Aleksey's Kingdom (A Royal Affair #2)(46)

“Well, good. That is more like it. Truly, you are very contrary to make me come all this way and to put me through such horrors to now flag and wilt like a… wilting thing. Not that I have much experience of wilting things, as you know.”

“Hush, or you will make me laugh, and then I can no longer claim that I am ailing.”

He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “What do you think the symbols mean? Are they native language?”

“Not any that I know, but that is not to say that a native did not put them there.”

“I wonder what they mean. Isn’t this a good mystery: the fort deserted just as I wanted and strange symbols on the walls—just as I predicted. There was even food upon the platters. Was it not a pity that it was not still warm, for that—”

“Aleksey? Shut up.”

He did, but I could still hear his mind working as he lay staring up at the rough bark roof. It was bitterly cold, I did not have my usual warmer, and I was feeling pretty miserable.

All I needed, therefore, was the howling of the damned to begin, which it did just after I had dropped to sleep.

We all sat up with a start or shout of alarm. Major Parkinson actually drew his sword, and the Wright brothers moved instinctively together, as I did with Aleksey. We stood in the utter darkness and listened to the voices. We could not make out what they were saying—can the damned still remember their language in the torments of hell?—over the constant roar of the river and the falls, but they sounded desperate, pleading, terrified. I do not think I was the only man in that room with his hair standing on end or with a surge of primal instinct screaming at him to flee this place. Aleksey wanted to go outside and ascertain if we could see anyone—he was the first to reason that there might genuinely be people lying in the snow just outside in need of assistance. I only agreed because I wanted to check the horses.

We all went, which seemed like the best idea to me.

Xavier was extremely agitated. He was stabled with the other horses and appeared to be alarming them. I knew how he felt. We were all inside the palisade and had fastened and secured the gates as best we could. There was nothing of any import inside the fort therefore. I wondered how the good reverend and his wife and child were taking the howling. It was hard to get a sense of which direction it was coming from, but I put my money on the river.

I think Aleksey would have opened the gates and gone out into the forest to search for the source of the cries, but he was outvoted. Even he must have seen that stumbling around in the dark and snow would be useless. He did climb to the top of the palisade, though, and peered over into the tree line. If he saw anything, he did not tell me. I was being punished for not letting him enjoy his adventure, I think.

We returned to the barracks, but no one made any pretense of sleeping. We gathered closer together, sitting on a few beds. The talk was desultory at first. The roar of the river continued, and it was exhausting talking against it, and the cries went on for some time. Eventually, though, we began to speak, for it relieved the tension somewhat, and I learnt some useful and surprising things.

It was Mary Wright, and not her husband, who had wanted to come to this colony.

I had assumed that as the reverend had been appointed the new pastor, he had been the one to press joining this small expedition. Not so. He had abandoned the idea of living in the outpost at all upon the very recent death of his first wife. Mary Wright, upon her marriage, had insisted he continue with his plan. Being a new wife, a bride, so to speak, the reverend was wont to let her do pretty much as she chose. She had not been at all alarmed at the stories that had circulated about the abandonment of the place and had insisted they join Major Parkinson’s group. I also found it extremely interesting that Mary had, for a very short time between her arrival in the colony and her marriage to the reverend, been a servant in the officers’ mess. Although no one could confirm this, it occurred to me that the rumors amongst the officers about the abandonment of this place—the undisturbed buildings, the blood upon the walls, the beast from the falls—had started when she had begun to work amongst them.

But the most interesting thing I learnt that night was that the reverend’s first wife had died only a month before this new marriage. This explained the brothers’ antipathy toward Mary, for sure, but it also created a whole new set of questions for me. Although I had not practiced as a doctor specializing in poisons since I had arrived back in the New World, I still had a sense for it. If anyone I had ever met seemed a likely candidate to be a poisoner, then Mary Wright appeared to fit the bill. I was not surprised to hear of the mother’s symptoms: wasting away with no apparent cause, constant fear of something that could not be perceived. I could almost hear Aleksey’s desire to say it—he had gone through a lengthy poisoning with his own father, so I know he must have been thinking as I was.

What possible motive such a young woman could have to tie herself to the old reverend and then to want to come and live in this desolate community eluded me. I sincerely hoped I would not be in the place long enough to find the answer either. I fully intended now to leave as soon as it was light. We had seen what we had come to see—abandonment. I intended to join the general consensus of opinion and abandon the place as well.




I WOKE very surprised that I had actually fallen asleep—albeit a very rough kind of doze, sitting up with my neck at an awkward angle. I saw my companions had fared no better. Except Aleksey.