She was expecting him to be startled again. That was the normal reaction Rebecca got from older men-any men-when she asked one of her many questions about the natural world. Instead, to her surprise, the expression which came to his face was Pride?
"That's just about exactly right," Michael replied. "The distilling process is pretty complicated, you understand." He frowned. "Probably more than we can manage here, I'm afraid. In any large quantities, at least. But-yes, that's what gasoline is. Simple, really."
"And you then burn it inside the-motors? Is that the right word?" At his nod, she added: "And that is the source of the power which drives your horseless carriages."
Again, he nodded. And, again, that odd expression came to his face. Smiling very broadly he was, too.
Yes. It is pride. Why, I wonder?
The distance was almost three miles, from the school to the house owned by the Roths where Rebecca was now living. It took them well over an hour to make the journey, as slowly as they were walking. Most of the time-almost all of it-was spent with Rebecca asking questions. Michael answered them, of course. But his answers were usually brief. He was a good listener, and Rebecca more often than not managed to answer her own questions with new ones.
By the time they reached the Roths' home, that peculiar expression of pride seemed to have become permanently fixed on Michael's face. So had his smile.
But Rebecca no longer wondered at the reason. She knew. And found the knowledge as exhilarating as it was unsettling.
At the door, standing on the porch, she began to knock. Then, pausing, she turned to face Michael. He was very close to her.
This is insane! Insane, Rebecca-do you hear?
She lowered her eyes, staring at his chest. He was wearing a linen shirt today, well-made and dyed in blues and grays. But she knew that she would always see that chest in white silk, drenched by sunlight. For one of the few times in her life, Rebecca Abrabanel was utterly at a loss for words.
Michael spoke softly. "Rebecca."
She raised her eyes to meet his. He was still smiling. Not broadly, however. The smile seemed-understanding, she thought.
"This is difficult," he said. "For both of us, I think." He chuckled. "Sure as hell for me!" Chuckled again. "Dinner and a movie just doesn't seem appropriate, somehow."
She did not comprehend the precise meaning of that sentence, but she understood the logic. Quite well. She felt her cheeks flush, but fought off the urge to lower her eyes. She even smiled herself.
Michael spread his hands in a gesture which combined amusement, momentary exasperation, and-most of all-patience. Rebecca was dazzled by the charm of it. Relaxed, humorous-confident.
"Time," he said. "I think-yes. We need some time."
Rebecca found herself nodding, and fiercely tried to restrain the impulse. Hopeless. Idiot girl! The image of a rabbit came to her mind, sniffing the world's juiciest cabbage. The image, combined with her nervousness, caused her to burst into sudden laughter.
Then, seeing the quizzical expression on Michael's face, she placed her hand on his chest. "Please," she whispered. "It is not- I am laughing at myself, not you."
The humor faded. Staring into his eyes, now, Rebecca fought for the words. So hard, to speak those words, in a world of confusion and chaos. Too hard.
Time, yes. I am not ready for this.
"Do not be angry with me," she said. Softly, pleading: "Please."
Michael smiled and placed a hand on her cheek. She responded by pressing her cheek into the hand, as if she were an automaton. She did not even try to stop herself.
"Why should I be angry?" he asked. And that, too-that simple question-seemed as dazzling to her as the sunlight. His hand was very warm.
He was turning away. "Time," he said, still smiling. Very broadly, now. Very cheerfully-almost gaily. "Time, yes."
Rebecca stared at his departing figure. When Michael reached the bottom of the small flight of stairs, Rebecca blurted out his name.
He turned and looked back at her.
The words came, finally. Some of them, at least.
"I think you are the most splendid man in the world, Michael. Truly I do."
A moment later she was knocking on the door. Almost frantically. She did not look behind her, afraid of what she would see. Or, perhaps, she was simply afraid of her reaction to what she knew she would see. A smiling face can be the most frightening thing in the world. Her world, as she knew it.
The door opened, and she vanished into the safety beyond. Out of the sunlight.
For a time.
Time, yes.
Time-yes!
Chapter 10
Alexander Mackay was a Scotsman and, as such, a Calvinist born and bred. Even if he had lapsed a bit-more than a bit, in truth-from the faith of his fathers, he had not lost the ingrained habits of his upbringing. Thus, staring down at the newest batch of corpses, he did not blaspheme. But he had no qualms about using other terms, so long as the Lord's name was not taken in vain. Perched on the saddle of his great warhorse, the young nobleman cast a wide net of incredibly vulgar terms across the Thuringian landscape in general, and a certain unit of Protestant mercenaries in particular. "Whoreson craven jackals" was perhaps the least obscene.
His second-in-command, a half-bald, mustachioed veteran in his forties, waited patiently until the cavalry commander was finished. Then, spitting casually onto the ground, Andrew Lennox simply shrugged and said: "What d'ye expect, lad? Most o' t'men guarding Badenburg"-the word guarding was accompanied by a magnificent sneer-"ae deserters from Mansfeld's old army. T'most wort'less soldiers in t'world e'en 'fore Mansfeld died."
"Then why did the town fathers hire the bastards?" Mackay demanded hotly. His eyes, still studying the scene of carnage, fell on the corpse of a small boy, perhaps six years of age. The child's body had been charred by the collapsing roof of the burned farmhouse in which he had spent his short life, but not so badly that Mackay couldn't see his entrails stretching across the dirt of the farmyard. The end of his intestines had been pinned to the ground by a kitchen knife, several feet from the body itself. The grotesque display of torture was entirely typical of the way some of Tilly's mercenaries amused themselves.
For all that Mackay had become inured to such scenes in the year since his arrival in Germany, he was glad that the bodies of the farm's womenfolk had been in the house itself. The corpses had been burnt to skeletons in that inferno, so there was no way to determine the exact manner of their deaths. Mackay didn't want to know. At the age of twenty-two, he had learned enough of cruelty and bestiality to last him a lifetime. Even the lifetime of a Scotsman, a breed not noted for their squeamishness.
Lennox did not bother to answer Mackay's question. The question had been purely rhetorical. Young, Mackay might be, but he was not foolish. The cavalry commander knew as well as anyone why Badenburg's notables had "agreed" to hire Ernst Hoffman's small army of mercenaries. They had been given precious little choice. Let them plunder the town all at once, or let them plunder it a bit at a time. Like many other towns in war-ravaged Germany, Badenburg had taken the second option. By now, several years later, most of its citizens had come to regret the choice. Hoffman's men claimed to be "Protestant," but that had proven to be no boon for Protestant Badenburg. With individual exceptions here and there, Hoffman and his thugs could no longer even be considered "soldiers," in any meaningful sense of the term. They were simply a gang of extortionists. Criminals, in all but name.