Aleksey's Kingdom (A Royal Affair #2)(36)

Something happened to the man then that I cannot explain. I have seen it before with people, old, witless from that great confusion that can take people in their dotage, and I had not understood it then either. He calmed and became quite rational. It was as if at the end of his life, the tangled paths that had brought him there fell away and left him free of their confusion. He did not seem to be in pain either, for which I was grateful. He was only a young man, little more than a boy. What was left of his clothing showed him to be a colonist, not a soldier. He was staring at the weak winter sun when he said quite calmly, “He took us all.”

“Can you tell me what has happened? Who took you? Is anyone still alive?”

“He came from the water, and he carried the devil upon his back.”

“Who came?”

He turned his face to me. “The beast.” He coughed, which was not good, because his intestines, which I had been pressing back into his belly, swelled out and spilled between my fingers, uncoiling and steaming in the cold air.

“Aleksey!” But there was no reply. Dammit. I pressed harder, trying to keep the man’s life inside along with his belly. “Did anyone else survive?”

“They became as devils themselves and took communion upon the flesh of their fathers.”

“Hush. You are safe now.”

“Did you not see them?” His eyes rested upon the tree line across our clearing, and I confess the hair on the back of my neck rose as I followed his gaze. I could see nothing. “He wears their faces now, but you can still see the devil beneath.”

“Listen to me! The others! Are they—”

“All gone. They have all gone over—ah.” He shuddered, his eyes rolled up, and he died. I cursed and ran back into the clearing, skidding to a halt at the sight that greeted me.

Aleksey was sitting by Faelan’s body. I could see that the wolf was dead. I sank down alongside them, pulling the old boy’s head onto my lap. Aleksey was as calm as he had been alongside his own father’s crushed and bloodied body. He looked at me from a very long way away. “I should have taken him home when you suggested it. I have killed him.”

In my experience people who want to feel guilty will, despite what you say to try and talk them out of their remorse. Aleksey was not a child; he could see cause and effect as clearly as I. I nodded. “We have both done so, for I did not persuade you enough. I wanted you here with me too much.”

He nodded, and I could tell I had helped a little, taken half his self-recrimination, and therefore, half his burden. I hesitated but then ventured, “Aleksey….” When he was listening, I continued softly, “He was old. You know this. He had begun to fail and not be what he once was. He might have gone on through the winter, his limbs becoming too stiff for him to hunt his own food, his hearing and sight failing along with his body. I would not have wanted that for him and neither would you. But now? Now he died still himself in the very moment he lived for—protecting you. Do you remember that snarl?” I managed a smile, and he did too. “That drip of saliva?”

“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.





Chapter Nine


TWO 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.