A Soul of Steel by Carole Nelson Douglas

would the Khan secretly countermand his orders in regard to only one man?”
    “The only Englishman,” Godfrey reminded him.
    “No. Afghanistan breeds fierce fighters, and fiercer palace intrigues, but they are forthright folk in actual battle. Maclaine was of no danger to the Afghans.”
    “These five sepoys,” Irene finally said. “Explain to me their part in the battle.”
    I was most relieved that she had asked that, as I had no idea what a sepoy was. As far as I was concerned, it could be some rare breed of lapdog.
    “Native Indian troops. Noncommissioned,” he said. “Good soldiers.”
    “They would have no reason to lie,” Irene said.
    “No.”
    “Unless—”
    “Yes?”
    “Unless they killed Lieutenant Maclaine. The guards had fled. There is only their word on it.”
    “But why?” Godfrey wanted to know.
    “Perhaps they were bribed to absolve this Khan, this Ayub, of blame. Perhaps, as Stan’s story implies, someone British wished to prevent Lieutenant Maclaine’s testimony about his actions on the battlefield, about the unreported subsidiary ravine leading straight to the British line.”
    “What happened about that?” Godfrey asked, sitting straighter. “Surely there was a military inquiry?”
    Mr. Stanhope answered at once. “There were inquiries, and a court-martial. The generals produced their reports, which varied depending on how long after the battle they were written. Much blame was laid on Mac. Of course he was the only one not there to defend himself.”
    “And where were you?”
    He avoided our eyes. “In the Afghan hills. I didn’t learn of the charges, which came out a full year after the battle, until years later. By then it did not seem to matter.”
    “Why?” I asked. “Why did you... retreat so far beyond Kandahar? Into the wilderness? For all those years?”
    “I was honorably discharged and free to go where I would. Native tales of treasure buried in the remote mountains intrigued me. Also, I was sickened by the method of Mac’s death. If he had not acted on my information, he might be living today.”
    “So you have refused to return to England and live the life you were born to because Lieutenant Maclaine could not, and you felt responsible for that.” Irene spoke as dispassionately as a doctor.
    Mr. Stanhope cupped the snifter in both of his bronzed hands and let the silky liquid roil like a brazen sea from side to side. “It is not so simple as that. I had reason to think that my life was wanted, too. So I saved it. By remaining lost in Afghanistan.”
    “Where you have been totally untroubled by anything, until—”
    “Until I returned to Europe,” he admitted.
    Irene leaned forward, her hands taut upon her chair arms. “Why, Mr. Stanhope? Why have you returned? And why now?”
    He sighed heavily. “I’ve learned a thing or two. I now believe that the physician who tended me in the field at the retreat from Maiwand survived also. I believe that he may be in danger. I will not have yet another man die on my account!”
    “But how will you find him?” Exasperation tinged Irene’s facile voice. She used it as a goad or a lure, that voice, and even when speaking she could imbue her words with all the emotional command of a coloratura soprano. “Ah. You are not quite as lost as you would have us think. You have a clue. You have—his name!”
    He recoiled from her words as from a whip. “What is one name in a world full of so many?”
    “A thread, Mr. Stanhope. And from a single thread whole cloth can be woven. Tell me his name.”
    “It will mean nothing to you! It is common beyond counting. You have no reason to know.”
    “We can search him out if something should befall you.”
    “How would you recognize him?”
    “How will you, with all that battlefield dust and many years between you two?”
    “This is pointless, Madame. I regret I have told you so much as my own name.”
    “Do you not see? It was your knowing something and confiding it to