Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (33 page)

Chapter 26

Drinking with Dachshunds

B
oth men were turned over to the commanding officers of their respective regiments. Hal was at headquarters with Duke Ferdinand; in his absence, Percy was given over to the custody of Ewart Symington; Lieutenant Weber, the Hanoverian, was sent to the Graf von Namtzen’s representative.

Symington, with more tact than Grey would have given him credit for, didn’t mention Percy to him, and had evidently given orders that no one else should, either. The fact that no one spoke to
him
of Percy didn’t mean that no one spoke of Percy, of course. The army was idle, awaiting a new round of orders from Brunswick. Idleness bred gossip, and Grey found the sudden cessation of conversations, the looks—ranging from sympathy to disgust—and the averted eyes of both men and officers so disquieting that he took to spending the days alone in his tent—he would not return to the inn—though it was by turns stifling or drafty.

Had he been in command, he would have had the men on the move—marching from point A to point B on daily drill, if necessary, but moving. Soldiers took to sloth like pigs to mud, and while such idleness was good for trade, from the points of view of local tavern keepers and prostitutes, it bred vice, disease, disorderliness, and violence among the troops.

But Grey was not in command, and the English troops sat, sunning themselves as the days slowly lengthened toward Midsummer Day. Dicing, drinking, whoring—and gossiping.

With no company save Tom and his own thoughts, which trudged in a weary circle from rage through fear to guilt and back again, Grey was left no social outlet save the occasional game of chess with Symington, who was an indifferent player at best.

Finally, unable to stand the growing sense of being mired hip-deep in something noxious, Grey in desperation asked Symington for leave. Stephan von Namtzen, the Graf von Erdberg, was a personal friend; Grey had been seconded to the Graf’s regiment the year before, as English liaison officer. Von Namtzen’s regiment was with Brunswick’s troops, but the Graf himself had not yet come to the field; presumably he was still recovering at his hunting lodge, a place called Waldesruh. Only a day’s ride from the present English position.

Grey wasn’t sure whether his request for leave had more to do with his need to escape from the morass of silent accusation and speculation that surrounded him, the need of distraction from his own thoughts, or from a basely jealous urge to discover more about Percy’s partner in crime and his fate. But Stephan von Namtzen was a good friend, and above all at the moment, Grey felt the need of a friend.

Symington granted his request without hesitation, and with Tom loyally in tow, he set off for Waldesruh.

W
aldesruh was a hunting lodge—which by Hanoverian standards, probably meant that it employed fewer than a hundred servants. The place was surrounded by mile upon mile of brooding forest, and despite the continued weight on his mind and heart, Grey felt a sense of relief as he and Tom emerged at last from the woodland shadows into the sunlight of Waldesruh’s exquisitely manicured grounds.

“Oi,” said Tom approvingly. The lodge, three-storied and built of the pale brown native stone with brick touches in red and green, spread itself before them, elegant and colorful as a pheasant. “Does himself well, the captain, for a Hun. Do you suppose the princess is here, too?” he asked hopefully.

“Possibly,” Grey said. “You must refer to him as the Graf von Erdberg, here at his home, Tom. ‘Captain’ is his military title, for the field. Should you speak to him directly, say, ‘
Herr
Graf.’ And for God’s sake—”

“Aye, aye, don’t call them Huns where they can hear.” Tom did not quite roll his eyes, but assumed a martyred air. “What’s a Graf, then, did you say?”

“A landgrave. ‘Count’ would be the English equivalent of the title.”

He nudged his horse and they started slowly up the winding drive toward the house.

Grey hoped the Princess Louisa—now the Gräfin von Erdberg—wasn’t to home, despite Tom’s obvious eagerness to renew his acquaintance with the princess’s body servant, Ilse. He didn’t know what the nature of von Namtzen’s marriage might be, but it would be much easier to talk with Stephan von Namtzen without the prolonged social
pourparlers
that the princess’s presence would necessarily entail.

Still, if she were a devoted wife, she might well feel it incumbent upon her to hover over her wounded husband, tenderly nursing him back to health. Grey tried to envision the Princess Louisa von Lowenstein engaging in this sort of behavior, failed, and dismissed it from mind. God, if she were here, he hoped that at least she hadn’t brought her unspeakable mother-in-law.

A small, grubby face popped out of the foliage just ahead of them, blinked in surprise, then popped back in. Shouts and excited rustlings announced their arrival, and a groom was already hurrying round the house to take charge of Tom and the horses by the time they reached the flagged steps.

Wilhelm, Stephan’s butler, greeted Grey at the door, his long face lighting with pleasure. A number of dogs surged out with him, barking and wagging with delight as they smelt this new and interesting object.

“Lord John!
Willkommen, willkommen!
You will eat?”

“I will,” Grey assured him, smiling and patting the nearest furry head. “I am famished. Perhaps I should make my presence known to your master first, though? Or your mistress, should she be at home,” he added, for the sake of politeness, for the presence of the dogs assured him that the princess was not here.

A pained look crossed Wilhelm’s features at mention of his employers.

“The Princess Louisa is at Schloss Lowenstein. The Graf…yes, I will send word to the Graf at once. Of course,” he said, but with a sort of hesitancy that caused Grey to glance sharply at him.

“What is wrong?” he asked directly. “Is it that the Graf is still unwell? Is he unfit to receive company?”

“Oh, he is…well enough,” the butler replied, though in such uncertain tones that Grey felt some alarm. He noticed also that Wilhelm didn’t answer his second question, instead merely gesturing to Grey to follow him.

Had he harbored any doubts regarding the princess’s residency, they would have disappeared the moment he stepped across the threshold. The lodge was immaculately clean, but still held the pleasantly frowsty air of a bachelor establishment, smelling of dogs, tobacco, and brandywine.

A pair of mud-caked boots was visible through a parlor door, flung askew on the hearth—a good sign, he thought; Stephan must be somewhat recovered, if he were riding—and a small heap of stones, scraps of paper, pencil stubs, detached buttons, grubby bread crusts, coins, and other detritus recognizable as the contents of a man’s pockets was turned out on a silver salver which elsewhere might be intended for visiting cards.

Speaking of which…

“Has the Graf entertained many visitors since his unfortunate accident?” he inquired.

Wilhelm cast a rather hunted glance back over one shoulder and shook his head, but didn’t elaborate.

Not such a good sign; Stephan was normally a most sociable gentleman.

The butler paused at the foot of the staircase, as though trying to make up his mind about something.

“You are tired from your journey,
mein Herr
? I could show you to your room,” Wilhelm offered, making no move to do so.

“Not at all,” Grey replied promptly, taking up the obvious cue. “Perhaps you would have the kindness to take me to the Graf? I would like to give him my respects at once.”

“Oh, yes, sir!” Palpable relief spread over Wilhelm’s countenance, causing Grey to wonder afresh what the devil von Namtzen had been doing.

He had not long to wonder. Wilhelm shut the dogs in the kitchen, then escorted him, almost at the trot, through the lodge and out a door at the rear, whereupon they plunged into the forest and made their way along a pleasant, shady trail. In the distance ahead, Grey could hear shouts—he recognized Stephan von Namtzen’s voice, raised in displeasure—and a remarkable thunder of hooves and…wheels?

“Was ist—”
he began, but Wilhelm shook his head decidedly, and beckoned him on.

Grey rounded the next curve of the path on Wilhelm’s heels and found himself on the edge of an enormous clearing, floored with sand. And rushing directly toward him, screaming like an eagle and wild-eyed as his horses, was what appeared to be one of the ancient German gods of war, driving a chariot drawn by four galloping dark horses, scarlet-mouthed and foaming.

Grey flung himself to the side, taking the butler to the ground with him, and the chariot slewed past with barely an inch to spare, a flurry of monstrous hooves spraying them with sand and droplets of saliva.

“Jesus!”

The quadriga—yes, by God, it was; the four horses ran abreast, threatening at every moment to overturn the chariot that bounced like a pebble in their wake—galloped on, held in perilous check by the one-armed maniac who stood upright behind them, a terrified groom with a whip beside him, clinging with one hand to the chariot and with the other to the Graf von Namtzen.

Grey rose slowly to his feet, staring and wiping sand from his face. They weren’t going to make the turn.

“Slow
down
!” he bellowed, but it was much too late, even had they heard him over the thunder of the equipage. The chariot’s left wheel rose, touched sand, skipped free again, and to a chorus of shouts and screams, left the ground altogether as the horses scrambled, getting in each other’s way as they slewed uncontrolled and leaning into the turn.

The chariot fell sideways, spilling out its contents in a jumble of flailing limbs, and the horses, reins trailing, galloped on a few more steps before stumbling to a shuddering halt, fragments of the shattered chariot strewn behind them.

“Jesus,” Grey said again, finding no better remark. The two figures were struggling in the sand. The one-armed man lost his balance and fell; the groom tried to grasp his other arm, to help, and was cursed at for his trouble.

At Grey’s side, Wilhelm crossed himself.

“We are so glad you have come,
mein Herr,
” he said, voice trembling. “We didn’t know what to do.”

A
nd you think I do?
Grey thought later, in silent reply. The groom had been bundled off with a broken arm, a doctor sent for, and the horses—fortunately uninjured—seen to and stabled. The erstwhile charioteer had cavalierly dismissed a large swelling over one eye and a wrenched knee and greeted Grey with the utmost warmth, embracing him and kissing him upon both cheeks before limping off toward the house, calling for food and drink, his one arm draped about Grey’s shoulders.

They sat now sprawled in chairs before the fire, awaiting dinner, surrounded by a prostrate pack of heavily breathing dogs, their patience sustained by a plate of savories and a decanter of excellent brandy. A spurious sense of peace prevailed, but Grey was not fooled.

“Have you quite lost your mind, Stephan?” he inquired politely.