"Dismount," Vincent called out.
Most of the men followed the order with quiet efficiency. Vincent sensed that none of them were exactly happy about taking orders from him. They did it anyhow, and that was all that really mattered to Vincent. He hadn't signed on because he'd wanted to make friends.
Byrne's feet didn't hit the ground at the same time as the other men's. Instead, he squeezed and released his knees and raised and lowered his wrists in a rapid succession of movements. His horse danced, chuffing out what sounded a little like a laugh.
"A neat trick, aye?" Byrne said to Colley, as he finally dismounted. "Dancing and laughing like a true Irishman, he is."
Vincent's face heated. Damned fool. Ellis wouldn't stand for shit like that.
A split second later, he remembered—Ellis wasn't there.
"Byrne," Vincent barked.
None of the other men looked at Vincent. They had their eyes forward, as they were supposed to. But Vincent felt them hanging on every word.
Byrne turned one of his lackadaisical grins on Vincent. "Yer majesty?"
Kellen, Vincent abruptly thought. She'd been friends with this jackass.
And then he saw. The sharp edge on Byrne's grin, the brittle cheer in Byrne's voice, the belligerent gleam in Byrne's eyes.
Byrne hated Vincent.
Vincent smiled. The blood in his face receded, and he felt cooler and calmer than he had all morning. He gave his horse rein and nudged it forward, until he sat in his saddle and looked directly down at Byrne.
"The next time I order a dismount," Vincent said, "you will fucking well dismount. If you don't, you will be sentenced to hang by your thumbs."
Behind Vincent, someone—maybe more than one someone—made a startled sound. Vincent ignored it and stared down at Byrne.
Byrne wanted to smart mouth back at Vincent. Vincent watched the lanky Irishman struggle with the impulse.
"Yes, sir," Byrne finally said. There was not a single measure of respect, not in his face or in his tone. But he'd spoken the words.
I win.
Vincent wheeled his bay and took up his position before the line. "Dismissed," he said.
The other men led their horses away—most of them. As Vincent dismounted and gathered the bay's reins close to its mouth, Jennett stopped alongside him.
"Didn't take you long, did it?" Jennett said. "Set yourself up all sweet to be better than the rest of us."
Jennett's ice blue eyes were even icier than usual. Vincent just stared him down.
Kalvis, passing behind Jennett, shook his head. "We are all still fighting on the same side. We would do well to remember that."
"Don't know that I want to be on the same side as a man who'd climb over the bodies of his friends just to get ahead," Jennett said. "I didn't know you were that kind of man, Bradley."
I have never been your friend, Vincent thought. Friends are for fools.
Kalvis didn't remark further. He led his horse past Jennett and kept going.
To Vincent's other side, someone laughed, sharp and short. Vincent turned his head to find Byrne still standing there, Colley a step beyond him.
"Ought to be asking Kellen Ward about what kind of man this one is. Aye, Bradley? The kind of man who up and leaves his woman to fend for herself."
Rage abruptly boiled up in Vincent's chest. His ears rang.
"Kellen is none of your fucking business." Vincent took a step closer to Byrne and leaned into his face. "She is my business and no one else's, and I take care of her just fine. What about you, Paddy boy? You ever do anything for her, other than sniffing around and wishing she was dumb enough to choose you over me?"
Every trace of a grin, belligerent or otherwise, fled from Byrne's face. He took a step back from Vincent.
"It was never like that," Byrne's lilt had gone flat. "Not at all. Kellen is my friend. You can care about someone without feeling the need to stick yer prick in her."
"Was your friend," Vincent said. "I send my pay home to make sure she's taken care of. What have you done for her?"
Byrne didn't answer. He stared at Vincent for another second, and then he turned and led his horse toward the stable.
Colley stayed where he was for a moment longer. He didn't look particularly angry or upset, and he didn't say anything. He gazed at Vincent with the same smooth expression he wore when reading a paper or firing a .36 or pretty much any other damned thing.
"Problem?" Vincent asked.
Colley still didn't say anything. He turned and followed Byrne.
"Aw yeah, that's priceless, Bradley." Jennett's voice dripped sarcasm.
Vincent turned and stared down Jennett, just like he had Byrne and Colley.
"Lieutenant Bradley," he said.
Jennett snorted. He leaned a little toward Vincent.
"Bradley," he said. Then he led his horse off toward the stable, too, and Vincent was left alone on the drill field.
~
Things got a little tense after that, what with Vincent still eating and sleeping in the barracks with the other men. In the mornings and evenings, he called muster and drilled them. Some days, Ellis came down and watched for a few minutes, a silent shadow under the trees. Vincent pushed the men extra hard, those times, barked his commands and watched them respond with growing snap and sharpness. He took great pleasure in telling all those jackasses what to do and watching them have to do it—without objection, without complaint.
During the rest of the day, the other men carried on with the same chores as usual. Once in a while, Vincent worked alongside them. The only difference was in the way they looked at him now.
Many days, Ellis called Vincent up to the house and put him on watch outside James's study. What the hell Vincent was supposed to be guarding, standing with his back to the wall outside a closed door, he didn't have a single damned idea. He'd asked Ellis—asking Ellis smart, carefully considered questions was a sure way to gain his approval, it seemed.
Ellis had just offered one of his faintly-amused smiles.
"You're not guarding at all," he'd replied. "You're watching."
Eventually, of course, Vincent had found out what Ellis meant.
The door was closed, like it always was. However much James might have softened toward Vincent that first day, when Vincent had been appropriately impressed with the Crow, it hadn't lasted. Vincent stood with his back to the wall, heels against the baseboard and hands folded behind his back, listening to the murmur of James's and Annie's voices.
Suddenly, Annie cried out. James's voice rose over the top of hers, calling her name.
At first, Vincent didn't do anything. He was too startled.
Annie cried out again. Vincent spun around, fumbled with the doorknob, and shoved through the door.
Annie stood at the table on the far side of the study, cradling her right hand against her stomach. James closed in on her, reaching out with both his hands.
"It's not so bad," Annie said. "The turn-screw slipped, is all."
A single, rust-colored smudge marred the eggshell blue of Annie's dress, but that was all. Tension slipped from Vincent's shoulders.
"We'll have to wash it out just the same," James said. "There are dust and shavings all over the table. We can't risk the cut being contaminated."
Vincent took another step into the room before stopping.
James glanced up with a frown."Your assistance is not required. Please shut the door behind you on your way out."
Vincent hesitated. Before he could decide what to do, he heard other footsteps behind him.
"All is under control, I trust?" Ellis asked.
James didn't even glance toward Ellis, but the temperature of his voice dropped considerably.
"Of course," James replied. "Nothing for you to be concerned with."
James took Annie's hand into his and turned it toward the window. The steady stream of daylight illuminated a scarlet gash in the side of Annie's hand, bright against her pale skin.
&n
bsp; "Here, we'll just—"
"Father."
Annie's voice had dropped to a whisper. She wasn't looking down at her injured hand anymore. Instead, she stared past James.
James looked up at Annie and then over his shoulder. Vincent followed their gazes.
The Crow's eyes glowed silver, as they had the first time Vincent saw it. He didn't think, though, that the mechanical bird's eyes had gleamed quite so brightly. Its raven-dark metal wings, in their extended position, stretched so widely that they covered nearly the entire table length, wingtip to wingtip.
The wings lifted, tilted, and dropped, as though the bird merely tested the wind before taking off. With every human voice in the room fallen silent, a hesitant whir-clack-whir-clack marked the Crow's every move.
Movement. No one touched it. No one even stood near it. But the Crow moved.
James let go of Annie's hand and turned away from her, instead circling closer to the Crow. He walked nearly on tiptoe, as though hoping to creep up on the creature.
"I don't understand," James murmured.
"It's me," Annie whispered. "Watch. Watch its wings."
The Crow's wings lifted. Tilted.
And stopped. Annie stared at the Crow.
Vincent was struck by an unnerving certainty that it stared back at her.
"Close." Annie's voice was little more than a breath.
Whir. Clack. The wingtips drew closer to the body—a tiny movement. Whir. Another hairs-breadth motion. Clack. A little more.
Vincent struggled to catch his breath. His pulse suddenly felt too strong and too high—it rang in his ears. He swore he smelled sweet-hot blood.
But it was just a little cut, and Annie was all the way across the room.
James abruptly whirled away from the Crow, like a man yanking himself free of a captor's grip. He grabbed Annie's hand in both of his and hauled her toward the door. She stumbled after him with halting steps, blinking like a waking dreamer.
"Wash it out," James said, towing Annie toward the door. "We have to wash it all out."
"The worktable," Annie stammered. She still blinked, but she looked more awake as she neared the door. "The tools. I bled on the turn-screw."
"Damn it all!" James stopped and glanced over his shoulder.
The Crow's eyes remained bright. Its wings whirred and clacked. Vincent swore the stink of blood grew stronger.
One little cut.
"Lieutenant Bradley." Ellis took hold of Annie's arm and gently tugged her away from her father's grasp. "Please escort Miss James to the kitchen. I'm certain Mrs. Epler will be happy to help clean the wound."
Normally, Annie would have surely flinched from Ellis's touch. She didn't seem to even notice him. James kept one hand on Annie's arm, though, and for a second, Vincent thought he wouldn't let her go.
"Mr. James and I will remain behind and clean up as needed here." Ellis was issuing an order, and Vincent knew it. He could see on James's face that he knew it, too.
James glanced guiltily between Annie and the worktable where she'd been working.
"Yes," James finally said. "Make sure you wash under the stream from the kitchen pump, Annie. Make sure every bit of those shavings are cleaned out. Every bit. Do you understand?"
James looked at Vincent.
"Every bit. Pour some whiskey on it for good measure."
"The shavings," Annie was murmuring, as Vincent got his hand under her elbow and steered her into the hall. "The tenebrium shavings. And the dust."
Annie's color got better almost as soon as they left the room. Vincent had a hundred questions, but right then didn't seem a good time for them.
Annie abruptly stopped and jerked, like she intended to turn and go back into her father's office. Vincent actually grabbed hold of her elbow then, and put his other hand onto her forearm.
"It's the tenebrium," Annie called back over her shoulder, and her voice was steadier. "Father. The tenebrium is the link."
"You can tell him later," Vincent said. "Come on."
"He won't listen, later," Annie snapped. "He'll be too busy being authoritative and correct by then."
She pulled her arm free from Vincent and marched into the back hall ahead of him. He trailed after her, out the back door and through the covered walkway between the house and the kitchen.
Mrs. Lockton and Mrs. Epler both were in the kitchen. Mrs. Lockton, half Mrs. Epler's height and a quarter her width, made ten times as much fuss over Annie. She squawked and flapped her hands and hovered as the larger Dutchwoman led Annie to the pump.
"Lord almighty, young lady. I don't suppose this convince you to stick to more ladylike doings? How many times I told you, you should be stitching and talking long walks in the gardens instead of playing at your father's work."
"I could as easily have skewered myself on a needle," Annie said, "and it would have been for nowhere near as grand a purpose."
Mrs. Lockton harrumphed. "Grand purposes. Fool white girl."
Mrs. Epler glanced up from working the pump. Her hair, the color of dingy brass, was pulled back into a severe bun. She cleared her throat.
Mrs. Lockton pulled herself up short and looked at Vincent.
"We probably got this from here," Mrs. Lockton said. "You can go on back down with the rest of your horse soldiers."
Vincent hesitated. "Mr. James wanted that cut washed out with whiskey."
Mrs. Lockton harrumphed again. "You men don't think we know how to clean a wound?"
"No ma'am," Vincent said.
Mrs. Lockton's eyes narrowed.
"I mean, yes ma'am," he amended. Watching Mrs. Lockton warily, Vincent added, "I was asked to look after Miss James. With respect, ma'am, that's what I'll do."
"I will be fine now." Annie had looked up from the stream of water she held her hand beneath. She almost smiled. "You can go now, Mr. Bradley."
Lieutenant, Vincent thought but didn't say. Instead, he nodded carefully to Annie and left.
He was halfway through the covered walkway back to the house when Mrs. Lockton popped her head out the door behind him.
"If you going to watch out for that girl, you keep watching out for her," Mrs. Lockton called after him. "You probably the only man in that house who is."
Chapter 24
The next day, Mr. James left the study door open as he and Annie worked and talked. Whether that meant James had come to trust Vincent or whether he'd simply not thought to close the door, Vincent wasn't sure. He was sure that he intended to listen to as much as James was willing to say for as long as he could. Ellis had told him to watch, after all.
"Tattoos," Annie said. The word rolled from side to side on her tongue as though she were testing its flavor. She hadn't suffered any apparent after-effects from her accident with the turn-screw the day before, and her speech was every bit as clipped and precise as ever.
"I have every reason to believe it will work," James said. "Powder-fine tenebrium in the ink, and the process itself draws the blood as needed."
"In a carefully-controlled procedure. Of course."
Vincent turned his head just enough to see into the room.
Mr. James and Annie had moved the Crow to the nearer table and opened a door on the back of its head. That door was smaller than the access hatch in the Crow's belly, the one for the ammo hopper that James had shown Vincent. From where he stood, Vincent couldn't see what was inside that hatch.
Annie lifted one hand, slow as a sleepwalker, and touched a finger to the Crow.
"I've had odd dreams," she said, as if in quiet response to some unspoken question. "About whispering voices, although I can't understand a thing they say. And thunder. Sometimes I hear thunder."
James stopped what he was doing and looked up at Annie. "But nothing else? No more unusual or serious symptoms?"
Annie shook her head. "No, Father."
James regarded her a moment longer. Then he snapped shut the small door on the back of the Crow's head. "I suppose I'll be moving ahead,
then."
"We," Annie said. Vincent noticed she watched James carefully as she spoke. Placing her hands against the table, she leaned toward him.
James paused in the act of securing the Crow's hatch and looked at Annie.
"You need me, Father," Annie said. "You know I have the best chance of making it work."
"You're only but a half blood," James replied.
"That's still more Indian in my blood than in yours." Annie spoke with the care of a parent reassuring a child.
"I didn't want you to have to be involved with that part of things," James said, but Vincent could tell he'd already given in.
"I'm not a child anymore, Father," Annie gently replied. "And you know that would be our best chance for success."
James looked away from Annie, snapped the Crow's hatch into place, and ran his hand down its back.
"The tattoos will need to cover a sizable surface area to be most effective, I think," he said.
Annie straightened, a satisfied smile on her face. She looked like she thought she'd won, but Vincent thought it seemed more like James had just changed the subject.
"But I've no idea what they should look like," James went on. "None of my research has suggested anything that seems appropriate. Perhaps it doesn't matter."
"Wings."
James looked up sharply, obviously surprised by the quickness of Annie's response. Annie's smile twitched into a puzzled expression, as well.
"Wings," she repeated. "That will work best. Like this."
Annie leaned over the table, pulled pen and well toward her, and reached for one of the many papers strewn across the table's surface.
Down the hall, a door clicked open and shut. Vincent faced forward again, as Ellis's steps approached.
If Ellis took note that Vincent had been peering into James's study, he gave no indication, good or bad. He breezed past Vincent as if Vincent weren't even there.
"Mr. James," Ellis said. "What news?"
"Some news," James replied. "Annie, please excuse us."
"But Father, we haven't—"
"Take your drawing to your room, if you wish, but Mr. Ellis and I need to have a word."
A Stillness of the Sun (Crowmakers: Book 1): A Science Fiction Western Adventure Page 17