Текст книги "Lord John and the Hand of Devils"

Автор книги: Diana Gabaldon

Соавторы: Diana Gabaldon,Diana Gabaldon
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Bearing in mind the gossip regarding Siegfried’s paternity, Grey nodded thoughtfully, motioning to her with one hand to go on.

She did. Koenig had gone away with the army, but then had come back, and had had the audacity to visit the Schloss, trying to rekindle the flame with Hanna. Afraid that he might succeed in seducing her sister again—“She is weak, Hanna,” she said with a shrug, “she willtrust men!”—she had gone to visit Koenig at night, planning to drug him with wine laced with opium, as she had done with the others.

“Only this time, a fatal dose, I suppose.” Grey had propped his elbow upon his crossed knee, hand under his chin. The tiredness had come back; it hovered near at hand, but was not yet clouding his mental processes.

“I meant it so, yes.” She uttered a short laugh. “But he knew the taste of opium. He threw it at me, and grabbed me by the throat.”

Whereupon she had drawn the dagger she always carried at her belt and stabbed at him—striking upward into his open mouth, and piercing his brain.

“You never saw so much blood in all your life,” the gypsy assured Grey, unconsciously echoing Herr Hьckel.

“Oh, I rather think I have,” Grey said politely. His hand went to his own waist—but, of course, he had left his dagger with Franz. “But pray go on. The marks, as of an animal’s fangs?”

“A nail,” she said, and shrugged.

“So, was it him—Koenig, I mean—was it him tried to snatch little Siggy?” Tom, deeply absorbed in the revelations, could not keep himself from blurting out the question. He coughed and tried to fade back into the woodwork, but Grey indicated that this was a question which he himself found of some interest.

“It can’t have been; Koenig was already dead. But I assume that it was you the boy saw in his chamber?” What did this witch look like?he had asked. Like a witch,the child replied. Did she? She did not look like Grey’s conception of a witch—but what was that, save the fabrication of a limited imagination?

She was tall for a woman, dark, and her face mingled an odd sexuality with a strongly forbidding aspect—a combination that many men would find intriguing. Grey thought it was not something that would have struck Siggy, but something else about her evidently had.

She nodded. She was fingering her ring, he saw, and watching him with calculation, as though deciding whether to tell him a lie.

“I have seen the dowager princess’s medal,” he said politely. “Is she an Austrian, by birth? I assume that you and your sister are.”

The woman stared at him, and said something in her own tongue, which sounded highly uncomplimentary.

“And you think Iam a witch!” she said, evidently translating the thought.

“No, I don’t,” Grey said. “But others do, and that is what brings us here. If you please, madam, let us conclude our business. I expect someone will shortly come for you.” The Schloss was at dinner; Tom had brought Grey a tray, which he was too tired to eat. No doubt the rune-casting would be the after-dinner entertainment, and he must make his desires clear before that.

“Well, then.” The gypsy regarded him, her awe at his perspicacity fading back into the usual derision. “It was your fault.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It was Princess Gertrude—the dowager. She saw Louisa—that slut”—she spat casually on the floor, almost without pausing, and went on—“making sheep’s eyes at you, and was afraid she meant to marry you. Louisa thought she would marry you and go to England, to be safe and rich. But if she did, she would take with her her son.”

“And the dowager did not wish to be parted from her grandson,” Grey said slowly. Whether the gossip was true or not, the old woman loved the boy.

The gypsy nodded. “So she arranged that we would take the boy—my sister and me. He would be safe with us, and after a time, when the Austrians had killed you all, we would bring him back.”

Hanna had gone down the ladder first, meaning to comfort Siggy if he woke in the rain. But Siggy had wakened too soon, and bollixed the scheme by running out of the room. Hanna had no choice but to flee when Grey had tipped the ladder over, leaving her sister to hide in the Schloss and make her way out at daybreak, with the help of the dowager.

“She is with our family,” the gypsy said, with another shrug. “Safe.”

“The ring,” Grey said, nodding at the gypsy’s circlet. “Do you serve the dowager? Is that what it means?”

So much confessed, the gypsy evidently felt now at ease. Casually, she pushed a platter of dead doves aside, and sat down upon the shelf, feet dangling.

“We are Rom,” she said, drawing herself up proudly. “The Rom serve no one. But we have known the Trauchtenbergs—the dowager’s family—for generations, and there is tradition between us. It was her great-grandfather who bought the child who guards the bridge—and that child was the younger brother of my own great-grandfather. The ring was given to my great-grandfather then, as a sign of the bargain.”

Grey heard Tom grunt slightly with confusion, but took no heed. The words struck him as forcibly as a blow, and he could not speak for a moment. The thing was too shocking. He took a deep breath, fighting the vision of Franz’s words—the small, round white skull, looking out at him from the hollow in the bridge.

Sounds of banging and clashing dishes from the scullery nearby brought him to himself, though, and he realized that time was growing short.

“Very well,” he said, as briskly as he could. “I want one last bit of justice, and our bargain is made. Agathe Blomberg.”

“Old Agathe?” The gypsy laughed, and in spite of her missing tooth, he could see how attractive she could be. “How funny! How could they suppose such an old stick might be a demon of desire? A hag, yes, but a night hag?” She went off into peals of laughter, and Grey jumped to his feet, seizing her by the shoulder to silence her.

“Be quiet,” he said. “Someone will come.”

She stopped then, though she still snorted with amusement.

“So, then?”

“So, then,” he said firmly. “When you do your hocus-pocus—whatever it is they’ve brought you here to do—I wish you particularly to exonerate Agathe Blomberg. I don’t care what you say or how you do it—I leave that to your own devices, which I expect are considerable.”

She looked at him for a moment, looked down at his hand upon her shoulder, and shrugged it off.

“That’s all, is it?” she asked sarcastically.

“That’s all. Then you may go.”

“Oh, I may go? How kind.” She stood smiling at him, but not in a kindly way. It occurred to him quite suddenly that she had required no assurances from him, had not asked for so much as his word as a gentleman—though he supposed she would not have valued that, in any case.

She did not care, he realized, with a small shock. She had not told him anything for the sake of saving herself—she simply wasn’t afraid. Did she think the dowager would protect her, for the sake either of their ancient bond, or because of what she knew about the failed kidnapping?

Perhaps. Perhaps she had confidence in something else. And if she had, he chose not to consider what that might be. He rose from the cask of fish, and pushed it back under the shelves.

“Agathe Blomberg was a woman, too,” he said.

She rose, too, and stood looking at him, rubbing her ring with apparent thought.

“So she was. Well, perhaps I will do it, then. Why should men dig up her coffin and drag her poor old carcass through the streets?”

He could feel Tom behind him, vibrating with eagerness to be gone; the racket of the dinner-clearing was much louder.

“For you, though—”

He glanced at her, startled by the tone in her voice, which held something different. Neither mockery nor venom, nor any other emotion that he knew.

Her eyes were huge, gleaming in the candlelight, but so dark that they seemed void pools, her face without expression.

“You will never satisfy a woman,” she said softly. “Any woman who shares your bed will leave after no more than a single night, cursing you.”

Grey rubbed a knuckle against his stubbled chin, and nodded.

“Very likely, madam,” he said. “Good night.”

Epilogue

Among the Trumpets

The order of battle was set. The autumn sun had barely risen, and the troops would march within the hour.

Grey was in the stable block, checking Karolus’s tack, tightening the girth, adjusting the bridle, marking second by second the time until he should depart, as though each second marked an irretrievable and most precious drop of his life.

Outside the stables, all was confusion, as people ran hither and thither, gathering belongings, searching for children, calling for wives and parents, strewing away objects gathered only moments before, heedless in their distraction. His heart beat fast in his chest, and intermittent small thrills coursed up the backs of his legs and curled between them, tightening his scrotum.

The drums were beating in the distance, ordering the troops. The thrum of them beat in his blood, in his bone. Soon, soon, soon. His chest was tight; it was difficult to draw full breath.

He did not hear the footsteps approaching through the straw of the stables. Keyed up as he was, though, he felt the disturbance of air nearby, that intimation of intrusion that now and then had saved his life, and whirled, hand on his dagger.

It was Stephan von Namtzen, gaudy in full uniform, his great plumed helmet underneath one arm—but with a face sober by contrast to his clothing.

“It is nearly time,” the Hanoverian said quietly. “I would speak with you—if you will hear me.”

Grey slowly let his hand fall away from the dagger, and took the full breath he had been longing for.

“You know that I will.”

Von Namtzen inclined his head in acknowledgment, but did not speak at once, seeming to need to gather his words—although they were speaking German now.

“I will marry Louisa,” he said, finally, formally. “If I live until Christmas. My children—” He hesitated, free hand flat upon the breast of his coat. “It will be good they should have a mother once more. And—”

“You need not give reasons,” Grey interrupted. He smiled at the big Hanoverian, with open affection. Caution was no longer necessary. “If you wish this, then I wish you well.”

Von Namtzen’s face lightened. He ducked his head a little, and took a breath.

“ Danke.I say, I will marry if I am alive. If I am not…” His hand still rested on his breast, above the miniature of his children.

“If I live, and you do not, then I will go to your home,” Grey said. “I will tell your son what I have known of you. Is this your desire?”

The Hanoverian’s graveness did not alter, but a deep warmth softened his gray eyes.

“It is. You have known me, perhaps, better than anyone.”

He stood still, looking at Grey, and all at once, the relentless marking of fleeting time stopped. Confusion and danger still hastened without, and drums beat loud, but inside the stables, there was a great peace.

Stephan’s hand left his breast, and reached out. Grey took it, and felt love flow between them. He thought that heart and body must be entirely melted—if only for that moment.

Then they parted, each drawing back, each seeing the flash of desolation in the other’s face, both smiling ruefully to see it.

Stephan was turning to go when Grey remembered.

“Wait!” he called, and turned to fumble in his saddlebag.

“What is this?” Stephan turned the small, heavy box over in his hands, looking puzzled.

“A charm,” Grey said, smiling. “A blessing. My blessing—and St. Orgevald’s. May it protect you.”

“But—” Von Namtzen frowned with doubt, and tried to give the reliquary back, but Grey would not accept it.

“Believe me,” he said in English, “it will do you more good than me.”

Stephan looked at him for a moment longer, then nodded, and, tucking the little box away in his pocket, turned and left. Grey turned back to Karolus, who was growing restive, tossing his head and snorting softly through his nose.

The horse stamped, hard, and the vibration of it ran through the long bones of Grey’s legs.

“Hast thou given the horse strength?” he quoted softly, hand stroking the braided mane that ran smooth and serpentlike down the great ridge of the stallion’s neck. “Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?…He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men. He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he back from the sword.”

He leaned close and pressed his forehead against the horse’s shoulder. Huge muscles bulged beneath the skin, warm and eager, and the clean musky scent of the horse’s excitement filled him. He straightened then, and slapped the taut, twitching hide.

“He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.”

Grey heard the drums again, and his palms began to sweat.

Historical Note: In October of 1757, the forces of Frederick the Great and his allies moved swiftly, crossing the country to defeat the gathering French and Austrian army at Rossbach, in Saxony. The town of Gundwitz was left undisturbed, the bridge at Aschenwald never crossed by an enemy.

“Lord John and the Haunted Soldier”

“Haunted Soldier” was actually written specifically for this collection, and has (so far) not been published anywhere else.

The chronology of Lord John Grey stories (to date) is as follows:

“Lord John and the Hellfire Club” (short story)

Lord John and the Private Matter(novel)

“Lord John and the Succubus” (novella)

Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade(novel)

“Lord John and the Haunted Soldier” (novella)

So, if you have this volume and the two novels, you’re in great shape!

There is a third Lord John novel to come—titled Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner—but this is not yet written.

Part I

Inquisition

November, 1758

Tower Place, the Arsenal at Woolwich

Hell was filled with clocks, he was sure of it. There was no torment, after all, that could not be exacerbated by a contemplation of time passing. The large case clock at the end of the corridor had a particularly penetrating tick-tock,audible above and through all the noises of the house and its inhabitants. It seemed to Lord John Grey to echo his own inexorable heartbeats, each one a step on the road toward death.

He shook off that grisly notion and sat bolt upright, his best hat balanced upon his knee. The house had once been a mansion; doubtless the clock was a remnant of those gracious days. Pity none of the chairs had made the transition to government service, he thought, shifting gingerly on the niggardly stool he’d been given.

A spasm of impatience brought him to his feet. Why would they not bloody call him in and get on with it?

Well, there was a rhetorical question, he thought, tapping the hat against his leg with soft impatience.

If The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding smallwas not the official motto of His Majesty’s government, it was surely that, de facto.It had taken months for the Royal Commission of Inquiry to be convened, still longer for it to sit, and longer yet for inquisition to stretch out its hand in his direction.

His arm and ribs were quite healed now, the furrow through his scalp no more than a thin white scar beneath his hair. The freezing rain of November beat upon the roof above; in Germany the thick grass around the ninth station of the cross must lie now brown and dead, and the lieutenant who lay beneath that grass food for worms long since. Yet here Grey sat—or stood—a small, hard kernel yet awaiting the pressure of the grindstone.

Grimacing, he sought respite from the clock’s ticking by striding up and down the corridor, returning the censorious looks of the row of portraits hung upon the wall as he passed them—early governors of the Arsenal.

The portraits were mediocre in execution for the most part, save the one near the end, done by a more talented hand. Perhaps a Dutchman by his looks—a black-browed gentleman whose fiercely rubicund features radiated a jolly determination. Probably a good attitude for one whose profession was explosion.

As though the Dutchman agreed with this sentiment, a tremendous boom rattled the casement at the end of the corridor and the floor heaved suddenly under Grey’s feet.

He flung himself flat, hat flying, and found himself hugging the shabby hall-runner, sweating and breathless.

“My lord?” A voice from which any trace of astonishment or curiosity had been carefully removed spoke above him. “The gentlemen are ready.”

“Are they? In…deed.” He rose, stilling the trembling of his limbs by main effort, and brushed the dust from his uniform with what nonchalance could be managed.

“If you will follow me, my lord?” The functionary, a small, neatly wigged person of impeccable politeness and indeterminate aspect, bent to pick up Grey’s hat, and handing it to him without comment, turned to lead him back down the corridor. Behind them, the clock ticked imperturbably on, the passage of time undisturbed by such ephemera as explosion or death.

There were three of them, seated behind a long table, a weighty thing of carved dark wood. To one side, a clerk sat at a small desk, quill and paper at the ready to record his testimony. A single chair was placed, stark and solitary, in the space before the table.

So it really was an inquisition, he thought. His brother Hal had warned him. His sense of unease grew stronger. The trouble with an inquisition was that it seldom went hungry to bed.

The black-coated functionary accompanied him to the chair, hovering at his elbow as though afraid he might bolt, and left him there with a murmured “Major Grey” and a discreet bow in the direction of the Commission of Inquiry. They did not bother to introduce themselves. The tall, thin-faced fellow was vaguely familiar; a nobleman, he thought—knight, perhaps a minor baronet? Expensively tailored in gray superfine. The name escaped him, though perhaps it would come of itself in time.

He did recognize the military member of the tribunal: Colonel Twelvetrees, of the Royal Artillery Regiment, wearing his dress uniform and an expression that spoke of habitual severity. From what Grey knew of his reputation, the expression was well earned. That could be dealt with, though; yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir.

The third was less forbidding in aspect, a middle-aged gentleman, plump and neat in purple, with a striped waistcoat and a small decoration; he went so far as to smile politely at Grey. Grey removed his hat and bowed to His Majesty’s Royal Commission of Inquiry, but did not sit ’til he was bidden to do so.

The colonel cleared his throat then and began without preamble.

“You are summoned here, Major, to assist us in an inquiry into the explosion of a cannon whilst under your command during the battle at Crefeld in Prussia, on twenty-third June of this year. You will answer all questions put to you, in as much detail as may be required.”

“Yes, sir.” He sat bolt upright, face impassive.

A sort of rumble ran through the building, felt rather than heard, and the droplets on a small crystal chandelier tinkled gently overhead. The huge proving grounds of the Arsenal lay somewhere beyond the Tower Place house, he knew—how far away?

The plump gentleman put a pair of spectacles on his nose and leaned forward expectantly.

“Will you tell us, please, my lord, the circumstances in which you came to take charge of the gun and its crew?”

Obediently, he told them, in the words he had prepared. Colorless, brief, exact. Allowing of no doubt. Had any of them ever set foot on a battlefield, he wondered? If they had, they would know how little resemblance his words held to the truth of that day—but it hardly mattered. He spoke for the record, and was therefore careful.

They interrupted now and then, asking trivial questions about the position of the gun upon the field, the proximity of the French cavalry at the time, the weather—what in God’s name might the weather have had to do with it? he wondered.

The clerk scratched industriously away, recording it all.

“You had had previous experience in fighting a gun of this type?” That was the roundish gentleman with the striped waistcoat and the discreet decoration. The baronet had called him Oswald, and suddenly he realized who the man must be—the Honorable Mortimer Oswald, Member of Parliament. He’d seen the name on posters and banners during the last election.

“I had.”

Oswald cocked an eyebrow, plainly inviting him to elaborate, but he kept silent.

Twelvetrees fixed him with a cold eye.

“With which regiment, when, how long?”

Blast.

“I served informally with the Forty-sixth, sir—my brother’s regiment—Lord Melton, that is—during the Jacobite campaign in Scotland under General Cope. Was detailed to a gun crew belonging to the Royal Artillery after taking up my commission, and trained there for six months before coming back to the Forty-sixth. More recently, I was seconded to a Hanoverian regiment in Germany, and saw service there with a Prussian artillery company.”

He saw no need to add that this service had consisted largely of eating sausages with the gun crew. And as for his so-called service with Cope…the less said about that, the better. He had, however, actually commanded the firing of cannon, which the members of the board very likely had not, Twelvetrees included.

“Cope?” said the baronet, seeming to rouse a bit at the name. “Gentleman Johnny?” He laughed, and the colonel’s hatchet face tightened.

“Yes, sir.” Oh, God.Please God, he hadn’t heard the story.

Apparently not; the man merely hummed a snatch of that mocking Scotch song, “Hey, Johnny Cope, are ye walkin’ yet?” and broke off, looking amused.

“Cope,” he repeated, shaking his head. “You must have been very young at the time, Major?”

“Sixteen, sir.” He felt his blood rise and his cheeks flush. Nearly half a lifetime. Dear God, how long would he have to live, in order to escape the memory of Prestonpans, and goddamned Jamie Fraser?

Twelvetrees was not amused, and cast a cold glance at the nobleman.

“Had you commanded a gun in battle, prior to Crefeld?” Bloody-minded sod.

“Yes, sir,” Grey replied, keeping his voice calm. “At Falkirk.” They’d put him in charge of a gun and allowed him to fire several shots at an abandoned church before retreating, for the sake of practice.

Oswald emitted a hum of interest.

“And what sort of gun did you command on that occasion, Major?”

“A murderer, sir,” he replied, naming a small and very old-fashioned cannon, left over from the last century.

“Not quite so murderous as Tom Pilchard, though, eh, Major?”

He must have looked as blank as he felt, for Oswald kindly elaborated.

“The gun you served at Crefeld, Major. You did not know its name?”

“No, sir,” he said, and could not help adding, “we were not formally introduced, owing to the circumstances.”

He knew before he said it that it was a mistake, but nerves and irritation had got the best of him; the constant thumping from the proving ground beyond the house made the floor shake every few minutes, and sweat was running down his sides inside his shirt. The price of his momentary lapse was a blistering ten-minute lecture from Twelvetrees on respect for the army—in the person of himself, he gathered—and the dignity of His Majesty’s commission. All the while Grey sat upright as a ramrod, saying, “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” with a countenance of perfect blankness, and Oswald wheezed with open amusement.

The baronet waited through the colonel’s tirade with ill-concealed impatience, stripping the barbs from his quill one by one, so that tiny feathers strewed the table and flew up in a cloud as he drummed his fingers.

From the corner of his eye, Grey saw the clerk lean back, looking faintly entertained. The man rubbed his ink-stained fingers, clearly grateful for the momentary break in the proceedings.

When at last the colonel subsided—with a final ugly jab at his brother, his brother’s regiment, and Grey’s late father—the baronet cleared his throat with a menacing growl and sat forward to take his own turn.

Grey was inclined to think that the growl was aimed as much at Twelvetrees as at himself–noblemen did not like to hear others of their ilk rubbished in public, regardless of circumstance. The lack of amity among the members of the commission had become increasingly apparent during the questioning, but that observation was of little value to him personally.

The clerk, seeing the end of his brief vacation, picked up his quill again with an audible sigh.

Marchmont—that was it! Lord Marchmont—he wasa baronet—set about a brisk dissection of Grey’s experience, background, education, and family, ending with a sudden pointed inquiry as to when Grey had last seen Edgar DeVane.

“Edgar DeVane?” Grey repeated blankly.

“Your brother, I believe?” Marchmont said, with elaborate patience.

“Yes, sir,” Grey said respectfully, thinking, What the devil…? Edgar?“I beg pardon, sir. Your question took me unexpectedly. I believe I last saw my half brother”—he leaned a little on the words—“near Christmas last.” He remembered the occasion, certainly; Edgar’s wife, Maude, had badgered her husband into bringing the family to London for a month, and Grey had accompanied her and her two daughters in their raids on the Regent and Bond Street shops, in the capacity of native bearer. He recalled thinking at the time that Edgar’s affairs must be prospering markedly; either that, or he would return to Sussex bankrupt.

He waited. Marchmont squinted at him, tapping the mangled quill on the papers in front of him.

“Christmas,” the baronet repeated. “Have you been in correspondence with DeVane since then?”

“No,” he replied promptly. While he assumed that Edgar was in fact literate, he’d never seen anything of a written nature purporting to emanate from his half brother. His mother kept up a dutiful correspondence with all four of her sons, but the Sussex half of that particular exchange was sustained entirely by the efforts of Maude.

“Christmas,” Marchmont repeated again, frowning. “And when had you last seen DeVane, prior to that?”

“I do not recall, sir; my apologies.”

“Oh, now, I am afraid that won’t do, my lord.” Oswald was still looking genial, but light glittered from his spectacles. “We must insist upon an answer.”

A louder than usual boom from beyond the house made the clerk start in his seat and grab for his inkwell. Grey might easily have started likewise, were he not so taken aback by this sudden insistence upon his half brother’s whereabouts and relations with himself. He could only conclude that the commission had lost its collective mind.

Twelvetrees added his own bit to this impression, glowering at him under iron-gray brows.

“We are waiting, Major.”

Ought he to choose some date at random? he wondered. Would they investigate to discover whether he told the truth?

Knowing what sort of response it might provoke, he replied firmly, “I am sorry, sir. I see Edgar DeVane very infrequently; prior to last Christmas, I suppose that it might have been more than a year—two, perhaps—since I have spoken to him.”

“Or written?” Marchmont pounced.

He didn’t know that, either, but there was much less chance that anyone could prove him wrong.

“I think that I may have written to him when—” His words were drowned out by the whistle of some large missile, very near at hand, followed by a tremendous crash. He kept himself in his chair only by seizing the seat of it with both hands, and gulped air to keep his voice from shaking. “—when I was seconded to the Graf von Namtzen’s regiment. That—that would have been in—in—’57.”

“Can they not still that infernal racket?” Marchmont’s nerves seemed also to have become frayed by the bombardment. He sat upright and slapped a hand on the table. “Mr. Simpson!”

The black-coated functionary appeared in the doorway with an inquiring look.

“Tell them to stop banging away out there, for God’s sake,” the baronet said peevishly.

“I am afraid that the Ordnance Office is a power unto itself, my lord,” Simpson said, shaking his head sadly at the thought of such intransigence.

“Perhaps we might dismiss the major until a more congenial time—” Oswald began, but Twelvetrees snapped, “Nonsense!” at him, and turned his minatory gaze on Grey once more.

The colonel said something, but was drowned out by a barrage of bangs and pops, as though the Ordnance fellows proposed to emphasize their independence. Grey’s blood was roaring in his ears, his leather stock tight round his throat. He dug his fingers hard into the wood of the chair.

“With all respect, sir,” he said, as firmly as he might, disregarding whatever it was that Twelvetrees had asked. “I have little regular contact with my half brother. I cannot tell you more than I have.”

Marchmont uttered an audible “hmp!” of disbelief, and Twelvetrees glared as though he wished to order Grey strung up to a triangle and flogged on the spot. Oswald, though, peered closely at him over the tops of his spectacles, and in a sudden, blessed silence from the proving ground, changed the subject.

“Were you intimately acquainted with Lieutenant Lister prior to the occasion at Crefeld, my lord?” he asked mildly.

“I am not familiar with that name at all, sir.” He could surmise who Lister was, of course, who he must have been.

“You surprise me, Major,” said Oswald, looking not at all surprised. “Philip Lister was a member of White’s, as you are yourself. I should think you must have seen him there now and then, whether you knew his name or not?”

Grey wasn’t surprised that Oswald knew that he belonged to White’s club; all of London had heard about his last visit there. He didn’t haunt the place, though, preferring the Beefsteak.

Rather than endeavor to detail his social habits, he merely replied, “That is possible. However, the lieutenant had been struck by a cannonball, sir, which unfortunately removed his head. I had no opportunity of examining his features in order to ascertain whether he might be an acquaintance.”

Marchmont glanced at him sharply.

“Are you being impertinent, sir?”

“Certainly not, sir.” All three of them looked suddenly at him as one, like a phalanx of owls eyeing a mouse. A drop of sweat wormed its slow way down his back, itching.