The Messenger: A Novel

by Burke, Jan

  “I can’t answer that without irritating you.” He stood up. “I’ll see what’s going on with Brad. You look as if you could use some sleep.”

  “I was hoping to talk to Tyler when he gets back.”

  “So at least take a nap. He doesn’t seem to sleep much, so I’m sure he’ll still be up if you conk out for an hour or so.”

  “You’re right, I could use some sleep—but I hate to abandon you.”

  He shrugged. “There’s always someone awake around here. Maybe Alex has learned something more from your cousin.”

  The room she had been given was spacious, with access to the deck that ran all along this level of the house. Moonlight filtered in through the French doors that led to the deck, and she used that soft light to navigate her way to the maplewood desk, where she turned on a small lamp.

  She had unpacked her bag earlier, before going to the hospice with Tyler. That seemed so long ago now.

  She washed up in the large bathroom and changed into her nightgown. Turning off the desk lamp, she thought of closing the draperies against the moonlight but decided against it. Instead, she opened the doors and stepped out on the deck. The view from here was lovely, far better than the one from the secluded home her great-grandfather had built below. She could just see a corner of her house, and realized that from a little farther down the deck, one would have a fairly clear view of it. A breeze came up, bringing the scent of the nearby pine trees to her. She thought she heard the sound of an animal—the strange dog?—moving in the woods and hurried back inside. She nearly closed the French doors but told herself not to be ridiculous, there was no stairway from the deck to the ground level, nothing a dog could climb to reach these rooms. She discovered a mechanism to pull a hidden screen door across the doorway to the deck, and set the screen in place. The warm breeze came up again, and she moved toward the bed.

  She turned the bedside lamp on and immediately saw what the moonlight had failed to reveal—a small sheaf of heavy paper had been laid against her sheets.

  Heart hammering, she carefully lifted the pages. The paper did not seem fragile, despite its apparent age, but she handled it gently. It was thick and not quite smooth. She liked the heavy feel of it. The writing was in an old style, what seemed to her to be a sort of calligraphy, neat lettering flowing evenly across the page, in lines as precisely spaced down its length.

  She lay down on the bed on her side, set the pages back against the sheets, and began to read. She soon became accustomed to the writer’s hand and made out the first line:

  Think of this tale as an imagined story, if you must…

  26

  Think of this tale as an imagined story, if you must…I do not claim to understand all of the events that occur in it, and have little hope that any other will hold this story to be a truthful account. I have done nothing more than lived it, and if my living it could be changed by your disbelief. I would urge you with all my heart to be a skeptic. But if by any chance I can spare another from my fate by recording these events, perhaps it is best I do so, and in such case I would urge you not to doubt a word of it….

  Three days after the Battle of Waterloo, I awoke in the absolute darkness of the blind, as I had every other day since the fighting had ceased. I did not—and could not—open my eyes as I awoke from what I knew to be a dying man’s dreams.

  I did not need my sight to know that I was no longer listening to Miss Merriweather’s laughter. Nor was I on horseback, racing my father and my brother through the meadow just beyond the home wood. I was not watching soldiers take up hiding places in rain-soaked fields of maize.

  Without being able to see my surroundings, I knew I was lying flat on my back, unable to move, pinned beneath the body of my own horse. Poor old Reliant. I assumed I must be hidden beneath the big trooper, because although both friend and foe had passed near me, I had not been noticed.

  The dreams had formed from a patchwork of memories. Even before I had left England, Miss Merriweather had married and died in childbirth. Three years earlier, in 1812, my father had died, and my brother had inherited the title and estate. The memory of the field of maize was more recent—I had seen the soldiers taking this position just three days ago, in anticipation of the approach of Napoleon’s army.

  Had my comrades or enemies seen me awaken, the watchers would have found it difficult to note any difference between my sleeping and waking states. Most would have assumed Captain Hawthorne was dead.

  I could not see, could not move, could make no sound. My tongue was dry and swollen. I had, from the time I had fallen in the midst of fierce fighting, been cursed by my remaining senses.

  I could feel my uniform, skin, and hair, all stiff with my own blood. I felt the mud drying beneath me, the weight of my dead horse crushing me. I felt relentless pain in my skull and chest and arms and legs. I felt hunger but, most of all, thirst.

  The stench of the smoke and gunpowder of the battle had been replaced by the sharp-edged rot of the corpses strewn across the ground—the tens of thousands of men who had died at Waterloo.

  I wasn’t sure how long I had lain there. I did not know the battle’s outcome. I was grateful to have been spared some of the sounds of battle, sounds I had often heard in previous engagements, but never at such a pitch, never so fierce in all my experience. Now I longed to hear an English voice. I prayed that Reliant had been killed almost instantly. The horse was cold and silent now.

  For a time, after I first awakened, I had heard sounds that let me know the battle was not long over—the cries of injured horses, the moans and screams of the wounded and dying men who had fallen not far from me. I could then still smell the acrid smoke of rifle and cannon.

  As the hours and days passed, the sounds changed, becoming softer and more piteous as men too wounded to walk or crawl cried out for water or food. Their cries weakened, those nearest me apparently succumbing, while from a little distance a murmur of prayers and pleas continued.

  Now there were smaller sounds—flies buzzing, rodents scurrying. Birds, at some business I did not want to imagine. In the far distance, the sounds of carts and horses and men. But no artillery fire. It was the time of collecting the wounded and the dead.

  I would most probably be numbered among the latter soon, expiring of thirst or starvation if not of my wounds.

  Perhaps because of the wound to my head, I had no clear recollection of what had happened to me. I could remember very little beyond seeing my batman killed—a man who had been my groom at home and who had followed me when I left for the Peninsula. But he had been lost early on in the fighting.

  Despite the horrors of what I later determined to be the last three days, I did not wish for death. What little strength I had went into one prayer: Let me live.

  I was repeating it endlessly to myself when I heard the sound of panting, then snuffling.

  Here. I’m here! I silently cried to what I was sure was a dog.

  As if in confirmation, I heard a soft whine. The dog began digging. A large dog, I guessed, from the sound of earth being frantically clawed away. He uncovered my hand, tugged at the sleeve of my uniform.

  Oh, good dog! Good dog! But you’ll never move poor Reliant. Have you a master nearby?

  I knew the dog was most probably a stray, but I found myself picturing an owner who might be sympathetic to me.

  Help me.

  I heard footsteps. They stopped nearby. The dog kept digging.

  “This beanstalk?” an Englishman’s deep voice said in a puzzled tone. “Good heavens. Are you certain you want to be looking up at such a tall master, Shade?” I felt the man take my hand as he added, “It’s not too late?”

  The dog dug all the more furiously.

  I’m alive! I’m not dead yet.

  “No, nor shall you be,” the man’s voice answered, as if he had heard my thoughts. “If you’d rather live.”

  Oh yes, I’d rather!

  “Good. But you must understand what I offer you.”
/>   Anything!

  “Come, take a look.”

  Suddenly I felt whole and free of pain, and yet not in my own body. I stood as if within the man, looking down through his eyes.

  I gave a cry of horror as I saw my own condition. Little wonder he had thought me dead. I was covered in mud and all but invisible beneath the horse, only saved from being completely crushed because I had landed in a shallow ditch. My eyes were closed. My face was blackened with dried blood, my hair matted down near a severe wound on my head.

  My attention was drawn to the dog, one of the largest I had ever seen. He had long, black fur and large dark eyes. He looked up at me—or perhaps I should say at his master—pausing briefly in his efforts to dig my body free, and wagged his tail.

  “Back to work, Shade,” the man’s voice said harshly. The dog’s demeanor changed and he bristled, but he obeyed. Perhaps he had seen me, after all.

  The man looked about him, forcing me to do the same.

  Before me was carnage beyond my worst imaginings. I had seen battle, and its aftermath, but nothing to equal this. Bodies—and parts of bodies—lay everywhere around me. In the distance, I saw soldiers working to find the wounded and take them from the field. Here and there, human scavengers sought to rob the dead of their belongings. The ground had been churned by hoof and boot and wheel, and among the bodies one saw crushed caps and belts, the bright blue or red of a torn uniform, a feather bent and buried in the mud.

  And as far as the eye could see, covering this grim landscape, a strange snow—thousands of scraps of paper. Letters, diaries, undelivered messages to families, friends, and sweethearts. Lost thoughts of tens of thousands of poor souls, whose last words drifted in fragments across the battlefield.

  Would that I could deliver them, I thought.

  My host—as I began to think of him—laughed. I felt it as if it were physically my own laughter, and I despised him for forcing me to participate in what seemed to me no joke at all.

  “Don’t be so quick to fire up at me,” he said, amused. “It is merely that you will find your wish granted, if not quite in the manner you expect.”

  I continued to look about me and was going to ask, “Whose victory?” But viewing that carnage, the question seemed unanswerable to me in that moment.

  “Wellington and his allies,” my host said, again hearing my thoughts—and again I felt the words form on his tongue, the movement of his teeth, the vibration of his throat, the very breath it took to speak. It seemed to me there was some bitterness there.

  For my part, despite the cost so clearly shown before me, I felt a rush of pride in our forces and relief that Napoleon had suffered such a defeat. In the next instant, I found myself returned to my own body and darkness.

  This, I decided, has all been a fantasy, the delusions of a dying man.

  “Are you certain, Shade?” I heard him ask again, almost as if in disgust.

  The dog had made great progress, having loosened most of the soil around and beneath me. I felt the warmth of the dog’s breath as his teeth took hold of my uniform collar. He began to pull. I marveled at his strength—I felt myself begin to move from beneath the horse. The pain was excruciating. I again lost consciousness.

  I awoke on the battlefield sometime later. I was still in pain, still too weak to move so much as a finger, but these conditions were nothing to me—for my sight had been restored. The first thing I saw was Shade. He lay next to me. His head was up, his ears pitched forward. He watched me and seemed happy to have my attention in return. He wagged his long tail.

  Above me, a bored young man stood looking down into my face. He was of slight stature but muscular build. I would have guessed him to be a youth, not more than sixteen, but something in his eyes said he was far older. His clothing was exquisite, his pale face handsome—if somewhat marred by a frown. His long white fingers were bejeweled, and in one of his hands he held a silver flask engraved with an elaborate letter V. He seemed entirely out of place in this wretched valley.

  He stifled a yawn, then bent to give me water from the flask, gently lifting my head, helping me to drink. No wine from a crystal goblet was ever more appreciated than that drink of lukewarm water.

  “Thank you,” I rasped, able at last to speak, but he said nothing in response. He waited a moment, then again helped me to drink.

  He consulted his watch, returned it to his vest, and said, “We haven’t much time. Are you well enough to talk?”

  “Yes—please, allow me to thank you—”

  His eyes became hooded. “There is no need, I promise you.”

  “Who are you?”

  He hesitated, then said, “I am Varre.” Seeing my confusion, he added, “Lucien Adrian deVille, Lord Varre. I have a bargain to offer you, Captain Tyler Hawthorne—listen well. You may yet die on this field, slowly and painfully, every opportunity taken from you. Or you may leave here, and within the next fortnight be restored to wholeness, unable to sustain injury, free from all illness—other than occasional, brief fevers. I warn you these may be painful and troubling, but you will never suffer them for more than a few hours. You will not age, but remain in the prime of life.”

  “Not age!”

  “Please do not interrupt me again.” Despite saying this, he did not immediately continue. Just as I thought I had offended him so deeply he would abandon his offer, he went on. “Some of your older scars may not be taken from you, but any injury you received here at Waterloo will heal within hours. Any disease you now carry within you will be cured, no trace of it will ever be found in your body. You will be given work to do—nothing beneath a gentleman’s station—and enough funds to make a new start in life.”

  He smiled, perhaps reading my thoughts. “I’m not the devil. You may serve whatever master you choose. That is not up to me. Do you think it is the devil’s work to comfort the dying?”

  “Am I to become a priest, then?”

  He laughed. “No. Only that you must visit those who are dying. They will draw you to themselves, in fact, and tell you what you must do. You must keep the dog by you. It won’t be difficult—he will always find his way to you.”

  I closed my eyes, thinking again that I was so lost in fever, I was imagining the whole.

  “Look at me, Tyler Hawthorne, and give me your answer. Do you accept this bargain?”

  My skin felt as if it were on fire, I was injured and weak. But I do not deceive myself that any of this prevented me from sensing that Lord Varre might not be telling me all I needed to know.

  “Will you be guiding me in this new occupation?”

  “No. As soon as we have completed this…transaction…you will not see me again. Do not attempt to find me.”

  On this point, he was adamant, but in truth, I was relieved to know that I would soon be shot of him.

  “Do you accept this bargain I offer you?” he asked again.

  “Why do you offer it?” I asked. “Why do you abandon your…‘occupation,’ as you call it, and leave youth and health and wealth behind?”

  “Oh, let us say I am giving myself a promotion.” Again he laughed, and I realized how much I disliked it. He had the sort of laugh that never invited another to join in the joke. “You need not concern yourself with my welfare, Hawthorne. Not that I imagine you do.”

  I remained silent. He started to walk away.

  “Wait!” I said, horrified by the prospect of being abandoned once again to this sea of the dead and dying.

  He turned back to me and smiled. “Do you accept the bargain, Tyler Hawthorne?”

  I would live. I would heal. That much I believed. That much I longed for.

  “Yes,” I said—fool that I am.

  27

  Varre reached for my right hand again, and placed a ring on my index finger. He tucked a card into one of my pockets and said, “This man will see that you have all you need when you are ready to return to England.”

  The look on his face was one of triumph. He’s utterly mad, I thoug
ht. And I’m going to die here a madman, too. Yet I felt relief from the worst of my wounds, a lessening of pain.

  “Thank you!” I said again, for that much alone, although I was still half convinced that all I was experiencing was a product of delirium.

  I heard his laughter as he walked away from me.

  The dog stayed by my side.

  I managed, with the greatest of efforts, to move my hand enough to see the ring Varre had placed there. It was a silver mourning ring, a memento mori, and appeared to be quite old. Looking at its death’s-head, I felt an urge to work it from my finger and leave it for the scavengers to find. But even this small feat was beyond my strength. I left it on my hand.

  Shade began barking. I had never heard the like, and I worried that he might frighten any help away. Apparently someone wise in the way of dogs realized the nature of his call, though, for he quickly drew the attention of others. Before long I was lifted by strong hands, and added to a blood-soaked, rough cart, already more than half loaded with other wounded.

  Those who read this story so many years later may find it strange that days after the battle we were still being gathered, but the number of dead and wounded at Waterloo was more than forty-seven thousand, creating a city of casualties on a strip of land roughly two miles wide and six miles long. That I was not left among the dead seemed to me a miracle.

  The dog followed the cart as it gathered as many other wounded as it could hold, and trotted alongside as it made its jolting progress toward a nearby village. To the creaking of the cart were added the quiet prayers, soft moans, and occasional fevered cries of those of its passengers still able to speak, many whose suffering far outstripped my own.

  When the cart had traveled what seemed to me to be as far as Spain, but was probably no more than a few miles, I received a shock. As I lay pressed against the others, feverish but marveling at the continued lessening of my pain and the wonder of my rescue, I suddenly heard a man speaking to me, and just as quickly realized that he was not speaking aloud.