We Met Upon the Road

The devil sent him to Castle St. Cloud. It was not Stephen Price's own idea; but then, little of his life had been his own idea for many years now.

The devil was incarnate, as was his wont, in the person of Sir John, who received him in his sun-washed room high above the waters of Herse Harbor. Outside, Stephen could hear the sounds of the Royal Engineers as they worked on the new docking facilities. The Adriatic breeze that stole through the window was rich with the tang of summer and salt.

Stephen did not relax. He never relaxed in the presence of Sir John. He sat warily in the bare wooden chair, his back as stiff as his Engineer's uniform, his face unnaturally calm. But that was not unusual; Lieutenant Stephen Price's twenty-five years had destroyed his capacity for open displays of emotion. This, together with his sandy hair and unlined face, gave him the appearance of any young gentleman out of Oxford on a bought commission.

"Stephen, my own dear boy," said Sir John, looking up from his papers, and the warmth of his greeting made Stephen nervous. Sir John smiled, removing his spectacles in a gently civilized way that disturbed his guest even further. "How good that Captain Kenmore could spare you."

"Captain Kenmore's always very obliging."

"He is, is he not? Tell me, do you like my new office? It rather reminds me of our first interview together, in the warden's office on Tanmore." Sir John was a plump, cheerful, gray-haired man in a civilian coat of blue superfine and exquisitely tied silk cravat -- the most temperate man in the city of Herse, Uncle Jack to half the children on the docks. His hands were as delicate as a young girl's. "Another lovely room above the sea." He gazed down at his papers musingly. "Of course, his was better decorated than mine. He could afford the labor."

It was best to ignore references to Tanmore from Uncle Jack. Stephen waited.

Sir John laid his papers on the table before him with the mild air of a country schoolmaster. He smiled. "You deserve a holiday, Stephen. Travel broadens the mind."

You could not tell Stephen was startled from his soft voice. "I thought you wanted me to stay in Herse."

"A few days of rest in the mountains will do you a world of good. I'm delivering you to the Baron Kouris; he's eager for dinner guests. A very lonely man. I'm sure you can sympathize."

"Delivering?" inquired Stephen with his habitual gentleness. "Am I to be tied up with a ribbon?"

"Only if you prefer it, dear boy. You're to go and make yourself agreeable to the family Kouris; I'll give you a letter of introduction. And while there, you're to become acquainted with the children."

"Children," said Stephen warily.

"Aged twenty-one, nineteen, and sixteen. Michael, Clothilde, and Ilyest." Sir John's smile quirked. "The Baron's first wife was English, the second French, and the third a native mountain girl."

"Will I have the honor of meeting the Baroness?"

"Alas, no. The Baron would seem to run profligately through his loved ones."

Stephen said only, "I trust he is more careful with his guests."

"Dear Stephen. Your obliging nature recommends itself to me as always. May I tell you a story?" Sir John offered him snuff. Stephen shook his head. Sir John said, in a voice that suddenly hinted of adamantine steel, "Take it."

Stephen opened the gold clasp of the enamel box with a flawless snap of his fingers and inserted a pinch of snuff in each nostril with the mechanical perfection he'd been taught, one year ago. He hated snuff, but his hate for Tanmore was greater. As Sir John talked on, Stephen could feel the vapors permeating his skull like a thousand steel pins. But he held the powder there in prescribed fashion, postponing the vulgar punctuation of the sneeze.

"My story begins in Paris," said Sir John, once again friendly. "Or really, it begins in Italy, where General Bonaparte has been so active. After the Battle of Marengo, Bonaparte offered terms of peace to the Austrians, but the best he could get was an armistice."

Stephen could hold back the sneeze no longer. It burst forth. Sir John raised an eyebrow and continued, "At the end of June the First Consul returned to Paris, where he consulted with his Minister of Foreign Affairs on how best to proceed. On Talleyrand's advice, they decided to follow the fashion of late, and offer peace terms based on a split of territory neither of them presently own. Is that handkerchief monogrammed?"

Stephen froze, the white linen square half out of his pocket. "Yes. Lieutenant Foster's handkerchiefs were monogrammed, so I thought -- "

"A nice touch. I approve. One of the duly apportioned territories would be Viume itself. Specifically, the French would allow Herse to be taken by sea, since the mountains have defended it so well by land."

"Allow? Surely the British ships here in Herse Harbor would have something to say about it? And Viume has been an independent monarchy for centuries."

"Well, you know -- it was to be a secret agreement." Sir John's eyes gleamed with quiet merriment.

This was understandable to Stephen, for he had not yet found the eggshell of a secret that Sir John had not picked his way to the yolk of with his sharp, well-tended fingernails.

"As you may not have heard, the Turkish Sultan was a great friend of France before this recent unpleasantness in Egypt. His money assures him that he still has friends in France, in fact. One of these friends got hold of a copy of the agreement -- which, as there were only two, showed great resourcefulness, I'm sure you'll agree. Travel by sea being the chancy thing it is these days, he was transporting the document overland to Constantinople, when -- right here in Viume -- "

He cut himself off. "Have I mentioned the Baron's children?"

Stephen waited.

"Poor things, they must be tormented with boredom. One of them has taken to riding the roads."

He fixed Stephen with a glance like a weight of pressed glass.

"Bothering passing travelers."

It took a moment. "A highwayman?"

"Tiresome, is it not? Stand and deliver, over and over again? Well, he relieved the Sultan's agent of this document, which must be a disappointment to the Sultan, did he know about it. Missing the chance to hear what France and Austria are planning to do on his very borders..."

"And the agent?"

Sir John made a dismissive gesture. "Made it as far as Herse, poor chap."

"Of course, to the city of secrets. But no further."

"The young Kouris has put the document up for sale. Buyers from France and Austria are already on the way; you will get there first." Sir John gazed down at his papers. "I'll send two tickets for the morning coach around to your rooms, with any further instructions. The rest of the day is yours; go home and pack your things."

Stephen sat there, bewildered, for a second.

Sir John looked up. "You'll make yourself useful, won't you, Stephen?"

Useful.

"Am I to kill the Baron, sir? If he proves to be the seller of the document?"

"Stephen! I hope my past requests of you have not caused you to form a false estimate of my character. Surely you don't imagine I'd ask you to practice your formidable knifework on a citizen of another country, over whom we have no jurisdiction."

Stephen was silent.

Sir John shrugged. "In any case, it's not necessary. The seller is one of the Baron's children -- this I have from witnesses. Determine which of the young aristocrats it is."

"And... purchase the document?"

Sir John seemed mildly shocked. "Dear fellow. Where do you get your ideas of my budget? Procure the document."

"May I ask how, sir?"

"Really, Stephen, have I troubled you with details before?"

He spoke in a dismissive way. Stephen remained seated. Sir John looked up. "Well?"

"Sir, may I have an advance on my salary? I've been creeping up the stairs past my landlady for nearly a week."

Sir John regarded him for a moment, then said, "Four shillings. Pick it up from the secretary on your way out." When Stephen still didn't move, he said, "What else?"

Stephen hesitated. "Captain Kenmore said that he wished me to help with his project to expand the western seawall."

Sir John tilted back in his chair and folded his beautiful hands across his plump chest. He watched Stephen with the amused sadness that might be given to an erring child. Stephen felt his face flush. "My boy," said Sir John, in his rich baritone, "it's not as if you could do him the least amount of good, you know. It's not as if you were really an engineer -- "

For a moment Stephen felt himself swamped with acute embarrassment, as though he'd been pretending to be something he weren't; as though it were his idea.

And then, more than half the time, he believed he truly was an engineer, working on an equal footing with the men around him. Until someone asked him a question, and the huge blank space in his mind forced him to temporize -- damn Sir John. You have the gift of adaptability, he heard the voice echo in the warden's room. You drop like an obedient felled tree into whatever ravine it pleases fate to send you. Like a raindrop into a pitcher of washwater; until even the other drops of water don't know who you are.

"Captain Kenmore only needs me to carry his instruments and assist him. I might learn something of -- "

Sir John was shaking his head. "Don't do yourself an injustice, Stephen, you're quite remarkable enough in your way; you needn't feel the lack of higher arithmetic." He bestowed on Stephen a smile of what seemed genuine affection. "No, your talents lie elsewhere. I have no desire to make a sow's purse out of a silk ear." He picked up the paper he'd been perusing earlier. "Six shillings. Close the door as you leave, dear boy."

He clattered down the stairs and stepped into the white Mediterranean sunlight. Around him was the noisy, masculine world of Herse Harbor; dockworkers, sailors, Royal Engineers and their fetchers-and-carriers. Squawk of seagulls as they dove for the blue-green water. There were a few maids scurrying here and there on quick errands to the waterfront shops, but that was all. The women of the British community stayed indoors during the summer day, emerging in the evening like late-blooming flowers.

He walked up the hill from the harbor in his lying Engineers uniform with its sword he had no notion of how to use.

You'll make yourself useful, won't you, Stephen?

As though he'd been larking, playing, luxuriating in being... almost... a normal person. Perhaps he had.

Herse in summer; gray-gold houses and red roofs illuminated by the sun like a candle in a golden jar. Walks at twilight on the promenade beyond the docks. Taverns spilling music and violence into the street at all hours, or till the morning watch came and the owners shut the doors to sleep. Pungent smoke hanging interminably in the air around the Arab coffeehouses.

And too many flies. Stephen bought a quarter-wheel of cheese from a merchant in Sesha Street; even inside the shop, doors and windows shut, there were a dozen flies.

In fact there were fourteen. He amused himself by counting them as his cheese was wrapped in brown paper. Outside he opened one end and cut off a piece, which he dropped in the gutter for the flies since they had already claimed it back in the shop.

He'd become more fastidious since Tanmore. More vulnerable.

On that chilling thought he turned into the higher slope of Gradka Street, passed through the archway, and climbed the steps past the rows of flowerpots and drowsing cats. Marigolds, anemonie lilies, summer roses in white and red. The ubiquitous green and blue shutters of Herse.

Once inside the house he moved silently for the stairs. He could hear Mrs. Tosti moving about the kitchen, arguing with her cook, and he had no desire to hand over any of his shillings just yet.

He took the first two steps.

"Why, Mr. Price, sir! You're back early."

He nearly jumped. It was only Nita, the housemaid, a mountain girl come to Herse for work, who helped Mrs. Tosti with the cleaning. She had the moss-dark eyes of the mountains. She hurried past him down the curve of the stairs.

"I must go! The pig is drunk again!"

Stephen was not surprised by this extraordinary statement, taking it to mean that the black and tan sow quartered in the back yard had once again broken into the still kept by their enterprising landlady. He was surprised, however, when the girl stopped, walked back to him, frowning, and examined him in the light of the dusty stair window.

"You're going on a journey," she said. She smiled. "Good. It will teach you to laugh."

She whirled and hurried out to minister to the pig. He stared after her for a moment, then started up the stairs.

Inside his rooms he went at once to the bathroom, with its old roman-style bathing tub of chipped marble. He poured water from the pitcher to the washbowl and splashed his face. The small surprises of his life were like a continuing series of slaps, some painful, some merely awakening. He'd given up any pretense of expectation for what reality ought to be.

He emerged from the bathroom into the comfortable sitting room. His room, his territory, where a few shillings meant no one could put him out. Essentially, therefore, it was a lie. He glanced at the empty hearth and old chairs of leather and worn velvet, and suddenly he wanted sunlight and clarity again. He crossed to the balcony, opened the shutters and stepped out into the white brightness.

The table had been cleared from breakfast. Balconies were a penny a dozen in Herse, but he liked this one; he could just see, down at the end of the slope of Jacquard Street, a slice of bay with the packet Louisa in dock. And far over the red slate roofs, the blue of the Mediterranean spread in a peaceful liquid blanket across the horizon.

He stared as though he could see beyond it to the fortress prison of Tanmore, lapped by these same peaceful blue waves.

There were footsteps behind him. Without turning, he said, "Forgive me my impertinence, Nicholas, but is there any reason you cannot go to the mountains?"

Nicholas Reims was a small, neat, dark man, three years older than Stephen, or so he said. But then, he also said he was French.

Nicholas set a cup of chocolate on the table. "Viume is a country of mountains. Where in the mountains?"

"Castle Saint-Cloud. The home of Baron Kouris."

Nicholas stepped away from the cup and shrugged. "Why should I not be able to go to the mountains?" He turned to go inside.

Stephen sighed. It would be good to have a valet who was less cryptic. He sat at the table, lifted the cup and drank a few sips.

You'll make yourself useful, won't you?

Three flies had already gathered in the tiny pool of chocolate in the saucer. Stephen pushed out his chair, rose, and opened the shutters. "Nicholas!"

He stood, a dark figure in the shadows of the sitting room. "Sir?" said Nicholas, with the tinge of irony he habitually gave the word, so subtle it was reproachless.

"Are there flies in the mountains, Nicholas?"

"Not as there are here."

"Then by god," Stephen said savagely, "the sooner we get there, the better."