Page 68 of Confounding Oaths
Mr. Caesar let his head thunk back on the pillow and gave a hollow laugh. “And you think I do. It may have escaped your notice, Orestes”—
“Captain James.”
—“but I’ve hadrather a trying day.”
His arms folded hard against a chest that somebody who was interested in such things might find distracting, the captain leaned against the wall, a careful study in idle power. “We tried. We failed. That’s war.”
“Well, I’m not a warrior. I’m a gentleman.”
“And I’m a soldier, not a fucking rent boy.”
Mr. Caesar heaved a theatrical sigh. “Then I suppose we both have our limitations. Perhaps we can address them in the morning.”
If Mr. Caesar had expected that to be the end of it (and I couldnot tell if he did, because he could not tell himself), he was to be sorely disappointed. Captain James did not move from his place by the wall.
“I amgrateful,” Mr. Caesar continued, “for everything you have done for Mary. But I wish now to be alone.”
“I don’t want your gratitude.” There was an atypical sharpness in Captain James’s voice. “What I’ve done for Mary I’d do for anyone. Man or woman; French or English; Black, White, rich or poor. I learned to fight for my king, but I’d rather fight for them as need it.”
Rolling over so as to face away from the captain, Mr. Caesar carried on talking to the wall. “Then why are you here?”
“Why are you?”
The list of reasons that Mr. Caesar was choosing, in those particular circumstances, to hide away in a low tavern frequented by soldiers and vagabonds was long and rambling. But it could be condensed down to a convenient five words. “I needed to get away.”
And that, at last, broke Captain James’s stoicism. He crossed the room with a warrior’s swiftness, put a hand on Mr. Caesar’s shoulder, and flipped him back to face him. “This isn’taway,Caesar. It’shere.It’s my life. It’s Callaghan’s life, and Boy William’s life, and Kumar’s and Sal’s. And you’re welcome to stay with us if you’rewith us,but not if you’re just trying not to be somewhere else.”
The sensible thing to do, Mr. Caesar was aware, was to stay. To accept that yes, he had been taking the support of the captain and his fellows somewhat for granted. To admit that some part of him was, in fact, runningtoas much as runningfrom.To say that he was afraid and ashamed and tired and sorry.
But pride was hereditary in the aristocracy and Mr. Caesarchose this particular moment to be, once more, the grandson of an earl rather than any of his many other selves. So he rose, pulled on his shoes, and bid the captain a cold “Very well.”
“Don’t be an arse, Caesar. It’s late, it’s dark, and you don’t know the streets.”
Gathering his cravat, since he did not have the time to retie it, Mr. Caesar looked back, an image of civility. “A gentleman does not stay where he is not welcome.”
“A gentleman doesn’t last two minutes in St. Giles at this time of night.”
Pride, as I say, was hereditary in the aristocracy. Which is in some ways a strike against the Darwinian theory because it is most definitely not a trait for which nature selects. Mr. Caesar gave a firm nod, bid the captain good evening, and left.
And, reader, you may be certain that I followed.
By the year of some people’s lord 1815 the gas lamps were beginning to light the London streets, but they were restricted to the parts of the city about which the government gave a shit. Which meant that the only light in the streets of St. Giles came from the candles that burned in the windows of the few locals who could afford the luxury.
It was a clear night, which was a blessing. But moon and stars do not by themselves give humans any great ability to see what is in front of them (then again, neither does broad daylight much of the time; you are such a limited species). So Mr. Caesar stumbled over uneven streets in shoes better suited for a ballroom, and as he travelled he caught the attention of every ne’er-do-well, sometimes-does-well, and could-do-better in the district.
His cravat, loosely gripped in one hand, was yanked from his grasp by a small child who struck from the shadows and vanishedback to the same with no more warning than a cheery “’Scuse me, mister.”
And while he was mourning its loss, kicking himself for his stubbornness, and wondering whether it was a blessing or curse that he’d not brought his purse, he felt the cold press of a pistol barrel in his back and heard a soft, familiar voice whisper, “Perhaps you would be so good as to come with me.”
Had events fallen out in a more convenient manner this would have been a delightful moment to jump away and begin following Miss Caesar, leaving the reader to wonder what terrible fate might have befallen her brother in the meantime. But they did not fall out conveniently, and when I went to check on the lady (briefly adopting the shape of her dog, Ferdinand) I found her … not sleeping, she did not sleep anymore, but standing in her room statue-still and silent. She expressed some little pleasure at seeing me, but since she did not feel inclined, at that time, to speak her thoughts aloud to a convenient canine, I gave her up as a bad job, slunk under the bed, and reemerged in my mist-and-shadow shape to follow her hapless sibling.
It took a little searching to track him down again, but my innate advantages of speed and perspicacity made it a far simpler job for me than it would be for a lesser being.
He was by the river, on a muddy bank near water that, at more sociable hours, would be a staging ground for eel-trappers and river-dredgers trying to eke a living from the open sewer of the Thames. Now, however, it was home to four men in red. Three robed and masked, one decidedly not.
The major sneered. “I said you hadn’t seen the last of me, Caesar.”
Relatively certain that he had less than an hour to live, Mr. Caesar saw little to be gained through politeness. “Yes, then you tried to have Captain James discharged, and failed. Then you challenged me to a duel, and failed. You’ll forgive me for not taking your threats seriously.”
