Lord John and the Hand of Devils (6 page)

“’Tisn’t a matter of what
I
don’t believe in, me lord,” Byrd replied. “What if this lady’s ghost believes in
us
? Who is she, anyway?” The lantern he carried was sputtering fitfully in the wet, despite its shield. Its dim light failed to illumine more than a vague outline of boy and horse, but perversely caught the shine of their eyes, lending them a disturbingly supernatural appearance, like staring wraiths.

Grey glanced aside, keeping an eye out for Stephan and the bürgermeister, who had gone to assemble a digging party. There was some movement outside the tavern, just visible at the far end of the street. That was sensible of Stephan. Men with a fair amount of beer on board were much more likely to be enthusiastic about the current prospect than were sober ones.

“Well, I do not believe that it is precisely a matter of ghosts,” he said. “The German belief, however, seems to be that the succubus…er…the feminine spirit…may possess the body of a recently dead person, however.”

Tom cast a look into the inky depths of the churchyard, and glanced back at Grey.

“Oh?” he said.

“Ah,” Grey replied.

Byrd pulled the slouch hat low on his forehead and hunched his collar up round his ears, clutching the horse’s halter rope close to his chest. Nothing of his round face now showed save a downturned mouth, but that was eloquent.

Karolus stamped one foot and shifted his weight, tossing his head a little. He didn’t seem to mind either rain or churchyard, but was growing restive. Grey patted the stallion’s thick neck, taking comfort from the solid feel of the cold, firm hide and massive body. Karolus turned his head and blew hot breath affectionately into his ear.

“Almost ready,” he said soothingly, twining a fist in the horse’s soggy mane. “Now, Tom. When Captain von Namtzen arrives with his men, you and Karolus will walk forward very slowly. You are to lead him back and forth across the churchyard. Keep a few feet in front of him, but leave some slack in the rope.”

The point of this procedure, of course, was to keep Karolus from stumbling over a gravestone or falling into any open graves, by allowing Tom to do it first. Ideally, Grey had been given to understand, the horse should be turned into the churchyard and allowed to wander over the graves at his own will, but neither he nor Stephan was willing to risk Karolus’s valuable legs in the dark.

He had suggested waiting until the morning, but Herr Blomberg was insistent. The succubus must be found, without delay. Grey was more than curious to hear the details of the attacks, but had so far been told little more than that a Private Koenig had been found dead in his quarters, the body bearing marks that made his manner of death clear. What marks? Grey wondered.

Classically educated, he had read of succubi and incubi, but had been taught to regard such references as quaintly superstitious, of a piece with other medieval popish nonsense like saints who strolled about with their heads in their hands or statues of the Virgin whose tears healed the sick. His father had been a rationalist, an observer of the ways of nature and a firm believer in the logic of phenomena.

His two months’ acquaintance with the Germans, though, had shown him that they were deeply superstitious; more so even than the English common soldiers. Even Stephan kept a small, carved image of some pagan deity about his person at all times, to guard against being struck by lightning, and the Prussians seemed to harbor similar notions, judging from Herr Blomberg’s behavior.

The digging party was making its way up the street now, bright with sputtering torches and emitting snatches of song. Karolus snorted and pricked his ears; Karolus, Grey had been told, was fond of parades.

“Well, then.” Stephan loomed suddenly out of the murk at his side, looking pleased with himself under the broad shelf of his hat. “All is ready, Major?”

“Yes. Go ahead then, Tom.”

The diggers—mostly laborers, armed with spades, hoes, and mattocks—stood back, lurching tipsily and stepping on each other’s shoes. Tom, lantern held delicately before him in the manner of an insect’s feeler, took several steps forward—then stopped. He turned, tugging on the rope.

Karolus stood solidly, declining to move.

“I told you, me lord,” Byrd said, sounding more cheerful. “Horses don’t like ghosts. Me uncle had an old cart horse once, wouldn’t take a step past a churchyard. We had to take him clear round two streets to get him past.”

Stephan made a noise of disgust.

“It is not a ghost,” he said, striding forward, prominent chin held high. “It is a succubus. A demon. That is quite different.”

“Daemon?”
one of the diggers said, catching the English word and looking suddenly dubious.
“Ein Teufel?”

“Demon?” said Tom Byrd, and gave Grey a look of profound betrayal.

“Something of the kind, I believe,” Grey said, and coughed. “If such a thing should exist, which I doubt it does.”

A chill of uncertainty seemed to have overtaken the party with this demonstration of the horse’s reluctance. There was shuffling and murmuring, and heads turned to glance back in the direction of the tavern.

Stephan, magnificently disregarding this tendency to pusillanimity in his troops, clapped Karolus on the neck and spoke to him encouragingly in German. The horse snorted and arched his neck, but still resisted Tom Byrd’s tentative yanks on his halter. Instead, he swiveled his enormous head toward Grey, jerking Byrd off his feet. The boy lost his grip on the rope, staggered off balance, trying vainly to keep hold of the lantern, and finally slipped on a stone submerged in the mud, landing on his buttocks with a rude
splat.

This mishap had the salutary effect of causing the diggers to roar with laughter, restoring their spirits. Several of the torches had by now been extinguished by the rain, and everyone was thoroughly wet, but goatskin flasks and pottery jugs were produced from a number of pockets and offered to Tom Byrd by way of restorative, being then passed round the company in sociable fashion.

Grey took a deep swig of the fiery plum liquor himself, handed back the jug, and came to a decision.

“I’ll ride him.”

Before Stephan could protest, Grey had taken a firm grip on Karolus’s mane and swung himself up on the stallion’s broad back. Karolus appeared to find Grey’s familiar weight soothing; the broad white ears, which had been pointing to either side in suspicion, rose upright again, and the horse started forward willingly enough at Grey’s nudge against his sides.

Tom, too, seemed heartened, and ran to pick up the trailing halter rope. There was a ragged cheer from the diggers, and the party moved awkwardly after them, through the yawning gates.

It seemed much darker in the churchyard than it had looked from outside. Much quieter, too; the jokes and chatter of the men died away into an uneasy silence, broken only by an occasional curse as someone knocked against a tombstone in the dark. Grey could hear the patter of rain on the brim of his hat, and the suck and thump of Karolus’s hooves as he plodded obediently through the mud.

He strained his eyes to see what lay ahead, beyond the feeble circle of light cast by Tom’s lantern. It was black-dark, and he felt cold, despite the shelter of his greatcoat. The damp was rising, mist coming up out of the ground; he could see wisps of it purling away from Tom’s boots, disappearing in the lantern light. More of it drifted in an eerie fog round the mossy tombstones of neglected graves, leaning like rotted teeth in their sockets.

The notion, as it had been explained to him, was that a white stallion had the power to detect the presence of the supernatural. The horse would stop at the grave of the succubus, which could then be opened and steps taken to destroy the creature.

Grey found a number of logical assumptions wanting in this proposal; chief among which—putting aside the question of the existence of succubi, and why a sensible horse should choose to have anything to do with one—was that Karolus was not choosing his own path. Tom was doing his best to keep slack in the rope, but as long as he held it, the horse was plainly going to follow him.

On the other hand, he reflected, Karolus was unlikely to stop
anywhere,
so long as Tom kept walking. That being true, the end result of this exercise would be merely to cause them all to miss their suppers and to render them thoroughly wet and chilled. Still, he supposed they would be still more wet and chilled if obliged actually to open graves and perform whatever ritual might follow—

A hand clamped itself on his calf, and he bit his tongue—luckily, as it kept him from crying out.

“You are all right, Major?” It was Stephan, looming up beside him, tall and dark in a woolen cloak. He had left aside his plumed helmet, and wore a soft-brimmed wide hat against the rain, which made him look both less impressive and more approachable.

“Certainly,” Grey said, mastering his temper. “How long must we do this?”

Von Namtzen lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

“Until the horse stops, or until Herr Blomberg is satisfied.”

“Until Herr Blomberg begins wanting his supper, you mean.” He could hear the bürgermeister’s voice at a distance behind them, lifted in exhortation and reassurance.

A white plume of breath floated out from under the brim of von Namtzen’s hat, the laugh behind it barely audible.

“He is more…resolute?…than you might suppose. It is his duty, the welfare of the village. He will endure as long as you will, I assure you.”

Grey pressed his bitten tongue against the roof of his mouth, to prevent any injudicious remarks.

Stephan’s hand was still curled about his leg, just above the edge of his boot. Cold as it was, he felt no warmth from the grasp, but the pressure of the big hand was both a comfort and something more.

“The horse—he goes well,
nicht wahr
?”

“He is wonderful,” Grey said, with complete sincerity. “I thank you again.”

Von Namtzen flicked his free hand in dismissal, but made a pleased sound, deep in his throat. He had—against Grey’s protests—insisted upon making the stallion a gift to Grey, “in token of our alliance and our friendship,” he had said firmly, clapping Grey upon both shoulders and then seizing him in fraternal embrace, kissing him formally upon both cheeks and mouth. At least, Grey was obliged to consider it a fraternal embrace, unless and until circumstance might prove it otherwise.

But Stephan’s hand still curled round his calf, hidden under the skirt of his greatcoat.

Grey glanced toward the squat bulk of the church, a black mass that loomed beyond the churchyard.

“I am surprised that the priest is not with us. Does he disapprove of this—excursion?”

“The priest is dead. A fever of some kind,
die rote Ruhn,
more than a month since. They will send another, from Strausberg, but he has not come yet.” Little wonder; a large number of French troops lay between Strausberg and the town; travel would be difficult, if not impossible.

“I see.” Grey glanced back over his shoulder. The diggers had paused to open a fresh jug, torches tilting in momentary distraction.

“Do you believe in this—this succubus?” he asked, careful to keep his voice low.

Rather to his surprise, von Namtzen didn’t reply at once. At last, the Hanoverian took a deep breath and hunched his broad shoulders in a gesture not quite a shrug.

“I have seen…strange things from time to time,” von Namtzen said at last, very quietly. “In this country, particularly. And a man is dead, after all.”

The hand on his leg squeezed briefly and dropped away, sending a small flutter of sensation up Grey’s back.

He took a deep breath of cold, heavy air, tinged with smoke, and coughed. It was like the smell of grave dirt, he thought, and then wished the thought had not occurred to him.

“One thing I confess I do not quite understand,” he said, straightening himself in the saddle. “A succubus is a demon, if I am not mistaken. How is it, then, that such a creature should take refuge in a churchyard, in consecrated ground?”

“Oh,” von Namtzen said, sounding surprised that this was not obvious. “The succubus takes possession of the body of a dead person, and rests within it by day. Such a person must of course be a corrupt and wicked sort, filled perhaps with depravity and perversion. So that even within the churchyard, the succubus will suitable refuge find.”

“How recently must the person have died?” Grey asked. Surely it would make their perambulations more efficient were they to go directly to the more recent graves. From the little he could see in the swaying light of Tom’s lantern, most of the stones nearby had stood where they were for decades, if not centuries.

“That I do not know,” von Namtzen admitted. “Some people say that the body itself rises with the succubus; others say that the body remains in the grave, and by night the demon rides the air as a dream, seeking men in their sleep.”

Tom Byrd’s figure was indistinct in the gathering fog, but Grey saw his shoulders rise, nearly touching the brim of his hat. Grey coughed again, and cleared his throat.

“I see. And…er…what, precisely, do you intend to do, should a suitable body be located?”

Here von Namtzen was on surer ground.

“Oh, that is simple,” he assured Grey. “We will open the coffin, and drive an iron rod through the corpse’s heart. Herr Blomberg has brought one.”

Tom Byrd made an inarticulate noise, which Grey thought it wiser to ignore.

“I see,” he said. His nose had begun to run with the cold, and he wiped it on his sleeve. At least he no longer felt hungry.

They paced for a little in silence. The bürgermeister had fallen silent, too, though the distant sounds of squelching and glugging behind them indicated that the digging party was loyally persevering, with the aid of more plum brandy.

“The dead man,” Grey said at last. “Private Koenig. Where was he found? And you mentioned marks upon the body—what sort of marks?”

Von Namtzen opened his mouth to answer, but was forestalled. Karolus glanced suddenly to the side, nostrils flaring. Then he flung up his head with a great
harrumph!
of startlement, nearly hitting Grey in the face. At the same moment, Tom Byrd uttered a high, thin scream, dropped the rope, and ran.