It was very late, but John Grey was not yet asleep. He sat by the fire in his quarters in the barracks, the distant sounds of the night watch outside his window, writing steadily.
…and so it is ended. You may imagine the difficulties of discovering a wet-nurse in an army barracks in the middle of the night, but Tom Byrd has arranged matters and the child is cared for. I will send to Simon Coles tomorrow, that he may undertake the business of bringing the boy to his family—perhaps such an ambassage will pave the way for him in his courtship of Miss Barbara. I hope so.
I cling to the thought of Simon Coles. His goodness, his idealism—foolish though it may be—is a single bright spot in the dark quagmire of this wretched business.
God knows I am neither ignorant nor innocent of the ways of the world. And yet I feel unclean, so much evil as I have met tonight. It weighs upon my spirit; thus I write to cleanse myself of it.
He paused, dipped the pen, and continued.
I do believe in God, though I am not a religious man such as yourself. Sometimes I wish I were, so as to have the relief of confession. But I am a rationalist, and thus left to flounder in disgust and disquiet, without your positive faith in ultimate justice.
Between the cold consciencelessness of the government and the maniac passion of Marcus Fanshawe, I am left almost to admire the common, ordinary, self-interested evil of Neil Stapleton; he is so nearly virtuous by contrast.
He paused again, hesitating, bit the end of the quill, but then dipped it and went on.
A strange thought occurs to me. There is of course no point of similarity between yourself and Stapleton in terms of circumstance or character. And yet there is one peculiar commonality. Both you and Stapleton know. And for your separate reasons, cannot or will not speak of it to anyone. The odd result of this is that I feel quite free in the company of either one of you, in a way that I cannot be free with any other man.
You despise me; Stapleton would use me. And yet, when I am with you or with him, I am myself, without pretense, without the masks that most men wear in commerce with their fellows. It is… He broke off, thinking, but there really was no way to explain further what he meant.
…most peculiar, he finished, smiling a little despite himself.
As for the army and the practice of war, you will agree, I think, with Mr. Lister’s assertion that it is a brutal occupation. Yet I will remain a soldier. There is hard virtue in it, and a sense of purpose that I know no other way of achieving.
He dipped the pen again, and saw the slender splinter of metal that lay on his desk, straight as a compass needle, dully a-gleam in the candlelight.
My regiment is due to be reposted in the spring; I shall join them, wherever duty takes me. I shall, however, come to Helwater again before I leave.
He stopped, and touched the metal splinter with his left hand. Then wrote, You are true north.
Believe me ever your servant, sir,
John Grey
He sanded the letter and shook it gently dry, folded it, and taking the candlestick, dripped wax upon the edge and pressed his ring into the warm soft wax to seal it. The smiling crescent moon of his signet was sharp-cut, clear in the candlelight. He set down the candlestick, and after weighing the letter in his hand for a moment, reached out and touched the end of it to the flame.
It caught, flared up, and he dropped the flaming fragment into the hearth. Then, standing, shucked his banyan, blew out the candle, and lay down, naked in the dark.
About the Author
DIANA GABALDON is the author of Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Lord John and the Private Matter, and the New York Times bestselling Outlander novels. She won a 2006 Quill Award for her most recent Outlander novel, A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Visit the author at www.dianagabaldon.com.