Lord John and the Hand of Devils (21 page)

The second possibility was that a faulty round might have been loaded, and properly touched off, but failed to explode. It should by rights have then been cleared from the barrel before a fresh load was inserted—but it was far from uncommon for this step to be overlooked in the heat of battle. If the aim did not require to be adjusted, the process of loading and firing developed an inexorable, mindless rhythm after a time; nothing existed save the next motion in the complex process of serving the gun.

It would be simple; no one would notice that the charge had not gone off, and a fresh load would simply be tamped in on top of the faulty one. Stimulated by the explosion of the second, fresh charge, the faulty one might then explode, as well. He’d seen that happen once, himself, though in that instance, the cannon had merely been damaged, not destroyed.

Neither instance was rare, he knew. It was therefore the responsibility of the officer commanding the gun to see that every member of the crew performed each step of his duty, to discover such errors in process and correct them before they became irrevocable. Had he done that?

For the hundredth time since he heard of the Commission of Inquiry, he reviewed his memories of the battle of Crefeld, looking for any indication of an omission, any half-voiced protest by some member of the gun crew…but they had been completely demoralized by the sudden death of their lieutenant, in no frame of mind to concentrate. They might so easily have made an error.

But the Commission had called the rammer. Had they already interviewed the other surviving members of the gun crew, he wondered suddenly? If so…but if some member of the gun crew had testified to double-loading, Grey would have been facing more than insinuations.

“Here we are, me lord!” Tom called over his shoulder, turning in to a sturdy, half-timbered house.

They had arrived at the Lark’s Nest, and the smell of food and beer drew him momentarily from his broodings. Even oyster pie, sausage rolls, and good beer, though, could not keep recollection at bay. Once summoned, Crefeld remained with him, the smell of black powder, slaughtered pigs, and rain-soaked fields overpowering the scents of tobacco smoke and fresh-baked bread.

He had so many impressions of the day, the battle, many of them sharp as crystal—but able, like broken bits of crystal shaken in a dish, to fall suddenly into new and baffling patterns.

What, exactly, had he done? He recalled some things clearly—seizing the sword from Lister’s fallen body, beating the crew back to the gun—but later? He could not be sure.

Neither could he be sure of the Commission’s motives. What in bloody
hell
had Marchmont meant by dragging Edgar in? Twelvetrees’s hostility was more understandable; there was bad blood between the Royal Artillery Regiment and his brother Hal, a feud of long standing, that had not been improved by last month’s—Christ, was it only a month past? It seemed years—revelations.

And Oswald…he had seemed sympathetic by contrast with Marchmont and Twelvetrees, but Grey knew better than to trust such spurious sympathy. Oswald was an elected politician, hence by definition untrustworthy. At least until Grey knew more about who owned him.

“You
are
going to eat that, me lord, aren’t you?” He looked up to find Tom Byrd focusing a stern look upon the neglected sausage roll in his hand.

And beyond Tom Byrd, at a table in the corner, sat a uniformed artilleryman, talking with two friends over pint-pots of the excellent beer. The man looked familiar, though he knew he did not know him. Another member of Tom Pilchard’s crew?

“I haven’t an appetite,” he said abruptly, laying down the roll. “I believe I’ll chance the fleas.”

T
he next morning, he and Tom returned to London by the post coach, arriving at his rooms—officers’ quarters at the regimental barracks—by mid-afternoon. He sent a note of apology to his mother, looked at a pile of unopened mail, decided that it could continue in that state indefinitely, picked two or three random lice from his body, bathed, shaved, and then, dressed in a fresh suit of clothes, set out on foot for the Beefsteak Club in Curzon Street.

He hadn’t set foot in the Beefsteak in months. In part, it was a simple disinclination for society; he had needed time apart to heal, before facing the companionship and curiosity—no matter how kindly meant—of his fellows.

The greater reason, though, was one which he scarcely admitted to himself. He had wished the Beefsteak to remain what it had always been for him—a place of peace and refuge. He could withstand the buffeting of circumstance, comforted by the thought that there was somewhere to which he could retire, if the pressures of the world became too much to bear.

If he did not go to the Beefsteak, his sense of it would be unchanged; his refuge was safe. But to go was to risk discovering that it was not, and he stepped across the threshold with a racing heart.

For an instant, he suffered the delusion that the dark red medallions of the Turkey runner in the entrance hall were blotches of blood, that some unsuspected catastrophe had befallen the place, and that he would enter the library to find bodies strewn in careless butchery.

He closed his eyes, and put out a hand to the doorjamb to steady himself. Breathed deep, and smelt the incense of tobacco and brandy, aged leather and the musk of men, spiced with the scents of fresh linen, lavender, and bergamot.

“My lord?” It was the chief steward’s voice. He opened his eyes to find the man squinting at him in consternation, the library behind him its usual soft brown self, glowing like paradise in the late-afternoon light that filtered through the lace curtains of the tall windows and suffused the rising wisps of pipe smoke from the smoking room.

“Will you take a glass of brandywine, my lord?” the steward asked, stepping back to open the way to his favorite chair, a wing-backed object upholstered in a dark-green damask, sagging in the seat and much worn about the arms.

“If you please, Mr. Bodley,” he said, and peace filled his soul.

H
e returned to the Beefsteak again the next day, and spent a pleasant hour sipping good brandy in the Hermits’ Corner—a trio of chairs set apart, facing the windows, backs turned to the room, for the use of those who had no appetite for company. One of the other chairs was occupied by a man he knew slightly, named Wilbraham; they nodded to each other as Grey sat down, and then studiously ignored each other’s presence.

Behind them came the soothing murmur of masculine conversation, punctuated by laughter and suffused with the odors of linen, sweat, cologne, and brandy, spiced with a hint of tobacco from the smoking room down the hall. Fiber by fiber, Grey felt his clenched muscles relax.

As he had known it must, though, his tranquillity came to an abrupt end with the descent of a large, meaty hand on his shoulder. He turned to look into Harry Quarry’s grinning face, smiled despite himself, and rose, leaving Wilbraham in solitary contemplation of Curzon Street.

“You look like death warmed over,” Quarry said without preamble, after a briefly searching look at him. This annoyed Grey, as Tom Byrd had taken considerable pains with his appearance, and he had thought he looked quite well, inspecting himself in the glass before setting out.

“You’re looking well, too, Harry,” he replied equably, finding no quick riposte. In fact, he did. War agreed with Quarry, lending a fine edge to a body and a character otherwise somewhat inclined to sloth, gluttony, cigars, and other appetites of the flesh.

“Melton said you’d had a bad time since Germany.” Quarry ushered him to the dining room and into a chair with an annoying solicitude, all but tucking a napkin under Grey’s chin.

“Did he,” Grey replied shortly. How much had Hal told Quarry—and how much had he heard on his own? Rumor spread faster in the army than it did among the London salons.

Luckily, Quarry seemed disinclined to inquire after the particulars—which probably meant he’d already heard them, Grey concluded grimly.

Quarry looked him over and shook his head. “Too thin by half! Have to feed you up, I suppose.” This assessment was followed by Quarry’s ordering—without consulting him—thick soup, game pie, fried trout with grapes, lamb with a quince preserve and roast potatoes, and a broccoli sallet with radishes and vinegar, the whole to be followed by a jelly trifle.

“I can’t eat a quarter of that, Harry,” Grey protested. “I’ll burst.”

Quarry ignored this, waving a hand to urge the waiter to ladle more soup into Grey’s bowl.

“You need sustenance,” he said, “from what I hear.”

Grey looked askance at him over his half-raised spoon.

“What you hear? What
do
you hear, may I ask?”

Quarry’s craggily handsome face adopted the look that he normally wore when intending to be discreet, the fine white scar across his cheek pulling down the eye on that side in a knowing leer.

“Heard they knocked you about a bit at the Arsenal day before yesterday.”

Grey put down the spoon and stared at him.

“Who told you that?”

“Chap named Simpson.”

Grey racked his brain for anyone named Simpson whom he had met in the course of his visit to the Arsenal, but drew a complete blank.

“Who the hell is Simpson?” To show his general unconcern over the matter, he took an unwary gulp of soup, and burnt his tongue.

“Don’t recall his actual title—under-under-sub-secretary to the assistant something-or-other, I suppose. He said he picked you up off the floor—physically. Didn’t know royal commissions resorted to cudgeling their witnesses.” Harry raised an interrogative brow.

“Oh, him.” Grey touched his singed tongue gingerly to the roof of his mouth. “He did not pick me up; I rose quite without assistance, having caught my foot in the carpeting. Mr. Simpson happened merely to be present.”

Quarry looked at him thoughtfully, nodded, and inhaled a vast quantity of soup.

“Might easily happen to anyone,” he said mildly. “Ratty old thing, that carpet, full of holes. Know it well.”

Recognizing this for the cue it was, Grey sighed and picked up his spoon again.

“You know it well. Right, Harry. Why are you haunting the Arsenal, and what is it you want to know?”

“Haunting,” Quarry repeated thoughtfully, signaling the waiter to remove his soup plate. “Interesting choice of words, that. Our Mr. Simpson said he rather thought you’d met the ghost.”

That rattled him more than he wished to show. He waved away the soup, affecting indifference.

“So the Arsenal has its own ghost, has it? Would that be an artilleryman, wearing an ancient uniform?”

“Oh, you
did
see him, then.” Harry’s eyes sharpened with interest. “The artilleryman, was it? Some see him as a Roman centurion—there’s a Roman cemetery under the Arsenal, did you know?”

“No. How do you know whether it’s a ghost with a taste for fancy dress, or two ghosts—or whether it’s a ghost at all?”

“Never seen him myself. I’m not the sort who sees phantoms,” Quarry said, with a sort of smugness that Grey found irritating.

“And I am, I suppose?” Not waiting for an answer, he picked up a bread roll. “Did you set this Simpson to watch me, Harry?”

“Someone should be watching you,” Quarry said. “Have you any notion what kind of trouble you’re in?”

“No, but I suppose you’re going to tell me. Is it mutiny to walk out on the questions of a royal commission? Am I to be shot at dawn tomorrow?”

He was not sure whether to be grateful for Harry’s concern, or annoyed at his solicitude. The one thing he did know was that he required someone to discuss the matter with, though, and so he kept his tone light.

“Too simple.” Quarry’s face twitched, and he waved the steward with the wine bottle over to refill their glasses. “Twelvetrees wants Melton’s balls, but failing that, he’ll have yours. His assumption being, I suppose, that it would discredit Melton to have his younger brother accused of negligence and forced—at the least—to resign his commission amidst a sea of talk.”

“They can accuse all they like,” Grey said hotly. “They can’t prove a damn thing.” Or he hoped they couldn’t. What in God’s name might the rammer have told them? Or the other man from Tom Pilchard’s crew?