The Messenger: A Novel (12 page)

T
yler went to his room, found the slender packet of handwritten sheets, and ran his fingers over the paper, so unlike the paper of these times. The words were inscribed in his best copperplate, written with neatness and care—once she became accustomed to the style of the hand, she should be able to decipher it. He wondered if the day was coming when no one would be able to write without the aid of a keyboard.

If so, he’d be around to see it, wouldn’t he?

He shuddered.

He took the sheaf into her room, a guest room. She had not had time to make any personal impression here, hardly time to do more than unpack.

He began to set the papers on the desk, then halted and turned to the bed. Ignoring all the warnings in his mind that this was trespass, and his fear that she would see this as an insult, he pulled the light comforter aside and set the papers on the soft sheets below, near but not quite on her pillow, then left the room.

“I don’t know what she’ll make of it, Shade,” he said later, as they walked together through the cemetery. He paused and stared out over the tombstones. “I hardly know what to make of all of this either. Courtship, at my age? A little ridiculous, isn’t it?”

The dog stopped and stared back at him, then butted his head against him. From long experience, Tyler knew this to be a gesture of comfort. He reached to stroke the dog’s soft, tufted ears. “Thank you. I’ve often wondered if you long for the company of another dog, but you’ve never seemed more than mildly interested in other canines.” He paused. “And I don’t know where to find another cemetery dog for you. Should I try again to find someone else who does what I do? The closest I’ve come is Colby.”

Shade walked on. He always seemed disapproving or indifferent to any mention of Colby. Tyler could hardly blame him.

“Colby once told me there are no others, but he’s never felt compelled to be truthful. I feel strongly that there must be others, and yet whenever we’ve traveled—not the smallest bit of success, was there? Perhaps I’ve kidded myself, hoping we’d at least be able to meet an animal who could provide better companionship for you than I do.”

Shade looked up at him again, this time with an intensity that made him wish he could read the dog’s mind.

They walked on for a while. He confessed to Shade, “I can’t stop thinking of her.”

Shade turned to him and wagged his tail.

“Yes, that’s all very well until I imagine what sort of future I would be offering her.” He sighed. “It would be better, don’t you think, if I could find someone else who is in my situation?”

Shade looked away from him, then moved off, back toward the car.

Tyler tried to shake off the sensation of having disappointed the dog.

D
aniel awoke to the sound of something tapping against his bedroom window, a soft, relentless, irregular beat. He turned on his bedside lamp and pulled back the curtain. He stifled a cry of revulsion—the screen was crawling with small brown beetles. Even as he watched, more flew to join the ones now clinging to the mesh, making the tapping sound as they landed against it.

He dropped the curtain into place and scrambled off the bed. He dressed hurriedly and headed out down the hall toward Evan’s room. Evan’s door flew open before he reached it.

“Goddamn!” Evan said. “You should see what’s happening!”

“Bunch of bugs on your window screen?”

Evan nodded. “Yours, too?"

“Yes, we better tell the boss.”

Evan paled. He whispered, “You think so? He’s already unhappy about that fucking wimp.”

“It was
his
plan. Did you think for one minute that plan was going to work?” Daniel whispered back.

“No, I did not. Not for one minute.”

They fell silent and made their way toward the kitchen. Daniel heard the sound of running water as they came closer to the kitchen door.

He put a hand on Evan’s forearm, halting his progress. “Did you leave the water running in the kitchen sink?”

Evan, listening to the rushing sound coming from the other side of the kitchen door, shook his head.

Daniel steeled himself and pulled the door open. He flipped on the light and jumped back against Evan. “What the hell!”

The floor was moving. From beneath the door on the opposite wall, which led to the back porch, a steady stream of brown beetles squeezed through an opening and joined the others that filled the kitchen floor. In the next moment Daniel saw that they seemed uninterested in coming through the door he had just opened—in fact, they did not come near Daniel or Evan. Instead, they all moved in one direction, clambered over one another in their eagerness to reach one destination: the door to the basement. There a great pile of them scrabbled against that barrier in a futile frenzy to overcome it.

“Open the door!” the voice from the basement called.

“My lord?” Daniel answered.

“Open the door to the basement, you fool! Let them come to me!”

Daniel tried not to think about the crunching beneath his shoes as he walked over to the door and unlocked it. He opened it, and the beetle river plunged past him and down the stairs. He felt the rush of them against the sides of his shoes, and stood paralyzed. Even when he squeezed his eyes shut, he could hear the click of their bodies knocking together, a sound that became louder, as if someone were pouring gravel down the stairs. After another moment, though, it began to taper off.

“Not enough! Not enough!” the voice from the basement said angrily.

Daniel opened his eyes.

“Evan!” his lordship commanded from below. “Open the door to the porch!”

“Yes, my lord!”

Daniel looked back to see Evan cross the kitchen floor. There were not so many beetles now, and though the stream continued to come in
from beneath the porch door, Evan was able to cross the floor without stepping on any of the insects.

But when he opened the door, what seemed to be thousands of the beetles came rushing in, scrabbling over Evan’s shoes toward Daniel, who quickly moved back from the doorway to the cellar. They charged past him, and again the flow down the stairs became noisy, their shiny, hard wing cases battering together in their eagerness to go below.

Eventually the river of beetles became nothing more than a trickle, although a steady procession of them still made its way from the open door.

His lordship spoke again, and it seemed to Daniel that his voice was stronger than ever before.

“You shall leave that door open, Evan, until I tell you otherwise.”

“Yes, my lord.”

A silence fell, and then Daniel realized that this was not quite silence. There was a continuous crunching sound coming from the basement.

At last there was a pause. “Daniel, you need not bring me any more remains. As you have probably guessed, I’m able to feed myself now.”

“Yes, my lord,” Daniel answered, a little shakily.

His lordship laughed, but his voice was sharp when he said, “Do not interfere with anything that comes through that door, do you both understand me?”

“Yes, my lord,” they answered in unison.

“Good. Now, soon I shall finally be able to emerge from this hovel and find us a decent place to live. But when we leave this house, you must never use my title when addressing me before others. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lord,” they answered again.

Daniel wanted to ask him what they should call him, but didn’t dare. He saw Evan open his mouth and shot him a look of warning, which Evan had no trouble reading. They waited in silence for dismissal.

“Henceforth,” said the voice, “refer to me as Mr. Adrian. You might as well start practicing that here at home. I don’t want any slipups in public.”

“Yes, sir,” they said.

“Very good. Daniel, take off your shoes and toss them down the stairs. Leave the door to the basement open.”

“Yes, Mr. Adrian.”

When this task was accomplished, the voice said, “You may go. I bid you both a good evening.”

They wished him a good evening in return, as they had been trained to do. They exchanged a look of shared fear and confusion, but did not speak to each other as they made their way to their rooms, except to say good night when they reached their doors.

Daniel took off his shoes and climbed back into bed. He lifted the curtain over his window. The screen was empty. He let the curtain fall back into place.

He did not fall asleep again for several hours, but over that wakeful time no answer to his most worrisome question occurred to him. Even his dreams did not tell him how he might escape from someone or something he must now call Mr. Adrian.

A
manda decided she would let Tyler be the one to tell his own secrets to Ron. She wanted time to think over all Tyler had told her, to sort through her feelings. So she told Ron about Brad’s misbegotten attack, leaving out the part about Tyler’s quick recovery from injury. Instead, she talked about Brad’s wounds, her worries that he had been drugged. She hardly needed to say more after that—Ron’s earlier derision of Brad was forgotten, replaced by his ready sympathy. They discussed and quickly dismissed a list of possible enemies.

“I can think of one or two people who might have wanted to punch him out,” Ron admitted. “He doesn’t always know when to shut up, you know what I mean?”

“Yes. But this wasn’t just a punch thrown in anger.”

“No. I don’t know anyone who’d be that mad at him. That mad at Rudebecca, maybe. Do you think someone would try to get to her through him?”

“Then why set him loose and tell him to attack Tyler and me?”

They could think of no answer to this.

“Whatever makes sense as a reason for taking him—getting back at Rebecca, ransoming him for money, whatever I can think of—doesn’t make sense as a reason to let him go or to tell him to go after you,” Ron complained.

“I don’t think we’re going to have any answers until he’s feeling better,” Amanda said. “If then. The doctor said that whatever drug Brad was given might have affected his memory—it will be some time before the lab tests come back to tell us what he was given. In the meantime, Tyler is going to ask Alex to look into who might have kidnapped Brad.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“You think she’s really a serious detective?”

She stared at him in surprise. “Ron, has anyone working here been less than the best?”

“I guess not.”

“What’s going on? Did she do something to upset you?”

He lowered his gaze. “No. Not at all.”

He was hiding something from her, and she felt a little dismayed by that, then realized that when it came to Tyler, she was hiding much more from Ron.

“So,” Ron said, as if reading her thoughts, “you and Tyler seem to be getting along better.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without him.” She paused, then added, “But it’s not just gratitude.”

Ron said nothing, but when he looked up at her again, he was grinning.

“What?” she asked.

“I can’t answer that without irritating you.” He stood up. “I’ll see what’s going on with Brad. You look as if you could use some sleep.”

“I was hoping to talk to Tyler when he gets back.”

“So at least take a nap. He doesn’t seem to sleep much, so I’m sure he’ll still be up if you conk out for an hour or so.”

“You’re right, I could use some sleep—but I hate to abandon you.”

He shrugged. “There’s always someone awake around here. Maybe Alex has learned something more from your cousin.”

The room she had been given was spacious, with access to the deck that ran all along this level of the house. Moonlight filtered in through the
French doors that led to the deck, and she used that soft light to navigate her way to the maplewood desk, where she turned on a small lamp.

She had unpacked her bag earlier, before going to the hospice with Tyler. That seemed so long ago now.

She washed up in the large bathroom and changed into her nightgown. Turning off the desk lamp, she thought of closing the draperies against the moonlight but decided against it. Instead, she opened the doors and stepped out on the deck. The view from here was lovely, far better than the one from the secluded home her great-grandfather had built below. She could just see a corner of her house, and realized that from a little farther down the deck, one would have a fairly clear view of it. A breeze came up, bringing the scent of the nearby pine trees to her. She thought she heard the sound of an animal—the strange dog?—moving in the woods and hurried back inside. She nearly closed the French doors but told herself not to be ridiculous, there was no stairway from the deck to the ground level, nothing a dog could climb to reach these rooms. She discovered a mechanism to pull a hidden screen door across the doorway to the deck, and set the screen in place. The warm breeze came up again, and she moved toward the bed.

She turned the bedside lamp on and immediately saw what the moonlight had failed to reveal—a small sheaf of heavy paper had been laid against her sheets.

Heart hammering, she carefully lifted the pages. The paper did not seem fragile, despite its apparent age, but she handled it gently. It was thick and not quite smooth. She liked the heavy feel of it. The writing was in an old style, what seemed to her to be a sort of calligraphy, neat lettering flowing evenly across the page, in lines as precisely spaced down its length.

She lay down on the bed on her side, set the pages back against the sheets, and began to read. She soon became accustomed to the writer’s hand and made out the first line:

Think of this tale as an imagined story, if you must…

T
hink of this tale as an imagined story, if you must…I do not claim to understand all of the events that occur in it, and have little hope that any other will hold this story to be a truthful account. I have done nothing more than lived it, and if my living it could be changed by your disbelief. I would urge you with all my heart to be a skeptic. But if by any chance I can spare another from my fate by recording these events, perhaps it is best I do so, and in such case I would urge you not to doubt a word of it….

Three days after the Battle of Waterloo, I awoke in the absolute darkness of the blind, as I had every other day since the fighting had ceased. I did not—and could not—open my eyes as I awoke from what I knew to be a dying man’s dreams.

I did not need my sight to know that I was no longer listening to Miss Merriweather’s laughter. Nor was I on horseback, racing my father and my brother through the meadow just beyond the home wood. I was not watching soldiers take up hiding places in rain-soaked fields of maize.

Without being able to see my surroundings, I knew I was lying flat on my back, unable to move, pinned beneath the body of my own horse. Poor old Reliant. I assumed I must be hidden beneath the big trooper,
because although both friend and foe had passed near me, I had not been noticed.

The dreams had formed from a patchwork of memories. Even before I had left England, Miss Merriweather had married and died in childbirth. Three years earlier, in 1812, my father had died, and my brother had inherited the title and estate. The memory of the field of maize was more recent—I had seen the soldiers taking this position just three days ago, in anticipation of the approach of Napoleon’s army.

Had my comrades or enemies seen me awaken, the watchers would have found it difficult to note any difference between my sleeping and waking states. Most would have assumed Captain Hawthorne was dead.

I could not see, could not move, could make no sound. My tongue was dry and swollen. I had, from the time I had fallen in the midst of fierce fighting, been cursed by my remaining senses.

I could feel my uniform, skin, and hair, all stiff with my own blood. I felt the mud drying beneath me, the weight of my dead horse crushing me. I felt relentless pain in my skull and chest and arms and legs. I felt hunger but, most of all, thirst.

The stench of the smoke and gunpowder of the battle had been replaced by the sharp-edged rot of the corpses strewn across the ground—the tens of thousands of men who had died at Waterloo.

I wasn’t sure how long I had lain there. I did not know the battle’s outcome. I was grateful to have been spared some of the sounds of battle, sounds I had often heard in previous engagements, but never at such a pitch, never so fierce in all my experience. Now I longed to hear an English voice. I prayed that Reliant had been killed almost instantly. The horse was cold and silent now.

For a time, after I first awakened, I had heard sounds that let me know the battle was not long over—the cries of injured horses, the moans and screams of the wounded and dying men who had fallen not far from me. I could then still smell the acrid smoke of rifle and cannon.

As the hours and days passed, the sounds changed, becoming softer and more piteous as men too wounded to walk or crawl cried out for water or food. Their cries weakened, those nearest me apparently
succumbing, while from a little distance a murmur of prayers and pleas continued.

Now there were smaller sounds—flies buzzing, rodents scurrying. Birds, at some business I did not want to imagine. In the far distance, the sounds of carts and horses and men. But no artillery fire. It was the time of collecting the wounded and the dead.

I would most probably be numbered among the latter soon, expiring of thirst or starvation if not of my wounds.

Perhaps because of the wound to my head, I had no clear recollection of what had happened to me. I could remember very little beyond seeing my batman killed—a man who had been my groom at home and who had followed me when I left for the Peninsula. But he had been lost early on in the fighting.

Despite the horrors of what I later determined to be the last three days, I did not wish for death. What little strength I had went into one prayer:
Let me live.

I was repeating it endlessly to myself when I heard the sound of panting, then snuffling.

Here. I’m here!
I silently cried to what I was sure was a dog.

As if in confirmation, I heard a soft whine. The dog began digging. A large dog, I guessed, from the sound of earth being frantically clawed away. He uncovered my hand, tugged at the sleeve of my uniform.

Oh, good dog! Good dog! But you’ll never move poor Reliant. Have you a master nearby?

I knew the dog was most probably a stray, but I found myself picturing an owner who might be sympathetic to me.

Help me.

I heard footsteps. They stopped nearby. The dog kept digging.

“This beanstalk?” an Englishman’s deep voice said in a puzzled tone. “Good heavens. Are you certain you want to be looking up at such a tall master, Shade?” I felt the man take my hand as he added, “It’s not too late?”

The dog dug all the more furiously.

I’m alive! I’m not dead yet.

“No, nor shall you be,” the man’s voice answered, as if he had heard my thoughts. “If you’d rather live.”

Oh yes, I’d rather!

“Good. But you must understand what I offer you.”

Anything!

“Come, take a look.”

Suddenly I felt whole and free of pain, and yet not in my own body. I stood as if within the man, looking down through his eyes.

I gave a cry of horror as I saw my own condition. Little wonder he had thought me dead. I was covered in mud and all but invisible beneath the horse, only saved from being completely crushed because I had landed in a shallow ditch. My eyes were closed. My face was blackened with dried blood, my hair matted down near a severe wound on my head.

My attention was drawn to the dog, one of the largest I had ever seen. He had long, black fur and large dark eyes. He looked up at me—or perhaps I should say at his master—pausing briefly in his efforts to dig my body free, and wagged his tail.

“Back to work, Shade,” the man’s voice said harshly. The dog’s demeanor changed and he bristled, but he obeyed. Perhaps he had seen me, after all.

The man looked about him, forcing me to do the same.

Before me was carnage beyond my worst imaginings. I had seen battle, and its aftermath, but nothing to equal this. Bodies—and parts of bodies—lay everywhere around me. In the distance, I saw soldiers working to find the wounded and take them from the field. Here and there, human scavengers sought to rob the dead of their belongings. The ground had been churned by hoof and boot and wheel, and among the bodies one saw crushed caps and belts, the bright blue or red of a torn uniform, a feather bent and buried in the mud.

And as far as the eye could see, covering this grim landscape, a strange snow—thousands of scraps of paper. Letters, diaries, undelivered messages to families, friends, and sweethearts. Lost thoughts of tens of thousands of poor souls, whose last words drifted in fragments across the battlefield.

Would that I could deliver them,
I thought.

My host—as I began to think of him—laughed. I felt it as if it were physically my own laughter, and I despised him for forcing me to participate in what seemed to me no joke at all.

“Don’t be so quick to fire up at me,” he said, amused. “It is merely that you will find your wish granted, if not quite in the manner you expect.”

I continued to look about me and was going to ask, “Whose victory?” But viewing that carnage, the question seemed unanswerable to me in that moment.

“Wellington and his allies,” my host said, again hearing my thoughts—and again I felt the words form on his tongue, the movement of his teeth, the vibration of his throat, the very breath it took to speak. It seemed to me there was some bitterness there.

For my part, despite the cost so clearly shown before me, I felt a rush of pride in our forces and relief that Napoleon had suffered such a defeat. In the next instant, I found myself returned to my own body and darkness.

This, I decided, has all been a fantasy, the delusions of a dying man.

“Are you certain, Shade?” I heard him ask again, almost as if in disgust.

The dog had made great progress, having loosened most of the soil around and beneath me. I felt the warmth of the dog’s breath as his teeth took hold of my uniform collar. He began to pull. I marveled at his strength—I felt myself begin to move from beneath the horse. The pain was excruciating. I again lost consciousness.

I awoke on the battlefield sometime later. I was still in pain, still too weak to move so much as a finger, but these conditions were nothing to me—for my sight had been restored. The first thing I saw was Shade. He lay next to me. His head was up, his ears pitched forward. He watched me and seemed happy to have my attention in return. He wagged his long tail.

Above me, a bored young man stood looking down into my face. He was of slight stature but muscular build. I would have guessed him to be a youth, not more than sixteen, but something in his eyes said he was far older. His clothing was exquisite, his pale face handsome—if somewhat
marred by a frown. His long white fingers were bejeweled, and in one of his hands he held a silver flask engraved with an elaborate letter
V
. He seemed entirely out of place in this wretched valley.

He stifled a yawn, then bent to give me water from the flask, gently lifting my head, helping me to drink. No wine from a crystal goblet was ever more appreciated than that drink of lukewarm water.

“Thank you,” I rasped, able at last to speak, but he said nothing in response. He waited a moment, then again helped me to drink.

He consulted his watch, returned it to his vest, and said, “We haven’t much time. Are you well enough to talk?”

“Yes—please, allow me to thank you—”

His eyes became hooded. “There is no need, I promise you.”

“Who are you?”

He hesitated, then said, “I am Varre.” Seeing my confusion, he added, “Lucien Adrian deVille, Lord Varre. I have a bargain to offer you, Captain Tyler Hawthorne—listen well. You may yet die on this field, slowly and painfully, every opportunity taken from you. Or you may leave here, and within the next fortnight be restored to wholeness, unable to sustain injury, free from all illness—other than occasional, brief fevers. I warn you these may be painful and troubling, but you will never suffer them for more than a few hours. You will not age, but remain in the prime of life.”

“Not age!”

“Please do not interrupt me again.” Despite saying this, he did not immediately continue. Just as I thought I had offended him so deeply he would abandon his offer, he went on. “Some of your older scars may not be taken from you, but any injury you received here at Waterloo will heal within hours. Any disease you now carry within you will be cured, no trace of it will ever be found in your body. You will be given work to do—nothing beneath a gentleman’s station—and enough funds to make a new start in life.”

He smiled, perhaps reading my thoughts. “I’m not the devil. You may serve whatever master you choose. That is not up to me. Do you think it is the devil’s work to comfort the dying?”

“Am I to become a priest, then?”

He laughed. “No. Only that you must visit those who are dying. They will draw you to themselves, in fact, and tell you what you must do. You must keep the dog by you. It won’t be difficult—he will always find his way to you.”

I closed my eyes, thinking again that I was so lost in fever, I was imagining the whole.

“Look at me, Tyler Hawthorne, and give me your answer. Do you accept this bargain?”

My skin felt as if it were on fire, I was injured and weak. But I do not deceive myself that any of this prevented me from sensing that Lord Varre might not be telling me all I needed to know.

“Will you be guiding me in this new occupation?”

“No. As soon as we have completed this…transaction…you will not see me again. Do not attempt to find me.”

On this point, he was adamant, but in truth, I was relieved to know that I would soon be shot of him.

“Do you accept this bargain I offer you?” he asked again.

“Why do you offer it?” I asked. “Why do you abandon your…‘occupation,’ as you call it, and leave youth and health and wealth behind?”

“Oh, let us say I am giving myself a promotion.” Again he laughed, and I realized how much I disliked it. He had the sort of laugh that never invited another to join in the joke. “You need not concern yourself with my welfare, Hawthorne. Not that I imagine you do.”

I remained silent. He started to walk away.

“Wait!” I said, horrified by the prospect of being abandoned once again to this sea of the dead and dying.

He turned back to me and smiled. “Do you accept the bargain, Tyler Hawthorne?”

I would live. I would heal. That much I believed. That much I longed for.

“Yes,” I said—fool that I am.