CHAPTER TWELVE
“The three colts taken out last night aren’t on the card for today,” Hyperia said, waving her fan gently beneath her chin. “We’re to have a flat race and a hurdle for the fillies, then a steeplechase for all comers. I’m told the steeplechase is mostly local lads showing off for one another.”
“I looked over the card,”—I’d memorized it—“but Tenneby uses so many abbreviations that other than names of horses and owners and the basic race description, I’m not sure what other information it conveys.”
“Age limits,” Hyperia said, nodding at Evelyn Tenneby some yards across the crowd. “Five and up, three-year-olds only, that sort of thing, and weight requirements, if any. The card should also state the purse of record. Pierpont gave me a lengthy tutorial. The big races next week will be run with each horse carrying the same weight. These earlier matches are more of a come-as-you-are.”
“This week is the artillery barrage.”
Hyperia linked her arm through mine and led me along the crest of the viewing hill, until we were in the shade of the trees at the first sweeping, left-hand turn.
“Artillery barrage, Jules? I hear no guns.”
“In the military, the first phase of battle was often an artillery barrage, intended more to unnerve the enemy than to decimate his numbers. A skilled gunnery sergeant could listen to such a barrage, correct for wind and terrain, and know exactly what sort of guns the enemy used, how many were firing, and where they were placed.”
“A display of power, but at a strategic cost?”
The shade was a relief, though nothing could dull the brightness of the midafternoon sunshine. This outing would have a strategic cost to me, in throbbing eyes and possibly a megrim.
“That strategic cost—revealing the strength, number, and position of the guns—could be turned to a strategic advantage.”
Hyperia’s fan paused, then resumed its languid motion. “I see. You keep half your guns silent during the initial barrage, or fire them once or twice, then move them about. That’s what horse artillery was for, wasn’t it? Get off some telling shots, then change positions and land a few more cannonballs from a better vantage point.”
“Exactly, and those artillery teams made the hostlers in the best coaching inns look like sluggards by comparison. There’s art to war, Perry, but it’s art with deadly purpose.” We moved to the near edge of the curve, against the white rail that kept horses on the course and spectators off the course. “The horses are more settled today.”
Down at the starting line, fillies, jockeys, owners, and stewards were nearly decorous compared with the situation at the previous races. The heat was perhaps to thank for some of the apparent calm. Horses waited patiently for jockeys to be tossed aboard, then ambled placidly to the designated starting area.
When a dozen fillies were positioned more or less evenly across the grass, the starter dropped his flag.
“They’re off.” Hyperia handed me her fan and produced a pair of field glasses from her reticule. “What sensible animal wants to go at top speed in this weather?”
The fillies galloped along the short straightaway at the bottom of the course in a tight bunch, then turned up the hill. The combined impact of tons of horseflesh moving at top speed created a thunderous tattoo against the dry ground, and abruptly, I was nauseated, dizzy, and filled with terror.
A cavalry charge was a fearsome experience to survive, and I’d survived several. Standing in formation, shoulder to shoulder with other riflemen, I’d waited while the mounted enemy first trotted, then cantered, then galloped at our infantry square.
The test of nerves on both sides was excruciating. The oncoming riders faced a wall of bayonets, bullets, and gun barrels, sixty men on a side at the start of battle, four lethal ranks deep. The horses with any sense swerved the human obstacle as best they could, and a man with any sense would never have taken the king’s shilling in the first place.
And we stood there, sighting on the enemy as we waited for the order to fire, and tried to think only of hitting our targets. I suspected most of us aimed at the horses despite being told to aim at the riders, but the whole point of a formed square was to launch a barrage of ammunition into a barrage of cavalry. The point of the exercise was damage rather than accuracy.
And damage invariably resulted.
“Jules?” Over the pounding of hooves, Hyperia’s voice sounded as if from far away, and I had the vague thought that I might be fainting. One often did in the midst of battle.
“Julian?” Hyperia was nearly shouting as the horses swept past us, leaving a choking cloud of dust in their wake. “Julian, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you.” I could also feel her hand wrapped around my elbow, and on that steadying sensation, I focused all my awareness. My head swam, but I resisted the temptation to gulp and pant for air.
Steady breaths. The image of the lime alley at Caldicott Hall. Shade, repose, quiet. Hyperia’s hand on my arm. Breathe. It’s only dust and horses, no scent of blood. No screams.
Hyperia took the fan from my hand and used it gently near my face. “You’re very pale. The heat must be getting to you. My old governess claimed that once a lady had fainted from the heat, be it in a ballroom or at a Venetian breakfast, she was more susceptible to the same mortification. I’m babbling.”
“You are wonderful.”
Her expression went puzzled then scowling. “Are you delirious, Julian? Must I call for assistance?”
“I am in love, which is a form of delirium. You can cease waving your fan at me. I had a bad moment, is all, and the bright sunshine doesn’t help.” I hesitated, but this was my beloved, who insisted on rummaging through my worst memories when they came calling. “A cavalry charge came to mind, or rather, awaiting the arrival of a cavalry charge.”
Her scowl became thoughtful. “The horses? The horses coming at us right up the hill? They gave you a bad turn?”
“The whole business—the sounds, the concussion of dozens of hoofs on the ground, the speed of the approach, the bright sun, the heat… Bad moments in Spain came to mind, very like when the cavalry gallop full tilt at an infantry square. You stand there on the ground, praying to kill rather than be killed, and to not disgrace yourself, and knowing such prayers are in themselves disgraceful. I will avoid watching other races from this same location.”
Many a man lost control of his bladder while waiting for the order to fire. It wasn’t spoken of and, in the mess and gore of battle, didn’t matter. Thank heavens I’d not fallen prey to that humiliation, though I was not as calm as I’d sounded.
My heart still thudded against my ribs, and my head was light, but I could form words and manage the business of basic respiration.
“Miss West! Lord Julian!” Lord Pierpont joined us along the rail. “What did you think of my Minerva? She’ll be leading the pack next time around, see if she isn’t.”
A roar from the crowd went up, suggesting some sort of near disaster or fall on the far side of the course.
“She’s the darling bay with the four white socks, isn’t she?” Hyperia said. “Beautiful eyes and a nose as soft as velvet.”
Pierpont beamed. “The very one, though her markings and her sweet nose aren’t why I run her. Caldicott, are you well? You look as pale as a winding sheet.”
I’d been studying his boots, for want of something else to focus on. Dusty, a bit worn down at the heels. The broguing across the toe of the left boot—the decorative pinhole pattern—didn’t quite match the broguing on the right.
“The heat disagrees with me,” I said. “Had rather too much of it in Spain and Portugal.” The South of France had also been overly warm, once I’d won free of the mountains.
“We’re in for worse, I’m afraid.” Pierpont took out a plain handkerchief and mopped his brow. We both wore top hats, which was beyond foolish, given the weather. “If the result is rain, I’m all for it, but the grooms say rain is at least a few days off. Here they come again.”
I stepped back from the rail and made myself scan the oncoming horses.
Pierpont’s Minerva appeared to be leading the pack. She moved with the steady determination of a horse who liked to run in front and was being allowed to indulge her preferences. A chestnut filly with a crooked blaze was coming up on her right, but either the jockey was holding his contender back, or the chestnut was saving her best effort for the run in to the finish.
Hyperia surreptitiously squeezed my fingers and kept hold of my hand until the horses had passed. I breathed. I counted backward in Latin from twenty. I considered Pierpont’s slightly frayed shirt cuff and the plain pewter sleeve button holding it closed.
“Don’t you want to be at the finish, Lord Pierpont?” Hyperia asked. “Minerva was in quite good form.”
“I will take myself there now, though I don’t like to watch the final run in. One is supposed to appear at his ease, graciously aloof, and so forth, but I do love my fillies. I’d end up cheering for them like an ill-mannered schoolboy, and I will leave that loss of composure to such as Lord Wickley.”
He touched a finger to his hat brim and sauntered off.
“He was doing so well,” Hyperia said, “until he had to bring up Wickley’s enthusiasm. Are you withstanding more cavalry charges in Spain, Jules?”
“Not at the moment, thank you. Let’s see who won and get us both some punch.” I offered my arm, and we followed in Pierpont’s wake toward the viewing structure. “I was ready for the second onslaught, fortified by the affection of my loyal intended.”
“I might not be your intended much longer.”
“Never say it, never think it. In any case, I was preoccupied with Pierpont’s boots, Perry. They don’t match. His handkerchief is plain and worn. His cuff is going frayed. Those are the signs of a man who might be avoiding creditors.”
“Or the signs of a man far gone into bachelorhood.”
Possibly. “Motive, though, Perry. A fellow in want of coin has a reason to fix a race.”
She sighed gustily, a governess marshaling her patience. “One doesn’t enter a horse in a race with the intention of losing, Julian. Every owner here has a pecuniary motive for cheating his way to victory.”
Or to defeat. Wagers could be profitable if one knew which horse was to lose.
We took our places in line before the punchbowls, while all around us, people chattered about Minerva’s victory. The initial betting had put her second favorite behind the chestnut apparently, but she’d romped away with the victory by five lengths.
“It was the oddest thing,” Miss Evelyn Tenneby said. “Sir Albertus’s chestnut was gaining handily when they started down the hill, and I thought we’d have at least a close finish. Halfway down the incline, the chestnut just… gave up. The jockey tried a whack or two with the crop, and the filly dropped from the canter to the trot, sides heaving, head down. Poor thing broke my heart. Simply lost her wind, apparently, though Juliet is noted to excel over longer distances.”
The recitation had a familiar ring, though it took me until I was sipping cool cider and envying Hyperia her fan for the recollection to settle in place.
Excalibur had been positioned to win at Epsom, coming on for the final push well ahead of the pack, and then he’d simply run out of puff .
I would have pointed out the coincidence to Hyperia, but Healy chose then to join us, and from the expression on his face, he’d bet on the chestnut to win.
Of course he had.
* * *
“Nobody will dun you for debts of honor,” I said as Healy trudged at my side back to the manor house. The second race had been run at a nearly sedate pace, until the dash for the finish, when the favorite filly had pulled out a victory by a nose.
The steeplechase had finished without injury to horse or jockey—the definition of a successful race, according to Piggott and St. Just—and Hyperia had been swept into Wickley’s coterie. She’d left her fan with me, which would make a handy pretext for me to seek her out prior to supper.
Clever lady. Dear, clever lady, who might be lost to me because of Healy West’s gormless schemes.
“Debts of honor are to be paid the most swiftly of all,” Healy retorted. “A gentleman is as a gentleman does.”
A gentleman did not steal his sister’s security. “We have plenty more races yet to go, and you might yet win back what you’ve lost. When does St. George have his first outing?”
“Not till next week.”
When the big races were run, the ones with substantial purses. Idiot, idiot, idiot . “You didn’t want to give him a canter over the course in a hurdle race for practice?”
Healy tugged at his limp cravat. “He practices running up on the Downs, Caldicott, like all the other runners.”
St. George was a jumper, not merely a runner. “Have you walked the course?”
“I just got here! One needs to recover from his travels, for pity’s sake. I’ll walk the course this evening, when the sun has eased off and all the lads and grooms are busy in the yard. Honestly, Caldicott, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
I wanted to plant him a facer, because having stolen Hyperia’s last groat, her pride, and her future, Healy still managed to muster a thorough pout.
“West, I have seen your finances. Where did you locate the blunt for the stakes involved in next week’s contests?”
“Backers, Caldicott. St. George’s abilities have inspired backers, and you are not my nanny. I vow, I do not know what Hyperia sees in you.”
“Neither do I, but one doesn’t argue with a lady. Just know that if you get into a spot of bother, I am the next thing you have to family, and you may call upon me for assistance in any regard. I’ll bid you good evening.”
I quickened my pace, still wanting to plant him a facer, also to trip him, wash his face with dust, and think up a nasty nickname for him in the best schoolboy tradition. West rhymed with pest, distressed, infest, inquest—that one had possibilities—undressed, detest…
“You saw the first race.” Tenneby caught up with me on my march back to the manor, though I had set a good pace. “My lord, tell me you saw the finish to the first race.”
“I did. The chestnut wasn’t up to the distance in this heat, apparently.”
“That chestnut, Juliet, can go for miles at a blazing pace. She’s local and hacked over after a gallop last week. She’s rested. She’s, if anything, better suited to the longer distances, and she should have won that race.”
“You bet on her too? I believe West is in the same leaky boat. My condolences. Is Minerva really so lacking in talent?”
“Minerva is a steady performer, but she’s a front-runner. Gets to the head of the pack and tries to stay there. Juliet has more than enough bottom to best her over three hilly miles. That’s why Juliet was the favorite.”
The day had been long and not all that enjoyable, but for time spent with Hyperia. For her sake, I summoned more patience. “Favorites often lose.”
I set myself to play devil’s advocate, though the exercise would doubtless be unpleasant. The last thing the race meeting needed was Tenneby reeling with conviction that wrong had been done, and not a shred of evidence to support his accusations.
If nothing else, I might argue him into keeping his conclusions to himself for a time.
“Favorites lose about twice as often as they win,” he said, “but Juliet was more than a favorite—she was a certain winner. Everybody knew it except Pierpont, apparently. At least he was humble in victory, as well he should have been.”
“You just said that naming a horse as a favorite tilts the odds away from that horse winning, Tenneby. Perhaps Minerva deals more effectively with the heat, or was better rested, or better ridden. I realize the finish put you in mind of Epsom. A good, fast horse poised to win is nearly becalmed at the moment when she should have been pushing for the post. A sad spectacle.”
“Not sad, Caldicott. Crooked.”
I spied St. Just and Piggott walking ahead of us, and though I was weary, I resumed my faster pace. “Do you accuse Pierpont?”
“Of course not. He was simply lucky. Somebody set out to make Juliet lose, though, and they succeeded. I want you to find out how, lest the same thing happen again next week.”
“I’m to find out how, but not to frequent the stable after dark, when the mischief is likely perpetrated. When every guest you’ve invited as well as their grooms, jockeys, sisters, wives, and valets have a motive for tossing the races. When the whole meeting will be over in ten days. It’s not like you’re asking me to find fifteen thousand French soldiers on the Spanish plain, Tenneby.”
“Even I could do that.”
That little outing had taken me weeks and seen me facing death twice. “Without getting killed on the way back to report what you’d seen? Right. Child’s play. A lark, a mere frolic. A gentleman’s eccentric though harmless pastime.” I was graduating from testy to angry, and St. Just glanced over his shoulder at me, then dropped back to my side.
“This heat makes one irritable,” he said. “The change has come on too fast and too soon. The horses don’t like it either.”
“The heat,” Tenneby said with the air of one ready to repeat an entire sermon at volume, “did not throw the first race.”
“Nothing threw the first race,” St. Just said, quite calmly. “Juliet wasn’t sufficiently accustomed to a downhill finish. Downhill finishes can be blazingly fast, and she exceeded her own limits pushing a habitual front-runner that hard. She’s a fine animal, with many victories ahead of her, but her owner failed to train her for this particular course. A common oversight.”
I could never in a thousand race meets have come up with that reasoning. I doubted another horseman in all of England could have.
Tenneby regarded St. Just owlishly. “The downhill finish did Juliet in?”
“That is my considered opinion. You watch the gallops on the Downs every morning, Tenneby. How often are the horses asked for their maximum effort on a downhill slope? Almost never, because we want to strengthen their hindquarters and test their wind by galloping them uphill . The well-rounded horse must be asked for both sorts of efforts, just as they must be run on both left- and right-handed courses. Jockeys understand that much, but they don’t care for a downhill rush—takes more skill—especially for an early morning training gallop when the grass is wet, and we cannot blame them for that.”
Entire vistas of training possibilities were opening before Tenneby’s wondering eyes. “A downhill finish. Quite fast. I see what you mean. Very interesting, St. Just. A cavalryman’s seasoned perspective, doubtless. I don’t suppose you’ve shared these notions with the other owners?”
“They haven’t asked for my opinion, Tenneby, and I doubt they will. Besides, I’m leaving the day after tomorrow, and the issue is unlikely to arise before I depart. Everybody thinks Wellington always sought the high ground for the sake of his artillery, but his choice of ground also forced the enemy’s cavalry to charge uphill, if they survived long enough to mount such an attack. Ask the French cuirassiers how well that went for them at Waterloo.”
At Waterloo, the exhausted French cavalry, galloping uphill time after time and having to navigate ground turned to muck by heavy rains, had been mowed down like summer wheat. The memory put yet another blight on a challenging day.
“Very interesting, St. Just,” Tenneby said. “Fascinating what you military chaps know. Perhaps we can chat more about this before supper? In fact, I insist upon it. I must have a word with my grooms at the moment, but please do plan on joining me for a drink before the meal.” He touched the brim of his hat with one finger and jaunted off toward the stable yard.
“Thank you,” I said as we took the lane that led to the manor house. “From one military chap to another. He was ringing a peel over my head for the finish to the first race. Do I conclude that somebody tampered with the horse?”
“What do you think?” St. Just put the question neutrally, so I did the only thing I knew to do and reviewed what evidence I had.
“The race was fixed. The objective was not necessarily for Minerva to win—though she was the second favorite—but to make Juliet lose, which she did.”
“And you base this conclusion upon what facts?”
St. Just had doubtless been present when many a reconnaissance officer had reported to his superiors what had been observed in the field. After the facts had been summarized, the speculation began. What did it mean that the French were buying up horses? What was the significance of this or that general nipping into Madrid for a week?
“The heat should be affecting all the horses more or less the same. They are in good health, pampered by equine standards, and kept in top condition. Juliet has excellent conformation, the will to win, and a reputation for stamina.”
“And?”
I thought back to the chestnut mare, faltering from canter to trot, head low, as the rest of the field had rushed past her.
“She was bewildered , St. Just. The horse herself didn’t know why she could not continue running, but she simply could not. She had no more fuel to throw on the fire.”
“That was my sense. Doped, would be my guess, but earlier in the race, I saw no evidence that she’d been drugged. She was ready to run, eager for her chance, very much on her mettle. I’ve seen horses dosed with a touch of somnifera, and the listlessness is evident shortly after the drug is administered. The symptoms increase thereafter, as inebriation becomes more evident with a sot. Juliet wasn’t showing any signs of drugging at the start.”
“She wasn’t showing any signs of drugging for the whole first circuit of the course and right up to the last push.”
St. Just cast a look back toward the racecourse. Stragglers, some none too steady on their pins, toddled along the lane, as did grooms slowly leading spent runners back to the stable yard.
“The race was fixed,” I said. “Whoever is tossing these races knows exactly what they’re doing. As I uncover one scheme, they hatch another. Tacks under the saddle, midnight gallops, now some sort of drugging. Tenneby’s worst fears are coming to pass, and I have been powerless to intervene.”
“Not powerless, just one step behind.”
“Horse races can be won or lost by a nose, St. Just, and I am losing this one.”
“You have some time to gain ground. The significant purses don’t start until next week, and the colts’ races the day after tomorrow should mostly be sightseeing tours of the course.”
“Today was supposed to be a friendly outing for the mares who didn’t run earlier in the week.” Another thought occurred to me. “Is it true that Wickley and Pierpont both travel with their dueling pistols?”
St. Just cursed in his native tongue. Something about testicles and playthings for Saint Brigid’s cats. “If one of those nincompoops hauls his Mantons about, so does the other.”
“Hyperia frowns on dueling.”
“Good. So do I. I frown on horse racing, come to that. Let’s find the punchbowls tucked away in that corner parlor. I’m parched.”
So was I, now that St. Just mentioned thirst. “You are bound for Yorkshire?”
“I am. Not a frolic, a duty, and one I am all too tempted to shirk.” So he’d make himself see to the situation dealt with, whatever it was. “I wish I hadn’t mentioned Waterloo to Tenneby.”
For St. Just, that was a heartfelt confession. “I had a bad moment when the fillies thundered past. Expected to hear the order to fire at any moment.”
He nodded as we gained the house. “Your guts clench, you can hear your heart beat in your petrified ears, and you wish to God… Well, none of that. We’re at peace, by heaven. My own ducal father insists that it’s so.”
“As does my ducal brother.” We both had two servings of cider, and still I felt worn out and frustrated by the day’s events. My head throbbed from all the bright sunshine, Hyperia was threatening to jilt me once the meet was over, and Healy was heaping foolishness atop desperation.
“You could come to Yorkshire with me,” St. Just said when he’d drained his second tankard. “Just a thought.”
“I cannot abandon the mission, St. Just, much less abandon Miss West, or her clodpated brother, but thank you for the offer.”
“The whole sport is clodpated,” St. Just said, going to the windows that looked out over grass turning brown in the park. “I understand cavalry officers indulging in a steeplechase or two to keep their mounts fit or to alleviate boredom. But all this wagering…”
“I know. And Tenneby is in some ways the worst among them, hoping that this venture will bring his finances right, when the whole business can be rigged six different ways.”
“Oh, at least.” On that cheering observation, St. Just decamped.
I poured myself a third serving, took it to the terrace, and considered what avenues of inquiry remained to me that wouldn’t earn me a thrashing, or worse.