Things were not quite so romantic and heavenly when we awoke. Besides being extremely cold, we were particularly messy and stuck together, and things were fairly unpleasant for a while. But when Aleksey had dressed he just shrugged and handed me the cold bacon, and we ate it all, disheveled, starving, and then very, very pleased with ourselves. Seeing him there, wolfing the food, I would have taken him again, I confess, but just as I put my hand upon his leg to indicate that he had wasted his time dressing, Faelan rose from his place on the other side of the now dead fire and growled. If you have never heard a wolf growl, then you will miss the import of that sound, but it was extremely unnerving, despite the dawn’s light. His hackles had risen, and he was lowering his muzzle with a ferocious snarl when a shot rang out from the tree line.
Faelan staggered.
Aleksey howled and threw himself across the cold embers toward his friend, and I rose to stand between them and the trees. I saw movement and ran, my knife in my hand as if magicked there. I hurdled a low bush and flung myself upon the figure attempting to flee.
He swung a musket stock—why had it not occurred to me that he would have a gun?—and it thudded into my head, just where Xavier had kicked me a few days earlier. I felt my scalp split once more and then a warm wash upon my face. We wrestled, and I managed to wrench the weapon from him. He sprang to his feet—he had preternatural strength for a man who had survived without food for days in these cold temperatures—and snarled at me. I rose carefully into a crouch, my knife held ready but trying not to be too menacing. I wanted him to talk, not run or for me to have to kill him. I glanced behind me for one moment to try and see Aleksey and Faelan, and I think that when I did, the rising sun crested the tops of the trees around our tiny clearing at the same time. For as I turned back to the madman in this increased light, he let out a fearful howl, pointing at my face, tearing his hands over his own, and then he began to rant. It was meaningless: words about faces and the beast who had come from the water. But I caught his meaning nonetheless: they were all dead. The beast had consumed them all.
I tried to approach him, but he screamed again, his eyes wide at the sight of me. I had turned one more time to try and see what Aleksey was doing when I heard the rustle behind me. I spun back, but the man was quicker. He had run upon my knife. It took him in the belly, and its steel promise did not let me down, although I would in this instance not have wanted it so sharp. It gutted him. As he collapsed upon the cold ground, I knew he would not survive this wounding. I had not only pierced his skin but the bowels within.
Something happened to the man then that I cannot explain. I have seen it before with people, old, witless from that great confusion that can take people in their dotage, and I had not understood it then either. He calmed and became quite rational. It was as if at the end of his life, the tangled paths that had brought him there fell away and left him free of their confusion. He did not seem to be in pain either, for which I was grateful. He was only a young man, little more than a boy. What was left of his clothing showed him to be a colonist, not a soldier. He was staring at the weak winter sun when he said quite calmly, “He took us all.”
“Can you tell me what has happened? Who took you? Is anyone still alive?”
“He came from the water, and he carried the devil upon his back.”
“Who came?”
He turned his face to me. “The beast.” He coughed, which was not good, because his intestines, which I had been pressing back into his belly, swelled out and spilled between my fingers, uncoiling and steaming in the cold air.
“Aleksey!” But there was no reply. Dammit. I pressed harder, trying to keep the man’s life inside along with his belly. “Did anyone else survive?”
“They became as devils themselves and took communion upon the flesh of their fathers.”
“Hush. You are safe now.”
“Did you not see them?” His eyes rested upon the tree line across our clearing, and I confess the hair on the back of my neck rose as I followed his gaze. I could see nothing. “He wears their faces now, but you can still see the devil beneath.”
“Listen to me! The others! Are they—”
“All gone. They have all gone over—ah.” He shuddered, his eyes rolled up, and he died. I cursed and ran back into the clearing, skidding to a halt at the sight that greeted me.
Aleksey was sitting by Faelan’s body. I could see that the wolf was dead. I sank down alongside them, pulling the old boy’s head onto my lap. Aleksey was as calm as he had been alongside his own father’s crushed and bloodied body. He looked at me from a very long way away. “I should have taken him home when you suggested it. I have killed him.”
In my experience people who want to feel guilty will, despite what you say to try and talk them out of their remorse. Aleksey was not a child; he could see cause and effect as clearly as I. I nodded. “We have both done so, for I did not persuade you enough. I wanted you here with me too much.”
He nodded, and I could tell I had helped a little, taken half his self-recrimination, and therefore, half his burden. I hesitated but then ventured, “Aleksey….” When he was listening, I continued softly, “He was old. You know this. He had begun to fail and not be what he once was. He might have gone on through the winter, his limbs becoming too stiff for him to hunt his own food, his hearing and sight failing along with his body. I would not have wanted that for him and neither would you. But now? Now he died still himself in the very moment he lived for—protecting you. Do you remember that snarl?” I managed a smile, and he did too. “That drip of saliva?”
“He would have ripped that man apart if he had not been….”
“Exactly. Which is what he would have chosen for himself and how we will always remember him, do you not think?”
Aleksey put his hand wonderingly to my cheek. “You are crying and bleeding equally.”
I tried to wipe my face, but I could tell from his expression I had not improved matters. We sat together for a long time with Faelan between us. Finally Aleksey nodded, then blew out a long breath. “What are we going to do?”
I knew what he meant. Neither of us wanted to leave him, but we could hardly take him either. Besides, this was our guilt, our grief, and we did not want to share it. We had little enough hope for a family, given what we were, so what we did have we treasured all the more.
“He will lie happy here, Aleksey. He came from the forest, and he will return to it.” We turned him so he could see the sun and feel it one last time upon his old pelt, and then we rose to leave. I heaved the dead man up onto Freedom’s back, and we mounted and rode out of the clearing.
It seems to me that life is very hard work sometimes, and the temptation to lie down and just rest from it for a while can be very difficult to resist.
We did not fully know what we had enjoyed until we lost it. I found myself looking around, wondering where he had got to, what menace he was causing in the dark forest beside us. And every time I thought so, the pain of his loss came over me again. Aleksey finally pulled the horses to a halt and said in a quiet voice, “We are approaching the camp. I would have us… pass muster, Colonel.”
I nodded. Fortunately, the blood congealed on my face hid my more extreme emotions, and thus we rode, outwardly calm, into a scene of such horror that our private grief was forgotten for some time.
Chapter Nine
TWO MEN were hanging upon the limb of a tree, feet dangling just out of reach of the old cart. They were still kicking, their faces contorted in agonies of disbelief. They saw us approach, something like hope spread upon their features, but it was too late. We could do nothing as they died but listen to frantic babble and screaming and confusion, and fight off the attempts to stop us cutting them down. They were dead as we hacked them free and laid them upon the cold earth.
Finally all was made clear.
It was the two soldiers we had relieved from their vigil the evening before. We had not immediately recognized them because they had been s
tripped, beaten, and hanged naked.
When calm had been restored somewhat, Major Parkinson took us aside with his two officers, sword drawn as if he were willing to fight off any attempt to stop him explaining this incredible event.
He looked down at his boots for a moment. “Well, this is a rum business, if ever I saw one.”
“Major Parkinson, be brief.”
“Yes, of course. Sorry. Shakes a man up a bit.” He looked up, pursing his lips. “Never thought the damn scoundrels had it in them. Seemed decent sorts of chaps. Dreadful.”
“Sir, the events, and swiftly please.”
“Caught ’em doing the deed, so to speak. Doing poor Mrs. Wright.”
A trickle of icy fear wound its unwelcome way down my spine. I was not in my strongest frame of mind, given what had occurred so recently, and this hit me harder than it ought. I glanced over at Aleksey and could see a look of slowly dawning comprehension on his face too.
“I must have dozed off. Thought you young chaps were all out with your fires and whatnot, forty winks, keeps the mind and body fresh. Then next thing I knew, I saw those two rotten buggers returning. Dammit, I should have known. Took their report and saw them make off toward their tent. I went back to mine. Thought nothing more about it. Next thing I knew, I heard screaming. Dreadful bloody noise. Climbed out, and there was the poor reverend returned to find his wife… dammit, his wife dammit… pinned down under those two….”
I actually heard Aleksey groan a little, and he caught my arm. I ignored the pain of my burn; it helped me stay focused.
“What did she say had happened, sir? What was her story?”
“Bloody obvious really. Said they’d set upon her, taken their turns, all bloody night… dear God, if I had stayed awake, I’d have—”
“And what did they say? What was their version of the event?”
“Well you might ask, sir. That’s what did it for us, really—damn cowards said she’d invited them to—well, suffice to say—the one thing can perhaps be excused a man… temptations of the flesh and all that… but lying like a Frenchie? That I can’t abide.”
“And you believed her and not them?”
He took a small step back, but it was Captain Rochester who replied. “Do you impugn the lady’s honor, sir, and therefore our administration of the correct punishment for such offence? I would be careful what you say, as she had a witness to her ordeal.”
I was surprised but very pleased at the same time. I felt a little guilty, then, for immediately assuming she had tried the same thing with the soldiers as she had with me. This time she was the one with the witness. I glanced over at Aleksey, but his face was even more pale, and his eyes wide with horror. He croaked, “The child?”
I almost doubled over. I felt his hand tighten upon my arm for support. I repeated his question. “The child? Her son was her witness?”
The major nodded. He looked a little sick but for different reasons than we were, I wager. “Witnessed the whole damn thing. In the cart, you see. If it hadn’t been for that bloody brace thing upon his leg, I dare say he’d have up and run off—wouldn’t blame the little chap if he did—but he had to lie there all night… watching. Hung the buggers as much for that as for the poor lady, truth be told.”
I had spurned her advances. I had put him in that leg brace. I had forced him to lie in the cart. They had taken their very effective revenge on me now.
I looked at the bodies of the two young men, now covered by a tent canvas. I had killed them as surely as if I had strung them up myself. Aleksey put himself between me and the officers, nudging me away. When I refused to move, he became more forceful and insisted, “Doctor, I need to speak with you—now!”
I went mutely until we were a little way out of earshot. “Niko—Nikolai—listen to me!” I turned and blinked at him. “This was not your fault. Do you hear me?”
I nodded, turning back to stare at the ropes still hanging from the tree.
He grunted in fury and took my arms, leaning in closer. “Did I kill Faelan?”
“What?”
“Tell me, did I kill him? By not taking him back when you wanted me to?”
“No, of course not.” I was so confused by this turn of his mind that I could not comprehend his meaning. “Events work themselves as they will, Aleksey. All we can do as men is the best thing we can at the time with the right intentions. I wanted you to stay with me, or I would have forced the issue more. Faelan would not have chosen to be taken home like an old person too feeble to be where he wanted and doing what he most desired to do. I was wrong to suggest it. His death had nothing to do with you!”
“Well, the deaths of those men had nothing to do with you either! We did not tell of her nature to anyone for the best of motives. I sent the soldiers back to camp, Niko. Me! I did not mean for this to happen! And whatever she did, they did apparently take up her offer—the young bride of a man of God they knew and had traveled with for some days. So you must apply the same logic to your situation as you say I must to Faelan’s.” He shook me again. “Is this not so?”
I nodded, my head hung low. “I am in charge of an expedition that has lost four men, Aleksey—one third of its number.”
“Ack, since when did you actually take charge? You’ve been playing with it, Niko, to spare Major Parkinson’s feelings. Do not think I have not noticed. You boss me around more in five minutes than you have told him what to do once.”
I leaned against him for a moment—one soldier to another and nothing anyone could suspect. Then we pulled apart. I gave him a considered look. “Are you all right?”
He nodded. “I loved him. He is gone. I do not see that there is much more to say. The rest stays in my heart. What are we going to do about this horrible situation now?”
WE DID what we should have done in the first place: we disabused the officers of their opinion of Mary Wright’s virtue. Clearly this was not an easy thing to do. No man likes to impugn a virtuous young woman or hear of one being so denounced, and I suspected they would not like it either. I did not need to nominate Aleksey to be the bearer of such news—he volunteered. Swift to assess the various personalities of the other men, he picked Rochester to approach. Win him over and the others would follow.
“Sir. A word.”
The captain was attempting to release the swaying ropes from the tree branch and naturally was not in the mood for conversation. Aleksey waited politely for him to complete his task and then laid a hand upon his arm.
I never appreciated other men admiring Aleksey, viewing such approaches as a starving man might a hand moving toward his plate of food, but in this case, I was glad the officer was smitten. He acquiesced to being pulled a little away from our companions where we could speak privately.
“Mrs. Wright approached me a few nights ago and offered herself to me in a wanton and brazen manner.” I was almost too astonished by this blatant lie to hear the rest of Aleksey’s speech, but just as suddenly it occurred to me that in all particulars it was not a lie, and that in the urgency of the moment, Aleksey had sacrificed his own sense of honor, his absolute adherence to the truth, in favor of expediency. If I had told the tale of spurning Mary Wright’s advances, my lack of familiarity with this man would have slowed his acceptance of the story. Aleksey’s word was unimpeachable. I loved him all the more for this sacrifice. “When I rebuffed her, she attempted to claim to my colleague, Doctor Hartmann, who came across us, that I had approached her in a lewd and ungodly manner. Doctor, is this not so?” I nodded. It was all I could do. Fluency of tongue such as Aleksey had just displayed was beyond me.
The captain eyed us both for a moment. “Why the devil would she do such a thing? If what you say is true, then—” Poor man. It had clearly just occurred to him that he had hung two innocent men.
Aleksey nodded sadly, as if the failings of a mere woman were a mystery to him. This seemed to accord with the officer’s view and knowledge of the species, and we all stood for a moment, heads bowed,
contemplating the weaker sex. As it seemed an appropriate moment to do so, I murmured, “She did not come to the Colonies aboard the recent resupply ship, sir. She lied about her history in this too. I have seen the marks of a severe lashing upon her back, indication perhaps of a practiced deceiver.” I hoped he took the slight comfort I offered—that it had probably been beyond his power to see through the tangle of lies she had spun, and that thus his part in this horrible affair was somewhat mitigated.
He did seem to relax fractionally. “I must inform Major Parkinson. I am at a loss how we should proceed. Should we accuse her of falseness? Of, as you say, lewd and unwomanly behavior? We are not in authority over her, and yet—”
Aleksey replaced his hand upon the man’s uniform sleeve. “I told you only to make you vigilant, sir. There is the matter of the child—his role in this as her witness.”
“Good God, yes. He confirmed all his mother had said, and using such words as I did not think it seemly for her to hear despite her being the—”
“Our wolf did not attack the child, John. The boy attempted to blind the doctor’s horse. I do not think he is quite of sound mind. Of normal mind, anyhow.”
Rochester paled, beyond the normal coloring of a man in the cold with inadequate clothing. “It would have been better had you told us this earlier, Your Highness. Forgive my blunt speech.”
Aleksey nodded, the pain this obvious statement gave him etched upon his features.
Rochester relented and patted the hand upon his arm. “Only a fool harps upon what cannot be changed and ignores what needs to be done. Come, I will tell the major what has transpired here, and we must then hold counsel.”
The three officers stood in a huddle in the cold, their breath mingling as their words came softly. We listened to the discussion from a little way away, conscious of the shapes beneath the canvas at our feet. The poor soldiers appeared as if they joined in the debate. If they did, their evidence apparently swayed the major.
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