by Karen Ranney
The army was five days’ ride away, but the cannon traveled slower due both to their size and weight and the care that had to be taken with them. Several outriders had been posted to guard the roads both ahead of the artillery and behind it. Capture of the cannon royale could very well determine the outcome of the war, turn the tide in the Royalists’ favor.
One of his men rode up to David Newbury, the lieutenant in charge of the cannon. “There are riders approaching, sir.”
“How many?”
“Not a large group, sir. Two men and two women.”
“Too many to be spies, Samuel. Too few to be of any danger. Still, it’s rumored to be Royalist territory.”
“Should we intercept them, sir?”
“Do so,” he said, frowning.
“They may be nothing more than innocent travelers, sir.”
“I’m aware of that, Samuel,” he said, allowing the barest trace of irritation to color his voice.
It was Ian who saw them first. A party of about twenty men riding toward them from the base of the hill. They were soberly dressed in black garments covered with dust. Well-worn crows.
“I don’t like the odds,” Ian said, his face grim. He glanced at Anne and then at Hannah. “They may be friendly or not. If I give the word, I want you to ride as fast as you can for the other side of the hill. Try to find cover.”
“What will you do, Ian?” Anne asked, glancing at him quickly.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he said with a smile. “I’ve no wish to be a hero on English soil.”
It was not hard to guess Hannah’s thoughts from the look on her face. This is what I feared all along. Hannah, however, chose this moment to remain silent, a restraint for which Anne silently thanked her.
She only wished her friend rode with more competence. The past six days had not been easy on Hannah, but fulminating looks had been the only complaint she’d offered. She commanded her horse with tentativeness. If they were forced to flee, speed would be necessary, and that was only accomplished if a rider had control of his mount.
Anne glanced at the route Ian had indicated. There was a narrow track that cut across the hill, a crossing evidently used by farmers to drive cattle or sheep. The problem with taking that path was their ignorance as to what lay on the other side of the hill. Was it meadow or river or impassible terrain?
Such caution might not be necessary. The men who approached them might well be no more than travelers. But as they rode closer, the men at either end edged forward until the line of riders curved toward them. Not unlike a trap.
Anne moved her horse further from Ian, then reached down and gripped Hannah’s reins. The three of them exchanged a look. Douglas, behind and to the left, was in blissful ignorance of what was transpiring.
Ian sat silent until the riders came closer. A man, evidently their leader, separated himself from the group. His glance swept over them, dismissed Anne and Hannah. Anne had received such looks before from men who’d come to Dunniwerth and were ignorant of the fact that she was Robert Sinclair’s daughter. The same men, when introduced to her, fawned all over her in an effort to please. A lesson that had not gone unlearned. Rudeness was a weapon often used against the poor and the defenseless.
Anne gripped the reins tighter and clamped her teeth over words she ached to say. But she was no fool. She’d grown up with warriors. Even now, amidst smiles and bland words, Ian and the man who faced him vied for dominance. One did not get between two men taking each other’s measure. It was a subtle posturing, one she’d watched a thousand times before. At Dunniwerth, however, the prize had been a woman’s favor or a tankard of whiskey. Not the right to travel a road unimpeded.
“We’ve no political leanings,” Ian was saying. “We’re only simple travelers.”
“Scots,” the man said, the inflection in his voice giving the impression that he thought little of their nationality.
“Yes.”
“Your business?”
“Why would you wish to know? Are the roads guarded now?”
“For your purposes, yes.” The look on the other man’s face could only be called a smirk. It did nothing to mitigate the angry red flush on her clansman’s face.
“We are simple travelers,” Ian said again.
“An odd time to be taking a journey. In the midst of war.”
“Aye, that I would agree,” Ian said. The look he shot Anne was as fierce as those he’d given her as a child.
“Perhaps it might be possible to convince you to speak with more candor,” the man said, smiling.
“I’ve nothing to say.”
“Then you’ve nothing to fear. You will not object to coming with us, will you? My commander wishes to meet with you.”
“And if I decline?”
“It would not be prudent to do so.”
Ian glanced over at Anne. She straightened in the saddle. For long minutes she seemed to remain breathless, waiting. This journey, so fervently wished for, had not been undertaken without thought. She’d suspected they might encounter a robber, a traveler with ill intent, even an inn keeper who would try to cheat them. Perhaps even a few soldiers.
But she’d not thought to face an army.
Ian glanced at her and winked. A mere blink of an eye. It was enough to make her lean forward, press her heels into the sides of her sturdy little mare, and fly.
She loved to ride, had done so ever since she was a child of six and mounted on her first pony. This mad dash across the sloping ground was filled with its own exhilaration, but coupled with that was a pounding fear. Behind her she could hear shouts. A quick glance told her that Hannah was still astride. Her face was pale white, the grip on her saddle convulsive, but she still sat her horse.
They rounded the curve of the hill. From here Anne could see a river in the distance, the silvery gleam of it undulating like a snake through the bowl of valley below. The grassy slope gave way to shale and loose rock, which made passage dif ficult, if not dangerous. The sloping descent was going to be even more difficult for Hannah.
The angle of the hill was steep. In places she slid down a foot or two on the rocks before her horse gained its balance again. Anne slowed her speed, glanced behind her. Ian was still with the men, Douglas at his side. He broke free, the two of them closing the distance between them quickly, the black-garbed Parliamentarians not far behind.
Finally, the slope turned grassy, close cropped as if sheep grazed here. The sound of a gunshot was not unexpected. She prayed they were out of range. Pistols were good for close fighting but poor for distance. One of a hundred such bits of knowledge she’d learned from growing up the only child of the laird of Dunniwerth. She leaned over her horse’s neck and prayed they would escape.
Stephen Harrington, Earl of Langlinais, sat at his desk, his wounded left arm balanced carefully on its surface. He’d discovered that if he elevated his wrist, the pain was not so fierce.
He stared down at two letters he’d composed. The first was to the king, explaining his continued absence from the Royalist forces. Too many of his men had died, men of the Langlinais regiment. He’d brought them home to bury them. To honor the men he’d known since they had been boys together. His wording was too harsh. Almost demanding. He should rip it up and begin again. He doubted, however, that the meaning would be any less terse with a second attempt.
The second letter was as difficult to write. A summons to his side of a friend he’d not seen for a few years. Stephen needed his expertise, his skill.
His thoughts, however, were becoming increasingly muddled. St. Francis said that all men mean well, that the road to hell is made smooth with their good intentions. Where had that thought come from? The same place, no doubt, that a hundred such odd thoughts had originated in the past hours.
He rang the bell, and when it was answered by Betty, he managed a smile and a request, both lucid, he believed. He saw the light of relief shine in his housekeeper’s eyes as he gave her the letter. There, he had pleas
ed one person. It was little enough of late.
Betty had been his second mother, sliding into that position when his own had died when he was a boy. She’d wiped his tears and kept his mother’s memory alive with stories of her. He’d gone to her for advice and had his ears boxed when he was impudent. When he’d become earl, he’d made her his housekeeper, the only elevation she would accept.
He had attended the funerals of each of his men this last week, had stood beside grieving widows and silent children as they had been laid to their rest. The words he’d spoken had been as difficult as he’d feared.
He had been present not only because they were his men, but because it was expected of him. He was a man of Langlinais, and for generations those who’d depended upon Langlinais Castle had looked to the earls for protection in life and benediction in death. And although the castle was no longer oc cupied, the bond between townsman and earl was still firmly in place.
When a flood had rendered Langlinais uninhabitable two hundred years earlier, a new home had been built. One that had been constructed to proclaim the family’s wealth. It sat perched on the highest knoll overlooking the river Terne.
Harrington Court’s three floors were impressive, as were all of its seventy rooms. The Tudor east wing had been added on by the earl who’d served Queen Elizabeth as advisor. An admirer of the classical movement had altered the west wing, adding pillars and cornices to the exterior of the house.
Most of the cavalry officers who formed the Langlinais regiment had come from Lange on Terne, the town surrounding Harrington Court. A few of them were experienced and seasoned, having seen service in Europe and Ireland. They were probably more skilled and certainly better equipped than most of the Royalist troops. They were hardened by training, inspired by loyalty, ready and eager to follow their lord, whatever side of this strife he chose to serve.
A loyalty he was grateful for, even as the burden of it weighed heavily on his shoulders.
He leaned back against the chair. His eyes felt watery, and his skin dry. No doubt a result of the festering wound.
He closed his eyes, traced the fingers of his right hand over one of the absurd lions’ heads that finished off the chair’s arms. When he was a boy, he could place his fingers inside the lion’s mouth. Now his fingers were too large even if he wished to duplicate a childish act. He did not.
Was that the gauge of wisdom, then? Our wishes or our deeds?
He smiled at himself. Another oddity of thought. Perhaps it was not so bad to be fevered. It left him with a depth of understanding he’d never had before, but then, that might be a delusion, too. He might be tossing in his bed now instead of sitting upright at his desk. He opened his eyes as if to test his location. Yes, he was here, just as he’d thought he was.
Laughter sounded odd in an otherwise silent room.
He reached out with his right hand and gripped the sketch he’d made. If nothing else, he could finish the details of the north wall while he waited. Complete the drawing to scale. But his fingers fumbled with the charcoal, and his attention was drawn to the window.
The afternoon was bright and sunny, a rare enough event in this wet spring. The view was of the east meadow, green and lush, shadowed here and there by a passing cloud. An alluring sight.
A movement to the right caught his attention. Two riders being chased by two more. No, the four of them being chased by a coven of crows. Parliamentarians? On his land? Men who chose to dress as soberly as himself. But not twenty of them, surely. He was tempted to dismiss the sight, turn away, and allow them passage over his meadow but for the plume of gray smoke. A pistol?
He stood, went to the door, braced himself against it, and called for Ned.
When he arrived, Stephen issued his orders. “Have Faeren saddled,” he said, “and summon the regiment to me.”
“My lord, should you be riding?”
He would have dismissed any other man’s concerns, but because it was Ned, he spared him a smile. It served both as an answer and a dismissal.
Ned simply nodded, his lips clamped over words he might have uttered. It amused Stephen that his old servant refrained from comment. There had been a time when Ned wouldn’t have been so restrained. Why was he now? Because Stephen was ill? Or because he was now earl?
He walked back to his chest where his pistols were stored. For more than a year they’d been constant companions, but he’d not thought to use them on his own land.
He wasn’t at his best, that he would agree. But it simply didn’t matter. What happened here was his concern. Distilled to its simplest form, it was his duty. A motto. A family’s creed. Duty, honor, loyalty.
In a matter of moments, he was mounted on Faeren and leading the charge across the meadow.
He led his men across the lowest point of the Terne river, up the embankment, and through the tip of the valley, where the meadow sharply rose again.
Stephen.
His name lingered on the air, a breath of sound, a whisper that sang in his ears. A trait of his fever, then. A sign that he was mortal, after all. The Earl of Langlinais, the leader of the Blessed Regiment, was not so blessed. Instead, he was hallucinating.
He spurred Faeren on over the undulating ground, heard the steady drumbeat of hooves as his men followed him. His face was stiff with tension.
Stephen.
He heard it again, a long, keening recitation of his name, the whistle of it tied, somehow, to a base part of him. An ancient, pagan place, one that recognized instinct and intuition and terror.
He felt a chill overcome him, something icy that seeped into his entire body, from mind to toes. He was more ill than he’d realized.
Just before they reached the river, Anne heard a sound behind her. A stifled note of surprise that had more effect on her than the report of the guns. She glanced beside her, found to her horror that her worst fear had been realized.
Hannah had fallen.
Anne reined in her horse, slipped out of the saddle and raced to where Hannah lay. The older woman’s face was too pale, her breaths too labored. Anne knelt on the ground beside her, the sounds of the soldiers arriving muted beneath a greater terror.
“Hannah.” A soft murmur of her name did nothing to rouse her. For a long, horrified moment, Anne thought her dead. But the pulse beat strongly in her neck.
Ian reached her side, dismounted. He stood in front of her, pistol drawn. A gesture of defense against the men who surrounded them only moments later.
When she heard the sound, she thought he’d shot at someone.
Pistols fired at close quarters had the ability to deaden the ears. In the open meadow the sound echoed and was repeated back to her. It was only after glancing up that she realized the sound hadn’t come from Ian’s gun. But from behind her.
She turned her head. Mounted on a large black horse was a man attired in as somber a uniform as the men who’d chased them. He was hatless; the sun gleamed on his black hair and the silver buttons that adorned his jacket. The silver handle of the pistol he brandished was likewise as bright, so much so that it shimmered in the sun’s glare.
Behind him were six men, all with pistols drawn. Their uniforms declared them united in purpose. Their studied glare at the Parliamentarians guaranteed it.
But her gaze returned to their leader. The image of him held her spellbound. Bewitched in truth, just as she’d thought herself to be as a child.
The world hushed, stood silent. Her heart beat heavily in her chest; her breath came too fast and too tight. The sun’s glare was too hot and too harsh for this moment. It should have been muted by an otherworldly haze. Or encompassed by the silvery bubble she’d seen as a child.
The men drew closer behind him. He did not look in her direction, but she could not tear her gaze from him.
Once she’d drawn a portrait of him, the better to keep his image close to her. She’d sketched him looking at her, his face turned as if startled in his discovery. His lips were half smiling, an expression that ap
peared natural, if rare these past years. The amused look in his eyes had warmed her. His face was sharply chiseled, as if God had hewn this image from stone. His jaw was defined, his cheekbones high, his nose was proud with just a touch of arrogance. His chin was squared, his hair thick and black. His eyes were a blue that was almost black, a midnight hue. There was a small scar at his chin and a tiny one at his temple.
It was a face too strong to be considered simply handsome. Still, it was a face not easily forgotten. But nothing she’d ever drawn or envisioned could equal the reality of him.
There was a presence to him. A power she felt even though she was several feet removed. It had nothing to do with his height or the breadth of his shoulders. It was as if he filled the space around him, dominated it.
He was not smiling now. His face was still, set in lines that mimicked stone. Power radiated from him as strongly as the sun’s rays.
The look in his eyes dared the men in front of him to challenge him. Stephen and his men were outnumbered but not outmatched. She had no doubt that he would win if it came to a fight.
Stephen.
He flinched. The hand that held the pistol wavered, then steadied.
As if to counter his sudden inattention, he spoke. “You are on my land, gentlemen. Without my permission.”
Their leader, the same man who had confronted Ian, answered him. “You would harbor spies, sir?”
He glanced down at Ian, who remained in a pro tective stance in front of her. “Are you a spy?”
“No,” Ian said, not turning. His attention was still directed at the men in front of him, the muzzle of his pistol still pointed at their leader.
“And those with you?”
“We are no spies,” Ian said stonily.
“There,” Stephen said, speaking to the leader once more, “you have his answer.”
“General Penroth will not be pleased with your interference, sir,” the soldier said, his face tightening in anger.
Stephen’s slowly dawning smile had a dark edge to it. “Penroth is not pleased by much,” he said.