Archer had hoped to arrive at the vantage point in daylight, but not long after leaving Westerpool, it became apparent that it was not going to happen. Although Long Light was only thirty miles as the crow flew, they had to skirt around the Dee estuary to the crossing point from where it took as much time to travel north to the coast as it had to ride south. There was also the need to stop for lanterns and food, to rest the horses and warm themselves.
The advantage of arriving in the dark was obvious, it gave them cover, and as Fecker saw to the horses, the viscount found the best vantage point from which to watch the coast below. The hill rose to its zenith before sloping steeply to meet the shoreline and was peppered with rocky outcrops. The cleft he had chosen offered a reasonably flat, mossy surface on which he could lie, and using his spyglass, peer down unseen by anyone on the beach. Further within the cleft, a shallow cave would allow for a fire while not casting light above the crest of the hill. If he stood atop the rise, he could look inland where the moon bathed the flat, reflective surface of Lake Llanwyth, and across the other side of the inlet, a waterfall poured one hundred feet from the clifftop before hitting the rocks and channelling off in fast-flowing streams to the sea.
James had found the correct location, and Archer chided himself for ever doubting the man. He was incorrect on one thing, however, and that was Long Light itself.
It may have been a lighthouse, but it resembled more the tower at Larkspur. Square sided and crenulated, its beacon was shattered and half missing, while a corner of the fortification had been blasted away by what looked like cannon fire. Rubble lay around its base where the arched, landward door was missing, showing only as a black hole at the entrance to whatever lay within. There were no lights. Had the kidnappers been there ahead of him, Archer would have seen a glow from within, and without a breath of wind, the sea was silent; he would have been able to hear voices even at that distance.
Fecker joined him, throwing down the saddlebags as he looked towards the sea.
‘Dead,’ he said.
‘Pardon?’
‘That place is dead.’
‘Yes. It’s no longer a light, that’s clear, but I see no activity.’
‘I go look?’
‘I am not sure, Andrej.’ Archer peered at his watch, turning it to catch the moonlight. ‘It’s nearly midnight, midwinter eve starts shortly, and I don’t want to risk being caught unprepared. Our deadline is tomorrow at sunset, but they could come at any time. I’m afraid we are in for a long wait.’
‘Is okay,’ Fecker said. ‘I can’t go now. I don’t swim.’
He was right. The tide was high, and the tower cut off from the land.
‘We must help you learn, one day,’ Archer said. ‘I have a note of the tides somewhere…’
He fumbled in his bags as Fecker set a fire as best he could. The moss was wet and belched white smoke as soon as he put the lantern flame to it.
‘No fire,’ he said. ‘They see smoke.’
It was going to be a cold wait, and Archer arranged the bags and furs to make their eyrie as comfortable as possible while Fecker prepared food.
They lay on their fronts side by side and close to share their body heat, with the spyglass wedged in the rocks and aimed at the tower.
‘Just after five,’ Archer said, referring to his tide table. ‘It turns a little before, but the causeway should be safely uncovered by then. If we have still not seen anyone, we can make a recce at dawn. It might be possible to lie in wait inside and catch them by surprise.’
‘Da,’ Fecker said. ‘If they are coming.’
‘If Quill sets a trap,’ Archer said, ‘he will be on hand to catch his quarry.’
They ate and packed away in silence. It was as if Fecker knew what Archer wanted next, whether it was to pass him the water bottle, or to check the time, he remained one step ahead. The man was in his element outside in the cold, and he worked with stealth and precision. As Archer watched, he remembered the other thing Culver had said that morning. Fecker, it seemed, was more than happy to tell his story to strangers, but not to Archer.
Later, while Fecker was taking the watch, alternating between the scope and the open view, Archer leant against the rock beside him, watching inland, unable to sleep. He asked himself what he hoped to achieve from all of this, apart from the obvious; saving two lives. Did he want Silas to be more in awe of him than he already was? Did he want him to love him any more deeply than he did? That was impossible. Maybe not so much three days ago when he would have woken to find Archer gone. The viscount was still not completely satisfied that he had written the note correctly, his mind had been in such a whirl. Had he written ‘I love you’ in the past tense? What if the notes had been overlooked? Perhaps Silas was still at Clearwater waiting for his return, or worse, Archer had written ‘loved’ instead of ‘love’, and Silas had taken flight.
In an attempt to clear the negative possibilities from his mind, he pictured his lover walking the grand staircase at Larkspur, Mrs Baker giving him the tour. Would he think Archer was showing off? Would he be able to feel comfortable in such a large house? Archer had seen where Silas grew up.
That was yesterday morning, he noted as he checked his watch.
To push the difficult thoughts from his mind, he spoke to Fecker as a distraction.
‘Andrej,’ he said. ‘May I ask you something?’
‘Why you not sleep?’
‘Could you?’
‘No. What you ask?’
Archer shifted to face him more directly and reached to cover his feet with the fur. Fecker did it for him.
‘Thank you. I just wondered, and please don’t take this the wrong way, Mr Culver said you spoke at length to his coachman last night.’
‘Da. Funny man, but a lot to learn about horse.’
‘Really? He must have been fifty.’
Fecker shrugged and peered through the scope.
‘But you are an expert and yet only nineteen, or perhaps a little older. Did you have horses on your farm in Ukraine?’
‘Two, and I learnt from little age.’
‘You learnt well.’
‘Not then.’
A breeze troubled the grass, made its way over the ridge and trespassed into their hideout. Archer pulled the fur tighter.
‘Not then? When?’
Fecker huffed a breath through his nose and looked down. ‘You want me to tell you how I learn the horse,’ he stated. ‘You hear I tell story to coachman and don’t know why I don’t tell you, da?’
It was true, and Archer said so.
‘Then why don’t you ask, Geroy?’ Fecker said and shifted his weight onto the other arm. ‘You are master. You command me to tell, I must.’
‘I don’t want you to think that way, dear chap,’ Archer said. He kicked himself for sounding like a public schoolboy, but that was how he had been brought up.
‘I say when we are in the hut,’ Fecker spoke out to sea, but his voice, although hushed, carried back in on the rising breeze. ‘You want me, Jimmy, the others, to be friends, but we are servants. Can you have both? In my country we say…’ He ran off a sentence too quickly for Archer to grasp. ‘It means one man’s servant is another man’s friend. I not understand this until I meet you. A man cannot be both to same person.’
‘I completely disagree,’ Archer said. ‘Look at Thomas and me. And James. We talk like friends when we are alone, but behave as we must when we are not. They and Silas understand how society is, and our arrangement works.’
‘Does it? Tom does what you want because you are master.’
‘No! He does it because he is my friend.’
‘Because he love you. This I see. Jimmy, because he has worship for you. Banyak because he has both.’
Assuming Fecker was talking o
f platonic love in Thomas’ case, Archer asked, ‘And what about you?’
‘I am paid to look after horse and drive carriage.’
Archer waited for more, but there was none. ‘But you’re not paid to do this,’ he said.
‘I am paid to do what you ask. Is all.’
‘Very well then,’ Archer said, sensing he was at a dead end. ‘I would like you to tell me how you grew up and how you came to Greychurch.’
‘We only have few hours.’
‘Then start with the horses and how you learnt your skills.’
‘We had farm,’ Fecker began immediately. ‘But we live at Serbka, on the plains, and Russians wanted land. Small fights between villages first, and later wider.’
Archer knew. It had been during one of those skirmishes, when his ship had been called to assist a small land force, that he had fought with Crispin and received the injury that ended his naval career.
‘Father went to fight, leaving Danylo, Vlad and me with the farm. First Danylo was called to fight. Next year, soldiers come and take Alina, but the fight was not with us. They only wanted sport.’ Swallowing, he cleared his throat. ‘The next year, Vladyslav goes to army. I am too young, at school, but I am not at school. I am at farm because Papa’s wife and Daria need my hands, and I work.’
He paused to switch arms, shaking out the one on which he had been supporting himself before taking a sip of water and continuing.
‘It become too much,’ he said, once more at the scope. ‘Fighting closer. Danylo, when he come back from camp, shows me the sword. I learn with sword.’
‘You can fence?’
‘I make fence, yes. To keep in chickens. But I fight with sword. It is shashka, my Cossack fathers used. One blade, one hand, one slice, death.’ He reached into his pocket and produced his knife. ‘This, my grandfather give me,’ he said. ‘Is khanjali. Two blade, one hand, silent death. Danylo teach me this before he go. Danylo, only brother now.’
He said nothing for a moment as he gazed on his grandfather’s knife before putting it away.
‘Fighting more closer, country dangerous. Mother, she take Daria and hide with women from village. I stay to fight with khanjali, but old men say no. “You are thirteen year,” village say. “Too young, Kolisnychenko.” Pah!’ He spat. ‘What they know? I am tall as them. I am angry like them, but no. They throw me in cart with women and take me away like a girl. I run. They catch and beat. They tie me to cart and drive long way from my home, from my fight. When they stop. Khanjali set me free and I go back. No village. No farm.’ He passed Archer the water and shrugged. ‘So, what I do?’
It was a rhetorical question, and Archer sipped while he waited.
‘I stand where home was, and now there is nothing. Ash and stone. I look, I think, I do one thing, and I leave.’
‘What one thing?’
Fecker took back the water, swigged and screwed on the cap before resuming his watch on the coastline. There was no sound in the salt-scented air save for the men’s breathing and the occasional rustle of material as they changed their position to ease the stiffness of their limbs.
‘I am in place that was bedroom,’ Fecker said. His voice became distant as if he was walking through his memory and talking only to himself. ‘And here is Danylo’s stone. He found it in the river where there are many, but this one, he said, was special. He gave it to me the night before he was taken for army. “Andrej my brother,” he says. “This for you. Always.” I ask what it is for, he tells me is for not forgetting homeland, not forgetting him. I take it from ruin, and walk.’
‘To where?’
‘West, away from Russian, away from Turk, always into sunset. I walk to Brasov and winter come. I find work, farms, with horses, I do not starve. Spring comes, and I walk. Always west. I come to Beograd in summer. Is circus. Wild beasts, strong men, stupid men. I carry poles for tent. I drive cart. I learn to ride good, tricks I learn. Then I was…’ He broke off, and his shoulders slumped. ‘I don’t know how old.’
‘Your village men said you were thirteen when you left. You would have been fourteen then.’ If Fecker’s story was accurate, and Archer had no doubt that it was, he was now twenty-one and not nineteen as he supposed.
‘Maybe,’ Fecker said.
He showed no signs of saying more until Archer prompted. ‘And then?’
‘Then another winter.’
‘With the circus?’
Fecker shook his head. He concentrated on the scope, studying the bay and out to sea in a wide-ranging arc.
Archer waited, wondering if this was all the story he was going to be told, but once Fecker had completed the scan, he sighed and turned his gaze to his master.
‘Circus, good,’ he said. ‘Is why I ride, love horses, know them, and is why I grow strong. Is also why…’ He shook his head and returned to the telescope. ‘Nyet.’
‘Please,’ Archer encouraged gently. ‘I would like to know.’
‘Why?’
‘To understand you.’
‘Not this.’
‘Not what? Surely nothing worse could have happened to you than losing your family and your home.’
‘You not understand.’
‘I want to.’
An age of silence was filled by the hiss of the breeze and Fecker’s regular breathing. Perhaps Archer had pushed him too far. Resigned to leave it there, he said, ‘Very well, Andrej, and thank you for telling me.’
‘Was master of circus,’ Fecker said out of the blue. ‘Showman, big and with colour, loud voice, have the crowd cheering. Good master of circus.’ He regarded Archer as if comparing the two men. ‘Much money. I go to him, and I say I want to ride in ring, to show my tricks. I ready to be in family that show the horse, they are good people. “No,” he say. “You too young.” This is shit. Ivo, he rides the horses, he teach me the tricks, he is same age. I say this and circus master, he tell me if I really want, I come to his vardo where he live. It is night, but I don’t care. I will be circus horseman wih family.’
He took a deep breath before continuing.
‘But he want to fuck me. I don’t want. I fight, but he hit my head.’ He sniffed, and looked at Archer as if trying to make a decision. His face fell, and he said, ‘I wake. He is fucking me. I leave circus when I can walk again.’
Archer held back the lump that rose in his throat and the tears of shock that sprung to his eyes. ‘Oh my God, Andrej,’ he said, utterly unprepared and useless. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Is past. No-one knows this.’
‘Silas?’
‘No. Silas is my Banyak. I keep him from bad, not leave him with it. No. I only tell this to you, Geroy.’
Archer should have been honoured, but instead, he was devastated.
‘What can I do to help?’ he asked, moving to be ready to offer a shoulder to cry on.
That, of course, was the last think Fecker wanted. ‘You give me family,’ he said. ‘Is enough.’
‘Family?’ Now it was Archer’s turn to scoff. ‘But I am your master, you only work for me. You said so.’
‘Is true,’ Fecker agreed, raising his head above the rocks to scan the wider view. ‘Maybe one day I give you what you want. One day, maybe I am your friend.’
‘I have told you, you already are. I respect you, Mr Kolisnychenko.’
‘When I meet you, you hear my name once and remember it. All of it. Makes me proud. Only man with respect can do that in foreign tongue. You treat me good. You give me your horses, you love my Banyak, and I pay you in way I know. I stay. Is how it should be. But there is no trust.’
‘Look, Andrej,’ Archer said, daring to put a gloved hand on Fecker’s arm. ‘I will ignore that accusation, because I do trust you, and I will add to that if I can do anything… If you need to talk about what you h
ave told me… Anything. Yes?’
‘Da.’ Fecker nodded once. ‘As you want.’
‘It must have been terrible. What happened to this man?’
‘I walk to Italian, it take all winter.’ Fecker didn’t want to dwell on the subject, and Archer knew not to press him. He withdrew his hand. ‘Is how I learn to stay warm, eat from land and creep on birds, or fox or deer. I live, I walk, I am year older. The rest is… is simple.’
Fecker was back at the telescope this time training it on the headland to the east. There was nothing out there but blackness occasionally brightened by the moon when the scudding clouds allowed.
‘Simple?’ Archer prompted. So far, nothing in the man’s life had been simple.
‘I come to Genoa, and I stay months. Is where I learn to give men my cock. Is only way to eat.’ Pausing, he huffed a resigned sigh. ‘No, I don’t do it to eat. I do it because of circus man. Every man I fuck hard is him. I have revenge.’
Archer calculated that, at this time, Fecker would have been fifteen.
‘Is Autumn,’ Fecker continued. ‘I have enough. I make money, and I try to buy onto ship, but they don’t take Russian.’ He sneered. ‘No-one take me, so I hide on ship I know is going. I don’t know where it goes, but is away. Only one sailor, he know. He want cock, so we trade, and I live. He keep me fed on journey, and I fuck him gentle not revenge. When I step on land, it is Limedock. Next year, I meet Banyak. I am working in alley, he pisses on man about to rob me. Banyak and I friends. Then life is simple.’
Archer didn’t know what to say apart from, ‘If I had asked you to tell me this earlier, would you have done so?’
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