and a dark coat of Rodric’s. The pistol was thrust through her belt without thought. By the time Jenna rapped at her door, she was already standing before it, unconsciously at parade-ground ease.
‘What is it?’
‘There’s a man here says he needs to see you,’ Jenna said, half opening the door. ‘But he looks something awful. I think he slept in a ditch or something, like a tramp. He doesn’t look like the sort of man you’d want to meet, if you take my meaning, miss.’
‘I don’t suppose he gave his name, did he?’
‘Oh, yes, miss.’ Jenna paused for a moment, trying to recollect it. ‘It was . . . He said he was a Mr John Brocky miss . . . Miss?’
For Emily had pushed past her immediately and was heading down the stairs, calling behind her, ‘Wake Mr Salander, Jenna. Wake him now!’
She burst into the drawing room so fast she almost took the door off its hinges, and very nearly bowled Alice over. The man who slumped there, his bulk overwhelming the chair, was indeed none other than John Brocky.
There was not so much of the tramp about him. Still, he had looked better and his clothes were travel-worn, and torn at one knee. There were grey rings under his eyes that spoke of little sleep in the last several days, and he was monstrously unshaven. Mary and Alice were watching him suspiciously from across the room, as if waiting for him to try and steal the silver.
‘Brocky,’ she said, and his face lit up to see her.
‘There you are, you bloody woman!’ he said, oblivious to the horror on the faces of his other listeners. ‘Have you any idea how hard it is to find this wretched place?’
‘Emily do you know this person?’ Mary asked stiffly.
‘Mary Alice, this is Mr John Brocky who was quartermaster at the Levant with Tubal and me. Brocky these ladies are my sisters, Alice and Mary.’
‘Charmed, charmed,’ Brocky muttered to the women, who looked anything but. ‘Listen, Marshwic – Can I call you Marshwic here, or must it be this damnfool Emily nonsense?’
‘Call me whatever you want, Brocky. Why are you here?’
He looked up at her without cheer. ‘It’s Scavian, Marshwic. He’s in trouble. They’ve got him.’
31
With a glass of wine to fortify him, Brocky told his story:
‘You see,’ he started, ‘when Scavian’s time came to get off, I rather thought I’d go with him. Peacetime and all, and he’s good family, you know. I thought I might introduce myself, gain some patronage. It was always going to be hard picking up the pieces. You know what I mean.’
Tubal, present now, nodded sympathetically. He had found just the same.
‘Anyway, his family were on a list. They hated the Denlanders and, the way I saw it, the Denlanders hated them right back, but it wasn’t swords drawn yet. They knew a bad thing when they saw it. They were lying low. That part of the country, there’s a lot of old family stuff. Estates and family trees. A lot of people holed up and waiting for the King to come round, you know. Bloody dreamers: they should know when they’re beaten, is what I say.’
‘Mr Brocky, that’s terribly disloyal of you!’ Alice objected.
‘Disloyal?’ He bristled at her. ‘I fought at the bloody Levant, excuse my language. There’s no man can call me disloyal.’
‘Go on, Brocky,’ Emily prompted.
‘Right, well . . . Old Scavian and his father don’t get on, by the way. Being a friend of his is no way to get into that family’s favour, so no advancement for poor old Brocky. That was a fun time of it. Scavian thought his old dad would be delighted with him for getting anointed by the King, but all the old man could do was complain that Scavian hadn’t died like his brother – how dare he come back alive with the war lost, and all. I got the impression this older brother of his had been something of a favourite, if you see what I mean.’
He stopped to sip at the wine, wrinkled his nose a bit, and continued. ‘Anyway, just a few days ago, Denland soldiers turn up, a whole squad, at the house and they’re asking for Scavian junior. Bastards’ve come to arrest him – ’scuse my language – and it’s just as well I hear them arguing with the doorman, and I go and fetch Scavian. Him and me chuck some stuff into a bag and get going because it’s