In The Face Of Death (52 page)

Saint-Germain released her, but only to sit beside her, his arm low across her back. “He accepted you more wholly than Falke or Alexander did. Or Piers. He was willing to take you as you are, not as his idea of you.” He let her think about what he had said. “And you saw him over a period of almost twenty years and were able to sustain your passion. That, my heart, is a rare gift. In time you will come to appreciate it.”

“When the ache is less, perhaps I will,” she said.

“It will pass, in time. And fortunately,” he added in a deeper tone, “you will have time.”

“And I may need it. The last time he and I were together was nearly twenty years ago, and his loss is as fresh as if I had slept at his side a month ago.” She leaned her head on his shoulder.

“Yes,” said Saint-Germain, not wanting to tell her how many times he had felt the keen misery she was experiencing now.

She took his free hand in hers. “It is impossible, I know, but I wish we could have the consolation of—” He broke away from her. “Do not torment yourself, my heart. You have my love until the True Death, and beyond. Let that be enough.”

“How long are you going to stay?” she asked him in a quiet voice.

This time he had trouble answering her. “Not very long. It isn’t wise.” For a short while Madelaine sat and did not try to think. Then she rose and went to stand behind him. “Saint-Germain, you are my dear, treasured love, and will be all my life long. But Tecumseh was—”

“More mortal?” said Saint-Germain, staring remotely down at the laid-but-unlit fire. “Yes, that is the poignance of it, that fragile brevity.”

Madelaine sighed. “Yes. And because I had more years to love him, I began to think I would always have the chance to persuade him
.
. . .” A little of the tight, hot coil of grief that had lodged in the middle of her chest began to loosen.

He swung around and drew her into his arms. “Good, my heart.”

She stood with him that way for some time, as the worst heartache started to release its ferocious hooks from her soul.

Montalia, 19 May, 1891

In a month, I will be gone from here, and when I return again, I will be Madelaine again, this time my own grand-niece. I have already put these changes in motion.

Turkey has promising sites, more unusual than the Greek ones. . . .

The papers in my latest shipment from America are full of accounts of Tecumseh’s death and funeral. I have read them and put them away. When I come back from Turkey, I will read them again, and by then they will, I hope, bring little more than a pang to me.

Bursa, Turkey, 2 November, 1891

I am told antiquarians are now being called archaeologists—those who make a study of ancient things. I cannot see that this is a great improvement on antiquarians, but that it makes us sound less like furniture dealers than we did before. . . .

Two Germans are joining this expedition. They are eager and scholarly and methodical, both Wilhelm and Bruno. To me, they sound too much like names given to large dogs. . . .

Inonu, Turkey, 31 March, 1892

I am as much inclined to study the people here as the ruins at the edge of the city. My experiences with the Indians in America have given me a taste for working with living people, and not only with ruins. The observations I have been compiling over the last three weeks have at last drawn some notice, not the sort I would welcome. There were complaints about me, it appears, and today I have been ordered to stop talking with the peasants. My protestations that I wish only to record the nature of their lives was not accepted. The people are surely the more intriguing. But ruins are safer, and so I will not go against the strictures of the local authorities. . . .

“I hear they’re kicking you out of Turkey?” The young man had a marked American accent which caught Madelaine’s attention amid the noise and scramble of the European Hotel in Izmir. He came up to her, open-faced and straightforward, his suit with a short jacket that marked him an American as much as his accent. “Jacob Wills, Boston and Cambridge,” he said, offering his hand to her. “You’re Madelaine de Montalia, aren’t you?”

She adjusted her posture at the small table where she had been watching the clutter of the lobby for some sign of the British official who was supposed to be bringing her the final decision on her departure. “Yes. I am Madelaine de Montalia, Mister Wills.” She held out her hand.

“That monograph that just came out from Amsterdam caused quite a stir,” he said as he drew up a chair to join her.

“So I have discovered,” she said with a sardonic smile.

“It should light a fire under some of those government toadies.” He chuckled at the thought.

“Not in Turkey, I fear,” said Madelaine, more somberly. “They are more apt to exact a price from the villagers. They were told not to talk to me. The embarrassment of the officials is therefore my fault.”

“Surely they will listen to appeal,” said Wills, smiling at her.

She regarded him carefully. “What is your interest in this, Mister Wills?”

He coughed once. “I am preparing my doctoral thesis on the history of the Crusades, which of necessity brought me to this part of the world.” His expression took on a determined quality she remembered all too well from her years in America. “When I heard about your trouble, I thought I would talk to you, as a means of securing a footnote to my thesis. I could show some of the continuing difficulties between Europeans and the Mohammedan peoples. Demonstrate, you know, how the Crusades was only part of a long history of misunderstanding and cross-purposes which plague this part of the world.”

“I see,” she said.

“Sort of like the comments your
.
. . grandmother? made about the Indians and the whites in America.” He said this last as if to catch her off-guard.

“My great-aunt,” Madelaine corrected without any show of upset. “So you have read her work?”

“Yes,” said Wills. “You might say it started me thinking along the lines that led me here.” He leaned forward, his face flushed with excitement that went beyond the heat of the afternoon. “I wanted to meet you, and would have tried even if you had had no trouble with the Turkish government.”

“You are very
.
. . flattering. I’ll thank you on behalf of my great-aunt.” She did her best to return his smile, but could not quite make it.

“I didn’t mean that quite the way it seemed,” amended Wills.

“And how did it seem?” she asked, beginning to feel awkward. It would be easy to make a mistake, to let something slip and then have to recover herself. She had rarely done that in the past, but she had not had to be as careful as she sensed she would have to be with Jacob Wills.

“That I had only an interest in your great-aunt, that I am ignorant of your work. She must have inspired you more than she did me, if you are doing this kind of work here.” He paused to give her a chance to answer.

Her answer was polite but discouraging, or so she hoped. “I would feel better about it, Mister Wills, if I were not being compelled to leave the country.”

If he had been aware of her intention, he gave no sign of it. “Well, then, would you be willing to share your last evening with an American? As a token to your great-aunt?”

“I . . .” She looked to see if anyone in the crowd appeared to be looking for her. “I doubt that will be possible, Mister Wills.” She started to rise when he stopped her with a single request.

“I want to know how your great-aunt got on with General Sherman.” He saw her hesitate and took full advantage of it. “I have read her books, and everything she writes is all propriety, but there are all these stories that he had a mistress on the Georgia campaign. I thought you could shed some light on it.”

Madelaine stared at him, answering with care. “All I can tell you, Mister Wills, is that all her journals speak of a high regard and affection for him. I hardly knew her and she never mentioned him to me.”

Wills sighed. “Too bad. I had hoped to. . . . But no such luck,” he said, speaking more to himself than her. “All right.” He got to his feet. “I won’t impose on you any longer, Miss de Montalia. Sorry to have intruded this way.”

“Good luck with your thesis research, Mister Wills,” she said by way of dismissal as the young American turned and walked away.

Izmir, Turkey, 10 June, 1892

How like Tecumseh to disturb my last night in Turkey. Now that I have heard his name again, my memories come back and I miss him afresh. . . . No matter how history judges him, now, and decades from now, he will always be to me the American who loved me as I am, in the face of battle, in the face of death.

No wonder he haunts me.

THE END

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