Free The Saint-Germain Chronicles by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Page A

been…”
    “Been here?” Saint-Germain suggested as he drew one of the other chairs closer to where James sat. “I am sorry, Mister Tree. Madelaine is currently in South America.”
    “Another expedition?” James asked, more forlorn than he knew.
    “Of course. It’s more circumspect to stay there than go to Greece or Africa just now, or wouldn’t you agree?” He spoke slowly, deliberately, and in English for the first time. “I would rather be assured of her safety than her nearness, Mister Tree.”
    James nodded absently, then seemed at last to understand what Saint-Germain had said, for he looked up sharply and said in a different voice, “God, yes. Oh, God, yes.”
    “I had a letter from her not long ago. Perhaps you would care to read it later this evening?” He did not, in fact, want to share the contents of Madelaine’s letter with James; it was too privately loving for any eyes but his, yet he knew that this man loved her with an intensity that was only exceeded by his own.
    “No,” James said after a brief hesitation. “So long as she’s okay, that’s all that matters. If anything happened to her, after this, I think I’d walk into the path of a German tank.” His mouth turned up at the corners, quivered, and fell again into the harsh downward curve that had become characteristic in the last month. He looked down at his ruined jacket and plucked at one of the frayed tears.
    Saint-Germain watched this closely, then asked, “Has the fighting been very bad?”
    “What’s very bad? Some days we kill more than they do, and some days they kill more. It sickens me.” He turned toward the fire and for a little time said nothing; Saint-Germain respected his silence. Finally James sighed. “Is there anyone else here at Montalia?”
    “My manservant Roger, but no one other than he.” Again Saint-Germain waited, then inquired, “Is there something you require, Mister Tree? I would recommend a bath and rest to begin with.”
    This time James faltered noticeably. “It’s funny; I really don’t know what I want.” He gave Saint-Germain a quick, baffled look. “I wanted to be here. But now that I am, I’m too tired to care.” His eyes met Saint-Germain’s once, then fell away. “It doesn’t make much sense.”
    “It makes admirable sense,” Saint-Germain told him, shaking his head as he studied James.
    “I’m probably hungry and sore, too, but, I don’t know…” He leaned back in the chair, and after a few minutes while Saint-Germain built up the fire, he began to talk in a quiet, remote ramble. “I went home in thirty-one; Madelaine might have mentioned it.”
    “Yes,” Saint-Germain said as he poked at the pine log; it crackled and its sap ran and popped on the dry bark.
    “It was supposed to be earlier, but what with the Crash, they weren’t in any hurry to bring one more hungry reporter back to St. Louis. So Crandell—he was my boss then—extended my assignment and when he died, Sonderson, who replaced him, gave me another eighteen months before asking me to come back. It was strange, being back in the States after more than thirteen years in Europe. You think you know how you’ll feel, but you don’t. You think it will be familiar and cozy, but it isn’t. I felt damn-all odd, I can tell you. People on the street looked so—out of place. Of course the Depression was wrecking everything in the cities, but it was not only that. What worried me was hearing the same old platitudes everyone had been using in 1916. I couldn’t believe it. With everything that had happened there was no comprehension that the world had changed. It was so different, in a way that was so complete that there was nothing the change did not touch. People kept talking about getting back to the old ways without understanding that they could not do that ever again…”
    “They never can,” Saint-Germain interjected softly. He was seated once again in the high-backed overstuffed chair.
    “… no