Free Lord John and the Hand of Devils by Diana Gabaldon Page B

German. A faint, shocked snigger ran through the men. Grey pressed his lips tight together and jerked up the soggy shirttail. Private Bodger was somewhat more than intact, he was glad to see. So were the diggers; there was an audible sigh of mass relief behind him.
    Grey stood, conscious all at once of tiredness and hunger, and of the rain pattering on his back.
    “Wrap him in a canvas; bring him…” Where? The dead man must be returned to his own regiment, but not tonight. “Bring him to the Schloss. Tom? Show them the way; ask the gardener to find you a suitable shed.”
    “Yes, me lord.” Tom Byrd was nearly as pale as the dead man, and covered with mud, but once more in control of himself. “Will I take the horse, me lord? Or will you ride him?”
    Grey had forgotten entirely about Karolus, and looked blankly about. Where had he gone?
    One of the diggers had evidently caught the word “horse,” and understood it, for a murmur of
“Das Pferd”
rippled through the group, and the men began to look round, lifting the torches high and craning their necks.
    One man gave an excited shout, pointing into the dark. A large white blur stood a little distance away.
    “He’s on a grave! He’s standing still! He’s found it!”
    This caused a stir of sudden excitement; everyone pressed forward together, and Grey feared lest the horse should take alarm and run again.
    No such danger; Karolus was absorbed in nibbling at the soggy remnants of several wreaths, piled at the foot of an imposing tombstone. This stood guard over a small group of family graves—one very recent, as the wreaths and raw earth showed. As the torchlight fell upon the scene, Grey could easily read the name chiseled black into the stone.
    BLOMBERG, it read.

Chapter 2

    But What, Exactly, Does a Succubus
Do?
    T hey found Schloss Lowenstein alight with candles and welcoming fires, despite the late hour of their return. They were far past the time for dinner, but there was food in abundance on the sideboard, and Grey and von Namtzen refreshed themselves thoroughly, interrupting their impromptu feast periodically to give particulars of the evening’s adventures to the house’s other inhabitants, who were agog with curiosity.
    “No! Herr Blomberg’s
mother
?” The Princess von Lowen stein pressed fingers to her mouth, eyes wide in delighted shock. “Old Agathe? I don’t believe it!”
    “Nor does Herr Blomberg,” von Namtzen assured her, reaching for a leg of roast pheasant. “He was most…vehement?” He turned toward Grey, eyebrows raised, then turned back to the princess, nodding with assurance. “Vehement.”
    He had been. Grey would have chosen “apoplectic” as the better description, but was reasonably sure that none of the Germans present would know the term and had no idea how to translate it. They were all speaking English, as a courtesy to the British officers present, who included a captain of horse named Billman, Colonel Sir Peter Hicks, and a Lieutenant Dundas, a young Scottish officer in charge of an ordnance survey party.
    “The old woman was a saint, absolutely a saint!” protested the Dowager Princess von Lowenstein, crossing herself piously. “I do not believe it, I cannot!”
    The younger princess cast a brief glance at her mother-in-law, then away—meeting Grey’s eyes. The princess had bright blue eyes, all the brighter for candlelight, brandy—and mischief.
    The princess was a widow of a year’s standing. Grey judged from the large portrait over the mantelpiece in the drawing room that the late prince had been roughly thirty years older than his wife; she bore her loss bravely.
    “Dear me,” she said, contriving to look winsome, despite her anxiety. “As if the French were not enough! Now we are to be threatened with nightmare demons?”
    “Oh, you will be quite safe, madam, I assure you,” Sir Peter assured her. “What-what? With so many gallant gentlemen in the house?”
    The ancient dowager glanced at