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The snow had begun at dawn, building up in dirty smears against the windows all through the long, grey day; now, in the late afternoon, the coach wheels were still skimming through the surfaces of it, making drawn-out sounds like distant whispers.
In the house on Jermyn Street, the lights were lit, glowing yellow against the dreary and the dreich.
"Hal," Minnie was saying. "Hal" - and when that got no response, "Melton."
"What is it?" Hal asked shortly, eyes down on the papers in front of him. Their recent state of organisation was a credit to Mr. Beasley; they could be removed from Hal's desk and retain their order for some hours afterwards, allowing him to carry them away from the chill of the barracks. In these last days before Christmas, the quartermaster was especially vigilant with regard to thefts. The paperwork was extensive.
Minnie was persistent. "We must do something about John."
"John?" Hal's attention was still elsewhere, eyes on lists of casks, meat, horses, geese.
"John," Minnie said. "Lord John William Grey, born younger son of the Duke of Pardloe."
His Majesty's servant in arms, Grey thought beneath lowered lashes, sodomite, and wakeful.
"I know who he is," Hal said, exasperatedly. Grey had been thinking, lately, to perhaps have his head polled, as Tom Byrd would have liked; to let go the fair hair and wear a wig, and powder. A surreptitious look down at his left hand, and that same thought again: he might leave off wearing Hector's ring; he might be only Lord John Grey, now.
"There's a sickness in him that goes beyond Crefeld," Minnie was declaring. "Something hidden."
He made a show of waking, then, opening his eyes, clasping his hands together and stretching out his arms. Minnie's attention was on him immediately, something halfway between concern and appraisal on her face. "John. I thought it best to leave you be. Will you stay for supper?"
He nodded gravely, and brought his feet down and his head away from the arm of the sofa. The room had grown darker in the previous hour, the lights more prominent. He blinked slowly for a few moments, then drew in his breath: something had moved, out there in the coming night; something dark and cowled.
"John, what is it?"
Grey was looking at the window, at the shadows beyond the glass. "Perhaps it was nothing," he said, honestly, with eyes still on that curious vacant space, where the figure had been. "A mere fancy."
*
He had not often gone to Lavender House since George Everett's death. Once, when chasing the Honourable Joseph Trevelyan, and he had met Percy Wainwright with his dark curls and full, red-tinted lips, and that had been another reason never to return, afterwards.
He didn't know what he was doing there now.
"Will you be still?" said the boy, and there was an odd fondness in that, an odd note of kindness. Grey was wondering if he presented such a sorry figure as to arouse sympathy from every quarter, even this, and in the cold daylight from the high windows, noted the new shadows on his own body, the sharpness of bones beneath the skin.
Tastes wandering towards a younger time, he had allowed the boy to wrap his wrists in silk, twisted to cut into the skin and then tied fast to the rings on the wall. The boy's lips were pink, a little stained with wine, but his hair was not red, nor curly; there was nothing familiar in the way he held his head.
The boy dipped down, kissed him. There was warmth in his mouth, and John could taste the wine they had both drunk. A heavy, rich taste, making him think first of Germany, and then his own foolishness. The discarded clothes on the floor were Tom's, long and shabby on him, and the leather tricorn his own but had been pulled down too low, to hide his hair. A foolish disguise, and in that foolishness, risky: but he had told himself on the threshold that he was a soldier, had lived a life of risk, and for the same cause.
"What cause?" the boy asked, and dipped his head again and sucked and nipped so he jerked, pulled against the bonds, was pushed back flat against the flat surface of the bed. The boy's fingers left blooming red outlines on his skin, the sting of pain flowering red in his consciousness. The boy's expression was wicked. He did not slacken, nor stop, nor hesitate to cause pain.
Grey hadn't known he was speaking aloud. "To be that which we are, without," and he was gasping and sobbing for breath, "without hindrance."
As part of the artifice, his eyes were smudged with soot, and it was running into his eyes now, blurring his vision. Through the murk, he thought something appeared: something standing in the room, hooded, with eyes burning black under the cowl.
The boy caught onto the change of mood quickly, alert as a wild animal. He half-stood, letting in chilled air. "What is it?"
"Nothing," Grey said, conscious that his voice was cracking. "I saw nothing."
*
In the morning, Hal sent a note to his brother: he was requested to attend the regimental headquarters, to handle some administrative matters, some argument over some matter of artillery requisitions. Grey had proferred an opinion on musket shot, divided two enlisted men each intent on removing the other's head, and overseen the delivery of salt beef and beer.
Just before it was reasonable to disappear for lunch, Hal reappeared with a stranger in tow, a dark-haired man with light grey eyes. He snapped his fingers, and Grey turned from launching himself into the saddle.
"This is Phillip Harcourt. Deo volente" – a swift, knowing look in Grey's direction – "he'll be joining the regiment. Harcourt, this is my brother, Lord John Grey."
"Major," Grey supplied, grasping the proffered hand. "Your servant, sir."
"If all is as expected, I will be taking up a commission in the new year," Harcourt explained. His grip was steady and firm. "If your brother is kind enough to acquiesce, of course."
"We'll see," Hal said, eyes alight with familiar determination. "John, Harcourt here says he's handy with a sword. Perhaps you'd test that."
Grey nodded, having suspected some ulterior motive to paperwork and salt beef. "I am at your disposal, sir," he said politely, with emphasis on the final word. Harcourt, to his credit, seemed to take well to the thrown-down gauntlet; he met Grey with clear eyes and ready stance. They fought with rapiers, Grey's own weapon of choice.
He began well. Grey kept his distance, keeping it an exhibition of form, letting the man show what he could do: Harcourt feinted and thrust, he parried and he stepped back, waiting for an opening and letting Grey assess him critically. Competent, he had decided; competent, with enough native cunning to allow for him to be an asset on a battlefield, when Harcourt took advantage of his moment's distraction to touch the point of the rapier to the hollow at the base of his collarbones.
He did not know exactly what happened next. It was a feeling something like wine or heavy brandy under his skin, some sort of poisonous galvanising force that led him to come momentarily to himself crouched low to the ground, blade balanced precariously on the quivering surface of Harcourt's neck. As he paused, poised on the point of something incomprehensible, the blade nicked the skin, pale under the tiny trickle of blood.
"Christ," Hal said, "Christ" – and reached ingloriously to grab his brother by the scruff of the neck, murmuring something too quietly to be heard, something that began with why and ended with my brother.
Grey said nothing, breathing heavily, suddenly gripped by a visceral memory of being four or five years old, in the grip of a tantrum, being lifted bodily by Hal and shaken into his senses. In another moment he was standing; the world was coming back into focus.
"Well, Harcourt," Hal was saying heartily, "baptism by fire, eh? Now we've got your blood running, we'll take you around to see how you do with a musket. Let me help you up."
Grey was looking back towards the horse, but was in time to see Hal's gaze on him, lit with concern and fury. And behind him, half-hidden by the crowd of onlookers, the figure all in black, with the hood.
*
He had lunch, although he didn't taste it, and afterwards could not have said what he had eaten. The sunset was early in the afternoon, and he chose not to return for a horse and walked home, boots sluicing through the slush, and he came into the house shivering.
"Really, my lord," Tom said, disapproving as a hen, finding somewhere to hang his coat so it stopped dripping cold, filthy water on the rugs, "you didn't ought to do such things, not now that you're, I mean, now that you've been ill."
Grey was suppressing a smile when reaching down to pull off his boots, but when he looked up he felt the expression fall off his face with almost comical immediacy. "Tom," he said, "forgive me. Do you see our visitor?"
Tom didn't answer. Tom was in Grey's room in his mother's house, attending to the lighting of the lamps; Grey was back in the darkening street, curiously emptied of people, still wearing the boots with the buckles unfastened, with sleet melting into his hair. The creature with the cowl stood there still; the room had vanished around them both.
"Ah," Grey said, and nothing more.
"Lord John Grey," the voice said, as though reading the name from a roll. "Born in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and twenty-nine. Twenty-nine years old. Ave atque vale."
Grey had been on a battlefield in Prussia, torn from his horse's back and shot into the water beneath the bridge, and had felt all pain stop in those black depths. He had thought himself dead, and been genuinely surprised at the noise as sudden as a blow as he rose. This time, he thought, he was not mistaken: the world was greying around him, fading in substance.
The creature spoke as though it were down a well, its voice echoing as though off ancient slates. "There are stone circles, and there are stones softened by time and brought up through the earth. You will be in a new place, Lord John Grey. New, and old at once. Tell them your name is John."
"It is," Grey was saying, but a gloved hand touched his lips, curiously human, gentle as a kiss.
"For tonight, it is the only name you bear. And ask no questions."
Not understanding, Grey nodded. And then the world became without shape or form, with darkness on the face of the void.
*
Hands, lifting him, and strange quick voices like blackbirds.
"Is he hurt? Maybe someone should call for an ambulance." A woman's voice.
"There's no blood." A man's, now. "I think he's waking up. Hey, mate. Are you in there? Say something."
"I'm fine," John managed to say, and opened his eyes. The man was inches away from him. His eyes were blue.
"There now." He sat back, pleased. His voice was Scottish, and John inhaled thick cold air like woodsmoke. "Knew you were all right. A funny turn, yeah?"
John opened his mouth and couldn't speak. The man said, "Let's get you inside."
Inside was some kind of drinking establishment, with high black beams made of gnarled wood and people, women and men wearing bright colours, seated at tables made of that same black wood. "I'll get you something," said the man. "Water, nothing lethal. What's your name?"
"John," he answered. "John Grey."
"Well, John Grey, sit tight."
A smile, and then he was placing a glass cup of water before him. He drank it, found it oddly cool and sweet, and then asked: "Who are you?"
"Hmm? My name's David." His fingers brushed John's. "Oh, you meant all of us. That didn't give you a clue?"
He sat back, moving his head so he could see a banner hanging from the beams, inexpertly tied. John had never seen so many colours together in one place, nor dyes so bright.
"This is where you were coming, right?" David asked, suddenly concerned. "This is where you wanted to be?"
"Yes."
"You know, I'm not sure about you," David said, looking at him with appraising eyes. "Don't mind me, I'm a medic, but you don't seem quite right. Tell you what, you stay till the end of the social, and if you're still not looking okay I pour you into a taxi for A and E, okay?"
Not understanding, he nodded. David placed a hand on his again. "You just keep breathing. Say if you need anything. New postgrad, is that it? We do these socials every couple of weeks. Club nights, pub nights, that sort of thing. The university gives us website space, too, it's pretty decent."
John nodded again, and stood up, suddenly restless. Outside, the darkness was far from complete, with globes of peculiar white light. He turned away, eyes burning. The man – David, he remembered – had risen also, crossed the space of the tavern, and placed an arm around another man, this one with dark eyes and skin, like a sailor. David made to kiss him, and the other man laughed and batted him away, with affection.
"And now!" the second man pronounced. "A warm welcome to the new faces, I should say first. And this week's theme, my queer friends: history. Sodomites through history!"
One of the women threw a nut at him from a bowl. "Speak for yourself, chauvinist!"
More laughter. Such comfort in the room, John was thinking, dizzily; such ease among them in their outlandish clothes, such ease of touch. The doors were open, letting in the evening air. No one got up to shut them.
"History," said the dark-eyed man, and sat down again. "Well, think about it. Plenty of time for us to do the banners and floats and whatnots. Bunch of lazy arses, all of you."
John kept breathing.
There were carol singers in the street outside. He went out through open doors, stepped out into the street, onto the cobbles. He recognised the vague shapes of the tenements, the peculiar arch of the sky, and the carol: personent hodie, voces puerulae, they were singing, although the melody was odd. Far, far above, above the castle, the flag flew, but he could not make out the colours.
"Needed some fresh air?" said a new voice, and he looked across at the woman speaking. He had seen her inside; she must have followed him out here. "It's a really lovely group, you know. Lovely city, Edinburgh. I hope you're happy here."
By the time the shadowed figure had appeared, and the world grown dark around him, he had opened his mouth to say, "I think I would be" – and he had meant it, despite the myriad strangenesses, despite the harshness of the lights.
*
He came to, face-down in the murk and cold. For a moment he thought himself in Scotland, on campaign, on one of those mornings with the night's frigid rain beneath him, soaked into chilled ground, but with that rare golden colour rising in the sky, backdrop to curlews and kites. But when he turned over, it was London, near Christmas, dirty, wet, busy as an anthill, familiar.
He was aware of a presence, even as he rolled and sat up, looked down at his boots and up at the wall of the alleyway. They were some way from the crush of the city, a little distant from the sound of the people thronging towards St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Sitting heedless and cross-legged in the snow, Grey asked: "Who are you?"
In the shadows by the wall, the figure was fading into part of the stones. "You have been to the Woolwich Arsenal, Lord John Grey. You have seen the soldier that roams from the past."
"The ghost?" Unwillingly: "Yes."
"I am… a friend."
"To whom?" Grey asked, a little sourly. The ice was melting with his body heat, water seeping into his clothes, making him shiver.
"All." The figure was almost invisible. "I bring you a gift, nothing more."
"A gift." Grey was looking down again, at his wet hands with nails torn. "You bring me visions of rainbows and sugar plums, the things of children. I have not been a child since I was twelve years old."
"You are a rationalist."
"I was a rationalist. Now I am a man who sees ghosts."
"You are a rationalist." There was a deep, dark resonance in the repetition. "You know better than most that nothing exists except that what men have built, brick by brick, had they only peat and sod to begin with, and soft ground on which to build."
"Building," Grey echoed. He was sitting in the dark, wearing Hector's ring. "Building."
"I give you yourself, Lord John Grey," the ghost intoned, and then it truly was disappearing, the stones evident through the folds of its cloak. "I give you all that you are. Merry Christmas to you, and vale."
"Be well," Grey said, to nobody in particular, to the inky, clearing sky.
*
"John." A hand on his shoulder, so he startled to full wakefulness. Olivia smiled down at him, the baby in the crook of her arm. "You were murmuring in your sleep, John. I thought it best to wake you."
"Thank you." Grey rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, a little fretful. He thought he heard the distant sounds of chimes, but must be mistaken; the church bells would ring in the morning.
"You have been in pain, I think." Olivia was strangely serious, for her, a wary look in her deep eyes. Hal had tried to spare them, he recalled dimly; he had sent word only when John was with von Namtzen and firmly set upon living, but his mother had aged from the news, and even Olivia was older than seventeen, now.
"I feel a little better," he said, with all honesty, and then the room was coming back into focus, the soft yellow lights welcoming, sweet. He had been sleeping on the long sofa, surrounded by the sounds of the house preparing for Christmas.
"I think I hear Aunt Bennie on the stair," Olivia said. "Here, John: hold the baby, I must just speak to her."
She darted out before he had any chance to argue, and found himself looking down at Cromwell Percival John Malcolm Stubbs, a few months old, blue-eyed, determined. There would be a time when he had speech at his command, when he grew into personality, and then perhaps Grey would stop thinking of him in terms of all his names. Until then, they would remain, his only handle on a new being.
Staring down at him, he came to a decision.
"There," Olivia said with satisfaction, coming swiftly through the door. "We shall have red wine as well as white at dinner. Are you quite all right, John?"
Grey handed over the child before speaking, and stood up. There was welcome strength in his limbs as he walked across to the window, looking out at the lamps. "I have something to tell you."
Olivia was frowning. "Speak on."
"His name was Perseverance." Off her look of confusion, he said, more softly this time, "Percy Wainwright. He was Perseverance, not Percival."
"Oh," Olivia said, and sat down.
"Methodists," Grey said, a little helplessly. "They give their children such names."
"Oh," Olivia said again. "Then my baby is… wrongly named."
"He told no one," Grey said. "Perhaps you can understand why he let the world around him labour under a misconception."
Olivia smiled a little. "How did you come to know it, then?"
Grey was still looking at the window, through to the street beyond. "There are few secrets," he said, finally, 'that a man can take with him to his hanging."
Olivia nodded. She was staring down at the baby as she said, "They told me that I should remove the name, before his christening," she said. "That to name my child after a man hanged was foolish, blasphemous. But I will not. He was not a wicked man. He was good to you, and to me, and to my son."
Grey asked, "You don't think he was a wicked man?"
"No," Olivia said, steadily. "I do not."
Grey found that he could not look at her, nor at anything save his own hands, wrung together despite his efforts.
"As for the name, it can be changed," Olivia went on, placidly. "And he will not use all his names. Save when he joins the regiment, perhaps!" She laughed. "Perhaps it will be a gift to him, something to become part of his nature."
"Perhaps," John echoed, and in the darkness beyond the windows, they were singing carols in low notes, beneath the sound of bells.