“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
TWOMENwere 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.
It was the two soldiers we had relieved from their vigil the evening before. We had not immediately recognized them because they had been stripped, beaten, and hanged naked.
When calm had been restored somewhat, Major Parkinson took us aside with his two officers, sword drawn as if he were willing to fight off any attempt to stop him explaining this incredible event.
He looked down at his boots for a moment. “Well, this is a rum business, if ever I saw one.”
“Major Parkinson, be brief.”
“Yes, of course. Sorry. Shakes a man up a bit.” He looked up, pursing his lips. “Never thought the damn scoundrels had it in them. Seemed decent sorts of chaps. Dreadful.”
“Sir, the events, and swiftly please.”
“Caught ’em doing the deed, so to speak. Doing poor Mrs. Wright.”
A trickle of icy fear wound its unwelcome way down my spine. I was not in my strongest frame of mind, given what had occurred so recently, and this hit me harder than it ought. I glanced over at Aleksey and could see a look of slowly dawning comprehension on his face too.
“I must have dozed off. Thought you young chaps were all out with your fires and whatnot, forty winks, keeps the mind and body fresh. Then next thing I knew, I saw those two rotten buggers returning. Dammit, I should have known. Took their report and saw them make off toward their tent. I went back to mine. Thought nothing more about it. Next thing I knew, I heard screaming. Dreadful bloody noise. Climbed out, and there was the poor reverend returned to find his wife… dammit, his wife dammit… pinned down under those two….”
I actually heard Aleksey groan a little, and he caught my arm. I ignored the pain of my burn; it helped me stay focused.
“What did she say had happened, sir? What was her story?”
