Honor's Kingdom (45 page)

“We did rather all right, didn’t we?” he beamed.

But I could only think of the child. About to snatch one of those torches I was, though they were burning down. I would have scoured that hill, then the rest of the city. But I saw her storm of hair rise from a gravestone, then the white face.

“It’s all right now, lass,” I told her, in a voice much reduced. And up she sprang, and she charged for me. And she held to me again.

Twas then I found myself the object of a feminine rivalry for my attentions. Fanny did not intend to release me, but Miss Perkins wished to staunch the flow of my blood, with as great a dramatic performance as possible.

Twas then I noticed the shawl—my darling’s shawl—spread over the White Lily’s shoulders.

She followed the course of my eyes, as women do.

“Ain’t you a dearie, though?” she said. “Such a sweet old bird, ’e is, to wish to surprise a girl with ’andsome presents. Don’t you go getting your nasty blood all over it, now.”

Well, if she had taken the shawl, she had picked up the pistol, as well. Miss Perkins seemed to have a sort of Communist’s view of property, helping herself to everything lying about. But I found I could not chide her, or tell her that the gift was not for her. I owed her a shawl, and more. But I will tell you: Had I known she was to have that shawl for herself, I might have done my buying more economically.

And now I would have to buy another. Which galled me.

Thinking about those pounds and pence, I near forgot my wound. Until she touched it dead center. I jumped up near as high as old John Knox.

“You’ll do for a good washing, when we get back,” she told me.

All the while I saw Mr. Adams, eyeing the two of us dolefully, with a look on his face that as much as said, “Jones, you’re a lying cheat at the game of hearts.”

Innocent I was, and well you know it.

Oh, all this was but a matter of minutes, with the colonel picking over the dead and exclaiming, “Well, there’s an ugly one, don’t you know?” when he got a look at Lieutenant Culpeper’s face.

Inspector McLeod wore a baffled look. I do not think such events were common in his experience. He muttered and muttered, as only the Scots can do.

“’Old yourself still, dearie,” Miss Perkins told me again. She brought her face so close to mine I could smell her youthful breath. I fear it was not as sweet as that of the damsels in romances. In fact, she smelled like cheese halfway coughed up. But pretty she was, do not mistake me. And I was grateful for her ministrations.

The more Miss Perkins went at my face, the tighter Fanny clung to me. Until I felt so pulled and poked I could hardly keep my balance.

“Fanny, girl,” I said. “Give us a song, would you, then? A happy song.”

When she did not separate herself from me in the slightest degree, I told her, “Miss Perkins here is a great singing sensation, you know. From London. I know that she would like to hear you sing.”

Reluctantly, Fanny took one step away. Then another. Watching all the while in case I might flee.

“Do ye want me tae gi’ ‘Annie Laurie’?” she asked.

“No, girl,” I said, for I would have no more laying down and dying that night. “Do you know ‘My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,’ then?”

“Aye,” she said, and she began to sing, by the last light of the torches.

Polly—Miss Perkins, I mean to say—interrupted her role as Miss Nightingale and stared at the child in wonder.

“Well, scratch my royal bum,” Miss Perkins said, “she’s got some lungs on ’er. And looks coming on, too. Use ’er, I could, in my musical revue.” Vivid with excitement the White Lily was, with the torchlight dancing over her fair face. “I could tell ’em she was my sister, and none’s the wiser.”

Well, no one would have thought those were sisters. But no audience would find its judgement tested. For I had made a decision of some moment.

“No,” I said as firmly as I could, “she will not go on your stage. Miss Raeburn has an engagement in America.”

WHEN ALL WERE SATISFIED that the dead were dead and that no more phantoms lurked by the crypts and headstones, we arranged ourselves for our descent to the city. Inspector McLeod was content to leave the corpses where they had fallen until they might be collected in the morning, although he observed they were like to give an awful fright to any grave-diggers
who took themselves early to work. He admitted he did not know quite how to explain the least of the slaughter to his superiors, but certain enough he was as to who was at fault. “It’s bad enow with the Irish a’ over the city,” he said. “Glasgow is na place for devils frae India.”

He had not written the note, nor had he heard of it. And the proof was that he had gone to my room for the very purpose the note described, to speak to me about events in private. When he appeared, Miss Perkins answered and soon engaged him in friendly conversation, for which she had a gift. And when it come out who he was and what he wanted, she remembered what I had said before departing, which deeply alarmed both her and the inspector. Fetching Mr. Adams, who had not been without certain misgivings as to the wisdom of exposing so delicate a party to the night air, among other considerations, they started from the hotel. And met Colonel Tice-Rolley coming in the front door. Which seemed rather a coincidence to me. Although that, too, would have its explanation.

Inspector McLeod knew the grounds and paths, and the torches had been a further aid to my rescuers, after which they heard our clashing blades. The inspector said he had heard me cursing, too. I told him he was mistaken and it must have been Culpeper. But the colonel piped up and said that it was me, indeed, and he never forgot a voice heard on a battlefield. After which he added, with an enthusiasm more fitting to the colonel he had been than to the reverend gentleman he had become, “Wasn’t it like old times, though, Jones? Remember how we went over the guns on the flank of the 75th, at Badl-ki-Serai?”

The girl, of course, asked more than once if I really meant to take her to America. And I told her I did. Although I feared I had made a leap that would require some explanation to my beloved wife.

The inspector led the way back down, taking Miss Perkins by the hand to guide her over any treacherous pebbles that might conspire to her embarrassment. Truth be told, she was nimbler than the lot of us, and would have made an excellent
subject for close-order drill. But then she was a dancer, and I suppose that even such wanton professions impart some useful skills. Mr. Adams trailed close behind the two of them, watching the inspector and his prancing charge with an attention that put me in mind of a Musselman mother watching out for a daughter come near the marrying age. Although I suspect Mr. Adams had intentions that might not be classed as motherly.

I went down with the colonel, with Fanny gay between us. How lovely it would be for us all, if we could recapture a child’s gift of forgetting. You would not have thought her life had been threatened but half an hour before. Perhaps her singing helped her. Mine is a help to me, though I like hymns.

Pressing the shred of petticoat to my cheek with my left hand, I held Fanny’s hand with my right. A goodness there is in a child’s grip that the rest of us lose with the years. Her other hand had been taken up by the colonel.

“Just like old times,” he said again.

“There is true, sir,” I told him. “It is a very lion you were.”

“And you were as great a devil as ever you were, Jones. Ran ’im through clean as gunner’s brass, don’t you know? Haven’t lost your skills.”

And then we both of us paused in our speech, for we had remembered ourselves. Our killing days were meant to be all past. And we had turned to a higher glory than any the soldier seeks.

I am not sure if we felt repentance, or only thought we should.

After a bit, as we approached the little causeway that would lead us back to the world of lamps and order, the colonel said, “You know, Jones . . . under the circumstances . . . and all things considered . . . I should be honored if you were to call me ‘Topsy.’ ”

I near stopped in my tracks. Topsy?

“It’s what all my dearest friends call me,” the colonel explained.

“Sir,” I said, “I . . . I would be honored.” Although I frankly did not know if I could make the word come out. In the barracks, we had enjoyed a somewhat different nickname for the colonel, see.

“No,” he said. “Not ‘sir.’ Topsy.”

“Yes, sir. I mean . . . Topsy.”

“And shall I call you Abel?”

“Yes, sir. Topsy.”

“Oh, isn’t this grand?” he asked.

As we entered the shadow of the cathedral, with the inspector ahead with Miss Perkins, defying the private ambitions of Mr. Adams and blowing his policeman’s whistle to wake the dead, I stopped to give my bothered leg a rest. And I pulled the girl against me. Twas odd. I realized that was the first time I had done that unprovoked. Every other time, she had come to me. Now, she hugged me with the anxiety that is an aspect of a child’s love.

As she clutched me and I petted her, I asked the colonel, “Topsy . . . there is a thing I do not understand, see. How is it that you went to my hotel? At such an hour?”

He did not meet my eyes, although I recalled him as a most ferocious staring man. Instead, he looked down at the cobbles and said, “Thought we might have a chat. Old times, and all that.” And then he added, “Bit lonely, sometimes, don’t you know?”

SEVENTEEN

AS PROMISED, THE EARL APPEARED AT NINE, OPEN carriage. He wore a black crepe band around his sleeve, but his disposition had not changed a bit. He greeted me with that little mocking smile.

“Would you like to see a physician before we leave?” he asked me, looking over my injury without the least embarrassment.

I shook my head and did not speak. The truth is that I was cranky. As for my wound, it was slight and I had prevailed upon Miss Perkins to sew me up with needle and thread when we returned to the hotel after the fuss. As I had done myself to a hundred men who did not merit a busy surgeon’s attention. Although Miss Perkins’s stitching was more regular. Still, my face looked a sight.

“Adams not coming?” the Earl asked, as he turned back to his rig. “I thought he might. I believe he hopes for election to my London club.”

But Mr. Adams had not been invited. Not by me, or by anyone. Nor was Inspector McLeod present that morning. And Miss Perkins was still at rest in wholesome sheets.

“Good for you, Jones,” the Earl of Thretford said as we mounted his caleche with a porter’s unneeded assistance. “I see you’ve overcome your former dread of me.”

Twas queer that he had chosen just that word. Dread. For that is what I felt, not fear. And my dread was not of his person,
but of his personage. Arrived at the hotel, he had come in to fetch me himself, perhaps to show the common touch, and the orgy of fawning, if you will pardon my colorful description, and the celebration of servitude that greeted him made it clear that such a one as he would never be charged with a serious crime in any court in Britain. He might have butchered a hundred vestal virgins in front of police headquarters and all would have strained to look the other way, fulfilling their duty by telling any curious passersby to “Move along, move on there, move along.”

We crossed the Clyde under skies so blue the smoke could not defeat them. We rode in silence, for he was waiting for me to speak, and I would not oblige him. I hated the way he made me feel so small, and I do not mean in physical stature. He had reduced me to a witless servant, one who had done a great wickedness for him. But let that bide for now. Suffice to say, I had slept little and badly, for I no longer killed with satisfaction.

“Cook says we’re to have a splendid day,” the Earl mentioned as we passed a grand building surrounded by squalor. “Doesn’t keep much of a kitchen, I’m afraid. But I always go to her to ask the weather.” Side by side we sat on the wide rear seat, and he leaned an inch toward me, as if to confide. “I think she’s something of a witch, actually. In the classic sense. This morning she warned me I was to ‘mind my company.’ Fresh of her, but I rather like that.”

“You
wanted
me to kill your half-brother,” I told him.