving you of awkwardness?” He’d spoken ironically, but Hal gave him an odd look, and coughed again.
Without speaking, he picked up the haversack he’d dropped by the table, and withdrew a pistol. It was an old one, of German manufacture.
“I want you to go and see him,” he said.
“What?” Grey said, disbelieving.
“Do you know what happened to … Wainwright’s …” Hal searched for a word. “… accomplice?”
“Yes, I do. Von Namtzen told me. Are you seriously suggesting that I call upon Percy Wainwright and murder him in the gaol?”
“No. I’m suggesting that you call upon him, give him this, and … urge him to—to do the honorable thing. It would be best for everyone,” Hal added softly, looking down at the tabletop. “Including him.”
Grey stood up violently, almost overturning the table, and went out of the tent. He felt that he might fly into pieces if he didn’t move.
He walked blindly through the camp, down the main alley of tents. He was vaguely conscious of men looking at him—a few waved or called to him, but he didn’t answer, and they fell back, looking after him with puzzled faces.
Best for everyone.
Best for everyone. Including him.
“Including him,” he whispered to himself. He reached the end of the alley, turned on his heel, and walked back. This time no one hailed him; only watched with fascination, as they might watch a gallows procession. He reached his own tent, pulled back the flap, and went in. Hal was still sitting at the table, the pistol and the jug of brandy in front of him.
He felt words like bits of gravel stuck in his throat, and chewed them fiercely, feeling them grit between his teeth.
You’re the goddamed head of the family! You’re his colonel, his commander. And you’re his bloody brother, too—as much as I am.
He might have spit out any one of these things—or all of them. But he saw Hal’s face. The bone-deep weariness in it, the strain of fighting—yet again—scandal and rumor. The everlasting, inescapable struggle to hold things together.
He said nothing. Only picked up the gun and went to put it in his own haversack.
You protect everyone, John, Percy’s voice said, with sympathy. I don’t suppose you can help it.
On his way back to the table, he opened the small campaign chest that contained his utensils, and took the two pewter cups from their slots.
“Let us at least be civilized,” he said calmly, and set them on the table.
Percy was sitting on the wooden bench that served him as seat, bed, and table. He looked up when the door opened, but didn’t move. His eyes fixed upon Grey’s face, wary.
The small whitewashed room was clean enough, but the smell of it struck Grey like a blow. There was no window, and the air was close and damp, rank with the smell of unwashed flesh and sour linen. It had plainly been a storeroom; chains of braided onions and black loops of blood sausage still hung from the rafters, their smell battling the bitter stink of an iron night-soil bucket that stood in the corner, unlidded, unemptied. A protest at this small indignity rose to his lips, but he pressed them tight together and swallowed it, nodding to the guard. Given his errand, what did such things matter?
There were narrow slits beneath the eaves of the room, but the room itself lay in a shadow fractured by the moving leaves of the tree that overhung the building. Grey moved through the dim, shattered light, feeling that he moved underwater, every thought and motion slowed.
The door closed behind him. Footsteps went away and they were alone, in no danger of being overheard. There were noises in the distance: the shuffling of boots and the shout of distant orders in the square, the sounds of boisterous companionship from the tavern next door.
“Are you treated decently?” The words were dry, emotionless. He knew only too well what the attitude of guards toward a prisoner accused of sodomy was likely to be.
Percy glanced away, mouth twisting a little.
“I—yes.”
Grey set down the stool the guard had given him, and sat upon it. He’d envisioned this moment hundreds of times since Hal had given him the gun; sleepless, sweating, ill—to no avail. He could not find a single word with which to begin.
“I’m glad to see you, John,” Percy said, quietly.
“Don’t be.”
Percy’s eyes widened a little, but he made a game attempt to smile. They’d let him shave, Grey saw; his cheeks were smooth.
“I should always be glad to see you, no matter your errand. And from the look of you, I doubt it is pleasant.” He hesitated. “Have you—will they try me here, do you know? Or send me back to England?”
“That—I don’t know. I’ve—”
He gave up any thought of speaking. Instead, he took the gun from his pocket, handling it gingerly, as though it were a venomous serpent, and laid it on the bench. It was loaded and primed, requiring only to be cocked.
Percy sat for a moment staring at it, expressionless.
“They made you bring it?” he asked. “The duke? Melton?”
Grey gave one brief nod, his throat too tight to speak. Percy’s eyes searched his face, quick and dark.
“At least it wasn’t your own notion,” he said. “Th
at’s … a comfort.”
Then Percy rose abruptly and turned, putting out both hands as though to grasp the sill of a window that wasn’t there. Hands flat against the whitewashed brick, he lowered his head so that his forehead rested against the wall, his face invisible.
“I must say something to you,” he said, and his voice came low but clear, controlled. “I have been waiting in hope of your coming, so that I might say it. You will think I tell you by way of excuse for actions for which there can be no excuse, but I can’t help that. Only listen to me, I beg you.”
He stood waiting. Grey sat staring at the pistol, loaded and primed. He’d loaded it himself.
“Go on, then,” Grey said at last.
He saw Percy’s back swell with his breath, and saw the naked lines of it beneath broadcloth and linen, slender, perfect.
“The first time I lay with a man, it was for money,” Percy said quietly. “I was fourteen. We had had no food for two days—my mother and I. I was going through the alleyways, looking for anything that might be sold. A man found me there—Henry, he was called, I never knew his last name—a well-dressed man, rather stout. He told me he was a law clerk, and he may have been. He took me to his room, and when he had finished, he gave me three shillings. A fortune.” He spoke without irony.
“And so you … continued. With him?” Grey strove to keep his own voice colorless.
Percy’s head rose from the bricks, and he turned round, dark eyes somber.
“Yes,” he said simply. “Him, others. It made the difference between poverty and outright hunger. And I discovered that my own tastes … lay that way.” He gave Grey a direct look. “It was not always for money.”
Grey felt something turn over inside him, and didn’t know whether it was regret or relief.
“I … when I thought … that there might be something between us … I would not come to you at once; you noticed, I think?”
Oh, yes.
“There was a man—I will not give his name; it is not important—call him ‘Mr. A,’ perhaps. He was …”
“Your protector?” Grey gave the word an ugly intonation, and was pleased to see Percy’s jaw clench.
“If you like,” Percy said tersely, and met his eyes directly. “I would not come to you until I had broken with him. I did not wish there to be any … complication.”
“Indeed.”
“Michael—the man with whom you saw me …” He pronounced the name in the German way, Grey noticed: ”Meechayel.” “I knew him. Before. We met in London, a year ago.”
“Money?” Grey asked brutally. “Or …?”
Percy took a deep breath and looked away.
“Or,” he said. He bit his lower lip. “I told him I did not … that there was someone—I did not tell him your name,” he added quickly, looking up.
“Thank you for that,” Grey said. His lips felt stiff.
Percy swallowed, but did not look away again.
“He insisted. Once, he said, what harm? I would not. And then he said—it was not quite a threat, but clear enough—he said, what if there began to be talk? Among the German officers, among our—our own. About me.”
Clear enough, Grey thought bleakly. Was it the truth? Did it matter?
“I do not tell you by way of excuse,” Percy repeated, and stared at Grey, unblinking.
“Why, then?”
“Because I loved you,” Percy said, very softly. “Since we began, I have not touched anyone else, or thought of it. I wished you to know that.”
And considering his history—as he told it—that was a considerable affirmation of affection, Grey thought cynically.
“You cannot say the same, can you?” Percy was still looking at him, his mouth tight.
He opened his own mouth to refute this, but then realized what Percy meant. He had not touched another, no; but there was another. And exactly where was the boundary to be found, between the flesh and the heart? He shut his mouth.
“Do not tell me I have broken your heart. I know better.” Percy’s face was pale, but hectic patches of red had begun to glow across his cheekbones—as though Grey had slapped him. He turned suddenly away, and began to strike the white wall with his fist, slowly, soundlessly.
“I know better,” he repeated, his voice low and bitter.
If it is your intent to place the fault for this disaster upon my shoulders—He swallowed the words, unspoken. He would neither defend himself nor engage in pointless recriminations.
“Perseverance,” Grey said, very softly. Percy halted abruptly. After a moment, he rubbed a hand over his face, once, twice, then swung round to face Grey.
“What?”
“What do you want of me?”
Percy looked at him for some moments, unspeaking. At last he shook his head, one side of his mouth turned up in what was not quite a smile.
“What I wanted, you couldn’t give me, could you? Couldn’t even lie about it, honorable bloody honest bastard that you are. Can you lie now? Can you tell me that you loved me?”
I could tell you, he thought. And it would be true. But not true enough. He did not know whether Percy spoke out of panic and anger—or whether from a calculated effort to evoke Grey’s guilt, and thus his help. It didn’t really matter.
The air in the small room hung thick, silent.
Percy made a small, contemptuous sound. Grey kept his eyes fixed on his hands.
“Is that what you want?” he asked at last, very quietly.
Percy rocked back a little, eyes narrowed.
“No,” he said slowly. “No, I don’t. It’s late to talk of love, isn’t it?”
“Very late.”
He could feel Percy’s eyes upon him, gauging him. He lifted his head, and saw the look of a man about to roll dice for high stakes. It came to him, with a small, sudden shock, that he recognized that look because he was a gambler himself. He hadn’t realized that before, but there was no time to contemplate the revelation.
“What I want,” Percy said, each word distinct, “is my life.” He saw the uncertainty cross Grey’s face with the possibilities that conjured—if it could be done; a sentence of imprisonment, transportation—and the considerations of what those possibilities might mean—not only to Percy, but to Hal, the regiment, the family …
“And my freedom.”
A feeling of sudden, senseless rage came over him, so strong that he pressed his fists into his thighs to keep from springing to his feet and striking Percy.
“For God’s sake,” he said, voice harsh with the effort to keep it low. “You do this—make such a frigging mess—why did you not tell me? I could have made sure Meechayel was no threat to you. For that matter, how can you have been so weak, so stupid, as to give in to a feeble threat like that? Unless you wished it, and took the excuse—no, don’t say anything. Not a fucking word!” He struck his fist violently upon his knee.
“You do this,” he went on, voice trembling, “you not only destroy yourself, you embroil us all—”
“All. You and your bloody brother and your goddamned family honor, you mean—”
“Yes, our goddamned family honor! And the honor of the regiment—of which you are a sworn officer, I remind you. How dare you utter the word ‘honor’? Yet you do dare—and presume further to demand that I not only perform some miracle to save your life, but to save you from all consequences of your folly?”
The pistol lay on the bench before him, loaded and primed, requiring only to be cocked. For one instant, he thought how simple it would be to pick it up, cock it, and shoot Percy between the eyes. No questions would be asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
Percy’s voice was choked. Grey couldn’t look at Percy’s face, but saw the long hands clench, unfold, reclench themselves. There was silence between them, the kind of silence that rings with unspoken words.
There were noises, somewhere in the building. Voices, laughter. How was it possible that normal life continued, anywhere? He heard Percy draw b
reath, heard it catch in his throat.
“You could not give me love, you said—but kindness and honor; those were yours to give,” Percy whispered. Grey looked up, and saw that the hectic flush had faded, the luminous skin gone pallid and chalky.
“There is no honor left to me.” His lips trembled; he pressed them tight for an instant. “If—if there is any kindness left between us, John—I beg you. Save me.”
He couldn’t. Could not bear to remember: not Percy warm in his bed, not Percy in the fetid cell—certainly not Percy in the attic room with Weber—could not think about the current situation, could not decide what to do, or even how to feel. Consequently, he went through the necessary motions of each day like an automaton, moving, speaking, even smiling as necessary, but aware all the time of the clockwork within, and his inability to stir beyond the constraints imposed upon him.
Beyond a terse inquiry as to whether Percy was housed and treated decently, Hal had not inquired as to the results of his visit—a glance at Grey upon his return had told of the failure of his mission. The old pistol was still in Grey’s haversack.
The note arrived a week later. There was no direction upon it—a German private had delivered it—but Grey knew where it had come from.
He should throw it into the fire. Grimacing, he slid a thumb beneath the flap and broke the seal. There was no salutation; was that caution on Percy’s part, he wondered, to avoid incriminating Grey if the letter should be intercepted—or simply that Percy no longer knew how to address him? The question evaporated from his mind as he read the opening.
I will leave you to imagine, if you will, what the writing of this letter costs me, for that ultimate cost is up to you. I have been in perturbation of mind for days, debating whether I shall write it, and now, having written, whether to send it. The end of my deliberations, though, is the point from which I began: that to speak may mean my life; not to speak may mean yours. If you are reading these words, you will know which I have chosen.
The Lord John Series 4-Book Bundle Page 89