Chapter Text
I gave magic to England, a valuable inheritance
But Englishmen have despised my gift
It was not a little thing, when it first happened. It was rather a moment of some importance. He was pinned up against a tree, a grubby hand on his neck and French being barked at full volume into his face.
“L'espion de Wellington! Je te tiens, saligaud!”
He found it profoundly disagreeable to be referred to as a spy - he was an officer after all, and he found it doubly disagreeable to be called it in French. But most disagreeable of all at this moment were the two hands that were now extremely persistently squeezing about his neck, in a fashion designed to prevent him from living very much longer.
Grant was not observing this all idly but was, at the time, grasping at the man’s arms, his shoulders - he could not reach the man’s face or neck, somewhere he could do real damage. The Frenchman’s reach was too long for that.
And while he flailed for purchase, fingernails digging into blue wool, and while his foot kicked out at the Gendarme’s knee, hoping to bring him off balance, his mind raced through the options he had at his disposal - to whit, none. He was alone, and far behind enemy lines. There would be no rescue for him here and the Gendarme very clearly meant to end him now and make a clean job of it rather than bring him in for questioning.
There was - something - though, at the back of his mind, almost an itch, or no, rather, the feeling of seeing a dance for the first time and realising that one knew all of the steps. It was a very difficult thing to describe, it was fanciful, and yet, he was not awash with alternatives, and it would not hurt to try. His vision was going black at the edges.
He did not wish to be choked. He very much wished for the Gendarme to choke however.
He very much wished it.
He followed the steps within his head. It was a series of sensations, vivid images, a certain amount of bloody will. The wind picked up and the leafy trees surrounding them rattled into a protesting, deafening hiss. The Gendarme began to turn red in the face and then, yes, took one hand away from Grant’s neck and reached for his own. Off balance now, he was subjected to another kick to his thigh which made him stagger backwards, releasing his other hand from Grant’s neck. The air whistled into Grant’s lungs. It was so utterly tempting to focus solely on the business of breathing, a luxury he had sorely missed. But he knew he could not break his concentration from the Gendarme.
The Gendarme’s throat.
The Gendarme’s throat closing.
The Gendarme took a good deal too long to die. If Grant had the strength he would have walked up to him and ran him through the heart, ended the whole thing in a more soldierly and natural fashion. This manner of death felt a very much more intimate than even killing someone using one’s hands. He did not forget this.
“Could a magician kill a man by magic?”
“I suppose a magician might - but a gentleman never could.”
At first Grant thought that this must be some sort of rebuke, but then, no - of course not. How could he possibly know.
“Your Grace, with all respect you cannot seriously be considering using him?”
“And why not? I feel I am obliged to use whatever resource I have at my disposal to win this war, Mr Strange included. If he can build these roads, then it would make our lives a good deal easier.”
“It is magic, sir. Spells. The purview of yellow curtain conjurers and...hedge witches, not the English Army.”
At this Wellington turned on him. “Major Grant, if the very Devil himself came up through the ground, just there by our dear Chaplain’s feet, and proffered his own expertise to aide us in conquering the French then I would in all seriousness consider the offer.”
A weary sigh emanated from the Chaplain. “Sir,” he said, not a tone of outrage; it seemed to have gone some way beyond that and now merely sounded rather tired.
Wellington looked quickly over at him. “Well I would.”
“And how does one come to it, then?”
“Hmm?” Strange looked up from his maps, ringed by a harem of impressive-looking and aged books.
“Magicianship. How does one come to it in this day and age?” He paused for a second. “As a gentleman, that is?”
“Ah.” Strange fidgeted with the pen between his fingers while he considered the question, as if he was trying to remember exactly how he had come about it. “I met a man under a hedge, who told me I was to be one. He sold me some spells.” Strange leant back on his chair. “When I tried one of the spells on a whim I found I rather had the knack for it.”
Grant gave him a long, penetrating look, and Strange had the good grace to shift uncomfortably under it. Eventually, he said, “I was trying to impress a woman,” which satisfied Grant more as it had the ring of truth about it.
He, for his own part, snorted in amusement. “And did that work?”
Strange’s expression cooled. “Well, she married me, so I imagine it went tolerably.” He turned back to his map and his books, working upon the problem of the roads.
“And,” for Grant was not done with him yet, “how does one reconcile it? Being both a Gentleman and a practical magician?”
Strange did not do him the respect of turning to him to answer him this time, but addressed the map instead. His shoulders shrugged. “I am a gentleman, and I am a magician. That is how I reconcile it.”
This was useless, if the man was going to speak in riddles then he would not embarrass himself any further by stooping to talk to him. He would just have to amuse himself by watching him fail at a discrete distance.
The roads were, annoyingly, rather good. Though they had a habit of disappearing before all of the regiments had quite finished with them but they were better than nothing, which was enough for The Duke of Wellington.
If that was all Strange was used for, these limited, logistical uses of magic, that would have been all well. Grant would have been content to look the other way and not voice his distaste any longer, but of course His Grace would not have this. He had a disposition to push the men under his command to their very limits, a vexatious thing but this was why Wellington was winning the war. Once he had it in his head that things could be made to appear and disappear by magic, or moved from one place to another, he went about to test the very reaches of this.
“A fiery sword!” Cried one of the officers, joined by many approving cries and banging of cups upon the table.
“Yes, fiery swords all round, Merlin!” De Lancey agreed. “Let us see the French not soil their smallclothes at the sight of a fine regiment of English officers bearing down on them with blazing weaponry like something out of Revelations!”
It had become one of their most favourite drinking games, to ask Strange for increasingly outlandish acts of magic and watch him squirm uncomfortably in his seat as if they were serious requests.
“Ah,” said Strange, and wriggled amusingly in his chair. “No I’m afraid that would fall rather outside the reach of modern magic, that is, respectable…”
“Nothing more respectable than me lopping off the head of Napoleon like the Archangel Michael, is there?”
Really now, they were going much too far. If Grant was a better man he would pity Strange’s acute awkwardness, but he was not, and he enjoyed it.
“It is a fine image, surely, but…”
Why did he just not say that he could not and be done with it? “Merlin, if you cannot do the magic then just say so,” said Grant, in more dour tones than he intended. Strange shot him a look and bristled.
“It is not a case of it not being possible. In fact, there is something similar to have said to have been done by Thomas of Dundale in 1196, he…”
“Yes yes, Merlin, alright…” Grant waved a hand to call him off. Really, sometimes it was like talking to a schoolboy in short trousers. He had the same naivete, the same bluster, full of pedantic facts upon the object of his obsession. He was as Grant was at the age of ten. It would not do for a full grown man.
Having said that, he did not drink as a ten year old did. A rather impressive amount of brandy had disappeared down Strange, no, wait, Merlin, during the course of the evening, and Grant could not help be a little surprised at the lack of impression it had made on him so far. He could be one of those men who became drunk from the ground up, so their head was relatively sober and clear while their legs were quite out of control. Disappointingly Merlin quashed this theory by standing up from the table and rudely refusing to fall straight back down again.
It appeared that the pleasure of their company had worn rather thin on the magician. “I shall bid you Gentlemen a good evening.” Strange turned and made his way into the courtyard, followed out by a general unspecific murmur of acknowledgements from the remaining officers, and at least one intelligible “Good evening, Sir,” which turned out to have been produced by De Lancey.
Grant shot De Lancey a cool, if rather unfocused, glare. De Lancey, feeling the holes being burnt into the side of his head, looked at him. “And what is that for?” He asked.
“One would actually think that you liked him.” Grant shot.
“And what of it?” De Lancey helped himself to some more of Merlin’s brandy.
“He is...a conjurer.” This erupted laughs from around the table. “A trickster.” More laughter.
“Oh my,” said Hadley-Bright from across the table, “you have rather taken against him, haven’t you?”
“You honestly still think he’s a charlatan?” Asked De Lancey
“Well I’d be hard pressed to think that. I’ve seen him make and unmake the roads, yes, and I’ve seen him move the rivers. It is not that.” He took another sip from his cup. Brandy was brandy, even if it was provided by Strange.
“Then what in devil’s name is it?” De Lancey looked at him in a quizzical way he did not much care for.
“I don’t like magic.” This brought forth some more chuckles, and an ‘I am shocked!’ from Hadley-Bright in mocking tones. “I do not trust it. We got along perfectly well without it before and we can continue to do so.”
“Come now!” Whyte chided him. “You enjoyed the use of the road our Merlin created as much as much as anyone else here did.”
Grant slammed down his cup. “What exactly has he done today, outside of saving our feet from some mild discomfort? When that man,” he pointed vaguely out into the darkness that Strange had disappeared into, “proves he is worth even one of our infantrymen then we can have this conversation again. Until then…” Here he trailed into a sullen silence, while all about him the good mood stubbornly persisted.
It was unfair to make Strange roll so many boulders up mountains to prove himself (metaphorically, though sometimes literally), and to still perversely withhold his approval. Truly it seemed to drive Strange mad that he could not do one thing that would please Grant, though why Strange was so worried about what one officer thought when The Duke of Wellington himself was starting to regard him as indispensible was beyond him.
But withhold approval he did. It was not Strange’s person that he took against, he was forced to admit. He had many more irritating men in his association. It was his magic which coloured Grant’s whole assessment of him. He knew. He knew more than most anybody, what magic was, and what it could do. It could not be trusted, and neither, by logical extension he reasoned, could Strange.
It took Strange saving all their lives in the forest, covering them with a magical mist, before Grant had a sit down with himself and admitted that maybe he was being really rather harsh.
Magic was dangerous, yes, but in the right hands perhaps it could do a great deal of good. He was not those right hands, obviously, but perhaps Strange was.
Thus, he decided to tentatively extend friendship to Strange. Partially to make amends for his previous cool attitude, partly gratitude. Partly because, at that moment, Strange seemed so very alone.
This was rather a trick in and of itself, as if Strange had suddenly whipped away an elaborate enchanted cloak and revealed himself to be, despite everything, a rather ordinary-looking Shropshire gentleman in his early thirties. He looked terribly fragile.