The Price of Honour

by Mary Nichols

  It rooted around for a time and flung her bundle about with its snout but there was nothing edible in it. ‘Go away, you stupid brute,’ she hissed down at it from her perch. ‘There’s nothing there. Oh, go away, do, I feel such a fool.’

  The horse and mule, both tethered near by, set up a neighing and braying as the frustrated boar began snuffling round the campsite. If only she had a gun! She began pelting the animal with pine cones but it did not even feel them. Where was Mr Leopard? Why didn’t he come back? No, she did not want him to find her in this ignominious position, but neither did she want to stay up the tree all night. She took off her boot and flung it at the boar’s head. It landed on its snout. It looked up at her, as if surprised at her temerity. ‘Get out!’ she said, determined not to raise her voice. ‘Don’t you know you are not welcome?’

  She was startled by a chuckle close at hand and turned her head to see the Englishman standing not ten feet away, carrying a dead hare. ‘Oh, I might have known you would think it funny,’ she said. ‘Now would you kindly get rid of that animal and help me down?’

  She expected him to shoot it, but instead he advanced on the boar and raised the butt of his rifle as if he intended to club it to death. ‘You fool!’ she said. ‘It’ll kill you. Shoot it, for God’s sake!’

  The boar faced the Englishman, lowered its head as if to charge and then turned and disappeared into the undergrowth. Olivia, who had not realised she had been holding her breath, let it out in a great sigh of relief. Her rescuer turned and held out his arms. ‘Jump!’

  She eased herself off the branch and dropped into his arms. It was only when she was safe on the ground, with his arm round her and his heart beating steadily against hers, that she realised she was shaking. She hid her head in the rough material of his coat, wishing she had the strength or even the will to pull herself away. ‘It is all right now,’ he said gently, making no move to release her. ‘It won’t come back.’ He thought she was afraid! Well, she had been, just a little, but what was so annoying was that he had witnessed her helplessness. How could she boast that she could manage without him, when clearly she could not?

  She moved away from him and began gathering up pine cones for fuel. ‘You’ve brought supper, I see,’ she said, to cover her confusion. ‘I did not hear a shot.’

  ‘I did not shoot it.’

  ‘No, I suppose you caught it and strangled it with your bare hands. Why must you lie?’

  ‘I always tell the truth. Now, how about a fire, while I skin and clean it? I take it you have no aversion to eating it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Double standards,’ he muttered to himself as he took a knife from his saddle-bag and set to work on the animal. ‘What is the difference between eating hare and eating kid?’

  ‘The hares do not belong to anyone.’

  ‘Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that kids are soft, adorable creatures who love their mothers.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  He laughed and began to hum a marching song as he worked.

  ‘Why didn’t you shoot it?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you shoot the boar?’

  ‘Why waste a bullet when it is unnecessary? Besides, the guerrilleros might hear a shot. You said yourself that sound carries a long way in the mountains.’ He turned to face her. ‘And you had best put a shelter round that fire; that might be seen too.’

  ‘Do you know where the Spaniards are?’

  ‘Not far away.’

  She did as he suggested and moved quietly about her tasks, and when their meal was over she wrapped herself in Philippe’s coat and settled down to sleep. He sat down with his back to a tree, his rifle across his knee and stared into the dying fire as if he could see pictures in its embers. What could he see, she wondered, things past or things yet to come? Were his thoughts on things he had done or those he had left undone? Was he even aware of her as a woman? She brought herself up short, reminding herself of her determination to remain free. Her apparent dependence on him tonight was just a momentary lapse and best forgotten.

  He was still sitting in the same position when a new day showed itself in a lighter sky above the tree-tops and woke her.

  ‘Have you been awake all night?’ she demanded.

  ‘No, I slept. Come now, we must be on our way.’

  She rose drowsily. There was no opportunity for a toilette but she wished she had water to wash. Almost as if he could read her mind, he produced yesterday’s wine bottle now filled with fresh water. ‘Where did you get that?’

  He laughed. ‘The same place as I found the hare. Drink a little and use the rest to wash. With luck we shall be back in civilisation before we need more.’

  She accepted it gratefully and five minutes later they set off again through the trees, picking their way along an ill-defined path and then out on to an open hillside where the sound of rushing water told them they had found the river again. He had been right about cutting off the bend. Why did he have to be right about everything? Her musing was brought to an abrupt halt by the sound of gunfire. He stopped just ahead of her and she drew alongside him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Stay here.’ He moved off ahead of her towards the sound. She waited a moment or two and then curiosity drove her to disobey and follow him.

  They could see the river again, narrower than it was but cut even deeper into the mountain rock, so that it lay at the bottom of a precipitous gorge. Straddling it, high above the foaming water, was a narrow wooden bridge. On the other side of the bridge, its walls continuing the face of the cliff as if it were part of it, was a monastery, guarding the bridge and the approach road. On the road was a French supply train, which had halted just short of the monastery.

  They watched from their vantage-point on the other side of the river as the escort to the wagons exchanged fire with unseen protagonists hidden in the rocks and trees of the mountainside.

  ‘Guerrilleros,’ Olivia said.

  ‘I told you to stay back.’

  She ignored his censure. ‘They got ahead of us.’

  ‘It’s hardly surprising; they know the terrain like their own backyards.’

  ‘But what is a supply train doing so high up in the mountains?’

  He smiled. ‘Like us, they have been driven up here by the blowing of the lower bridge. Now Don Santandos has them where he wants them. Anyone holding the monastery holds the pass. Nothing can get through.’

  He seemed to be right, because the murderous gunfire had killed most of the French troops and the rest had thrown down their arms and surrendered. The partisans poured out of their hiding places and surrounded them. Olivia could see Don Santandos giving orders to his men to drag the wagons into the monastery and then he turned to his prisoners. She cried out in horror when she saw him deliberately shoot them as they knelt on the ground.

  ‘Monster!’ she cried. ‘Barbaric monster. They had surrendered.’

  ‘I told you he was ruthless. Perhaps you will believe me now.’

  ‘Oh, I believe you. And will you admit I was right and we should have turned south?’

  ‘I admit nothing.’

  ‘No, because you are pigheaded.’

  He laughed aloud. ‘I must be a very strange animal; a leopard with a pig’s head. Perhaps if I have no claws I might be permitted to have tusks.’

  ‘It is no laughing matter. What are we going to do?’

  ‘Wait until dark. Then I will go down and look.’

  ‘Not without me, you don’t.’

  ‘You will stay behind even if I have to tie you up, do you hear? Good God, woman, you don’t know how to keep silent and I mean to go as close as I dare.’

  ‘To what purpose?’

  ‘We have to cross the bridge.’

  ‘Right under their noses. I suppose you have a plan to make us invisible?’

  He did not consider the question worth answering but turned and made his way slowly along the top of the cliff, looking for somewhere to shelter. She follo
wed, very aware that they were exposed to the view of anyone who might happen to glance across the river. Luckily the Spaniards seemed more concerned with taking the wagons into the courtyard of the monastery than in posting look-outs. The path grew very narrow and they were obliged to dismount and lead the animals. ‘I hope you know where you are going,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘I do not fancy a cold bath, even supposing I survive the fall.’

  His answer was to lead the way into a cave. This will do. Now we wait.’

  They settled down in the mouth of the cave, with their mounts safely behind them, and in minutes he was sound asleep, which convinced her he had stayed awake all the previous night, in spite of what he had told her. She sat there looking at him. In sleep he looked young. Perhaps he was young, but there was nothing like a war for ageing a man. Tom had been immature and gullible when he’d enlisted, but within months, if not weeks, he had grown up, had become hardened, like well-worn leather, brown and creased, but tough. The soldier who had died was not the young lad who had fallen victim to the recruiting sergeant’s patter. And she was not the girl who had left home so consumed by love, so full of defiance, so confident she knew what she wanted. The confidence she had now was confidence of a different sort. It was all to do with self-preservation, the will to survive, the conviction that you never knew what you could endure until you put it to the test.

  She smiled. If her contemporaries at home could see her now, they would be shocked to the core. Yet, looking back, it was an experience she would not have missed, but one she did not want to repeat. Home was her goal.

  When the light began to go from the sky, the Englishman stirred and sat up. ‘Better eat,’ he said, going to his saddle-bag and fetching out the last of the hare. ‘Then it will be time to go.’

  You are surely not going to leave me here alone?’

  ‘Most decidedly I am.’ He looked up from dividing the food. ‘If you are afraid, I will leave the rifle.’

  ‘Won’t you need it?’

  ‘No. This is purely reconnaissance.’ He bolted his meat and fetched the gun. ‘Here. It is loaded, so take care what you do with it. If you need me, fire into the air. Take hold of it so and point it upwards and pull the trigger. It will rebound, so be prepared.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said meekly.

  He took Thor’s reins and led him out on to the path. ‘Don’t fire unless you really must.’

  He paused, as if reluctant to leave her, or pehaps reluctant to leave the weapon. ‘How long must I wait?’ she asked. ‘If you do not come back.’

  ‘Until dawn, but I shall be back long before that.’

  She listened as his footsteps and the clop of hoofs died away, then sat down to wait. But Olivia was not a passive person; waiting was something she had never learned to do. She decided to make her way back along the path towards the track which led to the bridge, to see if she could see him going over. And if he managed to cross safely, why then should she not follow? It would save him having to come back for her. She had no sooner convinced herself of the sense of that than she was leading the mule back along the path, feeling her way carefully in the failing light.

  She did not see him, though her eyes ached with trying to make out his form among the shadows. She jumped at every sound — the bleat of a goat, the hoot of an owl. As she drew nearer to the bridge, she could hear sounds of revelry coming from the monastery. There was a guard on the far side of the bridge outside the entrance to the building, pacing up and down, watching the road from the east. He did not seem to be interested in the path from the mountains. Had Mr Leopard evaded him? Could she pass him too? The sound of the water was loud enough to muffle the sound of her footsteps, but to take the mule as well would be too risky. She left it with reins trailing and set off across the bridge, darting from shadow to shadow until she was on the far side and very close to the sentry.

  And there she froze. Two partisans appeared and called cheerfully to the guard, who answered and then turned towards the bridge. He went down a few steps and peered downwards towards the water as if expecting trouble from that direction. Olivia noticed the rough path down the cliff as she moved lightly out and across the road while his back was turned. By the time he had returned to his post, she was in the shadow of the monastery gate. Now what to do? she asked herself.

  The sentry was coming back. There was only one way to go and that was into the courtyard. She darted across to hide behind the nearest of the French wagons which stood just inside the gate. Here she stopped to peer out at the guerrilleros who stood in a circle, facing inwards. In their centre the Englishman sat on his horse with his hands tied behind him. Around his neck was another rope and the end of this had been thrown over a branch of a gnarled cork oak.

  ‘Thieves we hang,’ Don Santandos said, addressing his prisoner. ‘And it matters not whether they be French, English or Spanish.’

  ‘You are not thieves, then?’ Mr Leopard said, levelly. ‘You have stolen nothing.’

  ‘Nothing that was not ours to begin with. Now you will die unless you can prove who you are and why you are spying.’

  ‘I was not spying.’

  ‘But you were thieving?’

  There was no answer and Don Santandos walked round the horse, stroking its haunch. A good thump would set it off and leave the Englishman hanging. ‘Oh, not again!’ Olivia whispered. ‘Not again.’

  ‘Where is the woman?’

  ‘I do not know what you are talking about.’

  Olivia held her breath. Surely he would not rather die than reveal her whereabouts? It did not matter; she was not where he supposed her to be. Tell him, you fool, she pleaded silently. Tell him what he wants to know.

  But he remained silent and Don Santandos was losing patience. ‘Englishmen are fools when it comes to women,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you want to die. Then I give you your wish.’ He raised his hand and brought it down sharply on the rump of the horse, leaving the Englishman swinging.

  ‘Oh, no,’ Olivia whispered. ‘No, you do not do this to me twice.’

  Slowly, achingly slowly, she raised the rifle, rested it on the tailboard of the wagon and carefully took aim.

  CHAPTER THREE

  FOR one infinitesimal moment after the shot was fired, no one moved, except the Englishman, whose body fell to the ground with a thump and lay still. Olivia, from her hiding place, smiled in triumph and patted the butt of the heavy Baker rifle which had made it possible. But then all was commotion as some of the guerrilleros ran for guns which had been stacked against the wall and others turned towards the wagon where the difting gunsmoke betrayed her position. Now she had to keep the initiative and there was no time to reload. She darted out from her hiding place and ran to where the Leopard lay. Still startled, the men did nothing to stop her.

  ‘You imbeciles!’ she shouted. ‘You could have killed him!’

  Don Santandos was the first to recover. ‘That, madame, was our intention,’ he said. ‘And but for your lucky shot he would be dead by now.’

  She bit off the retort that it had not been luck but marksmanship, and concentrated on playing the distraught female. In a way she was distraught; without Mr Leopard, she was lost; reluctantly she had to admit it. ‘He is my husband,’ she said. ‘He is the one who will tell you I am who I say I am. Oh, if he dies…’

  The partisans were watching, doing nothing, but she could not expect them to remain inactive for long; she had to convince them. ‘Darling! Darling, speak to me,’ she cried, as she worked to loosen the rope around their victim’s neck. She put her ear to his chest. His heart was beating like a hammer on an anvil. ‘You are my husband,’ she whispered, bending low over him so that her face was against his ear. ‘Tell me your name.’ When he did not reply, she lifted her head to look at him, wondering if he had heard her, or even if he could speak. His eyes were closed and there was an angry red weal round his neck where the rope had been.

  ‘Oh, do not die on me, my love!’ she cried, with more anguish than ever fo
r the benefit of the onlookers. ‘I love you. I need you.’

  She was not sure, but she thought she detected a slight grin on his face and hoped fervently no one else had seen it. To make sure of that, she bent and kissed him on the mouth and was completely taken aback when he put his arm round her neck so that her head was imprisoned and kissed her back. Where he found the strength to hold her so firmly after what he had been through she did not know. She was acutely aware of their audience as the kiss lengthened and became something more than a mere meeting of lips.

  Then he moved his mouth, oh, so slowly, round to her ear, making her shiver. ‘Robert,’ he croaked. ‘Robert Lynmount.’

  ‘Come now, madame,’ Don Santandos said. ‘Enough is enough. Such antics are best left to the bedroom and prove nothing.’

  She looked up at the Spaniards who stood round grinning and covered her confusion with a show of anger. ‘You may think yourselves lucky that my husband is not dead, for Viscount Wellington would certainly have had something to say about it, I can tell you. Robert Lynmount is one of his most valued officers.’

  Don Santandos laughed. ‘I would say his value is less than a dozen buttons and a metre of braid.’

  She chose to ignore this reference to the Englishman’s mutilated uniform. ‘Now, will you please help him to a bed where he can recover?’ She prayed her authoritative manner would have the desired effect, because they had no hope of fighting their way out, even if she still held the gun and could reload.

  ‘You have courage, madame, I’ll grant you,’ Don Santandos said. ‘It has earned you both a reprieve, albeit a temporary one.’ He turned to give orders to two of his men who went to pick the Englishman up, one at his head and the other at his feet, but before they could do so he sat up and pushed them away. They stood back and watched as he forced himself to his feet. He stood, swaying a little before finding his balance, but Olivia knew better than to try to help him. He was an exceptionally strong man and he was also proud.