A Trail of Fire (17 page)

Grey dug in his pocket, hand trembling with fury, and brought out the miniature, which he showed briefly to Stubbs, before grinding it into the man’s cheek. Stubbs yelped, grabbed at it, and Grey let him have it, rising unsteadily off the man.

‘How dare you?’ he said, low-voiced and vicious. ‘How dare you dishonour your wife, your son?’

Malcolm was breathing hard, one hand clutching his abused thigh, but was regaining his composure.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing to do with Olivia at all.’ He swallowed, wiped a hand across his mouth, and took a cautious glance at the miniature in his hand. ‘That the sprat, is it? Good . . . good-looking lad. Looks like me, don’t he?’

Grey kicked him brutally in the stomach.

‘Yes, and so does your
other son
,’ he hissed. ‘How could you do such a thing?’

Malcolm’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. He struggled for breath like a landed fish. Grey watched without pity. He’d have the man split and grilled over charcoal before he was done. He bent and took the miniature from Stubbs’s unresisting hand, tucking it back in his pocket.

After a long moment, Stubbs achieved a whining gasp, and his face, which had gone puce, subsided back toward its normal brick colour. Saliva had collected at the corners of his mouth; he licked his lips, spat, then sat back, breathing heavily, and looked up at Grey.

‘Going to hit me again?’

‘Not just yet.’

‘Good.’ He stretched out a hand, and Grey took it, grunting as he helped Stubbs to his feet. Malcolm leaned against the wall, still panting, and eyed him.

‘So, who made you God, Grey? Who are you, to sit in judgement of me, eh?’

Grey nearly hit him again, but desisted.

‘Who am
I
?’ he echoed. ‘Olivia’s fucking cousin, that’s who! The nearest male relative she’s got on this continent! And you, need I remind you – and evidently I do – are her fucking husband. Judgement? What the devil d’you mean by that, you filthy lecher?’

Malcolm coughed, and spat again.

‘Yes. Well. I said, it’s nothing to do with Olivia – and so it’s nothing to do with you.’ He spoke with apparent calmness, but Grey could see the pulse hammering in his throat, the nervous shiftiness of his eyes. ‘It’s nothing out of the ordinary – it’s the bloody custom, for God’s sake. Everybody—’

He kneed Stubbs in the balls.

‘Try again,’ he advised Stubbs, who had fallen down and was curled into a foetal position, moaning. ‘Take your time; I’m not busy.’

Aware of eyes upon him, he turned to see several soldiers gathered at the mouth of the alley, hesitating. He was still wearing his dress uniform, though – somewhat the worse for wear, but still clearly displaying his rank – and when he gave them an evil look, they hastily dispersed.

‘I should kill you here and now, you know,’ he said to Stubbs after a few moments. The rage that had propelled him was draining away, though, as he watched the man retch and heave at his feet, and he spoke wearily. ‘Better for Olivia to have a dead husband – and whatever property you leave – than a live scoundrel, who will betray her with her friends – likely with her own maid.’

Stubbs muttered something indistinguishable, and Grey bent, grasping him by the hair, and pulled his head up.

‘What was that?’

‘Wasn’t . . . like that.’ Groaning and clutching himself, Malcolm manoeuvred himself gingerly into a sitting position, knees drawn up. He gasped for a bit, head on his knees, before being able to go on.

‘You don’t know, do you?’ He spoke low-voiced, not raising his head. ‘You haven’t seen the things I’ve seen. Not . . . done what I’ve had to do.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The . . . the killing. Not . . . battle. Not an honourable thing. Farmers. Women . . .’ He saw Stubbs’s heavy throat move, swallowing. ‘I— we— for months now. Looting the countryside, burning farms, villages.’ He sighed, broad shoulders slumping. ‘The men, they don’t mind. Half of them are brutes to begin with.’ He breathed. ‘Think . . . nothing of shooting a man on his doorstep and taking his wife next to his body.’ He swallowed. ‘’Tisn’t only Montcalm who pays for scalps,’ he said, in a low voice. Grey couldn’t avoid hearing the rawness in his voice, a pain that wasn’t physical.

‘Every soldier’s seen such things, Malcolm,’ he said after a short silence, almost gently. ‘You’re an officer. It’s your job to keep them in check.’
And you know damn well it isn’t always possible
, he thought.

‘I know,’ Malcolm said, and began to cry. ‘I couldn’t.’

Grey waited while he sobbed, feeling increasingly foolish and uncomfortable. At last, the broad shoulders heaved and subsided. After a moment, Malcolm said, in a voice that quivered only a little, ‘Everybody finds a way, don’t they? And there’re not that many ways. Drink, cards, or women.’ He raised his head and shifted a little, grimacing as he eased into a more comfortable position. ‘But you don’t go in much for women, do you?’ he added, looking up.

Grey felt the bottom of his stomach drop, but realised in time that Malcolm had spoken matter-of-factly, with no tone of accusation.

‘No,’ he said, and drew a deep breath. ‘Drink, mostly.’

Malcolm nodded, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

‘Drink doesn’t help me,’ he said. ‘I fall asleep, but I don’t forget. I just dream about . . . things. And whores— I— well, I didn’t want to get poxed and maybe . . . well, Olivia,’ he muttered, looking down. ‘No good at cards,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘But sleeping in a woman’s arms— I can sleep, then.’

Grey leaned against the wall, feeling nearly as battered as Malcolm Stubbs. Bright green leaves drifted through the air, whirling round them, settling in the mud.

‘All right,’ he said, eventually. ‘What do you mean to do?’

‘Dunno,’ Stubbs said, in a tone of flat resignation. ‘Think of something, I suppose.’

Grey bent and offered a hand; Stubbs got carefully to his feet, and nodding to Grey, shuffled toward the alley’s mouth, bent over and holding himself as though his insides might fall out. Halfway there, though, he stopped and looked back over his shoulder. There was an anxious look on his face, half-embarrassed.

‘Can I— the miniature? They are still mine, Olivia and the . . . my son.’

Grey heaved a sigh that went to the marrow of his bones; he felt a thousand years old.

‘Yes, they are,’ he said, and digging the miniature out of his pocket, tucked it carefully into Stubbs’s coat. ‘Remember it, will you?’

Two days later, a convoy of troop ships arrived, under the command of Admiral Holmes. The town was flooded afresh with men hungry for unsalted meat, fresh baked bread, liquor, and women. And a messenger arrived at Grey’s quarters, bearing a parcel for him from his brother, with the Admiral’s compliments.

It was small, but packaged with care, wrapped in oilcloth and tied about with twine, the knot sealed with his brother’s crest. That was unlike Hal, whose usual communiqués consisted of hastily dashed-off notes, generally employing slightly fewer than the minimum number of words necessary to convey his message. They were seldom signed, let alone sealed.

Tom Byrd appeared to think the package slightly ominous, too; he had set it by itself, apart from the other mail, and weighted it down with a large bottle of brandy, apparently to prevent it escaping. That, or he suspected Grey might require the brandy to sustain him in the arduous effort of reading a letter consisting of more than one page.

‘Very thoughtful of you, Tom,’ he murmured, smiling to himself and reaching for his pen-knife.

In fact, the letter within occupied less than a page, bore neither salutation nor signature, and was completely Hal-like.

Minnie wishes to know whether you are starving, though I don’t know what she proposes to do about it, should the answer be yes. The boys wish to know whether you have taken any scalps – they are confident that no Red Indian would succeed in taking yours; I share this opinion. You had better bring three tommyhawks when you come home.

Here is your paperweight; the jeweller was most impressed by the quality of the stone. The other thing is a copy of Adams’s confession. They hanged him yesterday.

The other contents of the parcel consisted of a small wash-leather pouch, and an official-looking document on several sheets of good parchment, this folded and sealed – this time with the seal of George II. Grey left it lying on the table, fetched one of the pewter cups from his campaign chest, and filled it to the brim with brandy, wondering anew at his valet’s perspicacity.

Thus fortified, he sat down and took up the little pouch, from which he decanted a small, heavy gold paperweight, made in the shape of a half-moon set among ocean waves, into his hand. It was set with a faceted – and very large – sapphire, that glowed like the evening star in its setting. Where had James Fraser acquired such a thing? he wondered.

He turned it in his hand, admiring the workmanship, but then set it aside. He sipped his brandy for a bit, watching the official document as though it might explode. He was reasonably sure it would.

He weighed the document in his hand, and felt the breeze from his window lift it a little, like the flap of a sail, just before it fills and bellies with a snap.

Waiting wouldn’t help. And Hal plainly knew what it said, anyway; he’d tell Grey eventually, whether he wanted to know or not. Sighing, he put by his brandy and broke the seal.

I, Bernard Donald Adams, do make this confession of my own free will . . .

Was it? he wondered. He did not know Adams’s handwriting, could not tell whether the document had been written or dictated— no, wait. He flipped over the sheets and examined the signature. Same hand. All right, he had written it himself.

He squinted at the writing. It seemed firm. Probably not extracted under torture, then. Perhaps it was the truth.

‘Idiot,’ he said under his breath. ‘Read the god-damned thing and have done with it!’

He drank the rest of his brandy at a gulp, flattened the pages upon the stone of the parapet and read, at last, the story of his father’s death.

The duke had suspected the existence of a Jacobite ring for some time, and had identified three men whom he thought involved in it. Still, he made no move to expose them, until the warrant was issued for his own arrest, upon the charge of treason. Hearing of this, he had sent at once to Adams, summoning him to the duke’s country home at Earlingden.

Adams did not know how much the duke knew of his own involvement, but did not dare to stay away, lest the duke, under arrest, denounce him. So he armed himself with a pistol, and rode by night to Earlingden, arriving just before dawn.

He had come to the conservatory’s outside doors, and been admitted by the duke. Whereupon ‘some conversation’ had ensued.

I had learned that day of the issuance of a warrant for arrest upon the charge of treason, to be served upon the body of the Duke of Pardloe. I was uneasy at this, for the duke had questioned both myself and some colleagues previously, in a manner that suggested to me that he suspected the existence of a secret movement to restore the Stuart throne.

I argued against the duke’s arrest, as I did not know the extent of his knowledge or suspicions, and feared that if placed in exigent danger himself, he might be able to point a finger at myself or my principal colleagues, these being Joseph Arbuthnot, Lord Creemore, and Sir Edwin Bellman. Sir Edwin was urgent upon the point, though, saying that it would do no harm; any accusations made by Pardloe could be dismissed as simple attempts to save himself, with no grounding in fact – while the fact of his arrest would naturally cause a widespread assumption of guilt, and would distract any attentions that might at present be directed toward us.

The duke, hearing of the warrant, sent to my lodgings that evening, and summoned me to call upon him at his country home, immediately. I dared not spurn this summons, not knowing what evidence he might possess, and therefore rode by night to his estate, arriving soon before dawn.

Adams had met the duke there, in the conservatory. Whatever the form of this conversation, its result had been drastic.