‘Sir, given it was them and their sort did the ruining in the first, place,’ he says, leaning closer and dropping his voice, ‘perhaps that’s where they belong!’ He sits back, nodding but looking alarmed, as though he wishes not to take full responsibility for what his lips have just expressed.
‘A good point, Arthur,’ I say, amused. I swing my legs to the floor and sit up. I lift a glass of tepid milk from the tray and drink. There is toast, an egg, an apple, some preserves and a pot of coffee, which tastes tired just from the length of time it has been stored, but is still welcome.
‘D’you know, sir,’ Arthur says, shaking his head. ‘One of them sleeps outside the lieutenant’s door each night, like a dog! It’s that one with the red hair; Karma I heard someone call him, or some funny name like that. I saw him last night, lying there in the doorway with just a blanket over him. Apparently he always does that wherever she is; at her feet if they’re camping in the outside, sir; at her feet, just like a dog!’
‘Commendable,’ I say, finishing the milk. ‘And they’ll tell you you can’t find the staff these days, eh?’
‘Shall I fetch some fresh clothes, sir?’ Arthur asks, smoothly resuming his professional manner. ‘There are still some in the laundry.’
‘I ought to wash first,’ I tell him, choosing a slice of toast; the bread has been unevenly toasted, but one must become inured to such privations, I suppose. ‘Is there any hot water?’
‘I’ll fetch some, sir. Will you be bathing in your own apartments?’
I rub my face, greasy from the day and night before. ‘Am I allowed to?’ I ask. ‘Does our brave lieutenant consider my punishment complete?’
‘I believe so, sir; she told me to take you breakfast and let you out, before she left.’ His eyes widen as he takes in what I have just said. ‘Punish you, sir? Punish you? What right has she?’ He sounds quite indignant. I have not heard his voice raised so since I was a child, and used to torment him. ‘What but what right ? What could you do, in, in, in your home that let her ?’
‘I let slip a sack of what was neither edible nor mountable,’ I tell him, trying to calm him. ‘But what do you mean, “left”? Where has she gone?’
Arthur sits tutting for a moment or two longer, then hauls his attention back. ‘I oh, I don’t know, sir; they left I think there’s a half dozen of them still here the rest, the lieutenant and the rest, the ones she took, they left just after dawn. just a handful of them still here. In search of hardware, the ones that left, that is, I think I heard one say, but that could be wrong sir; my hearing …’ Arthur shakes his head, withered fingers trembling near one ear.
‘And our good lady? Is she abroad?’ I ask, smiling.
‘Abroad, with them, sir,’ the old servant says, expression troubled. ‘The lady lieutenant … she took her too, as some sort of guide.’
I use the little fruit knife on the apple, silent for a while. ‘Did she indeed?’ I say eventually, dabbing at my lips with a napkin, clean but not, alas, pressed. ‘And did they say when they expected to return?’
‘I did ask, sir,’ Arthur says, shaking his head. ‘The lieutenant
lady just said, “In good time.” I’m afraid that’s all I was able to get out of her.’
‘Indeed,’ I mutter. ‘Probably no more than man can get into her.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘Nothing, Arthur,’ I say, letting him pour me a cup of coffee. ‘Draw me a bath, will you? And if you could sort out some clothes . .’
‘Of course, sir.’ He leaves me to my thoughts.
Gone, with you. A guide; some sort of guide, indeed. You, who could get lost between adjoining rooms, you to whom two hedges constitute a maze. If the lieutenant has no maps nor any of her men a decent sense of direction I may never see you or any of them again. The lieutenant jests, I think. You may be a mascot or a trophy to recompense her for those worthless prizes I consigned to the waters yesterday, but not, I trust, truly a guide.
But she has taken you from me. I feel a kind of jealousy, I think. How novel, considering what we’ve shared, one could even say disseminated. I might even think to savour this unfamiliar bouquet, at least to swill it round before. I spit it out, but it has always seemed to be an ignoble emotion, a confession of moral weakness.
I feel I am reduced by her, so close to you. I fear my own seduction into a vulgar judgmentality, just the kind of facile moralism I have most despised in others.
I rise and make my way to our apartments; the pillows on your bed are piled oddly, and when I take them away, I find a pair of bullet holes in the headboard. I replace the pillows and proceed next door to my own room. There is a smell of something burned here; perhaps old horse hair. I can find no obvious source for the odour, though when I sit on it to remove my shoes, perhaps the mattress on my bed feels different. I look up; the tassels forming the fringe of the bed’s canopy appear dark and soot stained just over where I sit. Well, there seems to be no other damage.
Arthur has the other servants bring me bowls and jugs of steaming hot water, produced by the fuel omnivorous stove in the kitchens. The bedroom’s fire is charged with logs, and lit. I bathe alone, complete my toilet and then dress before the roaring fire.
From our windows, I look out upon our other guests, those fled, shaken out from the patchwork lands about and amassed here upon our lawns with their tents and animals, their choice of campsite by itself a mute appeal for sanctuary. There was a cathedral, in a town not far away, but I understand it fell to guns some months ago. It might have been a fitter focus of attraction, but perhaps for those gathered here today the castle serves in its place; its stony existence over the years by itself somehow an augur of good fortune, a talisman guaranteeing life and charity for those nearby. I believe this is what is called a pious hope.
I conduct my own inspection of the castle. The lieutenant’s men remaining are those most needing rest; the more seriously wounded, and two who may be shellshocked. I feel I ought to talk to some, and so I attempt to engage a couple of the wounded in conversation in the makeshift ward that was our ballroom.
One is a heavy set man, prematurely grey, a jagged, ill healed scar on his face a year or so old, who hobbles on makeshift crutches, one leg wounded by a mine which killed the man walking in front of him a week ago. The other is a shy youth, sandy haired and of a pale and flawless complexion. He has a bullet in one shoulder, all strapped and bandaged; his chest
is, smooth and hairless. He seems sweet, seductive even, made more so by his air of injured vulnerability. I think, in another time, we might both have taken to this one.
I do my best, but in both cases each of us is awkward; the older man is by turns taciturn and garrulous ~ angry, I suspect, at whatever he considers I represent while the boy is merely wincingly demure and diffident, his long lashed eyes averted. I am more at ease with tile servants, sharing their mixture of quiet horror and unfeigned amusement at the uncouthness of the soldiers. They seem happy just to be busy again, returned to their purpose and taking solace in the familiarity of duty and service. I make a remark about keeping occupied that meets with politeness rather than genuine appreciation.
I take a stroll through the grounds. The people in the camp seem almost as tongue tied as the soldiers. Many of them are sick; I am told a child died yesterday. I meet the wife of the village Factor tending a fire by one of the tents; we saw her husband yesterday on the road when the lieutenant intercepted us. She and he live here, for now. He has gone with the other fit men of the camp in search of more food, hoping to plunder farms already ransacked many times.
I feel I should be doing something assertive, dynamic; I ought to make my own escape, try to bribe the soldiers still in the castle, attempt to form the servants into a resistance or rouse the people of the camp … but I think I do not have the character required for such heroics. My talents lie in other directions. Were some barbed comment all that was required to wrest and maintain control in this, I might leap to action and emerge victorious. As it is, I see too many options and possibilities, arguments and counter arguments, objections and alternatives. Lost within a mirror maze of tactical potential, I see everything and nothing, and lose my way in images. Men of iron find their soul contaminated, their purpose corroded in the presence of a surfeit of irony.