by Anne Perry
Mason still did not answer. Everything Matthew was describing was a world away from the high ideals with which he and the Peacemaker had begun, but Matthew had not seen South Africa in the Boer War: the slaughter of men; the caging of women and children in camps, starving and imprisoned. He’d had no conception before this of what total war was like.
Finally he looked up at Matthew’s face in the lamplight. “If you had known, in 1914, what this would have been like, the sheer overwhelming horror of it, would you have tried to stop it?” he asked, then wished he had not. He sounded like an apologist for the Peacemaker, and he was frightened by how powerful the compulsion was within him to be honest, to cleanse himself from lies. But he had asked, and he had to wait for the answer.
Matthew looked surprised. “Maybe,” he admitted. “I don’t know. If I had, I hope it would have been openly, without betrayal. But it would have been futile. The balance of power was fatally flawed in Europe. We could never have bought peace without coercion and oppression. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was collapsing from within. So was Russia, in its own way. If you are asking me if I could see that at the time, no, of course not, not clearly enough to have done anything useful about it. Could you?”
“No. But I might have thought I could.” Mason had already come closer to honesty than he should have. “What has this to do with finding out who murdered Sarah Price?”
“The Peacemaker hasn’t given up yet,” Matthew said with a jerky little laugh. “He’s still in power, and there’s the armistice and its terms to negotiate, and all the peace after that to fight for. If we get it wrong we could sow the seeds of another war just as terrible as this.”
“Didn’t you say he wanted peace?” Mason asked, remembering everything the Peacemaker had said about crushing German industry and creating a huge vacuum in the economy of Europe.
“Peace on his terms,” Matthew amended. “He still hasn’t learned that you can’t force people without at the same time destroying them. He may well be an idealist, but that does not excuse the lies or betrayal of trust. It is the final arrogance to blind us so he can lead us whatever way he will, and we would have no power to resist. The fact that he believes he’s right is irrelevant. We all believe we are right. Some of us even are.”
Mason smiled very slightly, moving only his lips. “You want the right to go to hell in your own fashion?”
The shadow of humor touched Matthew’s face as well, uncertainly. “If you like to put it that way, yes. The point is, one of the Peacemaker’s allies in Germany has come through the lines. He’s willing to come to London and identify him to Lloyd George.”
Mason now saw with hideous clarity what Matthew was doing here in the front line, and why he cared so intensely that Schenckendorff not be executed for a crime he had apparently not committed. Possibly even if he had committed it, the price was too great, at least to the Reavleys. Mason wondered what Joseph thought of it.
Matthew mistook his silence. “I know it’s not simple,” he said earnestly. “Much that the Peacemaker wanted is right, and perhaps to begin with he was the most farsighted, the sanest of us all. But he usurped power to which he had no right. He is a man fatally flawed by the weakness to abuse it. Right or wrong in his vision, he can’t be trusted not to betray, to kill, to corrupt in order to keep that power in his own hands. And once he has it, it’s too late to change if you find you have no way to control him, or to take it back from him.
“Our war was worse than anything we could have imagined,” Matthew went on, still watching Mason intently. “But what would his empire have been? And how long might it have lasted? I don’t know. We didn’t make the choice seeing all the way; no one ever does. We do it step by step, doing our best with each one, trying to see where it will lead. Sometimes we’re wrong. But to decide for others, against their will, has to be an arrogance we can’t allow. That kind of power is more than any man has the wisdom or the morality to handle.”
Mason was desperately tempted to ease his hammering conscience by telling the truth of his own part. He longed to explain what he had seen in Africa and why he had tried so desperately to stop it from happening again; why he had seen the same vision as the Peacemaker, and believed in him. It would be a relief to speak honestly, justify at least his beliefs, however they had ended. But it was a luxury he could not afford, a selfishness to ease his own burden of guilt. It was an excuse too small for the cause, and the immeasurable sacrifice of others. Mere discomfort was so trivial it would be obscene to mention it.
He looked up at last and met Matthew’s eyes. “So that’s why you need to get Schenckendorff off this charge, and to London. What can I do to help?” He could have told them who the Peacemaker was, but he would have to tell them how he knew, and why should they believe him? It would appear entirely self-serving. The Peacemaker would deny it. Of course he would. Mason was stunned at his own gullibility; even now he had no proof. There was not and had never been anything in writing. The Peacemaker had always said it was for the protection of them both, above all of the cause, but perhaps primarily it was for his own safety. He trusted no one. It was oddly painful to understand now that that had always included Mason himself.
Nor would the Reavleys dare to trust him if they knew the part he had played. They would not know how totally Mason had at last understood what he had done, and seen it in its futility, its final ugliness.
He must tell them nothing, however badly the guilt twisted inside him and set him apart and alone.
“Help us find and prove who killed Sarah Price,” Matthew told him. “Or at least demonstrate irrefutably that it wasn’t Schenckendorff.”
Mason’s decision was without shadow. It was a long path back, one he might never complete, but he knew how to begin. “When do we start?”
Joseph returned from the front line with more wounded. As soon as he had seen them into the orderlies’ care, he went to Matthew. They stood together in the evening light as it splashed red and pink over the puddles across what had been no-man’s-land. It was one of the few places where they would be uninterrupted.
“It isn’t Schenckendorff,” Matthew said. “But we’re not much closer to knowing who it is.”
“I didn’t think it was him,” Joseph replied unhappily, staring across the now-gaudy mud. The sunset burned in the sky to the northwest. Perhaps it was foolish, but he had hoped for something more definite. He was weary, his body ached, and he had several gashes on his arms from old barbed wire still embedded in the clay. “Doesn’t it help with proving who did it? How are you certain?” Then he asked the question to which he would rather not have had to know the answer. “Who lied?”
Matthew’s face was almost invisible in the shadows, but his voice was pinched. “I know because one of the other women was violently raped almost a month before Schenckendorff came through the lines.”
Joseph drew in his breath, only beginning to imagine the horror of it.
“Don’t ask me who,” Matthew said quickly. “I can’t tell you. I believe it. That’s all anyone needs to know.”
“I see. Poor woman.” Joseph could understand very easily why her only chance for healing might lie in anonymity, the certainty that none of her friends or colleagues was ever aware that it had happened, still less that she was the victim. “Can you help her?” He also understood why she had chosen Matthew, a relative stranger, to tell. She might find it too difficult, too humiliating, if it were a man she knew, even the chaplain.
“I’ll try.” Matthew seemed happy to dismiss the subject, at least for the present.
Joseph saw Lizzie very briefly during the long, busy night. More wounded men arrived, none of them critical. But then a junior officer of nineteen who lost a leg was brought in, and Cavan struggled all night to save his life. The shock of the amputation, and then the long journey in the ambulance, had left him in a bad state.
Joseph was so exhausted, he was shuddering with cold by the time he sat on the floor in the empty Resuscitation tent
. Cully Teversham brought him a mug of tea and two slices of quite reasonable bread.
“You need that more than anyone, Chaplain,” he said cheerfully. “Wish Oi could get you some hot Maconachie stew, but there’s none left, not till the next lot comes.” He frowned. “Is he going to make it?”
“Probably.” Joseph spoke more from hope than expectation.
“If Oi can foind anything else fit to eat, Oi’ll bring it,” Cully said with a shrug.
“Thank you,” Joseph said to acknowledge the kindness. He wanted to see Lizzie again. He wanted to hear her voice, see the smile in her eyes when she recognized him. He knew she would be too tired to talk, but they understood the same emotions too well to need more than a glance. He remembered vividly driving together in the Cambridgeshire lanes two summers ago. He had not needed to explain anything to her then. She had understood his confusion and how slowly he had been forced to face the truth of betrayal, and that it had hurt him almost more than he could face.
And here they had both spent the night fighting to save a young man’s life, knowing the searing physical pain he must be feeling. But just as deep as that they could imagine the lifelong wound of being crippled, less than whole, limping when other men ran.
Was she also afraid of returning home to an emptiness after this hideous familiarity was over with: its horror and its companionship, its silly jokes, its physical deprivation, its desperate, heart-tearing loyalties? What purpose could possibly be consuming enough to take its place?
He saw her come into the tent and forced his aching legs to support him as he rose to his feet. He walked over to her, stopping just short of where she was, very careful not to crowd her or assume too much. But he wanted to be closer, even just to reach across and put his hand near hers. He saw that it was slender, bruised where she had carried a weight too heavy for her, the nails very short, one broken.
He had no idea what to say. Nothing was profound enough.
She turned and smiled at him. Despite her dark hair, her eyes were the bluest he had ever seen. What could he say that was comforting and not idiotic, so false as to be a denial of trust?
“I talked with Matthew,” he told her. “He said that Schenckendorff couldn’t be guilty. There’s evidence that makes that certain. He couldn’t tell me exactly what, and I couldn’t repeat it if I knew.”
She turned away quickly, looking hurt, as if she had read in his face something she did not want to see.
“I’m sorry,” he said, puzzled. Who was she afraid for? Was she also terrified that someone she liked, or admired, someone she felt protective of, had killed Sarah? He could not believe it of her. He remembered vividly her clarity of thought during that terrible time when he had been so confused and led by his emotions. There had been anger, bewilderment, grief, but always that honesty, above all with herself.
There was a gulf widening between them now, and he did not understand it. The pain it caused him, the sense of loss, almost took his breath away, as if he were hollow inside. “Lizzie, I can’t repeat things like that. How would anyone trust me if I did? I understand why Matthew has to keep silent—”
“I know,” she said quickly, but she looked at him for only an instant, then away again. “I didn’t ask you, Joseph. No one wants to talk about it, but you keep on asking. I’m…I’m so sorry for Sarah Price I don’t think I could ever find words for how much I…feel for her. But I can’t undo any of it. Nor have I any idea at all who did it.” She was stacking bottles and dishes, and her fingers were clumsy. A dish slipped out of her hands. He lunged forward to catch it, but he was no more skilled than she, and actually knocked it farther away until it crashed on the floor and broke in half.
He felt ridiculous. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.
She gasped, then blinked several times rapidly, tears in her eyes. Then she started to laugh. It was a sharp sound growing higher and more desperate until she couldn’t stop.
He kicked the broken dish out of the way with his foot so no one would tread on it, then put both arms around her and held her as her laughter turned to weeping. Her whole body shook, her slender shoulders relaxing against him for several minutes. The softness of her hair touched his cheek. He would never forget the feel of her: the stiff cotton of her gray uniform dress, the smell of antiseptic and blood and soap.
Then she pulled away and sniffed, turning aside with sudden strength so as to keep her face from him. “I’m sorry. This is completely feeble. I won’t do it again.”
“We all need—” he began, not knowing how he was going to finish.
“Don’t make excuses for me, Joseph!” she said huskily, reaching for a handkerchief and blowing her nose fiercely. “Pity doesn’t help anyone. It’s self-indulgent and a complete waste of the time in which we could be doing something useful. These men need nursing, not weeping over. There’ll be plenty of time later…if there’s any point then. I’ve taken twice as long cleaning this up as I should have anyway.” She yanked her apron straight and turned away to continue working.
He had no idea why the distance was widening between them, as if the friendship that was so immeasurably precious had been tarnished by some act he could not remember committing. And it mattered. It was more a part of him than all the turmoil of these last days of war playing themselves out around them: the violence and fear, comradeship, hope of peace and dread of the unknown. They all spoke of going home, and yet all but the most naïve knew that the homes they had left no longer existed as they had known them.
Lizzie had been a friend: candid and funny and gentle, and yet always keeping her own honesty a clean and separate thing, brave enough to stand apart from him and generous enough to remain beside him, sharing the darkness as well as the light.
He knew now, watching her straight back as she walked out of the tent flap, that he had loved Eleanor because he had wanted to, promised to. But he had never liked her as he did Lizzie, and the best lovers were surely friends as well? He loved the women who stayed at home and preserved all that they treasured, whose sacrifice was in ways as great, but he could never explain to them what the front line had been like. No one could.
He must not let Lizzie go. He strode out of the tent into the darkness and saw her figure ahead of him, pale for a moment as she passed by the light of an open flap, and then dark again in the shadow. He ran to catch up with her. If she were angry or confused that he was so determined to clear Schenckendorff, he must explain to her why he had no choice.
“Lizzie!” he called, breaking into a run.
She slowed but did not stop.
He caught up with her. Without thinking he took her arm, then felt her stiffen. Even that slight pulling away hurt him. It created a distance he did not want. “Lizzie, it’s far more than simply for justice that we have to prove Schenckendorff’s innocence.” He kept his voice low so that in the darkness it would not carry even to the closest tents, or anyone standing just outside in the shadows where he could not see. He had to tell her, explain the importance, the urgency.
“It doesn’t—” she started.
“Yes, it does,” he cut in. “To me. My parents were murdered just before the war.”
“I know.” Her voice was gentle. “In a car crash. That is, I didn’t know it was murder. But—”
“It was. My father had discovered a plot to stop the war with an Anglo-German alliance to betray France, then form a new empire to divide up most of the world.” There was no need, and no time, for details. He felt her stiffen with surprise. “It was led by a man whose identity we spent all the war trying to discover, because he never gave up plotting to make the plan still work, if he could only end the war, even if it was by Britain losing. He tried all sorts of ways. We know at least some of them—destroying morale, sabotage of our scientific inventions, which was why he had Theo killed—other ways of corruption and mutiny as well.” Joseph stopped when he heard Lizzie gasp, then plunged on as he knew he must. “Many people were murdered, including General Cullingford, b
ecause he worked out this man’s identity—we named him ‘the Peacemaker.’ Now he is trying to affect the terms of the armistice, and if we don’t stop him, he could succeed. He has immense power.”
She was turned toward him, and there was no doubt in her voice. “How can you? You said you don’t even know who he is!”
“Schenckendorff does,” he answered simply. “He has been his ally since the beginning, but now he realizes that the Peacemaker will try to enforce terms that will enable the whole thing to start again. Germany will rise from defeat in a short time, and a new Anglo-German Empire will become possible. He will never give up trying. Schenckendorff has seen the horror of this, and he will come to London with us—even if he is hanged for his part—rather than see his country dragged into such destruction again.”
Her voice was thick with emotion, so intense she could barely force the words. “You have to get him there, Joseph, whatever it costs, absolutely anything, you must stop this…Peacemaker…from letting this happen again!”
“I know.” Without thinking he put up his hand and touched the stray wisps of dark hair that crossed her brow. “We’ll do everything we can. But Jacobson is convinced that Schenckendorff killed Sarah Price, and we haven’t yet worked out any way to make him doubt it enough to let us take Schenckendorff out of here. Tomorrow, or the next day, Jacobson will charge him and send him back for trial. There’s nothing you can do. I just needed you to know why it matters so much.”
“I understand,” she whispered. Then she pulled away from him and walked quickly to the nearest tent flap. She went in without looking back.
