“This one.” The dowager countess pointed a wavering finger at him. He’d always thought it was considered rude to point at people—he’d been taught as much by his nanny—but he didn’t correct her. “This one, I think, is a dark horse.”
“You think I’ve been rude?” the duke said, the realization of what he’d just done hitting him for the first time.
“Of course not,” the dowager countess said. “One can never be too rich or too rude. But to look at you, with those ears, one would never suspect there was any intelligence between them. Although now that I think about it, the sheer size of them does lend itself to better listening and, one would hope, better learning.”
“What are you saying, Mother?” the earl asked, still peevish. “What has any of this to do with his ears?”
“Nothing, Martin. But I do believe he’s right.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“If we need a line of defense, what does it matter who organizes it? The footman or even the stable boy, it is of no concern to me. All that matters is our survival. We do want to survive, don’t we?”
“Yes, of course, but—”
“I say we get this footman person in here right now,” the dowager countess said, “this Daniel person, although I do hope he can manage to keep his clothes on this time. Martin?”
“I suppose you’re right, Mother,” the earl said grudgingly. “Wright? Go fetch Daniel and tell him we’d like to see him for a word.”
While most of this conversation was taking place, the butler’s usually stoic expression had gone through a series of transformations, most containing at least some element of shock. Now he merely looked resigned.
“Yes, my lord.”
The butler turned to go.
Speaking of the stable boy…
“Mr. Wright!” the duke stopped him.
“Yes, Your Lordship?”
“After you’ve sent Daniel in, please fetch Will Harvey as well and tell him we’d like to see him. Now that I think about it, I believe he could prove quite useful, too.”
Lady Kate’s lovely eyebrows arched at this but it was impossible to read what she was thinking.
“As you wish, Your Lordship,” said Mr. Wright.
That’s right, the duke thought, pleased, watching Mr. Wright go, I am Your Lordship.
Daniel arrived first.
The duke invited him to sit in an actual chair, which he seemed flustered by, finding the suggestion confusing. Once he’d finally been persuaded that he could sit in their presence without fear of reprimand, the duke explained what they wanted from him as Daniel listened intently.
“Yes,” Daniel finally said when the duke was finished. “I do have some ideas.”
Chapter
Forty-Eight
Daniel did indeed have some ideas.
Mr. Wright hadn’t explained what the earl wanted with him, even when he’d asked, simply telling him that His Lordship required his presence in the drawing room.
It was all highly irregular. In the years he’d been at the abbey, before the war and since, he was more typically summoned by a pull cord that rang a bell with his name below it in the servants’ hall. Once he went, he would be told what was needed. Other times, there’d be no bell and old Wright would simply instruct him, “His Lordship requests you do this,” or “Her Ladyship requests you do that.” Or, since the duke had come for his visit and then lost his valet, “His Other Lordship needs…”
But to be told to go without being given a reason?
What could it be?
Perhaps they intended to fire him for failing to do anything last night when Mr. Young attacked, for just standing there like a stupid block of salt holding his even stupider tray?
And what would he do if that proved to be the case?
When the weekend had first started, he’d been thinking how, after his experiences in the war, he never wanted to leave the abbey if he could help it, unless it was to go into the village on a day off or for a dance; that he would be content to live out the rest of his days here. Now he would still be content to do so, to stay here forever, particularly since he no longer had any desire to go into the village, not after what Fanny had told them about what she’d learned from the farmers and villagers who had come to stay in the attic: that there were more of them out there like Dr. Webb and Mr. Young.
Well, of course there were more.
Who but a fool could have imagined otherwise?
And if he were to be fired now, how would he make his way out there, alone in a world that was likely now unrecognizable as the only one he had known?
It would be worse than the war.
And yet if he had to, he knew he would do whatever he needed to in order to survive, just as he had before, for as long as he could.
But as it turned out, the earl hadn’t wanted to fire him.
On the contrary, Daniel thought, as he’d sat there—sat there! he was sitting! among them!—right in their presence. On the contrary, and here his mind turned practically giddy at the duke’s surprising request, it would appear they wanted to promote him!
So, yes, Daniel had some ideas, based on what he’d seen in the war, his military experience being a fact that these people clearly hoped would be the thing that might save them all. The duke even said that he, Daniel, would be granted free rein of any resources he deemed necessary. He knew they must be feeling desperate when Will Harvey joined them, sent there by Mr. Wright as he had been; as soon as Will entered, Daniel noted his eyes went immediately to Lady Katherine, and hers to him, but then each looked quickly away. The duke said that, like with the resources, Will would be at his disposal, too. They all would be. But to be calling in the stable boy, whom Daniel could tell the earl didn’t care for, not one bit, they must be feeling truly desperate.
But as he laid out those ideas, one by one, although most of the group were receptive, encouraging, rapt, or intrigued, respectful even—in particular the duke—each one was met by the earl with something along the lines of: “Are you quite sure about that?” or “That can’t be right!” or “But won’t that just be a lot of bother?”
And it occurred to Daniel for the first time: I have my work cut out for me.
…
“But this isn’t what I told you to do.”
“I know that,” Will told Daniel. “You want me to stay here and help train the others.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I want.”
After the meeting, the others had dispersed, but Daniel had asked Will to stay behind so they could talk.
Will couldn’t believe he was meant to take orders from a footman. In the past, the only people he’d ever taken orders from were His Lordship or sometimes Mr. Wright, acting on His Lordship’s behalf.
“What I don’t want,” Daniel said, “is for you to go out looking for more weapons. We have plenty right here.”
“Yes,” Will said, “but how long will that last? We don’t have an endless supply. We don’t know how many of them there are out there, how much we might need. The farmers and villagers, some of them came armed, but they left their homes so quickly, and even the ones who did bring a weapon, it’s just the one. I know there will be more weapons left in their houses, ammunition, too. So I’ll just go out there and see what I can find, gather whatever I can carry, and bring them back here.”
“But it’s not safe.”
“I’m young and I’m strong and I can outrun any situation I might encounter. And I have my pistol with me.” He paused. “I should do this now. It may not be safe, but do you really think it’s going to get any safer later?”
“It might.”
“You know it won’t. We’ve been lucky so far.”
“Lucky?”
“Yes. Since my uncle’s death, there’ve been only Dr. Webb and Mr. Young and Parker, stragglers. But there will be more coming, you know it. Just like the farmers and villagers found their way to us, eventually they’ll manage to find their way to us, too. You
know I’m right.”
“I suppose…”
“And anyway, the family have gone to have their lunch.” Oh yes, they had, because… Well, the less said about that, the better. “So what better time for me to go? I’m not needed here right now, and I could do some real good. I promise I’ll be back in time to do whatever you need me to.”
“All right.” At last, Daniel relented. “But be careful. You’re the best person I’ve got. We can’t afford to lose you, and…”
Daniel let the sentence hang there, but Will knew how it would have ended: “…I don’t want to see you turn into one of them.”
Well, Will thought, I don’t want that, either.
“Of course I’ll be careful,” Will said, feeling the smile break across his face. “Do I look like the sort of person who would take unnecessary risks?”
And Will was careful, although he knew that even being out here was a risk, but it was one he found necessary for more reasons than those he’d given Daniel: Will wanted to find Aunt Jess. She might be the most capable woman he knew, in terms of handling any ordinary disaster that life might throw her way, but this?
Besides, how bad could it be?
As it turned out, it could be very bad.
Once he’d crossed the great lawn and achieved the outer reaches of the estate where the tenant farms were, he saw that the situation had grown very bad indeed.
Everywhere he looked, there was evidence of people fleeing for their lives: doors left open, tools left out mid-work.
And then there were the bodies.
People half eaten, people with their heads gone.
Will didn’t bother about the latter. But the former? He made sure to put a bullet in each one’s head before they had the chance to wake again.
And the worst part?
Outside of the sound of his own weapon firing, it was dead quiet. Deserted. It was now as though no one had ever lived there at all.
Some of the dead he recognized based on a body part or an article of clothing: people he’d grown up with, people he’d known his whole life.
Will wondered where they were.
Having decimated the small population of farmers, had they moved on elsewhere? Had they further invaded the village, with its far greater population?
Will didn’t want to think about that.
Will moved from cottage to cottage, entering each with trepidation. What if one of them was still there? Lurking inside?
But each turned out to be empty, unless there was a body inside, headless or seeming dead and needing to be shot. From each, Will gathered up whatever weapons there were to be had and placed them in the sack he’d brought along for this purpose before moving on to the next.
Will saved his own cottage for last.
If pressed, he wouldn’t have been able to answer quite why that was. Maybe he was putting off the inevitable? He hadn’t seen any evidence of Aunt Jess among those he’d encountered, thankfully, and he didn’t find her in their cottage, either, although on the table there did sit a peculiar item: a great copper frying pan, shiny and unlike anything they had ever owned. It was somehow almost sinister, how pristine it was in the humble cottage, how out of place. But he couldn’t spare a second thought for its presence. There was still work to do.
Will gathered up the other weapons he knew they had there, before leaving, careful to shut the door behind him. No matter what was going on, no matter what others were doing, when you left a place you still shut the door.
A part of him was relieved as he set off back toward the abbey, feeling only slightly burdened; the sack now full, he carried a heaping armload of weapons as well, with several rifles slung over his left shoulder. He’d been hoping to find Aunt Jess, but at least she wasn’t among the fallen or those who looked dead but were yet to change. He wasn’t sure which he’d have found worse.
But she hadn’t been anywhere to be seen, which meant that she must still be out there somewhere.
Will was sure as he’d ever been that Aunt Jess could take care of herself.
Hadn’t she always?
She’d certainly taken good care of him.
Over the course of the rest of Will’s walk back to the abbey, he encountered only one moving thing, unless you included the remaining leaves shifting in the trees from the strong wind.
From the side, stumbling toward him, was a figure similar to Will in shape and size. As the figure lurched closer, Will recognized him as someone from the tenant farms, a boy his own age, Samuel Chapman.
Outside of that one perfect day with Lady Kate when they were both three, Samuel Chapman had been his first friend after he’d come to live with his aunt and uncle. In their early years, they’d played together, laughed together, making up their own games as they raced each other, gamboling over the fields. Samuel Chapman had been his best friend.
Samuel Chapman, the boy, with his long, curly blond hair flowing out all around him as they raced against the wind together, his smile so wide and bright it had been like a second sun.
But this Samuel Chapman no longer resembled that one, except in the merest of details. This one looked like decay; smelled like it, too, his once-sparkling blue eyes now gone cloudy and yet somehow, hungry, too.
Will stood, waited.
He could have run, gotten away easily enough, but he didn’t.
Will had never imagined killing another man, had never imagined killing anyone. He knew people, other young men, who had dreamed of fighting for their country, fighting for anything, really. But not him. Will had been too young to go fight in the last war, and he’d always hoped that he’d be too old to go by the time the next one came around.
But Samuel Chapman was no longer a man, and now the fight had come to Will.
It had been different with the other ones, just now, back at the farms. They’d needed shooting, but it wasn’t as though they were moving at the time. It wasn’t as though there was anything about them to trick you into believing that they were part of a living universe.
It wasn’t like this.
When Samuel Chapman was nearly upon him, the sheer reek of him slamming Will in the face, Will dropped the sack and the rest of his weapons, keeping only the one that he held in his right hand, raising it and shooting Samuel Chapman in the head point-blank.
Will watched Samuel Chapman fall.
Then Will gathered up his supply of weapons and moved on.
…
Kate heard the clinking sound before she caught a glimpse of the cause of it.
The suit of armor, Fred, was on the move.
After lunch, many of the others had gone off to have their first lessons, all of which involved some sort of shooting. Kate loved shooting as much as the next person—more, really, than any of them—but like Grandmama before her, Kate was the best shot in any bunch, and she didn’t need any practice.
So instead, she’d come to the library, going there with Daniel to discuss strategy. Kate had asked Daniel if the stable boy would by chance be joining them for their strategy session, but Daniel had said that the stable boy had already gone out on an errand. She’d masked her disappointment as she wondered at the wisdom of this—was it safe for him to be out there alone?—but Daniel had assured her that he was armed and then they’d settled in for their discussion.
And what a discussion it had been—and the plans he’d drawn up!
It was hard to fathom that a footman should have such ideas in his head, and that he’d be able to express them so clearly, even writing things down on paper—and so neatly!
But Daniel had gone, and now there was that clinking noise, and…
Kate rose from her seat at the table, leaving the plans behind as she crossed the room and lifted up the face mask on the suit of armor to see who was inside Fred.
“Father!” she cried.
“You were expecting somebody else, maybe?”
“No, of course not. But what are you doing in there?”
“Well, that Daniel did say
we were to prepare ourselves.”
“Yes, but when Chekhov said that thing about not hanging a gun on the wall in the first act unless you intended it to go off later, I don’t think he meant for it to apply to suits of armor as well.”
“I’m just trying to do my part. And I did think Fred might come in useful.” He clanked his arms about a bit to demonstrate, laughing all the while.
“Father.” She narrowed her eyes shrewdly at him. “Are you trying to sabotage us?”
“No, of course not! How can you even think such a thing? But we can’t just be nothing but doom and gloom all the time. And when has a little bit of levity hurt anybody?”
“Never mind that now. Come here and see what Daniel has drawn up.”
Kate was pleased when Father obeyed her, following her to the table, although his gait was awkward and he did clink so much.
“Look!” Kate said, pointing at the pages.
“What is it?” Father asked, but then the face mask fell down again and she was forced to lift it for him and then hold it in place while she attempted to show him what she wanted him to see.
“You see here?” she said. “He’s marked off some places, all along the perimeter of the estate and at various random points within the main property. He says we might want to dig trenches there.”
“Trenches? But won’t that spoil the look of the place?”
“What does that matter right at this moment in time? Don’t you see? Those trenches would perform two functions for us. First, some of them might fall into the trenches and then get caught there, trapped, until we can get to them—you know, they don’t seem terribly bright when they get into that state, and once fallen, they might have difficulty finding their way out again. Or, we could also use them to hide in ourselves, should it come to that. We could lie in wait with our weapons and, if need be, pop up and shoot them. Do you see how brilliant this all is?”
“Oh, surely, Kate, it won’t come to that. We won’t ever need all this”—he waved a clinking silver arm dismissively—“this bother. Did you not hear me say as much earlier?”
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