Aleksey's Kingdom (A Royal Affair #2)(39)

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.

It had begun to snow again. I don’t know about Aleksey, but I was beginning to feel as if I were a straw man—both physical and emotional hollowness. As I looked around our small camp, even the colors seemed washed out by the grayness of the day and falling snow: the officers’ blue facings more gray than navy, their gold buttons like old pennies handled too much. Aleksey nudged me, and I righted myself. We had to decide what to do. I was about to suggest something when I frowned. “Where are the trappers?”

Everyone looked puzzled. In the utter confusion of the morning, they had been overlooked. “Did they return at dawn?”

They had not apparently been seen since we had visited their camp the night before.

We immediately had something to do, therefore.

For the first time, the three officers chose to join Aleksey and me as we rode, leaving the Wright family to their own devices for a while. I did not want to see either the woman or more especially the child, so I was glad to have this excuse to leave them. The five of us rode through the snow to the place where we had last seen the missing men. I half expected to see blood upon the ground and torn, broken bodies. A bear attack is a fearful thing to come across. But there was nothing. It had snowed too recently to see any new tracks. We were at a loss. They had vanished. I had just upped my quota of loss to almost half our number. Six out of thirteen men now gone.




WE BURIED the three bodies with equal ceremony. One unnamed driven insane by what he had witnessed, and two who had died from lies, and perhaps from the weakness of their own characters. Who was I to judge weakness of character or condemn another for sin I willingly shared? I had spent the night with my cock buried deep inside another man. I was in no position to judge anyone.

Something was nagging at me, disturbing me more than even all these terrible events. I did not want to mention it to Aleksey, but something about the tangle of lies and half-truths that had led us to where we were, to where those poor soldiers now were, made me determined to tell him, even if it upset him more. No one knew the extent of his grief that morning at the short burial, but I understood that in his heart he was saying good-bye to Faelan and perhaps to any hopes he might have once had of returning to Hesse-Davia and being king once more. For surely, when we give up one essential part of our view of ourselves—as he was having to do with Faelan, who had been his constant companion (I might almost say familiar, if fear of accusations of witchcraft did not prevent me)—then we see other things in a new light also. He had always seen himself as king, with Faelan at his side. Now, having to let the wolf go, he was possibly letting go many other things as well. However, I did not want to have more lies twisting around us, so I took my first opportunity when we were on the move again to ride up alongside him and state, “I am returning to our campsite last night.”

“Why?” His face crumpled a little as he remembered what would be there, but then calmed. He had such great depths of inner strength, this man who could be so flighty and theatrical and emotional upon the surface.

“I….” This was not easy. “I do not think the madman fired his musket, Aleksey. It was still primed when it hit me. I am sure of it.”

“Wh—the trappers!” He was intelligent too.

I nodded.

“Oh my God, why?”

“I do not know, but it would be a very lucky—or unlucky—shot to take a wolf out so in the dark. I wonder if they meant only to shoot at us—perhaps to make me aware of the poor, raving man, who I might not have seen had they….”

He gritted his teeth at the obvious words I did not say. “But why?”

“Again, I do not know. But I want to check his musket.”

Although in this I told the truth, I lied by omission at the same time. I could not help but remember the look the raving man had given to the woods when he cried, “Did you not see them?” It had occurred to me that this might have been less raving and more a genuine enquiry. If he had been referring to the trappers, then I might find some alternative evidence in the tree line of their presence at those tragic events, even if the musket was discharged.

He rode out with me, as I knew he would. I did not want him to see Faelan again. We had said our good-byes, and nothing good comes of dwelling upon such grief.

But we had an intense shock when we arrived in the small clearing. Faelan’s body was gone. In its place was a scattering of dried blueberries. They were a muted, frozen blue upon the pristine snow. No tracks, no Faelan, just the berries with their little star-shaped points. I shivered as if a great wind had blown right through my body. Aleksey was bewildered, frightened, I think. He started to question what he was seeing. I did not know what to tell him, so I offered him what seemed most likely, although I did not believe it myself. “Etienne must have taken him, Aleksey. He must have come across the site and saw that we could not do him justice and has taken him to send him on his way.”