Exile’s Bane

by Nicole Margot Spencer

  I reached down to this mist-blurred cavalier who had Duncan’s hair and Duncan’s burr on his words. He extended a gloved hand.

  “Oh, thank God,” I cried, taking his hand and sliding off Kalimir, my ruined slippers useless in the stirrups anyway.

  He put a protective arm around my shoulders, flipped his cloak over me, and hugged me close to his armored side. Under other circumstances, it would have been a great liberty for him to take, but I was too pleased to have found him to object.

  I responded instead with an arm around his weapon-clad waist.

  “I am surprised to see you here, Lady Elena,” he said formally, aware of the gawking men around him.

  “I have come to warn you. You must stop your advance immediately.”

  He looked down at me, perplexed. “How did you find us?”

  Expecting appreciation and interest in what I had to offer, I let out a loud, frustrated breath.

  “I did what I had to do. Roundheads are massed at Bolton. It looks like Rigby’s entire force. You must go back. You must return to Tor House.”

  “My lady.” A grim smile settled on his face. His arm remained around my shoulders, though he moved away slightly. “How do you know what is in Bolton?”

  “The moors are generally the most direct route to Bolton, though hardly the safest. And so I came down the Sheffington Road.” Not to be treated like a child, I shrugged off his arm and his warm cloak. “At the rise above Bolton, I could see them. Hundreds upon hundreds of round helmets streaming through the streets. Should you not believe me . . . .” I pointed toward the fog hovering at the crest of the hill. “There is a Roundhead cannon transport about a mile into that fog bank, headed for Bolton. I barely avoided them.”

  “How many?” The cautious expression on his face changed to eager interest.

  “That I could see, one gun, maybe eight men.”

  “We heard gunfire. They shot at you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not hurt?” His gaze moved down my body, then returned to the reduced bump at my temple.

  “No.”

  “You are very brave.” A smile deepened the dimple in his chin.

  “Duncan, you must retreat.” I ignored the guarded amusement in his stance and looked him square in the face. “They may have seen or heard your men.”

  “We will not retreat. The general and I have our orders,” he said rigidly.

  I pulled my cloak tight around me, hands stiff and painful in the misty cold. Yes, I remembered Prince Rupert’s orders, that Duncan was to push the general to get done what needed to be done, giving Duncan essential control of the general’s command. Despite a suspicious glance at me, he was alert and excited. I did not understand it. It surprised and upset me, not so much his questions of me, but his obvious enjoyment of his precarious situation.

  “Sergeant.” He turned back to an officer who had dismounted and stood at attention behind him. “Get me Cornet Price.”

  Within a few minutes, the cornet strode up to us, a bright red and white cassock worn over his buff coat. Tall and raw-boned, he wore heavy gloves, a large gorget, armor that protected his neck and chest, and a trumpet slung over his shoulder on a black cord.

  “Cornet, you will return to Tor House and advise Prince Rupert, in his hearing only, that we have received intelligence that Rigby is massed at Bolton and ripe for the picking. Tell him we await his orders.”

  I looked at Duncan, astounded at how easily he changed his plans. No consultation with the general; no consideration of what awaited them in Bolton.

  “Wait,” Duncan said, holding the cornet in place with an outstretched, commanding hand.

  “Lieutenant Foster,” he then said to the intimidating cavalier who had challenged me on my approach.

  The helmeted lieutenant saluted.

  “Pick a dozen men of your choice. There’s a Roundhead cannon and its crew lost out in the fog. About a mile toward Bolton, the lady says. They can’t have gotten far. Take them and their gun. Quietly. Be sure none escape.”

  The lieutenant moved away, gathering his men.

  “You will take Lady Elena back to Tor House with you,” Duncan commanded, turning back to the cornet.

  “Honored, sir,” he said in a voice too deep for his thin build. He went for his horse.

  “I will not go back,” I insisted. “I cannot.” My cloak crumpled under my clenched fingers as I pulled it close under my chin and looked around, uncomfortable under the curious gazes of seasoned cavaliers. “As it is, I’m not so sure the house guard, which was behind us, did not blunder into Bolton.” The shifting mists and solid walls of fog that huddled below the hilltop left me wary and uncertain. “If they did, the Roundheads may very well come looking for all of us.”

  “You were not alone?” he asked, his face frozen in concern.

  “Peg was with me. She has gone on to my friend’s home in Bolton.”

  “Under the nose of the Roundhead occupation,” he said flatly, and I suspected, not so sure of my loyalty.

  “The house is on the outskirts of town, easy to approach overland.”

  His face brightened, and he nodded. His sudden, enlightened manner intrigued me.

  The cornet arrived, mounted, his gorget and trumpet strapped to his saddle, his standard passed to another cavalier.

  “The lady will remain here. Deliver that message, Cornet. At your best speed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The cornet spurred his mount along the hilltop and into the mist, moving faster than I would take my horse in the treacherous fog. As though awaiting the cornet’s departure, thick droplets of misty fog flowed over the hill top. One moment the forward sentry stood out in the darkness, the next moment all that remained was a nebulous shape concealed in the mist.

  I collected my dignity, pleased that I had not been forced to return to Tor House, but uncomfortable with Duncan’s intentions. He led me, our horses with us, to the side of the massed cavalry into an open spot among a stand of bushes barely visible for the fog, where he took off his red cloak with a flourish and threw it across Ajax’s saddle, followed shortly by his sash and his baldric flipped over the saddle bow, his sword left there, suspended. His breast and back plates, he unbuckled and slipped off.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Changing clothes.”

  “Now? Whatever for?”

  He did not answer, intent on unstrapping the bridle gauntlet on his left hand and forearm. Despite my feelings for him, I could not help but fear what other madness he might now pursue.

  After he stripped off his gauntlet and his buff coat, he buttoned the heavy hide coat around his back and breast plates and suspended the entire cumbersome package from his black’s saddlebow alongside his sword hanging in its baldric. He then untied a sizable leather roll from behind his saddle, set it down at his feet, and turned back to me, surveying me with grim humor.

  “You told me you would not leave Tor House.”

  “I have run away.”

  “You? But you said . . .?” his words trailed off, mocking me.

  I went to him and pressed my fingers over his mouth, irritated at the joke he made of my situation, yet needing his support. His arms came around me, and he pulled me close. The temptation overcame me, and I snuggled against his warm chest. With growing remorse, I knew that I needed and cared for this man.

  Tenderly, he pulled strands of long black hair from my face. “You are safe here.” His hand stopped. “This raised bruise—did you run into something? Or did someone hit you?”

  Tears came, and I could not stop them. I pulled away, suddenly conscious of smirking cavaliers at mist’s edge who could not help but witness this wanton display. What was I thinking of? How could I stand among the quiet clank and creak of the vanguard of the Royalist Horse and do this? I cleared my throat in distress.

  “Who?” he demanded.

  “A little bump on my head is nothing,” I said, attempting to regain my composure. “Lord Devli
n is a very powerful man and used to having his way.”

  He eyed me suspiciously, his dark eyes clouding, then turned and called for another horse.

  “I must find supporters,” I insisted. “And failing that, I must get to the King.”

  His expression twisted into a resentful smirk, though he said nothing. He reached into the leather roll close by his feet and pulled on a long-sleeved woolen shirt. When his face reappeared his yearning eyes sought mine.

  “Within the confines of the war and my responsibilities to Prince Rupert, you have my allegiance and my oath to assist you in any way I can.”

  At a loss for words, I sought to contain my amazement. My stiff hand clenched and unclenched on my cloaked chest.

  But he went on about his business, as though committing himself to a woman’s cause was an everyday occurrence. He pulled a large black bundle out of the leather roll, collapsing the leather, then carefully set the black bundle atop a wide tuft of grass. After retrieving his gauntlet and sash from the relatively dry safety of his saddle, and rolling up his red cloak, he re-rolled his leather around them, and re-tied the newly stuffed leather roll behind his stallion’s saddle. Out of the black bundle he pulled a big black hat. He twisted his long hair, piled it atop his head and pushed the crushed old hat down over it, then took his baldric and sword off Ajax’s saddlebow, and slipped the baldric on, sword suspended at his side.

  Too late to say anything meaningful, I walked around him and looked him over.

  “Quite nice,” I said. “You look like an armed tinker.”

  “I will escort you to Bolton, yes, as an armed tinker.” He grinned, the light flashing on his russet, day-old beard.

  “Why do you want to go to Bolton? Do you doubt my word?”

  “Not at all.” He adjusted his pistols and the knife at his belt, then bent over, shook out, and whipped on the remaining black cloak, a wet spot near its hem where it had sat on the soaked grass. “I will escort you to your friend’s house in Bolton and, in the process, do some reconnaissance

  I did not believe him. His fearlessness was alarming.

  Chapter Six

  Some time later, a soldier took Duncan’s black stallion away and left a sway-backed roan in his place beside my edgy Kalimir. I had tired of waiting and was prepared to mount when Duncan, his huge black cloak flapping behind him, rushed out of the thinning fog into the solitary little copse of bushes.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Returning to Bolton. Are you coming?” I asked, anxious to be away. He had been gone long enough for the sun to finally show its bleary face through the mist.

  “Yes.”

  “How was your meeting with the general?” I asked.

  His copper-colored hair fell over his shoulder as he checked the saddle girth on the roan. He turned back to me with a confident smile.

  “The general would rather leave tactical decisions to hardened officers. My presence merely assures that these decisions are made in the manner Prince Rupert prefers.”

  “That’s quite a responsibility, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged, apparently comfortable with his prince’s instructions and what he must do to fulfill them.

  “War is in my blood,” he stated flatly.

  “Really? You mean, as a Scot?”

  He turned slowly and gave me a vicious, yet culpable look.

  “You are not proud of your abilities? They have certainly served the King well.”

  He turned away with an unhappy grin.

  “What I meant to say,” I amended, seeing his uneasiness, “is that my uncle would kill anyone who dared usurp his authority.”

  “Oh, to be sure,” he said with a quiet laugh. “But General Gordon considers it a great relief to have someone to deal out the strategy of a march or of a situation, as we are in now.”

  He seemed more in control of his feelings, speaking on a subject with which he was comfortable. General Gordon must have been one of those gentlemen without military expertise who had been appointed to his rank as a political favor. Yet he was apparently wise enough to bow to advice from his experienced officers—or in this case, Prince Rupert’s experienced officer.

  I placed a slippered foot into the stirrup.

  “Don’t do that,” he said gruffly, a warding palm raised at me. “We will leave your horse with the troops. I have another for you, more appropriate to our journey.”

  “Like that pitiful nag you have chosen over your own stallion?”

  An explosive laugh boomed out of him. “Ajax is a war horse, as is your stallion. Either horse would attract attention in Bolton.”

  “I will not part with Kalimir,” I insisted. With a casual hand, I flipped trailing strands of hair back over my shoulder.

  “Why not? I’ll see he’s returned to you.”

  “I’m sure that is your intention.” I shook my head. “But he is one of the few things my father left to me that has not been taken over by my uncle. I’ll not leave him.”

  He opened and shut his mouth, studied the mud and the hardy grasses at his feet, then looked back up at me with a gleam in his gold-flecked eyes.

  “If we run into Roundheads, can you play the part of a Puritan lady?”

  Smiling within at this man who did not know my shameless nature, I assumed an exaggerated posture of cheek-sucking primness.

  “Of course,” I intoned, palms together and raised as in prayer, adoring eyes raised to the sky. “Holy and meek, I am. My husband, Alderman Tucker, awaits my arrival. He would be most distressed were I held up. He might even have to contact his friend, Lord Fairfax, with a serious grievance were I held up too long.”

  “Is there an Alderman Tucker in Bolton?” Duncan asked, with a deep-voiced chuckle.

  “Yes, and a proper Puritan he is, too, who spouts of his connections with Fairfax.”

  “Good. I shall be the lady’s devout servant.” He picked up the oversized black hat.

  “You will have to keep your hair covered.”

  “Yes, my lady.” He donned the hat and hurriedly tucked up his bright hair.

  “I had heard that Prince Rupert engaged in this sort of disguise, to check up on his enemy. It’s true, then?”

  His white smile flashed. “Were he here, he would already be in Bolton, one way or the other.”

  We passed the cannon I had come upon beforehand, its captured crew and two oxen, which I had not seen at all, struggling now to return the way they had come. The sun remained a watery, early afternoon companion. We were still some ways from town when the weak sunlight began to dissipate the mists around us. We watched the retreating edges for signs of other travelers or of Roundhead troops.

  It seemed to take longer to make the return trip then it had taken me to ride this way earlier. Peg would be worried, and that would set Thomas on edge, which was never pleasant. As well, I was still concerned that the house guard might have bumbled into Bolton and gotten themselves hopelessly entrenched.

  “We need to move faster,” I called over to Duncan, for the walls of fog had retreated significantly. I pushed Kalimir into a faster pace. Without boots or spurs, all I could do was pummel the horse with my heels, which he responded to well enough.

  “Wait,” Duncan called out behind me.

  I turned to find him dismounted and awaiting me.

  I studied our desolate horizons to be sure no one had appeared, then brought Kalimir back to where he stood. The roan’s reins in one hand, he motioned with the other hand for me to dismount. I did so and faced his stern demeanor in uncomfortable concern.

  “I did not press you earlier because I wanted to give you every possible advantage with witnesses around us.”

  I clutched my hands together, reins and all, nodded my head, and waited for him to go on.

  “Why would Lord Devlin want you dead?” An embarrassed, disbelieving smile crept over his mouth.

  “He wants Tor House for himself, and I stand in his way,” I answered without hesitation.

 
“How so?” He seemed suddenly reticent, his russet brows knitted together. “Women cannot own property.”

  “If they have been legally joined with the land, yes they can. My father wanted me to have my own home and so, some years ago, he deeded Tor House into a jointure. I am the heiress of Tor House in my own right.”

  “Can you not make this known?”

  “It’s not that simple. I must find supporters,” I said, trying to control my rising irritation. I could hardly believe the deed had been destroyed, though I had been forced to witness it.

  “So, were you dead, Devlin would inherit Tor House as he did the earldom as the last surviving son of the old earl.” His eyebrows went up and his mouth compressed into an expression of muted acceptance.

  “That is exactly the sum of it. He means to see me gone. Should I die in the process, it would not displease him.”

  “But why Bolton?”

  “I told you. I have a friend there.”

  “Who is this friend that you think can help you? What are this person’s allegiances?”

  “I don’t see that my friend’s credentials are your concern. Would you rather I had not warned you of the enemy’s presence?” I huffed back to my horse, ready to ride on. Alone, if necessary. But on second thought, I turned back to him. “I don’t blame you for questioning my motives. But I cannot return.”

  “I would not be here, nor would you, if I did not trust you.” He stared at me, his mouth tight, his face coloring in frustration. “From what you have told me, were it me, I would do no less. But others may misinterpret your flight, perhaps see you as a traitor.”

  He caught me off-guard with his telling view of my situation. Yes, my allegiance would be questioned, perhaps even by those very people I needed to approach.

  I nodded solemnly, knowing he was right, that the path I had laid out for myself was fraught with deadly unknowns.

  We mounted and rode in comradely silence for some time, accompanied by the creak of leather and the horses’ hooves squishing through the mud. The wet cold invaded my nostrils, forestalling any sense of smell. There were no birds, nor birdsong. The eerie, deadened silence descended around us as our mounts moved us into a low area, a foggy netherworld, our only connection with reality the wide pathway that we followed. I rubbed the slick reins in my cramped hand to assure myself this was no dream. The frosted atmosphere must have affected Duncan, as well, for he seemed gloomily spellbound by the drifting walls of fog around us. His gaze tracked morosely from one side to the other.