Despite the horrors of what I later determined to be the last three days, I did not wish for death. What little strength I had went into one prayer: Let me live.
I was repeating it endlessly to myself when I heard the sound of panting, then snuffling.
Here. I’m here! I silently cried to what I was sure was a dog.
As if in confirmation, I heard a soft whine. The dog began digging. A large dog, I guessed, from the sound of earth being frantically clawed away. He uncovered my hand, tugged at the sleeve of my uniform.
Oh, good dog! Good dog! But you’ll never move poor Reliant. Have you a master nearby?
I knew the dog was most probably a stray, but I found myself picturing an owner who might be sympathetic to me.
Help me.
I heard footsteps. They stopped nearby. The dog kept digging.
“This beanstalk?” an Englishman’s deep voice said in a puzzled tone. “Good heavens. Are you certain you want to be looking up at such a tall master, Shade?” I felt the man take my hand as he added, “It’s not too late?”
The dog dug all the more furiously.
I’m alive! I’m not dead yet.
“No, nor shall you be,” the man’s voice answered, as if he had heard my thoughts. “If you’d rather live.”
Oh yes, I’d rather!
“Good. But you must understand what I offer you.”
Anything!
“Come, take a look.”
Suddenly I felt whole and free of pain, and yet not in my own body. I stood as if within the man, looking down through his eyes.
I gave a cry of horror as I saw my own condition. Little wonder he had thought me dead. I was covered in mud and all but invisible beneath the horse, only saved from being completely crushed because I had landed in a shallow ditch. My eyes were closed. My face was blackened with dried blood, my hair matted down near a severe wound on my head.
My attention was drawn to the dog, one of the largest I had ever seen. He had long, black fur and large dark eyes. He looked up at me-or perhaps I should say at his master-pausing briefly in his efforts to dig my body free, and wagged his tail.
“Back to work, Shade,” the man’s voice said harshly. The dog’s demeanor changed and he bristled, but he obeyed. Perhaps he had seen me, after all.
The man looked about him, forcing me to do the same.
Before me was carnage beyond my worst imaginings. I had seen battle, and its aftermath, but nothing to equal this. Bodies-and parts of bodies-lay everywhere around me. In the distance, I saw soldiers working to find the wounded and take them from the field. Here and there, human scavengers sought to rob the dead of their belongings. The ground had been churned by hoof and boot and wheel, and among the bodies one saw crushed caps and belts, the bright blue or red of a torn uniform, a feather bent and buried in the mud.
And as far as the eye could see, covering this grim landscape, a strange snow-thousands of scraps of paper. Letters, diaries, undelivered messages to families, friends, and sweethearts. Lost thoughts of tens of thousands of poor souls, whose last words drifted in fragments across the battlefield.
Would that I could deliver them, I thought.
My host-as I began to think of him-laughed. I felt it as if it were physically my own laughter, and I despised him for forcing me to participate in what seemed to me no joke at all.
“Don’t be so quick to fire up at me,” he said, amused. “It is merely that you will find your wish granted, if not quite in the manner you expect.”
I continued to look about me and was going to ask, “Whose victory?” But viewing that carnage, the question seemed unanswerable to me in that moment.
“Wellington and his allies,” my host said, again hearing my thoughts-and again I felt the words form on his tongue, the movement of his teeth, the vibration of his throat, the very breath it took to speak. It seemed to me there was some bitterness there.
For my part, despite the cost so clearly shown before me, I felt a rush of pride in our forces and relief that Napoleon had suffered such a defeat. In the next instant, I found myself returned to my own body and darkness.
This, I decided, has all been a fantasy, the delusions of a dying man.
“Are you certain, Shade?” I heard him ask again, almost as if in disgust.
The dog had made great progress, having loosened most of the soil around and beneath me. I felt the warmth of the dog’s breath as his teeth took hold of my uniform collar. He began to pull. I marveled at his strength-I felt myself begin to move from beneath the horse. The pain was excruciating. I again lost consciousness.
I awoke on the battlefield sometime later. I was still in pain, still too weak to move so much as a finger, but these conditions were nothing to me-for my sight had been restored. The first thing I saw was Shade. He lay next to me. His head was up, his ears pitched forward. He watched me and seemed happy to have my attention in return. He wagged his long tail.
Above me, a bored young man stood looking down into my face. He was of slight stature but muscular build. I would have guessed him to be a youth, not more than sixteen, but something in his eyes said he was far older. His clothing was exquisite, his pale face handsome-if somewhat marred by a frown. His long white fingers were bejeweled, and in one of his hands he held a silver flask engraved with an elaborate letter V. He seemed entirely out of place in this wretched valley.
He stifled a yawn, then bent to give me water from the flask, gently lifting my head, helping me to drink. No wine from a crystal goblet was ever more appreciated than that drink of lukewarm water.
“Thank you,” I rasped, able at last to speak, but he said nothing in response. He waited a moment, then again helped me to drink.
He consulted his watch, returned it to his vest, and said, “We haven’t much time. Are you well enough to talk?”
“Yes-please, allow me to thank you-”
His eyes became hooded. “There is no need, I promise you.”
“Who are you?”
He hesitated, then said, “I am Varre.” Seeing my confusion, he added, “Lucien Adrian deVille, Lord Varre. I have a bargain to offer you, Captain Tyler Hawthorne-listen well. You may yet die on this field, slowly and painfully, every opportunity taken from you. Or you may leave here, and within the next fortnight be restored to wholeness, unable to sustain injury, free from all illness-other than occasional, brief fevers. I warn you these may be painful and troubling, but you will never suffer them for more than a few hours. You will not age, but remain in the prime of life.”
“Not age!”
“Please do not interrupt me again.” Despite saying this, he did not immediately continue. Just as I thought I had offended him so deeply he would abandon his offer, he went on. “Some of your older scars may not be taken from you, but any injury you received here at Waterloo will heal within hours. Any disease you now carry within you will be cured, no trace of it will ever be found in your body. You will be given work to do-nothing beneath a gentleman’s station-and enough funds to make a new start in life.”
He smiled, perhaps reading my thoughts. “I’m not the devil. You may serve whatever master you choose. That is not up to me. Do you think it is the devil’s work to comfort the dying?”
“Am I to become a priest, then?”
He laughed. “No. Only that you must visit those who are dying. They will draw you to themselves, in fact, and tell you what you must do. You must keep the dog by you. It won’t be difficult-he will always find his way to you.”
I closed my eyes, thinking again that I was so lost in fever, I was imagining the whole.