THE DEAD GENERAL lay in a small, worn green tent on the riverbank, apart from the camp. This placement might have been a sign of respect, but there was a practical aspect to it, too, as Brianna discovered when Captain Pinckney removed a crumpled but clean handkerchief from his sleeve and handed it to her before courteously raising the tent flap for her.
“Thank y— Oh, my God.” A few late flies rose sluggishly from the corpse, wafted on a rising stink that shrouded him more thoroughly than the clean sheet over his face and upper body.
“Gangrene,” William said behind her, under his breath. “Jesus.” John Cinnamon coughed heavily, once, and fell silent.
“I do apologize, Mrs. MacKenzie,” Pinckney was saying. He’d taken hold of her elbow, as though afraid she might either bolt or faint.
“I—It’s all right,” she managed, through the folds of the handkerchief. It wasn’t, but she stiffened her spine, tensed her stomach muscles, and edged up to the makeshift bier on which they’d laid Casimir Pulaski. William stepped up beside her at once. He didn’t say anything or touch her, but she was glad of his presence.
With a sidelong glance to be sure she wasn’t about to faint, Captain Pinckney drew down the sheet.
The general was pale, eyes closed, his skin faintly mottled with purplish undertones and a greenish tinge about the jawline. She’d have to adjust that; they might want a death portrait, but she was pretty sure they didn’t actually want him to look really dead—just … romantically dead. She swallowed and tasted the thick, sweetly nasty air, even through the cloth. She coughed, breathed out strongly through her nose, and moved closer.
“Romantic” is the word, she thought. He had a high brow （and a slightly receding hairline …）， a small dark mustache, neatly waxed to make the ends turn up, and his features were an interesting mix of strength and delicacy. He had no expression; he must have lapsed into unconsciousness before he died （and a good thing if he did, poor man …）。
“Did he—does he have a wife?” she asked, remembering her own feelings when she’d thought for an instant that Roger—
“No,” Pinckney said. His eyes were fixed on Pulaski’s face. “He never married. No money, of course. And no interest, really, in women.”
“His family in Poland?” Brianna ventured. “Perhaps I should make a likeness for them, as well?”
Captain Pinckney lifted his gaze then, but only to exchange a brief glance with Lieutenant Hanson.
“He didn’t speak of them, ma’am,” the lieutenant said, and bit his lip, looking down at the dead man. “He—” He swallowed, audibly. “He was kind enough to say that we—we were his family.”
“I see,” she said quietly, and did. “For all of you, then.”
She glanced down at the body, absently noting the details of the clean dress uniform in which they’d clothed him and wondering morbidly exactly where and how he’d been wounded. Could she ask?
There was a deep gash in Pulaski’s head, starting just above one temple, the wound a reddish black, with tiny crumbs of blackened skin along its edges. Looking closer, where the gash disappeared under the general’s hair, she thought she perceived … without thinking, she put out a finger and felt the cold skull give under her touch, light as it was. She heard Captain Pinckney draw in a sharp breath and hastily removed the finger.
“Grapeshot?” William asked, sounding mildly interested.
“Yes, sir,” Captain Pinckney replied, with an air of somber rebuke that she felt was aimed at her. “He was struck in several places—in the body and head.”
“Poor man,” Brianna said softly. She felt a strong urge to touch him again—to lay a hand gently on his chest, covered by the silver-banded red facing of his uniform—the uniform had a high collar, made of some kind of white fur … no, it was lambswool, lined with grubby pink velvet—but felt she couldn’t, under the censorious gaze of the captain.
“The doctor—our doctor—thought he might be saved.” Pinckney had lowered his voice discreetly, talking directly to William. “He was conscious, speaking … but he insisted upon being taken aboard the Wasp, and the navy doctor …” He cleared his throat explosively and took a deep breath. “It was the wound in his groin that went bad, or so I was told.”
“A great shame, sir,” William said, and clearly meant it. “A very gallant gentleman.”