A gust of wind had brought them an eye-watering wave of feculent stink, and Edgar coughed, pulling a handkerchief from his coat and putting it over his nose in a practiced manner.
“Oh, that. That’s just the jakesmen.”
“The what?” Grey hastily applied his own handkerchief in imitation.
“Saltpeter,” Edgar explained, taking obvious satisfaction in knowing something that his clever-arse younger brother did not. “One requires brimstone—sulfur, you know—charcoal, and saltpeter for gunpowder, of course—”
“I did know that, yes.”
“—We can produce the charcoal here, of course, and sulfur is reasonably cheap; well, saltpeter is not so expensive, either, but most of it is imported from India these days—used to get it from France, but now—Well, so, the more of it we can obtain locally—”
“You’re digging it out of your tenants’ manure piles?” Grey felt a strong inclination to laugh.
“And the privies. It forms in large nuggets, down at the bottom,” Edgar replied seriously, then smiled. “You know there’s a law, written in Good Queen Bess’s time, but still on the books, that allows agents of the Crown to come round and dig out the jakes of any citizen, in time of war? A local lawyer found it for me; most useful.”
“I should think your tenants might find having their privies excavated to be a positive benefit,” Grey observed, laughing openly.
“Well, that part’s all right,” Edgar admitted, looking modestly pleased with all this evidence of his business acumen. “They’re less delighted at our messing about their manure piles, but they do put up with it—and it lowers the cost amazingly.”
He waved briefly as they passed within sight of the jakesmen, two muffled figures unhitching a morose-looking horse from a wagon piled high with irregular chunks of reddish-brown, but kept his handkerchief pressed firmly to his nose until they had moved upwind.
“Anyway, it all goes there”—he pointed at a small brick shed—“to be melted and cleaned. Then there, to the mixing shed”—another brick building, somewhat larger—“and then to one of the milling sheds, for the grinding and corning. Oh, but here’s Hoskins; I’ll leave you to him. Hoskins!”
Bill Hoskins proved to be a ruddy, healthy-looking man of thirty or so—young for an overseer, Grey thought. He bowed most respectfully when introduced, but had no hesitation in meeting Grey’s eyes. Hoskins’s own were a striking blue-gray, the irises rimmed with black; Grey noticed, then felt an odd clench in the pit of his stomach at the realization that he had noticed.
In the course of the next hour, he learned a great many things, among them what an edge runner was—this being a great slab of stone that could be drawn by horses over a flat trough of gunpowder—what raw sulfur smelled like—rotten eggs, as digested by Satan; “the devil’s farts,” as Hoskins put it, with a smile—how gunpowder was shipped—by barge down the river—and that Bill Hoskins was a noticeably well-built man, with large, clean, remarkably steady hands.
Trying to ignore this irrelevant observation, he asked whether powder of different grades was produced.
Hoskins frowned, considering.
“Well, can be, of course. That’s what the corning’s for—” He nodded at one of the flimsily built wooden sheds. “The finer the powder’s ground and corned into grains, the more explosive it is. But then, the finer it’s corned, the riskier it is to handle. That’s why the milling sheds are built like that”—he nodded at one—“roofs and walls nobbut sheets of wood, cobbled together, loose-like. If one should go up, why, then, it’s easy to pick up the bits and put them back together.”
“Indeed. What about anyone who might have been working in the shed when it … went up?” Grey asked, feeling his mouth dry a little at the thought.
Hoskins smiled briefly, eyes creasing.
“Not so easy. What you asked, though—in practice, we make only the one grade of powder at this mill, as it’s all sold to the Ordnance Office for artillery. Hard enough to pass their tests; we do better than most mills, and even so, a good quarter of some batches turns out dud when they test it at Woolwich. Not that any o’ that is our fault, mind. Some others is mebbe not so careful, naming no names.”
Grey recalled the incessant thuds from the proving grounds.
“Oh, pray do,” he said. “Name names, I mean.”
Hoskins laughed. He was missing a tooth, far back on one side, but for the most part, his teeth were still good.
“Well, there’s the three owners in the consortium—”
“Wait—what consortium is this?”
Hoskins looked surprised.
“Mr. DeVane didn’t tell you? There’s him, and Mr. Trevorson, what owns Mayapple Farm, downriver—” He lifted his chin, pointing. “And then Mr. Fanshawe, beyond; Mudlington, his place is called. They went in together to bid the contracts for powder with the government, so as to be able to hold their own with the bigger powder mills like Waltham. So the powder’s kegged and shipped all as one, marked with the consortium’s name, but it’s made separate at the three mills. And as I say, not everyone’s as careful as what we are here.”
He looked over the assemblage of buildings with a modest pride, but Grey paid no attention.
“Marked with the consortium’s name,” he repeated, his heart beating faster. “What name is that?”
“Oh. Just DeVane, as your brother’s the principal owner.”
“Indeed,” Grey said. “How interesting.”
Edgar had gone on about his own business, offering to send back a horse for Grey. He had refused this offer, not wishing to seem an invalid—and feeling that he might profit from the solitary walk back across the fields, having considerable new information to think about.
The news of the consortium of powder-mill owners put a different complexion on the matter altogether.
We make only the one grade of powder at this mill, Hoskins had said. Grey had overlooked the slight emphasis at the time, but in retrospect, was sure it had been there.
The implication was plain; one or another of the consortium’s mills did make the higher grades of black powder required for grenades, muskets, and rifle cartridges. He thought of turning back to ask Hoskins which mill might provide the more explosive powder, but thought better of it. He could check that with Edgar.
He must also ask Edgar to invite the other mill owners to Blackthorn Hall. He should speak with them in any case, and it was likely best to do that en masse, so that none of them should feel personally accused, and thus wary. He might also be able to gain some information from seeing them together, watching to see what the relations among them were.
Could there possibly be truth behind Lord Marchmont’s insinuations of sabotage? If so—and he was still highly inclined to doubt it—then it became at least understandable why Marchmont should have mentioned Edgar by name.
No matter which mill had actually produced it, any suspicious powder would have been identified simply with the DeVane mark—a simplified version of Edgar’s family arms, showing two chevrons quartered with an odd heraldic bird, a small, footless thing called a martlet. Hoskins had shown him the half-loaded barge at anchor in the river, stacked with powder kegs, all branded with that mark.
The sun was still obscured, but faintly visible; a small, hazy disk directly overhead. Seeing it, and becoming aware from interior gurglings that it had been a long time since breakfast, he considered what to do next.
There was time to ride to Mudling Parva. The obvious first step in doing as he had promised Mr. Lister was to interview the Reverend Mr. Thackeray, for any indications he might be able to provide of his errant daughter’s whereabouts.
He could, though, reasonably leave that errand for the morrow, and return to Blackthorn Hall for luncheon. He must speak to Edgar about the consortium. And Maude had mentioned at breakfast that a friend or two from the county would be joining them.
“Hmm,” he said.
His relations with his elder half brothers had always been distant but cordial—save for the occasion when, aged ten, he had unwisely expressed the opinion that Edgar’s fiancée was an overbearing doggess, and been clouted halfway across the room in consequence. His opinion of his sister-in-law had not altered in subsequent years, but he had learned to keep his opinions to himself.
Perhaps he would leave a note for Edgar and find some sort of sustenance on his way to the village.
He walked on, enjoying the spongy give of the earth beneath his boots, and returned to his contemplation of black powder. Or tried to. Within a few moments, though, he became aware that he was not thinking so much of the consortium, or of his new knowledge of the process of powder-making … but of Bill Hoskins.
The realization unsettled him. He had not responded in that visceral way to a man’s physical presence since—well, since before Crefeld.
He hadn’t really supposed that that part of him was dead, but had been content to leave it dormant, preoccupied as he had been with other matters, such as survival. If anything, though, he had expected that it might return slowly, healing gradually, as the rest of his body did.
Nothing gradual about it. Sexual interest had sprung up, sudden and vivid as a steel-struck spark, ready to ignite anything flammable in the vicinity.
Not that anything was. There was not the slightest indication that Hoskins had any such proclivities—and even had Hoskins been giving him a blatantly rolling eyeball of invitation, Grey would in no case approach someone in his brother’s orbit, let alone his employ.
No, it was nothing but simple appreciation.
Still, when he came to the stile where he had been stricken on the way out, he did not climb it, but seized the rail of the fence and vaulted over, then walked on, whistling “Lilibulero.”
Upon due consideration, Grey left Tom Byrd at the ordinary in Mudling Parva, with enough money to render half a dozen men indiscreet, if not outright insensible, and instructions to gather whatever tidbits of local gossip might be obtained under these circumstances. He himself proceeded, in his soberest clothes, to the home of the Reverend Mr. Thackeray, where he introduced himself by title, rather than rank, as a club acquaintance of Philip Lister’s, interested in the welfare of Anne Thackeray.
From Mr. Lister’s description of the minister, Grey had been expecting something tall and cadaverous, equipped with piercing eye and booming voice. The reality was something resembling a pug dog belonging to his friend Lucinda, Lady Joffrey: small, with a massively wrinkled face and slightly bulging eyes at the front, the impression of a wagging curly tail at the back.
The Reverend Mr. Thackeray’s air of effusive welcome diminished substantially, however, when informed of Lord John’s business.
“I am afraid I cannot tell you anything regarding my late daughter, sir,” he said, repressed, but still courteous. “I know nothing of her movements since her departure from my house.”
“Is your daughter … deceased?” Grey asked cautiously. “I was unaware …”
“She is dead to us,” the minister said, shaking his head dolefully. “And might better be dead in all truth, rather than to be living in a state of grievous sin. We can but hope.”
“Er … quite.” Grey sipped at the tea he had been offered, pausing to regroup, then essayed a different sally. “Should she be alive, though—perhaps with a child …”
The Reverend Mr. Thackeray’s eyes bulged further at the thought, and Grey coughed.
“I hesitate to voice the observation for fear of seeming crude, and I can but trust to your courtesy to overlook my presumption—but Lieutenant Lister actually is dead,” he pointed out. “Your daughter—and perhaps her offspring—is therefore presumably left without protection. Would you not wish to receive news of her, perhaps to offer aid, even if you feel unable to accept her home again?”
“No, sir.” Mr. Thackeray spoke with regret, but most decidedly. “She has chosen the path of ruin and damnation. There is no turning back.”
“You will pardon my ignorance, sir—but does your faith not preach the possibility of redemption for sinners?”
The minister’s amiably wrinkled countenance contracted, and Grey perceived the small, sharp teeth behind the upper lip.
“We pray for her soul,” he said. “Of course. And that she will perceive the error of her ways, repent, and thus perhaps be allowed at last to enter the kingdom of God.”
“But you have no desire that she should receive forgiveness while still alive?” Grey had intended to remain aloofly courteous throughout the interview, no matter what was said, but found himself becoming irritated—whether with the Reverend Mr. Thackeray’s sanctimony or his illogic, he was not sure.
“Certainly we should attempt to emulate Our Lord in forgiving,” the minister said, twitching the bands of his coat straight and drawing himself as upright as his diminutive stature would permit. “But we cannot be seen to suffer licentiousness and lewd behavior. What example would I be to my congregation, were I to accept into my home a young woman who had suffered such public and flagrant moral ruin, the fruit of her sin apparent for all to see?”
“So she has borne a child?” Grey asked, pouncing upon this last injudicious phrase.
All of the reverend’s wrinkles flushed dark red and he stood abruptly.
“I fear that I can spare you no more time, Lord John. I have a great many engagements this afternoon. If you will—”
He was interrupted by the parlor maid who had brought tea, who bobbed a curtsy from the doorway.