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“Sir,” Branwell said again, his back straight and unmoving, every inch the soldier at attention.
Wellington turned toward Bran. He looked the boy up and down. Shame rattled around Branwell like old seeds.
“I am sorry, sir.”
“For what, pray tell?”
“For . . . er . . . acts of espionage. Please don’t make me go through it all again. Treason. And making myself a Captain even though it was only a bit of a joke. I should have said Sergeant.”
Crashey coughed.
The Duke said nothing for a long time. The sun set behind the green towers of the grand city, and its last beams shone through the ghost’s thin body. It is quite something to be stared at by a creature from beyond the grave, even if he is also a postman. Branwell would never forget it. He felt the weight of time and fate pressing on his bones from all sides.
“Leftenant Gravey, may I?” The Duke reached for the wooden man.
Gravey glanced around nervously. “Erm, certainly, sir. I owe you my life, after all. If you mean to have it back, that’s only fair.”
But Wellington was not after Gravey’s life. He was after his medals. The Duke lifted a handful of them off the Leftenant’s chest, which only left several hundred to spare. He turned to Anne and pinned a gold and blue ribboned one to her dress.
“For kindness in the face of cruelty, and high acts of trickery,” Wellington said gravely.
“For fearlessness in the face of the fearful, and thievery in the first degree,” he said, and pinned a silver and violet medal on Emily, next to the one she’d swiped from the Officer’s Mess so long ago. The Duke turned to Charlotte. He touched her cheek fondly with the bac
ks of his fingers. Her medal was crystal and green ribbon. Green for Verdopolis and glass for Glass Town.
“For valor in the face of all hope lost, and the most beautiful lies I have ever heard, Lady Bell,” he said with a sad smile.
“You’re very welcome,” Charlotte said shyly. She couldn’t help it. A last bit of banter slipped out. “For avenging you and winning your war.”
“And finally,” the Duke said sternly, turning to Branwell.
“My punishment,” the boy whispered.
But the Duke of Wellington fixed an iron medal with a black ribbon to his chest.
“For honesty when you needn’t have shown any, and for the capital crime of trying to save your family, even though it was a very poor plan, boy, good grief.”
Branwell could not speak. His throat was so thick and tight nothing could squeeze out.
“I forgive you, Captain Branwell. You did a wicked thing, and I daresay it won’t be the last, but you did try, and that’s something. I think I shall be relieved not to have to try anymore. It’s so very difficult, and life is so very full of it.”
The Duke of Wellington faded with the very last of the day’s light, and when he was gone, they could see a million stars hanging in the sky like the handwriting of the gods.
“It’s time, I should think,” said Emily. “George has gone ahead to make sure the tower is all clear of fighting and collapsed stairs and whatnot. Let’s go home.”
They found someone in the long, dark hallway outside the tapestry room. She was made all of white lace and orange blossoms, sitting on the ground with her face buried in her knees. Branwell could see a few good, unstained pages clutched in one fist and a blue-eyed doll he knew was called Albert in the other. She held on so tight they might have been made of gold. He flushed with guilt all over again.
“Victoria!” Anne cried. “What’s the matter?”
“He turned me out,” she said in a muffled voice. “Told me to clear off and he was so rude about it, so rude and so scrubby, and I did try to tell him I hadn’t anywhere to go, but he wouldn’t listen, he wasn’t nice at all like Anne or Miss Agnes or anyone, and he told me to go and find my father, but I don’t know what my father looks like, you see, so it’s impossible, it’s all impossible, and now I can’t go in my room and I can’t go out there, so I shall just stay here until the world ends, I expect.”
“I shall take you, Miss Vickie,” Crashey said cheerfully. “I know just what the old man has for a face. Why, he’s just in the mess tent stuffeeding himself with hardtack right now. I saw him myself. You stick by your Sergeant and it’ll all come out all rightfully.”
Victoria Alexandrina, Crown Princess of Glass Town and Gondal, peeked up from between her arms.
“Promise you won’t shout at me,” she begged, and Crashey did. The wooden soldier took the lace girl in his arms, and only Branwell heard her whisper into his oak shoulder: England. My England.
“What man?” Charlotte said. “Who told you to clear off?”
