The Milkweed Triptych 01 - Bitter Seeds Page 7

  “Mmm.” Marsh set his glass down quickly, foam trickling down his chin. “One last thing, before I forget.”

  “Another mystery? Aren’t you quite the sphinx to night. I may come to regret it later, but I confess I can hardly (no worries, love)—” The frumpier shopgirl knocked Will’s chair when she stood to make her way to the ladies’ convenience. “—contain my curiosity. Do tell.”

  “It may be a while, but I might have something in a few months. Would you be willing to take a look at something, provide your expert opinion on it?”

  “That depends, Pip. Look at what, exactly?”

  “Better if I don’t say right now.” Marsh shrugged. “It may turn out to be nothing. Are you interested?”

  Part of Will wanted to recoil from the offer. The old training, the indoctrination, rose to the fore. Discussing these matters with outsiders was never done, under any circumstances. But he was torn. It would be a welcome respite from working for Aubrey. And he’d already broken ranks, back at Oxford; the damage was long done. A little consultation. What harm could it do?

  Will made his decision. “I am, as ever, your most humble and obedient servant.”

  In a far lighter tone, Marsh said, “Excuse me a moment?”

  Will nodded. His friend went off to use the loo, sidling through the crowd that had swelled over the past half hour. Will cocked his arm over the back of his chair. The coquette’s friend hadn’t yet returned.

  “We’ve been abandoned,” he said.

  The woman in the cloche frowned. “Hmm?”

  “I said,” he repeated over the din, “that our friends have abandoned us.”

  “Oh.” The barest of smiles flitted across her face. Her eyes went back to watching the room.

  Will sighed. He tried again. “May I join you?”

  She didn’t say anything. He joined her. She frowned.

  Marsh returned, looking puzzled and then startled when he saw Will sitting with her.

  “It’s just that my dashing companion and I—” He indicated Marsh with a little flourish of the wrist. “—have been discussing the most peculiar matters. Cosmic matters, no less. But now that’s finished and a little light conversation would be the perfect aperitif before supper.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at them both, sizing them up.

  “Oh, I know, he isn’t much to look at.” Marsh glared at him. The woman had a musical laugh, like a carillonneur practicing the scales.

  Will continued, “But that’s his modus operandi, you see. Lulling people into a false security. He’s quite the devil, I assure you.” He tapped the side of his nose. “The PM’s right-hand man.”

  “Does every champion of the Crown blush so freely?”

  “Au contraire. That’s how a discerning eye knows he’s the true item.” Will winked. “Strength through humility, you know. What you’re seeing is a rare grace.”

  “I see.” She nodded slowly, lips pursed in exaggerated reverence. “How impressive.”

  “William Beauclerk.” He offered his hand to her across the table.

  “Olivia Turnbull.” She brushed his fingers with a perfunctory tug. Will slumped in his chair. It took a blunt rejection to sting so sharply. Typically he was more successful with the fairer sex. Typically he usually didn’t sound like such a toff when he tried. Blast.

  The brunt of her gaze fell on Marsh, eyebrows arched in amusement. “Does your crimson companion have a name?”

  “Raybould Marsh. Um.” Marsh held out his hand. She took it. “Just Marsh, if you prefer.”

  “Liv. Delighted.”

  “Likewise,” said Marsh, looking poleaxed again.

  three

  3 August 1939

  Reichsbehörde für die Erweiterung germanischen Potenzials

  Spring and summer brought a host of changes to the Reichsbehörde during the run-up to war. Nobody called it that, of course, but Klaus could see how the little things added up into one coherent picture.

  It had begun soon after Spain, when training regimens across the board went to live-fire exercises twice per week. And the training periods with nonlethal combatants doubled in length. “For endurance,” said the doctor.

  Around the time that greenery returned to the surrounding forests, the Reichsbehörde received its first-ever visitors from the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. But the officers from the military high command didn’t come for demonstrations. They came to speak with Gretel. Throughout the spring and well into summer, she attended numerous meetings with the doctor, Standartenführer Pabst, and the officers from the OKW. She never revealed what went on in those closed-door sessions, but Klaus suspected they were strategy discussions. Why else would the Reich’s military leadership spend so much time with a precog?

  Gretel had been meeting with the OKW off and on for two months when the training regimens underwent more upheaval. Another first: the members of the Götterelektrongruppe started training in teams, no longer as solo operatives. They trained in pairs, trios, and quartets, practiced for every scenario imaginable.

  And then—as if the writing on the wall weren’t clear enough—an OKW officer took the Twins away on the first day of August. That implied the Reich anticipated a need for rapid ultrasecure communications. No doubt one of the Twins would be ensconced in OKW headquarters for the duration of the war. The other sister’s destination was a popular topic of speculation in the mess hall.

  “I hear she’s going to France,” said one of the mundane troops. They tended to sit together at meals, segregating themselves from Doctor von Westarp’s more abrasive children. But Klaus preferred their company to Reinhardt’s bluster, and they liked him more than most.

  A second man shook his head. He speared a mushroom, popped it in his mouth, and said, “England.”

  Klaus slid aside to make room for Heike. She took a seat next to him, nodding her thanks. They shared a connection through their powers, which although different had similar applications. Heike and Klaus both trained for infiltration, observation, and assassination. Recently they’d begun training in tandem. He took a small measure of comfort in the knowledge that Heike’s mastery of her Willenskräfte didn’t yet equal his own.

  None of the mundanes objected to her company. Conversation faltered for a moment while they admired her. When she wasn’t invisible, Heike was endowed with a head-turning beauty. The portrait of Aryan perfection. And Heike was easy company. She even ate quietly.

  A third soldier picked up the conversational thread. Around a mouthful of potato, he said, “England? That’s ridiculous. She’ll be in Moscow by the end of the week.”

  Crumbs flew as he spoke. Klaus smelled cabbage and sausage on the man’s breath.

  “If you’re that curious,” said the second man, “you know who to ask.” A mischievous grin spread across his face. “Tell you what. I’ll give you a Reichsmark for trying. I’ll even double it if Gretel gives you a straight answer.” The soldiers laughed.

  “And maybe she’ll gamble with us later. We’ll make a fortune!” They pounded the table in their laughter.

  “I like playing cards.” Gretel stood in the doorway, dinner tray in hand.

  The laughter stopped. The soldiers fell silent, suddenly fixated on their dinners. Their heads inched lower over their plates when she approached. Heike had been ignoring the mundanes, but Klaus felt the quiver of tension from her direction as well.

  “Can my brother play, too?”

  The trio of mundanes abandoned their meals. “Have to inventory the armory,” muttered one. “I’ll join you,” said another. In moments they were gone.

  One of Gretel’s long braids tickled Klaus as she settled beside him. She took the fork and half-eaten piece of cake one soldier had left behind. “Mmm. Chocolate.”

  She didn’t, Klaus noticed, have any food on her tray. It was stacked with magazines. On top was an old issue of Time, an American publication he recognized from the infirmary’s reading collection. She was reading about the abdication of Edward VIII and
his subsequent wedding.

  “Why are you reading that? That’s old news.”

  “Every girl dreams of her wedding day, brother.”

  Klaus finished off his stew before it cooled. He nibbled on Gretel’s purloined cake while talking with Heike.

  “They’re changing the obstacle course again.” Klaus could breeze through obstructions easily enough. But other tasks, such as navigating while inside a wall, still presented challenges.

  “Yes,” said Heike. She rubbed her shoulder. Klaus recognized the dark bruises on her clavicle: wax bullets. She hadn’t graduated to the live-fire exercises yet. “And they’ve hung bells on everything.”

  “I think we’ll get deployed soon,” he said.

  Heike shrugged. “Some of us.” After that she fell silent again. Her meal consisted mostly of salad with just a little bread on the side. Heike ate greens at every meal.

  Klaus and Gretel were finishing the last of the cake when Reinhardt entered. He smiled when he saw Heike. “Ah! There you are, Liebling.”

  Heike deflated. She unleashed a long sigh as she set down her cutlery.

  Reinhardt crossed the room to lay a hand on Heike’s shoulder. “I’m disappointed. I’d hoped that to night we’d dine alone together.”

  Heike tossed the dishes of her unfinished meal back on her tray. She stood, and with another brief nod to Klaus, swept out of the hall. Reinhardt crossed his arms, leaning back against the table as he watched her go.

  After she was gone, he said, “You know, Klaus, we’re uniquely positioned to help each other, you and I.”

  “Is that so?” Klaus almost preferred Reinhardt when he wasn’t trying to be charming. The artifice was both irritating and unconvincing.

  “Oh, yes. It’s no secret that things are changing here. I’ll wager even stupid Kammler can see it.”

  “Hmmmm.”

  “It’s only a matter of time before I’m promoted. But I’m afraid your career faces certain—” He cleared his throat, with a meaningful glance at Gretel. “—handicaps.”

  Klaus looked at his sister, who didn’t react to the insult. “What’s your point?” he asked.

  Reinhardt spread his hands in the air. “All I’m saying is that you could use friends in high places. And when I’ve moved on, I won’t forget the friends I’ve left behind.” He shrugged. “Heike respects you, though I can’t imagine why. Put in a good word for me, talk her out of this silly and frankly tedious resistance, and I’ll return the favor when the time comes.”

  You pig, thought Klaus. “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “It’s true,” chimed Gretel. “He’ll get what he wants, eventually. She won’t resist him forever.”

  Reinhardt nodded, pleased by Gretel’s prediction. “Listen to your sister, Klaus.” He waved a finger in the air as he walked away. “My offer stands.”

  Gretel flipped through her magazine, still reading. “I like flowers very much,” she said to nobody in particular. “I think I’d want to be married in a garden.”

  4 August 1939

  St. Pancras, London, England

  Marsh brought a bouquet of forget-me-nots and red carnations when he took Liv to dinner a week after meeting her at the Hart and Hearth. A month after that, she sneaked him into her garret at the boarding house, where they made love during a window-cracking hailstorm. A day after that, Marsh finagled a two-month advance out of Stephenson, added it to the cash he’d already saved, rode the Tube to Knightsbridge station, and bought a ring at Harrods.

  He presented it to Liv on her birthday. They set the wedding for Marsh’s birthday.

  Liv, like Marsh, preferred a small ceremony. She was visibly moved when Stephenson and his wife, Corrie, offered to host it in their garden; she understood the significance of that place in her future husband’s life.

  Although he wasn’t particularly religious, Marsh had taken to attending Sunday services with Liv. The Church of England vicar who had baptized Liv and eulogized her father agreed to preside over the nuptials.

  The day had dawned gloomy and overcast, but the good fortune that had attended their courtship from the start saw fit to give them a blue sky by early afternoon. Corrie had draped the garden wall with ivy garlands and streamers of crepe paper. Marsh sucked in a sudden breath when Stephenson escorted Liv into the garden under an arbor strewn with hyacinths and roses. The sunlight on her milky skin and simple white gown made her luminous.

  Will gasped. “You’ve outdone yourself,” he whispered.

  “You have it, right?” said Marsh.

  “Have what, Pip?”

  Marsh turned. Will winked.

  “You’re terrible,” said Marsh as he turned back to admire his approaching bride. The Stephensons’ tiny garden seemed ten leagues long. He’d never seen the old man move so slowly. But he knew he’d forever hold behind his eyelids the image of Liv under roses with daffodils in her hair.

  “One of us has to be. Your bride is a perniciously civilizing influence.”

  Marsh cast about for a retort, but then Liv and Stephenson joined them, and all he could think was, I’m getting married. This is real. I’m marrying this amazing, stunning woman. She’s marrying me.

  It was a simple ceremony, brief as it was small. Liv, like Marsh, had little in the way of family. In addition to Will and the Stephensons, the only guests were Liv’s mother and a maiden aunt from Williton. Liv’s auntie didn’t approve of Marsh, but she teared up and tossed rice just like the rest.

  Marsh and Liv took their first dance barefoot in the grass while listening to a scratchy recording of Vera Lynn. He kissed his wife, touched her, inhaled her.

  “I wish we could stay like this forever,” he said.

  “Hold me, fool,” she said, head on his shoulder.

  Stephenson produced a bottle of champagne and seven flutes. Will waited until everybody held a glass before raising his own.

  “Raybould and I first met at university, meaning I’ve known him longer than most, with two notable exceptions.” Will nodded at the Stephensons as he said this.

  Then he turned to Liv’s mother. “Mrs. Turnbull, I imagine you find yourself wondering, ‘Who is this charming, clever, handsome, and fascinating man?’” She nodded meekly, looking delighted but nervous. “It is my great plea sure to put your mind at ease, madam.” Will took her hand, kissed it, and said, “My name is William Edward Guthrie Beauclerk, and I am pleased to be at your service.” Laughter. “But perhaps you also wonder about this strange man who has stolen your daughter’s heart.” Nervous smiles from mother and auntie. “My first impression of Pip was that he was coarse, neither handsome nor clever, utterly lacking in passion, rudderless, and without direction in life. But I give you my solemn word, madam, that I was utterly mistaken in every regard. Well, most.” More laughter. Marsh’s face ached as he struggled not to grin like a fool.

  Next, Will turned to address Liv. “Now, Olivia, all joking aside. I’ve known your husband for more than a decade, but in all that time I’ve seen him speechless exactly once. And that was when he met you, my dear. It takes a remarkable person to defeat Pip’s quicksilver mind. You’re more than a match for him, and in that, you’ve won him forever. Trust me. I know the man.”

  Then it was Stephenson’s turn for a shorter and gruffer toast: “This is the second time you’ve made a mess of my garden, lad. I trust you won’t make a habit of this.” Marsh laughed, looking at his feet to hide the blush creeping into his face.

  Stephenson turned to Liv. “You’re a delightful lady, Olivia, and far too good for him. I only wish he’d met you sooner. Much, much sooner.” She laughed, too, her face shimmering with tears.

  They drank. Will barely touched the champagne to his lips, and spit it back in the flute when he thought nobody was looking. He shrugged awkwardly when he caught Marsh watching him. But Marsh was too preoccupied to feel anything other than amusement.

  The little garden party stretched into evening. Marsh danced with his mother-in-law, and Liv’s a
untie, and Corrie, but mostly with his wife. As the sky turned pink in the west, Will offered to take Liv’s bleary-eyed mother and yawning aunt back to their hotel. Corrie took Liv inside to wrap up a watercolor of her choosing.

  Alone in the garden, Stephenson and Marsh clinked their glasses together. “You’ve done well,” said Stephenson.

  “I know,” said Marsh, staring after his wife as she entered the house.

  Stephenson drained his champagne in one gulp. When Corrie shut the door, he said quietly, “You’ve had a lot on your mind, but I hope you haven’t forgotten about Milkweed.”

  Inwardly, Marsh sighed. “No.”

  “Good. Because the film’s ready for an audience.”

  “Took long enough.”

  Stephenson agreed. He nodded toward the back gate, where Will had departed with Liv’s family. “Still think your specialist will shed some light for us?”

  6 August 1939

  Westminster, London, England

  Oy! Keep yer bleedin’ fingers off that goddamn film, Yer Highness!”

  Will jumped away from the projector as if an adder, rather than acetate, were coiled about the reel. He lowered himself into a chair facing the far end of the room, where a Scot in gray overalls continued to curse while struggling to unfurl a screen.

  “My apologies,” Will murmured. He’d been through a lot in the past hour; he didn’t feel quite himself. His knees had gone wobbly and he hadn’t quite regained his balance.

  Pausing before he launched another volley of curses at the tripod, the Scot asked, “Why the hell is he here?”

  “Because he’s our local expert,” said Marsh.

  The man with the projector screen snorted. “He is, eh? That’s just bloody wonderful,” he muttered.

  “Don’t mind him.” Marsh joined Will at the table. “How are you feeling? You look . . . pale.”

  “Well, it’s rather a lot to take in, isn’t it?”

  Marsh’s message had been vague, saying only that he’d very much appreciate Will’s opinion on a matter. Will had suspected it might have had something to do with their conversation in the Hart and Hearth back in February, the evening they’d both met Liv. But, having already agreed to provide his assistance, and being more than a little curious, he cheerfully attended this strange meeting in the Broadway Buildings. The concrete edifice stood a couple of streets south of St. James’ Park, just down from the eponymous Tube station, and a ten-minute walk from Buckingham Palace. Will had dismissed it as an uninspired government building.