"Preferably not in the Foreign Legion,” Exeter added.
Mrs. Bodgley thundered a brief laugh like a signal cannon. “Indeed not! But from what you say...” She was talkative but her wits were not befuddled. “Oh, some of Gilbert's friends will help. I'll think of someone in the morning."
"That would be wonderful! Thank you.” Exeter's gaze flickered toward Smedley's empty cuff—and then away again, quickly. “But I also must get word back to the Service, on Nextdoor. About the traitor. That is urgent."
Even the deepening twilight could not conceal the shrewdness in the old lady's stare. “But you say that only people can cross over? You cannot just drop a note?"
Again Exeter glanced briefly at Smedley.
"That is correct. All messages are verbal. Someone will have to make the trip there and back. One possibility would be Stonehenge, the portal I used before, but Alice says the Army has it shut off."
"I am sure that is correct."
Smedley waited for her to invoke some more of her late husband's friends, but she just sipped her brandy in silence.
Exeter scratched his chin. He had cut it while shaving for dinner, and now he was making it bleed again. “Another approach would be to get in touch with the, ah, the numen who cured my leg. The one I called Mr. Goodfellow."
"And where is he?"
"Not far from here, but I'm not sure where. Do you have any local Ordnance Survey maps around?"
"Gilbert had reams of them, but they're packed away in boxes somewhere. And I don't think you can buy any just now—in case of spies, you know. Why do you need them?"
"To find a hill with standing stones on it."
"Nathaniel Glossop."
"Beg pardon?"
"Nathaniel Glossop,” Mrs. Bodgley repeated infallibly. “A neighbor. He knows all the local archaeology. I shall call on him in the morning."
"Oh, jolly good!” Exeter said. “Spiffing! That would be very good of you."
"No trouble, Edward. But tell me something. Why did it take you three years to return?"
His hesitation was interesting.
"Well, the Service weren't frightfully helpful, I admit."
"You were a prisoner?"
"Er, hardly! But they'd suspended all Home leave during hostilities, and the Committee didn't want to make a special case for me. They kept saying that the war would be over before I could do any good. Olympus doesn't keep up to date very well, you see. The Times doesn't circulate there. We knew the war was still going on, but months would go by without news, and the war always seemed to be on the point of ending. And ... they had this conviction that I have a destiny to play out as the Liberator."
Mrs. Bodgley made clucking noises of disapproval. The moon was rising, silver behind the sable yews.
"Well, naturally they're more concerned about what's happening on Nextdoor than here,” Exeter said defensively. “They're very dedicated to their own cause. And it did take me almost two years to arrive at Olympus in the first place."
"Why?"
He peered at his fingers and found the blood on them. Muttering angrily, he fumbled for a handkerchief. “What? Oh, the Vales are primitive compared to Europe. The distances are not great, but it's like wandering around Afghanistan or ancient Greece. Strangers attract suspicion. Unattached young men are apt to be taken for spies. Remember how Elizabethans felt about paupers—Poor Law, and all that—send them back to their home parish? There's slavery in some places. Thargvale, in particular."
"How barbaric!"
"Believe me, it is! And if not slavery, then military service. For the first year or so, I was caught up in a war."
Pause. “A war?” Mrs. Bodgley repeated the word with disapproval. The brandy was making her louder and more matriarchal than ever. Smedley wondered what Alice was making of her. Alice had not spoken in a long time. She was too close for him to see her expression. She was too close.
"'Fraid so,” Exeter agreed.
"Like Afghanistan, you said? Bows and arrows? Some squalid tribal squabble?"
"Very much squalid."
"Edward, I'm afraid I feel a little disappointed in you! Could you not have left the natives to fight their own battles? I really can't see why it need have been any of your business. Your duty lay back here, surely?"
Smedley wondered what the good lady was going to say when she heard about the scars and the face paint. Perhaps Exeter could guess, because he did not mention them.
"I felt that way too, Mrs. Bodgley. But it wasn't so easy. First, no army tolerates deserters. Secondly, I—” Exeter shot another brief, cryptic glance at Smedley, as if checking his reactions. “Well, I had responsibilities there, too. I had made friends, you see, who had given me hospitality, so I could hardly just run away and leave them, could I?"
"You weren't fighting in the ranks, though, were you?” Alice said.
Exeter pulled a face. “Not in the end,” he admitted.
"They elected you leader?"
He nodded unwillingly.
"Leader?” Mrs. Bodgley paused, as if rolling the idea around in her mind. “Leader of what?"
"The combined Joalian and Nagian armies. In our terms not much more than a brigade, five or six thousand."
"Indeed? Well, that does make a difference, I admit."
It certainly did, Smedley thought. Brigadier Exeter? Field-Marshal Exeter! Bloody good show!
"Of course, it would be just like a Fallow boy to take command,” Mrs. Bodgley mused approvingly. “Leadership! Initiative! The traditions of the Old School. The school magazine will—No, I suppose not."
"Oh, it was nothing to do with me,” Exeter protested. “It was just my stranger's charisma."
"You are modest, Edward. It is starting to get chilly, isn't it? But let's stay out here a little longer. I hate the smell of those paraffin lamps. Do tell us about this war of yours."
Exeter laughed unconvincingly. “It wasn't very noble. I worked my way up from the ranks. By the time they elected me supremo, we were locked up in a besieged city with the finest army in the Vales certain to come after us as soon as spring opened the passes. The seasons are running about three months behind ours just now, so that would have been roughly a year after I crossed over."
"Your cause was just, I trust?"
"My cause was just to save our necks. There was no hope of winning anything, nothing at all. All we wanted to do was get home safely."
"Xenophon and the Ten Thousand!"
"On a very, very small scale."
Better still! Smedley had always approved of wily old Xenophon, and he was intrigued by this charisma business—could use bags more of it on the Western Front! “How did you get them to elect you leader?” he asked.
Exeter shrugged. “I didn't. It just sort of happened. Joalians are great believers in pour encourager les autres. They'd already beheaded one general. They were ready to shorten his successor and put me up instead. I said I would help, but only if they'd just demote Kolgan back to being my deputy.... I told you, strangers have charisma."
"But you'd got them safely into the city in the first place,” Alice remarked quietly.
"True. But that was a magic trick."
"So how did you get them out?"
Exeter scratched his chin. “By reading, mostly,” he said vaguely. “We had a whole winter to kill, and there were books in Lemod—that was the city, Lemod. I did a lot of reading. And I had Ysian to help."
"Who's Ysian?” Alice asked.
"Er ... a friend, ah, native, I mean. A Lemodian. Helpful."
"Describe this friend!"
Even in moonlight, his hesitation was obvious. “A girl. I—I found her under a bed, actually."