Exile’s Bane

by Nicole Margot Spencer

  “I would rather a pair of pants,” I said.

  “Oh, Elena. Ye can be so coarse.” Peg’s face screwed up in dismay. “Put it on. And how could things possibly be any worse?”

  “The earl has denied my dowry rights.”

  She bit at her lower lip and expelled a deep breath. “Did not thy father leave a dowry-paper?”

  “The earl burned it. He made me watch.”

  “Oh, Lord. What happened to thy face?”

  “It does not matter. I will have Tor House back.” I whipped the cloak on, appreciative of its warmth as it settled about my shoulders.

  A smirk twisted Peg’s full mouth and her brows went up, as though to say, and how do you think you’ll do that.

  “For now, we must flee, you and I. But you don’t have to stay with me. It would be dangerous for you, in any event.”

  “How so? What is it ye intend?” Her piercing brown eyes raked me from head to toe and back again, as though I had lost my mind.

  “To get help, supporters.” A deep, shaky breath belied my outer calm. “We must go.”

  Kalimir shouldered me, ready to run.

  “Where will ye stay? How will ye eat? Though I know ye do not want to, thee would be better off staying here and accepting thy fate. I could join ye on the isle later. ‘Twould be safer.”

  “If I stay, all is lost,” I said, tightening my hold on Kalimir’s bridle. I glared at her in defiance. “The good captain has given me this chance to reclaim what is mine, and I intend to take it. And since when did you prefer the safe route?” I asked her, nettling her, for if there was anyone who would take a chance on a whim, it was Peg.

  She shrugged. We turned away from one another, both of us mounting quickly, for there was a great shouting out in the stable yard. Kalimir circled and I took advantage of the moment, one hand on the reins, to tuck my skirt under my legs. I then pulled him up short beside Peg, now astride her mare.

  “Come with me, then. I’ll see what I can find for you in Bolton.”

  “Bolton, is it?” she said, blatant suspicion claiming her face. “And Thomas?” She reached over and grabbed my rein hand, turning her mare back into Kalimir, who snorted and danced in offence. “Do not do this alone. My place is with thee. Has been, since the day thy father brought me out of Ireland.”

  I nodded my head solemnly. “Let us go.”

  No one to stop us, we charged out of the stable. We forced our way through a mob of unruly horses and frantic stable boys, then out the postern gate. At breakneck speed, we cut south across the huge, foggy, open bowl that Tor House sat in, not slowing until we passed the old cottar’s hut within the great stand of trees where the rutted track that was the Sheffington Road began. It was the longer route to Bolton, but I believed it would serve us well as it wandered among low hills where we would have cover within the small trees and dense brush.

  An hour later, we let the horses rest until they stopped blowing, a cold mist settling around us. We moved on at a fast canter along the undulating roadway. The pale sun struggled to burn through the mist, a mere streak of brightness visible now, then gone as we descended into a low-lying, marshy area. Fitful rain showers came and went, wetting our hair and clothing. I shivered. It seemed to be getting colder. Rising fog swirled about the horses’ feet. We reined them in. Soon a blurry mist encompassed us, but we worked our way along, stayed in sight of one another, and struggled to make out the open track before us.

  “I cannot see,” Peg said close beside me, peering into what appeared as a thick, gray blanket hung before us. “We’re going to get lost out here.”

  “Maybe we should stop and take cover,” I suggested.

  After a further lengthy time of struggle to see the open track before us, Peg stopped her mare in front of me. I asked after her. She shushed me, listening intently. The sound of hooves came to me then, coming up the low incline behind us.

  I moved quickly off the track into wet, treacherous ground, some ways into the fog. Peg followed. We dismounted and led the horses into a tall stand of trees and underbrush that loomed down at us. We stood there within the prickly branches, unable to do anything to help ourselves other than to hold the horses’ mouths, to try and keep them from giving us away.

  The creak and jingle of harness and the marching of many feet came from my left, deep in the thick mist. Men’s voices sounded. The fog thinned around us, and a troop appeared not fifty feet away. Stunned, my breath caught in my throat, for this was no house guard troop, but a small troop of Roundhead infantry led by a mounted officer in a severely cut black coat, a big black hat over cropped hair, and an old-fashioned lace collar that covered his shoulders. His sword and long pistol were the only things that denoted his rank.

  “Damnation,” Peg cursed softly beside me.

  I looked over at my sword hilt sticking up on the opposite side of Kalimir’s saddle, for what good it did me there. My father had taught me to thrust, to slash, and numerous simple defensive moves. I was his only daughter. The daughter he’d preferred to have been a son.

  There were perhaps a dozen Roundhead musketeers in the round helmets they were named for, armed with matchlock muskets and the inevitable yard-long cord of smoldering matchcord, which they used to set off the charge in the musket pan. Live embers hung beside each man, little pink eyes in the mist. Each musketeer wore a bandoleer, as did our Royalist troops, hung with charge canisters, one canister per shot. Among the musketeers were a few pikemen carrying stout ash pikes with steeled points, to spit us on, I supposed, angry at their presence in Lancashire, which was my country and Royalist to the core. One particularly churly-looking musketeer cocked his head suddenly, then swung around in our direction. His smoking cord held over the firing pan of his musket, he aimed directly at our little refuge.

  We dared not move or even breathe. My fingers ceased their gentle caress of Kalimir’s soft muzzle.

  Of a sudden I could see my feet. The fog was rising.

  There was long silence when no one moved, either in the ranks beyond us or around our little shelter. Another long moment went by. I prayed my stallion would continue to stand still.

  “Move on. We not be shooting at ghosts now, Turner. Need to save our shot,” bawled the Puritan captain.

  The musketeer dropped his matchlock with a scowl, and on they marched, the fog closing behind them. Peg and I looked at one another in shocked wonder. We waited, our feet cold and mucky in our ruined house slippers. After five, maybe ten minutes the fog rose until it hung above us, like a raised curtain.

  “Thank God it waited to do that,” Peg whispered, watching the eerie fog lazing above our heads.

  “It started while they were here. You did not see it?”

  “Holy Mother, no.”

  We mounted and moved on, wanting to gain ground while we could see. Within two miles, the road ascended again, the Roundhead troop long gone ahead of us.

  By the time we came to the west branch of the River Croate, a half-mile or so above Bolton, the sun had peeped out. We stopped there to rest the horses and let them nibble at the thick tufts of grass that grew along the riverbank.

  “Since we have gotten this far, we may have eluded the house guard, which is certainly after us.”

  “Or that Roundhead troop scared them off.”

  “Probably.” Or at least conveniently, if Wallace is leading the chase.

  “So is it Thomas Reedy’s house we are headed for?”

  “It is the only place I know to go, Peg.” I patted Kalimir’s sleek shoulder. “Thomas has told me often enough that it would come to this.”

  “Oh, he did, did he?” She studied me with disapproval. “Be thee careful around Thomas. His heart is dark.”

  “I well know what he is.” I dismissed her concerns with a wave of my hand.

  We went the next mile without incident. Then, coming up the incline that overlooked the city, a distant hum sprang up, like a far-off market crowd. Astounded, for I had heard of no market held here since
the rebellion began two years ago, I topped the rise.

  My mouth fell open in a groan.

  Behind dilapidated walls, the high-peaked roofs of Bolton lay below us in a shallow valley. Dim sunlight reflected off hundreds and hundreds of metal helmets moving through the tight streets toward the central square.

  “Go back. Quickly.”

  “I cannot see,” Peg said, reining her mare around with Kalimir. “What is it?”

  “Rigby’s Roundheads massed in the city. It looks like thousands of them.”

  “That many?”

  “The same helmets, the same smutty dress, the same Roundhead Puritans that kept us for months within our walls,” I complained, fuming with the injustice of an occupied Bolton.

  I reined Kalimir to a stop some distance back the way we had come, beyond sight of the town.

  “They would love to get hold of us, would they not?” Peg asked, wide eyes set on the palisade rim.

  I could not answer. The acrid taste of ash blossomed in my mouth at the sudden thought of Duncan’s pleasure with his orders and his impressive leave-taking.

  “Oh, my God,” I finally got out. “Prince Rupert sent Duncan to Bolton.”

  “Ha. So, it was not Thomas ye thought to see in Bolton, but Captain Comrie. I should have known. Do ye think he has arrived?”

  “No. There would be gunfire. He will ride straight into this nest of vipers, and they will be upon him.” I shook my head in a slow twist, my mind working feverishly.

  “What are ye thinkin’ of doing?”

  Ignoring Peg’s question, I calculated the slower speed Duncan and the vanguard would be forced to maintain on the moor road against Peg’s and my relatively fast passage.

  “I may have an hour, no more. You should have no trouble approaching Thomas’ house by way of the old ruins. I will return if I can.”

  “Yea,” Peg said, unnaturally cheery about being abandoned. She shook her cloak out around herself atop her mare. “I will await ye at Thomas’ cottage. Be thee careful.”

  “You, too,” I called back.

  I pushed Kalimir off the road and into a gallop. The low tree line that we had followed ended here at the top of the palisade. Within precious minutes, I was heading overland across the fog-hung moor.

  Chapter Five

  Kalimir pounded out onto the open moorland. I leaned forward, tight in the saddle. The moor lay dim and forbidding under an overcast sky, deep fog banks lurking in the natural depressions of the hilly wasteland. Wet air tore past me, whipping long tendrils of my hair that had escaped their tie. After riding so long in the relative seclusion of the Sheffington Road, I felt perilously exposed, unsure what I might encounter. My great bay flew over the tufty ground. Only the clear tops of the low hills around us were visible, like islands in the mist. That, and an approaching fog bank.

  I brought Kalimir to a stop, and a soft breeze rose, whirling the rising mist slowly around his hocks. We started moving again, unnerved, and the mist-laden wind came in earnest, shifting around behind us, pushing us along in our headlong flight. The land sloped gently downward, the wind dropped and the mist turned to leaden fog, encapsulating us. I slowed Kalimir to a walk.

  The shifting mist thinned here and there for moments at a time, giving me some indication of the muddy, trampled road ahead, or at least that I was still on the road. It had been used heavily and recently. But soon, I found myself unable to determine where I was or where I needed to go in the thickening fog. Had I also missed the Royalist vanguard? They could have passed this way, moved off to the south of the city, and seen for themselves what inhabited the place. This would then be a fool’s errand. If that were true, and when the alarm was raised, they would be slaughtered by vastly superior numbers, Duncan’s life forfeit, and Tor House once again at risk.

  The intensity of my sudden attraction to Duncan Comrie had been a surprise that left me certain I would see him again. Yet two years of rebellion had taught me that nothing could be counted as certain.

  At that moment, a living vision flashed across my eyes.

  Gun smoke cloyed in my throat. Screams deafened me. Just beyond a wide stable entrance, a man lay alone, cruelly twisted on the ground, a pike through his powerful chest. He awaited death in silence, his breathing shallow, his wild red hair clotted with blood.

  Foggy moorland reclaimed my vision. A gasp ripped out of me. Hand at my mouth, I slumped in the saddle, whimpering, for it was Duncan I had seen.

  But it had not yet happened. Nor would I sit aside and allow it to happen. With a flip of my hand, I dashed away my tears and straightened in the saddle, erect, determined. I refused to accept what I had seen. That strong, adaptable man was too fast, too wary for such a death. I forced myself to concentrate on my present fog-hung surroundings, the vision refuted.

  The land turned upward, and I drove Kalimir for the clearing that I prayed was at the top of the incline. To occupy my dream-stunned mind, I went over my calculations once again. With these thick fog banks, Duncan’s force would be reduced to a crawl. That force could not have gotten past me in the time they had. They had to be on the moor still. I needed to find them before the Roundheads in Bolton became aware of them.

  I jerked my horse to a stop. Directly in front of me, what sounded like a sled being pulled through mud came to my attention, underscored by what were surely men grunting. I reined Kalimir hard to the right and down a slope into dense fog, hoping to avoid them until I could determine who they were.

  Moments later, I reeled back in shock, straining my balance in the saddle.

  A mobilized gun carriage consisting of limber, metal-strapped wheels, and huge iron cannon, approached to within mere feet of where I had stood. The limber, that wheeled conveyance that attached to the gun carriage and thereby created a four-wheeled means of transport, had passed into the thick mist. Now, the big cannon materialized before me, its breech thrusting upwards beyond the carriage wheels into the vapor. A transport like this was normally part of a siege train. I had seen my share of them approaching Tor House not that many months ago.

  I regained my breath, pulled my sword and lay it across the pommel, then backed Kalimir carefully. The sound of men groaning with effort came closer. I kept my silence, listening, but soon their shadows appeared before me, straining at the spokes of the massive carriage wheels, pushing and pulling wherever they could gain purchase, slowly working the cannon up the hill. Six to eight horses or oxen normally hauled cannon. Yet I had completely missed them. I wasn’t about to go looking for them either, though it wasn’t unheard of, especially in a tight spot, for men to heave cannon.

  Draft animals or no, this was no Royalist vanguard. In fact, I was certain it was a lagging Roundhead artillery transport still making its way from Tor House. Artillery trains were infamous, both Royalist and Roundhead, for being the last to arrive at any given point. Captain Wallace had told me this, the two of us standing on the watch-tower roof, as we watched the guns being positioned around Tor House back in February. Any relieving force was reduced to the speed of its artillery, he had assured me. But the Roundhead Colonel Rigby had happily not missed this cannon transport, which had probably become separated and lost in the fog.

  Afraid to run Kalimir over the broken, rocky ground in the thick mist, I sheathed my sword, dismounted, and led him downward, hardly able to see a step ahead of me. We neared an upslope and something in the rocks spooked him. He threw up his head, dancing and snorting. It was all I could do to keep hold of the reins.

  Behind me, voices bawled in the fog.

  I grasped the bridle to hold the nervous horse in place, mounted on the second try, and moved away as fast as I dared across treacherous ground. A shot flew past me. Another shot went far to my right, and another farther still. They were shooting randomly, could not see me anymore than I could see them. And they must have been as afraid of me as I was of them, for moments passed in anxious silence. Still astride and effectively blind, I moved uphill.

  Later, the
gun carriage wheels resumed sucking through the mud again, growing fainter. By the time the land began its next upward slope, there was silence, no sound of the transport or its men. We topped a rise in a thin mist, I took a heavy breath of relief, and looked up.

  My heart plummeted to my wet toes. An armored rider came out of the mist in front of me, long-barreled pistol raised, that black barrel aimed straight at me.

  “Hold,” he growled.

  He wore cavalry riding boots and a fine buff coat. His bridle arm was covered to the elbow by a metal bridal gauntlet, much like the one Duncan wore. A tri-bar helmet with thin vertical bars, similar to the Roundhead helmets, protected his face, and a segmented tail covered the back of his neck. I noted a limp red sash tied across his chest, but remained unsure of this deadly image before me. It could easily be a Roundhead trick. His face bore an extensive mustache and a goatee, like King Charles wore, his long hair hanging down beyond his helmet onto metal-clad shoulders.

  “I stand for the King,” I called out, announcing my position, whatever it might bring. He did not move, did not seem to hear me. To me, no response meant he was no Roundhead. “I’ve come to see Captain Comrie. ‘Tis a matter of life and death,” I added, hoping to be taken seriously, rather than treated like a heart-sick strumpet, which in some ways I surely was.

  “I heard shots, men’s voices,” he rumbled, unconvinced.

  “Take me to Captain Comrie. There is little time.”

  “This way.” He sneered, advancing, still holding the pistol on me.

  Kalimir took offence at his proximity and reared, neighing loudly. His hooves thundered down. We raced past the imposing soldier directly into a line of cavalry coming up the hill behind him. Kalimir circled, waiting for my command, which never came, for a tall, broad-shouldered officer in a red cloak rode up beside me.

  “Lady Elena?” came a shocked voice.

  He dismounted and doffed his plumed hat, exposing a familiar head of red locks.