She let her spirit float freely with the wind and rain that were cleansing the night sky. Then, after some of their strength had entered her, she opened her eyes and began to speak.
Chapter 23
Softly Maxie said, 'Tell me the rest of what haunts you, Robin."
He gave a ragged sigh. "I've said too much already."
"Do you think I am too fragile to hear the truth? I am not a sheltered English innocent from the schoolroom. I have seen enough of life to understand hard choices."
"But you are also as honest as sunshine. How can you not despise what I am?" he asked despairingly.
Because I love you. The words came from deep within her, so powerful that it was difficult to keep them from her lips. But she managed, because the last thing Robin needed was unwanted declarations of love.
Instead, she replied, "I've a fondness for rogues, especially honorable ones. In the time we've been together, you've done considerable good and no harm. You saved Dafydd Jones from being trampled. You stopped me from killing Simmons, for which I was grateful as soon as my temper cooled." She kissed his temple, feeling the hard beat of his pulse. 'Tell me what you've done, Robin. Burdens are lighter for being shared."
"There were so many things," he whispered. "Endless lies. Informants I worked with who were captured and died most horribly. The French major I assassinated because he was a fine soldier who would have been able to hold a walled Spanish town against a siege indefinitely."
"Surely your informants knew the risks as well as you did. As for assassination-" she hesitated, to choose her words, "no decent person could rejoice at committing such a deed, but a siege is a dreadful thing that often ends in horrible slaughter. Did your action prevent one?"
"With their commander dead, his troops withdrew from the town without fighting. Lives were saved, which was good. But nothing can make it right to murder an honorable man who was doing his duty. I'd met him a couple of times. I liked him." Robin's misshapen hand opened and closed on the counterpane, his nails gouging the fabric. "I liked him, and I put a bullet in his back."
"Ah, Robin, Robin," she said, heart aching. "I see why you said that war would have been cleaner. For soldiers the issues are more clearly drawn, the responsibility left in higher hands. Your work was far more difficult. Often you must have had to choose between different evils, trapped in a world of grays without easy blacks and whites, never sure if you had made the right decision. A dozen years of that would be too much for anyone."
"Certainly it was too much for me."
In the distance thunder sounded, and cold rain beat harder on the glass. Feeling as if she were moving blindfolded through a marsh, where a misstep might lead to disaster, she asked, "Is that assassination the worst thing, the very worst, for which you hold yourself responsible?"
The shaking began again, but he didn't speak.. Her voice more insistent, she said, "Tell me, Robin. Perhaps the pain will fester less if you share it."
"No!" He twisted in her arms, trying to break free.
She held tight, refusing to let him escape. Again she said, 'Tell me."
He choked out, "It was in Prussia. I had obtained a copy of a treaty with grave implications for Britain."
She thought back to what she knew of the wars. "The Treaty of Tilsit, where France and Russia made a secret alliance in hopes of bringing Britain to its knees?"
He tilted his head back and looked at her. "For an American, you're well informed about European affairs."
"The subject interested my father, so we followed the news together," she explained. "You actually managed to learn what was in the secret articles of the treaty?"
"Within hours of its being signed." He gave a bitter smile. "I told you I was good at my trade. But getting the information was the easy part compared to getting it back to England. The French soon discovered what had happened, then came in pursuit. I had to get to Copenhagen, so I rode west for days, using every trick I knew to elude them. Finally I was sure I had escaped. I needed to stop and rest. My horse was half dead, and I no better. I knew a family in the area, prosperous farmers. They hated the French, and had helped me in the past."
His voice cracked. "They greeted me like a longlost son. I told them I had been pursued, but that I had escaped and there was no danger. I was so sure." A staccato pulse throbbed in his throat. "I was catastrophically wrong."
"The French found you?"
He nodded. "I slept for over twelve hours. Herr Werner woke me the next morning, when he learned that French troops were searching the neighborhood. I said I would leave immediately and went to the barn, but my horse was gone.
"Then I realized I hadn't seen Willi, their youngest son. He was sixteen, about my height and build, my coloring. He had conceived something of a hero worship for me. When I saw that my mount and saddle were gone, I had a horrible premonition that he was in danger. I ran into the forest toward the main road, trying to stop what was going to happen." His eyes spasmed shut. "I was too late."
Maxie felt his pain resonating deep within her, but knew she must force him to the end of the tale. "What happened?"
"Willi had decided to lead them away from the farm. I was on higher ground, and could see how he deliberately let a squad of French cavalry spot him. He had my horse, a coat the color of mine, and he was bareheaded, showing that damnable, identifiable blond hair. As soon as they saw him, they gave chase. He tried to outrun them. My horse was very good, and Willi might have escaped, but another squad came galloping along the road from the other direction.
"When he realized he was trapped, he bolted into the forest, but he hadn't enough of a lead. The two squads caught him quickly. They gave him no chance to surrender, just shot him down. At least a dozen musket balls bit him." Robin shuddered, a film of sweat covering his body. "Willi was a bright lad, and he managed to outwit them. A small river ran through a deep gorge in the forest, and he survived long enough to reach it. The horse screamed as it plunged over the cliff into the water."
He buried his head against Maxie, shaking with the agony of a man at the limits of his endurance. She asked no more questions, only caressed him, whispering soft words in her mother's tongue, saying that everything would be all right, that he was a valiant and honorable warrior, and that she loved him no matter what he had done-all of the things she could not say in English.
She guessed that for Robin, the boy's death had come to symbolize everything that was innocent and courageous and doomed. The Treaty of Tilsit had been signed nine years earlier, and Robin would not have been much more than a boy himself. The wonder was not that he was close to breakdown, but that he had survived, and functioned, for so long while burdened with such terrible responsibilities and guilts.
For a long time there was no sound but rain and distant thunder and grief. Gradually the echoes of anguish faded, though he still held her as if she were his one hope of heaven.
Voice stark, he continued, "The French would have liked to retrieve the documents, but the river was high. They decided the water would destroy what the bullets hadn't, and they left. I stayed and helped the Werners search until we recovered Willi's body. His parents never said one word of reproach. In some ways, that was the hardest thing of all. They even apologized because Willi had destroyed my horse and insisted I take their best mount as a replacement."
"It sounds as if Willi brought disaster on himself," Maxie said quietly. "If he hadn't intervened with his misplaced gallantry, you might have escaped cleanly with no one suffering."