The Saint-Germain Chronicles (8 page)

“It’s been… a while,” James said distantly, looking up at the painting over the fireplace. Then his gaze fell on Saint-Germain, and he saw the man properly for the first time.

Le Comte was casually dressed by his own exacting standards: a black hacking jacket, a white shirt and black sweater under it, and black trousers. There were black, ankle-high jodhpur boots on his small feet, the heels and soles unusually thick. Aside from a silver signet ring, he wore no jewelry. “Since you have been here? More than a decade, I would suppose.”

“Yes. ”James shifted in the chair, his movements those of utter exhaustion. “This place… I don’t know why.” Only now that he had actually arrived at his goal did he wonder what had driven him to seek it out. Indistinct images filtered through his mind, most of them senseless, one or two of them frightening.

“On Madelaine’s behalf, I’m pleased to welcome you back. I hope you will stay as long as you wish to.” He said this sincerely, and watched James for his response.

“Thanks. I don’t know what… thanks.” In this light, and with the abuses of the last few days, it was not possible to see how much the last ten years had favored James Emmerson Tree. His hair had turned from glossy chestnut to silver without loss of abundance; the lines of his face had deepened but had not become lost in fretwork or pouches, so that his character was cleanly incised, delineated in strong, sharp lines. Now, with smudges of dirt and dried blood on him, it was not apparent that while at thirty he had been good looking, at fifty he was superbly handsome. He fingered the tear on his collar where his press tag had been. “I thought… Madelaine might have been…”

“Been here?” Saint-Germain suggested as he drew one of the other chairs closer to where James sat. “I am sorry, Mister Tree. Madelaine is currently in South America.”

“Another expedition?” James asked, more forlorn than he knew.

“Of course. It’s more circumspect to stay there than go to Greece or Africa just now, or wouldn’t you agree?” He spoke slowly, deliberately, and in English for the first time. “I would rather be assured of her safety than her nearness, Mister Tree.”

James nodded absently, then seemed at last to understand what Saint-Germain had said, for he looked up sharply and said in a different voice, “God, yes. Oh, God, yes.”

“I had a letter from her not long ago. Perhaps you would care to read it later this evening?” He did not, in fact, want to share the contents of Madelaine’s letter with James; it was too privately loving for any eyes but his, yet he knew that this man loved her with an intensity that was only exceeded by his own.

“No,” James said after a brief hesitation. “So long as she’s okay, that’s all that matters. If anything happened to her, after this, I think I’d walk into the path of a German tank.” His mouth turned up at the corners, quivered, and fell again into the harsh downward curve that had become characteristic in the last month. He looked down at his ruined jacket and plucked at one of the frayed tears.

Saint-Germain watched this closely, then asked, “Has the fighting been very bad?”

“What’s very bad? Some days we kill more than they do, and some days they kill more. It sickens me.” He turned toward the fire and for a little time said nothing; Saint-Germain respected his silence. Finally James sighed. “Is there anyone else here at Montalia?”

“My manservant Roger, but no one other than he.” Again Saint-Germain waited, then inquired, “Is there something you require, Mister Tree? I would recommend a bath and rest to begin with.”

This time James faltered noticeably. “It’s funny; I really don’t know what I want.” He gave Saint-Germain a quick, baffled look. “I wanted to be here. But now that I am, I’m too tired to care.” His eyes met Saint-Germain’s once, then fell away. “It doesn’t make much sense.”

“It makes admirable sense,” Saint-Germain told him, shaking his head as he studied James.

“I’m probably hungry and sore, too, but, I don’t know…” He leaned back in the chair, and after a few minutes while Saint-Germain built up the fire, he began to talk in a quiet, remote ramble. “I went home in thirty-one; Madelaine might have mentioned it.”

“Yes,” Saint-Germain said as he poked at the pine log; it crackled and its sap ran and popped on the dry bark.

“It was supposed to be earlier, but what with the Crash, they weren’t in any hurry to bring one more hungry reporter back to St. Louis. So Crandell—he was my boss then—extended my assignment and when he died, Sonderson, who replaced him, gave me another eighteen months before asking me to come back. It was strange, being back in the States after more than thirteen years in Europe. You think you know how you’ll feel, but you don’t. You think it will be familiar and cozy, but it isn’t. I felt damn-all odd, I can tell you. People on the street looked so—out of place. Of course the Depression was wrecking everything in the cities, but it was not only that. What worried me was hearing the same old platitudes everyone had been using in 1916. I couldn’t believe it. With everything that had happened there was no comprehension that the world had changed. It was so different, in a way that was so complete that there was nothing the change did not touch. People kept talking about getting back to the old ways without understanding that they could not do that ever again…”

“They never can,” Saint-Germain interjected softly. He was seated once again in the high-backed overstuffed chair.

“… no matter what.” He broke off. “Maybe you’re right,” he concluded lamely, and stared at the fire. “I’ve been cold.”

“In time you will be warm again, Mister Tree,” Saint-Germain said, and rose to pick up a silver bell lying on the table beside his violin case. “Would you like to lie down? You could use rest, Mister Tree.” His manner was impeccably polite but James sensed that he, would do well to cooperate with the suggestion.

“Sure,” was James’ quiet response. “Sure, why not.”

“Excellent, Mister Tree.” He rang the bell, and within two minutes a sandy-haired man of middle height, middle build, and middle age came into the room. “Roger, this is Madelaine’s great good friend, James Emmerson Tree. He has gone through an… ordeal.” One of Saint-Germain’s brows rose sharply and Roger recognized it for the signal it was.

“How difficult for him,” Roger said in a neutral voice. “Mister Tree, if you will let me attend to you…”

James shook his head. “I can manage for myself,” he said, not at all sure that he could.

“Nonetheless, you will permit Roger to assist you. And when you have somewhat recovered, we will attend to the rest of it.”

“The rest of it?” James echoed as he got out of the chair, feeling horribly grateful for Roger’s proffered arm.

“Yes, Mister Tree, the rest of it.” He smiled his encouragement but there was little amusement in his countenance.

“Yeah, I guess,” James responded vaguely, and allowed himself to be guided into the dark hallway.

The bathroom was as he remembered it—large, white tiled and old fashioned. The tub stood on gilt crocodile feet and featured elaborate fixtures of the sort that had been in vogue eighty years before. James regarded it affectionately while Roger helped to take off his damaged clothing. “I’ve always liked that tub,” he said when he was almost naked. “It
is
something of a museum piece,” Roger said, and James was free to assume he agreed.

The water billowed out of the taps steaming, but James looked at it with an unexpected disquiet. He was filthy, his muscles were stiff and sore, and there were other hurts on his body which he thought would welcome the water, but at the last moment he hesitated, suppressing a kind of vertigo. With care, he steadied himself with one hand and said to Roger, who was leaving the room, “I’m worn out, that’s what it is.”

“Very likely,” the manservant said in a neutral tone before closing the door.

As he stretched out in the tub, the anticipated relaxation did not quite happen. James felt his stiff back relax, but not to the point of letting him doze. He dismissed this as part of the aches and hurts that racked him. When he had washed away the worst of the grime, he looked over the damage he had sustained when he was thrown from the jeep. There was a deep weal down the inside of his arm. “Christ!” James muttered when he saw it, thinking he must have bled more than he had thought. Another deep cut on his thigh was red but healing, and other lacerations showed no sign of infection. “Which is lucky,” James remarked to the ceiling, knowing that he could never have come the long miles to Montalia if he had been more badly hurt. The other two reporters had not been so fortunate: one had been shot in the crossfire that wrecked the jeep and the other had been crushed as the jeep overturned.

This was the first time James had been able to remember the incident clearly, and it chilled him. How easy it would have been to have died with them. One random factor different and he would have been the one who was shot or crushed. With an oath he got out of the tub, and stood shaking on the cold tiles as the water drained away.

“I have brought you a robe,” Roger said a few minutes later as he returned. “Your other garments are not much use any longer. I believe that there is a change of clothes in the armoire of the room you used to occupy.”

“Hope I can still get into them,” James said lightly in an attempt to control the fright that had got hold of him.

“You will discover that later, Mister Tree.” He helped the American into the bathrobe he held, saying in a steady manner, “It’s very late, Mister Tree. The sun will be up soon, in fact. Why don’t you rest for now, and my master will see you when you have risen.”

“Sounds good,” James answered as he tied the sash. He wanted to sleep more than he could admit, more than he ever remembered wanting to. “I… I’ll probably not get up until, oh, five or six o’clock.”

“No matter, Mister Tree,” Roger said, and went to hold the door for James.

James woke from fidgety sleep not long after sunset. He looked blankly around the room Madelaine had given him so many years before, and for several minutes could not recall how he had got there, or where he was. Slowly, as if emerging from a drugged stupor he brought back the events of the previous night There at the foot of the bed was the robe, its soft heavy wool familiar to his touch. Memories returned in a torrent as he sat up in bed: how many times he had held Madelaine beside him through the night and loved her with all his body and all his soul. He felt her absence keenly. At that, he remembered that Saint-Germain was at Montalia, and for the first time, James felt awkward about it. It was not simply that he was jealous, although that was a factor, but that he had never properly understood the man’s importance in Madelaine’s life.

He got out of bed and began to pace restlessly, feeling very hungry now, but oddly repulsed at the thought of food. “Rations,” he said to the walls in a half-joking tone, “that’s what’s done it.” Telling himself that he was becoming morbid, he threw off the robe, letting it lie in a heap in the nearest chair, and dressed in the slightly old-fashioned suit he had left here before returning to America. The trousers, he noticed, were a little loose on him now, and he hitched them up uneasily. He had neither belt nor suspenders for it, and might have to ask for one or the other. The jacket hung on him, and he reflected that he had not gone in for much exercise in the last few years until he had come back to Europe four months ago. He looked in vain for a tie and recollected that he had disdained them for a time. He would have to find something else.

At last he found a roll-top pull-over at the bottom of one of the drawers, and he gratefully stripped off jacket and shirt to put it on. It was of soft tan wool, with one or two small holes on the right sleeve where moths had reached it, and it felt lovely next to his skin. With shirt and jacket once more donned, James felt that he presented a good enough appearance to venture down into the main rooms of the chateau.

He found his way easily enough, although the halls were dark. His eyes adjusted readily to this, and he told himself that after all the nights when he and Madelaine had sought each other in the dim rooms and corridors, he should be able to find his way blindfolded. For the first time in several days, he chuckled.

“Something amuses you, Mister Tree?” said Saint-Germain from behind him, his tone lightly remote as he approached. “I heard you come down the stairs a few minutes ago. I’m pleased you’re up. I thought you might be… hungry.”

“I was. I am,” James said, turning to face the other man. “But there’s…” He could not continue and was not certain why.

“For whatever consolation it may be to you, I do sympathise, Mister Tree,” le Comte said slowly, looking up at the tall American. “It may surprise you to learn that it will be a while before you become used to your… transition.” As he said this, his dark eyes met James’ uncompromisingly. “Transition?” James repeated with a bewildered smile. “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?” Le Comte de Saint-Germain gave James another steady look and said cautiously, “Mister Tree, are you aware of what has happened to you?”

James laughed uneasily. “I think I’ve been hurt. I
know
I have. There are cuts on my arms and legs, a couple pretty serious.” He cleared his throat nervously. “There were three of us in the jeep, and there was an ambush. No one bothered to find out if we were press, but I don’t blame them for that. I don’t know which side did it, really.” He shook himself self-consciously. “Someone must have walked over my grave.”

“Very astute, Mister Tree,” Saint-Germain said compassionately.

“I don’t remember much more than that. It
does
sound lame, doesn’t it? But I don’t.”

“You recall being injured.” He motioned toward the tall, studded doors that led to the small sitting room where James had found him the night before. “That is a start.”

James fell into step beside the smaller man and was mildly startled to find that he had to walk briskly to keep up with Saint-Germain. “Actually, it’s all muddled. I remember the crossfire, and the jeep turning over, and being tossed into the air, but the rest is all… jumbled. I must have passed out, and didn’t come to until after dark. I can’t tell you what made me come here. I guess when you’re hurt, you look for a safe place, and I’ve been here before, so…” He heard Saint-Germain close the door behind them and stopped to look about the sitting room.