A sudden and very violent suspicion entered my mind. I let nothing of it show on my face, turning the conversation to the old men I had observed and half listening as he informed me that they were another of Aleksey’s projects: veterans of the army, too old or too injured to fight. I waited until I could see Aleksey in the distance and then let my mind roam free. Theywerevery alike. I had noted the first time I’d met Johan that he was attractive and that he seemed very taken with Aleksey. I had put Johan’s constant observation of the prince down to the kind of attraction I might feel for another man, that Ididfeel for Aleksey. After the colonel’s story, though, I wondered.Aleksey was special. Asonwas special. Did Aleksey know? I reasoned that he did not. His sense of entitlement was too ingrained, his sense of himself as a prince of the blood too obvious. It would destroy him to know. Perhaps I was reading too much into the colonel’s story. And why had he told me if it led to such conjecture on my part? It was something he could not possibly want me to know.
I had many opportunities to observe them together after that, for they were almost always in each other’s company. My suspicions certainly changed the way I saw the colonel’s relationship with Aleksey. Now I rather liked the way he constantly monitored, criticized, guided, and counseled his much younger superior. It certainly could be the care a father might give a son. I envied Johan the relationship. I envied the colonel the freedom he had to play this role, a role—amongst others less noble—I desperately wanted to play in Aleksey’s life.
We marched on, endless day after endless day. It seemed interminable, but before I knew it, we had completed one month of marching. Half our time together gone. I was always busy, of course. There appeared to be as many ways for a soldier to injure himself on the march to war as in the war itself. Fingers and toes were crushed under wheels, bones broken from falls and fights, and sickness plagued us from the bad humors of the water or the food. If anyone had asked me before my experiences in Hesse-Davia what I imagined when I heard the word war, I would have replied a pounding of horseflesh, screaming, and painted faces with black hair flying in the wind. I realized now that what I had thought was war had merely been skirmish. The Powponi did not war upon their neighbors; they raided and plundered with little plan and no logistics. Real war, this war, was ponderous, exhausting… boring. We went so slowly that sometimes peasants traveling on the roads went faster than we did. It was humiliating to see an old woman carrying bundles of wood in the morning, only to see her again that night, plodding slowly past our lines.
EVERYNIGHTwe were summoned to a meeting at which we had to report anything we thought the general should know about our areas of interest. He made it very clear to all of us that if we had nothing critical to say, then saying nothing at all would be welcome. As I had his undivided attention every night as we lay side by side in our cots, I did not waste his time at these meetings by speaking at all. I took the opportunity to learn more about the ways of the military by listening instead.
Aleksey’s officers were a mixed bunch. Very few of them came from Hesse-Davia itself. Most were refugees from the various wars that had plagued Europe for so many years. They were experienced, hard men who enjoyed soldiering for the life itself rather than the pay (which was very poor) or glory and honor (which were hard to gain). They genuinely seemed to like riding all day, sleeping in tents, and eating field rations. They seemed unbothered by physical discomfort or lack of variety in their lives. If I had not had so many minor injuries to care for, I think I would have died of boredom on that long march. The only bright part of each day was when it ended, when Aleksey finally came into our tent, took off his boots, and motioned Faelan to his own blanket by the stove, a sure signal they were staying. Aleksey would sink gratefully onto his bed and want to talk about the day. We would compare thoughts on our fellow travelers, swap stories, or share concerns.
In some ways, I felt as if we’d passed through our great love affair and were drifting happily in the aftermath, glad to just be two men who knew each other very well and were very comfortable in each other’s company. Or at least this is what I told myself to get through those nights when the longing almost overwhelmed me. Whereas John had been rancid meat, Aleksey was the finest banquet ever presented, laid out beside a man dying from starvation, and I could not reach out and take a single taste.
CHAPTER 15
IWASsure my conversation with Colonel Johan had gone unnoticed by our commanding officer—I had deliberately engineered it so Aleksey wasn’t present. He surprised me a few nights later, therefore, as he was pulling off his boots, by asking casually what we had been discussing—was it somethinghecould help me with?
I told him it was not.
Although we had only the light from a hanging lantern, I could see his expression darken at my reply. He looked frustrated, but I could not see why this should be so.
After a struggle with his left boot, he commented somewhat testily, “Johan has many interesting stories. He has been in royal service for years—since before I was born.”
“Indeed.”
He turned his head so fast I heard an audible crick. “So he told you—a story, yes?”
I did not want to stray anywhere near the truth in case my expression gave away my new suspicions about Aleksey’s true parentage. I shrugged and pretended to close my eyes. I could still see him watching me, however.
With no justification as far as I could see, he suddenly threw his boot at me. When I sat up and objected to this treatment, he told me it was my own fault, that I was more stupid than my horse, and that he was sleeping elsewhere that night, for he could not tolerate my presence.
He had reached the tent flap when he swung back and hissed that he was going to share Johan’s tent—that Johan had always been as a father to him. He seemed to be waiting for something from me. I had no idea what I was supposed to say.
I handed him back his boot.
His eyes widened. If possible, an even more derisive look twisted his features, and he stormed out.
It took a while, but after an hour of tumbling thoughts and feelings, I began to wonder if Aleksey had engineered my conversation with Johan.
I could see that he might have. Butwhyhe had done so defeated me. He could not want me to think Johan was his father—I do not think he would have referred to Johan in such a way had this scandalous thing been true. Why did he want me to understand more about their relationship? He could not possibly have sensed my jealousy. I was too guarded. But perhaps he had. Perhaps it annoyed him that I was not wholly focused on the march, as he was.
That seemed a very reasonable conclusion.
Aleksey wanted my focus back on the march and had ordered Johan to speak to me about it.
I was still puzzled by the boot throwing, though.
MYCONFUSIONover many things on that road to war, including Aleksey’s mood, was deepened by an odd incident the following day. I was still thinking back over that nighttime conversation with Aleksey, going over it, pretending I had said this and he had said that and perhaps other things more pleasant than a boot being flung in my face had occurred, when I rounded the end of a line of tents and saw Jules and Johan deep in conversation, heads lowered. As I have said, Jules was a particular friend of Johan’s. They regularly sat together in the evenings, playing chess, so it was not that unusual to see them together now. I was about to join them, therefore, when I heard Jules say, “No, I suppose you are right. He is not.”
I cannot say why the immediate suspicion that they were talking about me came into my mind, but it did.
It was ungentlemanly, beneath me, but I hung back behind the tent and listened.
Their voices carried very easily, and I heard Jules add, “I thought he was one of those ferocious German mercenaries when he first strode into His Majesty’s bedchamber.”
Johan snorted. “Aye, as did I when we first met. Told the little fool so too, but he wouldn’t listen to me. Never does. All he can see is the damn man’s face—and other parts, I’d warrant.”
“Well, he is exceptionally handsome, Johan. Even you have to admit the beauty of his countenanceisrather distracting. Have you seen how the soldiery watch him?”
“I havenot, and the devil I’d admit any such thing if I had. I have to listen to the idiot’s foolishness all bloody day: how his hair shines like ripen wheat in the sun, how he moves like a dancer, how his skin is like brown silk—God’s breath, my head reels from the womanish nonsense I am subjected to! What I want to know from asensibleman is can this man be trusted?”
