Spangler seemed to consider the answer for a moment, hesitating on the path, the stick in his right hand. Then he turned, swinging hard for the shins again. The blow caught Gray by surprise, leaving him breathless with pain as he crumbled to the ground.

"I'm not interested in your relationship with Dunbar. I want to hear about the first time, about the role you played in the death of Rolland Michard. You think I didn't know about it, Nicholas? You think I was fooled by your silly performance? I've known about it for years."

They spent the rest of that morning in the shade of the fallen summer house. Except for not seeming to care that Gray's shins had begun to bleed again, Spangler was relatively congenial, and did not press for answers. There were even refreshments: a plate of whitefish, black bread, and lemonade. Afterward they walked into the broad yellow fields, and as another demonstration of friendship, Spangler even left his stick behind.

There was a change during the next three days, small indications, like signals—clattering trains at night, rising dust from caravans on the roads, an obvious decrease in the number of guards, sounds of shellfire from an artillery range beyond the marsh.

Still, for Gray these were still largely uneventful days. He read from the three books allotted to him: the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the Nibelungenlied, The Will to Power. He walked—once a day for thirty minutes—in a circular garden court. He dozed to the drone of flies and stagnant heat. Although the guards had been ordered not to talk to prisoners, the young man who brought Gray's meal always had something to say about the heat or the miseries of military life. There was also talk, overheard in the corridor, of new executions at dawn.

Finally Spangler returned. As before, Gray met him in the garden, and they sat on the edge of a reflecting pool that had been drained to inhibit mosquitos. Instead of a stick Spangler now carried a riding crop. He was also armed with a pistol.

"I'm supposed to ask your opinion about the will of your countrymen to fight," he began. "You in turn are to base your answer on your knowledge of the British ruling class."

"What's the point?" Gray said wearily.

"The point is, they shot the archduke, which means that there's going to be a war."

Gray let his head fall back, exposing his face to the light. He tried to feel something and couldn't.

"It's primarily a matter of alliances. Once the first shot is fired, everyone must mobilize."

Gray let his eyes close, his elbows slowly collapse. "'And who is the first to be shot here? Me?"

Spangler, of course, ignored it.

They walked along a gravel path lined with white bricks beyond which were dying elms against a white sky.