Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (42 page)

He was in complete agreement with this, but couldn’t say so. He was still coughing, but not as much; saliva was running from his mouth, making runnels in the soot, and he seemed to be making a whimpering noise with each jerked breath.

Hands on him, he felt them, frantic thumps and grabs, pulling at his coat, his limbs. He made a frenzied noise of protest and felt bone ends grate—Christ, he
heard
them grate—and a mass of green and brown and blue and red spun past, and he realized dimly that his eyes were open.

He blinked, tears streaming, saw the black spikes of his clotted lashes and cold gray stone by his face.

Jesus Falls the Third Time,
he thought.
Poor bastard.

Someone was bellowing overhead, meaningless sounds. Cannon was thumping somewhere near; he felt the ground shake, felt his heart stop with each crash, and wished it would stop once and for all, it hurt so when it started again….

“Jesus! Look at the blood of him! He’ll never last!”

“His arm, let me bind his arm—”

“No use, no use, it’s blown clean off!”

“It’s not, I saw his fingers move, back off—back
off,
I said, God damn your eyes!”

The voices seemed to come through a fog of noise, something rushing, like a waterfall that filled his ears. He still felt the thump of the guns, but that, too, had faded somehow, seemed safely distant. The pain had drawn in upon itself, and sat sullen in his chest, glowing like a lump of metal flung from a blacksmith’s forge, molten and heavy.

He hoped his heart would not come too close to it. He could see his heart, too, a pulsing dark-red thing, almost black by contrast with the brilliant crimson of the pain.

They were saying something now about the gun—were they fighting the gun?—but he couldn’t focus on the words; they all rushed past, part of a waterfall, loud in his ears. Water…warm water. It was rushing over him, his clothes felt sodden, he could feel the trickle of it down his neck, over his ribs, the feel of wet cloth stuck to his belly.

“Oh, Jesus,” said a voice above, despairing. “So much blood.”

H
e was in a room somewhere, filled with light. Wounded, he’d been wounded. By reflex, he grabbed for his balls. Their reassuring presence compensated in some measure for the rending pain that shot through his body with the movement, but it was still enough to make him gasp.

Something moved across the light, and someone bent over him.

“Me lord!” Tom Byrd’s voice came loud in his ear, halfway between fright and hope. “Quick, quick! Get the earl—he’s awake!”

“Earl?” Grey croaked. “What…Hal?”

“Your brother, aye. He’ll be right here, me lord, don’t you trouble yourself. D’ye want water, me lord?”

He wanted water somewhat more than heaven, earth, or the riches of the fabled East. He was dimly aware of someone arguing about whether he should be allowed to have any, but his precious Tom snarled like a badger and elbowed whoever it was away.

Cool pottery touched his mouth, and he gulped, half choking.

“Slow, me lord,” Tom said, moving the cup away, and put a hand behind his head to steady him. “Slow as does it. That’s it, now. Lap it like a dog, now, just a bit at a time.”

He lapped, urgent for more, trying to will the water into the parched tissues of his mouth and throat, tasting the faint silver of blood from a cracked lip. For a brief period of ecstasy, nothing existed save the bliss of drinking water. The cup was drawn away, though, and Tom lowered his head gently to the pillow, leaving him blinking at the ceiling, panting shallowly.

He’d ignored the pain in his chest and arm for the sake of water, but now realized that he could not draw a full breath. The left side of his body seemed encased in something solid, and he recalled quite suddenly hearing someone say that his arm had been blown off.

He jerked, trying to raise his head to look, and reached across his body with his right hand.

“Oh, Jesus!” Colored lights danced before his eyes and a cold sweat broke out on his body—but his left arm was there, thank God. It was still attached, though plainly not in good shape. He tried wiggling the fingers, which proved a mistake.

“Don’t move, me lord!” Tom sounded alarmed. “You mustn’t. Doctor says as it could kill you, if you move!”

He didn’t doubt it. The pain was back, grimly sitting on his chest, driving the breath out of him, trying patiently to stop his heart.

He lay still, eyes closed and teeth gritted, breathing in sips of air. He could smell pigs, ripe and near at hand. It must be one of the farmhouses near the may.

“Tom. What…happened?”

“They said the gun blew up, me lord. But the battle’s won,” he added, though Grey didn’t really care at the moment. “Mr. Brett nearly drowned in the dyke, but Mr. Tarleton fished him out.”

There were other people in the room now, he didn’t know how many. Voices, murmuring gravely. Tom was babbling nonsense in his ear, in a patent attempt to keep him from hearing what was being said. He raised his right hand, but let it fall, too exhausted to try to shush Tom. Besides, he thought he didn’t really want to hear what they were saying.

The voices stopped and went away. Tom fell silent, but stayed by him, dabbing sweat from his face and neck, now and then wetting his lips with water from the cup.

He could feel the fever starting. It was a sly thing, barely noticeable by contrast with the pain, but he was aware of it. He felt that he should fight, concentrate his mind to drive it back, but felt too tired to do anything but go on breathing, one short, shallow gasp at a time.

Perhaps he fell asleep, perhaps his attention only wandered. He was aware all at once that the voices were back, and Hal with them.

“All right, John?” Hal’s hand took hold of his sound right arm, squeezing.

“No.”

The hand squeezed harder.

“You see, my lord?” Another voice came from his other side. He cracked one eye open, far enough to see an earnest cove with a long face and a stern mouth, this downturned in displeasure at Grey’s state—or perhaps his existence. The name popped into his mind, sudden as if the face had acquired a label—Longstreet. Mr. Longstreet, army surgeon.

“Shit,” he said, and closed his eyes. Hal squeezed him again, evidently thinking this remark a response to the pain.

Another of the voices loomed up at the foot of the bed, this one speaking German. Burly sort in a green uniform, jabbing his finger at Grey in a definite sort of way.

“…must amputate, as I said.”

He was barely lucid enough to hear this, and flapped the uninjured arm in a feeble attempt at defense.

“…rather die.” Hoarse and cracked, it didn’t sound like his voice, and for a moment, he wondered who’d said that. Hal was scowling at him, though, attention momentarily diverted from the doctor.

The lining of his mouth stuck to his teeth, and he worked his tongue in a frantic effort to generate enough saliva to speak. His body convulsed in the effort and he reared up from the bed, fire roaring up the left side of his body.

“Don’t…let ’em,” he said to his brother’s swimming face, and fell back into darkness, hearing cries of alarm.

The next time he came round, it was to find himself bound to a bedstead. He checked hastily, but his left arm was still amongst those present. It had been splinted and wrapped in bandages and it hurt amazingly, much worse than the last time he’d been awake, but he wasn’t inclined to complain.

He was mildly surprised to hear that the surgeons were all still arguing—in German, this time. One of them was insisting to Hal that it was futile, as “he”—Grey himself, he supposed—was undoubtedly going to die. Another—Longstreet, he thought, though he also spoke in German—was insisting that Hal must leave the surgeons to their work.

“I’m not leaving,” Hal said, close by. “And he isn’t dying. Are you?” he inquired, seeing that Grey was awake.

“No.” Some kind soul had wetted his lips again; the word came out in a whisper, but it was audible.

“Good. Don’t,” Hal advised him, then looked up. “Byrd, go and guard the door. No one is to come in here until I say so. Do you understand?”

“Yes, me lord!” The hand on Grey’s shoulder lifted and he heard Tom Byrd’s boots hurrying across the floor, the opening and closing of the door.

It occurred to Grey, with complete calm and utter clarity, that it would be extremely convenient for a number of people—not least himself—if he were to die as a result of his injuries.

Percy? He felt no more than a dim ache at thought of Percy, but retained that odd clarity of thought. Most of all to Percy. Custis was dead. If he were to die, as well, there would be no one to testify at the court-martial, and such a charge could not be pressed without witnesses.

Would they let Percy go on that account? Probably so. His career would be finished, of course. But the army would vastly prefer to dismiss him quietly than to have the ballyhoo and scandal of a trial for sodomy.

“Do you suppose it was my fault, as he said?” he asked his father, who was standing beside the bed, looking down at him.

“I shouldn’t think so.” His father rubbed an index finger beneath his nose, as he generally did when thinking. “You didn’t force him to do it.”

“But was he right, do you think? Did he only do it because I couldn’t give him what he needed?”

The duke’s brows drew together, baffled.

“No,” he said, shaking his head in reproof. “Not logical. Every man chooses his own way. No one else can be responsible.”

“What’s not logical?”

Grey blinked, to find Hal frowning down at him.

“What’s not logical?” his brother repeated.

Grey tried to reply, but found the effort of speaking so great that he only closed his eyes.

“Right,” Hal went on. “There are fragments of metal in your chest; they’re going to remove them.” He hesitated, then his fingers closed gently over Grey’s.

“I’m sorry, Johnny,” he said, low-voiced. “I don’t dare let them give you opium. It’s going to hurt a lot.”

“Are…you under th-the im…pression that this is…news to me?”

The effort of speaking made his head swim and gave him a nearly irresistible urge to cough, but it lightened Hal’s expression a bit, so was worth it.

“Good lad,” Hal whispered, and squeezed his hand briefly, letting go then in order to fumble something out of his pocket. This proved, when Grey could fix his wavering gaze on it, to be a limp bit of leather, looking as though the rats had been at it.

“It was Father’s,” Hal said, tenderly inserting it between Grey’s teeth. “I found it amongst his old campaign things. Ancestral teeth marks and all,” he added, making an unconvincing attempt at a reassuring grin. “Don’t know for sure whose teeth they were, though.”

Grey munched the leather gingerly, just as pleased that its presence saved him the effort of further reply. The taste of it was oddly pleasant, and he had a brief memory of Gustav the dachshund, gnawing contentedly at his bit of beef hide.

The picture reminded him of other things, though—the last time he had seen von Namtzen and the bitter smell of the chrysanthemums, the still more bitter smell of Percy’s sweat and the night-soil bucket—he turned his head violently, away from everything. And then there was a looming presence over him, and he shivered suddenly as the sheet was lifted away.

His attention was distracted by a snicking sound. He turned his head and saw Hal checking the priming on the pistol he had just cocked. Hal sat down on a stool, set the pistol on his knee, and gave Longstreet a look of cold boredom.

“Get on, then,” he said.

There was a sudden chill as the dressing on Grey’s chest was lifted, and he heard the sharp-edged hiss of metal and the surgeon’s deep, impatient sigh. Hal’s fingers tightened, grasping his.

“Just hold on, Johnny,” Hal said in a steady voice. “I won’t let go.”

Chapter 30

A Specialist in Matters of the Heart

I
n early September, he returned to England, to Argus House. Once well enough to leave the field hospital at Crefeld, he had been sent to Stephan von Namtzen’s hunting lodge, where he had spent the next two months slowly recuperating under the tender care of von Namtzen, Tom Byrd, and Gustav the dachshund, who came into his room each night, moaned until lifted onto the bed, and then settled down comfortingly—if heavily—on Grey’s feet, lest his soul wander in the night.

Shortly after his return to England, Harry Quarry came to call, keeping up an easy flow of cordialities and regimental gossip that demanded little more of Grey than the occasional smile or nod in response.

“You’re tired,” Quarry said abruptly. “I’ll go, let you rest a bit.”

Grey would have protested politely, but the truth was that he was close to collapse, chest and arm hurting badly. He made to stand up, to see Quarry out, but his friend waved him back. He paused at the door, though, hat in hand.

“Have you heard much from Melton? Since you’ve been back, I mean?”

“No. Why?” Grey’s arm ached abominably; he could barely wait until Harry departed and he could have Tom put the sling back on.

“I thought he might have told you—but I suppose he didn’t want to hamper your recovery.”

“Told me what?” The pain in his arm seemed suddenly less important.

“Two things. Arthur Longstreet’s back in England; army surgeon—you know him?”

“Yes,” Grey said, and his hand went involuntarily to his chest, the left side of it crisscrossed with barely healed weals. Tom, seeing it, had remarked that he looked as though he’d been in a saber fight. “What—did he say why Longstreet’s here?” Why would Hal not have told him this?

“Invalided out,” Quarry replied promptly. “Shot through the lungs at Zorndorf; in a bad way, I hear.”

“Ah. Too bad,” he said mechanically, but relaxed a little. Longstreet was no threat, then—if in fact he ever had been. Grey would like to go and talk to him, but doubtless Hal had assumed there was nothing urgent in the matter, and wanted to wait until he had returned from campaigning himself.

“Two things, you said.” He recovered himself abruptly. “What was the second?”

Quarry gave him a look of profound sympathy, though his voice was gruff in reply.

“They’ve moved Wainwright back to England. The court-martial’s not yet scheduled, but it will be, soon. Probably early October. I thought you should know,” Harry added, more gently.

It was warm in the room, but gooseflesh rose on Grey’s arms.

“Thank you,” he said. “Where…where is he now, do you know?”

Harry shrugged.

“Small country gaol in Devonshire,” he said. “But they’ll likely move him to Newgate for the trial.”

Grey wanted to ask the name of the town in Devonshire, but didn’t. Better if he didn’t know.

“Yes,” he said, and struggled to his feet to see Harry out. “I—thank you, Harry.”

Quarry gave him a grimace that passed for a smile, and with a small flourish, donned his hat and left.

“You all right, me lord?” Tom, who had never been farther than six feet from his side since Crefeld, came in with the sling for his arm, examining Grey with a look of worry. “Colonel Quarry’s tired you out. You look pale, you do.”

“I daresay,” Grey said shortly. “I haven’t been outdoors in three weeks. Here,” he said, seized by sudden recklessness. “I’m going for a walk. Put that on, and fetch my cloak, please, Tom.”

Tom opened his mouth to protest, but seeing the look on Grey’s face, shut it and sighed.

“Very good, me lord,” he said, resigned.

“And don’t follow me!”

“No indeed, me lord,” Tom said, fastening the sling with a little more force than strictly necessary. “I’ll just wait for the rag-and-bone man to bring you home, after he picks you up in the street, shall I?”

That made Grey smile, at least.

“I’ll come home on my own two feet, Tom, I promise.”

“Pah,” said Tom.

“Did you say, ‘Pah’?” Grey inquired, incredulous.

“Certainly not, me lord.” He swung Grey’s cloak round his shoulders. “Enjoy your walk, me lord,” he said politely, and stamped out.

The impetus of this conversation was sufficient to carry Grey as far as the edge of Hyde Park, where he leaned against a railing, waiting for his breath to come back. The wounds in his chest had healed fairly well, but any exertion made him feel as though his lungs were still riddled with bits of hot metal, and might fill with blood at any moment.

Early October. A month. Maybe less. Concerned with his own survival, he had managed not to think about anything for a time. And Minnie, Olivia, and Tom had gone to great lengths to be sure he was not exposed to anything upsetting; if Hal
had
mentioned Percy in any of his letters, he was sure Minnie had carefully suppressed the news.

He drew a shallow breath, breathed deeper, alert for rattling sounds in his chest, but there were none. Well, then. He straightened, taking his weight off the supporting railing. His arm was throbbing, despite the sling, but he ignored it. He had no idea what awaited him in October—but he would, as he’d promised Tom, go to it on his own two feet. Slowly, he began the journey round the park, the thought of Percy like iron fetters on his feet.

T
he christening of Cromwell Percival John Malcolm Stubbs took place a week later, within ten feet of his birthplace. Olivia, displaying the same streak of stubbornness—some called it perversity—that characterized the family, had insisted upon the child’s name, and as her husband was not there to stop her, it was done.

“Do you mind?” she had said to Grey. “I won’t do it, if you do. Melton would disapprove very much, I’m sure—but he isn’t here to forbid it.”

“Are you asking me as
de facto
head of the family?” he’d asked, smiling a little, in spite of the circumstances. She’d come to find him in the garden, where Tom forced him out to sit every afternoon, on the theory that it disturbed the household to know that he was still lying in his bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Of course not,” Olivia had said. “I’m asking you because—well, because.”

He probably should have tried to stop her. It was a private christening, with just the family and a few close friends—but people
would
talk. Lucinda, Lady Joffrey, was the child’s godmother; Sir Richard stiffened visibly when he heard the vicar pronounce the child’s names and shot a sharp look at Grey.

Grey was proof against looks, though, and speech, as well. He walked in a protective blanket of soft gray fog that muffled everything and made him feel invisible.

Now and then, something unexpected would penetrate the fog, sharp and wounding as the bits of shrapnel left in his chest, which worked their way one by one to the surface. Last week, it had been Harry’s visit. Today, it was the light.

It had been cloudy outside, but now the sun burst through, and a flood of colored light from a stained-glass window fell over the christening party in soft lozenges of red and blue and green.

The space at his side had been no more than an empty expanse of floor slates. Suddenly, it was an abyss.

He looked away, heart pounding and palms sweating, and saw Olivia looking at him, wearing an expression of concern. He nodded at her, forcing a smile, and she relaxed a little, her attention returning to the infant in Lucinda’s arms.

He spoke the words of the baptismal vows automatically, not hearing them. The air shook around him with the echo of organ pipes and clashing swords, and sweat ran down his back.

Lucinda removed the child’s lacy cap, and Cromwell Percival John Malcolm Stubbs’s head protruded from the christening robes, round as a cantaloupe. Grey fought back an inappropriate urge to laugh, and in the same instant, felt the piercing pain of being unable to turn to Percy and see the same laughter in his eyes.

It wasn’t even the right name. He’d thought of telling Olivia that, but hadn’t. It might not be the only secret Percy still possessed, but it was the only one Grey could keep for him.

The date for the court-martial had been set: 13th October, at eleven in the morning. If they hanged Percy—on Grey’s testimony—ought he to insist they do it as “Perseverance”?

Lucinda kicked him in the ankle, and he realized that everyone was looking at him.

“Say, ‘I do believe,’” Lucinda said under her breath.

“I do believe,” he said obediently.

“I baptize thee, Cromwell Percival John Malcolm, in the name of the Father…”

The splash of water came to him, distant as rain.

I should have told her it was “Perseverance,”
he thought, in sudden panic.
What if it’s all that should be left of him?

But it was too late. He closed his eyes, and felt the soft fog come to wrap its comfort round him once again, the gray of it tinged with the light of saints and martyrs.

Y
ou don’t look well, John.” Lucinda Joffrey circled round him, looking thoughtfully over her fan at him.

“You surprise me, madam,” he said politely. “I made sure that I appeared the very picture of health.”

She didn’t reply to that feeble retort, but closed the fan with a snap and tapped him in the chest with it. He flinched as though she had stabbed him with a brooch-pin.

“Not. Well.” She tapped him with each word, and he backed up sharply, to get away from her. The christening party was being held in the garden at Argus House, though, and his escape was prevented by the fishpond behind him.

“Look at him, Horry,” she ordered. “What does he look like?”

“The Duchess of Kendal,” Horace Walpole replied promptly. “When I last saw her, two days before her unlamented demise.”

“Thank you, Mr. Walpole,” Grey said, giving him a look.

“Not but that your lordship has much better
taste
than my lady Kendal.” Walpole gave him back the look. “The color of your face, however, is not what I would choose myself, to complement the shade of your suit. It is not
quite
the complexion of one of my darlings”—he nodded toward a sherry decanter on a nearby table, in which he had brought several small goldfish from his house at Strawberry Hill, as a present for Minnie—“but approaching that hue.”

“You must see a doctor, John,” Lucinda said, lowering the fan and giving him the benefit of her lovely eyes, set in open distress at his condition.

“I don’t want a doctor.”

“There is a very good man of my acquaintance,” Walpole said, as though struck by inspiration. “A specialist in weaknesses of the chest. I should be more than delighted to provide an introduction.”

“How kind of you, Horry! I am sure anyone you recommend must be a marvel.” Lucinda opened her fan in gratitude.

Grey, who was not so far gone as to be unable to spot gross conspiracy and very bad acting, rolled up his eyes.

“Give me the name,” he said, in apparent resignation. “I shall write for an appointment.”

“Oh, no need,” Walpole said cheerfully. “Dr. Humperdinck expresses the keenest interest in making your acquaintance. I’ll send my coach for you, at three o’clock tomorrow.”