on the chain, going through the ritual of saying a few meaningless words over the daily toll of dead. “I should have done better . . . should have done something different . . .”
She shrugged. “Perhaps. But I doubt it would’ve turned out any better. From what I saw it’s a miracle any of you survived. And you don’t strike me as the self-pity type, so please don’t start now.” She frowned and looked at him oddly. “Those men practically worship you. You’re a simple commoner, and yet you’ve managed to inspire greater loyalty in those men than the king himself.”
Charlie couldn’t hide his anger. “The king got two million men killed in his pointless little war. The king’s a—” Charlie bit back his words; to continue would be treason. He looked at Del carefully. “Do I know you?”
She smiled. He liked it when she smiled. “Not really. We met once, a long time ago, at a dress ball. You were a young cadet, about to graduate from the academy—quite dashing. And I was a gawky sixteen-year-old girl. I made you dance with me, though like the other cadets you were more interested in chasing the more approachable young ladies your own age. But you were nice to me, didn’t treat me like some clumsy little girl. So I made you dance with me again . . .” A mischievous glint appeared in her eyes. “ . . . though my father did tell me not to waste my time with a penniless bastard.” She grinned at him, and that playful look reappeared. He tried to remember dancing with her, but drew a blank.
She said, “Can I ask you something personal?” She didn’t wait for his permission. “Why has he never acknowledged you?”
Charlie shrugged. “I’m the son of a servant. It wouldn’t be appropriate.” He didn’t add that he’d always suspected the second duchess—the witch-bitch, as he and Arthur had dubbed her—of having his mother killed, and that if Cesare ever acknowledged him, she’d eliminate Charlie as well.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said. “No more wallowing in self-pity for me, and you give me another dance sometime, even though your father thinks you’ll be wasting your time.”
“Done,” she said, nodding and smiling. “But I should get the others.” She turned and walked to the door, but paused halfway through it and looked back at him with that mischievous glint in her eyes one more time. “So I look like an angel, do I?”
And with that she was gone.
Alone, Charlie threw back the covers and felt at the bandages on his thigh. Back on the chain the infection had eaten a crater the size of his fist into the muscle, but now, other than some tenderness beneath the bandages, he could find no trace of such massive tissue damage. He flexed the leg experimentally; it was sore, but not as bad as he would have expected. He swung his legs off the edge of the bed, stood cautiously, and limped unsteadily across the room to test it.
“They done good work, eh lad?”
Charlie spun about as the door swung wide and Roacka, Paul, Seth, and Roger were ushered into the room by Del. Roacka, Charlie’s lifelong tutor in weapons, tactics, strategy, fighting your enemies, drinking, fighting your friends, fighting with and loving women, and anything else the man took it in his head to fight. Paul, the churchman charged with teaching Charlie the arts, languages, mathematics, history, engineering, politics, diplomacy. Seth, standing almost two meters tall, towered over everyone. He was the brutally handsome one with broad shoulders, but the weight he’d lost only made him look spectral. And Roger, thin and gaunt, but with color back in his cheeks, and no more cough.
Roacka gripped Charlie in a bear hug and lifted him off his feet. “It’s good to see you, lad.”
Paul said, “You’re looking wonderful, Charlie.”
Roacka put him down and stood him at arm’s length. “No he ain’t, churchman. He’s looking about twenty kilos short of wonderful.”
Paul hugged him as well, though with less vigor than Roacka. “You still look good, Charlie, regardless of what this ignorant lout claims. But he is right. You do need to put on some weight.”
Roger just shook his hand, while Seth patted him on the back. “We made it, Charlie,” Roger said. “You got us through it.” Charlie met both men’s eyes briefly, and for an instant their beards and hair were long, matted and lice-infested once more, and they were on