'Stop her!' Larke shouted.
They would have done, too, except she was not running for the main doors with their gilded pediments, but for a small door that was covered with the same silken paper as the walls. It was a hidden door for the servants, a door by which they could come quietly and unfussily into the room, and it led to the servants' corridor that wound about the north side of the Castle and allowed the maids and footmen to move about Lazen without intruding on the great rooms of state.
Even then, as she swerved and opened the door, they might have caught her, except that Abel Girdlestone collided with Uncle Achilles and Campion heard her uncle's despairing, falling cry as he was hurled to the floor. She heard the Reverend Mounter shout as he, too, tried to block her pursuers.
She ran. Suddenly she was no great lady. Suddenly she was a fugitive. She heard the boots and voices erupt into the corridor, she had turned a corner, had run past a dozen doors, and then she threw herself recklessly down the back stairs which led to a footman's pantry. She shut its door silently and stood, panting, listening to the commotion above her. The pantry opened into the garden and she guessed, as she heard the shouts above her, that she would have to leave that way.
The sound of her pursuers was loud. She heard them throwing doors open, and then the clatter of heavy boots on the stairs. It was time to run. It was time to run for her life, and she felt a sudden, savage impulse that she would make those bastards rue the day they had first heard of the name Lazender. She would fight them into their grave. She touched the golden seals, the jewels of Lazen, then opened the garden door and ran for her life.
Chapter 17
She ran towards the stable block. Once there she would be surrounded by Lazen's servants and could plan what she must do next. First she must find safety, then she would attack.
She heard a shout behind her, a voice bellowing from a window in the Castle. She ignored it. She clutched the bouncing, heavy seals in one hand and gathered her long, white, wedding skirts in the other. She heard feet on the gravel of the driveway, from beneath the bridge which joined the Great House to the Old House, and two strange men were running from its shadow, coming fast towards her, cutting her off from the stables. They were shouted on by other voices behind.
She ran in desperation, unable to find a single friendly face. She swerved away from her pursuers, going to the left of the mound that once was the Castle's keep, going towards the beehives that were busy on this warm, autumn day. Beyond the hives stretched the empty lawns. She turned.
She put her hands on one of the beehives, waited, and the two men came grinning about the shoulder of the small hill and Campion pushed the hive over, hearing the first buzzing protests of the bees, and then she was running again.
She went away from the Castle. She ran north to the tangled blackthorn of Sconce Hill.
The shouts of success turned into bellows of pain. The men had run into the panicking, angry bees that swarmed on them, stung, were tangled in their hair, their clothes, and the two men stumbled like blind men, arms clutched over their heads, while Campion ran from their screams towards the dark bushes of Sconce Hill.
She was going away from the Castle, away from help, but she had no choice. The men who had pursued her from the Yellow Drawing Room were already on the north lawn and running towards the stables. Sconce Hill was her closest refuge.
She heard their shouts as she changed direction. Her breath came in great gasps as she climbed the lower slope, then the first branches of thorn tore at her sleeves, she ducked, and was in the shadows.
She dared not stop. She forced her way up an overgrown path, the thorns clutching and tearing at her wedding silk. She tried to work her way to the right, towards the slope nearest the stable block, but the thorns blocked her, forcing her to the very top of the hill.
She stopped there, where the ground was hummocked by the old fortress built by Parliament's troops in the civil war.
She listened.
She crouched in the remains of an old ditch that had once protected the besiegers' guns. She clutched the seals that hung about her neck.
She heard voices shouting. One loud, crisp voice seemed to be giving orders, but she could not hear what those orders were.
The thorns had half torn the wedding bonnet from her head. She pulled the pins out and threw the hat away from her.
She heard the thrashing of thorns being beaten down with heavy sticks. The sound came from the south east slope of the hill. Her pursuers had cut her off from Lazen and now, like beaters, they would drive her off the hill into the waiting ambush.
She ran again.
She ran westwards, knowing that once she was across Lazen's northern drive she would be in a larger tract of woodland. Her shoes were tight and awkward, slowing her on the uneven ground, but she forced herself on, ducking beneath branches, running through nettles, startling pigeons up from their roosts, scrambling desperately down the thorn-choked slope to the road. The spines snatched at her great sleeves and tore her skirts.
She stopped at the edge of the thorns. Wild garlic grew thick here, its smell pungent. The air was loud with insects. She crouched. Her face was sticky with sweat. Her hair was coming free. She looked up and down the road, but could see no one. Her pursuers were driving her away from the Castle, but they had not yet surrounded her. It would only be moments, she knew, before the first men appeared to her left, running up the road to block her retreat from Sconce Hill.
Her dress was caught in a last spike of thorn and she wrenched it free, hearing the silk tear, and then she could run again, across the ruts of the road, through the sudden, bright, treacherous sunlight, and into the shadows of the trees beyond.
This was a beech wood, the trunks of the trees far apart and the undergrowth sparse. She ran for the bushes at the slope's crest, knowing her white dress was an easy sign for her pursuers. At the crest the beeches gave way to a mixture of oak, hazel and elm where, in the safety of their shadows, she hid herself in tall ferns.
She crouched.
She could feel sweat trickling between her breasts. It was sticky on her flanks, her hands, her neck, her spine.
She wiped her hands on the sleek smoothness of her wedding silk. Her left thigh was bared from hip to knee by great rents in the dress and petticoat. She tried to pluck the silk into place, but the tear was too big.
Her hair fell about her face, the strands sticking to her skin. She pushed them back, then stiffened.
She could hear horses on the northern road, their hooves loud on the gravel by the gatehouse.
A red squirrel scuttled noisily up an oak. She crouched low in the tall ferns. The wood seemed loud with the burbling call of pigeons. She listened for the voices of her pursuers.
Culloden was in league with Larke, and Larke with Julius. She could only think that Julius had conspired to evade the provisions of her father's will. Culloden and Julius! She felt a great angry sorrow at what had befallen this house. Toby killed, and now this foulness that had invaded Lazen.
She would not cry. Her enemies had come, but they had not taken her. She would not cry yet. She would fight.
To her right was a broken bough of oak, its bark damp and thick with fungus scales. She pulled it towards her for a makeshift weapon and the bark scraped against a white mushroom that gave off a foul smell. She wrinkled her nose and then bent closer to the plant. She saw the yellow-green tinge, the collared stalk, and knew it was no mushroom. It was the deathcap toadstool and she had smelt it before this year; it was the same nauseous stench that had made the dog whine in Mistress Sarah's cottage. It was this that she had fetched for her father.
She stared at it, for a moment even forgetting her pursuers. Her father had requested his own death. The pain had conquered him, but he believed he could die in the knowledge that she would marry, that she would be safe. With that confidence he had finally ordered his own death; the dreadful, swift end of the deathcap, and she felt a pitiful anger that his trust had been broken b
y Lord Culloden, just as her own had been broken. Yet Lord Culloden had not taken her body, only her words, and she would see him in hell yet.
She crouched in the ferns, her crude weapon soiling the hem of her wedding dress. She would go to the Rectory. She must get a message to Cartmel Scrimgeour. If she could just avoid capture then she would win. She knew it.
She heard dogs barking.
She parted the ferns before her face. The open spaces between the beeches were empty. A glint of gold on her left hand looked strange. It was her wedding ring.
In sudden anger she forced the wedding ring from her finger. It had seemed to go on so easily, yet now it would not come off and she twisted it, pulled it till her knuckle hurt, and at last it came free and she threw it away, seeing it bounce once in a bright splinter of gold light before it disappeared into the thick leaf mould beneath the beeches. She flexed the fingers of her left hand. Her right hand took hold of her crude club again.
A horseman appeared on the track beneath her.
She did not recognize the man. She could just see him between the thick leaves, a man dressed in dark clothes who stared at Sconce Hill. He looked once to his left, glancing at the open space between the beeches. His horse staled on the track and the noise carried between the trees to her hiding place.
She was crouched in a tiny ball now, just as she used to crouch as a child when Toby hunted her. She remembered the delicious fear of those games. The wood had seemed much larger then, much more frightening, made even more so by Toby's stories of warlocks and goblins and girl-eating ghouls. Those childish stories were coming true.
She heard the dogs again, baying in the music of the hunt, and she realized that the castle's hounds had been unkennelled. She smiled. Did they think the hounds would hurt her?
She wondered how long they would take to search Sconce Hill. Once they knew she was not there they would come into these larger woodlands and she knew, fearfully, that she must move. Yet every move would take her further from Lazen, further from the refuge she needed this night.
Two hounds burst onto the track beneath her, tails wagging, and the man shouted at them to move back into the undergrowth. He carried a whip that he cracked at them, shouted again, and Campion used the noise he made to cover her own as she rose from the ferns and ran further west.
The woods opened here into a great tract, crossed by rides, a jungle of bushes and trees, dazzling sunlight on the greens, golds, and yellows of autumn. Her feet tore at the grass, the dead leaves, the ferns. She ran down a gentle slope, always keeping close to the bright open space of the park. This night, if she avoided capture, she would go in the darkness across the park and turn east towards the town.
She hid amongst a tangle of laurel and wild privet.
She waited. She could see the roof of the temple beneath her. She was thinking how the dome needed a coat of limewash when there was a loud noise behind her, she turned, stifling a scream, and saw a deer had come into the wood from the park. The deer sensed her presence and it thumped away, scut flashing white, and there was stillness again.
A cloud shadow raced over the park, darkened the wood and shivered her with fear. It passed and the sun was bright again. There was a cool breeze on her forehead.
She listened to the birdsong, judging that while it was uninterrupted then her pursuers were not close. Once a woodpecker startled her. She was biting her lower lip.
They had not expected this. She felt a surge of defiant pleasure. They thought they had beaten her! She had done what the first Campion had done, she had defied her enemies! She gripped her crude, fungus covered club.
She thought of Toby. For his sake she would defy them, for his sake she would beat them, and for his sake she would take Lazen back. For the sake of her dead brother she would see these men in hell for this day's work.
Then there was the sudden jingle of a curb chain and the solid thump of a hoof. A voice called out, not far off, and she recognized Lord Culloden. 'Not here!'
God! But he was close! He must have approached so silently, the sound of his horse's hooves muffled by the grass and leaf mould. She could hear his horse moving, she could hear him patting its neck and murmuring to it, she could hear the creak of his saddle and then there was another sound, even closer, and she watched in horror as one of Lazen's bitches came romping into the privet; nose up, tail wagging, barking in pleasure.
She petted it desperately. It pushed its nose into her face, licked her, turned to rub its stern on her crouching shoulder, rolled over to be scratched and then started all over again. Like most hounds it received no human affection. It seemed to want the lack made up on this warm afternoon.
She willed the hound to go away.
Culloden whistled.
She pushed at the bitch. It licked her face, wriggled in ecstasy, and she pushed again. It barked playfully.
'Come on, damn you!' Culloden's angry voice sounded almost above her. She pushed at the hound, who thought it was a game, and then the leaves above her head shook and she looked up to see her husband's astonished face. He had pulled the privet back to find the hound, instead he stared at Campion.
He sat his saddle in shock as if, though hunting her, he had not expected to find her, and then he bellowed out a great 'hollo!' The fox was sighted. He was calling in the other hunters and Campion, knowing it was useless, scrambled out of the bushes on the far side from him and ran.
She heard his laughter. She heard the hooves.
She was running as the deer had run. The hound ran with her.
She twisted, she turned, she doubled back, she ran where elders grew close and a horse could not gallop, but always at the corner of her eye Culloden's bright uniform flickered among the leaves and trunks. His horse crashed through undergrowth while his voice summoned her other enemies to head her off. She went into coppiced timber, twisting between the withies, and saw, waiting on the far side, one of Larke's men who laughed because she was trapped.
She stopped.
She gripped the cudgel, knowing it was useless, but not willing to surrender without a fight. Sweat stung her eyes. Flies buzzed at her forehead.
Two more horsemen rode into the coppice. The hounds, bored with the poor sport, streamed towards the deer in the park.
Lord Culloden dismounted. He told the three horsemen to guard the coppice's edges.
The coppice was uncut, its tight branched trees too close to permit a horse access. Culloden had to edge sideways to force a path between them. He smiled at her. 'Good afternoon, wife.'
For answer she held the damp oak branch ahead of her.
He laughed. His face was gleaming with sweat. He touched his moustache. 'What a pretty leg you do show, my dear.'
She dodged between two trees. She was slim and could move faster in the small coppice, but she was surrounded. Culloden laughed. 'We have all day, dear wife. And then our wedding night.' He lunged suddenly, forcing branches apart, and she twisted away, a twig lashing her cheek, then turned and struck at him. Her club bounced off the withies and Culloden laughed again. 'Playing games after your brother's death? It's hardly seemly, my Lady.'
A voice shouted from further up the wood and one of the horsemen twisted in his saddle and shouted back. All her pursuers were coming now, a band of men to watch her humiliated. She plucked uselessly at the white silk of her dress, vainly trying to cover her leg. Culloden smiled. 'You'd give us better sport if you took the dress off, dear wife. You want to run naked and take a ten minute start?'
One of the three horsemen laughed. 'Do it, my Lord!'
Culloden smiled at Campion. 'Why not? I've never hunted a naked female.' He lunged at her, snatching the hem of her dress and she screamed, twisted away, and heard the silk tearing as she ducked under a spread of branches. She felt his strength pulling on her skirts and she forced herself away, scrambling on the ground as he tugged at her. The silk tore, she could feel her petticoat tearing, and then she was free and she turned and lashed with her oak club. He laughed
triumphantly and brandished a swatch of stained silk. 'Now for the rest, my dear.'
The front of her skirts had almost gone. She beat at him with the club again, but the springy, slender withies that separated them protected him. He smiled. 'I'll give you two minutes, wife. Either you come quietly to me, or we'll hunt you through the wood. First man, first serve, yes? So what will you do?' He laughed.
She hit blindly with the club, shaking the slender branches and making Culloden step back.
A voice shouted again from the wood, this time the shout more urgent, and the sound of it made Culloden turn his head. Campion twisted and wriggled deeper into the coppice. She could hear more hooves, more shouts. Her dress was caught again and she pulled it fiercely, hearing it rip further, then she turned again with her club raised to beat at the man who had stood beside her at Lazen's altar.
But Lord Culloden had not followed her. He was staring up the slope with a puzzled frown.
Campion could see men on foot. They were far off, running slowly in the heat towards the coppice. They shouted a warning and she saw what she had dared not hope for.
She saw a horseman who rode as no other man rode, a horseman of arrogant confidence and dark splendour. Beside him, empty saddled and stirrups flapping, came Hirondelle.
Campion wanted to shout this triumph aloud. She wanted her joy to fill this wood. He had kept his promise.
A black-dressed man on a black horse, a sword in his hand, riding towards the coppice with a smile on his face and, as Campion's heart leapt with sudden joy, he touched the flanks of his horse and came at her enemies in a gallop.
Christopher Skavadale had come back.
The first of the three men spurred to meet the Gypsy. The man drew his own sword and rode so that his right hand would meet the Gypsy's right hand and Campion held her breath as the two men came close, as Skavadale's horse swerved and she saw the Gypsy toss his sword from his right to his left hand, spear it forward, and the wood was filled with a terrible, rising scream and the man was folded on the steel, falling, blood bright as his body turned, and Skavadale let the weight of the man tear his twisting blade free of the spilling guts.
A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels Page 28