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The moon shone, soft and cold, through the smoke haze and drifting clouds over the silhouettes of Oxford's towers and spires as Hugh Davenant trod down New College Lane.
His mood was sober as he considered the problems besetting his friend George Selwyn, so when he heard the hiss of cloth and the thunk of a boot heel on the stones of the lane, he merely thought the noise that of another scholar making his way back in the small hours. It was not until a hard hand gripped round his mouth, pulling his head back, and the barrel of a pistol jammed into his ribs that it occurred to him there could be any danger.
Danger? At Hertford College?
He struggled. Warm breath tickled his ear as his assailant whispered, "I will free you . . . if you promise . . . not to shout." The accent was unmistakably that of a gentleman, however ruffianly his behavior. The voice was husky, the words broken by harsh breathing.
Judging from the angle, this unknown Mohawk was quite tall, and his strength was evidenced in his grip. Despite a sudden, violent effort, Hugh could not free himself.
The pistol jabbed his ribs with painful insistence.
Davenant jerked his chin down once, and the hand withdrew; sudden cold on his cheek made Hugh, who had not put on gloves for the short walk, wipe his jaw. That hand--also ungloved--had been wet. Hugh looked down. Black streaks crossed his palm, from which a faint, sickening scent of blood whiffed.
His stomach closed. He perceived a mere silhouette, the moon directly beyond the Mohawk's head.
"I have no weapon," Hugh said, spreading his hands. "Or money."
The silhouette turned; moonlight glowed along a refined cheekbone and severe jaw line that struck Hugh with a chord of familiarity. But that ring was brief. The man's eyes were shadowed by an open-cocked hat worn low-brimmed, and his neck was swathed in cloth.
"I want . . I want a place to lie up safely . . " The husky whisper grew quite hoarse.
"Why, you are wounded, man," Hugh observed, putting together at last the blood on his cheek and the harsh breathing. The way the stranger swayed.
Instinct was quicker than thought. Now it was Davenant who took hold of the stranger; through the shrouding greatcoat and frock, the arm he gripped was lean and hard.
"Come along," he said, though he still could not quite believe the circumstances.
Instinct was strong to cry out for aid--but at least as strong was curiosity. Hugh led the silent man up the narrow stairs to his rooms. They were in the oldest of the college's recently renovated jumble of buildings. His windows overlooked the New College Lane.
They made it to the landing, over the buttery that would, very soon, be lit as the servants roused to begin the day's baking.
The stranger leaned against the wall as Hugh fumbled for his key; the moon, emerging from behind a cloud, struck a cold blue spark in watching eyes, and then faded again as more vapors obscured the moon's faint glow.
Hugh wrested with the cold, clumsy iron key and the weather-warped door, kicking it open at last. The man straightened up with a soft grunt and followed him inside; Hugh stood in his doorway as wit at last caught up with instinct. He had brought a dangerous man to his rooms. What madness had possessed his brain? But as he stood thus in his own doorway, the Mohawk swayed again, one long hand groping. The pistol hung slack in the fingers of his other hand as he took two faltering steps inside the room. Then the pistol thudded to the floor--saints be praised it did not misfire--and a moment later the man thumped down atop the pistol in a swoon.
Hugh closed his door and struck the waiting tinder on the shelf. His fingers shook as he lit a branch of candles. He set the candle holder on his work table, and in their soft golden light, almost a glare after the blue dimness outside, surveyed his--his what? Attacker? He glanced at those long, well-made hands, lying open and loose, one of them smeared with blood. His guest?
The red stickiness of his own hand prodded him back to action. He stirred up the fire banked against the night, laying wood on it with profligacy that seemed warranted by circumstance. The light strengthened to ruddy brightness and new warmth.
With care he shifted the man's arm and pulled the pistol from beneath him. It was a horse pistol; he knew little about these things except that they were dangerous, so he laid it safely on the mantel. Then he knelt and divested the man of his heavy military-style greatcoat. He folded it over, rolling the man back onto it.
Beneath the greatcoat the man wore a well-made travel frock and a plain waistcoat of a military style, both stained dark down the side. Hugh unhooked the sword from its belt and laid it on the mantel beside the pistol.
He fetched his eating knife and was cutting away the ruined shirt when the stranger's eyes opened. His eyes were not blue but hazel, the contours of his face familiar--
"Vidal?" Hugh whispered, all his expectations at least as blown as when the pistol first jammed into his ribs.
The hazel gaze snapped downward, took in Hugh's face, and the thin cheeks flared two spots of hectic colour. "Avon," the man corrected--and then grimaced, as though he'd realised too late the danger of revealing his name. "Damnation." Vidal's voice was thread-thin. "I know you. Don't I?"
So the infamous old duke had died, then.
"Eton," Hugh replied. "You were some years ahead of me--there is no reason to remember me. My name is Davenant, and it transpires--at this moment--I am at your service."
The thin, fine lips twitched, then Avon struggled to sit up. Hugh was about to protest when the whiteness of shock spasmed Avon's face, and once again he fell back into a swoon.
Hugh drew in an unsteady breath. Nothing in an ordered life had prepared him for so terrible a situation. Yet already today he'd experienced the truth that an ordered life was not always at one's command.
He forced his mind away from Selwyn's vexing situation--so consuming earlier, so unimportant now--and studied Avon's shirt. Judging from the colours of the stain the wound was at least a day old. Hugh finished cutting away the ruined cloth, discovering that the shoulder wound had already been bound by Avon's military stock, which was now sodden and crusted. He cut that away, too, baring angry red flesh that seeped sluggishly.
He remembered from childhood scrapes his nurse insisting that all wounds must be clean. Pouring the rest of the day's pitcher of water onto a fine lawn handkerchief, Hugh did his best to wipe the crusted blood from Avon's flesh.
There were two wounds, he found. One in the shoulder, the other a glancing cut across the ribs. The one on the ribs did not appear to be a pistol wound. He was not so certain about the one in the shoulder. Hugh knew he could not dig out a ball, and any help he summoned would talk.
Of course he could fashion up a tale about footpads, but, as he gazed down at Avon lying there on the old floorboards, Hugh remembered his father saying once that this man's father, the old duke, had been implicated in the rebellion thirty years before, and had thus been living abroad ever since in order to escape execution.
Drinking himself to death, Hugh's older brother Frederick had reported in disgust, for he had ever had a taste for scandal. The ancient Alastair estate had been overseen by an elderly uncle, a respectable Bishop.
Hugh now recalled that conversation from perhaps ten years before, when he was home between halves at Eton and the subject of the last rebellion had been raised.
Frederick had said forcefully, "Parliament ought to strip the traitor of his titles and lands. Give it to the old Bishop, who is at least loyal."
Lord Colehatch, their father, had rejoined with a faint smile, "Were that to happen, few of us would be left with a stick over our heads or a bit of ground to stand on. Rebellions are the ancient game of the aristocrat, and who knew that better than William the Bastard? The stake, of course, being not land or titles, but your head."
That had silenced Frederick for a short time, but later, when Lord Colehatch and Hugh were playing a game of chess, the matter appeared to linger in his father's mind, for he shook his head and murmured, "Would you ride off to follow young Charles?"
Hugh, surprised, thought back to his brief meetings with the prince his own age the summer Lord Colehatch had taken his sons to Paris. Their father had not had them formally presented at the exiled court. Too many watched who visited there.
But however, you could go nowhere in Paris without meeting Charles Stuart or his brother Henry. And their followers. From Eton Hugh had learned much about how young men form round leaders, thrusting out others or including them not always for their shining parts, but for reasons of lineage or looks. Or wealth.
"I hardly know," Hugh had said. And then, "We are good Whigs, are we not?"
"We are Whigs," Lord Colehatch replied with a faint smile. "I leave the matter of goodness to each man's conscience. Politics," he added, "are seldom good; l'hônnete homme must sometimes choose that which will cause the least amount of harm."
"Meaning what, mon père?" Hugh had asked, for his father had been raised in France, and preferred French manners.
"Meaning belike he will point whichever direction blows the windbag he currently favors. He is young, fair of countenance, with excellent manners and some wit, but never will he make a king. I pray he will stay in France. If he does raise his standard as did his father, many more good men will die, and for what? Neither James Stuart nor his elder son hath the parts required to unite a divided kingdom."
The reverie ended, leaving Hugh staring down at Justin Alastair, who at Eton had been a blood, a leader in all things. Hard, unsentimental, derisive, he'd been fascinating from a distance but terrifying in proximity, for he'd a caustic tongue in that head. How could such be brought into so wild and romantic and yet so hopeless a cause?
Like father, so like son. Hugh could almost hear his father's voice, though Lord Colehatch had died the year previous.
Frederick--who would be here hard on sunrise, Hugh remembered--would be aghast to discover an escaped Jacobite in Hugh's rooms. Hugh knew his duty: to report Avon to the authorities. Frederick would certainly do so, but Hugh wondered now if his father would have agreed.
A restless movement, a sigh, and Avon's fingers drifted to his side, then dropped again. Thus reminded of his immediate duty--the political duty could wait upon the needs of the flesh--Hugh withdrew to the bedchamber beyond, and emerged with a clean neckcloth, which he wrapped over Avon's shoulder, the folded handkerchief pressed as a pad against the wound. He was eyeing the cut along the ribs doubtfully when Avon stirred and woke--this time the long, slack-lidded hazel eyes instantly alert.
"Pray do not stir, your grace," Hugh began.
But Avon sat, wincing faintly. Then his face tightened into inscrutability as he plucked the remains of his fine lawn shirt from the floor and pressed the single remaining white patch against his side. If he was the least incommoded to be thus half dressed, there was no sign; the firelight played over his smoothly muscled body, long, slim, taut, on which no trace of fat could be descried.
"Permit me to bind your ribs, your grace," Hugh said politely.
"Call me Avon. Davenant, did you say? Eton? That were an age ago." A frown creased his brow, and Hugh realised the duke probably had the headache--if he was not inviting fever.
"Perhaps I should summon a medical man," Hugh ventured. "I mislike that wound in your shoulder. You ought to be blooded against the rise of fever."
Avon flicked his hand out in dismissal. "My shoulder will keep. I believe I've lost blood enough already. If fever is to be my fate, more blood-letting will not ward it. More to the point, you know who I am."
"Yes," Hugh said, and added tonelessly, "and I may suppose whence you come. Might I inquire, before we go further, what was your intention when you thus accosted me below?"
"Mine intention was to, shall we say, convince you to hide me up until the search is past. They were hard on my heels," he admitted. "All I could think was to go to ground amongst the Oxonians, who are all men my age, or near it."
Hugh, who was twenty-five, silently counted up the years: Avon was turned thirty, but his age would be difficult to descry. Yes, Oxford was as good a place as any to go to ground. If one did not know he was a rebel.
The two sat there on the floor in the tiny chamber, the one half-dressed in riding breeches and jack boots, spurs digging into the much-scarred floor. His travel wig had long since been lost, and his long hair, denied a ribbon, drifted across his brow and tumbled in locks across his chest. Facing him, Davenant in his sober clothing, now splashed with Avon's blood.
For a space there were no sounds but the crackle of the flames, the ticking of the clock on the mantel, and the sudden tick of hail against the windowpanes.
Hugh watched the other's hazel eyes flicker: a scan of the room? Yes. In one glance he spied the pistol and sword on the mantel, behind Hugh.
His muscles tensed.
High raised a hand. "May I suggest a truce for parley?" He smiled. "In truth, I desire not to raise the college now, which would among other unpleasantries require my explaining why I brought you to my rooms in the first place."
"Why," Avon murmured, faintly mocking, "did you bring me to your rooms in the first place?"
Hugh shook his head. "I--I hardly know. Perhaps it's the drink I shared in commiseration with a friend, perhaps it is the friend's situation, which sticks in my gullet. Perhaps--one is curious." He shrugged. "But first: there is no purpose I can see in sitting about on the floor. We shall get you into the bed, and I will take the armchair for what remains of the night." He indicated the two pieces of furniture in the room: the armchair next to a sturdy table on which his water pitcher and cup, books, inkhorn, quills, and a quire of paper sat, as well as the candle-holder and eating silver.
"I would prefer the armchair," Avon said.
Hugh was more certain of himself by the moment. "No, unless you wish to explain your presence to the scout, who is due in mere hours." With a nod toward the makeshift bandage, then a glance at the timepiece on the mantel.
As he spoke, he gathered the ruined clothes and one by one laid them, hissing, onto the fire. The flames leapt; an unpleasant smell filled the room. Hugh opened the casement a crack.
"As well my good Aunt Sarah never tires of stitching neckcloths," he said, stepping once more into the bed-chamber, and re-emerging with lengths of laundered cloth over an arm. "Then you may wear my banyan." He extended the other arm, over which he'd flung the soft folds of his old chamber-coat.
With Avon's cooperation they soon got his ribs tied, the knot fastened at his other side so it would not fret him, and finally Hugh helped him pull off the high-topped riding boots. These he set by the fire as Avon passed into the cramped bedchamber. Hugh picked up Avon's hat from the floor and followed him into the bedchamber to hang the hat upon a hook beside his own.
"Have you a flask of spirits?" Avon asked. His voice was almost gone.
Hugh regarded Avon lying there in the bed, his tangled hair spread across the pillow, and felt the inevitable stirring that had nothing to do with politics--or even with the heart.
"No," he said. "Pray try to rest. We shall speak again come morning."
Avon's brow contracted once again. Hugh guessed at his thoughts: what was to guarantee that he would not betray him to a parcel of cudgel-bearing King's men?
And the answer: nothing.
Avon lay back with no expression, and Hugh knew that if such were to happen, the Duke of Avon would face them as he would face his executioners on Tower Hill, with the sangfroid of the English. And the trenchant sarcasm of the Alastairs.
From outside the windows the clatter of covers on trays alerted Hugh to the scouts' bringing food and hot water from the buttery.
The scouts were enjoined to report to the proctors the presence of lightskirts in men's rooms. Other gentlemen were a different matter; a silver coin, offered with a quiet word of thanks, took care of tongues that might peal, if one already had the respect of one's scout.
Hugh Davenant had learnt early the wisdom of his father's manner toward his servants. Though the niceties of rank ought never to be never forgotten, one must also never forget that lackeys were human, their souls worth as much to Providence as those of kings and dukes. Lord Colehatch ever had had a soft word for everyone who did him service, whether in matters of high import, or the bringing of his shoes. Hugh, following his father's custom, was a favorite of his scout, a grizzled man named Walker who had seen much before the recent change of Hertford College. The presence of a gentleman deeply asleep in Mr. Davenant's bed caused no reaction other than an offer, in a voice devoid of expression, to clean the boots standing at the bed side, and were the gentleman's clothes to be brushed?
Hugh proffered another coin from his flat purse. "The gentleman's clothes were taken away by his man, but he did not return for the boots."
Or perhaps he had and the door had been locked against him; the thoughts were clear enough in Walker's face. But he said nothing as he swept out the grate, replaced the candles, and wound the clock on the mantel. Then with a last glance around he picked up the boots and vanished. Hugh brought the breakfast that Walker had set on the table into the tiny bedchamber. He drew the curtains back and surveyed his guest, who was deeply asleep.
He shaved himself, careful to use only half the hot water the scout had brought, and then set up the little shaving stool beside the bed, and placed the breakfast tray upon it.
As soon as he was dressed he went out quietly, sustaining a premonition of impending trouble when he observed that the sky had clouded over with the low, gray, pressing blanket of an impending storm. The air was still and very cold, smoke from chimneys rising lazily to finger the underside of those heavy vapors above. Light glowed in the windows of Lord Downe's rooms, where George Selwyn was staying in secret--his first visit since summer, when he'd been officially forbidden to come within five miles of Oxon.
Hugh rapped at Downe's door and was let into a scene of chaos as both Downe's and Selwyn's servants laboured to strip the room and pack.
"Merry Christmas," Selwyn said, with a grimace, and held out a letter. "This just came."
Hugh whistled softly. "Proctors know you are here?"
Downe called from the bedchamber, "It's that damned Hobart, fiend seize him, letting off those damned Chinese crackers last night. Half Christchurch was howling in protest."
Hugh said wryly, "I remember you thought it funny at the time."
Downe appeared in the doorway, struggling into his coat. "Yes, but that's because I was drunk," he explained with sunny conviction. To the servant endeavoring to aid him with the coat, "Never mind, damn you! Get the boxes packed." And to Hugh, "I'm off home to Dawney Hall. Proctors shan't hound me there!" He winced as though his head ached, then looked around. "Where are my shoes? Hi there, Thomas, you rascal, leave that cursed box and find my shoes, fool!"
Selwyn raised his eyes heavenward, then thrust a heavy, folded missive into Hugh's hand.
Hugh took the letter and ran his gaze rapidly down it. He was not surprised to see that the respected Doctor refused to intercede in the University's decision.
Lingering over the words, . . .personal appeals to the Crown (though such most undoubtedly lie) are points of practice whereof we have no footsteps, he said, "Ecod, Brooke hits hard, does he not?"
"Prodigiously." Selwyn sighed. "But a harbinger of what my respected father--and my brother--will say. It's an honest but glum pair, damme."
Hugh made a sympathetic noise; the two had become friends while commiserating over the well-intentioned interference of ponderous older brothers who, as heirs to considerable estates, saw fit to run their younger brothers' lives as they did their other dependants. George's brother was actually a good man--even the scamp Horry Walpole attested to that--but no one liked Frederick Davenant, the new Lord Colehatch.
In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, Hugh's friendship with George Selwyn had prospered to a warm degree on the discovery of many shared tastes.
Hugh said, "Did this letter come straight here or did White's Chocolate House send it on? If the first, it would argue they know you are here."
"That's what we cannot discover, as the scouts and half Henry's servants are all gone." He jerked his thumb toward the bedchamber, where muffled noises could be heard as the Viscount and his man both turned the room over searching for, from the sound of their voices, a missing shoe buckle.
"If the proctors do descend in force," Selwyn flung wide his hands. "Behold me--I will cast myself on your mercy, Hugh."
Midway between laughter and alarm, Hugh said, "I beg to remind you that Frederick is descending in force some time this morning."
Selwyn had a head as well, thus did not think to ask why Hugh had come if his brother was expected so soon, and so Hugh departed, balked of his plan to ask Downe's--or rather Selwyn's--aid, for Downe did whatever George told him. Despite his older brother being in the military, Hugh knew that George cared little for politics, and much for jests. On his approach he'd turned over in his mind how to present the harbouring of Avon--an escaped Jacobite--as a jest, so that Selwyn might be trusted to get Henry to take the man when Frederick came to bear Hugh off for the holiday.
But that was not to be.
The smells of baking lingered on the oppressive air as the last of the scouts carried their trays, covers faintly clattering, from the buttery. Fat, soft flakes had begun to fall as Hugh mounted the steps, unlocked his door and opened it--to stand stock-still in shock, this time at the sight of Avon propped in his armchair, pistol leveled directly at his chest.
Hugh stilled, his heart beating fast. As the pistol did not fire--though it tracked him unwavering--he closed his door, locked it, and pocketed the key while saying with a fair assumption of calm, "You are safe. For the moment. I went to seek the aid of friends, but their imminent departure puts me at a stand."
The pistol lowered, the whiteness round Avon's thin mouth faded.
"Did you breakfast, your grace?" Hugh asked.
"Avon," the duke said, laying the pistol on the table. He leaned back, the lines of strain in his face as pronounced as before; even in the weak, gray morning light they were evident as lines of pain. "No. I wakened to the sound of your departure. And misjudged your intentions. For which I beg your pardon."
Hugh bowed his acceptance. "Permit me to fetch the tray. You must be famished."
Avon did not demur. He fell to with what strength remained to him, but Hugh was relieved to see by the meal's end that a trifle of colour had returned to his face.
Further discourse was prevented by the familiar scratch at the door.
Hugh said, "My scout." And moved the pistol to the mantel once again.
Avon said, "You don't have a man of your own?"
Davenant winced, not wanting to explain that his brother saw fit to keep him on a strict allowance in an effort (no doubt admirable) to curtail just the sort of extra-curricular activities to which Hugh and his friends were particularly addicted.
But there was an expression of awareness in Avon's face as he rose, and with commendable speed, vanished into the bedchamber.
Hugh unlocked the door. Walker set down the jack boots, newly furbished up, the stirrups sharpened to a cruelly-gleaming edge. He said, "Your pardon, sir, but Lord Colehatch is without. Says he's here to wait upon you." When Hugh acknowledged, he dipped his head and added in a voice devoid of any scrap of human emotion, "Got a lady with him."
"Sapristi," Hugh breathed.
"I'll fetch out the slops, shall I?"
Hugh ducked around Walker, whose heavy tread diminished in the direction of the bedchamber. Hugh spared a thought for Avon, hoping he was abed, and thus hiding the bandages. A convivial night with a friend was more frequent in the colleges than not; a man bandaged with considerable wounds was likely to cause speculation below-stairs.
Hugh rapidly descended the stairs to the lane. There his brother, jowly countenance more disapproving than was his wont, waited with a lady on his arm. Hugh made his leg, bowing to both in equal degree, then turned his inquiring look on the lady, who was small, round as a ball of dough, with a prim mouth and a properly downcast face half-hidden by her traveling bonnet.
"My dear," Frederick said, "may I present my brother, Mr Davenant. Hugh, make your bow to Miss Cathcart." The heavy emphasis on the words 'Miss Cathcart' puzzled Hugh, but he forbore questioning. A lifetime growing up with Frederick had taught him to differentiate between the questions that Frederick expected one to ask--so that he might expatiate at length--and those that would net one a resounding snub.
Hugh obediently saluted the small hand held out to him, then said, "There is the saloon on Catte Street, Frederick, as you will remember--"
Miss Cathcart spoke, her voice sweet, breathy, with a lisp. "Oh, but I fear it is I to blame, Mr Davenant." Her eyes cast modestly down, she added, "I did so wish to visit this place of scholarly pursuit. A lady very seldom has such an opportunity. And one day--" A pause, and an affected simper. "One day, well, if you will pardon my blush--" Here she bridled, making a little show of hiding her face. "It might one day be my son here, and so, a mother would wish to envision her son's lodgings, and establish his comfort, even if only in imagination, within the sacred walls of her maternal heart."
Hugh's brows lifted at this rather torturous (though plainly calculated) reasoning; he glanced at his brother, to surprise an expression that must be categorized, if one is to pen the truth, as fatuous.
Hugh said, "I--I would like nothing better than to wait upon you in my chambers--such as they are." An ironical glance at his brother, who was busy patting Miss Cathcart's mittened hand. "But I must confess, I had no notion of visitors. My effects are at present in some disarray. Then there is a storm coming, and I would not delay us."
Frederick said, "No! For we haven't a maidservant along. I'd thought the trip would just be the morning." He cast an anxious look skyward.
Miss Cathcart said demurely, "Oh, Frederick, I should protest against any sight not proper for an unmarried lady to see. But as I have only this one opportunity--"
"Perhaps I might escort you to the saloon I spoke of, while you settle the question," Hugh said, offering each an arm. "I had better make haste. See? The snow flies faster already." He pointed at the lane, where the flagstones wore a light, glistening coat of white.
Frederick scowled uncertainly, but took his arm, and Miss Cathcart, with a coy twitch of her shoulders, and a little bridling gesture of maidenly modesty, attached herself quite firmly to Hugh's other arm. He led them across the old quad, talking the while to Miss Cathcart about the old Hall, and famous scholars who had boarded and studied therein.
Frederick was looking anxiously upward when Hugh left them at the college entrance, dashed back down the lane and up the stairs--to hear the sound of laughter.
He slammed the door open to find Avon back in the chair, pistol at hand, and George Selwyn leaning against the mantel laughing. His head turned, and he whooped. "Hugh! Your face! Have you seen a ghost? And I don't mean Avon here, who, damme, looks as if he's one step from joining t'Oxon haunts. Lyttleton sent a warning--Downe went into a positive frenzy and I protest he galloped away with one shoe off and one on, his hat and his wig under his arm, leaving a trail of small clothes behind. And me. My man is out scouting some sort of conveyance. I thought to hide here, just to discover that once again, I am behindhand."
Avon frowned. "Selwyn?"
"Your obedient servant, your grace."
"Warning?" Avon repeated sharply.
Hugh understood at once the thrust of his question. "Mr Selwyn was involved in an unfortunate incident here in Oxford during summer, and it is yet to be sorted."
Selwyn hooked the shaving stool from the bedchamber and dropped upon it, leaving Hugh to stand guard at the door. He waved his letter idly. "Oh, it's settled, it's settled, I only tried to reverse it for my father's sake." To Avon: "If you must know, it came about from a joke by Dashwood and Nicholson--you know Sir Francis Dashwood, everyone knows Dashwood. We had obtained a silver communion chalice, and must needs make a little jape in drinking to the motto of a new club he thinks of forming. Fay ce que vouldras will be our motto, if you catch my meaning. Modeled upon Rabelais, but this abbey will turn its pun upon his name, Francis. Franciscans. All in jest, je vous assure. But the proctors--most of 'em in orders, you know--took it amiss and I was sent down. Oh, my head."
Hugh, dividing his attention between the window and the two before him as he waited for Selwyn to come to a close, said, "My brother and a lady are here."
Avon's gaze lifted. "A lady? Here? Is it, by chance, in the midst of an elopement?"
"The Unspeakable Frederick?" Selwyn said, eyes wide.
"The timing," Avon murmured, "would be most perverse. But perversity in any sense is not without precedent in my family. Perversity and a regrettable lack of sense."
Hugh moved to the window and peered out as Selwyn lifted his brows in sudden enlightenment. He cast a look at Hugh's back, and whispered,"Would you be referring to a recent story going round town called by the wits Beauty pursued by the Beast?"
Avon drawled, "Hostis si quis erit nobis, amet ille puellas--"
Selwyn flung out a hand to stop him, as he rocked in silent laughter. Then clutched at his head in pained reaction.
Hugh never paid any attention to scandal, as Selwyn well knew. Hugh turned away from the window. "What cursed timing! And from the looks of the sky, snow is about to add to the vexation. Frederick is here to bear me away home for the holiday. Why would he come here with a lady? It seems an odd start."
"If it is Frederick," Selwyn said wearily, "there is certain to be an explanation of surpassing tedium. Who is the lady?"
"A Miss Cathcart."
Avon said, "If she is the daughter of Judge Cathcart, who lives just to the north--"
Judge Cathcart. Hugh remembered hearing talk about a man by that name. A man known for his ferocity--who, it was said, modeled his court on the infamous Judge Jeffries.
From the arrested expressed in Avon's hazel gaze Hugh knew he had the right man. "I will send them off." He opened the door--to the sound of steps coming up the stairs. He stpped hastily out, closing the door behind him.
Hugh, relieved at the opportunity to speak plainly, said, "Frederick, this snow is worsening by the minute--"
"Yes," rejoined Lord Colehatch, scratching irritably under the massive frizz of his tie-wig, which sent a fine spray of powder down his roquelaure. "So why are you not ready?"
"I must await the scout to fetch my travel chest."
This hint that a gentleman could do better with his own servant flew past the tight-fisted Frederick, who said, "I do not wish to risk a scandal at any time, but in particular not now, as I am contemplating matrimony. The position of affairs requires the utmost delicacy. This notion of coming along was her idea, and things being as they are at her father's--" Frederick halted, his puzzlement plain.
Hugh had begun to walk down the steps in an effort to get his brother to retreat to the lane, but the rattle and clop of a cartful of some scholar's effects being brought along, then the shout of servants from the buttery, caused Frederick to frown in affront. "Why are we thus discoursing upon the stair? Let us come inside. I will not make my affairs a present to the street."
Ignoring Hugh's protest, Frederick pushed past, mounted the last few stairs and closed his fingers on the latch.
Hugh shot out his hand. "Frederick, I hardly think--"
Frederick scowled. "What in the devil's name is amiss?" A flush of anger suffused his cheeks. "Hugh, I have heard report of the company you keep. I trust you have not so far forgotten our name as to--you are not secreting some trull?"
Hugh laughed. "I promise upon mine honour, brother--"
Frederick flicked Hugh's hand from the latch and shouldered his way in. Hugh followed, his mood swooping between hilarity and despair.
But the little room was empty, the door to the bedchamber firmly closed.
Frederick cast a glance around as he dropped his hat upon the table, then snorted. "You have become mighty finicking, Hugh, if you define this as disarray." Then his jaw dropped. "A sword?" He pointed to the mantel.
"Yes. No. I hardly--" At least the pistol was gone! Hugh took a deep breath. "I thought to protect myself against highwaymen on the road."
"From what I hear, it's loose rebels you want to fear these days." Frederick shrugged. "I would think a pistol preferable, except there's the damned nuisance of loading it. I have equipped both my men with fowling pieces. They will guard us, so never mind that. Miss Cathcart is a modest girl, very shy of men, which is of paramount importance in any female who is to one day fill our mother's place as Lady Colehatch. There are some, who, despite their beauty, or maybe because of it--but I digress." Now it was Hugh's turn for puzzlement. But Frederick's scowl deepened as he turned his head sharply toward the bedchamber. "Was that a sound?"
"I am directly above the buttery. The noise is prodigious, Frederick. Pray continue."
"I--oh, I have nothing more to say on that head. The important matter is this. Judge Cathcart, Fanny's estimable parent, is at this very moment engaged with a large military party. I need not go into details. In truth I hardly understand them myself, not being a military man."
Hugh, aware of listening ears beyond the thin deal bedchamber door, said, "Presumably concerning affairs in the north, I trust?"
His brother pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his brow, knocking his wig slightly askew. "More specifically between the Duke of Cumberland and the traitor Lord George Murray, near Clifton. Quite recently. The news is hardly yet known. They believe an escaped rebel spy might have rid down the Great North Road. Nearly caught him at York, where he injured--and even slayed--several men before he escaped. Possibly wounded. We can only trust it is true."
"One man, you say?"
"One escaped north, but t'other--the one who did the most damage--rode this way. Obviously a criminal steeped in villainy. My point is, urgent dispatch is necessary in such matters. The Judge, who is organizing the local search, has a house full of military men, whose ways and language are not always what they ought to be. I have been staying with the family while I make up my mind on the question of matrimony. When I explained I must fetch you, Miss Cathcart proposed accompanying me for an airing, thus removing maiden ears from the vicinity of these military men. The Judge agreed, honouring me by his trust. He was as enthusiastic as I to have her well out of the way until the military search can be dispatched."
Hugh bowed. "I comprehend completely, but in the meantime there is her position to consider, if we were all to be mired together by a blizzard. It might be better all around if I hire a horse and join you upon the road."
Frederick frowned. "Riding? In a snow storm?"
"Oh, I will survive. And so will my reputation. But will your Miss Cathcart's reputation withstand her being mired on the road alone with two gentlemen, and her father a judge?"
Frederick, always a stickler for punctilio, seemed much struck. "This is well thought, Hugh. If it had not so taken me aback, Miss Cathcart's curiosity to penetrate a place that lies so far outside the proper sphere of her sex--"
A scratching at the door stopped him.
"My lord?" A plaintive female voice was just audible.
Frederick's jaw dropped, and he sprang to the door, and yanked it open. "Miss Cathcart!"
"Dear Lord Colehatch," she lisped in a breathy little voice. "I pray you will forgive me, but you left me Quite Alone in that saloon. All those Young Men--what would Mama say?" As she spoke, she drooped her head a little, and Hugh caught a glance of a pair of avid eyes moving as rapidly as humanly possible, to gather in every detail of the chamber.
"This is not seemly," Frederick thundered. "A gentleman's private rooms! A gentleman only scarcely met! In a place no lady would ever set foot--"
Noises from without--voices, laughing--caused Frederick to glance past his betrothed, and gasp. He pulled her summarily into the room and shut the door.
"Doctor Brooke, right down there in the street, with two other proctors! I would not have him look up here for the world. What will become of my reputation then--not to say yours?" He added sternly, "Did I not explain most carefully?"
Miss Cathcart studied the toes of her shoes peeping from below the hem of her travel cloak. "You did, but you explained so very many things--oh, my poor head--"
"What? You are not becoming ill?"
Miss Cathcart plucked her handkerchief from her muff, holding it to her eyes. "Oh, my lord, I have angered you . . . I fear I am a poor creature, I cannot bear . . .weak . . . I--I fear I might . . . swoon . . ." She tottered, one wrist to her forehead, the other groping most dramatically.
"Hugh! Water--salts--oh, I do not know what I should do--"
"If the lady will consent to rest in my chair," Hugh suggested.
His brother tenderly led his bride-to-be to the chair but lately used by George Selwyn, and before him, that rebel from an infamous family, the Duke of Avon. Hugh hoped it was not still warm.
If it was, the lady failed to notice through the many layers of her clothes. Her swain knelt at her side, gently chafing her wrists above her mittens, and uttering disjointed apologies as he peered anxiously into the averted face.
Hugh, with a full view of said averted face, noticed that the lady's complexion was mighty high and healthy for one so delicate in constitution, but he kept his observations to himself, only thinking on how he could get rid of this pair without further disaster.
He betook himself to the door, peered out, and when at last the way below was bare of chair men, carts, servants, scholars, coal men, and proctors, he said, "The street is empty. Perhaps, brother, now might be the time to escort the lady to the carriage and depart? I will join you as swiftly as I am able."
Frederick assisted his lady to her feet. She cast one last, curious glance toward the bedchamber door. "Does your brother have mice?" she asked.
Frederick snatched up his hat, crammed it on his head, and hurried her to the door. "I know not, but I do know this: to be seen here is to cause just the sort of scandal I most dislike. And what would your father say?"
At that mention of her father the lady instantly surrendered, leaving Frederick the winner of this little skirmish--though Hugh suspected, as he gratefully closed and locked the door on the pair, she would eventually win the war.
Selwyn burst out from the bedchamber. "That Cathcart wench will lead your brother a very pretty dance indeed."
"You know of her?" Hugh asked, casting himself into the armchair and wiping his brow.
"Do I not know everyone? And those I don't know, Horry does," Selwyn said, seating himself on the edge of the table. "What I remember is that she is a considerable heiress, but until now they had not been able to turn her off."
"Heiress. That would explain much," Hugh said. Though their father had been a careful guardian of their estate, Frederick had always had great ambitions, which at present were set on Parliament and public office.
"Libertatem est vendere." Selwyn sighed. "Yet I find no pity in me for the Unspeakable Frederick. Hugh, your rebel has a galloping fever. While your matrimonial fracas was going forward--really, I felt I was living in a French farce, only I could not figure which of us was to represent the salope to your brother's wronged husband--"
"Salopard," Avon whispered from the doorway, still managing--somehow--to sound sardonic.
The two looked up to see him leaning there, hair loose, the flush of fever bright in his eyes, the makeshift bandage, visible in the open banyan, stained dark. He still wore the ruined riding breeches.
"Come, my dear," Selwyn said, springing up. "You had better get into that bed. It would be a damned sight harder to explain your corpse, if Miss Demure takes it into her head to satisfy her curiosity about the Hertford College chamber pots."
As Avon withdrew once again, Selwyn cast himself into the armchair, saying, "Your turn for the shaving stool, my dear Hugh. Is that not the place for the good host?"
With a gesture of comical regret Hugh dropped down upon the stool, then sighed. "I hardly need beg you to keep this to yourself, George."
Selwyn laughed softly. "Ah. It would never do to tell this story, delicious as it is. Though I am even less political than you, Horry is a loyalist, and so are a number of my friends. If I know anything about men, this little tale will wait. Eventually even le beau Charles will be old and fat, this escapade forgotten (if, that is, he manages to avoid Monmouth's tragic end), and then we can brag as our fathers did most tiresomely about their exploits--real or imagined--in the '15."
Hugh gave an absent nod, moving to the door to look out. He was startled by the sight of so solid a fall of white that the buildings across the tiny court were all but obscured. There would be no hiring a horse now. As long as Frederick was gone . . .
He shut the door again at a word of protest from Selwyn, and stood by the fire warming his hands. He had had no breakfast; he was reflecting on a Christmas Eve, and possibly Christmas Day, of fasting, when Selwyn said, "My man will be along presently. Until then, shall we play a hand of piquet?"
For a time there were no sounds but the crackle of the fire and the snap and fall of the cards. Selwyn kept up a light conversation; adapting himself as usual to Davenant's tastes, he avoided the tedium of politics, the tragedy of uprisings, and the disagreeable details of his own private fascination with death by torture and execution. Thus the time passed pleasantly as they played for penny-points, Avon sleeping soundly in the other room.
Presently a furtive knock at the door brought Selwyn's trusted man, his shoulders caked with snow, and a steaming covered basket carried in one arm and a pitcher in the other, which turned out to contain beer.
The food was even more welcome: the man had talked an inn-keeper out of a green goose to be dressed for Christmas, a fine cheese, bread fresh-baked, and a compote. When they had finished, setting aside a portion for Avon, Selwyn had a word apart with his man, then said, "I'm off--there's a room waiting for me at Juggins's, under an assumed name. No one would expect me to go back there."
Hugh helped him on with his greatcoat, the servant took away the dishes, and Selwyn stood at the door with his hat in his hand. He bowed, smiling. "Do not fret. I am Harpocrates incarnate." And with a wry glance toward the bedroom, "And I would be Volupian Angerone, if he would have me. But . . ." He hesitated, then said wryly, "Ask him to finish that saw from Propertius."
With an airy wave of his gloves he vanished, running lightly down the stairs.
Puzzled, weary, Hugh shut the door on their dwindling voices, and was left to the sounds of falling snow, and the crackling of the fire.
* * *
The bells at the New College at St Mary's had begun to ring a peal, the sound slightly muffled by snow falling thick and fast, when Walker let himself into Mr. Davenant's rooms the next morning. Expecting to find the chamber empty, he was surprised to discover the gentleman asleep at the table, his head resting on his folded arms, his clothing the same he had worn the day previous. In the dull glow of the dying fire, which had been fed the remainder of the wood and then poked and prodded to prolong its existence, he saw no sign of imminent departure.
He took a tentative step inside. The creak of one of the old, much-swept floorboards brought Hugh awake, if not quite alert.
Walker glanced past him through the open door to the bedchamber, which had been left ajar to draw as much of the heat as possible. The bed-curtains were open as well, revealing a man obviously in the throes of fever, his breathing labored.
Walker closed the door behind him, and for a moment he and Hugh Davenant gazed at one another. The older man with the countenance he had learned thirty years ago to school; the younger man distraught, exhausted, pale, his easy manners gone in the press of great need.
Hugh cleared his throat. "He is wounded." His voice was hoarse.
"Has he eaten or drunk, sir?" Walker asked.
"Only the breakfast you brought yesterday, a bite last night, and he has drunk only water. I--I did not know what to do. He woke several times, always asking for water, and so I fetched snow from outside here. Melted it in my cup, and he drank it down. Then fell asleep again." Another swallow, audible in that quiet room. "Will water kill him?"
Walker said, "Let me look at him, sir. I have some experience with wounds."
Hugh rose, obviously uncertain, and then he shook his head and gestured toward the door. Walker entered the tiny chamber, which had become close, but absent at least was the deadly odor of festering flesh. He laid a hand on the young man's head, then pulled it back, hissing between his teeth. "I will fetch what is needed."
Hugh's arm shot out, barring the door--just as Avon whispered voicelessly from the bed, "Who is there?"
Walker put his fists on his hips. "I was born Jamie Macdonald. M' faither fought under Jamie Forster o' Northumberland. After Preston we fled tae the mainland, but me auld mither couldna bide the French, and so I come back with her, takin' her name, which be Walker." And then, in the plain speech of the Oxford servant, "I was raised to be steward to a great house in the north, but we did not dare return. I worked here until she died, and then stayed on."
Avon was awake, his pupils so large his eyes looked black in the unsteady light of Hugh's guttering candles, but the dangerous flush of fever made both Hugh and Walker uneasy about how much he was able to comprehend. In the distance, the peal reached its halfway point, clang-counterpoint-clang, Call the last turn, out quick. . .
Hugh shut out the bells and said, "You understand wounds, Walker? I believe he has a ball in his shoulder."
Walker bowed, and saw the wounded young man close his eyes in relief. "An extremity is always preferable to the torso. If you will get the bandages off, sir, I believe we may make do."
And Hugh obeyed, ears trained on every sound from the other room, his mind occupying itself with calling the changes of the Plain Bob Triples as he waited.
The peal was nearly complete before Hugh heard the welcome sound of footsteps in his outer chamber. The footsteps of one man, he was glad to note. There was a creaking, shuffling, the thud of wood, and then Walker elbowed aside the half-closed door, his arms full. "If you will build up the fire, sir, I'll tend to the gentleman. It will be quicker if I have room to move."
Hugh signified assent, saying over his shoulder, "If you need my aid, you have only to ask." He withdrew to the front room and furbished up the fire, then rose, dusting his hands on his rumpled clothes. Beneath the triumphant pattern of the treble bells, the sounds from the bedchamber made his guts tighten: Avon breathing between clenched teeth, the tuneless clink of metal against metal.
Hugh moved softly to the door. A misshapen lump of iron rolled in the pewter dish Walker was at that moment setting on the shaving stand. A long pincer was next. Then the man eyed the welling blood, pressing the wound to make the blood flow more freely into the basin he held below the arm. "We'll make certain the bad blood is gone before we wrap it."
Hugh felt light-headed at the sight, but waited in case he should be needed.
Walker seemed satisfied at last with the free flow of blood, for his lifted his gory hands and picked up a bottle. He pulled the cork with his teeth, and the heady fumes of brandy smote Hugh's senses.
Walker spat the cork on the bed. "Learned this from my mother, who saved more soldiers than she lost. One to the inside--" He lifted Avon, holding the bottle to his lips. The Duke drank a few sips, then lay back wearily, drawing unsteady breaths, but the blue shade faded from his mouth. "One to the outside." Without warning Walker poured brandy over the wound, which caused Avon to buck on the bed, head thrown back and sweat breaking out on his brow.
"Good," Walker said, approving. "Sweat is good. Breaks the fever. Now, Mr Davenant, if you will assist me in wrapping up this shoulder, I believe I can deal with the ribs on my own. That is only a sword scrape."
Avon fainted when they lifted him again, but Walker seemed to approve; he finished his work the faster, then piled the dirty, makeshift bandages into the basin, caught up the pewter dish, and bore them away. "As well most of the others are gone for the day," he said over his shoulder. "I shall bring you some dinner anon. And after he's had a sleep, we'll see those sheets changed. I shall also bring my mother's special tisane."
Hugh said, "Surely a modern medicine would be better? The faculty understands so much more about the human frame. I have read of the efficacy of tar water, properly prepared, or Anderson's pills. Or, stay, there is a very new one, not yet even patented, that everyone writes about, a powder from a Doctor James?"
But Walker shook his head steadily. "Maybe for distempers, maybe for distempers. For your wound, you want what worked in the old days. Now. You keep water a-steam, sir, and when he wakens, you steep the bark in until you see color. Then he's to drink it, and not balk at the taste. In the meantime, do not let him disturb the bandage. The main thing is to halt the bleeding, now that it's run clean."
Hugh signified assent as he dragged his armchair to the bedside.
A short time after, Walker returned bearing a tray with a good portion of a meat pie and roasted crabs for Hugh, and for Avon a posset that smelled bitter.
"Willow bark," Walker said, after seeing Avon drink it down. "Well steamed. It is all my mother ever gave us for such wounds." He handed Hugh the empty pannikin and a small kettle. "And we lived." His expression altered. "There is no man, I gather?"
"Man? Ah. No. The truth is I burned his clothes," Hugh said. "They were ruined by blood. I shall give him my dress when he rises. I always ride home in undress. That will raise no speculation."
"We'll have those breeches off him, then," Walker said. "I might be able to save them if I put them to soak."
He departed again, his arms laden, and Hugh sat down at his table. Having supped he felt measurably better. He hung the little kettle of water on the ring to simmer, banked the fire to burn slow and steady, and resumed his chair, where he dozed for a while.
Church having ended, the peal began again, this time ringing down. Hugh woke and moved to the bedchamber where Avon stirred restlessly on the bed, his fever obviously rising, judging by the hectic flush in his face. Hugh watched, helpless, counting the rings--Out of the hunt, middle, in and out at five, right, middle, wrong, right, middle and into the hunt--as Avon's breathing grew more ragged.
Into the hunt. Avon was naked under the sheet; there was no hiding the fact that despite, or because of, his mounting fever, his prick stood at attention, as though engaged on its own battle for release from pain.
In and out at five, wrong and into the hunt . . .
The body's needs are simple, and despite the mazes the mind constructs for its self-protection, direct. John Donne's eyes had not always been on the sky.
Ah cannot we,
As well as cocks and lions, jocund be?
Hugh slid his hand under the sheet, resting his fingers gently on the wounded man's breast. His flesh was hot, dry, his breathing dragging. Slowly, slowly, Hugh drifted his finger down the feathering of hair on the chest, over the flat belly, stroking the trail of curling hair below. Avon's eyes opened once, then closed; his good hand opened, a curious gesture of appeal.
Ah. Hugh's hand moved lower still, and closed around his cock. And with the other he drew aside the sheet.
With lips, teeth, and tongue Hugh engaged the warrior in a skirmish of desire, the charming tactics of experience bringing the enemy at last to surrender; released, relieved. Avon sank back, breathing deeply, and presently the dew of sweat glimmered on his brow. He slept, as the quarters rang. Again. Again.
The day began to fade, the snow a solid white curtain between these little rooms and the rest of the world. Usually sparing of his candles, Hugh lit the entire branch, setting it on the other side of the door so that the light would not worry Avon's eyes. Warburton's Critical and Philosophical Commentary on Mr. Pope's "Essay on Man" kept his mind under discipline until, once again, Avon stirred restlessly. And this time wakened.
He tried to lift his head. Hugh slipped his arm under his neck, lifting his head and reaching for the tisane. "Drink," he said, lifting the bowl to Avon's cracked lips.
One obedient sip, then Avon tried to turn his head away. "What is that?"
"A tisane Walker's mother used to repair rebels in '15." Hugh smiled. "You are to drink it all."
Avon's lips twitched. "A political judgement . . . imbued in the . . . taste?"
"Is it vile?"
A twitch of fever-cracked lips.
"Walker swears it cures wounds."
Avon drank the rest without further comment, Hugh patiently supporting both his head and the pan.
Avon dropped immediately into sleep. As the candles slowly burned down, Hugh progressed from Pope's essays to his poetry. The peal rise began again, signaling evening service. Hugh, who had two years previous joined the Oxford Society of Change-Ringers, mentally counted out the calls as he rose to put Pope away on his shelf, and to fetch the leather-bound copies of Spectator that his father had left him. He would have been there in company with the other ringers, joking, drinking mulled cup, had he not been already engaged to go home with his brother.
Merry Christmas, Frederick. My gift today is freedom; I hope you find whatever it is you seek.
And so yet another long night began to pass; outside, the bells had begun their last peal when Hugh rose, his entire body protesting.
"Come into the bed if you are tired."
The voice was so soft Hugh almost thought he'd dreamed it.
He whirled, swaying as he discovered he was light-headed from hunger, from sitting so long. In the light of the guttering candles Avon regarded him steadily, his pupils black again, so black the tiny candle flames leaped in ruddy reflection, bringing to mind the nickname he'd heard given the Duke.
"You will not share a bed with Satanas?" Avon whispered, the stubble on his chin glinting silvery in the candle-glow.
Hugh exclaimed, "Are you a thought-reader?"
"Your countenance is a tolerable mirror to the mind." Avon struggled to rise. "And of course you are wise to doubt. Satan hath as little scruple as he possesses a heart."
"You are expecting me to claim obligation?" Hugh retorted lightly. "You'll need more of that tisane." Without waiting for an answer, he went to fetch it.
Weak blue glowed in the windows: the snow had stopped at last, and moonlight flooded the white-covered world below. He unlatched the casement and opened it, breathing deeply of the clean wind, which chased through the rooms, causing the candle-flames to sway and the fire to leap, as it drove out the stale fug.
But now the room was chill. Chill was no better than night air for invalids.
He leaned out, scooping fresh snowfall into the little kettle Walker had brought, then closed and locked the window, and knelt at the fireplace. The kettle went onto the hook, where it hissed, the snow melting rapidly in the heat rising from the ruddy remains of the day's fire. Walker had not returned; there were only two more logs. Hugh placed them on the fire, watching crimson sparks fly up. Donne--devils, angels--the war in Heaven. Body, mind, and spirit. What was that medieval Christmas chant he had heard somewhere in France? "Adeste fidelis."
O faithful, come!
Presently the water began to steam. He poured some into the pannikin, then cast in the last slivers of treated bark. The smell that rose was pungent, clearing Hugh's head of the cobwebs of exhaustion as he carried the little pan into the bedchamber.
Avon had struggled up against the meager pillows and somehow managed to straighten the bedsheets and counterpane that Hugh's mother had made for him when he first went away to Eton. This time Avon took the pan himself, nearly spilling it. Hugh watched the flex of muscle along his shoulder and bare arm as Avon gripped it, holding it steady, and drank the hot liquid down.
Then he dropped back. "I must be recovering. I could not have achieved so much this morning."
So. That were not an exhibition in withdrawal, but a test of strength.
"The storm has ended," Hugh said. As he spoke the sound of laughter drifted faintly through the closed windows; young men, closeted for an entire holiday, were out romping in the fresh snow.
"Then the search will commence."
"Yes." Hugh took the pannikin back to the table in the outer room. More voices had joined those already laughing. Someone quite near, almost directly below, had brought out a lute, and was strumming it, as a drunken tenor rose, unsteadily, in the strains of an Italian ballad.
A tap at the door; Walker appeared, carrying a tray, his breath puffs of cloud that froze and began to drop before vanishing.
"Thank you, Walker," Hugh said.
And from the bedroom, Avon's voice, measurably stronger, "Walker, is it? I seem to remember you."
"Aye," Walker said. "Here's a bite of supper. It's the remains of Christmas dinner. By rights no one knows you are here."
He removed the covers, and Hugh saw a roast capon, baked truffles, gooseberry tart, and as fine a claret as graced the table of any lord. He suspected it had not come from the stores of the Hertford staff, but this was not the time to ask questions.
He set out a plate for Hugh at the table, then took a portion in to Avon, staying there to help him if he should require it.
As the two ate hungrily, Walker said, "Now, sirs, I shall return in the morning. I'm told the streets will be swept by midday, if there is no more snow, and then the soldiers will be through. After that, I'll be bringing up the hot water for you both, and we'll change those bandages." He nodded at the windows in front. "Until then, it's as well that everyone thinks you are gone, and I am only up here to see to the cleaning against your return."
In other words, stay in the bedroom.
"I am nearly out of candles," Hugh admitted, between bites of truffle.
"In the pocket of my breeches," Avon said from the bed, just barely audible. "There ought to have been a purse containing some florins. A handful of guineas. Some silver."
"You'll be finding that purse right here." Walker indicated the breeches, neatly folded, which had been set beside the jack boots in the corner.
Avon did not look up from his meal; the purse could have been flat for all the notice he took. "Take it. Use what you need. Keep the remainder."
Walker advanced to the bedroom door, his expression wooden. "I gave you me true name, sir. You would not be offering to bribe me?"
Avon set his fork down neatly across the platter, which Walker picked up. He replied in a cool voice that, though lacking in strength, conveyed no lack of astringency. "I am offering you pay for services rendered. And, if it transpires I live through the next few days, employment if you so desire. I am Avon, and unless there is a royal warrant sworn against me--or unless my young brother has managed to burn my house to the ground, which is the more likely of the twain--I have inherited two establishments, yet I possess no suitable steward for either."
A muscle jumped in Walker's cheek, then he bowed. "Thank you, your grace. Will you drink some claret?"
"Yes."
Walker brought him a plain pewter goblet from the college stores, put it into Avon's hand. "Hot water on the morrow, your grace. Mr. Davenant." This last to Hugh.
He picked up Hugh's dishes, leaving him the bottle and another goblet, then he was gone. Hugh made certain the door was locked before he took his glass to the bedchamber. This time he put the candle holder inside the door, so that the reflected light would not shine in the windows above the lane.
"An estimable man," Avon said, as Hugh resumed his chair. "Rare to find such. Do you perchance know if he has a family? I shall have to arrange for them all, I expect."
"I believe he is alone. His mother having died." Hugh suspected that indeed, Avon remembered little of events before his wakening. But because he seemed very much awake and aware now, because that softly spoken question still rang its peal in his mind, he said, "I can offer you a hand of piquet."
Avon lifted his goblet in salute. "Converse with me instead."
Hugh dropped into the armchair, and poured each of them more claret.
Avon drank. Lowering the goblet, he said, "Why Hertford College? Why not Christchurch or even Merton?"
Hugh had tossed off his claret; he poured more and sat back, resting the goblet on one knee. "It is only new as a college, but respected men lived and studied here when it was a mere Hall. Such as Doctor Donne. I took Donne for my model, and so chose to come here. There's something to be said for a college without a weight of tradition."
"You took John Donne for your model," Avon mused. "And so you will take orders?"
Hugh raised his goblet in salute to the church towers beyond the roof, then drank. "My inspiration, both spiritual and poetic, does not match my model. I will make no mark here. I would have gone down when my father died--" He shook his head.
Avon said, "I know something of your brother."
His seeming omniscience no longer surprised Hugh. "Then . . . you will know he has ambitions. As a man of parts ought--" Hugh amended, lest he appear to cast aspersions. "I was always intended for the church, as happens frequently to second sons."
"The church or the army," Avon said.
"My father did not want me in the army, and for just the reasons we are here now. He said once that he feared the army would require Englishman to fight Englishman more likely than our traditional enemies."
"Unless Frederick of Prussia turns his ambitions across the water, it transpires he is right," Avon said.
"Yet you are not in the army."
"No. I am not. I fell into the cause by degrees. That is, I was raised to believe the prince has the right, as his father had thirty years ago when he came over. I began by carrying messages, and helping harry shipping off Dover. When the prince set up his banner, I found I was needed in both regards." Avon lifted his goblet as Hugh poured out the last of the claret, dividing it equally between them. He drank, his face slowly regaining some of its color. "I was with Murray two weeks ago. We were accompanied by a party of Stuarts and the Macphersons. It was a night with moonlight when we became aware of soldiers gathering along Lonsdale's land, presumably to surprise us with their numbers, which were superior to ours. They did not," he said, "expect Lord George to charge them."
"How many were lost?" Hugh asked, as Avon drank.
"I do not know, for he sent me for reinforcements. Perhaps a dozen of ours. Far more of Cumberland's." Avon paused, his expression less remote then previous. "We were attacked twice on the road. The first, we drove them off. The second time, I lost one man, and the other ran, abandoning me to the fight. I might have lost had not half the force seen fit to chase him, for he took my mount and my musket. They must have assumed he was therefore in command." Avon shrugged slightly. "I contrived to rid myself of the rest, mounted one of their own nags, and road south. You know the rest."
Hugh said, "What will you do?"
"Assuming I survive?"
"Assuming you survive."
Avon turned the empty goblet around in his long fingers. Hugh noted the hardness across the palms, the calluses of sword drill. "Carry on with my orders, of course. I'm to go to France."
Hugh's gaze dropped to his own hands, clasped tightly round the beaten pewter. He suspected what was left unsaid, because he'd heard enough casual talk--amid laughter--from Selwyn and others: that though many Englishmen spoke stirringly of Stuart 'royal rights' few had come forward with money and men. What was supposed to be a kingdom-wide uprising had translated out mostly to neighbor watching neighbor warily, gradually settling into a general unwillingness to be disturbed in comfort, trade, and daily life. Few, according to report, had sailed north; most of those rising up in support of James III and VIII--King of England, Scotland, and Wales--were Scotsmen.
That Avon must be sent to France, presumably to raise French support to the cause, did not bode well for said cause.
"And you?" Avon asked. "What will you do?"
Hugh shrugged, smiling. "Go home. Then come back. And will continue to do so until either my brother changes his mind--or I do. My brother believes that keeping me on a very small income will inspire me to my duty."
"There are those--and not always with remunerative livings awaiting them--who take the vows in cynicism, meaning no more than the light words one speaks in love."
"It is not love," Hugh countered gently, "when the words are light?"
Avon's lips twitched. "The world will tell you that Satanas has no heart."
Everyone has a heart, Hugh thought. But he would not give his guest the lie.
Avon's heart was yet to be given. Might never be. Making a mental sidestep, Hugh said, "I was not vouchsafed the divine vision of Doctor Donne. I like to believe that Providence and I exist in a state of truce. It leaves me alone, so I leave it alone. But I cannot make vows without meaning." He watched the uneven wink of light running round and round the rim of his cup. "I stay, because it is easy enough to live the life of a gentleman here on a penurious income. There is all that I could wish to read, there is convivial company. And there is the unique blend of the mathematical and the art that I believe Doctor Donne himself would have approved, had the study not commenced after his death, in the pursuit of what is called tintinnalogica."
"The study of bells," Avon said. "The marriage of mathematics and art. From what little I know of Donne, I will agree."
They were silent as the flames of the fire in the other room cast a ruddy, beating glow through the doorway; they were silent as, outside the wavering glass of the windows, the lute struck up again, and a young man began to sing in a minor key plainchant a very old song taken from the words of St. Augustine.
Hugh said, "We have finished the bottle."
Avon leaned back, his hair drifting over the pillow, and smiled with his customary irony. "Vade retro me, Satanas?"
Though tired, his vision wine-hazed, Hugh saw the invitation there. "Vade pone me, Satanas."
The fractured schoolboy Latin, the crude and obvious jest, sparked Avon's sudden smile. Hugh rose, and took the goblet from Avon's hand. "So your cohorts made the same jokes, I gather."
"Of course they did," Avon observed, as Hugh put the empty bottle and the goblets out on the table. "Schoolboys have probably been painstakingly exploring every possible variation to be made, putting forth far more effort than they do in form, construing the Aeneid."
Hugh had unbuttoned his waistcoat and laid it carefully aside. He now pulled loose his shirt, and let it dangle by a finger. "Selwyn bade me ask for the rest of the old saw by Propertius you apparently quoted him while I was doing I know not what. Which old saw would that be?"
Avon lay back, hands loose. "Hostis si quis erit nobis, amet ille puellas--"
"Ah. The rest of that one being, if I recall, gaudeat in puero, si quis amicus erit."
Avon laughed, as outside, not one but two voices rose, one answering the other antiphonally.
Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi!
Hugh closed the door. The bed creaked its protest as he lifted the sheet and counterpane to slide in.
Et ecce intus eras et ego foris, et ibi te quaerebam, et in ista formosa quae fecisti deformis inruebam.
With both courtesy and grace Hugh adapted himself so that the other's wounds would not be troubled; and then, by unspoken consent his warmth closed hard on Avon's chilled flesh.
Mecum eras, et tecum non eram. ea me tenebant longe a te, quae si in te non essent, non essent.
Hands flourished over the smooth flesh of long, muscled limbs; nails raised the tingle of promise: two bodies moved together, first the one, then the other. Matching the rhythm of the bells, one ducked behind the other in hunt. A deliberate advance and retreat, hearts ringing counterpoint to passion.
Vocasti et clamasti et rupisti surditatem meam; coruscasti, splenduisti et fugasti caecitatem meam . . .
The sudden stroke of violence. The long release of a cry, followed by laughter, each in turn brought the other spiraling down and down into the abyss.
. . .fragrasti, et duxi spiritum et anhelo tibi; gustavi et esurio et sitio.
The senses, seared and seared again, winked out one by one, like the last blue tongue of candle flame.
Tetigisti me, et exarsi in pacem tuam.
Until, at last, they lay with limbs intertwined, blanketed in slumber.
When Walker arrived the next day, he found the fire a pile of ash, the rooms very cold, and the two gentlemen awake, one wrapped in the counterpane, the other wearing his worn surtout over his rumpled clothes of the day previous, as they discoursed on the metaphysical poets and then those of the Restoration. In spite of the chill the invalid's color was much better.
Walker lugged up two pails of hot water ostensibly for scrubbing the floors; while Hugh washed and shaved in the front room, Walker changed Avon's bandages in the bedchamber, and then shaved him. Then, with his help, he eased Avon out of the bed, and helped him into Hugh's one good dress, which he had already laid out.
Hugh clad himself in his travel clothes, wearing a plain scratch wig that Walker had freshly powdered. The sky was an innocent blue with no evidence of clouds. He would have to leave before the main roads were cleared, or his brother would surely be back to fetch him.
They were still talking about Marvell and Rochester when Walker brought from the buttery a hot breakfast. The conversation begun over comparison of Donne's and Marvell's poems on seduction; Avon was not as widely read as Hugh. While Hugh had spent his time reading the thoughts and actions of other great men, Avon had been out in the world a-doing. Yet Avon remembered well what he had read, and they both enjoyed the conversation. Hugh's wide reading and subtle insights spiked observations couched in Avon's sardonic wit. Hugh, having turned one of Rochester's phrases, was caught by surprise when Avon retorted on him with a stanza from Rochester's "Fucksters" poem--one strictly forbidden but passed around from hand to hand at Eton over the years. It dissolved them both in laughter, bringing on reminiscences from their school days, just before Walker's reappearance with firewood, water, and breakfast.
With him the requirements of the world returned.
"Mr Davenant," Walker said as he set out the dishes, and uncovered a jug that filled the room with a delicious aroma, "you gave it out that modern medicines can be efficacious. So I understand coffee to be."
Hugh exclaimed, "Where did you obtain that?"
"His grace's florins had quite a reach," Walker said. Coffee, fresh bread-and-cheese, and an apple comfit agreed with both gentlemen, as Walker had expected it to. "The search hath passed," he said.
"Thank you, Walker." Hugh smiled at the scout. "I wish I had a coin left. As it is, the mount that I must hire will have to be entered against my name for next quarter."
"It is already seen to, sir," Walker said, with a glance toward the duke--who nodded once, pleased that Walker had so read his will. "I arranged the hire just after dawn, before all were bespoken but the most broken-down jades." Walker grabbed up his bundle to take to the laundry, and let himself out.
Hugh took his time packing into his satchel the books he would carry with him to read at his family home; the duke sat with one hand loose upon the table, the other in the sling Walker had fashioned for him, expression inscrutable.
Hugh's heartbeat drummed in his ears. As the mind reveals itself through words, so does the body communicate its own messages. Through a night of pleasure and play Hugh had divined that Avon might be generous with his favors when in the mood, his heart, for whatever reasons, was a guarded citadel.
And so he slung his satchel over his shoulder, took up his hat and gloves, walked to the door, where he made his bow. "I bid you farewell, your grace."
Avon said, "Hugh."
Had he ever given his own name? Avon would probably have heard it from Selwyn or Frederick; to hear it on his lips sent fire and then snow through Hugh's veins.
"I will fare well," Avon said in a measured voice. "Because right about now I rest at an inn at Southampton, where I await my sister Fanny. She will accompany me aboard my yacht to Paris, where I will present her to society. Fanny, a troublesome piece, has been agitating to go to France since she turned fifteen. Mirabile dictu, she is no longer fifteen, as I discovered during my last visit to London, where awaited me no fewer than ten applications for her hand. "
Hugh stared, wondering if fever had taken the duke's wits.
"I expect I will be required to take my young brother Rupert as well; if he has not been sent down from Eton by now, it will have been through no lack of effort on his part. Perhaps it is time to take pity on the masters, and finish his education--such as it is--in Paris. Paper, ink, and books are a waste on him."
Hugh ventured a step or two back into the room.
"A family party, then," the duke observed. "What could be more proper, and more unexciting, should the government ships wish to board us. And in Paris, any past scandals--there are always past scandals in the Alastairs' wake, as you will no doubt have heard--will have been mostly forgotten. If not, I expect that my sister will shortly create new opportunities for whispers."
Hugh leaned upon the mantel. His emotions, which had soared and dived like a frenzied hawk in flight over the past couple of days, soared again, winging unsteadily on winds at an altitude he had never thought to feel.
The duke had paused for breath; he was still weak. But he resumed. "Walker will quietly depart his present employ, accompanied by his cousin from the country, as soon as there is no trace of us in these rooms. Probably on the morrow. . . "
Good morrow. What was it Donne said in that poem?
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to others worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one--
". . . Thus leaving behind no questions or suspicions. When next he is heard of, he will be steward of my house in the rue St-Honore. Where, at a word from you, there will always be a room waiting."
Hugh straightened up. He felt like a schoolboy again. His ears even burned. "Your gr--"
"Justin," said the duke. "You will hear it enough from my sister and brother's lips. Usually in protest. I am, you will discover, a strict guardian--the irony of which you will no doubt be called upon to commiserate."
Hugh shook his head. "I--is this more of your irony, sir?"
Avon's face changed. His expression was, as always, difficult to interpret, but the sardonic quirk to his lips had smoothed, and his hazel gaze was narrow and acute. "You do not appear to appreciate how rare it is to meet with someone who preserves one's life, who shares willingly everything he has, and yet who asks nothing in return?"
Hugh frowned. "If one may be permitted to protest--"
Avon waved a languid hand. "No, Hugh. Do not protest the part of a gentleman of honour. Have I not hinted that there are far better born men than you--or I, for that matter--whose first question, on far greater matters, usually consists of What will it profit me? Yet they do not, I assure you, number themselves among the coxcombs and rascals of the world."
Hugh realised that the duke had thought everything out. He would follow his orders from Cumberland, but he suspected what would be the outcome. And so he would move with deliberate care in France. His siblings, plunged into the glittering gaieties of Paris, would never know his true purpose there.
The Duke of Avon looked far ahead, though what he saw might be no vista of felicity: the prince's cause was failing, might already be a failure. Even the Duke of Avon could not rescue it, though he would make the one last try.
And then? And then his life would go on--and Hugh was being given a key to the citadel. The prize might never be his heart, but he was making it plain, in his way, that friendship and affection were there for the taking.
Hugh bowed. "The rue St-Honore?" he repeated. "I will write to you there."
Errat, qui finem vesani quaerit amoris:
Verus amor nullum novit habere modum.