Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade

  Spreading ointment across the torn and furrowed skin, his fingers thick with it so as to touch as lightly as possible. Fierce heat radiated from the man's back, though the skin of his arms was cool, damp with drying sweat. Picked up a linen towel to blot the sweat from the man's neck, untied the thong that bound his soaked hair and began to rub it dry.

  He felt the hum of some tune in throat and chest, and felt great happiness as he worked. The man said nothing; he did not expect it. He smoothed the long thick strands of half-dry hair between his fingers, and wiped the curve of ears that reminded him of a small boy's, heartbreaking in their tenderness.

  Then he realized that he was straddling the man, and that they were both naked. The man's buttocks rose beneath him, smooth and round and powerful, perfect by contrast with the bloody back. And warm. Very warm.

  Woke with a dreadful feeling of shame, heavy in his belly. The sound of dripping water in his ears.

  The dripping of rain. The drip of sweat, of blood and seed. Not tears. The man had never wept, even in extremity.

  Yet his pillow was wet. The tears were his.

  Through the rest of the day, as he rode at the head of the marching column, as they passed through the streets of London, and down to the Pool where they would embark, he would now and then brush his fingers lightly beneath his nose, expecting each time to catch a whiff of the medicated salve.

  Chapter 23

  The Rhineland

  Tom Byrd was in his element. He circled Grey like a vulture round a prime bit of carrion, visibly gloating.

  "Very nice, me lord," he said with approval, reaching out to tweak a small fold out of the buff lapel of Grey's best dress uniform, straighten the edge of a six-inch cuff, or rearrange the fall of an epaulet cord. "Don't you think he looks well, sir?" He appealed to Percy, who was lounging against the wall, watching Grey's apotheosis.

  "I am blinded by his glory," Percy assured Tom gravely. "He'll be a credit to you, I'm sure."

  "No, he won't," Tom said, standing back with a sigh. "He'll have gravy spilt down his ruffles before the evening's out. That, or he'll take a bet from someone and jump that big white bastard of a horse over a wall with his arms crossed, and fall off into a bog. Again. Or--"

  "I did not fall off," Grey said, affronted. "The horse slipped when we landed, and rolled on me."

  "Well, it did your clothes no good at all, me lord," Tom said severely. He leaned closer, breathed heavily on a silver button, and polished it obsessively with his sleeve.

  Grey was indeed splendid, got up regardless, with his hair tightly plaited, folded round a lamb's-wool pad, bound in a club, and powdered. Boots, buttons, and sword hilt gleaming, and his officer's gorget polished to a brilliant shine, he was the very model of a British soldier. It was largely wasted effort; no one would look twice at an English officer in a room full of Prussians and Hanoverians, whose officers, even when not royalty or nobility, tended to a great deal of gold lace, embroidery, and plumes. He stood stiffly, hardly daring to breathe, as Tom prowled round him, looking for something else to poke at.

  "Oh, I want to go to the ball, too!" Percy said, mocking.

  "No, you don't," Grey assured him. "It will be speeches half the night, of the most pompous sort, and an endless procession of roast peacocks with their feathers on, gilded trout, and similar glorious inedibles."

  He would, in fact, much prefer a supper of eggs and beans in his tent with Tom and Percy. Normally, a mere major would not be invited to the dinner which celebrated the joining together of the new allied Hanoverian army under His Grace, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick.

  Hal must go, of course, not only as an earl in his own right--though English earls were small beer by comparison to the margraves, landgraves, electors, and princes who would be in attendance--but as colonel of his own regiment. Grey was invited because he was Melton's brother, but also because he was acting as lieutenant-colonel of the regiment, in the absence of the officer who normally fulfilled that office, who had succumbed to food poisoning halfway across the Channel. It would not do for Hal to appear in such august company completely unattended. Ewart Symington had pleaded indisposition--Symington did not speak German and hated social occasions--and so Grey and his best uniform were being pressed into service.

  "Are you ready?" Hal poked his own powdered head in, inquiring.

  "As I'll ever be," Grey said, straightening himself. "Tom, you won't forget about the bottles?"

  "Oh, no, me lord," Tom assured him. "You can count on me."

  "Well, then." He crooked an arm toward his brother, and bowed. "Shall we dance?"

  "Ass," said Hal, but tolerantly.

  The feast, held in the ancient guildhall, was exactly as Grey had predicted: long, eye-glazingly boring, and featuring course after course of roast pork, boiled beef, gravied mutton, roasted pheasants, sliced ham, braised quail, grilled fish, eggs in aspic and in pies, shellfish in soup, in pastry, and on the half shell, plus sundry savories, syllabubs, and sweets, all served on a weight of silver plate sufficient to purchase a small country and washed down with gallons of wine, drunk in a succession of endless toasts in honor of everyone from Frederick, King of Prussia, King George of England, and Duke Ferdinand down to--Grey was sure--the kitchen cat, though by the time this point in the proceedings was reached, no one was paying sufficient attention as to be sure.

  The German officers were indeed splendid. Grey particularly noticed a tall, blond young Hanoverian, whose uniform was that of his friend von Namtzen's regiment--though von Namtzen himself was nowhere in sight. Contriving to have speech of the young lieutenant before dinner--and wondering to himself how the man came to be at such an affair--he learned that the young man's name was Weber, and that he was there as attendant to a senior officer of von Namtzen's Imperial Hanoverian Foot, owing to an outbreak of some plague amongst the regiment that had temporarily rendered most of the other senior officers hors de combat.

  "Is Captain von Namtzen also afflicted?" Grey asked, covertly admiring the man's face, which, with its deep-set blue eyes and sensual mouth, looked like that of an angel thinking lewd thoughts.

  Weber shook his head, a small frown marring the perfection of his features.

  "Alas, no."

  "Alas?" Grey echoed, surprised.

  "The captain suffered an accident, late in the autumn," Weber explained. "No more than a scratch, while hunting--but it festered, you know, and his Blut was poisoned, so the doctors had to take it off."

  "Take what off?"

  "Oh, Entschuldigung, I am not clear." Weber bowed in apology, and Grey caught a whiff of his cologne, something spiced and warm. "It was his arm he has lost. His left arm," he added, in the interests of strict accuracy.

  Grey swallowed, shocked.

  "I am so sorry to hear this," he said. "The captain--he is recovering?"

  "Oh, ja," Weber assured him, turning his head a little as the gong began to sound as signal for the men to take their seats. "He is at his lodge. He will perhaps be well enough to join the campaign in another month. We hope so." His eyes lingered on Grey's in friendly fashion. "We meet again soon, perhaps?"

  Grey nodded, and went to find Hal, unsettled by the news about von Namtzen, but glad to hear that at least Stephan was recovering. Just inside the door of the guildhall, a phalanx of trumpeters raised their horns and blew a salute that ruffled the banners that hung from the ceiling, announcing the ceremonious arrival of Duke Ferdinand.

  "Well, now we're for it," Hal muttered, watching a servant fill his glass in preparation for the first toast.

  "Here is to our glorious victory!" said the man beside him in German, beaming.

  "Here's to us being able to walk out of here without help," Hal replied in English, smiling cordially.

  The overall result of this affair was firstly that desired by the occasion--the introduction of the commanders to one another, and the creation of a sense of joint grandeur and invincibility. The secondary result was what might be expected after three hour
s of continuous drinking of toasts, during which it would be considered unthinkably discourteous for anyone to leave the table.

  Grey was beginning to suffer serious discomfort, and to be sure that Tom had forgotten after all, when he felt the servant who stood behind his chair turn aside for a moment, then lean over. He moved his foot gently and found the empty magnum that had been placed beneath his chair.

  "Thank you," Grey said, in heartfelt relief. He grinned across the table at Hal, who was also looking somewhat tense, though keeping up appearances nobly. "Do the same for my brother, would you?"

  It was well past midnight by the time the dinner was concluded, and the commanders and senior officers of the allied Hanoverian army staggered out into the cool spring night, most of them dashing for the nearest sheltering wall or tree.

  The Greys, in no such need, strolled with smug insouciance through the dark streets toward the inn where they were quartered, talking randomly of the evening, the personalities encountered, and their private opinions regarding the history, ability, and expected effectiveness of the aforementioned.

  Grey was filled with a pleasant sense of well-being, brought on by two or three quarts of wine and spirits, and a sense of anticipation regarding the coming campaign. It was true that he and Percy would not have the sort of intimacy they had been allowed in London--but they would be in each other's company, sharing adventure and a camaraderie of the spirit. As for that of the body...well, opportunity did occur now and then--and at the worst, they had winter to look forward to, and the privacy and freedom of Rome.

  Buoyed by these pleasant thoughts and the brilliant light of a full moon, it was some time before he realized that Hal was not sharing his elation, but was pacing along with his head down, evidently weighed down by some preoccupation.

  "What's the matter?" Grey asked. "Were we slighted in some manner that I didn't notice?"

  "What?" Hal glanced at him, surprised. "Oh. No, of course not. I was only thinking that I wished it had been France."

  "Well, France has its advantages," Grey said judiciously, "quite aside from the fact that it's full of Frenchmen. But I think we'll do well enough here."

  "Ass," Hal said again, though without heat. "It's nothing to do with the campaign; that's all right--we may be in the minority here, but I think we shall have a good deal more autonomy under Ferdinand than we might under Frederick. No," he continued, frowning at the uneven cobbles in the street, "I wanted France because of the Jacobite exiles there."

  "Oh?" The word "Jacobite" pricked a hole in the soap bubble of Grey's intoxication, and he put out a hand to ward off a passing tree. "Why?"

  He hadn't told Hal anything regarding his inquiries of Jamie Fraser; no need, unless they came to something. They had seen Sir George and Lady Stanley safely embarked for Havana, the week before their own sailing, and in the frantic rush of embarkation, Grey had not spared a single thought for the puzzle surrounding his father's death. No more journal pages had surfaced; no further attacks had been made. The whole business seemed to have vanished, as suddenly as it had begun.

  "Nothing, probably. Only I had a name or two, from Bath--"

  "Bath?" Grey said, stumbling slightly. "What the bloody hell is in Bath?"

  Hal glanced at him, then made a small gesture of resignation.

  "Victor Arbuthnot," he said.

  For a few moments, Grey could not place the name, but then it came to him.

  "Father's old friend? The one he did astronomy with?"

  Hal snorted.

  "He may have done astronomy, but his friendship is questionable. He was the man who presumably denounced Father as a Jacobite conspirator."

  "He--what?" Grey came to an abrupt halt, staring. The moon was bright enough that his brother's face was fully visible. He could see that Hal was at least as drunk as he was, though still able to walk and speak. "You found him--and you let him live?"

  Hal waved a hand impatiently, nearly overbalanced, and gripped a tree.

  "Arbuthnot swears he did not. He gave a statement, yes, and bitterly regrets it. I might have done it, too, if they'd done to me what they did to him." Hal's jaw tightened a little as he swallowed. "He admitted to being a Jacobite himself, to conspiring with Catholics from Italy and from Ireland, thinking it was safe enough to give their names--but he swears he gave no names of men within England; no one who could be taken up and questioned. And definitely not Father."

  Grey didn't bother asking why Hal believed Arbuthnot. Plainly he did, and Hal was not a fool.

  "Then how does he explain--"

  "He doesn't know. He didn't write the statement himself--he couldn't." Hal's mouth twisted. "He only signed it--with a man named Bowles tenderly guiding his hand, he said."

  "Bowles," Grey said slowly. His own insides had surged at the name, and he swallowed several times, to make sure they stayed put. "You...know this Bowles?"

  Hal shook his head. "Harry does. Small sadist with a face like a pudding, he says. Intelligencer. You've met him?"

  "Once," Grey said, and pulled at his stock, wanting air. "Just the once."

  "Yes, well, I don't know what he is now, and Arbuthnot didn't know what he was then--an assistant of some kind, Arbuthnot said. I sent Mr. Beasley to look for the original statement," Hal added abruptly. "Not to be found."

  "Secret? Or destroyed?"

  "Don't know. He couldn't find anybody who would admit even to having seen the thing."

  And yet that statement was the basis for the warrant of arrest issued for Gerard Grey, first Duke of Pardloe. The warrant that had never been served.

  "Jesus." They had stopped walking, and without the flow of air across his face, Grey felt his gorge rising. "I think I'm going to puke."

  He did, and stayed bent over for a minute, hands on his thighs, breathing heavily. The purging seemed to have helped, though; he was somewhat light-headed when he stood up, but his mind seemed clearer.

  "You said, 'definitely not Father.' Do you--or does he, rather--mean that Father was a Jacobite, but Arbuthnot didn't denounce him? Or that he wasn't a Jacobite at all?"

  "Naturally he wasn't a Jacobite," Hal said, angry. "What are you saying?"

  "Well, if he wasn't--and you know that for a fact--why do you want to talk to Jacobites in France?" He stared at Hal, whose face was pallid in the moonlight, his eyes dark holes.

  "He wasn't," Hal repeated stubbornly. "I just--I just--wait." He swallowed visibly, and Grey could see the sheen of sweat on his brow.

  Grey nodded, and sat down on a low wall, trying not to hear the retching noises; his own stomach hadn't quite settled yet, and he felt pale and clammy.

  A few minutes later, Hal came back out of the shadows and sat down heavily beside him.

  "Damned oysters," he said. "You oughtn't to eat oysters in a month without an 'R' in it, everyone knows that." Grey nodded, forbearing to point out that it was March, and they sat still for a time, a cold breeze drying the sweat on their faces.

  "You could have told me, Hal," Grey said quietly. They were sitting on the wall of a churchyard, and the shadow of the church itself covered them in darkness. He could no longer see Hal as anything save an indistinct blur, but could sense him and hear him breathing.

  Hal didn't answer for some time, but finally said, "Told you what?"

  "Told me that Father was murdered." He swallowed, tasting wine and bile. "I--should have liked to be able to speak of it with you."

  He felt the shift of Hal's weight as his brother turned toward him.

  "What did you say?" Hal whispered.

  "I said why could you not have told me--oh. Oh, Jesus." His bones turned to water, as he belatedly grasped the horror in his brother's question. "Jesus, Hal. You didn't know?"

  His brother was absolutely silent.

  "You didn't know," Grey said, voice shaking as he answered his own question. He turned toward Hal, wondering where the words had come from; he hadn't any breath at all. "You thought he killed himself. I thought you knew. I though
t you always knew."

  He heard Hal draw breath, slowly.

  "How do you know this?" Hal said, very calmly.

  "I was there."

  Hardly knowing what he said for the roaring in his ears, he told the story of that summer dawn in the conservatory, and the smell of the smashed peach. Heard the echo of that first telling, felt the ghost of Percy warm beside him.

  At some point, he realized dimly that Hal's face was wet with tears. He didn't realize that he was weeping, as well, until Hal fumbled in his sleeve by reflex, pulled out a handkerchief, and handed it to him.

  He mopped his face, scarcely noticing what he did.

  "I thought--I was sure that Mother had told you. And that the two of you then had decided that I wasn't to know. You sent me to Aberdeen."

  Hal was shaking his head, back and forth, like an automaton; Grey could feel, rather than see it, though he made out the movement when Hal wiped his nose heedlessly on his sleeve. It occurred briefly to Grey that he didn't think he'd seen his brother cry since the death of his first wife.

  "That...that cunning old...oh, God. That bloody woman. How could she? And alone--all these years, alone!" Hal covered his face with both hands.

  "Why?" Grey felt breath beginning to move in his chest again. "Why in God's name would she not tell you? I understand her wishing to keep the truth from me, given my age, but--you?"

  Hal was beginning to get himself under control, though his voice still cracked, going raggedly from one emotion to another, relief succeeded by dismay, only to be replaced by horror, sorrow giving way to anger.

  "Because she knew I'd go after the bastard. And, damn her, she thought he'd kill me, too." Hal brought a fist down on the wall, making no sound. "God damn it!"

  "You think she knew who it was." Spoken aloud, the words hung in the air between them.

  "She knows at least who it might be," Hal said at last. He stood up and picked up his hat. "Let's go."

  The brothers walked the rest of the way in silence.

  Chapter 24

  Skirmish

  As one of the battalion's two majors, Grey held responsibility for roughly four hundred troops. When the army was on the move, it was his duty to ensure that everyone turned up in the right place, more or less at the right time, suitably trained and equipped to do whatever they had been sent to do. As Hal's acting lieutenant-colonel, it was also his work to be actively in the field when the regiment was engaged, managing the logistics of battle, directing the movements of some twenty-six companies, and carrying out--to the best of his ability--such strategy and tactics as his orders gave him.