opposite direction.’
Kitson pointed towards some nearby chimneys, just visible over a bank of brush to their right. ‘Mr Styles,’ he began, a touch of amusement in his voice, ‘you will soon discover that our foremost duty as Mr Cracknell’s juniors is not to draw or write but to secure the Courier’s provisions. We will find what we need over there.’
‘Does the army not provide for us?’
This prompted a sarcastic laugh. ‘The army, my friend, can hardly provide for its own. On the first night here the soldiers had no tents, let alone sufficient rations–and this was in heavy rain. Sir George Brown, commander of the Light Division, was obliged to take shelter under a cart. We newspapermen are a long way down the list of priorities.’ Kitson waved a thin forefinger in the air. ‘The first lesson of life on campaign, sir: make your own arrangements!’
The track wound around a low hill to bring them before a large manor house with a walled yard. It was a smart residence indeed, built from even blocks of pale stone. Heavy shutters, painted dark green, covered every window; the house’s owners had clearly left to escape the approaching war. The wide, cobbled yard was fringed with outbuildings and stables, somewhat cruder in style but all coated with a creamy whitewash that made them glow warmly against the surrounding hedgerows.
Kitson headed confidently across the yard. A handful of peasants stood behind carts and barrows that had been arranged to form improvised market-stalls, upon which a small selection of produce from the surrounding fields had been laid out for purchase. These peasants resembled the Arabs Styles had seen at Constantinople, but with a touch of the Orient about their eyes. All were male, and most were bearded; they wore mud-stained smocks made from sackcloth and canvas, and brimless fur caps upon their heads. Every one of them was watching the Englishmen closely. A couple made observations in a guttural language Styles was pretty sure wasn’t Russian.
‘Crim Tartars,’ murmured Kitson. ‘The original inhabitants of this peninsula, here long before Catharine the Great took it under her dominion. They are serfs, effectively. They’ve taken to congregating outside this place–the seat of a squire, I believe, or the Crimean equivalent–with whatever wares they can scrape together. The French Commissariat has been coming over here to purchase food for their senior officers, but these fellows will happily sell to us as well.’ He took out some coins and jangled them together in his palm. ‘They are careful to keep their distance from the camps, though. The private soldier on campaign is not known for his courteous dealings with locals.’
‘Did they not think to flee?’
‘It would seem not. Some are no doubt hoping that their Russian masters will be defeated, and they will be able to reclaim a portion of this land for themselves. Others, the more loyal ones, are standing guard.’
The illustrator looked about him at the ramshackle market and the shuttered manor house. ‘Guarding what, sir? Nothing of any value has been left behind, surely?’
Kitson approached a stall and began inspecting some misshapen loaves. ‘You would be surprised, Mr Styles. The rich men of the Crimea left their homes in some haste. Ancient volumes, pictures, objects of virtu–all have been ferreted away in the slight hope that the storm of war will leave them unmolested.’
He bought one of the loaves with a large copper coin. As he took the money, the stall-holder nodded to the Courier man as if in recognition. ‘I have tried to draw attention to this matter, but I’m afraid that Cracknell isn’t particularly interested, so nothing will come of it. Our good senior is many things, Mr Styles, but he cannot be called a man of culture.’
Mention of Cracknell’s name caused Styles to remember Mrs Boyce’s singular, unsettling smile back on the beach. It was unlike any look of hers he had seen before–and he had studied her closely, with a devoted eye. ‘What is Mr Cracknell really like, Mr Kitson?’ he asked suddenly. ‘So much is said of him back in London. The most unsavoury stories …’
Kitson chuckled. ‘Don’t believe all that you hear, Mr Styles. Richard Cracknell can be somewhat … provocative, it is true, but he is an accomplished correspondent, and a man possessed of a truly fearsome determination. We are fortunate indeed to be with him. He wishes to take this unprecedented chance to experience war at first-hand, and wring everything out of it that he can.’
‘And how did you both come to be acquainted with Mrs Boyce?’ Styles tried to keep his voice level. ‘Why were you so surprised to see her here?’
The correspondent headed for another stall. Upon it was a wicker basket stuffed with scrawny, clucking chickens. ‘Mrs Boyce has a rare beauty, does she not?’ Kitson’s expression was unreadable.
He has detected my attachment, Styles thought quickly; and despite his casual tone, he disapproves. This is why he was so quiet after our meeting. He has been biding his time before delivering his admonition, trying to catch me off-guard, to chide me as if I were an infatuated schoolboy. Styles felt a defiant anger well up inside him. He would not disavow his feelings, nor would he apologise for them. He loved the divine Mrs Boyce with all his soul. They were fast friends, confidantes even, and he was certain that in time they would become much more–regardless of what Mr Kitson might think about it.
He could not deny, however, that Kitson’s familiar conversation with Mrs Boyce back on the beach had disturbed him a little. Kitson was no rival, of that Styles was certain; his manner, coolly polite to the point of irony, had indicated this clearly enough. Something disquieting had been there, though–a sense of shared history between Mrs Boyce and the Courier correspondents, an earlier chapter Styles was not party to. He had to know more.
‘She does indeed,’ Styles replied forcibly. ‘Beyond any other I have seen.’
Kitson made no reaction to this bold declaration. He pointed out a bird to the stall-holder. The Tartar plucked it from the basket, wrung its neck with practised efficiency, and then exchanged it for two more of the correspondent’s coins.
‘She was to be sent home, you know, by her husband.’ Kitson’s tone was matter-of-fact. ‘Due to the danger of disease. God alone knows how she managed to change his mind. I only hope that her presence here doesn’t prove too problematic.’
Styles frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
Kitson tucked the chicken into a capacious pocket. Its scaly feet stuck out, still twitching spasmodically. ‘She told you of her husband, I take it? Of how things stand between them?’
‘She did.’
Over the course of the voyage from Varna, Mrs Boyce had spoken of her husband at great length. Styles had heard of every trouble visited upon her by Lieutenant-Colonel Nathaniel Boyce–who, by his wife’s account, was a despicable, prideful boor given to all manner of senseless cruelty. Intoxicated by the intimacy that had developed so rapidly between them, Styles had sworn to himself that he would free her, that he would bring this precious lady the happiness she so richly deserved.
Kitson regarded him doubtfully. ‘One must be very careful, my friend, in trying to build an acquaintance with Mrs Boyce, no matter how, ah, innocent it might be. Countless young gentlemen, you understand, have lost themselves in those ebony eyes, nurtured torturous dreams of lying in the tresses of that luxuriant, perfumed hair, and so forth.’ He paused, the slightest suggestion of a smile on his lips. ‘The Lieutenant-Colonel is famously zealous in dispatching his rivals. They say that he has even shot several of them, in duels or elsewhere, to convince them to desist.’
Styles studied Kitson’s face again. Was this
