A Royal Affair (22 page)

He looked a little reluctant to engage with me but pointed to a place that was marked with little scratches, indicating forest. “Where were we when we left the—our companions?”

Again, he indicated a place. I measured the gap between, calculating distance and time traveled, and tried to estimate how long it would take me, on a direct route, to return to the castle. It had occurred to me that I could leave for England from Saxefalia, but I had left my coin and letters of reference back in my rooms in the officers’ mess so was very reluctant to return to England with only the clothes I stood in. After a moment, Aleksey said in a neutral voice, “This is the peninsula they have taken.” I made no reply. He waited for a moment, then continued, “This is the route that they will be reinforcing it from. Their troops will have to pass along here.” He pointed to a wiggly line, which appeared very close to our current location. Still I made no reply. “We could find out their troop strength and disposition if we watched from here.”

“
You
could, yes. I shall be heading in this direction… home.”

He hesitated for a long time, glanced around to make sure we were not overheard, then said, “Technically you are still in the army, Doctor. That would, technically, be desertion.”

I did not laugh this off entirely. I thought myself a man of honor, and desertion was not something any man likes to have attached to his name. “What is the punishment for desertion? Technically.”

“Death. But you have an
honorary
commission, so I do not think you would be held to your oath if circumstances demanded otherwise.”

“Who would decide these things?”

“Well, I would, I suppose.”

“Uh-huh. And what would be the circumstances that informed your decision?”

“I suppose how much I felt that I was to blame for your decision to leave.” He looked at me for the first time since the awful events of the previous day. “Will you give me some time to decide? Ride with me to here…?” He pointed to a place on the map where my route home crossed with his intended destination. “And then you can leave if you still wish…. But, of course, if you want to leave now, then I will not stop you.”

“You are being uncharacteristically accommodating.”

He did one of his very characteristic mood swings at that, and I didn’t blame him. He was being decidedly nice, considering the way I’d treated him. I immediately regretted my words and my desire to antagonize him and said simply, “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

He stopped in the act of rising and squatted down again. “I was only trying to…. You do not speak the language, Nikolai. What if you were stopped by a patrol? Even if you could persuade them of your right to be in Saxefalia, it could be very awkward for you and cause you untold delay—as you are so keen to leave, that is….”

I think this was a long-winded way of saying “I still want your company; please don’t go.” I mulled all this over as I watched him take his leave of our new friends and saddle the horses. I was checking my patient. I was slightly impressed with myself at the sight of his clean wound. Aleksey was ready. I mounted Xavier, and we rode off toward the place that suited us both.

After half an hour, it began to snow. I was freezing again, any good effect I’d had from the fire completely gone now on this open plain where the wind cut through me. I tried to imagine warmth and the way the sun had baked the earth in the colony—anything to trick my mind that I was not shivering. Just as I had persuaded myself that I was stretched out on a rock that was warm beneath me, I heard Aleksey say, “It was
not
a bet, by the way. I thought I should tell you that. Even if you decide to go, I wanted you to know that it was not a bet or a joke, and I do not know why you thought that it was.”

His voice shook a little. I assumed it was from the cold. “You said as much, if you remember.”

He frowned. “I do not think I did. Why would I say that if, as I have just told you, it was not?”

I had no answer to that, but I had heard what I had heard. When I said no more, he pushed on with some determination. “If I tell you now that it was not a joke, does that not make things well between us again? Why are you being so stubborn, Nikolai? There is no fault on your part. I am the one at fault, and I apologize. I made a terrible error in thinking that you would… that you wanted to… that I would—oh,
God’s teeth
, I’m not going to grovel.” He kicked his horse and moved ahead, so we could not speak further.

I was desperate to believe him. Why would I want to continue to think he had tricked and humiliated me, when it was far nicer to think he wanted me and had kissed me from desire? But these things were not light subjects that could sway one way and then the other, as if we were discussing politics in the mess. This was life and death for men—horrible, grisly death at that. It was not a subject a man could afford to make a mistake on. Even if a partner was willing initially, these things could turn on the flick of a look or a misplaced word, and someone you had shared your body with could turn and denounce you for the very things he had desired. Although Aleksey said he had not meant it as a joke, this did not tell me what he
did
mean by it. I resolved to ask him. I cantered to catch him up. As I was drawing level, he reined in, putting out his hand to indicate that I should stop. We were looking down from the slight vantage point of a ridge into a broad, shallow valley. It was full of troops in a long, strung-out column.

“My God, is that their army?”

He nodded at my fatuous question. “They are heading to defend the peninsula.”

“How many do you reckon there are?”

He appeared to be counting, then replied oddly, “Not enough.”

Before I could question this, there was a scream. Riders were turning and circling a wagon. There was a man pinned under a wheel. I saw some soldiers dismount and seize his shoulders, trying to pull him out. His screaming was pitiful. I swore and kicked Xavier toward the slope.

“
Nikolai, no
.”

I ignored him. He said I might leave if I wished. As far as I was concerned, that meant I was free of Aleksey telling me what to do.

I arrived at the wagon and slid off my horse. I had forgotten that I did not speak the language. I looked about for an officer and addressed a likely looking candidate. “Sir, do you speak French?” He nodded and replied that he did, a little. I explained that I was a doctor. He looked inordinately pleased at this and took my arm and pointed to the man, who was by now screaming and sobbing pitifully. I knelt beside him. He had been trying to remount a wheel that had detached in the mud. He’d propped up the wagon, which was full of sacks, with a very badly positioned stake. Not surprisingly, this had slipped, and the whole thing had come down on top of him. The attempt to drag him out had made things worse. I stripped off my coat. I needed to crawl under to see what the damage was. I wriggled through the cold mud, and what I saw made me turn my face away for a moment, inured as I was to blood. The wagon had nearly cut the man in half. Another few inches would have detached him entirely from his pelvis and legs. That he was still alive was an unfortunate, ironic miracle: the wooden side of the wagon was temporarily keeping his blood and organs inside his body. I reasoned that shock was blocking most of the pain but that this blessing would not last for long.

I crawled back out and tried to explain to the officer what had happened. He did not seem to grasp my meaning and was clearly waiting for me to perform some medical wonder. I grimaced and said more firmly, “Il est déjà mort, Monsieur.
Maintenant.” I sensed someone at my side. Aleksey. He heard what I said, glanced at me, at the poor man, and then began to speak to the officer. I interrupted urgently, “Tell him that the injury is too bad—that he cannot survive.”

“I am! Shut up for a moment.” We spoke in English, and I waited impatiently as he translated. The officer said something to him in return, and Aleksey turned to me. “He wants to know what you are intending to do.”

I nodded. I went to the man and cradled his head in my arms. “Tell him that all is going to be well, that he is only a little injured and that I am a doctor and will help him.”

“What—”

“Tell him!”

Aleksey squatted down and began to translate. The man’s eyes widened and fastened onto me with a look that made me want to weep. Such misplaced hope. “Tell him to close his eyes.”

After a slight pause, Aleksey added this. The man closed his eyes with complete trust in my ability to save him. I suppose I did that in a way. I took the knife from my boot and drew it forcibly and without hesitation across his throat. I cut deep and sure. I had done this many times before for different reasons and knew the feel of chords and tendons parting to the kiss of my blade.

I heard a stirring of anger around me. Aleksey was very pale and had clearly not expected this outcome. He stood quickly, though, and moved toward the angry soldiers. I dropped the dead man’s head and stood too. The officer was glancing between the increasingly irate mob and me. “Who are you, Doctor, and who is your companion?”

I stepped forward quickly. “I am a doctor traveling from England to the court of the Tsar. This is my servant. We met some merchants last night who informed us that we might be able to replenish our supplies if we rendezvoused with your wagons. As you can see”—I waved at our two horses—“we lost our supplies in an attack by bandits some days back. It has been a very cold journey since then.”

He nodded, glancing between us. I prayed that Aleksey would not choose this moment to assert his true position. I even stepped slightly in front of him, so the officer was speaking only with me.

We were taken to a command tent. Another officer questioned me. He also spoke some French and a little German, so we were able to muddle through our various questions and answers. Finally he consulted for a while with his younger subordinate and then said, “Doctor, you find us in something of a dilemma. We lost our doctor yesterday to a fall from his horse. Can we persuade you to stay with us and minister to the men? We will compensate you royally for your time and inconvenience, of course. This is not a good time for you to be traveling, especially through the wilds of Russia, which are impassable during winter. Stay with us until the spring and resume your journey then.”

I lifted my eyebrows in surprise. I had not expected this. I bowed slightly. “May I have a moment to consider your very kind offer, sir?” I stepped outside and found my “servant” holding the horses and looking around the camp with great interest. I stepped up to him and said in an undertone, whilst appearing to tighten Xavier’s girth, “I have been asked to join them as their doctor. What do you think? Is this not a good opportunity to discover their plans?”

He gave me an incredulous look. “You get asked to be their doctor on the strength of slitting a man’s throat! I could have done that!”

“But
you
would not have. Like all other men, you would have attempted to help him, and that would have killed him more slowly and far more cruelly. It is harder to be dispassionate than it is to be kind. But concentrate on this now. What do you think about their offer?”

“Oh, you decide. I am now your
servant
, after all.”

“Aleksey, if you do not stop being such a baby, I will treat you accordingly, put you over my knee, and spank you here and now. You are my prince and my general still.
You
decide. This is
your
mission.” I was good at flattery as well as dispassion. It was only a little while before that I had decided upon not respecting what his highness thought about anything, but this seemed like a very good opportunity to me, and I did not want to see him lose it to spite me. Reluctantly, he nodded. I returned to the command tent and told them of my decision.

Within a few days, therefore, I went from traveling with an army as their doctor and sharing a tent with Aleksey to traveling with an army as their doctor and sharing a tent with Aleksey. Other than that we were now heading west and not east, there was very little difference. Not a particular friend of this army’s general, I was not included in officers’ orders groups or spoken to of plans and strategies. However, it was not hard to pick up a huge amount of useful information from the simple use of eyes and ears. It had been an unplanned-for advantage for us when I had claimed Aleksey as my servant, for it enabled him to wander around, eyes cast down, no one taking any notice of him, and talk to the ordinary soldiers. As in any army, ordinary soldiers always know what is happening, even if their officers do not realize that they do. By keeping his eyes cast down whenever an officer appeared, he was also able to hide the give-away green.

He was troubled by something he saw. It took until the next night before I could coax it out of him, as I don’t think either of us could remember whether we were speaking or not, so had apparently decided on the same option of not being the first one to break the impasse. Finally, however, I just asked him as we lay side by side on our cots. “What have you learned? Anything useful? We cannot carry this deception off for very much longer before suspicions will be aroused.”

“Why would anyone suspect us?”

“You are a terrible servant; that is why. What have you discovered?”

“There are not enough of them; that is what I have discovered.”

I turned over onto my side, propping my head on my hand. “I would not have thought any general would want
more
enemy.”

“I do not. I want to know where the ones that
do
exist are. Their army is much larger than this, Niko. Where are they all? Their cavalry numbers here are laughable. The infantry I can see consists of only two battalions. But logistically they are set up for three times this number.”

I had no idea what any of this meant in detail, but I got the big picture. “You think this is a ruse? That their main thrust is elsewhere?”

He nodded, pleased to have his suspicions spoken out loud. “I need access to the command tent. I
must
see their maps. I do not think they have any intention of defending the peninsula.”