Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(52)

“I don’t blame you,” Randolph said. “Left to myself, I should have waited for you to wake up instead of leaving you to that bumbling coward of a vicar. But I was not left to myself, and you wouldn’t wake up, and everything in London had gone to hell in a handcart.”

“What went to hell?” Saul demanded. “Delingpole and Bracknell more or less implied that something you, or we, did in the Fens caused some disaster here.”

“Did they? Yes, I dare say.”

“What disaster?” Saul demanded, voice rising. “What did we do? What happened to me and why is it your fault, and what did it cause?”

“We did nothing, you and I,” Randolph said. “And I rather think it was the other way around. It appears that at some point on Monday or Tuesday, while you were in the Fens, someone was playing silly buggers in Temple Church. It’s shut up for renovation work at the moment so the damage wasn’t immediately discovered, but what is unquestionable is that a solid stone effigy of Geoffrey de Mandeville crumbled to dust, presumably as a result. It appears to have been a large and complex event, but nobody knows who, why, or what actually happened.”

“Good God.”

“Mmm. Something destroyed de Mandeville’s effigy, all hell broke loose in de Mandeville country, and it is known I was up there. Hence the Ministry’s fishing expedition. If that pair could blame me for some calamity by commission or omission, that would be highly convenient for them. What did you tell them?”

“Roughly what happened. Omitting the private matters, and—her.”

“You didn’t tell them about Theresa, or Camlet Moat?”

“No.”

“Thank you,” Randolph said. “May I ask why not? It would have got you out of trouble at a stroke. Delingpole and Bracknell would be overjoyed to see that responsibility taken out of my family’s hands.”

“I didn’t like them.”

“Well, it is hard to.”

Saul looked into his sherry, holding the cut crystal glass in both hands. Randolph watched his face, the little troubled frown. “And it didn’t feel mine to tell. I don’t know what happened that night, or what it means—”

“Don’t you?”

Saul contemplated his drink a moment more, then looked up. “All right. I think your dead fiancée told me her secrets and gave me her duties. I don’t know what they are but I can feel them, inside me. I think she, uh, she gave me a job.”

“Theresa was the greatest Walker Camlet Moat has ever had. She knew the duty hadn’t been passed on, that I couldn’t, haven’t done it. You’re right. She gave it to you.”

“Why?”

“Three reasons leap to mind,” Randolph said. “Firstly, because you’re worthy. If I’d wanted a layman in the role, and God knows I did not, you’d have been first on my list. Lord, it would be pleasant to have a few more intelligent people around. Secondly, you were there.”

“Sorry?”

“It’s not easy to return to this side of the veil. Most spirits are echoes, distortions, things that haven’t ever left properly. We were in a borderland, where it was easier for her to meet us, and that chance wouldn’t come twice. It was you or nobody. Which I appreciate is less flattering to you, but then again I wouldn’t have taken a walk with Major Peabody in the first place. Theresa and England may be grateful I have good taste in companions.”

“Because I was there,” Saul said. “Marvellous.”

“Right man, right place, right time. Yes. Although, thirdly, and this is where it becomes rather more awkward for me: you drank the water at Camlet Moat. I gave you the water, and you drank.”

“But surely lots of people—”

“There isn’t water all the time. You will probably understand it better than I now. I have drunk the water myself twice and I’ve given it to people three times. One of them lost part of his tongue.”

“Well, he would,” Saul said, and gave a startled twitch. Randolph sympathised. It was an unpleasant sensation to know something without knowing how.

“Yes. Well. I gave it to you and washed you and, I think, attracted the Moat’s enemies to you as well as its friend. I’m afraid that may be why the spirit in the Fens took such exception to you, and why Theresa came to you. It’s possible this is my fault.”

Saul looked at him, sherry glass in his hands. Randolph looked back, refusing to drop his eyes.

“You didn’t think this would happen, though. Did you?”

“I didn’t have the faintest inkling. For all I knew, when I gave you the water it might have burned and mutilated you instead. It was entirely irresponsible.”

“It wouldn’t have burned me if I didn’t deserve it,” Saul said absently. “Are you expecting me to storm out in a rage because you did something that had unexpected consequences? Some people might consider that hypocritical on my part.”

“I don’t give a damn what some, or any, people think. I did this to you, or at least I put you in the position where it became inevitable, and I am profoundly sorry. Your life is going to change, not for the better; you may expect a great deal of unpleasantness from all sides; you will have to learn your duty if you aren’t to neglect it—which I cannot permit you to do—and if you were hoping to have done with war, bad luck, because you’ve been conscripted into a larger and more complex one than you could have known.”