The Adventurers

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  He refused with unruffled cheerfulness: ‘First come, first served is the rule of the road, as you well know. Be grateful to me, gentlemen, that I consent, for your sakes, to accommodate this boy, who doubtless snores like one of those new steam engines.’ He had been superintending the landlord’s operations in his room as he spoke and now returned to the fire, a pack of cards in his hand. ‘And now, what say you to a game of whist while we wait for this meal, which should be delicious, judging by the time the good woman is taking to prepare it.’

  ‘Cards? Why not?’ said the older of the two Austrians. ‘But unless the boy plays, we shall lack a fourth.’

  ‘How about it, urchin? Will you join us?’ Vincent returned from the corner of the room with a small bench to be used as a card table and put it down close to the stove. ‘What’s the matter?’ He added, ‘have you caught cold?’

  Sonia was still sitting huddled up in her heavy jacket. ‘A little, I think.’ And then—anything to distract attention from her appearance—‘Yes, I can play whist.’

  ‘Excellent. Cut for partners, gentlemen?’

  To Sonia’s relief, she found herself partnering Vincent against the two Austrians. To his, he found her an admirable partner. Whist had been her father’s only indoor relaxation. One of her earliest memories was of him playing three-handed with her mother and Miss Barrymore and losing his temper because his wife could never keep track of the cards. When her mother had died, Sonia had, inevitably, taken her place at the card table, since Frederic was too like his father to be bullied into submission. Sonia, on the other hand, realised, even as a child, that if Father was playing whist with her and Miss Barrymore in the little parlour Barry had made so snug, he was not downstairs, drinking himself black-tempered in the dining hall. Besides, she had a natural aptitude for figures. It was no trouble to her to keep count of the cards in her head and Father was soon hailing her as an infant prodigy.

  It was soothing to concentrate on the cards that were played, and the deductions to be made from them. The Austrians, clearly, had not played together before, and as the older was an extremely rash, and the younger an absurdly cautious player, they were at odds in no time. Vincent, on the other hand, played very well indeed and was soon paying her the compliment of assuming that she too knew what she was doing. After the second game, gathering up the cards and shuffling them with careless expertise, he looked across at the older Austrian. ‘It passes the time,’ he said, ‘but would be more amusing if we played for a small stake. A dollar a hundred, perhaps? Picayune, I grant you, but you will forgive me if I suggest no more, since I shall doubtless have to pay the boy’s losses as well as my own.’

  Losses? Sonia gave him a sharp little look. Judging by the experience of the first two games, they were more likely to win handsomely. This did not, however, seem to occur to the Austrians, who had been drinking steadily and who were not anyway equipped to draw the swift deductions she and Vincent had from those first two hands. They agreed, carelessly enough, and the game continued.

  When the landlady finally announced dinner, there was a pleasant little pile of winnings by Sonia’s place and the Austrians were grumblingly surprised, exclaiming at what they called their opponents’ run of luck.

  Vincent agreed with them blandly as they drew up their stools to the table. ‘You shall have your revenge after dinner, gentlemen. The luck must change presently.’

  Once again, spooning up thick soup, Sonia gave him a sharp glance. He must know as well as she did that the two of them had held only reasonably good hands. Skill, not luck, had won for them. He met her glance with cool grey eyes. ‘Shall we take them on again, urchin, or will it be too long past your bedtime?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She was, in fact, drooping with fatigue, but not too tired to calculate. Vincent was drinking a great deal less than the Austrians, but enough so that they would not notice this. Surely if they played for another hour or so, he must fall asleep at once when he finally went to bed, which would much simplify the looming problem of sharing his room. Besides—she felt the surprising weight of her purse—it would be pleasant to arrive at Aunt Gertrude’s with a little money for immediate expenses, and she had no doubt that they would continue to win after dinner, as they had done before. It would take a most unusual run of luck to make up for the Austrians’ bad play.

  The soup was followed by a dish of sauerkraut and the old fowl that the landlady had been systematically boiling towards tenderness. Vincent and the older Austrian were discussing the chances of a rapid Allied advance against the French and Sonia was interested to see the deference with which the Austrian listened to Vincent’s view that all would be lost in talk. ‘They discuss: Napoleon acts.’ He was carving the bird with thin, skilful brown hands…hands… For a little while, she had forgotten. Now, with a rush it all came back: the soldiers swaggering out of the stable below her, coarse hands busy about their clothes. Vincent had served her now, but the food was dust and ashes. She jumped up, headed blindly for the door and got outside just in time to be horribly sick in a corner of the yard.

  Returning, pale and chilled, to huddle again by the stove, she was teased, inevitably, by the Austrians. ‘Drop too much, eh?’ For once it was the younger one who spoke. He swayed towards her, tankard in hand. ‘A drop more will put all to rights. Come on, drink up!’

  ‘No, thank you.’ She leaned away from him, but he pushed the tankard towards her. ‘Drink up, I say, boy!’

  ‘No!’ She pushed the mug away so violently that some of the wine it held spilled down his jacket

  He swore, and reached for his sword, but, somehow Vincent was between them. ‘Leave the boy alone. He’s had a hard day—as have we all. Besides,’ he added lightly, ‘if you kill him, which I am sure you would find easy enough, who will make our fourth at cards? You are to have your revenge, remember?’

  ‘Revenge,’ he muttered, stupid with the wine he had drunk. And then, his anger forgotten as quickly as it had come, ‘And I am to sit next the stove this time. The luck will change, so; I am sure of it.’ He picked up his stool and moved it to the position Vincent had occupied earlier in the evening. The other Austrian crossed the room to join them, belching contentedly. If he had noticed the little scene by the stove, he gave no sign of it. ‘Back to work, gentlemen,’ he picked up the cards and shuffled them clumsily with great butcher’s hands.

  ‘You are well enough to play?’ Vincent was still standing between Sonia and the others. His face and voice alike suggested that she had better be.

  ‘Of course.’ Nothing for it but to take the hint, though she longed, almost unbearably, for quiet, the dark, the forgetfulness of sleep.

  ‘Good. Well, gentlemen, what’s it to be? Another round with the same partners or shall we cut again? It’s all one to me, though it looks as if the urchin here may be a dead loss as a partner. Shall we cut again?’

  ‘No, no,’ growled the older Austrian. ‘We were to have our revenge, remember. If the boy’s taken too much, that’s your worry.’

  ‘Oh, very well.’ Vincent shrugged, having achieved, Sonia was sure, exactly what he intended. Settling herself opposite him, she watched the brown hands deal as expertly as they had carved. They were good hands, long, graceful, bearing out her first impression that whatever else he might be, he was a gentleman. He was watching her. Slowly, reluctantly, her eyes rose to meet his cool grey ones. Cool? Now they were smiling at her out of a totally serious face, telling her—what? They were giving her courage—that was it. Don’t despair, they were saying. Well—she gathered up her cards for the first game of the new session—at least she would concentrate. The Austrians, clumsily arranging their cards, were still talking about the luck changing. They had no idea…

  How odd it all was. She had hardly met any men of her own class save Father and Frederic. When Miss Barrymore had suggested that it was time to be considering marriages for her, time for her to see something of the world, and be seen by it, Father had merely growled that peace would be ti
me enough for that. ‘If it ever comes.’ She knew nothing about men, had always expected to be helpless with shyness when she was first plunged into society… Well, of course, this was not exactly society…

  ‘Clubs are trumps, partner.’ Vincent’s voice warned her that the game was about to begin. She shook herself out of her abstraction and concentrated her attention on the game. Vincent obviously wanted to win, and she owed it to him to do her best. Leading a significant singleton knave of diamonds, she looked at him thoughtfully across the table. Handsome enough, in a brown, burned-down, high-polished sort of a way, and with the manner and charm of a complete gentleman, he was, she began to suspect, most likely one of the class of professional gamblers of whom Frederic had spoken so furiously. But then, Frederic had lost a year’s rents at hazard and had always maintained that the dice had been loaded. He might well have been right, but—here she trumped her partner’s diamond lead—Vincent did not need to cheat.

  Curiously enough, it was just at this point in her thoughts that the older Austrian brought his hand down with a crash on the table and said, ‘The devil’s own luck! I never saw anything like it.’ And then, after a little pause, ‘I have a pack of cards somewhere. I suggest we finish the evening with them.’

  Nothing seemed to shake Vincent’s calm. ‘By all means, if you would prefer it. They could hardly be greasier than mine.’ He had no intention, it seemed, of taking offence, and conversed casually about indifferent subjects while the Austrian fetched and shuffled the cards, then slammed them down on the table and cut the pack to Vincent, whose deal it was.

  ‘Let’s see how you prosper with those,’ he said.

  ‘You think the luck will change with the cards?’ Vincent’s voice was cool. ‘Well, I have seen stranger things.’

  ‘I dare swear you have,’ growled the Austrian, picking up his cards. ‘Well; we shall see.’

  Sonia sorted hers with a hand that trembled a little. If she had wanted to win before, she was desperate to do so now. The only way to prove the Austrian’s insinuations false was for her and Vincent to continue their winning streak with the cards he had produced. And this time her hand was a wretched one, with nothing higher than a knave. Sorting it, she met Vincent’s eyes with her own anxious ones. He smiled at her reassuringly, and cut for trumps. They were spades, her longest suit: things might not be so bad after all.

  They won that game by a narrow margin, thanks mainly to the younger Austrian’s failure to return his partner’s lead, and the next two easily, since they held better cards, and were now playing together as if they had done so all their lives. This ended their second rubber and once again the little pile of coins by Sonia’s place grew higher.

  Having paid up, the older Austrian rose abruptly to his feet. ‘It’s growing late,’ he said, ‘and we have far to go in the morning.’

  Vincent gathered up the cards and handed them to him. ‘They did not change your luck,’ he said quietly.

  The Austrian gave him look for look, then, suddenly, he laughed. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘I admit it. You outplayed us. But you had the devil’s own luck too, admit! I’ve never seen so many lucky leads. If I didn’t know you’d met for the first time tonight—well, I might be wondering.’

  Vincent laughed lightly. ‘Don’t wonder,’ he said. ‘We did meet for the first time tonight, and we were lucky, weren’t we, urchin?’ He pocketed his winnings. ‘And,’ he added significantly, ‘we all have more important things to do than quarrel over a game of cards.’ He yawned. ‘You’re right. Time for bed, urchin, and if you snore, I’ll strangle you.’

  The moment of tension had passed. They said goodnight as amicably as if the hint of cheating had not hovered over the card table. Shutting and bolting the rough but heavy door of their room behind them, Vincent laughed and stretched largely as he moved over to his bed. ‘A good day for me, urchin, when I chose to back you up in that tale of a cock and a bull you told. I don’t know when I’ve won so much so fast. But now, what am I to do with you? Running away from home, I suppose? Brutal parents? All that? Join the army and see the world? I don’t recommend it, and I should know; I tried it. Look where it got me: Moscow and frostbite.’ He had thrown off his jacket and now sat down on his bed and began to pull off his boots. ‘Give me a hand, will you?’

  Reluctantly, Sonia crossed the room and knelt down beside him. This friendly inquisition was worse than anything she had imagined. She could feel the clear eyes considering her, as she knelt, awkwardly, by the bed. Absurd to imagine they could see right through her disguise. It was just—she did not want to be so near to this slight, steel-keen stranger. Something in her vibrated as she reached out, reluctantly, for the first boot. But she had done this for Father often enough. For all she was worth, she pretended she was doing so now. As for her hope that, by bedtime, Vincent would be, if not actually drunk, at least too fuddled to do anything but fall asleep, she might as well give it up at once. He was leaning forward now, alarmingly close, to give her a searching look as she knelt with the second boot in her arms.

  ‘You smell very good, for a country boy. Eau de cologne, I’d say. There’s more to this than a boy’s truancy, or my name’s not Charles Vincent. Let’s think: Saxony, Württemberg? Or one of the minor families, maybe? Runaway princes are two a penny these days, but there might be something in it, still. Come on, boy, I’m your friend, I promise. I owe you something for the way you returned my leads tonight. Tell me who you are, and I’ll see you safe to your friends. And no need to look so scared either. I told you, I’m on your side.’

  Sonia had dropped the boot and backed away towards her pallet in the corner to which the dim candlelight hardly reached. She managed a convincing yawn. ‘I’m too tired to talk now.’ In her turn, she sat down on the straw mattress and began to wriggle her feet out of Frederic’s boots. ‘In the morning—’

  ‘Afraid I’ll recognise you, eh?’ To her horror he crossed the room, soft-footed, knelt on the floor beside her and began to help her with the right boot. ‘One good turn deserves another, and besides—should I have been serving you kneeling, all this time? Maybe you should have the good bed? How about it? Saxony? Württemberg? The Bavarians are on our side now, so not one of them. Or—French, perhaps? One of the marshals’ sons? That would explain it.’ He laughed. ‘And spent the evening, cool as a cucumber, drubbing a couple of Austrian officers at cards! By God, I hope it’s that. And no need to fear me, either. I had a French mother, remember. I’m on no one’s side but my own—and now, yours.’

  Worse and worse. She racked her brain. Had the King of Saxony sons? The fat old King of Württemberg certainly had, but were they not too old? As for the French marshals, she knew too little about them to pretend to be one of their sons.

  He had taken off her second boot now, and was still kneeling on the floor, looking up at her. His face was in the shadow but she was uncomfortably aware of those clear, considering grey eyes. ‘Thinking up a new story? Wasting your time. I haven’t played cards with you all evening for nothing. You’re no fool; but nor am I. The truth or nothing, see. But the morning will be time enough. Only don’t think you can get away before I wake; I’m the lightest sleeper I know.’

  She had been thinking that very thing. It seemed that he was right: he could indeed read her mind. He rose and stood over her, speaking more gently now. ‘You’re exhausted,’ he said. ‘It’s late for urchins, even royal ones. To bed with you. We’ll talk in the morning.’ And then, as she still sat there, looking up at him: ‘Bed, child.’ He reached down to help her out of the heavy jacket she had kept on all evening.

  ‘No. I—I want to say my prayers. Do you go to bed; I’ll blow out the candle when I’ve done.’

  ‘And then steal away, I’ll wager, while I’m snoring. I’m too old a bird to be caught with that kind of chaff.’ And with the words, one iron hand on her shoulder spun her round, while the other began to undo the fastenings of her jacket. ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ His exploring hand travelled down
from her shoulder and over the small breast. ‘Not an urchin, but a baggage. So you had me fooled after all! A prince indeed—how you must have laughed. A camp follower, more like; and French, no doubt, as I suggested. Well, well, this is my good day.’ The grip on her shoulder loosened into a caress, his hand warm through the thin fabric of Frederic’s threadbare shirt ‘If you play at love as well as you do at cards, I’m in luck indeed.’

  His hand on her breast sent a strange tremor through her and at the same time, she remembered Gretchen’s face, and those of the soldiers who had killed her. Her hand found the little gun she had pushed into the jacket pocket; she pulled away with one frantic movement, and faced him. ‘If you come near me, I’ll shoot you.’

  ‘Dear me.’ His voice was as calm as when he had confronted the angry Austrian. ‘How very melodramatic. Do, my dear baggage, put that gun away; I’m sure you’re a lamentable shot, and besides, think of the excitement in the house. Surely not what you want at all? As for coming near you, heaven forbid, if you feel so strongly about it. There’ve been enough women in my life, and will be again, I hope. I don’t need to trouble myself with a half-grown spitfire. What’s the matter, though? Following a lover in the army? I must say your spirit does you credit. I don’t suppose he’s worth it for a minute.’ And then, impatiently, ‘Oh, do please put that gun away. Tuck it under your pillow if you like, and shoot me if I come near you in the night, which, I promise you, I won’t If I’ve got to have my face scratched, I’d rather a cat than a kitten any day. You’re safe enough with me, infant.’ Ignoring the gun, which she still held in a trembling hand, he moved across the room to pick up his jacket from the big bed. ‘I had a feeling the pallet would be my lot, and I was right. Shall I turn my back while your ladyship gets herself to bed? Don’t shoot me in the back, mind, with that deadly weapon of yours, which, by the way, you have forgotten to cock.’

  ‘Oh!’ She looked down at the useless gun, then dropped it from a limp and shaking hand.