squatting in the mud with the rats, or dying in crushing pain—armless, legless, their guts torn out. You need the reality of human pity and human love. It’s about all there is left.”
She reached up and for a moment it was as if she were going to touch his face, then she changed her mind abruptly. The tenderness vanished from her eyes. “So isn’t that the time when you need a priest most of all?” she countered. “To make sense of the senseless? Or don’t Protestant priests do that?”
“I don’t know. It sounds a bit like a retreat,” he said with more candor than he had intended. “Recite some comfortable piece of scripture and think you’ve solved the problem.”
“You’ve no magic in your heart,” she accused him, but she was looking at him with searching eyes now, gentle and surprised, as if she had seen something that had awoken a new emotion in her.
“Does magic help?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
“I think when you’re face to face with the devil, you’ll find out. I’ve a horrible fear that maybe it doesn’t after all. What then, Matthew? English courage, naked, without any pretty clothes and nice music?”
“Doesn’t have to be English,” he replied. “Any sort would do.”
She sat silent for a while, staring at the dancers on the floor. They were holding each other closely and moving as if the music carried them like a tide. There was sadness and anger in her face as she watched them.
“They know it, don’t they?” she said after a while. “You can see it in their eyes, hear it in the pitch of their voices, a bit high and with an edge. They could be dead in the Flanders mud this time next week.” The passion welled up in her, a rage and sorrow that spilled over in tears on her cheek. “It didn’t have to happen, you know!” she said fiercely. “You didn’t have to fight the Germans. It could all have been avoided, but one misguided idealist, an Englishman with an arrogant, narrow patriotism and blind to any vision for the world, stumbled onto the papers that would have stopped it. And because he didn’t understand that, he stole them and destroyed them.”
She blinked, but it did not stop the tears. “I’ve no idea who he is, or what happened to him, but Mother of God, if he can see what he’s done, he must be in the madhouse with guilt and grief. All these men, so young, all gone, sacrificed on the altar of stupidity. Don’t you despair of us sometimes?”
He didn’t hear her anymore. The words ran through him like fire, scorching with a pain he could not have imagined. She was talking about John Reavley and the treaty he had found, and for which the Peacemaker had had him murdered. The document had been in the gun room in St. Giles where he and Joseph had replaced it after reading it.
Only one other man beyond the family knew of it, and he had paid with his life.
The document was a conspiracy to create an Anglo-German empire of peace, prosperity, and domination, the cost of which was the betrayal of France and Belgium, and ultimately most of the world. It would be a dishonor that would cast a black pall over everything that England had ever been, or believed in. And how could Detta know that, unless she were part of it?
Detta was talking to him and the words were a meaningless jumble of sounds.
That she was involved with the Peacemaker was something he had not even considered. Her Irish nationalism he could understand. In her place he would have felt the same. He might have fought for Germany, if the reward were his own country’s independence, even if half of them did not want it. But this had to mean that she was close enough to the Peacemaker to be trusted with at least the core of the plan, the dream of it. There would be no need to tell her the name or the fate of the man who had foiled it. His death was regarded by everyone else as an accident and no one in the family had challenged that. The Peacemaker himself never knew that they had found the
She reached up and for a moment it was as if she were going to touch his face, then she changed her mind abruptly. The tenderness vanished from her eyes. “So isn’t that the time when you need a priest most of all?” she countered. “To make sense of the senseless? Or don’t Protestant priests do that?”
“I don’t know. It sounds a bit like a retreat,” he said with more candor than he had intended. “Recite some comfortable piece of scripture and think you’ve solved the problem.”
“You’ve no magic in your heart,” she accused him, but she was looking at him with searching eyes now, gentle and surprised, as if she had seen something that had awoken a new emotion in her.
“Does magic help?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
“I think when you’re face to face with the devil, you’ll find out. I’ve a horrible fear that maybe it doesn’t after all. What then, Matthew? English courage, naked, without any pretty clothes and nice music?”
“Doesn’t have to be English,” he replied. “Any sort would do.”
She sat silent for a while, staring at the dancers on the floor. They were holding each other closely and moving as if the music carried them like a tide. There was sadness and anger in her face as she watched them.
“They know it, don’t they?” she said after a while. “You can see it in their eyes, hear it in the pitch of their voices, a bit high and with an edge. They could be dead in the Flanders mud this time next week.” The passion welled up in her, a rage and sorrow that spilled over in tears on her cheek. “It didn’t have to happen, you know!” she said fiercely. “You didn’t have to fight the Germans. It could all have been avoided, but one misguided idealist, an Englishman with an arrogant, narrow patriotism and blind to any vision for the world, stumbled onto the papers that would have stopped it. And because he didn’t understand that, he stole them and destroyed them.”
She blinked, but it did not stop the tears. “I’ve no idea who he is, or what happened to him, but Mother of God, if he can see what he’s done, he must be in the madhouse with guilt and grief. All these men, so young, all gone, sacrificed on the altar of stupidity. Don’t you despair of us sometimes?”
He didn’t hear her anymore. The words ran through him like fire, scorching with a pain he could not have imagined. She was talking about John Reavley and the treaty he had found, and for which the Peacemaker had had him murdered. The document had been in the gun room in St. Giles where he and Joseph had replaced it after reading it.
Only one other man beyond the family knew of it, and he had paid with his life.
The document was a conspiracy to create an Anglo-German empire of peace, prosperity, and domination, the cost of which was the betrayal of France and Belgium, and ultimately most of the world. It would be a dishonor that would cast a black pall over everything that England had ever been, or believed in. And how could Detta know that, unless she were part of it?
Detta was talking to him and the words were a meaningless jumble of sounds.
That she was involved with the Peacemaker was something he had not even considered. Her Irish nationalism he could understand. In her place he would have felt the same. He might have fought for Germany, if the reward were his own country’s independence, even if half of them did not want it. But this had to mean that she was close enough to the Peacemaker to be trusted with at least the core of the plan, the dream of it. There would be no need to tell her the name or the fate of the man who had foiled it. His death was regarded by everyone else as an accident and no one in the family had challenged that. The Peacemaker himself never knew that they had found the
Similar Books
