Grey’s afternoon was spent in necessary errands to tailors and solicitors, then in making courtesy calls upon long-neglected acquaintance, in an effort to fill the empty hours that loomed before dark. Quarry, at loose ends, had volunteered to accompany him, and Lord John had made no demur. Bluff and jovial by temper, Quarry’s conversation was limited to cards, drink, and whores. He and Grey had little in common, save the regiment. And Ardsmuir.
When he had first seen Quarry again at the club, he had thought to avoid the man, feeling that memory was best buried. And yet…could memory be truly buried, when its embodiment still lived? He might forget a dead man, but not one merely absent. And the flames of Robert Gerald’s hair had kindled embers he had thought safely smothered.
It might be unwise to feed that spark, he thought, freeing his soldier’s cloak from the grasp of an importunate beggar. Open flames were dangerous, and he knew that as well as any man. And yet…hours of buffeting through London’s crowds and hours more of enforced sociality had filled him with such unexpected longing for the quiet of the North that he found himself filled suddenly with the desire to speak of Scotland, if nothing more.
They had passed the Royal Exchange in the course of their errands; he had glanced covertly toward the Arcade, with its gaudy paint and tattered posters, its tawdry crowds of hawkers and strollers, and felt a soft spasm of anticipation. It was autumn; the dark came early.
They were near the river now; the noise of clamoring cockle-sellers and fishmongers rang in the winding alleys, and a cold wind filled with the invigorating stench of tar and wood shavings bellied out their cloaks like sails. Quarry turned and waved above the heads of the intervening throng, gesturing toward a coffeehouse; Grey nodded in reply, lowered his head, and elbowed his way toward the door.
“Such a press,” Lord John said, pushing his way after Quarry into the relative peace of the small, spice-scented room. He took off his tricorne and sat down, tenderly adjusting the red cockade, knocked askew by contact with the populace. Slightly shorter than the common height, Grey found himself at a disadvantage in crowds.
“I had forgot what a seething anthill London is.” He took a deep breath; grasp the nettle, then, and get it over. “A contrast with Ardsmuir, to be sure.”
“I’d forgot what a misbegotten lonely hellhole Scotland is,” Quarry replied, “until you turned up at the Beefsteak this morning to remind me of my blessings. Here’s to anthills!” He lifted the steaming glass which had appeared as by magic at his elbow, and bowed ceremoniously to Grey. He drank, and shuddered, either in memory of Scotland or in answer to the quality of the coffee. He frowned, and reached for the sugar bowl.
“Thank God we’re both well out of it. Freezing your arse off indoors or out, and the blasted rain coming in at every crack and window.” Quarry took off his wig and scratched his balding pate, quite without self-consciousness, then clapped it on again.
“No society but the damned dour-faced Scots, either; never had a whore there who didn’t give me the feeling she’d as soon cut it off as serve it. I swear I’d have put a pistol to my head in another month had you not come to relieve me, Grey. What poor bugger took over from you?”
“No one.” Grey scratched at his own fair hair abstractedly, infected by Quarry’s itch. He glanced outside; the street was still jammed, but the crowd’s noise was mercifully muffled by the leaded glass. One sedan chair had run into another, its bearers knocked off balance by the crowd. “Ardsmuir is no longer a prison; the prisoners were transported.”
“Transported?” Quarry pursed his lips in surprise, then sipped, more cautiously. “Well, and serve them right, the miserable whoresons. Hmm!” He grunted, and shook his head over the coffee. “No more than most deserve. A shame for Fraser, though—you recall a man named Fraser, big red-haired fellow? One of the Jacobite officers—a gentleman. Quite liked him,” Quarry said, his roughly cheerful countenance sobering slightly. “Too bad. Did you find occasion to speak with him?”
“Now and then.” Grey felt a familiar clench of his innards, and turned away, lest anything show on his face. Both sedan chairs were down now, the bearers shouting and shoving. The street was narrow to begin with, clogged with the normal traffic of tradesmen and ’prentices; customers stopping to watch the altercation added to the impassibility.
“You knew him well?” He could not help himself; whether it brought him comfort or misery, he felt he had no choice now but to speak of Fraser—and Quarry was the only man in London to whom he could so speak.
“Oh, yes—or as well as one might know a man in that situation,” Quarry replied offhandedly. “Had him to dine in my quarters every week; very civil in his speech, good hand at cards.” He lifted a fleshy nose from his glass, cheeks flushed ruddier than usual with the steam. “He wasn’t one to invite pity, of course, but one could scarce help but feel some sympathy for his circumstances.”
“Sympathy? And yet you left him in chains.”
Quarry looked up sharply, catching the edge in Grey’s words.
“I may have liked the man; I didn’t trust him. Not after what happened to one of my sergeants.”
“And what was that?” Lord John managed to infuse the question with no more than light interest.
“Misadventure. Drowned by accident in the stone-quarry pool,” Quarry said, dumping several teaspoons of rock sugar into a fresh glass and stirring vigorously. “Or so I wrote in the report.” He looked up from his coffee, and gave Grey his lewd, lopsided wink. “I liked Fraser. Didn’t care for the sergeant. But never think a man is helpless, Grey, only because he’s fettered.”
Grey sought urgently for a way to inquire further without letting his passionate interest be seen.
“So you believe—” he began.
“Look,” said Quarry, rising suddenly from his seat. “Look! Damned if it’s not Bob Gerald!”
Lord John whipped round in his chair. Sure enough, the late-afternoon sun struck sparks from a fiery head, bent as its owner emerged from one of the stalled sedan chairs. Gerald straightened, face set in a puzzled frown, and began to push his way into the knot of embattled bearers.
“Whatever is he about, I wonder? Surely—Hi! Hold! Hold, you blackguard!” Dropping his glass unregarded, Quarry rushed toward the door, bellowing.
Grey, a step or two behind, saw no more than the flash of metal in the sun and the brief look of startlement on Gerald’s face. Then the crowd fell back, with a massed cry of horror, and his view was obscured by a throng of heaving backs.
He fought his way through the screaming mob without compunction, striking ruthlessly with his sword hilt to clear the way.
Gerald was lying in the arms of one of his bearers, hair fallen forward, hiding his face. The young man’s knees were drawn up in agony, balled fists pressed hard against the growing stain on his waistcoat.
Quarry was there; he brandished his sword at the crowd, bellowing threats to keep them back, then glared wildly round for a foe to skewer.
“Who?” he shouted at the bearers, face congested with fury. “Who’s done this?”
The circle of white faces turned in helpless question, one to another, but found no focus; the foe had fled, and his bearers with him.
Grey knelt in the gutter, careless of filth, and smoothed back the ruddy hair with hands gone stiff and cold. The hot stink of blood was thick in the air, and the fecal smell of pierced intestine. Grey had seen battlefields enough to know the truth even before he saw the glazing eyes, the pallid face. He felt a deep, sharp stab at the sight, as though his own guts were pierced, as well.
Brown eyes fixed wide on his, a spark of recognition deep behind the shock and pain. He seized the dying man’s hand in his, and chafed it, knowing the futility of the gesture. Gerald’s mouth worked, soundless. A bubble of red spittle swelled at the corner of his lips.
“Tell me.” Grey bent urgently to the man’s ear, and felt the soft brush of hair against his mouth. “Tell me who has done it—I will avenge you. I swear it.”
He felt a slight spasm of the fingers in his, and squeezed back, hard, as though he might force some of his own strength into Gerald; enough for a word, a name.
The soft lips were blanched, the blood bubble growing. Gerald drew back the corners of his mouth, a fierce, tooth-baring rictus that burst the bubble and sent a spray of blood across Grey’s cheek. Then the lips drew in, pursing in what might have been the invitation to a kiss. Then he died, and the wide brown eyes went blank.
Quarry was shouting at the bearers, demanding information. More shouts echoed down the walls of the streets, the nearby alleys, news flying from the scene of murder like bats out of hell.
Grey knelt alone in the silence near the dead man, in the stench of blood and voided bowels. Gently, he laid Gerald’s hand limp across his wounded breast, and wiped the blood from his own hand, unthinking, on his cloak.
A motion drew his eye. Harry Quarry knelt on the other side of the body, his face gone white as the scar on his cheek, prying open a large clasp knife. He searched gently through Gerald’s loosened, blood-matted hair, and drew out a clean lock, which he cut off. The sun was setting; light caught the hair as it fell, a curl of vivid flame.
“For his mother,” Quarry explained. Lips tightly pressed together, he coiled the gleaming strand and put it carefully away.