Текст книги "The Scottish Prisoner"

THE COURT-MARTIAL OF MAJOR GERALD SIVERLY (DECEASED) was well attended. Everyone from the Duke of Cumberland (who had tried to appoint himself to the board of judges, but been prevented by Hal) to the lowest Fleet Street hack crowded into the Guildhall, this being the largest venue available.

Lord John Grey, pale and limping but steady of eye and voice, testified before the board, this consisting of five officers drawn from various regiments—none of them Siverly’s—and the Judge Advocate, that he had received the papers now presented to the board from Captain Charles Carruthers in Canada, where Carruthers had served under Major Siverly and been witness to the actions described herein, and that he, Grey, had heard such further testimony from Carruthers in person as inclined him to believe the documentary evidence as it stood.

Courts-martial had no set procedure, no dock, no Bible, no barristers, no rules of evidence. Anyone who wished to do so might testify or ask questions, and a number of people did so—including the Duke of Cumberland, who thrust his bulk forward before Grey could sit down and came straight up to him, glowering directly into his face from a distance of six inches.

“Is it not true, my lord,” Cumberland asked, with heavy sarcasm, “that Major Siverly saved your life at the siege of Quebec?”

“It is, Your Grace.”

“And have you no shame at thus betraying your debt to a brother-in-arms?”

“No, I haven’t,” Grey replied calmly, though his heart was thumping erratically. “Major Siverly’s behavior on the field of battle was honorable and valorous—but he would have done the same for any soldier, as would I. For me to withhold evidence of his corruption and his peculations off that field would be a betrayal of the entire army in which I have the honor to serve and a betrayal of all those comrades with whom I have fought through the years.”

“Hear him! Hear him!” shouted a voice from the back of the hall, which he rather thought was Harry Quarry’s. A general rumbling of approval filled the hall, and Cumberland receded, still glaring.

The testimony went on all day, with various officers of Siverly’s regiment coming to offer their own witness, some speaking well of the dead man’s character, but others—many others—recounting incidents that supported Carruthers’s account. Regimental loyalty counted for a great deal, Grey thought—but regimental honor counted for more, and the thought pleased him.

For Grey, the day gradually blurred into a confusion of faces, voices, uniforms, hard chairs, shouts echoing from the huge beams of the ceiling, the occasional shoving match broken up by the sergeant-at-arms … and, at the end of it, he found himself in the street outside, momentarily apart from the tumultuous crowd that had spilled out of the Guildhall.

Hal, who had been the most senior officer on the court, was across the street, talking intently to the Judge Advocate, who was nodding. It was late afternoon, and the chimneys of London were all belching forth as the fires were built up for evening. Grey took a grateful lungful of the smoky air, fresh by comparison with the close atmosphere inside the Guildhall, which was composed in equal parts of sweat, trampled food, tobacco, and the smell of rage—and fear. He’d been aware of that, the tiny thrilling of the nerves among the crowd, the faces that quietly vanished as the testimony mounted.

Hal had been careful to avoid any mention of the Irish Brigades, the Wild Hunt, or the plan to seize the king; there were too many plotters as yet unaccounted for, and no need to alarm the public a priori. He had brought up Edward Twelvetrees, though, and his role as Siverly’s confidant and co-conspirator—and Grey shivered suddenly, recalling the look on Reginald Twelvetrees’s face, the old colonel sitting like a stone near the front of the room, burning eyes fixed on Hal without blinking as the damning words came out, one after another in an overwhelming flood.

Reginald Twelvetrees hadn’t said a word, though. What, after all, could he say? He’d left just before the final verdict—guilty, of course, on all charges.

Grey supposed he should feel victorious, or at least vindicated. He’d kept his promise to Charlie, found the truth—a good deal more of it than he’d expected or wanted—and, he supposed, achieved justice.

If you could call it that, he thought dimly, seeing three or four Fleet Street scribblers elbowing one another in an effort to talk to young Eldon Garlock, the ensign who had been the youngest member of the court and thus first to give his verdict.

God knew what they’d write. He only hoped none of it would be about him; he’d experienced the attentions of the press before, though in an entirely favorable way. Having seen the favors of the printers at close range, he could only hope that God would have mercy on those they didn’t like.

He had walked away from the crowd, but with no real direction in mind, only wanting to put distance between himself and this day. Absorbed in his thoughts—at least Jamie Fraser had not been required to testify; that was something—he failed for some time to realize that he was accompanied. Some faint sense of arrhythmia disturbed him, though, an echo of his own footsteps, and at last he glanced aside to see what might be causing it.

He stopped dead, and Hubert Bowles, who had been walking a half step behind him, came up even and stopped, bowing.

“My lord,” he said politely. “How do you do?”

“Not that well,” he said. “I must ask you to excuse me, Mr. Bowles.” He turned to go on, but Bowles stopped him with a hand on his arm. Affronted by the familiarity, Grey jerked back.

“I must ask your forbearance, my lord,” Bowles said, with a faint lisp that made it almost “forbearanth.” He spoke mildly but with an authority that stopped Grey’s making any protest. “I have something to say that you must hear.”

Hubert Bowles was small and shapeless, with a round head and rounded back, and with his shabby wig and worn coat, no one would have looked at him twice. Even his face was bland as a boiled pudding, with little black-currant eyes put in. Nonetheless, Grey slowly inclined his head in unwilling acknowledgment.

“Shall we take coffee?” he said, nodding toward a nearby coffeehouse. He wasn’t about to invite something like Bowles into any of the clubs where he had membership. He had no notion of the man’s antecedents, but his presence made Grey want to wash.

Bowles shook his head. “I think it better if we merely walk,” he said, suiting his actions to his words and compelling Grey by a touch on the elbow.

“I am most annoyed with you, my lord,” he said in a conversational tone, as they made their way slowly into Gresham Street.

“Are you,” Grey said shortly. “I am concerned to hear it.”

“You should be. You have killed one of my most valued agents.”

“One of—what?”

He stopped, staring down at Bowles, but was urged on by the other’s gesture.

“Edward Twelvetrees hath been for some years involved in the suppression of Jacobite plots.” A shadow of annoyance crossed Bowles’s face at his lisp’s struggle with the word “suppression,” but Grey was too disturbed at Bowles’s statement to take much pleasure in it.

“What, you mean that he has been working for you?” He didn’t even try to stop it sounding rude, but Bowles didn’t react to his tone.

“I mean precisely that, my lord. He had spent a great deal of time and effort in insinuating himself with Major Siverly, once we had determined that Siverly was a person of interest in that regard. His father had been one of the Wild Geese who flew from Limerick, did you know?”

“Yes,” Grey said. His lips felt stiff. “I did.”

“It is a great inconvenience,” Bowles said reprovingly, “when gentlemen will be conducting their own investigations, rather than leaving such things to those whose profession it is.”

“So sorry to inconvenience you,” Grey said, beginning to grow angry. “Do you mean to tell me that Edward Twelvetrees was nota traitor?”

“Quite the reverse, my lord. He served his country in the noblest fashion, working in secrecy and in danger to defeat her enemies.” For once, there was a note of warmth in that colorless voice, and, glancing down at his unwelcome companion, Grey realized that Bowles was himself angry—very angry.

“Why the devil did he not say something to me privately?”

“Why should he have trusted you, my lord?” Bowles riposted smartly. “You come from a family whose own background bears the shadow of treason—”

“It does not!”

“Perhaps not in fact but in perception,” Bowles agreed with a nod. “You did well in rooting out Bernard Adams and his fellow plotters, but even the clearing of your father’s name will not erase the stain—only time will do that. Time, and the actions of yourself and your brother.”

“What do you bloody mean by that, damn you?”

Bowles lifted one sloping shoulder but forbore to reply directly.

“And to speak of his activities to anyone—anyone at all, my lord—was for Edward Twelvetrees to risk the destruction of all his—all our—work. True, Major Siverly was dead, but—”

“Wait. If what you tell me is true, why did Edward Twelvetrees kill Siverly?”

“Oh, he didn’t,” Bowles said, as though this was a matter of no importance.

“What? Who did, then? I assure you, it wasn’t me!”

Bowles actually laughed at that, a small creaking noise that made his hunched back hunch further.

“Of course not, my lord. Edward told me that it was an Irishman—a thin man with curly hair—who struck down Gerald Siverly. He heard raised voices and, upon coming to see the cause, overheard an Irish voice in a passion, denouncing Major Siverly, saying that he knew Siverly had stolen the money.

“In any case, there was an argument, then the sounds of a scuffle. Twelvetrees did not wish to reveal himself but advanced cautiously toward the folly, whereupon he saw a man leap over the railing, spattered with blood, and rush into the wood. He pursued the man but failed to stop him. He saw you run past shortly thereafter and thus hid in the wood until you had passed, then left quietly in the other direction.

“He hadn’t seen the Irish gentleman before, though, and was unable to find anyone in the area who knew him. Under the circumstances, he was reluctant to make too many inquiries.” He looked up at Grey, mildly inquiring. “I do not suppose you know who he was?”

“His name is Tobias Quinn,” Grey said shortly. “And if I were forced to ascribe a motive to him, I imagine it would be that he was a fervid Jacobite himself, and he thought that Siverly proposed to abscond with the money he had collected on behalf of the Stuarts.”

“Ah,” said Bowles, pleased. “Just so. You see, my lord, that is what I meant about you and your brother. You are in a position to acquire many useful bits of information.

“Captain Twelvetrees had in fact informed me that he thought Siverly was about to abscond with the funds to Sweden; we intended to allow this, as it would have crippled the Irish plan beyond repair. I cannot say how the Irish Jacobites learned of it, but plainly they did.”

There was a brief pause, during which Bowles withdrew a clean handkerchief from his pocket—a silk one with lace edging, Grey saw—and blew his nose daintily.

“Do you know Mr. Quinn’s present whereabouts, my lord? Or if not, might you make discreet inquiries amongst your Irish acquaintances?”

Grey rounded on him, furious.

“You are inviting me to spy for you, sir?”

“Certainly.” Bowles didn’t seem discomposed by Grey’s clenched fists. “But returning to the subject of Edward Twelvetrees—you must forgive me for seeming to harp upon it, but he really was a most valuable man—he could not say anything regarding his activities, even in private, for fear of those activities being revealed before our plans were complete.”

Realization was beginning to push its way through the veil of shock and anger, and Grey felt ill, an unhealthy sweat breaking out on his face.

“What … plans?”

“Why, the arrest of the Irish Brigade officers involved in the conspiracy. You know about that, I believe?”

“Yes, I do. How do you know about it?”

“Edward Twelvetrees. He brought me the outline of the plan but hadn’t yet collected a full list of those involved. ‘The Wild Hunt,’ they called themselves—most poetic, but what can you expect from the Irish? Edward’s untimely death”—a small note of irony was detectable in Mr. Bowles’s voice—“kept us from knowing the names of all the men involved. And while your brother’s worthy attempt to arrest the conspirators succeeded in bagging some of the prey, it alarmed others, who have either fled the country to cause trouble elsewhere or who have merely sunk into hiding.”

Grey opened his mouth, but could find nothing to say. The wound in his chest throbbed hotly with his heartbeat, but what was worse, what burned across his mind, was his memory of Reginald Twelvetrees’s face, set like granite, witnessing the destruction of his brother’s name.

“I thought you ought to know,” Bowles said, almost kindly. “Good day, my lord.”

HE’D ONCE SEEN Minnie’s cook take a sharpened spoon and cut the flesh of a melon out in little balls. He felt as though each of Bowles’s words had been a jab of that spoon, slicing out neat chunks of his heart and bowels, one at a time, scraping him to the rind.