He addressed the tallest of the trees. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
It had been just a few weeks ago that he’d been invited to meet Turpin at Keble. His commanding officer had been a guest of the Warden, and had asked Hamilton to join him at High Table. This had seemed at the time the most natural thing in the world, Keble being where Hamilton himself had been an undergraduate. He’d driven down to Oxford as always, had the Porters fuss over the Morgan as always. He’d stopped for a moment outside the chapel, thinking about Annie, the terrible lack of her. But he could still look at the chapel and take pleasure in it. He’d been satisfied with his composure, then. At that time he’d already been on leave for several weeks. He should have realized that had been suspiciously long. And before that he’d been used for penny-ante jobs, sent on them by junior officers, not even allowed to return to the Dragoons, who were themselves on endless exercises in Scotland. He really should have understood, before it had been revealed to him, that he was being kept away from something.
It had been in the Warden’s rooms at Keble that Turpin had first appeared in his life, all those years ago, had first asked him about working out of uniform. To some people, he’d said, the balance, the necessary moment-by-moment weighing and shifting of everything from military strength to personal ethics that kept war from erupting between the great nations and their colonies right across the solar system, was something felt, something in the body. This had been a couple of years before the medical theologians had got to work on how the balance actually was present in the mind. Hamilton had recognized that in himself. Turpin had already been then as Hamilton had always known him, his face a patchwork of grown skin, from where he’d had the corners knocked off him in the side streets of Kiev and the muck-filled trenches of Zimbabwe.
But on entering the Warden’s rooms on this later occasion, after decades of service, Hamilton had found himself saluting a different Turpin. His features were smooth, all trace of his experience removed. Hamilton had carefully not reacted. Turpin hadn’t offered any comment. “Interesting crowd this evening, Major,” he’d said, nodding to indicate those assembled under the Warden’s roof. Hamilton had looked. And that had been, now he looked back to it, the moment his own balance had started to slide dangerously towards collapse.
Standing beside the dress uniforms and the evening suits and the clerical collars had been a small deer.
It was not some sort of extraordinary pet. Its gaze had been following the movements of a conversation, and then it was taking part in it, its mouth forming words in a horribly human way. Hamilton had looked quickly over to where a swirl of translucent drapery had been chatting with the chaplain. Nearby, a circling pillar of … they had actually been continuously falling birds, or not quite birds, but the faux heraldic devices often displayed by the Foreigners whose forces were now encircling the solar system. He’d guessed that the falling was the point, rather than the … he’d wanted to call it a dress … being a celebration of the idea that the Foreigners might flock together and make their plans in great wheeling masses. The pillar held a glass of wine, supported somehow by all those shapes dropping past it. These creatures were all ladies, Hamilton had assumed. Or rather, hoped.
“It’s all the rage at the Palace,” said Turpin. “It’s all relative this, and relative that.”
Hamilton hadn’t found it in him to make any sensible comment. He’d heard about such things, obviously. Enough to disdain them and move on to some other subject. That the new King had allowed, even encouraged this sort of thing, presumably to the continuing shame of Elizabeth … he’d stopped himself. He was thinking of the Queen, and he could not allow himself to feel so intimate with what she might or might not think of her husband.
“Not your sort of thing?” asked Turpin.
“No, sir.”
Turpin paused a moment, considering, and offered a new tack. “The Bodlean is, I believe, now infinite.”
“Good for it.”
Turpin had nodded towards the corner. “So. What about him?”
He was indicating a young man, talking to a beautiful woman. Hamilton’s first thought had been that he was familiar. Then he had realized. And had first found the anger that hadn’t left him since. This was what downed Foreigner vessels had brought here. Of course it wouldn’t all be used for frippery. Or perhaps now frippery had invaded war.
It had been like looking at the son he’d never had, at his own face without everything time had written on it. There was for a moment a ghost of a thought that they’d taken away from him that moment of seeing a son. That had been the first of the many ghosts.
The hair was darker. The body was thinner, more hips than shoulders. The boy had worn not uniform, but black tie, so they hadn’t managed, or perhaps even wished, to get him into the regiment. The young woman the boy was talking to had nudged him, and he had looked towards Hamilton. It was the shock of running into a mirror. The eyes were the same. He hadn’t known what his own expression had been in that instant, but the younger version of him had worn a smile as he made eye contact. It hadn’t been in the slightest bit deferential. It wasn’t attractive, either. But Hamilton had recognized it. He contained his anger, knowing that this boy would be able to read him like a book. Hamilton had had no idea that such things were now possible. This must be a very secure gathering, for the two of them to be seen together. The boy had expected this. He had been allowed that.
He had turned back to his superior officer with a raised eyebrow. “Who’s the girl?”
Turpin had paused for a moment, pleasingly, taken aback by Hamilton’s lack of comment about the boy. “Her name is Precious Nothing.”
“Parents who like a challenge?”
“Perhaps it was a memento mori. She’s—”
“With the College of Heralds, yes.” Hamilton had seen the colors on her silk scarf, which was one hell of a place to put them.
“Well, only just about, these days. She’s a senior Herald, but she’s been put on probation.”
“Because of him.” Hamilton found the idea of a Herald being linked to such a peculiar creature as the boy utterly startling. Heralds decided what breeding was, what families and nations were. The College held the records of every family line, decided upon the details of coats of arms, were the authority on every matter of grand ceremony and inheritance. Of course, every other week now one heard rumors that the College was on the verge of dissolution or denunciation, as they tried and failed to find some new way to protest at the new manners. They seemed continually astonished that His Majesty was being advised this badly. Some of this conflict had even reached the morning plates. But it had always gone by the evening editions. To Hamilton, the idea of parts of the body public fighting each other was like the idea of a man’s punching himself in the face. It was a physical blasphemy that suited this era as an index of how far it had all gone.
“You really haven’t another word to say about him?” Turpin had asked, interrupting his woolgathering.
Hamilton had feigned a moment’s thought. “How is he on the range?”
“Reasonable. You were only ever reasonable.” He hadn’t emphasized the you.
Then the Warden had clinked his glass with a spoon, and the ladies and the gentlemen and the trompe l’oeil and the small deer had gone in to dinner.
Hamilton had been relieved to find that the younger version of himself had gone to the far end of the dining table that stood on a rise at the end of the hall. In any other circumstances, it would have been comforting to be back in this place, with the smell of polish and the candlelight, but as he looked out at the tables of undergraduates, he realized that something was missing. There would normally be numerous servants moving between the rows, delivering plates of food and refilling glasses. Suddenly, he saw just such a meal appearing beside one chattering youth, something that caused the lad no surprise whatsoever. Hamilton had been seated opposite Turpin, and now he looked back to him.