Soldier No More (34 page)

“Gosh, no, Davey darling!” exclaimed Lexy. “He wouldn’t like them— they wear frightful blue suits, all shapeless and bulgy, with brown shoes. Daddy pointed out two of them to me at a reception we were at. They were awful!”

“Okay …” The Israeli shrugged. “Maybe Mike can fix up an introduction to the CIA. They wear better suits … Mike?”

Bradford stirred uneasily.

“I knew a lovely boy in the CIA,” said Lexy. “At least, I think he was in the CIA.”

“I’m told they’re always looking for volunteers in England,” said Stein. “It’s part of the ‘special relationship’, I suppose.”

“He was in something incredibly secret, anyway,” said Lexy dreamily. Then she sighed. “But Daddy didn’t like him.”

“Daddy didn’t like his particular idea of the special relationship, you mean,” murmured Stein. “Well, Mike?”

“Yeah.” Bradford cleared his throat. “I know a couple of guys …” He eyed Audley for a moment. “I could give you names and addresses. You just give me Antonia Palfrey’s name—real name—in return. And her address, huh?”

“Oh, Mike!” Lexy rounded on the American. “Why must you keep harping on Antonia Palfrey? He’s told you he doesn’t know her.”

“And I’ve told him I don’t believe him.”

“But
why
! Not just because of what … of what Professor Archie Whatnot says, Mike?”

Bradford shook his head. “Forbes just pointed me at the facts.”

“What facts?”

“Honey… “ Bradford continued to stare at Audley “…that goddamn woman is an expert in a very small field. UCLA says so, and Forbes says so, and I
know
so—because I’ve checked the field out. And there’s no one fills the bill, just no one.”

“So what?”

“So … so maybe she isn’t an expert. Maybe she’s gotten herself a tame expert—someone who knows the difference between an Ostrogoth and a Visigoth and a Vandal, all about 5th century Christians and heretics and pagans. And also someone who knows about fighting, the way Miss Antonia Palfrey seems to know about it—“

“That doesn’t follow, Mike,” said Jilly quickly. “Stephen Crane in
The Red Badge of Courage
—“

“
Crap!
She’s picked somebody’s brains, honey. Somebody who knows about being scared and about …
barbarians
.” Bradford paused. “You know anyone here fills that bill, huh?”

Roche watched Audley, aware that everyone was doing the same.

“Fills the bill?” Audley sighted the American down his nose. “Dr Bodger, of Rylands College, Cambridge, fills the bill, for a start, old boy.”

“More crap. Bodger never fired a shot in his life, old buddy. He worked for the Ministry of Information. He had rheumatic fever when he was a kid. I told you—I’ve checked out the field. He was never even called up for military service.” Bradford shook his head again. “Also, he doesn’t commute to Zurich regularly.”

“Zurich?” Lexy looked from Audley to Bradford.

“
He
does. And that’s where the elusive Miss Palfrey lives.” Bradford pointed at Audley.

Audley tossed his head. “This is ridiculous. I’ve been to Zurich once or twice in the last three months, I have an account there. It isn’t a crime yet, for God’s sake!”

Stein chuckled. “No flies on our David!”

“
Flies
is right—“ Bradford sat up “—flies is
exactly
right. Eh, David?”

Audley grimaced at him. “What d’you mean? F-f-flies?”

That’s what I mean: ‘f-f-flies’.” Bradford pounced on him. “ ‘F-f-flies’. Big ones, little ones—fat ones, black ones, green shiny ones—squashy ones—
flies
, David—“

“Don’t be disgusting, Bradford!” Audley hunched his shoulders.

Lexy tossed the hair from her face. “Now you’re being beastly, Mike—“

Not at all, honey—“

“You are so! We all know David hates flies, he’s told us so. But so do I and so do you—“ she gave Audley a quick, sympathetic glance, and then carried on to the Israeli “—and when we talked about them … Davey there said there were more flies in that desert of his—“

“Sinai.” Stein nodded. “Sinai is the fly capital of the world.”

For Christ’s sake!” said Audley.

Bradford nodded at Roche. “There you are, Captain. We don’t like ‘f-f-flies’—but
he
’
s
obsessive about them!”

Roche observed Audley’s face contort, though whether with disgust or anger the shadows didn’t tell.

“So … just get the book, and I’ll prove my point,” went on Bradford. “Lexy—?”

“What point?” asked Jilly. “What book?”

Lexy blinked. “Book—?”

Bradford gestured dismissively. “It doesn’t matter—you can take my word for it, I can give you chapter and page—
chapters
and
pages
, rather— it’s all there to be seen …
and
heard—they buzz around from battlefield to battlefield to annoy Simplicius, and from corpse to corpse on the battlefield. On one page she has a whole paragraph about the Devil being ‘lord of the flies’, and how each fly is a black soul from Hell sent to plague the faithful—“

“Flies!” Lexy buried a hand into her tangled hair. “Of course—yes, you’re absolutely right, Mike—and the flies in the food at the wedding banquet, when she’s forced to marry Atwulf—Galla Placidia—“

Ataulf—“ Audley corrected her automatically.

“So you
have
read the book, David!”

“I have
not
read the book.” Audley closed his eyes. “I do not
want
to read the book—I
will not
read the book. I know perfectly well what happened during the period without having to read any semi-pornographic historical novel.”

“I’ll bet you do,” said Bradford. “Flies included.”

Audley opened his eyes. “I … happen to have particularly unpleasant memories about… flies.” He pronounced the word carefully. “Wartime memories, not historical ones. I’d prefer not to remember them, if it’s all the same to you, Bradford.”

“You remembered them for Antonia Palfrey.”

Shut up, Mike,” said Jilly.

“The hell I will!” Bradford’s voice was obstinate. “If you think I—“

However
…
” Audley’s own voice was obstinate too, and louder “… however … I will tell you one thing you want to know, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Oh, goody-goody!” exclaimed Lexy. “He’s going to tell us something that’ll make us feel better!”

Audley’s mouth twisted. “It won’t make
you
feel better. It’s all about barbarians—“

“Oh—
merde!
”
Lexy’s shoulders slumped.

“But it does answer your question, nevertheless—“

“What question?” Lexy cocked her head. “How—“

“Sssh, dear!” Jilly hushed her. “He’s about to tell us how he ticks. Go on, David.”

“Barbarians make him tick?” Lexy blundered on. “Oh—come on, David—“

“
Lexy
—“ Jilly’s tone became dangerous.

“Okay! Okay!” Lexy raised her hands. “Barbarians make you tick, David—anything you say!”

Audley stared at her. “They did—yes. After the war … during the war for that matter … they say war’s a great leveller, and so it is. It levelled Aachen—Charlemagne’s Aix-la-Chapelle … and Cologne …
Colonia Agrippina
…
all in a good cause, of course—I levelled one little Norman church myself, with a few well-placed shots at a discreet distance—there was this brave bugger with a
panzerfaust
in it, who’d just incinerated a friend of mine in the tank ahead of me … good causes don’t come any better than that.”

“David—“ began Lexy.

He was drunk, thought Roche. But not totally drunk, because there still wasn’t a word out of place, and not stupid drunk either. He simply hadn’t liked the drift of Bradford’s interrogation—the piling up of circumstantial evidence against him, piece by piece—and was seeking instead to divert it with the one thing he had to give them which might intrigue them more.

“Go on, David,” said Jilly.

“Where was I?” Audley blinked owlishly.

“You were demolishing Germany,” said Stein.

“In a good cause,” said Lexy. “And it had something to do with barbarians.”

“Ah … of course,
they
crossed the Rhine from East to West—the Franks, and then the Vandals and all the rest … but
we
crossed it from West to East, as the Romans did, complete with hostile Germans on the other side.” Audley nodded at Stein. “And I remember thinking … ‘This time we’ll get it right, the conquest of Germany—we won’t fluff it, like the Romans did’. But, of course, it didn’t work out like that, with the Russians—I was escorting one of the T Force groups ferreting out German technological secrets, and we ran into them doing the same thing straight off, and I knew then what sort of brave new world we were heading for.” He paused. “Nine months of fighting Nazis … and others … and eighteen months of fighting Russians … and others—that was my war. Uncomfortable, but highly educational, you might say.” Another pause. “Then I went up to Cambridge, into the tender care of Professor Archibald Forbes—“ he raised his glass, only to find that it was empty; and then that the bottles on the table, tested one after another, were also empty, and focussed finally upon Lexy “—another bottle, pot-girl!”

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough, David?” said Jilly.

“Huh!” Audley grunted derisively. “My dear Gillian, I haven’t started to drink yet—not by rugger club standards, anyway.”

Lexy drew another bottle from the rack.

“Make it two—or three, seeing as how the night is yet young … Stein—Bradford—Captain Roche … fill your glasses! Let us drink to our dead youth—you remember your Kipling, Roche? Parnesius and Pertinax on the Great Wall, with the barbarians on the warpath?” Roche held out his glass obediently.

Audley grinned back at him. “A libation is what we should make—“ he looked around, his glance finally settling on the potted plant at his elbow “—just a drop for my lost opportunities, then—“ he inclined his glass carefully “—but not too much! Roche?”

Roche leaned forward to bury his own glass among the leaves. “And for mine too!” He tipped as much of his wine as he dared into the heart of the plant.

“Good man!” Audley beamed at him. “Stein—Bradford?”

“I don’t sacrifice,” said Stein.

“And I don’t waste good wine,” said Bradford.

Audley shrugged. “Well… that’s your funeral. I mocked the gods once, and I was punished for my
hubris
—appropriately punished, too.”

“What
hubris
, David?” asked Jilly.

“I thought I knew better,” said Audley. “I turned Forbes down when he offered me the real world, and chose the other Dark Ages instead. I thought I was uniquely well-placed to interpret them—I thought I had an insight denied to lesser mortals after my wartime education.”

“Why the Dark Ages?” asked Jilly.

“Because that was the other time when the world changed, love—the other barbarian age—from the fall of the Roman Empire to when the Arabs were three days’ march from Paris, or thereabouts. After which nothing was ever the same again—I found it fascinating.” Audley shook his head. “What a time to live in—
fascinat
ing
—“

“Ugh!” Lexy shivered. “Sidonius Simplicius didn’t think it was fascinating—he thought it was dreadful! Like the beginning of the end of the world, he said.”

“So it was—of
his
world.” Audley grinned at her. “But, don’t you see, that’s what makes it so interesting—the world turned upside down and history speeded up. What an age to live in!”

“You’re just like Sidonius Simplicius,” said Lexy. “He decided in the end that it was interesting, once he’d worked out how to play both ends against the middle. Then he said it was all the will of God, anyway. But he hadn’t been raped in the process, of course.”

“Indeed?” Audley half shrugged. “But… well, that’s what I thought, at all events,
mes amis
: I really believed that I could lose myself in the past, in the old dark ages, using my understanding of the uncomfortable present as the key to it all …” his expression twisted “… from the comfort of a senior common room at Cambridge, naturally—that goes without saying.”

The man’s bitterness went without saying also, thought Roche. He was eaten up with it, beneath his self-mockery.

“But you didn’t get a fellowship,” said Bradford brutally.

Audley bowed to him over his glass, which was empty again. “Hubris, my dear fellow. And it was a rather juvenile theory, anyway.”

“Oh, come on, David! You haven’t done too badly,” Lexy’s natural instinct, once she had realised the concealed wound, was to apply soothing ointment to it.

“Yes,” Stein nodded. “And, come to that, you could probably get a fellowship somewhere now, if you wanted to. That book of yours was well reviewed in the
TLS
—the Byzantine one … Maybe not Oxbridge, but one of the newer places. Or the States—“

Audley winced. “I don’t want a bloody fellowship in one of the newer places—or the States…
or
Oxbridge, damn it.”

“Yeah—of course! You told us. You want your old job back.” Bradford twisted the blade. “Maybe you should go crawling back to Forbes, and ask for forgiveness.”

“Mike!” admonished Jilly. “Lay off!”

The American shrugged unrepentantly. “Tit for tat, honey. Just being helpful.”

“Helpful!” Jilly gestured impatiently. “But why, David? You still haven’t explained
why
.”

“Haven’t I?” Audley blinked at her. “I thought I had.”

“You haven’t, darling,” said Lexy. “Not a word. But—“

“Sssh!” Jilly waved her down too. “Go on, David.”

Audley shifted on his stool uneasily, as though unwilling to strip his seventh veil at the last.

Stein chuckled darkly behind his glass. “The great David doesn’t want to admit the truth.”

“What truth?”

“He’s bored, Jilly dear—plain, old-fashioned bored … Bored and lonely—lonely and bored!” The Israeli nodded to himself, and then to Audley. “And it’s a dangerous combination, that—in a man like you, my friend. It makes you ripe for any mischief, any wickedness in this wicked world.” He looked around at the rest of them. “Such men are dangerous, believe me. We would do well to leave him alone—to leave now, before it is too late … or he will drag us down with him into some fatal adventure of his.”