The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga)

by Thorne, Nicola

  The valley of the Calder was flat, though lush pasture-land had afforded more food than the bleak high peaks over which they had come. But as she walked Analee would often glance back at those magical hills which grew smaller as, just before Carlisle, they reached the busy road which ran down to Penrith.

  Analee got up and shook herself like a dog. It was hard to stand, as though her limbs had been petrified by the cold. Indeed she could hardly feel one leg at all and she shook it to make life return to it again. She still wondered that she and Nelly were alive, having slept out every night in this terrible winter except for the mountain caves and the barn they’d once shared with some soldiers. She wondered if they owed their lives to the fact that they had each other through the long cold nights?

  Already there were one or two carts on the road, although it was not yet dawn, and groups of people mostly hurrying southwards. Analee and Nelly set off on their way north aware of the rumbling in their bellies and wondering when they would get something to eat. There were no berries at this time of year, and cold and damp had long deprived them of wild animals. Sometimes a family eating by the roadside would give them a crust; but this morning everyone seemed in too much of a hurry, people with carts and sometimes horses, seemingly laden with all their possessions, appeared to have no time to stop and share bread.

  Analee was puzzled. As the morning advanced the numbers seemed to increase, only they were all going in one direction and she and Nelly in another. Finally she stopped by a group who had paused to try and straighten a crooked wheel on a cart. The whole family clustered anxiously about the cart on which were piled bedding, eating utensils and even small pieces of furniture.

  ‘Pray,’ Analee said to the woman who looked like the mother of the family ‘could you tell me why there is all this activity on the road to Penrith?’

  The woman looked nervously at her husband mending the wheel bidding him to hasten, before replying to Analee.

  ‘Have you not heard? The Jacobite army is abroad plundering and looting; it has already entered Carlisle and plans to lay waste to the city. We are some of the last allowed out of the gate. They entered after nightfall and terrible tales of pillage are told. The Prince has lost all interest or all control over his men, and a more savage band of murderers you never saw.’

  ‘Then Carlisle is not safe?’

  ‘Nay, the gates are shut and bolted. You will not be allowed in. The Hanoverian army is chasing the rebels and people fear a long battle. We are bound for Keswick in the hope of escaping destruction. You had best turn back.’

  The wheel was given a final knock into place and the harassed looking family set off at a brisk pace along the road. Nelly tugged at her skirt and looked wistfully after the departing family, but Analee shook her head, her heart already cold with fear.

  ‘We cannot turn back. Did you hear them? Pillage and plunder. What will happen to the gypsies who are right in their path? Maybe we are already too late.’

  What was left of the Buckland camp still lay smouldering despite the rain. Everything was blackened and no single tent, cart or hut remained standing. The few who had survived the slaughter had fled in all directions and now only the bodies of the dead littered the field: men, women, children, sheep, cattle and even horses.

  It was such a terrible sight that Analee had frozen in her tracks on seeing it; even when she felt she could move she did not. Nelly walked around, braver than she, knowing that her family would have moved on long since, though God knew what had happened to them. Slowly Analee walked through the field to join Nelly, not wishing to see what she knew she must see.

  First was Rebecca lying on her back, an old woman who had lived over a hundred years, now cruelly despatched with a dirk through her chest and another, in her shoulder. Maybe she had started to run, but what chance had she against soldiers in their prime? But she had been lucky, perhaps her great age had saved her for, unlike the other women, she did not lie with her skirts drawn over her stomach, her naked legs stretched wide, the victims of rape before the final hideous slaughter.

  The stench was awful and Analee’s ears filled with the pounding of hooves, the screams of the women as they clutched their children and ran. This is what she had heard so long ago; it was what she had dreamt. She had known what the war would bring. There, some way from Rebecca, was Lancelot, or so it appeared. His eyes had been gouged out and one could only judge it was him because of his age. Analee shut her eyes but no tears came, just a choking in her throat, a pain in her chest that threatened to cut off her breathing.

  And the children ... the little ones, it was too awful, too pathetic and dreadful a sight. How could men... There were babies too, clutched tightly in their mother’s arms. But although she dreaded to find what she sought Analee knew, after an hour of searching – the most gruesome task she had ever undertaken in her life – that neither the baby nor Reyora were here. The cohani had kept her promise to look after Morella.

  Analee’s heart filled with gratitude as she looked at the sky. Morella was safe, for that at least thanks to God. It had stopped raining and a weak wintry sun struggled to penetrate the thick clouds. Suddenly Analee heard a groan, an awful sound in that dreadful silent waste. It came from the far corner of the field and she had already been past the bodies which lay in a stricken heap beside the main part of the camp. She hurried over and peered at the faces which stared, some with awful sightlessness, up at the merciless heaven. The groan came again and one of the bodies, slightly under the rest, moved. She bent over and, putting out a hand, clasped the shoulder gently turning the face towards her. The eyes that looked at her were red and glazed with pain, the mouth a rictus of fear.

  Randal.

  Randal Buckland still lived. Analee’s heart cried out with pity at the sight of the man who was still her husband reduced to such pitiful straits.

  ‘Oh Randal, Randal ... Can you hear me? It is I. Analee.’

  Randal seemed neither to hear nor see her; his eyes stared beyond her and then they closed and his head dropped, but he still breathed and started pathetically to try and crawl away from the mass of dead bodies piled near or on top of his.

  ‘Nelly help me!’ Analee cried and, as Nelly ran over, she told her to take Randal’s legs and detach them from the mangled limbs that surrounded him.

  Nelly, her tearstained face shocked from the awful sight, gently took hold of Randal’s legs and Analee flinched to see that one was nearly severed at the knee. In fact the blood had almost congealed; even with this massive wound he had lived through the night.

  They stumbled over the field and carried Randal to the shadow of the hedge that ran by the side of the road.

  ‘They might come back,’ Analee said fearfully. ‘God forbid, but let us try and remain out of sight.’

  Nelly looked about, pointing to a barn that still, surprisingly, had its roof on although most of the half-burnt timbers swayed in the wind. It was where the gypsies had stored their grain, and this too have been looted by the plunderers.

  ‘Let us take him over there; it provides some shelter.’ Once again they made the slow journey across dead bodies and Randal, racked by pain, fell into merciful unconsciousness. His head lolled on his chest as they half-carried, half-dragged him across the field.

  But it was better inside the barn. It was dry and sheltered from the strong wind and there was still some grain left to make a soft bed for Randal. Analee sent Nelly to the stream for water while she did what she could to make him comfortable and to see the extent of his wounds. She soon realized she could do nothing.

  They were terrible; apart from his almost severed leg he had sword and dirk marks all over his body as though someone had been using it for target practice. His face though was unmarked and even, deathly pale, bloody and dirty as it was, Analee saw the remnants of the dark, handsome gypsy boy with whom she had so many times made passionate love.

  She knew he could not survive. Even now his breathing was faint, but he opened his eyes as Nelly
brought water and the feel of its cleansing coolness on his body seemed to restore him and recognition dawned.

  ‘Analee.’

  ‘Randal. I have come back.’

  ‘Too late,’ Randal gasped sipping the water Nelly offered him to drink. ‘Too late.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Randal shook his head, tried to speak but could not. His lips hung slack and his eyes began to roll in their sockets.

  ‘The army? The Highlanders?’

  Randal nodded.

  ‘They swept through the camp like, like ...’ words failed him and his head sagged on his chest. ‘At dusk, as we were eating ...’

  ‘Randal, what happened to Reyora ... the baby?’ Analee’s voice faltered as she saw the jealous spark come into Randal’s eyes, even in this pitiful and desperate condition.

  ‘I don’t know ... never saw ... Reyora ...’

  He drank again and made another effort, drawing large painful breaths.

  ‘Forgive ... Analee. Always ... loved you ...’

  Analee’s eyes filled with tears as his cracked swollen mouth uttered words that were obviously deeply felt. She bent down to him and, her lips brushing his cheek, she whispered in his ear:

  ‘Forgive me, too ...’

  ‘If we could start again ...’

  ‘We will. You will get better.’

  But Randal shook his head and his eyes half closed in another spasm of pain.

  ‘Done for, Analee ... done for.’

  Randal suddenly opened his eyes wide and stared at her and, for a moment, it looked to Analee as though he had a sudden resurgence of strength and might, incredibly, recover. But the eyes went on staring and it was then she realized he was dead. Tenderly she laid his head back on the floor and closed his eyelids, gently planting a kiss on each one. She gazed at him for a long time as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  Randal Buckland, her husband.

  ‘’Twas better thus,’ Nelly whispered. ‘He had the happiness of seeing you again, asking your forgiveness, and you kissed his eyelids in death. It would never really have done ...’

  Analee tried to choke back her sobs, but could not. They racked her body as she lay against Randal, mourning not so much a husband as a lover and the embodiment of a vigorous young gypsy male, cruelly struck down in the prime of life.

  ‘Hist!’

  Nelly sat up, her eyes wide with fear. Analee, even as her face lay on Randal’s body, could hear the thunder of hooves and then voices, and then a clatter of swords being drawn. She stiffened and closed her eyes. This was the moment.

  Let them kill her, too; she would die with her people. But let death be quick, let not ... she thought of the skirts over the heads of the gypsy women and shuddered.

  ‘What have we here?’ a voice said briskly.

  ‘Two gypsy women, sir, with the body of a man.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Analee looked up and saw an imperious dark face gazing down at her. Eyes used to such scenes glittered angrily and his full, rather cruel-looking mouth was set in a stern thin line. He was enormously tall and broad and beneath his cloak she saw a red coat and a chest full of medals. She dusted her hands on her skirt and, getting up, dropped a quick curtsey. This splendid man was clearly a general at the very least.

  ‘Do not kill us, sir ...’

  ‘Kill!’ The man thundered in a deep voice to match his forbidding stature. ‘I am not here to kill my good woman! This was done by the barbarian Highlanders, not by soldiers of His Majesty King George such as we are. Luckily you were spared.’ He looked around, his face grimacing in disgust at the scene, the stench. ‘This man some relation?’ He pointed with his stick impatiently at the mangled body of poor Randal.

  ‘My husband, sir, Randal Buckland. This,’ she gestured with her arms, ‘this was once the camp of the proud Buckland family.’ She started to weep afresh. Desolation all around her, and death had never seemed so immediate, so close, so disgusting in its harshness. At her feet, Nelly still crouched in an attitude of supplication.

  ‘Get her to her feet,’ the officer touched her lightly with the point of a well-polished boot. ‘God knows what we shall do with them.’

  ‘They look starved to death sir.’ The soldier who was with him, clearly an inferior, bore an expression more compassionate than that of his superior.

  ‘Are you hungry woman?’

  ‘Aye, sir. Famished.’

  ‘Then get them to our camp and fill them with victuals. After that put them on their way. We want no gypsy camp-followers!’

  The officer spun round angrily and walked off to where the body of his men waited at the entrance to the camp. At a brisk command from him they began to disperse across the field, gathering the bodies into piles for burial.

  Analee looked at Randal and in his dead face she could see no hope for her, no future. Where was her baby?

  ‘You’ll have to leave him,’ the young soldier said kindly. ‘The Colonel wants us to be clearing here and then on our way after the rebels.’

  ‘What will happen to ... the bodies?’

  ‘Oh, they will be decently buried. His lordship is a harsh man but just; he will send the chaplain to bury them properly. Now come on quick before he changes his mind about your dinner. The camp is only half a mile away. Can you manage?’

  ‘I expect we can, for some food.’

  Analee pulled her cloak about her and dropped once more on her knees to gaze into Randal’s face. She hadn’t loved him and he had treated her badly; but for a time, a little while, they had shared something that was good and life-giving and her pity was for a young healthy man killed before his time – a tribute to the host of murdered Bucklands. She took his still warm hand in hers and put it to her lips.

  ‘Come.’

  Nelly was gently tugging at her shoulders. Analee got up and, leaning heavily on Nelly, they walked after the soldier through the bodies that littered the ground.

  At the gate Analee glanced around for the last time at the camp, once her home, and saw that the imposing commanding officer had stopped in his tracks and was gazing after her. When he saw her looking at him he turned sharply away and started to bark fierce, angry commands.

  Analee shivered from something other than cold; was it apprehension, fear? There was a keen, penetrating look in the commander’s eyes – a tawny green under thick black brows as she could not help observing when he’d looked down at her beside Randal’s body. They were eyes that were compassionate yet chilling – compassionate, maybe, because she was a woman and chilling because he was a soldier and this was a war. But the look at the gate had another, more lingering meaning and she caught her breath.

  ‘What is your commander’s name?’

  The soldier drew himself up and puffed out his chest.

  ‘That, woman, is the Marquess of Falconer, no less. Colonel of our regiment. You were honoured that he so much as noticed you, let alone talked to you.’

  ‘He seems a very stern man. Powerful.’

  ‘Aye, he is. Very. Some say he has a gentle side to him but I have rarely seen it myself. I am his servant, McNeath. He is keen on strict discipline for his men and absolute obedience to his commands. As for the enemy ... why his name is enough to make them tremble with fear. He is called the Falcon not only after his family name, but because they say he swoops down like a falcon and once he gets his claws in a foe he will not let go.

  ‘They gave him his name in France – “Le Faucon!” they would cry and rush to be out of his way. I tell you I observed it with my own eyes.

  ‘Now hurry so you can be off before his lordship returns. You heard what he said about followers and it would not do for you if he turned his ire towards you. You would see what was meant by the Falcon then.’

  His arm bandaged and in a sling, his coat sleeve hanging by his side, Brent rode slowly in the rear of the retreating army. They had reached Penrith after Clifton only to find that the Prince had gone and left orders for them to follow on to Carlis
le. The army were weary after days of difficult hill marching, and, despite the skirmish at Clifton, the inevitability of ultimate defeat. They all knew the Hanoverian forces had not properly deployed themselves at Clifton, perhaps not expecting a night-time attack, and thus they were vulnerable to the Highlanders’ surprise assault. They knew that with the vast government army massing against them they were hopelessly outnumbered, and now they had lost the support of the people.

  Setting off at first light Brent had thought longingly of Delamain Castle only a few miles away, but he knew that to so much as show himself to his brother was tantamount to surrender. He would be handed over to the authorities immediately. Brent didn’t want to defect; the die was cast. He only longed for some rest, a real bed and good hot food, some balsam for his aching limbs. His brother officers riding with him did not talk or laugh among themselves as they had on the journey south. Some had only joined it at Manchester. It was a silent, apprehensive group, occasionally shouting a command to the weary foot soldiers to keep in line.

  But the soldiers were angry, and restless; their eyes looked haunted and bitter; they roamed around restlessly for the sight of plunder. Thus when they saw the small hunted group of people coming towards them they cheered. Such misery, such dejection would be good sport. It never occurred to them to feel pity for people even worse off than they.

  Brent saw the commotion first, heard the screams. A cart fell over on its side and the pathetic bundle of goods inside it tumbled out onto the path. The men started to kick these remnants of whatever worldly goods someone had possessed as though in sport and already one of the Highlanders had thrust a young woman into a ditch and was tearing at her skirts.

  It still horrified Brent, this savagery of the Highlanders whom he knew basically to be good men with wives and families of their own. Despite their reputation they had done little to deserve it on the march south; now it was a very different story. This was why he travelled well to the rear of the force. Lord George Murray ahead would know nothing of this.

  Brent drew his sword with his good arm and bore down on the marauding men scattering them.