“And are we fully recovered?” Legister prompted.
Owain gave the curtest of nods. “Sir.”
“You must tell me about it. I would be interested in the details.”
He had a reptilian stillness, making only minimal movements. It was impossible to imagine what Marisa was like in his company, what she made of their marriage. They tended to steer away from the subject. It was far too dangerous.
“Biscuit?” Owain said, offering a plate.
Legister put a palm up. “They tell me you were lucky to survive.”
“The report I was carrying was salvaged.”
A stupid thing to say, and Legister was suitably unimpressed. “Oh, good soldier,” he said in a tone too weary for contempt. “Must make sure the paperwork isn’t lost, mustn’t we?”
There was a burst of coughing at the other end of the table. His uncle, beckoning to him, hauling himself to his feet. Owain set the tray down and hurried to his side.
“Get me outside, boy,” he managed to say.
Owain shepherded him through the door and into the kitchen.
“Water,” Sir Gruffydd instructed, half pushing him away, still coughing.
His cheeks were the colour of damsons, his lips flecked with biscuit crumbs. He leant on a table while Owain put a tumbler under the cold water tap.
The field marshal took the glass from him and drained it in one. Removing a handkerchief, he swabbed his lips. He breathed in deeply, didn’t cough again. Already his colour was returning to normal.
“Narrow escape,” he said to Owain in Welsh. “I think you can leave it to us now. I expect you’d like to get some air, yes?”
Owain was surprised by this. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Wouldn’t say so otherwise. We’ll be winding up soon. Take yourself off. It’s an order, Owain.”
NINETEEN
The elevator carried Owain up four, five, six, seven floors. Until now I hadn’t realised he was underground.
The surface hall of the building was thick with security personnel, most of them women. He walked out blinking into the wan late afternoon light, relieved to be released from the fetid smokiness of the conference room.
Beyond the anti-aircraft and missile batteries a long rectangular frozen lake was spread out in front of him, lined on both sides with bare upright poplars. A breeze fnfesouth had raised the temperature unexpectedly. It was almost balmy.
On the balcony were stalls selling drinks and pastries, their cherry-striped awnings incongruously festive in the greyness. The prospect of warmer weather had tempted staff outdoors. They were largely women, a few of Arab or African descent, huddling in their greatcoats over hot drinks.
Everyone was talking in French. Only now did I become aware that we were no longer in London but rather the Alliance’s western continental headquarters in Versailles. Owain had flown out with his uncle for the chiefs of state conference.
He paid an extortionate price for a double espresso, which came with a small chocolate wafer wrapped in silver foil. The coffee was intensely bitter, the chocolate flavourless and gritty, a triumph of style over substance. He gazed out over the ashen parkland, frustrated that he was not able to pursue his investigations into what had happened to him in Regent Street.
“Do you mind if we join you?
It was Giselle Vigoroux. And standing at her shoulder was Marisa.
She wore her black fur coat and smiled uncertainly at him. Giselle was holding two cappuccinos and Owain immediately rose to seat them. It was three days since he had last seen Marisa.
Giselle did not allow any awkward hiatus to develop, immediately remarking that the majority of staff at the headquarters was female and asking Owain’s opinion on the desirability of enlisting women into frontline combat units.
Owain shrugged. Privately he considered the prospect a recipe for indiscipline and a rapid decline in combat efficiency. But he said, “It might work, as long as it’s done on a voluntary basis. And I think you’d need to keep the sexes separate.”
“Indeed?” Giselle said. “What, all-female armies?”
“Just within units. Say on a battalion level. Otherwise there could be complications.”
Giselle took a sip of her coffee.
“I take it you’re in favour,” I made Owain say.
“To the contrary. I am against it. Unless you replace men entirely, from bottom to top. In that way we might see a more rational conduct to our military efforts. Who knows, we might even decide to stop fighting altogether.”
There was a hint of provocation in her voice. He didn’t know how serious she was being. I tried to speak through him again, to ask if she favoured an unconditional truce; but Owain wasn’t having any of it.
Giselle put down her cup and rose. “You must excuse me for a few moments.”
As soon as she was gone, Marisaid, “I wanted to let you know I would be here. But there was no opportunity.”
“I didn’t know myself until we landed,” Owain replied.
“Carl told me yesterday. To give me time to pack a suitcase.”
Owain wondered if this was the only reason. Perhaps Legister was checking his own internal security.
“He’s suspicious of us, Marisa.”
She merely shrugged. “He knows we are friends. I told him we meet.”
“You told him?”
“When he spoke of you the other day. I thought it better to say we sometimes meet. That way the air is clear.”
This was a highly optimistic assumption to him. “He didn’t want to know why you hadn’t mentioned it before?”
“He asked me if we were lovers.”
Owain hadn’t anticipated this, though it was perfectly logical. He had a jittery sense of his privacy having been violated.
“He was very calm about it. As if he was asking about the menu for dinner. I told him we were simply friends. That my days were long and poor in companionship. That I had done nothing to compromise myself.”
It scarcely sounded like an unconditional assertion of her fidelity. “What did he say?”
“He raised no objections.”
“None at all?”
“He said that providing your intentions were as innocent as mine he saw no reason to prescribe future meetings.”
“Proscribe.”
“Yes. That word. He speaks like a lawyer, Owain, even to me. Nothing I do can touch him.”
He was certain the marriage was sexless, though it was not something they had ever discussed directly. It was hard to imagine Marisa submitting even to an embrace.
“We are to spend some time together when the conference is over. We will travel, see some sights.”
She made the prospect sound less than appealing, and Owain himself didn’t relish it. Was he becoming possessive of her? Perhaps he should stop it now, before they compromised one another. But it wasn’t what he wanted.
She was staring at something over his shoulder. Hastily swallowing theast of her coffee, she stood up.
Her husband was coming out of the building with Giselle.
Owain also rose, feeling like a lover caught in the middle of a tryst. Giselle looked as if she was deliberately trying to delay Legister by talking to him—about Sir Gruffydd, it became clear as they drew closer. Legister was listening but he kept his eyes on Marisa. He wore a dark overcoat and a black astrakhan hat. Owain heard Giselle assure him that his concerns about the field marshal’s health were exaggerated.
“Good morning, my dear,” Legister said to Marisa in a businesslike tone. “I trust you slept well.”
“Very well, thank you,” she replied.
“We are having a short break from our deliberations. I thought a walk might be refreshing.”