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 CHANDELIER
Tarnished Crowns Trilogy - Book One

ANNIE DYER
Copyright © 2020 by Annie Dyer
All rights reserved.
Apart from any permitted use under UK copyright law, no part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any former by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
Chandelier is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are a
product of the author’s imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental.
Please note this book contains material aimed at an adult audience.
Editing by Suzanne Nelson
Cover design by Najla Qamber Designs
Cover image copyright ©2020
Imprint: Independently published
Created with Vellum
 ALSO BY ANNIE DYER

The Callaghan Green Series

Engagement Rate
White Knight
Compromising Agreements
Between Cases
Changing Spaces
Mythical Creatures

Callaghan Green Novels (Spin offs)

Heat

Severton Search and Rescue

Sleighed
Stirred
Smoldered

Standalone Romance
Endless Blue Seas

Tarnished Crowns Trilogy

Chandelier
Grenade
Emeralds

Crime Fiction
We Were Never Alone
How Far Away the Stars (Novella)
 CONTENTS

Introduction

Prologue
I. June
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

II. July
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10

III. August
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16

IV. September
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue

BOOK TWO IN THE TARNISHED CROWNS TRILOGY

ANNIE DYER’S CALLAGHAN GREEN
SEVERTON SEARCH AND RESCUE
A note from Annie
 INTRODUCTION

Tarnished Crowns is set in an alternate United Kingdom, where

Scotland has become independent from England and has its own
monarchy. Some of the political situation is taken from other times;
the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Brexit, the various legends
about Britain’s kings and queens.
Chandelier, Grenade and Emeralds were my way of playing a
political game, where more than a tarnished crown is at stake.
I hope you enjoy Blair, Ben and Isaac, their games and the war
which they fight.

I promise you a happy ending.

Annie xo
 PROLOGUE

SEPTEMBER – PRESENT DAY

I am still on my knees when the gunshot ruptures the noise

outside.
It doesn’t occur to me to stand, to move away from Ben, to
conceal what sin we’ve just prayed at the altar of. Mainly because
Isaac’s hand is still holding my hair, his fingers massaging my scalp
as if he’s praising me for what I’ve just done.
If we were at war, I would’ve taken cover. Proper war, like what
we were taught in history lessons, not this continual threat that’s an
axe over our heads. But I’m in my hotel room, protected, two men
my bomb shelter.
But this isn’t a bomb.
There are screams outside. Shouting. The sharp screech of tyres
against the asphalt. Nothing unusual for a big city, but this isn’t a
usual day and something in the air has changed, switched. Particles
have stilled, the city has become a paused movie, waiting for the
thunder. Then there’s a knock at my door from the adjoining room
next door and my name is being said.
It isn’t a prayer. It’s agitated, just like it was said when I was a
small child and then a teenager, sneaking in from parties where I
should never had been. The voice of the man who has been my
guardian since I was a tiny child.
 Isaac’s hand leaves my head and Ben yanks up his trousers. He’s
in a suit today, trying to blend into this world that I know he hates
because he is the desert or the arctic or the seas, not a rally in a
northern English city with the royalty he’s never understood.
“Blair, we need to get you safe.” Franklyn sounds just the same
as he did when I was fifteen and we had an intruder. He doesn’t
even blink at what was going on in the room.
Isaac’s hands pull me up off my knees and he guides me out of
our bedroom through rooms and suites and corridors, Ben next to
me, the three of us and Franklyn who’s still not judging. There are
hotel rooms, all empty, all booked out for the few people staying in
this large building swept for bombs and bugs, every member of staff
screened along with their grandmothers and relations they never
knew existed. I’ve been here before as a child with my parents, then
for a tour of the university – where I was never going to go – and
again as a woman without my parents knowing. Just Franklyn. It’s
an old building, historic. It’s seen much more than what I’ve just
done, lived more than I ever will. He opens a door to a room I never
knew existed, one that is windowless but with the door open, the
noise from outside can still be heard, even if it’s just a cacophony of
whispers.
I can feel the roar from outside and it feels red, a commotion
that I don’t know the reason for, and then a door closes and the
silence becomes overwhelming.
“What’s happened?”
Franklyn shakes his head, his glasses balancing on the end of his
long nose. He is ageless, never changing. If I believed in such
things, I’d imagine he was an eternal creature.
Isaac is at the door, looking at Ben. He might be trying to
communicate something, but even though we’ve just shared an act
that is more intimate than most, I know they haven’t developed the
art of telepathy yet. I’m not sure if they ever will.
“I won’t let anything happen to her.” Ben is quiet, his words a
muted cold blue. Any closeness that there was minutes ago has
evaporated, water in the sun.
Butterflies on the breeze.
 “I can send…”
“I’m not a thing.” My voice is calm, steel that will never move. A
tone I taught myself when I needed something other than my
chime.
Ben turns me to him, his hands on my hips now. “That was a
gunshot.”
“Could’ve been friendly fire.”
We all know it wasn’t.
There’s nothing friendly about today. Or this place. We shouldn’t
have come. Should’ve let Lennox come here alone with his
entourage and speak his pretty words to people who thinks he’s
either a god or a devil.
I turn to Isaac, seeing his hands in his pockets. I’ve known him
three months. Known Ben fifteen years. Known myself even less.
I don’t know this girl who gets on her knees for one man, while
another holds her hair and whispers sweet dirty words to her.
“Where’s my brother? What was his schedule?”
There’s no real reason for Isaac to know, except that he knows
everything.
“He gave his speech in the square and then he was heading into
the Town Hall.” It’s Ben who answers. He will have memorized the
itinerary.
But I’m not thinking about how he recalls everything he’s read,
can recall details that the average human wouldn’t even have
noticed. I’m thinking about my brother with his enthusiasm and
vigour and passion; his desire to somehow unify our country with
this one through trade agreements and free movement of people.
Desires that others don’t share. Desires that others will kill to
extinguish.
Before I can say my brother’s name there’s a piercing ring and
Franklyn moves to the corner of the lightless room with his phone in
his hand. We all watch him, the bare bulb making us all appear as
strangers.
Franklyn says nothing, but when he looks up at me I know.
The bullet fired found a new home.
My brother is dead.
My brother is dead and I am now the heir to a tarnished crown.

Everything has changed.

 JUNE

THREE MONTHS BEFORE

I know well that the June rains just fall - Onitsura

 CHAPTER ONE

S omeone chose blue. A dark - almost black - blue. It’s silk and it
feels cool against my skin that has been buffed and polished by
hands that aren’t paid enough. In the mirror I see the reflection of a
woman who doesn’t look much more than a girl, maybe too thin, too
pale, too innocent. Everything is too.
Too much.
Alina is my make-up artist, because despite being twenty-nine, I
apparently can’t paint my own face. I sit in rooms being prepped
and coloured in, any desirable feature enhanced, any blemish erased
temporarily. But I’m not allowed to do it myself.
I sit and smile, close my eyes, feel the kohl being applied, open
them, see the dress that will cling to my breasts, illuminate the
slightness of my waist. Bring out the blue of my eyes.
“You’re going to look beautiful in that dress.” Alina sees me
staring at the fabric, following my eyes to the gown.
She’s probably right. Because I’m being made to. I’m being
prepared to look beautiful in the dress because tonight that’s my
role: the pretty princess who will speak intelligently and gracefully
with the representatives who are here from England trying to deliver
something called peace.
I’ve forgotten what peace is. There are fairy tales about when we
used to be one country, back in some long forgotten time. Now we
are in a ‘peace process’, trying to agree the terms between Scotland
and England. There is nothing peaceful about it. When the union
between the countries was broken, back when my Grandfather was
around, it was decided that Scotland should be ruled by a monarchy,
like it used to be. For the history and the pomp and the
circumstance. And the crown.
Alina stands back and lets me step to the dress, a hanging
headless corpse decorating a wardrobe. The material is heavier than
it looks, the decadent skirt decorated with gems sewn in by
calloused fingers, strained eyes seeking minute details. Somewhere
there will be a speck of blood from a needle, the sewer not able to
fall asleep.
“I think we should leave your hair down.”
I turn to the doorway and see my mother, already made up with
her hair in an elaborate style. She has left the grey alone, allowing it
to filter through the light brown locks that she’s never touched. Her
accent is softer when we’re alone, alone apart from our staff. Here
she isn’t on display or duty.
“Really?” Usually, for formal occasions such as these, it would be
up, tidy. In keeping with the agenda.
She shrugs. “It’s a change. It will suit the dress. Lennox matches
with his tie.”
“He’s my brother. Dressing us the same makes us look like we’re
together.”
There’s a laugh, bells tinkle. “Or twins.”
Which was probably her aim. I’d been a twin. My sister was
stillborn. Rayne. Rayne and Blair we were named; two little
princesses. Rayne: just like the tears I know my mother still sheds
for her baby she never got to hold.
“Is Lennox taking a date?”
I feel my shoulders tense enough to be almost painful. Elise is
my best friend, allegedly, and I know she’s seeking the company of
an heir to a throne. I know she’s had the company in her room
already.
My brother can be a fool.
“Not as far as I know, but it’s Lennox. You know what Lennox is
like.”
 Three years older, a future king, allowed to choose his own suits
and shirts and bed mates. That was what Lennox was like.
I’d never had those privileges. It wasn’t my job.
My robe is discarded to the floor, leaving me in just plain black
underwear, my pale skin illuminated under the sharp light. This room
is my dressing area, the place where clothes that have been selected
for me, or gifted, are kept and my public face is applied.
It’s both me and not. Blair is a ghost in this room and the
princess takes over. Has to. I’m her as well as the person I want to
be where my body’s my own and I don’t have a set of rules and
expectations to follow.
Alina helps me slip the dress on. It fits perfectly, exposing just
the right amount of skin, completely acceptable for a delegates’
dinner, where we’re polite and converse about matters of interest in
the hope that a stronger friendship will mean we can agree how we
trade between our countries or how people can move between
them.
The material of the dress is soft and weighted, the lining helps it
flow. I catch sight in the mirror and as usual don’t recognise myself.
The woman who reads and writes and laughs and cries isn’t what I
see. Instead there is a princess.
“You look beautiful.”
And that is my role.

The castle has been entertaining both friends and enemies for a
thousand years. Within its stone walls are a million stories and a
million more lies, all cemented within a thousand promises and a
hundred truths. There is a bar, laden with gins and whiskeys, all
Scottish in origin or European. Nothing English, even though the
majority of people here tonight are English.
Traitors or heroes? Who knows.
The banqueting hall has been laid out by the staff I’ve known
since I first walked through these castle corridors. My father’s kept a
loyal team, treating them like a family from the kitchen porters to
the gardeners, to the housekeepers and cleaners. Marian is in the
banqueting hall, adjusting the place settings, adding detail. She
looks up as I enter and glares, the same glare she’s given me since
the first time I stole cakes from her kitchen.
“Shouldn’t you be in the Kinney room?”
I should. She’s right. I’m meant to be there to welcome the
guests once our butlers have shown them to their rooms for the
night and they’ve changed for the evening. But there’s time yet and
I love this part of a formal evening: the secrets and the planning,
making sure that none of the guests truly know what went on to
provide a night that appeared so easy.
“I wanted to see the room.” Before it was spoiled with noise.
There would be the usual whispered promises about policies and
votes. My father would address the room with a speech that
promoted peace between us and England and then one of the
English politicians or advisors would respond with words that will be
little more than a flirtatious tease. We haven’t agreed terms and all
talks have been going on for a decade.
The night would be polluted with impossibilities and the dance
would continue into a thousandth night, or so it felt. It was probably
more.
“Well, while you’re seeing it, grab that tray, lady, and put out the
soup spoons. You remember how they go?”
A memory of being ten and being allowed to walk around the
banqueting hall, carrying a silver tray laden with polished cutlery
strikes me and I am a girl again, the one with braided hair and
freckles that my brother poked fun at.
I take the tray and begin to circle the table, laying out the
spoons, ensuring the distance between them and the forks is
correct. Marian doesn’t check what I’m doing; instead she talks to
Warren, one of the security team and an extension of our immediate
family because we can’t breathe without one of them being present.
Peace talks are anything but peaceful.
“You should mingle with the guests.” Marian takes the tray away
without warning. “It’ll be over soon enough.” Her accent is thick and
full of the Highlands, soothing, soft.
I should mingle with the guests. Tonight is another round of
forming acquaintances with a new English government that is as
calm as the Lochs in a storm, the dark waters filled with mythical
beasts that smile with sharp teeth.
The corridor between the banqueting hall and the Kinney room is
long and dark, the mahogany panels original features that were
found beneath brick when the castle was resurrected from its
banishment once my grandfather became king. The carpet is thick
and tartan, greens and whites and creams. Portraits watch me with
eyes that have seen too much already, but I stopped caring when I
was twelve and I realised that they were oil and canvas and nothing
more. There was no magic here, just the promise of storms and a
quiet sun.
My hand trails along the panels as I walk, feeling the wood like
braille, reading its stories. Before he died, my grandfather told me
tales of kings and queens, of treachery and traitors and those heroes
that had slain our enemies instead of dragons.
My father would have us believe that there were dragons here
tonight, but Lennox, my brother, merely sees dogs hungry for
scraps. He also sees the possibility of making his own mark on
history as the heir to the throne and maybe the one to finally
negotiate the much-needed deals.
I pause outside the Kinney room, peering in from my shadows.
Despite women from another age calling for equality, the room’s
dominated by men who are intoxicated with the stench of power. I
see suits, jackets, shirts, ties, the odd dress and a pair of bare legs,
stilettoes. A peel of laughter cuts through the bass and baritones.
Elise.
My best friend. Schoolmates, classmates. Whisperer of secrets
and the keeper of dreams.
“Blair! We wondered where you were!” Elise sees me and
releases Lennox’s arm where she’s probably been hanging, a benign
spider.
“Helping Marian.” I smile, accepting her air kiss.
 She’s dressed in green satin, the material clinging to curves that
she’s owned since she was thirteen and she noticed how boys looked
at her. Elise doesn’t need anything more than what nature gave her,
the power to spellbind the eyes of most beholders.
“You’re the princess, not the staff.”
“Sometimes it’s the same thing.”
She laughs, bells tinkling. A half dozen set of eyes use the sound
as an excuse to focus on her, but not my brother, the future king.
“Blair,” my mother sweeps in, smiling. “Let me introduce you. It’s
been a while since you were at a dinner like this.”
It hasn’t been long enough.
Six weeks in Australia, four weeks in America. Ten weeks away.
Meeting people, opening hospitals, schools, visiting charities,
hospices, meeting dignitaries. All with a smile on my face and
gracious words even when I was crippled with period pain or
struggling with a migraine, because I didn’t have the right to feel like
that. Princesses didn’t bleed or throw up or fuck or scream.
We work the room. I meet politicians and advisors, titled gentry,
business owners. People whose own personal wealth depends on the
matrimonial settlement between two countries who were together
for so long.
There’s a man with brown hair that falls over his face as if he’s
forgotten to style it. His eyes are blue and small, his cheekbones
sculpted. He should be attractive but he’s not.
He holds out his hand. “I’m William.”
I know who he is. The world knows who he is.
“Blair.” I take his hand.
“I think I’m supposed to bow or something.”
“Curtsying would be far more humorous.” I said that to a man
once and he did.
William laughs. “I’d probably fall over. More than likely I’d knock
you over. Imagine what the press would say about that. ‘Prime
Minister fells Scotland’s princess.’”
Because he’s the new Prime Minister of England, recently chosen
by his party to lead his country forward. Forward into what, no one
knows.
 “You can keep your curtsy then.” I smile, the sweetly knowing
smile my mother taught me when I was eight.
He gives me a nod. “I hear you spent some time in Cuba. How
did you find it?”
He’s been briefed, just like every other statesman in the room.
I’m not the heir to the throne, I have no influence, so unlike Lennox
and my father, I don’t need to be wooed with impassioned speeches
and quiet affiliations.
“Cuba was beautiful.” Standard response. “The culture is superb.”
And the men were talented in more than just dancing.
“How long did you spend there?”
He knows the answer to this.
“Not long enough.” The nights in Havana had been cloaked in
music and steam, the people not knowing who I was so I could be
eaten by the crowds and meet a man who thought I was just
another blonde on vacation, looking for an easy fuck.
“You’d like to go back?”
Tomorrow. But that isn’t in my diary, which is planned for the
next eighteen months. Maybe longer.
“Hopefully. I spent some time in the schools there. It would be
nice to go back and see how the children I met are faring.”
William smiles and nods. Asks more questions and I smile and
nod back. He’s the youngest Prime Minister to lead England, not yet
forty. He’s been linked with models, actresses, all very discreet of
course, and well-chosen. A game of political chess.
“How are you finding your new job?”
His smile is genuine. Flustered. He pushes a hand through his
hair.
“It’s difficult.”
My laugh is quiet and real. “Did you expect anything less?”
He shakes his head. “No. I didn’t.” Then there is the smile that I
know is rehearsed, one for the ladies and the men who prefer their
partners with biceps and pecs.
“How is being a princess?”
I’ve been asked it more times than I could ever count and I still
don’t know the answer. “My life.” My words barely audible over the
call to head to the dinner. “I don’t know anything different.”
He offers his arm for me to take, a gentlemanly act, fulfilling yet
another role he has to take. It’s strange, in this time of technology
and alleged equality that we fall back on the same manners that we
had a thousand years before.
I accept his arm and we stroll back down the corridor, discussing
the mountains and vacations and Cuba. My sentences are strung
with the experiences I was meant to have over there, the meetings
with dignitaries, the sites, the visits, but my head reels with the
memories of the night time, dancing in the shadows with a stranger
who had no idea I wore a tarnished crown on my head.
Behind us walks a dark-haired man I haven’t seen before. He’s
tall, suited, his waistcoat the same dark grey as his suit and he isn’t
wearing a tie. Instead his collar has a button undone.
He’s quietly breaking convention.
It’s been ingrained in me. Just as children learn their times tables
or the days of the week, I’ve been taught to notice people. A lot can
be said when there is silence. A lot can be heard in the intonation of
someone’s voice. A lot can be seen in the way someone dresses, or
sits, or breaks eye contact.
My spirit animal had to be a chameleon, capable of blending in
anywhere but always noticed. The man behind us was doing just
that, but that open button told me all I needed to know right now.
He had an agenda.
“Did you grow up here?” The Prime Minister has been talking
while I’ve been noticing the people around us. His focus has been
solely on me, as if I’m the target here, which I might be.
“Here and at Loch Lomond.” In the Trossachs. Surrounded by
mountains and protected by the storms. “How about you? Are you a
Londoner?”
I knew he wasn’t.
“Cambridge.”
“The university too?” He is a graduate from there. As is his
father, a previous Prime Minister, and his grandfather. All Cambridge
graduates. Upper class, probably an old title somewhere stuffed in.
 “Just about.” His smile is almost nervous and I hear the dark-
haired man behind us cough. William turns round, his expression
fracturing. I’ve met several Prime Ministers, played with their
children, dined with them in restaurants, sat next to my father while
he’s discussed negotiations between our two countries. William is
young to be one, in more than just age. “Are you okay?”
The dark haired man nods, pausing as we reach the doorway to
the banqueting hall. A string quartet plays. Staff stand discreetly
around the walls of the room.
“I’m fine.” His voice is low and deep and shivers saunter up my
spine. “Enjoy your meal.” There’s no tinge to his voice, no alternate
meaning. It’s a simple statement and I wonder who he is to make
such, speaking words that aren’t loaded with the lust for power.
I don’t ask William for his identity, because that would show a
chink in my knowledge. Instead I smile and show him to his place,
perpendicular to me, our secretary of state next to me, my brother
to William’s right.
Every place is planned meticulously by one of my father’s
advisors and my mother, the women spread around carefully. There
is the sound of a bell and someone stands, makes introductions,
says the Selkirk Grace in Gaelic.

Tha biadh aig cuid, 's gun aca càil;,

acras aig cuid,'s gun aca biadh,
ach againne tha biadh is slàint',
moladh mar sin a bhith don Triath.

The Scots in the room stand and toast with their whiskies, a few
more words of Gaelic thrown in. The English smile, some forced and
I see the dark-haired man sitting back, his drink in his hand,
probably untouched.
He sees me looking and I don’t move my eyes. His stubble is
thick, hair well styled and his eyes hold a gleam of interest. He
raises his glass slightly towards me as a toast and nods before
looking to the person to his left, Harris, the brain behind our
education system.
The meal begins, like clockwork. Entrees, soups, appetisers,
wine. Our removed English cousins are courted with Scottish fayre.
Oysters from the west, beef, salmon that has been smoked at the
palace, everything locally sourced. All another sign that we don’t
need England, yet Lennox talks about Cornish cream teas and
Leicester cheese, our family’s outstretched hand.
Throughout the dinner I feel eyes regarding me as I politely nod
and smile and respond appropriately to what is said. William glances
my way, offers me nervous smiles while he talks sport with my
brother. And the dark haired stranger observes, an unreadable
journal, padlocked. His eyes telling me nothing.

“There was a security breach last night.” My father sits down with a
coffee. We’re in our lounge in a wing of the palace that is the most
home-like of the building. This is where we are normal, or whatever
normal masquerades as. There are no staff, we cook and clean up
for ourselves. As children, Lennox and I would be here without
nannies or tutors and we would be our parents’ problems.
But we are safe. Or at least we try to believe we are.
“What was it?” My mother is reading a book, probably a
romance. She barely looks up. Security breaches are nothing new.
“A woman entered the perimeter.”
She looks up now. Cyber-attacks occur on an almost hourly basis.
Protestors are common. Intruders to the palace, given that it is
surrounded by a mile of streams, forests and rough land, are
uncommon.
“A woman?”
My father nods. “She was arrested. Not known to our
intelligence.”
“There were rumbles that Alba an-Asgaidh were planning
something.” Lennox looks up from his computer.
 It’s unusual for us to all be together like this. Tomorrow Lennox
will be in Edinburgh, then Glasgow, then Skye. My father leaves in
the morning for America where he is looking at an agreement
around our waters and fishing, something he’s passionate about and
doesn’t want to delegate. Then they both head to London for more
peace talks while my mother and I continue on our social circuit of
wooing and courting. Making friends of enemies.
“There are always rumours about Alba an-Asgaidh. Especially
when you speak too highly of what could be with us and the South.”
My father’s tone is cutting. Lennox’s allegiance with England is
problematic and divisive. One day Lennox will be king and my father
worries that he will roll over like a panting dog and submit to the
South, to England, overturning the trade agreements and reuniting
the countries with a bond that had been strangled years before.
“It’s a party for terrorists. They’ll crawl back under their rocks in
a couple of months when something else hits the headlines.”
Lennox’s attention goes to his phone which has been vibrating.
My mother sits up, her hair loose and messy, off-duty. “When
does Ben start?”
I stand up and head to the window, uninterested. Security is
something I try to ignore, like a mild allergic reaction. I see the sky
and the mountains, the same scene I’ve grown up with.
“This week.” My father quietens. They’re communicating without
words. “We should assign him to Blair.”
I turn around. “Who?”
“Ben. Do you remember him?” My mother smiles and it’s warm,
the smile when her eyes crinkle at the sides. “He was here every
summer with his father, Leonard. He’s been in the army and now
he’s coming back here as security. Ben Smith. The blonde boy. A
couple of years older than you.”
I remembered Ben Smith. I remember his lanky legs while we
ran around the gardens, his teasing words, his laugh. I remember
his hands and his mouth.
Benjamin Smith.
I remember everything.
 CHAPTER TWO

“I t’s a possibility.”
The horses have slowed to a trot, seemingly aware that it’s
nearing lunch time and we and they want to eat. The sun is high,
shrouded in thin white clouds and it’s easy to forget that it’s the
beginning of summer.
Lennox slips off his mount, a chestnut stallion nicknamed Gunnar,
and stretches out his legs. We’ve been riding for miles, the three of
us, choosing to escape the palace at nine this morning, mainly
because Lennox wants to avoid our father after the furore he’s
caused.
“Now isn’t the right time for your possibilities.” I’m scolding even
though Elise is there, although it’s nothing she hasn’t heard before.
“You aren’t king. Not yet.” Not for years, or so I hope. Lennox being
king would mean that our father had died or was too ill to reign.
He offers Elise a hand to the ground. She grew up on horses,
spending more of her time at the stables than me when she visited
in the school holidays and she’s more than capable of getting down
but I know he wants to touch her. Pretty Elise with her big eyes and
perfect breasts. Lennox is a fool for a pair of tits, especially if they
come with a woman who looks at him like he’s god, just as Elise is
doing now.
I shake my head, feeling seventeen again, the age I was the first
time he fucked her. My brother isn’t subtle. He doesn’t know the
meaning of the word and he wears his soft beating heart on his
sleeve with no fear of it being stabbed.
“I get where you’re coming from…”
“We need to stop all the shit between us and the South,” he
interrupts me and I listen to the wind.
This is nothing I haven’t heard before. Unfortunately, my father
has heard it too and he doesn’t share the same ideas. They both
want peace, a trade and movement of people agreement between
us and the South, but through different means.
“William’s a decent man. He’s open to suggestions.” Lennox
shrugs, looks at the sky. An eagle flies above, looking for dinner.
“How was he elected?” There had been no General Election. He’d
been chosen by his peers after the previous leader of the ruling
party had fallen to a vote of no confidence.
Lennox looks at me, as if he’s never truly seen me before.
“I am interested in these things.”
“But you don’t need to be. And if you don’t need to, then why?”
Elise is saying nothing, just unpacking the lunch we’ve brought
with us, sipping at her hip flask.
“Because I sit at those state dinners too. I answer questions. I
pretend to know nothing when it suits me, Len. That doesn’t mean I
don’t have an interest or want to know more. William seemed a bit, I
don’t know, out of his depth?”
Lennox’s face clouds. “He’s young. The youngest PM there’s
been. But he’s still seven years older than me.”
I know Lennox will probably be king before he’s forty. I know our
father’s health isn’t good. There are consultants involved, a surgeon,
scans. But he says nothing to anyone.
“But you’ve been brought up to do this job.”
He gives one firm nod and looks to the mountains. “So’s William.
His father.”
I look to the ground.
“Doesn’t mean you’re the right person for the job.”
Lennox’s head swings towards me. “Did you ever want it?”
He’s never asked me this before. Even when he’s been blind
drunk and asking me advice about women, told me too much
information about whisky dick and Elise’s tits, he’s never asked me if
I’d want to be queen.
“I’ve never had to think about whether I’d want it or not. The
crown’s not mine. Someone else will be queen after mother. Not
me.”
I see Elise’s eyes fix on Lennox as I say the words and I feel the
rage bubble inside me, a poisoned cauldron stirred. She wants more
than just my brother’s crown jewels.

We eat. Drink. Tend the horses.

For moments, an hour, we are normal young adults, sitting in a
heathered field in summer under a veiled sun. We talk about sport,
food, a new restaurant, a marriage, divorce, a birth.
“Do you remember Ben?” Lennox says. He’s drank too much of
whatever’s in his hip flask, but his horse is good and won’t mind. It’s
rare my brother is able to be off duty. “He was round a lot when we
were kids. I used to play football with him.”
I remembered Ben.
“A bit. He was more your friend than mine.” Liar.
“I remember him. He was tall and blonde.” Elise giggles like she
did when she was fifteen and saw a workman with no top on.
Crows fly over us. Cawing.
“He helped his dad in the gardens.” It was a fact.
Lennox stretches out, lazing over Elise’s legs. I’ll ride home alone
and leave them to enjoy al fresco sex with the midges and Scottish
sun.
“I remember you spent loads of time with him.” Lennox pulls a
long stalk of grass and chews it. “Especially one summer.”
The summer when Elise stayed and was more about my brother
than me. The summer I first kissed a boy and learned that shadows
were for more than than just spying from. The summer I discovered
what my body could do and how my mind was key to a whole new
world.
 “It was a long time ago. I wonder what he’s like now?”
I can see them itching to touch each other, her fingers stretching
towards him, trying not to feel. It’s as if she’s fingering his aura,
touching the yellow light that flickers from him, her inky blue turning
him green. I see in colours, shades. My head is an artist’s palette.
“He’s been in the army,” Lennox says, shifting, not away from
her, just shifting. “He’ll be bigger. Taller. How long is it since he left?”
It’s eleven years.
“I’m not sure. I think he was about twenty.” He was twenty. I
remembered his birthday. I stayed in my room that day, in my tower.
My hair did not fall from the window for him to climb.
“Twenty. He was a few months younger than me.” Lennox moves
away slightly from Elise and I see her hand reach out for him.
I shake my head, look at her. She knows because I see the guilty
look.
You’re fucking my brother.
You promised you’d never hurt him.
You’ll eat his heart.
She smiles.
“He did well in the army. He’s decorated.” Lennox’s mouth curves,
that wide beautiful grin that loves the world and never fears it.
“Saved lives. He’ll be good working for you.”
For me. Not for the rest of us. Ben has been assigned to me,
replacing my old head of security, Micky, who’s been with me for
years, since I was nineteen and at university. He knew all of my
habits and foibles, the places I’d hide, the bars I’d go to be normal,
the boys I’d bring back to my apartment. He was discreet, never
judged and nor did I when I found him with his lovers, always off
duty.
If Micky’s eyes wandered to a young man in a club and lingered
there, his knuckles would clench and I knew exactly what he’d want
to do to him later. The depravity. The sins. The golden moment
when pure pleasure streamed through veins and gave more life than
oxygen. I’d seen it and felt it, touching a life I could never own in
the cold light of reality.
“Micky may come back.”
 Lennox nods. “He needs his knee surgery. Then something more
strategic while he recovers. Dad’s happy with Ben. And that he
knows us.”
Our life. Our complicated little life that never belonged to us. Not
truly.
I stand up, stretch, look to the clouds and then the earth. “I’m
going to head back. It’s three hours and I have dinner with Leah
McClaren tonight.”
“The black widow.” Lennox smiles. “How many husbands?”
“Sensible woman.”
He shakes his head and then his attention is drawn to Elise, her
dark hair now loose about her shoulders, draped over her chest. I
pretend to ignore them as I pack up my rubbish and stick it in
Lennox’s rucksack.
He eyes me and says nothing.
Without the weight on my back I can gallop home, feel the air
strike my skin and hear nothing but the sound of the breeze as it
whispers around me and the echo of hooves and their rhythmic
prayer to the land.
I climb on my horse, make a click and she whinnies, her feet
busy. We’re ready.
We always are.

SIXTEEN YEARS AGO.

There is a maze. Hedges and shrubs and flowers run in straight lines
the turn at right angles, corner after corner, turning left, right, a
crossroads, a decision. A choice. I get to choose each time because
there’s no one with me to say no or to advise or to strongly suggest.
Just me.
I run, feeling the muted wind because the height of the trees
keeps me sheltered. Somewhere above me there will be a drone,
should I get lost or fall or there is someone there who wishes me
harm, but I’m not thinking about that, instead I’m thinking about
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“Now go up to my room and take the dog, and stay there until I
come,” continued George.
Billy obeyed promptly. Betty, however, having once let loose the
floodgates, hung around George’s neck and wept oceans of tears.
George soothed her as best he could, but Betty would not be
comforted, and was more distressed than ever when, in a little while,
a note arrived from Lord Fairfax, saying he would leave
Fredericksburg the next morning at sunrise if it would be convenient
to Mr. Washington to join him then.
 CHAPTER IV
Before daybreak the next morning George came down-stairs, Billy
following with his portmanteau. Madam Washington, little Betty, and
all the house-servants were up and dressed, but it was thought best
not to waken the three little boys, who slept on comfortably in their
trundle-beds. The candles were lighted, and for the last time for two
months,—which seems long to the young, George had family
prayers. His mother then took the book from him and read the
prayers for travellers about to start on a journey. She was quite
composed, for no woman ever surpassed Madam Washington in
self-control; but little Betty still wept, and would not leave George’s
side even while he ate his breakfast. There had been some talk of
Betty’s going to Mount Vernon also for Christmas, and George,
remembering this, asked his mother, as a last favor, that she would
let Betty meet him there, whence he could bring her home. Madam
Washington agreed, and this quickly dried Betty’s tears. Billy acted in
a mysterious manner. Instead of being in vociferous distress, he was
quiet and even cheerful, so much so that a grin discovered itself on
his countenance, which was promptly banished as soon as he saw
Madam Washington’s clear, stern eyes travelling his way. George,
feeling for poor Billy’s loneliness, had determined to leave Rattler
behind for company; but both Billy and Rattler were to cross the ferry
with him, the one to bring the horse back, and the other for a last
glimpse of his master.
The parting was not so mournful, therefore, as it promised to be.
George went into the chamber where his three little brothers slept,
who were not wide-awake enough to feel much regret at his
departure. The servants all came out and he shook the hand of
each, especially Uncle Jasper’s, while Aunt Sukey embraced him.
His mother kissed him and solemnly blessed him, and the
procession started. George mounted his own horse, while Betty,
seated pillion-wise behind him, was to ride with him to the ferry.
Uncle Jasper and Aunt Sukey walked as far as the gate, and Billy,
with Rattler at his heels and the portmanteau on his head, started off
on a brisk run down the road. The day was breaking beautifully. A
pale blue mist lay over the river and the woods. The fields, bare and
brown, were covered with a white hoar-frost, and harbored flocks of
partridges, which rose on whirring wings as the gray light turned to
red and gold. In the chinquapin bushes along the road squirrels
chattered, and a hare running across the lane reminded George of
his hare-traps, which he charged Betty to look to. But although Betty
would have died for him at any moment, she would not agree to
have any hand in the trapping and killing of any living thing; so she
would only promise to tell the younger boys to look after the traps.
“And it won’t be long until Christmas,” said George, turning in his
saddle and pressing Betty’s arm that was around him as they
galloped along briskly; “and if I have a chance of sending a letter, I
will write you one. Think, Betty, you will have a letter all to yourself;
you have never had one, I know.”
“I never had a letter all to myself,” answered Betty. For that was
before the days of cheap postage, or postage at all as it is now; and
letters were rare and precious treasures.
“And it will be very fine at Mount Vernon—ladies, and even girls like
you, wearing hoops, and dancing minuets every evening, while Black
Tubal and Squirrel Tom play their fiddles.”
“I like minuets well enough, but I like jigs and rigadoons better; and
mother will not let me wear a hoop. But I am to have her white
sarcenet silk made over for me. That I know.”
“You must practise on the harpsichord very much, Betty; for at Mount
Vernon there is one, and brother Laurence and his wife will want you
to play before company.”
Mistress Betty was not averse to showing off her great
accomplishment, and received this very complaisantly. Altogether,
what with the letter and the white sarcenet, she began to take a
hopeful rather than a despairing view of the coming two months.
Arrived within sight of the ferry, George stopped, and lifted Betty off
the horse. There was a foot-path across the fields to the house
which made it but a short walk back, which Betty could take alone.
The brother and sister gave each other one long and silent embrace
—for they loved each other very dearly—and then, without a word,
Betty climbed over the fence and walked rapidly homeward, while
George made for the ferry, where Billy and the portmanteau awaited
him. One of the small boats and two ferry-men, Yellow Dick and
Sambo, took him across the river. The horse was to be carried
across for George to ride to the inn where Lord Fairfax awaited him,
and Billy was to take the horse back again.
 GEORGE BIDS BETTY GOOD-BYE
The flush of the dawn was on the river when the boat pushed off,
and George thought he had never seen it lovelier; but like most
healthy young creatures on pleasure bent, he had no sentimental
regrets. The thing he minded most was leaving Billy, because he
was afraid the boy would be in constant trouble until his return. But
Billy seemed to take it so debonairly that George concluded the boy
had at last got over his strong disinclination to work for or think of
anybody except “Marse George.”
The boat shot rapidly through the water, rowed by the stalwart ferry-
men, and George was soon on the opposite shore. He bade good-
bye to Yellow Dick and Sambo, and, mounting his horse, with Billy
still trotting ahead with the portmanteau, rode off through the quaint
old town to the tavern. It was a long, low building at the corner of two
straggling streets, and signs of the impending departure of a
distinguished guest were not wanting. Captain Benson, a militia
officer, kept the tavern, and in honor of the Earl of Fairfax had
donned a rusty uniform, and was going back and forth between the
stable and the kitchen, first looking after his lordship’s breakfast and
then after his lordship’s horses’ breakfasts. He came bustling out
when George rode up.
“Good-morning, Mr. Washington. ’Light, sir, ’light. I understand you
are going to Greenway Court with his lordship. He is now at his
breakfast. Will you please to walk in?”
“No, I thank you, sir,” responded George. “If you will kindly mention
to Lord Fairfax that I am here, you will oblige me.”
“Certainly, sir, certainly,” cried Captain Benson, disappearing in the
house.
The travelling-chariot was out and the horses were being put to it
under the coachman’s superintendence, while old Lance was looking
after the luggage. He came up to George, and, giving him the
military salute, asked for Mr. Washington’s portmanteau. George
could scarcely realize that he was going until he saw it safely stowed
along with the earl’s under the box-seat. He then determined to send
Billy off before the earl made his appearance, for fear of a terrible
commotion, after all, when Billy had to face the final parting.
“Now, Billy,” said George to him, very earnestly, “you will not give my
mother so much trouble as you used to, but do as you are told, and it
will be better for you.”
“Yes, suh,” answered Billy, looking in George’s eyes without winking.
“And here is a crown for you,” said George, slipping one into Billy’s
hand—poor George had only a few crowns in a purse little Betty had
knitted for him. “Now mount the horse and go home. Good-bye,
Rattler, boy—all of Lord Fairfax’s dogs, of every kind, shall not make
me forget you.”
Billy, without the smallest evidence of grief, but with rather a twinkle
in his beady eyes, shook his young master’s hand, jumped on the
horse, and, whistling to Rattler, all three of George’s friends
disappeared down the village street. George looked after them for
some minutes and sighed at what was before Billy, but comforted
himself by recalling the boy’s sensible behavior in the matter of the
parting. In a few moments Lord Fairfax came out. George went up
the steps to the porch, and, making his best bow, tried to say how
much he felt the earl’s kindness. True gratitude is not always glib,
and was not with George, but the earl saw from the boy’s face the
intense pleasure he experienced.
“You will sit with me, Mr. Washington,” said Lord Fairfax, “and when
you are tired of the chariot I will have one of my outriders give you a
horse, and have him ride the wheel-horse.”
“Anything that your lordship pleases,” was George’s polite reply.
The earl bade a dignified farewell to Captain Benson, who escorted
him to the coach, and in a little while, with George by his side and
the outriders ahead, they were jolting along towards the open
country.
The earl talked a little for the first hour or two, pointing out objects in
the landscape, and telling interesting facts concerning them, which
George had never known before. After a while, though, he took down
two books from a kind of shelf in the front of the coach, and handing
one to George, said:
“Here is a volume of the Spectator. You will find both profit and
pleasure in it. Thirty years ago the Spectator was the talk of the day.
It ruled London clubs and drawing-rooms, and its influence was not
unfelt in politics.” The other book, George saw, was an edition of
Horace in the original. As soon as the earl opened it he became
absorbed in it.
Not so with George and the Spectator. Although fond of reading, and
shrewd enough to see that the earl would have but a low opinion of a
boy who could not find resources in books, what was passing before
him was too novel and interesting, to a boy who had been so little
away from home, to divide his attention with anything. The highway
was fairly good, but the four roans took the road at such a rattling
gait that the heavy chariot rolled and bumped and lurched like a ship
at sea. So well made was it, though, and so perfect the harness, that
not a bolt, a nut, or a strap gave way. The country for the first thirty
miles was not unlike what George was accustomed to, but his keen
eyes saw some difference as they proceeded towards the northwest.
The day was bright and beautiful, a sharper air succeeding the soft
Indian summer of the few days preceding. The cavalcade made a
vast dust, clatter, and commotion. Every homestead they passed
was aroused, and people, white and black, came running out to see
the procession. George enjoyed the coach very much at first, but he
soon began to wish that he were on the back of one of the stout
nags that rode ahead, and determined, as soon as they stopped for
dinner, to take advantage of Lord Fairfax’s offer and to ask to ride.
They had started soon after sunrise, and twelve o’clock found them
more than twenty-five miles from Fredericksburg. They stopped at a
road-side tavern for dinner and some hours’ rest. The tavern was
large and comfortable, and boasted the luxury of a private room,
where dinner was served to the earl and his young guest. The
tavern-keeper himself carved for them, and although he treated the
earl with great respect, saying “My lord” at every other word,
according to the custom of the day, there was no servility in his
manner. Like everybody else, he was struck with George’s manner
and appearance on first seeing him, and, finding out that he was the
son of the late Colonel Augustine Washington, made the boy’s face
glow with praise of his father. When the time came to start George
made his request that he be allowed to ride a horse, and he was
immediately given his choice of the four bays. He examined them all
quickly, but with the eye of a natural judge of a horse, and unerringly
picked out the best of the lot. “Do not feel obliged to regulate your
pace by ours,” said the earl. “We are to sleep to-night at Farley’s
tavern, only twenty miles from here, and so you present yourself by
sundown it is enough.”
George mounted and rode off. He found the bay well rested by his
two hours’ halt and ready for his work. He felt so much freer and
happier on horseback than in the chariot that he could not help
wishing he could make the rest of the journey in that way. But he
thought it would scarcely be polite to abandon the earl altogether,
and determined to make the first stage in the coach every day. He
rode on all the afternoon, keeping the high-road with ease, although
towards the end it began to grow wilder and rougher. He reached
Farley’s tavern some time before sundown, and his arrival giving
advance notice of the earl, everything was ready for him, even to a
fine wild turkey roasting on the kitchen spit for supper. Like most of
the road-houses of the day, Farley’s was spacious and comfortable,
though not luxurious. There was a private room there, too, with a
roaring fire of hickory logs on the hearth, for the night had grown
colder. At supper, when there was time to spare, old Lance produced
a box, out of which he took some handsome table furniture and a
pair of tall silver candlesticks. The supper was brought in smoking
hot, Lance bearing aloft the wild turkey on a vast platter. He also
brought forth a bottle of wine of superior vintage to anything that the
tavern cellar could produce.
The earl narrowly watched George as they supped together, talking
meanwhile. He rightly judged that table manners and deportment are
a very fair test of one’s training in the niceties of life, and was more
than ever pleased the closer he observed the boy. First, George
proved himself a skilful carver, and carved the turkey with the utmost
dexterity. This was an accomplishment carefully taught him by his
mother. Then, although he had the ravenous appetite of a fifteen-
year-old boy after a long day’s travel, he did not forget to be polite
and attentive to the earl, who trifled with his supper rather than ate it.
The boy took one glass of wine, and declined having his glass
refilled. His conversation was chiefly replies to questions, and were
so apt that the earl every moment liked his young guest better and
better. George was quite unconscious of the deep attention with
which Lord Fairfax observed him. He thought he had been asked to
Greenway out of pure good-nature, and rather wished to keep in the
background so he should not make his host repent his hospitality.
But a feeling, far deeper than mere good-nature, inspired the earl.
He felt a profound interest in the boy, and was enough a judge of
human nature to see that something remarkable might be expected
of him.
Soon after supper occurred the first inelegance on George’s part. In
the midst of a sentence of the earl’s the boy suddenly and
involuntarily gave a wide yawn. He colored furiously, but Lord Fairfax
burst into one of his rare laughs, and calling Lance, directed him to
show Mr. Washington to his room. George was perfectly willing to go;
but when Lance, taking one of the tall candlesticks, showed him his
room, his eyes suddenly came wide open, and the idea that Lance
could tell him all about the siege of Bouchain, and marching and
starving and fighting with Marlborough, drove the sleep from his eyes
like the beating of a drum.
Reaching the room Lance put the candle on the dressing-table, and,
standing at “attention,” asked:
“Anything else, sir?”
“Yes,” said George, seating himself on the edge of the bed. “How
long will it be before my Lord Fairfax needs you?”
“About two hours, sir. His lordship sits late.”
“Then—then—” continued George, with a little diffidence, “I wish you
would tell me something about campaigning with the Duke of
Marlborough and Prince Eugene, and all about the siege of
Bouchain.”
Lance’s strong, weather-beaten face was suddenly illuminated with a
light that George had not seen on it before, and his soldierly figure
unconsciously took a more military pose.
“’Tis a long story, sir,” he said, “and I was only a youngster and a
private soldier; it is thirty-five years gone now.”
“That’s why I want you to tell it,” replied George. “All the books are
written by the officers, but never a word have I heard from a man in
the ranks. I have read the life of the great Duke of Marlborough, and
also Prince Eugene, but it is a different thing to hear a man tell of the
wars who has burned powder in them.”
“True, sir. And the Duke of Marlborough was the greatest soldier of
our time. We have the Duke of Cumberland now—a brave general,
sir, and brother to the king—but I warrant, had he been at the siege
of Bouchain and in the Low Countries, he would have been licked
worse than Marshal Villars.”
“And Marshal Villars was a very skilful general too,” said George,
now thoroughly wide-awake.
“Certainly, sir, he was. The French are but a mean-looking set of
fellows, but how they can fight! And they have the best legs of any
soldiers in Europe; and I am not so sure they have not the best
heads. I fought ’em for twenty-five years—for I only quitted the
service when I came with my Lord Fairfax to this new country—and I
ought to know. My time of enlistment was up, the great duke was
dead, and there had been peace for so long that I thought soldiers in
Europe had forgot to fight; so when his lordship offered to bring me,
I, who had neither wife nor child, nor father nor mother, nor brother
nor sister, was glad to come with him. I had served in his lordship’s
regiment, and he knew me because I had once—but never mind
that, sir.”
“No,” cried George. “Go on.”
“Well, sir,” said Lance, looking sheepish, “I shouldn’t have spoke of
it; but the fact is, that once when we were transporting powder from
the magazine the wagon broke down and a case exploded. It was a
miracle that all of us were not killed; three poor fellows were marked
for life, and retired on two shillings a day for it. There were plenty of
sparks lying around, and I put some of them out, and we saved the
rest of the powder. That’s all, sir.”
“I understand,” answered George, smiling. “It was a gallant thing,
and no doubt you saved some lives as well as some powder.”
“Maybe so, sir,” said Lance, a dull red showing under the tan and
sunburn of more than fifty years. “My Lord Fairfax made more of it
than ’twas worth. So, when he had left the army, and I thought he
had forgot me, he wrote and asked if I would come to America with
him, and I came. Often, in the winter-time, the earl does not see a
white face for months except mine, and then he forgets that we are
master and man, and only remembers that he is my old commander
and I am an old soldier. The earl was a young cornet in 1710-12, and
was with the armies in the Low Countries, where we had given
Marshal Villars a trouncing, and he gave Prince Eugene a trouncing
back, in exchange. So, sometimes, of the long winter nights, the earl
sends for me and reads to me out of books about that last campaign
of the Duke of Marlborough’s, and says to me, ‘Lance, how was
this?’ And, ‘Lance, do you recollect that?’ Being only a soldier, I
never did know what we were marching and countermarching for,
nor so much as what we were fighting for: but when the earl asks me
what we were doing when we marched from Lens to Aire, or from
Arleux to Bachuel, I can tell him all about the march—whether ’twas
in fine or rainy weather, and how we got across the rivers, and what
rations we had; we often did not have any, and the mounseers were
not much better off. But, Mr. Washington, a Frenchman’s stomach is
not like an Englishman’s. They can sup on soup maigre and lentils
after a hard day’s march, and then get up and shake a leg while
another fellow fiddles. But an Englishman has to have his beef, sir,
and bacon and greens, and a good thick porridge with beans in it. I
think all the nourishment the Frenchmen get goes into their legs, for
they will march day and night for their Grand Monarque, as they call
him, and are always ready to fight.”
“I hope we shall not have to fight the French up in Pennsylvania to
make them keep their boundaries,” said George, after a while, in a
tone which plainly meant that he hoped very much they would have
to fight, and that he would be in the thick of the scrimmage. “And
now tell me how the Duke of Marlborough looked in action, and all
about Prince Eugene, and the siege of Bouchain, until it is time to go
to the earl. But first sit down, for you have had a hard day’s travel.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Lance, sitting down stiffly, and snuffing the
candle with his fingers.
 CHAPTER V
“You are asking me more, sir,” said Lance, with something like a
grim smile on his countenance, “than I could tell you in a month, or
two months. But I can tell you how the Duke of Marlborough looked
in battle, for I belonged to the foot-soldiers, and we were generally
standing still for a time, until the cavalry had showed us where we
were wanted, and we could see the generals riding over the field.
The duke, you must know, sir, was not so very young when I served
under him, but he was still the handsomest man in the British army.
They say when he was a lieutenant that all the great ladies fell in
love with him, and the one he married, I have read in a book, he was
much in love with, but a deal more afraid of her than ever he was of
the Grand Monarque and all his armies. They say it was a joke in
England that the great duke obeyed his duchess and trembled at her
word. But I dare say he is not the only man who ever ruled men and
then let his wife rule him. The duke was a noble sight at parade, with
his splendid chestnut charger, his uniform of red and gold, his
chapeau with plumes, and his great periwig. But, to my mind, he was
a finer sight when the French artillerymen were ploughing up the
ground—the French are monstrous good gunners, Mr. Washington,
and hang on to their batteries like the devil—and the musketry
screaming around, and that old fox, Marshal Villars, was hammering
us in a dozen places at once. Then the duke was as calm as a May
morning, and was full of jokes with his officers, and whistling to
himself a queer kind of a tune with no tune to it. But old Villars never
caught him napping, and was caught napping himself once. That
was the time we took Bouchain.”
George was very much on his guard not to let Lance know that he
had never heard of Bouchain—or if he had read of it in the life of
Marlborough, he had forgotten all about it—so he only said:
“Oh yes—about Bouchain.”
“Well, sir, in the spring of 1711 the great duke arrived in the Low
Countries—and glad enough were all to see him—for not only, we
knew, we could lick the French and Bavarians if we were under him
—but the army was always paid when the great duke commanded,
and fed and clothed, too. I remember when he came back that time
he brought us forty thousand woollen shirts. The kings and queens
thought that we, the common soldiers, did not know what was going
on, but we knew the stay-at-homes were trying to ruin the duke at
court, and that he had hardly been treated civilly when he got to
England, and that three colonels—Meredith, Macartney, and
Heywood—had been cashiered for drinking ‘confusion to the
enemies of the Duke of Marlborough.’ It was while he was away that
the allied army—as ours and our allies was called—had got a
handsome drubbing at Almanza, in Spain, and I can’t say that any of
us cried over it; only we thought we might get drubbed ourselves if
the duke didn’t come back. So you may be sure, Mr. Washington,
that when the news came that the whole army was to rendezvous at
Orchies, and the duke had landed in Holland on his way to us, we
felt better. The queen and the ministry and the parliament might look
coldly on him, but on that bleak April day, when he rode into our
cantonments at Orchies, every British soldier raised his voice in a
huzza for the great duke.
“Marshal Villars had been all the winter throwing up redoubts and all
sorts of works along his lines, from Bouchain, on the Scheldt, which
lay here”—Lance stooped down at this and drew an imaginary line
on the floor, and George got off the bed, and, taking the candle, sat
down on the floor the better to understand—“along the Sanset, which
runs this way. Lord, Mr. Washington, I’ll have to use the boot-jack to
show you about Bouchain and Arras.”
“And here are the snuffers,” eagerly added George, “for Arras; and
here is my pocket-rule, and a piece of chalk.”
Lance seized the chalk.
“The very thing, sir!” And he drew a very fair map upon the floor,
George watching him with bright, intelligent eyes, and afterwards
taking the chalk, straightened up Lance’s rude sketch.
“That’s right, sir,” said Lance, getting down on the floor himself. “It’s a
pleasure to show a young gentleman like you, sir, how it was done,
because you have the understanding of it, if I may make bold to say
so.
“Old Villars, then, being a monstrous sharp general, said to himself,
‘Aha! I’ll beat the long roll on Marlborough now,’ and he had the
astonishing impudence to call his lines ‘Marlborough’s ne plus ultra,’
whatever that is, sir; I don’t exactly know myself, but it is some sort
of impudence in French.”
George laughed a little to himself at Lance’s notion of the old Latin
phrase, but he was too much interested in the story to interrupt.

SKETCHING THE DEFENCES ON THE SCHELDT

“Marshal Villars had near sixty thousand men, and such a gang of
ragamuffins, Mr. Washington, you never saw. But they’d rather fight
than eat; and let an old soldier tell you, sir, whenever you meet the
French, don’t count on licking ’em because they are half starved and
half naked; I believe they fight better the worse off they are for
victuals and clothes. The duke spent two or three weeks studying
their works, and when he got through with it he knew more about
them than Marshal Villars himself did. The summer had come, and
the streams were no longer swollen, and the duke begun to lay his
plans to trap old Villars. The first thing he did was to have a lot of
earthworks thrown up at the place where he did not intend to break
through the French lines. The French, of course, got wind of this,
and drew all their forces away from Vitry, where the duke really
meant to break through and cross the Sanset. All the Frenchmen
were fooled, and Marshal Villars the worst of all. So when, one bright
morning in July, the French scouts reported that Marlborough
himself, with fifty squadrons of horse, was on the march for the
earthworks he had made where he did not mean to cross, old Villars
was cocksure he had him. The duke with his fifty squadrons
marched a good day’s march away from Vitry, the French
scampering off in his direction and concentrating their troops just
where the duke wanted them. Meanwhile, every mother’s son of us
was in marching order—the artillery ready, the pontoons ready,
everybody and everything ready. About midday, seeing the French
had been fooled, the order was given to march, and off we put for
Vitry. As soon as we reached the river we laid the pontoons, and
were drawn up on the bank just waiting for the word to cross. It was
then late in the evening, but we had got news that the duke had
turned around, and was making for us as fast as the horses of his
squadrons could lay their hoofs to the ground. About nine o’clock we
saw the dust of the advance guard down the highway; we heard the
galloping of the horses long before. The instant the duke appeared
the crossing begun, and by sunrise thirty thousand men had crossed
and had joined General Hompesch’s division of ten thousand
between Oise and Estrum—and now we were within Villars’s lines
without striking a blow. ’Twas one of the greatest marches that ever
was, Mr. Washington—ten leagues between nine in the evening and
ten the next morning—thirty thousand infantry, artillery, cavalry,
miners, and sappers.
“Villars found out what was in the wind about midnight, and at two
o’clock in the morning he turned around, and the whole French army
came in pursuit of us; and if you will believe it, sir, they marched
better than we did, and by eleven o’clock in the morning the beggars
were as near Bouchain as we, for Bouchain was what we were after.
’Twas a strong fortress, and the key to that part of France; and if we
could get it we could walk to the heart of France any day we liked.
“Old Villars wanted to bring us to fight, but the duke was too wary for
him. He sat down before Bouchain, that had a large garrison of
picked men, commanded by the bravest officers in the French army,
with stores, guns, and ammunition in plenty. The duke had to make a
causeway over a morass before he could get at ’em at all, and there
was Villars behind us, ready to cut us to pieces, and that stubborn
fortress in front. It was the hardest siege I ever knew, though it was
not the longest. The people at home were clamoring for the duke to
fight Villars instead of taking Bouchain; but the duke knew that if he
could get the fortress he would have the control of three great rivers
—the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Lys—and then we could cut off
any army the Grand Monarque could send against us. ’Tis a deal
harder, sir, to keep men’s spirits up in a siege than in a battle. The
army would rather have been fighting Villars any day; but there we
were, laying trenches, mounting our guns, and every day closing in
on that town. The duke was very anxious after a while to know what
the condition of the town was within the bastions, and every young
cornet and ensign in the army wanted to risk his skin by sneaking in
and finding out. But while the duke was turning this over in his mind
it happened that the enemy sent us a flag of truce in regard to an
armistice. The duke did not want an armistice, but he wanted
mightily to know how things were looking inside, so he agreed to
send a flag of truce back. The French, though, are not to be easily
outwitted, and they made it a condition that the officers sent with the
flag be blindfolded. Three officers went in; but they had their sashes
tied around their eyes, and the only thing they saw when they had
been led blindfolded for a half-mile through the town and into the
citadel was a very handsome room in which the commandant
received them. They talked awhile, but did not come to any terms;
and then the commandant very politely invited them to take some
refreshment, and a regular feast was set out for them—just to make
them think that provisions were plenty—and the French officers who
dined with them ate scarcely anything. But they looked gaunt and
hollow-eyed enough, and I warrant they fell to as soon as the English
officers left. So, after all, Lord Fairfax was the one to get in.”
“Was anybody with him?” asked George.
“Well, sir—the fact is, sir—I was with him.”
George jumped up off the floor, and, seizing Lance’s hand, wrung it
hard in his enthusiasm. Lance smiled one of his grim smiles.
“Young gentlemen are apt to think more of a little thing like that than
it’s worth,” was the old soldier’s commentary on this, as George
again seated himself on the floor and with eloquent and shining eyes
besought Lance to tell him of his entrance into the besieged fortress.
“It was about a week after that, when one night, as I was toasting a
piece of cheese on a ramrod over the fire, up comes quite a nice-
looking young woman and begins to jabber to me in French. She had
on a red petticoat and a blue bodice, like the peasant women in
those parts wear, and a shawl around her, and a cap on her head;
but she did not look like a peasant, but rather like a town milliner.
She had a basket of eggs in her hand, as the people sometimes
brought us to sell, though, poor things, they had very few eggs or
chickens, or anything else. Now I could speak the French lingo
tolerably, for I had served so many years where it was spoke, so we
begun bargaining for the eggs, and she kept up a devil of a
chattering. At last we agreed on two pistoles for the lot, and I handed
out the money, when suddenly she flew into a rage, threw the money
in my face, and, what was worse, began to pelt me with sticks and
stones and even the eggs. That brought some of my comrades
around, and, to my surprise, she begun to talk in a queer sort of
French-English, saying I had cheated her, and a lot more stuff, and,
stamping on the ground, demanded to be taken to an officer. Just
then two young officers happened to be passing, and they stopped
to ask what the row was about. The young woman then poured forth
her story, and I was in an ace of being put in the guard-house when
she whispered something to one of them, and he started as if he had
been shot. Then he whispered it to the other one, and presently all
three—the young woman and the two officers—begun to laugh as if
they would crack their sides. This was not very pleasant for me,
standing there like a post, with rage in my heart; the more so, when
one of the officers, laughing still, told me it was all right, and I could
go back to my cheese and ramrod, and they went off in one direction
in the darkness and the young woman in another. They were hardly
out of sight when back comes the young woman again. As you may
think, I never wanted to clap my eyes on her again; but she slapped
me on the shoulder and said, ‘Lance, my man, don’t you know me?’
and it was—it was—”
George was so eager at this point that he crawled on all fours up to
Lance and gazed breathlessly into his face.
“It was Lord Fairfax dressed up as a woman! And he says, when I
had come to myself a little, for I nearly dropped dead with surprise, ‘If
I can fool my own men and my own brother officers, I ought to be
able to fool the Frenchmen into letting me into the town.’ And sure
enough, Mr. Washington, that was exactly what he did.”
Lance paused to get the full dramatic effect of this. It was not wasted
on his young listener, for George gave a gasp of astonishment that
spoke volumes, and his first words, when speech returned to him,
were:
“Go on—go on quick!”
“Well, sir, Lord Fairfax told me that he had a scheme to get in the
town as a woman, and I was to go with him as his servant, because I
could speak the lingo, and on the frontier there they have so many
accents that they couldn’t tell if you were a Dutchman or an
Englishman or a Russian or a Prussian; and, besides, my lord said,
my French had a High-Dutch twang that couldn’t be excelled. He
was a week thinking it over and practising in his tent. Of course, he
didn’t tell but one or two persons what he was after; he meant it to be
as secret as possible. So when he would send for me to his tent at
night every crack and cranny would be stopped, and there would be
just one or two young officers putting the earl through his paces, as it
were. He was a slim, handsome young man then, and when he got a