“Perhaps they will find the nurse,” Grey said. “But if the kidnapper has an ally inside the house—and he must…or she, I suppose,” he added. “The boy did say he saw a witch.”
“ Ja,I see.” Von Namtzen looked grim. One big hand fisted at his side, but then relaxed. “I will perhaps go and speak to the princess. My men, I will have them come to guard the house. If there is a criminal within, he will not get out.”
“I’m sure the princess will be grateful.” Grey felt all at once terribly tired. “I must take Bodger—the body—back to his regiment in the morning. Oh—in that regard…” He explained Sir Peter’s wishes, to which von Namtzen agreed with a flip of the hand.
“Have you any messages for me to carry, to the troops at the bridge?” Grey asked. “Since I will be going in that direction, anyway.” One English regiment lay to the south of the town, the other—Bodger’s—to the north, between the town and the river. A small group of the Prussian artillery under Stephan’s command was stationed a few miles beyond, guarding the bridge at Aschenwald.
Von Namtzen frowned, thinking, then nodded.
“ Ja,you are right. It is best they hear officially of the—” He looked suddenly uneasy, and Grey was slightly amused to see that Stephan did not want to speak the word “succubus.”
“Yes, better to avoid rumors,” he agreed, saving Stephan’s awkwardness. “Speaking of that—do you suppose Herr Blomberg will let the villagers exhume his mother?”
Stephan’s broad-boned face broke into a smile at that.
“No,” he said. “I think he would make them drive an iron rod through his own heart first. Better, though,” he added, the humor fading from his face, “if someone finds who plays these tricks, and a stop to it makes. Quickly.”
Stephan was tired, too, Grey saw; his English grammar was slipping. They stood together for a moment, silent, listening to the distant hammer of the rain, both feeling still the chill touch of the graveyard in their bones.
Von Namtzen turned to him suddenly, and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing.
“You will take care, John,” he said, and before Grey could speak or move, Stephan pulled him close and kissed his mouth. Then he smiled, squeezed Grey’s shoulder once more, and with a quiet “Gute Nacht,”went up the stairs toward his own room.
Grey shut the door of his chamber behind him and leaned against it, in the manner of a man pursued. Tom Byrd, curled up asleep on the hearth rug, sat up and blinked at him.
“Me lord?”
“Who else?” Grey asked, made jocular from the fatigues and excitements of the evening. “Did you expect a visit from the succubus?”
Tom’s face lost all its sleepiness at that, and he glanced uneasily at the window, closed and tightly shuttered against the dangers of the night.
“You oughtn’t jest that way, me lord,” he said reproachfully. “It’s an Englishman what’s dead now.”
“You are right, Tom; I beg pardon of Private Bodger.” Grey found some justice in the rebuke, but was too much overtaken by events to be stung by it. “Still, we do not know the cause of his death. Surely there is no proof as yet that it was occasioned by any sort of supernatural interference. Have you eaten?”
“Yes, me lord. Cook had gone to bed, but she got up and fetched us out some bread and dripping, and some ale. Wanting to know all about what I found in the churchyard,” he added practically.
Grey smiled to himself, the faint emphasis on “I” in this statement indicating to him that Tom’s protests on behalf of the late Private Bodger sprang as much from a sense of proprietariness as from a sense of propriety.
Grey sat down, to let Tom pull off his boots and still-damp stockings. The room he had been given was small, but warm and bright, the shadows from a well-tended fire flickering over striped damask wallpaper. After the wet cold of the churchyard and the bleak chill of the Schloss’s stone corridors, the heat upon his skin was a grateful feeling—much enhanced by the discovery of a pitcher of hot water for washing.
“Shall I come with you, me lord? In the morning, I mean.” Tom undid the binding of Grey’s hair and began to comb it, dipping the comb occasionally in a cologne of bay leaves and hyssop, meant to discourage lice.
“No, I think not. I shall ride over and speak to Colonel Ruysdale first; one of the servants can follow me with the body.” Grey closed his eyes, beginning to feel drowsy, though small jolts of excitement still pulsed through his thighs and abdomen. “If you would, Tom, I should like you to talk with the servants; find out what they are saying about things.” God knew, they would have plenty to talk about.
Clean, brushed, warmed, and cozily ensconced in nightshirt, cap, and banyan, Grey dismissed Tom, the valet’s arms piled high with filthy uniform bits.
He shut the door behind the boy, and hesitated, staring into the polished surface of the wood as though to look through it and see who might be standing on the other side. Only the blur of his own face met his gaze, though, and only the creak of Tom’s footsteps were audible, receding down the corridor.
Thoughtfully, he touched his lips with a finger. Then he sighed, and bolted the door.
Stephan had kissed him before—kissed innumerable people, for that matter; the man was an inveterate embrasseur.But surely this had been somewhat more than the fraternal embrace of a fellow soldier. He could still feel the grip of Stephan’s hand curled around his leg. Or was he deluded by fatigue and distraction, imagining more to it than there was?
And if he were right?
He shook his head, took the warming pan from his sheets, and crawled between them, reflecting that, of all the men in Gundwitz that night, he at least was safe from the attentions of any roving succubi.
Chapter 3
A Remedy for Sleeplessness
Regimental headquarters for the 52nd was in Bonz, a small hamlet that stood some ten miles from Gundwitz. Grey found Colonel Ruysdale in the central room of the largest inn, in urgent conference with several other officers, and indisposed to take time to deal with an enlisted body.
“Grey? Oh, yes, know your brother. You found what? Where? Yes, all right. See…um…Sergeant-Major Sapp. Yes, that’s it. Sapp will know who…” The colonel waved a vague hand, indicating that Grey would doubtless find whatever assistance he required elsewhere.
“Yes, sir,” Grey said, settling his bootheels into the sawdust. “I shall do so directly. Am I to understand, though, that there are developments of which our allies should be informed?”
Ruysdale stared at him, eyes cold and upper lip foremost.
“Who told you that, sir?”
As though he needed telling. Troops were being mustered outside the village, drummers beating the call to arms and corporals shouting through the streets, men pouring out from their quarters like an anthill stirred with a stick.
“I am a liaison officer, sir, seconded to Captain von Namtzen’s Hanoverian Foot,” Grey replied, evading the question. “They are at present quartered in Gundwitz; will you require their support?”
Ruysdale looked grossly offended at the notion, but a captain wearing an artillery cockade coughed tactfully.
“Colonel, shall I give Major Grey such particulars of the situation as may seem useful? You have important matters to deal with…” He nodded round at the assembled officers, who seemed attentive, but hardly on the brink of action.
The colonel snorted briefly and made a gesture somewhere between gracious dismissal and the waving-away of some noxious insect, and Grey bowed, murmuring, “Your servant, sir.”