needling words. When they had talked, his objectives had lain on his desk between them, noted but unacknowledged. And she had conspired with him in that regard. She had never asked, never forced an admission from him and so never rejected him. She had been happy enough for his torch to be held for her behind his back. She had known.
She should be concerned, she realized, for he was a man who could not be trusted. And yet she did not care. He had given her a reprieve. What else was more important to her than life?
She felt her lip tremble suddenly, a sob of utter relief choked out of her. Alice was still demanding to know what was happening, and now Mary had come down as well. Emily regarded them through the blur of her tears and held out the creased letter.
Alice grabbed it first, and her eyes skipped across its words. ‘Oh . . .’ she said. ‘Oh my!’ And for once there was no more from her. She stayed quite quiet as Mary read next.
She could not have borne it if they had gone against her own wishes, but she asked anyway. ‘What do you think I should do?’
‘Take it!’ Alice insisted. ‘Oh, you must take it.’
‘Despite the way he dresses?’ Emily found a little of Northway’s own sarcasm creeping into her.
‘You only have to work for him, not dress like him,’ Alice said.
‘And you, Mary?’
‘I do not like the man, nor should you,’ said Mary. ‘But you cannot turn this down. You can stay at Grammaine. You don’t have to fight. This is wonderful.’
Emily thought of all her fine words, those wonderful words of duty and honour. She would not have thought that she could live with herself, by turning her back on them now.
Yet surely Mr Northway had to live with so much more, and did. So she could work for him and swallow her pride, and never have to go to war. And still, when Francis was a boy of seven asking, ‘What did you do in the war, Aunt Emily?’, she would have something to tell him. She could use Northway’s own words. Pens and swords.
‘I will go to Chalcaster tomorrow,’ she said. ‘I will accept his offer. I will work for Mr Northway.’
That night she slept well, for the first time since the draft list.
The morning found her jolting into Chalcaster in the buggy. All around her she saw signs of the times. Shops were being boarded up by wives who could no longer maintain them for their husbands. Possessions were being put away. Gifts were being given. In fifteen days, every woman on that draft list would be on her way to Gravenfield – except one.
She felt no guilt. She was beyond that now. The relief made her feel like a different woman. She had given in, finally. She had compromised and put herself first. It felt wonderful. It meant that she could sleep at nights.
Somewhere far off, the artillery was pounding at the Couchant front. The famous Lascanne lancers were thundering down on their foes. The Denlanders were creeping forward with their muskets, in their grey-clad hordes. She would see none of it now. It was as though the train that had been shunting her to some terrible destination had stopped, unscheduled, and she had got out and watched it steam away. What life she could make for herself, in this new place, she did not know, but at least it would be a life.
She brushed past the guards at the door without looking at them, without challenge. She did not wait to be announced. She swept into his office as though she owned it and stood before his desk, with her heart hammering. ‘I accept,’ she told him, casting his folded letter down on the desktop. ‘I accept it. Thank you, Mr Northway.’
The silence that fell after she said his name hung heavy in the air, like fog. It chilled her. She looked him in the face, at last.
She had never seen such an expression before, and never would again. Damned souls in hell would wear such a look of utter torment, but surely no man still living. It was the look of someone who had, in one single moment, been given everything he had ever asked for and had it denied him, all at once. Here was a man cheated by fate, robbed by blind chance, at the very moment when he came unto his kingdom.