Mr. Thornton's Cottage - Robin thought it best to first find Mr. Thornton before he left Marion to see what was afoot at Barnsdale.

Dependably, the older man was not far from the cottage and his newly taken-on charge, there. He was just at exiting a small lean-to of an outbuilding, something of a primitive workshop it appeared, several large - what Robin thought at first were slender logs - within his arms. As the two men drew closer to one another, the items revealed themselves to be rolled papers. Paper - or combustibles of any kind - being at present quite scarce on the islands, they attracted Robin's eye for both their make-up and their remarkably large size.

Mr. Thornton shrugged. "They are what I have left, and I must keep a fire now. It was one thing in the past to go without, an old man, alone. But now - Lady Marion is not accustomed to such dire straits as we are sure to find ahead." His face took on a look of resignation. "I do regret destroying them, though. They were such a pride of my father's. And such a fascination for me as a child."

"What are they, then? Sketches?" Robin queried, thinking them amateur attempts at landscapes, or still-lifes.

Thornton gave a slight shrug. "Schematics, of a kind. My family is from Cornwall, in my father's time. When the call went out in '34 for British miners, my father emigrated, found himself an islander wife, and when the Company gave up and closed the mines, he chose to stay on. I was born here," his eyes took in their immediate surroundings with warm nostalgia. "The youngest of twelve."

Robin did not intend rudeness, but eagerly interrupted the gentleman's reverie. "Do you mean to say, that what you have, here - "

"Technical specifications and maps for the disbanded Sark Mining Company," Thornton replied. "As a child and young boy I learnt them like the back of my hand. The family had not much in the way of reading material, and mining was still, after all that time, my father's one true passion. He had lived for mining, like it was something deep within his blood. And indeed such work had been done by his family for generations. Poring over these, studying these...for him it was the closest he could come to his loved-but-lost profession."

Robin laughed. "So you stand here, not only able to produce exquisite documentation," he had begun to be able to see the painstakingly-rendered schematics, "on Little Sark's mines, but able to tell me that you, yourself, could also act as knowledgeable interpreter of them?"

"Sir," Thornton's tone was that of a head-scratch, "I do not see what good such papers dedicated to a long-abandoned silver and copper colliery might do for you. 'Twas closed nearly one hundred year ago."

With a grin, Robin assured him, "Friend, most-excellent Thornton, if you will but find another way to feed your fire for the day, I shall send a man to you tomorrow with coal in payment for both your papers, and your assistance in deciphering them."

"Coal?" Thornton near-gasped at the name of the valuable fuel. "None but the Germans now have coal."

"Hm. So it is said," Robin agreed, full-on twinkle in his eye as he patted the man on his back, "and none but you have what I need."

Barnsdale Estate - They could not immediately locate the Kommandant within the house. He was no longer to be found where Allen had left him, in Eleri's suite of rooms. Following the sound of voices from there led them to the men's hallway, past the bedroom used by Gisbonnhoffer when he was in residence, and toward what had, until early this morning, been the master suite - occupied by Lord Nighten himself.

Just outside the closed door to Sir Edward's once-beloved sunroom, Allen grabbed for Eleri's arm, spun her back toward him, and pulled her into a narrow, out-of-the-way space. He quickly established that no one else was about - save the voices in the room beyond, and, knowing better than to do what he was about to do, sank his lips onto hers, knowing the stolen kiss would quick enough wash away the confusion playing across her face in that moment before he took his job (and quite possibly his life and manhood - if the Kommandant were in the right mood) into his own hands.

He kissed her, literally, with one eye open, at the watch. It made the encounter, for him, less than whole, though he doubted she was likely to notice any lack.

As he had assumed, Eleri offered no opposition - until the time came to pull away. That, she did not care for.

"There," he told her with a curt nod, wanting to shake her by the shoulders so that she might open her eyes instead of standing there, dreamily half-swaying before him. "And you shall have another if you play at the good girl inside, as we discussed," he promised her.

Her eyes opened, but only for the length of time it took her to ask, "may I have another, just now?" she bargained, "Quite quickly?" She closed her eyes again, in anticipation.

Nothing happened.

She opened her mouth to suggest, "If you like, we could go back to the servants' stair..."

Again, Allen took her by the upper arm, and this time counter-spun her, eyes still closed, back toward the sunroom doorway. He reached out to give her bum a 'speed-it-up' swat as if to help her along her way.

The surprising impact of that opened her eyes and called her back to the moment at hand, and it was with a decidedly cross look back at him that she turned the knob to present herself to her father.

Vaiser regally lounged in one of the room's excellent chairs while a man - Eleri recalled him as the Island of Guernsey's Kommandant - stood and held discussion with him.

"I tell you Vaiser," the other Kommandant was saying, "let this formal viewing go on. It takes the stuffing out of this underground account that we are somehow at fault in his death. To anyone with eyes, he has passed away from old age. You are present, here, after all. This is Gisbonnhoffer's house. Nighten was championed by the Reich following his recant. There can be little harm in it. Stay the day. Tomorrow will see him buried, a footnote to a footnote of history."

Their interaction seemed strange to Eleri. The Guernsey Kommandant and her father should have been equals, of a kind, neither telling the other what to do nor how to do it, especially on their own island command. Yet here, her father - some distance from his island command - appeared (by being seated, by at present possessing - ruling - this grand estate solely through his attendance at it) to far and away have the upper hand.

Perhaps her mother had been right when she had passed along Baron von Bachmeier's news - that the SS was now become more powerful than the regular military, that they had gained an influential upper hand through their cutthroat tactics, and those tactics' success, in the war. Of course, as wife to an SS officer, her mother had shared this with a large degree of pride. As her husband advanced in power, so then did she.

But for Eleri to see her stranger-of-a-father, Vaiser, sitting here, basking in such an ability to make other powerful men dance like marionettes about him - pride was hardly the emotion Eleri felt.

But then, neither was fear.

"I have ordered the Constable punished." Vaiser announced it as though he were reciting what he had requested be on the dinner menu.

"Gravely so?" the Guernsey Kommandant inquired.

"Yes. You disagree?" and there was a dangerousness to the question.

"His name?"

"Dunne. A local, I am told. Doubtless had some sort of...emotional attachment to the family. Felt he was doing a kindness by not leaving well-enough alone. Also, responsible for the loss of the girl."

"Lady Marion? She is missing?"

"So it would seem," Vaiser answered dryly.

"And do you seek to find her for her own good - or is she also to be in some trouble?"

"Initialllllly," Vaiser strung the word out as though he were only just developing his thoughts on the subject, "I should say, for her own good. She is the last link to the British aristocracy we have left under our control here. The official position is that she - and the memory of her sorry excuse for a father - are too valuable as propaganda tools at present." He paused. "Also, there seems to be something amiss between her and my lieutenant. When she is found we will sort it out. But no, I do not see her being granted a return to living here - unless marriage to my unfortunately smitten Lieutenant comes about."

The Guernsey Kommandant flicked an eyebrow. "And you are less than keen on that idea?"

"Well, there's a reason we haven't all shipped our families here direct, yes? Women make war...messy, conflicted, and unpleasant. Oh," Vaiser caught sight of Eleri. "Hello, Messy. Conflicted. Unpleasant. Do come in."

With a steeply arched brow at her arrival, the Guernsey Kommandant dismissed himself (though a man of his station was more usually the one to do the dismissing) to return to St. Peter Port, confident that events at the Barnsdale Estate were well in hand by Kommandant Vaiser. And even more confident that he wished very certainly to avoid crossing that man at any cost.

"How can you speak of people that way? As little better than beasts?"

"Beasts?" Vaiser asked (he did not rise), as though the notion floated about in the air between them, somewhere not quite above their heads. "You, little girl, speak to me of beasts? Well, I am sure you now do know whereof you speak. Your little in-fat-u-a-tion with the Beast, the monster cabaret act - the fiendish 'psychic' - has not gone unnoticed by everyone. You are the laughingstock of Prinzer's private table, no doubt. I would say I am impressed by your ability to finally at least sort out desiring the correct nationality of your prospective paramours. The proper ethnicity. And pre-War I would have applauded what keen social climbing sense you have clearly inherited from your mother. A Count! And a von Himmel, at that! But now I am informed - far more often than could ever please me - how you consistently turn down fine German officers asking for dances. For going out walking. Even - refusing to accept them buying you drinks while you sit - slavering over that half-wit half-man daemon in the dark, your - your - girl bits no doubt tingling for the unnatural touch of his fingerless hands in ways you only begin to understand. And I am to be taken to task as a beast?"

She radiated defiance, her rejoinder like a rock thrown through glass. Once tossed, the thrower fleeing. "You speak so against him because he frightens you."

"Frightens? Me? Yes." He performed a stagy shiver. "I daresay he would, if met with in a dark alley."

She went on as though he had not answered her, her voice decrying her father's slighting of Joss Tyr. "His connection with the world beyond is a powerful one - that you do not understand. None of you understand him!" Her hands had turned into fists at her side. "I have heard the four prophecies he gave to you that day." She searched Vaiser's face to see if he would give away any flicker of cowardice.

She boasted. "I have memorized them, and I know that they are coming true." Eleri held up her hand to illustrate each one, beginning by raising her thumb. "With my arrival, you became a father. Two: you have an enemy without a country, without a family, without, even, a spouse. Three: the Watchman. The Watchman will rise - doubled." Her voice turned into less of a cry, more of an accusation. "I have heard that your pursuit of the woman islander illegally broadcasting did not work. That you thought her dead, and yet she airs the Nightwatch again - and I know that following those killings another Watchman, a Whichman, has risen. To see justice done. To punish..." She gulped a hurried breath. "And four - "

With a thud, Vaiser stood, and curtly cut her off in her listing. "Hear me now," he half-shrieked, his voice sloping into an unnatural tenor range, and he stomped toward her, at one point pushing a narrow side table over in his anger at its impeding him.

A crystal decanter and its matching glasses shattered against the floor as the sliver tray they had occupied clattered against the now sherry-dampened parquet.

"If you continue to prove so eager to find a man - or half-man - to pop the cork on your sodden..." he made use of an almost unspeakable German word for her anatomy, now bringing his face menacingly close to hers, "you little wish-to-be-slut," his voice dropped to a whisper. "Rest assured that it is I who will do the choosing. I have already learned from Herr Geis' Landser Thered that after last night he has most specific knowledge of where you sleep."

The recoiling horror at his petrifyingly-rendered threat rolled off Eleri in nearly visible waves.

"Unless you would like me to draft men to fill...your dance card - you are of no worth to your mother and I second-hand, you know...unless we should suddenly fancy running a brothel - you will keep said dance card quite blank, agreeing to only the most modest advances of any appropriate German soldier insofar as...to. Be. Polite. As any convent-raised female ought." He let his teeth part in a gesture that would have been a smile, had his eyes not remained coldly stone, emotionless.

"About the viewing - " Eleri managed to choke out, her sudden contrition forced into being by true fear, and far too late.

"Sod the 'viewing'," he told her smoothly, returning to his chair, his point made. "We are well-past our disagreement over that." He waved his hand as though it mattered little. "It will continue, and I will remain overnight in the house to ensure that all is done properly, and depart after the old bag-of-bones is interred."

Knowing she was dismissed at his obvious motions to return downstairs and again take up her position beside the body, she turned and left the room. Left Sir Edward's apartments. But there was no one (as she had thought there might be) waiting for her on the other side of the door. Indeed, no sign of Mr. Allen anywhere, and when her mind first told her to run for the brief safety of her own rooms here, she found in fear that she could not. As though what her father had said - had threatened - had sullied them for her. Turned them from a place of delight into a place of potential horror.

She fled instead to Lady Marion's rooms (the staff having reliably repaired their disarray from the night before), and found herself at the front of the armoire. She flung the wooden doors open, with no thought to the mirror glass hung within them, and buried her face into the clothing within, mixing her tears with another woman's relinquished possessions.

Nightwatch Windmill - Though the song she was playing was not the one that had been circling about in Robin's head all day, that was the Glenn Miller Orchestra's 'Serenade in Blue' (there was no way for Marion to have acquired any records since the Occupation that were not German, or possibly French), he could nonetheless hear the lyric as clearly as though it had been.

Just as though he were listening to the wireless his last furlough in London before the unit's disastrously concluded mission to France.

"When I hear that 'Serenade in Blue'/I'm somewhere in another world, alone with you/Sharing all the joys we used to know, many moons ago/It seems like only yesterday, the small cafe, a crowded floor/And as we danced the night away, I hear you say forevermore/And then the song became a sigh, Forevermore became goodbye...But tell me darling, is there still a spark?/Or only lonely ashes of the flame we knew?"

Yes, he must remember to share that song with her later.

"The Nightwatch regrets to report that Guernsey Constable Dunne was executed today for the aid he offered during last night's fire at the Barnsdale Estate."

Robin listened from where he sat as Marion went on to list other bits of local news that he had found for her over the course of the day, her own ability to research such hampered by the fact Mr. Thornton kept no wireless at his home - not even a primitive crystal set - and she had traveled nowhere and spoken to none but Thornton and himself since the fire.

Robin had managed, with the help of Allen, to secure a change of clothes for her from among her room at Barnsdale. As the Kommandant had chosen to stay the night at the estate, so would his Driver. And so there might be another small bit of smuggled goods to look forward to tomorrow, primarily some foods that might be stored (as some were here at the Nightwatch) in one of Mr. Thornton's cellars.

But the underground news of the day (though not all of it entirely fresh, or even current) had also carried with it dismaying information for Robin, information he knew he was unlikely to get through the broadcast without bringing up to the woman he loved. The woman who had only today again promised to marry him.

He knew himself too well. "I have been thinking," he spoke out during a song. "Perhaps if you were to announce that you were ceasing to broadcast? If you made it known that you were stepping down of your own free choice. Perhaps then the Jerries would accept it, chose not to pursue taking further lives. Certainly there would be no need to."

Marion's brow appreciably furrowed. She made no attempt to hide her mounting incredulity at his unexpected suggestion. "Yes. No need. Because they would have then won. What are you on about?" She studied his face and posture closely for a moment. "You've had news," she accused him. "You've heard about Louisa Gould."

At her so easily sussing out the root of his worry, his eyes widened in challenge. "And why should I not have heard about her, may I ask? Were you deliberately keeping it from me? A Jerseywoman, informed on and arrested for having a wireless - sheltering a Russian prisoner? Why has her story not been reported on your Nightwatch?"

Marion's mouth fell into a line. "Because too many people are too scared already. What would sharing her story here do, but possibly discourage others from taking similar risks?"

He scoffed at her logic. "Exactly what it's supposed to do!"

She let her mouth fall open, aping disbelief at his chosen stance. "I do not discourage you from taking risks. Am I to see this simply as a case of Oxley cold feet?"

"You sit there and call me coward, Woman? When have I ever shown you fear?"

"Only once," she told him levelly. "No, twice. Once, at the Needle. You said you were afraid. The day you proposed. Frightened by happiness. Afraid of what you might do were it taken from you. And, I think," and this was skating damnably close to the edge for her - skating onto ice too thin to trust would hold her up so close to the happiness of his re-accepted proposal. "When I told you I was going to America." Her eyes narrowed. "I did not take it for fear, then. But now I find I might do well to re-examine it."

She had to lift the needle then, and lay it onto another record after announcing it, so there was no safe silence for Robin to speak any reply into.

Instead, he rose and walked toward her, taking her left hand in his and caressing the ring finger where it might wear a husband's token. Then he kissed it, and as he raised his head, she saw in his repentant eyes (as she dropped the needle with her free right hand) that he would not again raise the question of Louisa Gould, or of terminating the Nightwatch, anytime soon.

Once the safety of the record going out over the airwaves began, she turned her thoughts to those of the imminent bride. "Who will you have to stand up with you, then?" Neither of them had re-spoken Mitch's name that day. "Carter? Is he not nearest in rank, and so appropriate to the task?"

Robin looked at her as though she understood him not at all. "No, I shall not have Carter."

His refusal only half-way surprised her. "Then I shall."

Robin was agog. "Marion, you make it sound as though we are choosing seconds in a duel!"

She made certain to smile as she asked, "And who did you think I might pick?"

He shook his head. "I did not know. I thought, perhaps, we might ask Abby Rufford, a neighboring widow, to partner and stand witness for you."

Now it was Marion's turn to display shock. "And bring more notoriety to the event? Strangers present?"

Robin shrugged. "Or Wills."

"I don't know Wills."

"Well, you ought to. That is, you might. He's good people, Marion. Kind. Right-minded." Robin thought to offer a small joke at Wills' middle class upbringing, "Though not, strictly, your mother's sort."

"If he is so wonderful, then you ought have Wills. I shall have Carter."

Robin gave an exhale like a blow to a heavy bag. "He's next-door to a barbarian!"

She found she could not help but let her mouth cock into a sort-of smile at the thought. "Then you must, in politeness, not appear shocked when he picks nits off me during the ceremony."

But Robin's complaint was not so easily brushed aside. "He kidnapped you!"

She nodded. "And so we share a unique relationship."

He shook his head in aggravation. "Very well, you are so stubborn. I shall have Djak."

"The Gypsy boy?"

"Well I cannot single out one of the unit - just one - can I? Allen will be at Barnsdale with the Kommandant for the night. Johnson and Royston I must have preparing to rendezvous back here with Mr. Thornton for the plans to the mines. No, I shall have Djak. Perhaps his pet pigeon may act as flower girl, altar boy. Something."

"So we are bound at the broadcast's conclusion for La Salle's farm?"

Robin nodded. "But hush, sweet lady," he told her, his face coming intimately close to hers, "speak quietly, so that only I may hear. For there are spies everywhere I am told." His breath tickled the hair about her ears, and danced on her skin there, until he removed his mouth from its joking and set it instead to the task of seeing that she was well kissed until the song had finished.

...TBC...