Shoulder the Sky_ A Novel - Anne Perry [49]
He deserved honesty. “It was real,” she said. “I imagine it still is. My brother Matthew is certain we inflicted only a temporary defeat. It is another war, different weapons from this, only a few people who know they’re fighting it, the rest of us to be moved around like herds of animals, but it’s a shadow of this one. Except I think that’s not true, it is the real one, and we are the reflection cast, the unreality, pulled by it, not pulling.”
“Eldon spoke of a new order.” He was looking at her intently now. “He seemed to imagine he would have a place in it. He had a passion in him, as if he were a disciple rather than an adventurer, and certainly not simply a tool of someone else’s cause. What political conspiracy could inspire that in him, Miss Reavley?”
“Peace,” she replied quietly.
He was startled. “Peace!”
“At the cost of surrendering France and Belgium in return for German military help to regain our lost colonies, like America.”
“God Almighty!” He was ashen. “Are you sure?”
“That is what the document said.”
“But you don’t know who is behind it?”
“No. We call him the Peacemaker, but we have only the vaguest idea who he must be.” Was she telling him more than she should? Had she already broken her promise to Matthew and Joseph in telling Cullingford this much? But he could not be connected with it! He had given his life to fighting to defend the country he loved and the way of life he believed in. If all of them were so distrustful they spoke to no one, that in itself would ensure the Peacemaker’s victory.
Cullingford was waiting. He looked tired and so easy to hurt. Prentice was his nephew and she knew from Hadrian’s expression, the odd words he had let slip to her, awkwardly, as if he wanted her help but would not ask for it, that the relationship was difficult, full of criticisms and resentments. Their values were different and they were too close to disagree with respect.
Suddenly she was furiously angry with Prentice for his supreme self-centeredness in allowing his petty family squabbles to make even one man falter in his step, let alone a general upon whom other lives depended.
“The Peacemaker has to be someone who had access to both the kaiser and the king, sir,” she said firmly. “Someone with the total arrogance to assume that they have the moral right to make decisions that affect the rest of the world, without even telling us, let alone asking us. And he had to know both Sebastian Allard and my father personally. That narrows it down rather a lot, but it still leaves dozens of people—I think.”
“Who is Sebastian Allard?” he said gently, as if he guessed, although he spoke of him in the present.
She forced herself to keep her voice steady, but it was difficult. Her breath was tight in her chest. “The student of Joseph’s who killed my parents, to get the document back.”
“And failed . . .”
“Yes.”
“I see. I think we may assume that the Peacemaker has not given up his aim. The question is how has he redirected his forces, and what are his targets now?” He bit his lower lip. “He will want the war over as soon as possible, and presumably he does not care greatly who wins. No! No, it would be better for his purposes if Germany does. The kaiser must already have signed the treaty, because it was on its way to the king. We do not know if the king would have signed it or not.” He began to pace back and forth, four steps and then turn, four steps and then turn, restless, caged in by more than the plastered and paneled walls. “Germany, he can rely on, England he cannot. But if Germany wins, then a new government would be formed in England—one that would do as Germany told it—it would have no choice.”
Judith stood still, watching him, cold inside. John Reavley would have liked him. They had the same kind of quiet, irresistible logic. It was utterly reasonable, and yet it never frightened her because the human