Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [60]
Ali, his childhood nick-name—it took me aback to hear Iris use what I thought of as Alistair’s real name. I watched Iris complete her circuit of the outer circle, then step inside to perform the same touching ritual with the inner stones. These were in better condition—either that, or had started out taller—because she did not have to stoop as often to reach them. When the second round was fulfilled, she walked straight up-hill from the monument, then stopped, turned, and sat down on a low boulder overgrown with grass and dead nettles.
There were three stones in a row—placed there, I thought, not buried in the ground by ancient Britons. I envisioned these three childhood friends, of disparate ages and peculiarly entwined futures, laboriously hauling the river-smoothed boulders here for viewing. I sat on the end rock, then looked at the one between us.
“Who generally sat in the middle?” I asked her.
“Marsh. Marsh was always in the centre.”
“He still is.”
“Do you know how he came by that scar?” she asked abruptly. “He fingers it, when he’s troubled—I’m sure you’ve noticed. I don’t know why.”
To feel his shame, I thought, but bit my tongue hard against the words. When Mahmoud’s finger-tips traced that shiny brown welt, they had been recalling the shame of capture and torture, the abject humiliation of a proud spirit at the hands of a Turkish madman. Marsh’s fingers, I thought, were reminding him that he was a Hughenfort for whom righteousness had not been strength enough.
“War injury,” I merely told her.
“It changed him,” she said. “When first he came to France with it, he was not the same man.” She sighed. “Poor, poor man. He’s going to be so unhappy if he stays.”
“Will it affect you?”
“I’ll not move here, if that’s what you’re asking. But I should think it will require regular visits from Paris, in order to keep up appearances.”
It was peaceful in that lonely place populated only by a stand of gnarled stones and abandoned trees. I thought perhaps the reason Marsh had excused himself from the outing was not the pressure of work, but his unwillingness to encounter these mute reminders of uncomplicated youth and its long, free days beneath the summer sun.
“You haven’t met this boy Thomas who’s coming over on Wednesday? Lionel’s son?”
“I haven’t. The mother lives in France—Lyons, isn’t it? During the War, I could never see a reason to go out of my way and introduce myself, and since then, no-one seems to know where she lives.”
“Did you ever meet the other nephew, Gabriel?”
“Him I did meet, yes.”
“When was that?”
“When he was an infant, the first time; then when Marsh’s father died and we all came here for the funeral. He must have been about four. And a few times when Henry and Sarah were passing through France. But the last time was just a few months before he died, when he came to see me for two days.”
I looked at her, startled by the raw grief in her voice. Her face gave nothing away, but I had not mistaken the depth of emotion. “You liked him?”
“Gabriel was a lovely, lovely boy. Intelligent, beautifully mannered—the sort of manners that come from within, from being thoughtful. Not tall but well made, with a grace that made me think he would be a good dancer. Quiet. Passionate. Deeply loyal. Gabriel reminded me of his father at that age.”
“Henry must have been devastated.”
She blinked, as if she’d been suddenly pulled back from a place far away and infinitely kinder. “Henry. You never met him, did you? No, of course not. Poor man. He was so proud of Gabriel. Marsh thinks he suspected that his son had been executed. I hope not. I pray that Henry went to his grave believing that Gabriel died honourably. It would have mattered terribly to him.”
“Marsh seems fairly sure of Gabriel’s fate,” I commented.
“You’ve seen the letters?”
“Alistair gave them me, yesterday” was all I would say. She took it as agreement.
“Then you’ll have seen. Once the thought occurs, it is hard to read the Hastings letter in any other way.” She sounded bleak; the boy had made quite an impression on her