Aleksey's Kingdom (16 page)

“He would have ripped that man apart if he had not been….”

“Exactly. Which is what he would have chosen for himself and how we will always remember him, do you not think?”

Aleksey put his hand wonderingly to my cheek. “You are crying and bleeding equally.”

I tried to wipe my face, but I could tell from his expression I had not improved matters. We sat together for a long time with Faelan between us. Finally Aleksey nodded, then blew out a long breath. “What are we going to do?”

I knew what he meant. Neither of us wanted to leave him, but we could hardly take him either. Besides, this was our guilt, our grief, and we did not want to share it. We had little enough hope for a family, given what we were, so what we did have we treasured all the more.

“He will lie happy here, Aleksey. He came from the forest, and he will return to it.” We turned him so he could see the sun and feel it one last time upon his old pelt, and then we rose to leave. I heaved the dead man up onto Freedom’s back, and we mounted and rode out of the clearing.

It seems to me that life is very hard work sometimes, and the temptation to lie down and just rest from it for a while can be very difficult to resist.

We did not fully know what we had enjoyed until we lost it. I found myself looking around, wondering where he had got to, what menace he was causing in the dark forest beside us. And every time I thought so, the pain of his loss came over me again. Aleksey finally pulled the horses to a halt and said in a quiet voice, “We are approaching the camp. I would have us… pass muster,
Colonel
.”

I nodded. Fortunately, the blood congealed on my face hid my more extreme emotions, and thus we rode, outwardly calm, into a scene of such horror that our private grief was forgotten for some time.

T
WO
MEN
were hanging upon the limb of a tree, feet dangling just out of reach of the old cart. They were still kicking, their faces contorted in agonies of disbelief. They saw us approach, something like hope spread upon their features, but it was too late. We could do nothing as they died but listen to frantic babble and screaming and confusion, and fight off the attempts to stop us cutting them down. They were dead as we hacked them free and laid them upon the cold earth.

Finally all was made clear.

It was the two soldiers we had relieved from their vigil the evening before. We had not immediately recognized them because they had been stripped, beaten, and hanged naked.

When calm had been restored somewhat, Major Parkinson took us aside with his two officers, sword drawn as if he were willing to fight off any attempt to stop him explaining this incredible event.

He looked down at his boots for a moment. “Well, this is a rum business, if ever I saw one.”

“Major Parkinson, be brief.”

“Yes, of course. Sorry. Shakes a man up a bit.” He looked up, pursing his lips. “Never thought the damn scoundrels had it in them. Seemed decent sorts of chaps. Dreadful.”

“Sir, the events, and swiftly please.”

“Caught ’em doing the deed, so to speak. Doing poor Mrs. Wright.”

A trickle of icy fear wound its unwelcome way down my spine. I was not in my strongest frame of mind, given what had occurred so recently, and this hit me harder than it ought. I glanced over at Aleksey and could see a look of slowly dawning comprehension on his face too.

“I must have dozed off. Thought you young chaps were all out with your fires and whatnot, forty winks, keeps the mind and body fresh. Then next thing I knew, I saw those two rotten buggers returning. Dammit, I should have known. Took their report and saw them make off toward their tent. I went back to mine. Thought nothing more about it. Next thing I knew, I heard screaming. Dreadful bloody noise. Climbed out, and there was the poor reverend returned to find his wife… dammit, his wife dammit… pinned down under those two….”

I actually heard Aleksey groan a little, and he caught my arm. I ignored the pain of my burn; it helped me stay focused.

“What did she say had happened, sir? What was her story?”

“Bloody obvious really. Said they’d set upon her, taken their turns, all bloody night… dear God, if I had stayed awake, I’d have—”

“And what did they say? What was their version of the event?”

“Well you might ask, sir. That’s what did it for us, really—damn cowards said she’d invited them to—well, suffice to say—the one thing can perhaps be excused a man… temptations of the flesh and all that… but lying like a Frenchie? That I can’t abide.”

“And you believed her and not them?”

He took a small step back, but it was Captain Rochester who replied. “Do you impugn the lady’s honor, sir, and therefore our administration of the correct punishment for such offence? I would be careful what you say, as she had a witness to her ordeal.”

I was surprised but very pleased at the same time. I felt a little guilty, then, for immediately assuming she had tried the same thing with the soldiers as she had with me. This time she was the one with the witness. I glanced over at Aleksey, but his face was even more pale, and his eyes wide with horror. He croaked, “The child?”

I almost doubled over. I felt his hand tighten upon my arm for support. I repeated his question. “The child? Her son was her witness?”

The major nodded. He looked a little sick but for different reasons than we were, I wager. “Witnessed the whole damn thing. In the cart, you see. If it hadn’t been for that bloody brace thing upon his leg, I dare say he’d have up and run off—wouldn’t blame the little chap if he did—but he had to lie there all night… watching. Hung the buggers as much for that as for the poor lady, truth be told.”

I had spurned her advances. I had put him in that leg brace. I had forced him to lie in the cart. They had taken their very effective revenge on me now.

I looked at the bodies of the two young men, now covered by a tent canvas. I had killed them as surely as if I had strung them up myself. Aleksey put himself between me and the officers, nudging me away. When I refused to move, he became more forceful and insisted, “Doctor, I need to speak with you—now!”

I went mutely until we were a little way out of earshot. “Niko—Nikolai—listen to me!” I turned and blinked at him. “This was not your fault. Do you hear me?”

I nodded, turning back to stare at the ropes still hanging from the tree.

He grunted in fury and took my arms, leaning in closer. “Did I kill Faelan?”

“What?”

“Tell me, did I kill him? By not taking him back when you wanted me to?”

“No, of course not.” I was so confused by this turn of his mind that I could not comprehend his meaning. “Events work themselves as they will, Aleksey. All we can do as men is the best thing we can at the time with the right intentions. I wanted you to stay with me, or I would have forced the issue more. Faelan would not have chosen to be taken home like an old person too feeble to be where he wanted and doing what he most desired to do. I was wrong to suggest it. His death had nothing to do with you!”

“Well, the deaths of those men had nothing to do with you either! We did not tell of her nature to anyone for the best of motives. I sent the soldiers back to camp, Niko. Me! I did not mean for this to happen! And whatever she did, they did apparently take up her offer—the young bride of a man of God they knew and had traveled with for some days. So you must apply the same logic to your situation as you say I must to Faelan’s.” He shook me again. “Is this not so?”

I nodded, my head hung low. “I am in charge of an expedition that has lost four men, Aleksey—one third of its number.”

“Ack, since when did you actually take charge? You’ve been playing with it, Niko, to spare Major Parkinson’s feelings. Do not think I have not noticed. You boss me around more in five minutes than you have told him what to do once.”

I leaned against him for a moment—one soldier to another and nothing anyone could suspect. Then we pulled apart. I gave him a considered look. “Are you all right?”

He nodded. “I loved him. He is gone. I do not see that there is much more to say. The rest stays in my heart. What are we going to do about this horrible situation now?”

W
E
DID
what we should have done in the first place: we disabused the officers of their opinion of Mary Wright’s virtue. Clearly this was not an easy thing to do. No man likes to impugn a virtuous young woman or hear of one being so denounced, and I suspected they would not like it either. I did not need to nominate Aleksey to be the bearer of such news—he volunteered. Swift to assess the various personalities of the other men, he picked Rochester to approach. Win him over and the others would follow.

“Sir. A word.”

The captain was attempting to release the swaying ropes from the tree branch and naturally was not in the mood for conversation. Aleksey waited politely for him to complete his task and then laid a hand upon his arm.

I never appreciated other men admiring Aleksey, viewing such approaches as a starving man might a hand moving toward his plate of food, but in this case, I was glad the officer was smitten. He acquiesced to being pulled a little away from our companions where we could speak privately.

“Mrs. Wright approached me a few nights ago and offered herself to me in a wanton and brazen manner.” I was almost too astonished by this blatant lie to hear the rest of Aleksey’s speech, but just as suddenly it occurred to me that in all particulars it was not a lie, and that in the urgency of the moment, Aleksey had sacrificed his own sense of honor, his absolute adherence to the truth, in favor of expediency. If I had told the tale of spurning Mary Wright’s advances, my lack of familiarity with this man would have slowed his acceptance of the story. Aleksey’s word was unimpeachable. I loved him all the more for this sacrifice. “When I rebuffed her, she attempted to claim to my colleague, Doctor Hartmann, who came across us, that I had approached her in a lewd and ungodly manner. Doctor, is this not so?” I nodded. It was all I could do. Fluency of tongue such as Aleksey had just displayed was beyond me.

The captain eyed us both for a moment. “Why the devil would she do such a thing? If what you say is true, then—” Poor man. It had clearly just occurred to him that he had hung two innocent men.

Aleksey nodded sadly, as if the failings of a mere woman were a mystery to him. This seemed to accord with the officer’s view and knowledge of the species, and we all stood for a moment, heads bowed, contemplating the weaker sex. As it seemed an appropriate moment to do so, I murmured, “She did not come to the Colonies aboard the recent resupply ship, sir. She lied about her history in this too. I have seen the marks of a severe lashing upon her back, indication perhaps of a practiced deceiver.” I hoped he took the slight comfort I offered—that it had probably been beyond his power to see through the tangle of lies she had spun, and that thus his part in this horrible affair was somewhat mitigated.

He did seem to relax fractionally. “I must inform Major Parkinson. I am at a loss how we should proceed. Should we accuse her of falseness? Of, as you say, lewd and unwomanly behavior? We are not in authority over her, and yet—”

Aleksey replaced his hand upon the man’s uniform sleeve. “I told you only to make you vigilant, sir. There is the matter of the child—his role in this as her witness.”

“Good God, yes. He confirmed all his mother had said, and using such words as I did not think it seemly for her to hear despite her being the—”

“Our wolf did not attack the child, John. The boy attempted to blind the doctor’s horse. I do not think he is quite of sound mind. Of
normal
mind, anyhow.”

Rochester paled, beyond the normal coloring of a man in the cold with inadequate clothing. “It would have been better had you told us this earlier, Your Highness. Forgive my blunt speech.”

Aleksey nodded, the pain this obvious statement gave him etched upon his features.

Rochester relented and patted the hand upon his arm. “Only a fool harps upon what cannot be changed and ignores what needs to be done. Come, I will tell the major what has transpired here, and we must then hold counsel.”

The three officers stood in a huddle in the cold, their breath mingling as their words came softly. We listened to the discussion from a little way away, conscious of the shapes beneath the canvas at our feet. The poor soldiers appeared as if they joined in the debate. If they did, their evidence apparently swayed the major.

F
OR
,
OF
course, our words told of a very different tale to the one he had believed. The one he had hung two young men for. That was very hard for him to absorb and accept. But accept it he had to. If he did not believe his second-in-command, if my contention that she had never actually been upon the ship from England did not sway him, he believed Aleksey. He had known him far longer than he had known Mary Wright. Major Parkinson had introduced Aleksey to his mother, and nothing, apparently, was greater proof of the good man’s approbation of Aleksey’s character.

Gradually, therefore, the truth of our assertions became so obvious to him that he made the next leap himself—he saw the nature of the child.

We were indeed a very grim little council of war that morning.

It was all very well knowing the truth, but what to do with it was a more difficult problem. The Wrights were traveling to the colony. We were traveling to the colony. We could hardly travel separately, although I could see that the officers wanted nothing more than to pack up their tents and return to the officers’ mess on the coast and raise a glass to this dreadful, failed mission. We had not even finished with all the news.

Once we had covered the events of that morning, I had to then tell them that we had actually succeeded in our mission that night; we had the man we had set out to capture—but he was dead. I told the events from the clearing—as pertained to him, of course, and not to Aleksey and me—and recounted his ramblings. They made no more sense in the light of day than they had in the dawn’s half light: a beast, the wearing of faces, the passing over.