The Soldier's Poisoned Heart

No matter what time of night they'd picked, it was hard to believe that they could make it past a batallion guarding the place. That left only one possibility, then. They must have been let in by someone, and that meant that anyone raiding them had a better than half chance of stepping on some toes. Likely some toes that were higher up the food chain.

So rather than leaving his Lieutenant out to dry, he had come along. It had made good sense at the time, and he still would have made the decision today, even if he might have changed some of the things that had come later.

John Paul pulled the pillow out from under his head and pressed it down on top of his head.

No, he thought. I don't want to think about it. He sat up and looked out the window. The yard was comforting. He dressed and put his coat on, going to stand outside. There was no reason to dwell on the past. It had been a bad series of decisions, and he had sunk deeper than he had thought possible.

He could understand why Simon was doing what he was doing. He could understand it well. With more money than you could ever imagine on the line, the lines between what you want to do and what you have to do become blurred. Nobody understood it better than John Paul.

His heart thumped in his ears. The cold was biting at his fingers so he jammed them into his pockets, but he stayed there on the back patio, looking at the bushes, at the great big tree with its strange, blade-like leaves. He could see the stars so clearly here. He wondered if they were so clear in the city, where Lydia was.

More than likely she was asleep. She wouldn't be looking at the stars, and if she was, he thought, then she should go to bed. So, for that matter, should he. He shivered again and padded over to the dining room. He rubbed the inside of a glass clean with his shirt and poured himself a glass. He swallowed it and felt the familiar burn in his throat. Then he poured another. He woke up feeling remarkably unrested several hours later.

Chapter 17

Henry was sitting in the front room when John Paul woke up. He thought it was a particularly odd change of pace for the boy; usually he was out and gone, nowhere to be found after breakfast, sometimes only home late in the evening, but now he found that he was quite glad for the boy's presence.

He needed someone to go with him, and he needed some advice, and while he could get Mark to go into town at the drop, essentially, of a hat, he couldn't be sure of the hostler's taste in anything. That meant that he was the furthest thing from an ideal choice to go to for advice.

Henry, on the other hand, had his fair share of vices, but John Paul found that he had generally agreeable tastes. He hadn't turned him wrong yet, after all. Looked into a doctor for him, directed him toward a perfectly serviceable tailor. There seemed to be no limit to what the boy would help with if the colonel only thought to ask him about it.

He seemed an ideal, if unlikely, choice. He was, after all, almost never actually around. He'd developed, however, an uncanny ability to be around, it seemed, whenever John Paul had need of him, as if he possessed some sort of strange sixth sense about when there might be trouble. That could come in handy some day, John Paul thought grimly, particularly with his poor health.

The Colonel walked down the stairs and stood in the room for what felt like an eternity, waiting for Henry to notice. When he decided that his nephew wasn't going to notice him after all, he steped into the center of the parlor and sat down beside him.

"Henry," he said with a warmth he hadn't felt for months.

"Yes? I'm sorry, were you looking for me?"

"Not at all, you've been right here the whole time."

"That's right, I've been right here. Did you need me for something?"

"Ah—yes," John Paul conceded. He had thought he might draw the whole hting out, but it seemed as if directness might be the best option after all. "I... am concerned, you see. I have been losing my balance at times, as you'll know."

"And?"

"Well, I thought, perhaps the ideal solution would be a cane. I could just lean on that, and there you go, easy as can be. Am I right?"

"I suppose it does make some sense," Henry admitted.

"So I would like it if you would come into town with me and help me look."

"Do you not know where to look for a cane?"

"Ah—no." John Paul pulled his lips into a mirthless smile. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Let me get my coat," Henry answered, and set the paper aside. John Paul helped him shrug his overcoat on and pulled on his own. The day was especially cold, as Christmas approached. He pulled his coat tight around his waist and tried to wiggle some of the heat back into his hands.

It took Mark only a few minutes to saddle the horses before he went back into the house, back under the blanket they'd found him in.

John Paul rode behind this time. He was too tired for any of this, he thought. He would rather have simply been back at home, and had someone else go and do it. He frowned, and then he felt his face cramping into that position so he stretched his mouth back out. It was far too cold for anyone to be out and about, but he feared it would only get colder until the new century dawned.

He stopped paying attention to their progress for a bit, trying to daydream the entire way to the city, but he found himself looking up after what felt like an eternity to the scene of the road, only halfway to the city.

Soon, in twenty or thirty minutes, they would pass into the outskirts, and the buildings would provide some sort of screen against the wind, which cut through his many layers straight into his bones. He desparately wanted to ask Henry how much further it was.

The road looked somewhat similar the entire way back to Derby; he could very well have been wrong about where they were, but he knew that he wasn't wrong. It was still a fair way to town, whether he wanted it to be or not. There was nothing for it but to keep pushing and keep moving.