Exile’s Bane

by Nicole Margot Spencer

  “Thomas. Get up,” I cried. The door banged shut behind me.

  “Damnation,” Peg said. She threw the curtains aside. “What do they want?”

  The first of them turned in through the gate.

  “Whatever they can carry away. Maybe the house itself,” came Thomas’ low voice behind us. “I told you Roundheads and some homeless Bolton scum were breaking in to local homes, looting and killing. They probably want the house to barricade themselves in, unless they’re rampaging soldiers.” Still in the wrinkled clothes he had slept in, he jerked a board off the closed-off door that led to the stable. “We must get to the horses and escape. Help me open this.”

  “Ye never should have boarded this up in the first place,” Peg scolded. She pulled uselessly at the larger plank below the small one Thomas had already ripped off. Peg looked back at me and stared, her face slack with surprise. “What are ye doing?”

  “It’s too late for that,” I said to Thomas, who heaved at the second board on the door. I hefted my sword until I found the best handhold.

  At that moment the door burst open and three men rushed in, one with a matchlock musket that he must have stolen from a soldier, for these were not well-equipped military types, as Thomas had suggested, but ragged local men, starving and threatening to kill to get what they needed.

  The lead man was huge, his round face bearded. He had little eyes and a projecting mouth, like a bear’s. He laughed when he saw me with the sword extended toward him.

  Movement stopped. Despite my wobbly knees, another inch closer to any one of us, and he would laugh no more, for I would take off whatever got in the way, be it his arm or his hairy head.

  The bear-faced man lifted his musket, but had to lower it again to find the lit cord. He found the smoking cord, but not quickly enough, for Thomas, who had moved close to me when the looters came in, wrenched the musket away from him, yelling at the top of his voice.

  “Out, get out,” he screamed. He flipped the heavy gun and, using the reinforced stock as a club, knocked the closest man to him in the head. The man fell backwards in the doorway. Thomas’ eyes few wide open as though he just realized what he had done. He cringed and backed away.

  “Give us food and we leave you be,” someone squealed in the cramped crowd in the doorway.

  The bear-faced man moved aside and stayed where he was. I advanced a step, brandishing my sword, and covered Thomas’ retreat. Peg glared at Thomas, grabbed Mrs. Reedy’s wooden mallet off the hutch, and wailing like a banshee, chased the crowd out of the house. She ran right over the man still prone in the doorway. He must have been stunned, for he jumped up after being trampled and ran off behind them. Thomas, who would not be belittled by a woman, maybe especially Peg, took a wild swing of the musket and followed her out the door, leaving me alone to deal with the disarmed, bear-faced mongrel.

  He lowered his shaggy head at me, and I swung at him, but he jumped back beyond my reach. Pacing closer, I went to swing again, but my toe caught on one of the open spaces between the floor boards. The floor pitched up into my face.

  “What’s a girl like you doin’ with a fine sword like this anyways?” He caught me and wrenched the sword away. “I have somethin’ much better for ya,’ darlin’.”

  The sword clanged to the floor. He grabbed my shoulders and sunk his mouth into my neck, sucking at the soft skin there.

  I shrank away from his touch, but he pushed me up against the hutch. A hand pawed at my skirts. My mouth opened to scream, but nothing came out.

  Frantically, I pushed my attacker away with one arm and lifted the other to the overhead cabinet behind me. Arm painfully twisted, I felt for the knob with a flopping hand while I beat the hairy head with my left fist. Finally, I flipped the cabinet door open. When I twisted around to reach into it, my attacker must have thought I was goading him on, for he chuckled in my ear, his breath smelling of rotten flesh.

  “No’ a bad idea, aye?” He worked my dress up over my hips and dropped his mouth to my breast. A grimy hand reached up to certainly tear open my bodice.

  The gun slipped into my hand, my arm swung down, and I crammed the charged pistol into his upper gut. He stiffened, and it went off with a muffled bang. He slumped to the floor, blood and gore running out of a black hole in his stomach.

  Running feet came through the doorway and I looked up into the disgusted faces of my childhood friends. They came closer and leered over the body.

  “Where were you?”

  “Making sure they do not come back,” Peg said, in a tiny voice that told me she had been carried away by Thomas’ infamous, generally useless enthusiasm. “Did he hurt thee?”

  “No,” I croaked, with an accusative look at the two of them. My lower lip quivered. I felt violated, wanted to scour my skin where my attacker had slobbered all over me.

  Thomas gawked at the pistol, still smoking in my hand. I explained how I came to have it, then carefully replaced it in the cabinet, admonishing him to leave it lay.

  “Ye should have stayed with her,” Peg yelled at Thomas.

  “Leave him alone,” I said to her quietly. I picked up the sword, stood it beside the doorpost and went to the cistern, suddenly drained and desperately tired.

  “Ye could have been ruined. Why do ye protect him?” she cried.

  “He is my friend, and yours.”

  She made a rude noise.

  Shortly after that, my face still damp from my ablutions, a crack of thunder shook the house. Thomas ducked as though someone had swung at him. The thatch roof rumbled above us, and driving rain sluiced down over the open doorway. In the back corner, water plopped onto the floor from a leak in the thatch. Finally, Thomas dragged the body of my attacker out into the rain.

  Still in nerveless shock, I had no remorse for the man’s death. Peg eyed me critically, closed the door, and went to work wiping up the gore where the man had died. An old cook pot that I found in the big bottom drawer of the hutch served to catch the drip in the corner, but we would have to watch it, for at the rate the rain was coming in it would fill up quickly.

  Thomas returned, soaked through. He changed clothes and for sometime watched the window, but finally retreated to his big chair to study his fingernails.

  With one particular lifeguard captain in mind, I made myself comfortable in one of the chairs at the table and stared out the window at the slanted, gray deluge. The road across the moor had been muddy when Duncan and I rode it the day before. Thousands of mounted cavaliers would turn it into a bog in this downpour. Empathy stirred my thoughts for the miseries they surely endured.

  In the steady, drenching rain of early afternoon, the rumble of cannon fire and the escalating pop of musketry sounded outside Bolton. It came from where Duncan and I had ridden companionably off the moor. Hours later, the rain reduced to a sprinkle, the three of us crowded into our open door. Clouds of gun smoke roiled upward into dark rain clouds that hovered over the town.

  In the field beyond the church ruins, a long, ragged line of Roundhead soldiers scrambled in terror over the horizon, looking frequently back the way they came. A small group of soldiers came toward the house. Some of them slipped and fell on the wet grass. Those few jumped up and continued to run. All of them had empty hands and wide, fearful eyes.

  “Run for your life,” one of them yelled as he approached our gate.

  “Prince Rupert and his devil dog. They’re comin’,” cried another, right behind him.

  “They’re killin’ ever’body.”

  I reached for my sword.

  “No, wait,” Thomas said, a hand on my shoulder to restrain me. “They are not coming here.”

  He was right, for each of them, running as though Boye himself was indeed behind them, ran on past the gate and disappeared into the hedges east of us.

  “What is happening?” Peg asked.

  “You heard them. Prince Rupert’s forces have breached the town defenses and are showing no mercy,” I said.

  “Yes. I be
lieve you’re right,” Thomas said, with a look at me of new respect.

  Not long after, four Royalist cavaliers, their red sashes prominent even through the rain, dismounted at our gate. One of them, in a canvas rain cloak, strode to the door. The soaked white feather in his wide hat drooped pathetically.

  “Open the door,” I said, pushing Thomas forward.

  Thomas cracked the door slowly, unsure of what we would find. I leaned around him, and he looked down at me in alarm. But with a wide, thankful smile, my heart lifted, for I recognized the cavalier’s easy manner and his striking blue eyes.

  “Sergeant Burke?”

  “Lady Elena?” He looked relieved.

  “Come in. Bring your men in,” I said.

  Thomas disappeared into the house.

  The sergeant entered, and Peg closed the door behind him.

  “I am glad to find you all here safe. You must remain inside. Captain Comrie’s orders.”

  “Is the captain well?” I clenched my fingers together tightly and anxiously awaited his answer.

  “Last I saw him, yes, my lady.”

  I patted his wet gloved hand, thankful for that news.

  “What is happening, Sergeant? Have your troops taken the town?” Thomas asked.

  Peg hovered behind him.

  “Rigby came out to meet us, but we broke ‘em.” A slow smile appeared under Sergeant Burke’s extensive mustache. “The town is ours.” The smile disappeared and he leaned toward me in unease. “There is still fighting, fierce and confused. It could go on well into the night. We will keep you safe.”

  “Yes, you must,” Thomas said. He took a deep, relieved breath, then stood protectively behind me and gestured eloquently at me. “This is Lady Elena, you know. She is the heiress of Tor House, an important lady hereabouts.”

  “He knows who I am. We have met before,” I said, though I was not about to admit how I knew him.

  The sergeant warmed his hands at our fire, but refused to allow his men in. When I asked why they could not protect us within the house, Burke’s tired half-smile parted his mouth.

  “Our captain, our prince for that matter, ask no more of us than they themselves do. We keep to our post.”

  And so, he and his men in their canvas cloaks stood outside our closed door and at the gate in the pouring rain, not always at attention, but certainly at their posts. I was impressed. Most soldiers I had seen would desert the minute they got the chance. My own loyal guards would certainly have taken the mistress up on her offer of warmth and shelter.

  By late afternoon, I could wait no longer.

  “Where be ye off to?” Peg asked with a frown. The short whisking motion of the brush on her auburn tresses stopped. She pushed her hair back behind her shoulders.

  “To find Duncan and ask his help in getting to the King.” I pulled my cloak hood up over my head. “Sergeant Burke says he should be near the town hall. That was his plan, to find quarters there.”

  On my return from the privy moments earlier, I had convinced the sergeant that I had to see the captain immediately, that it was a matter of life or death. Besides, the rain had decreased to a dribble. In his considered, though wary manner, he had responded that he would be honored. He even saddled Kalimir for me and brought him to the gate.

  “Maybe we can catch sight of the prince, too, ye think?” Peg said. She reached for her own cloak, the brush returned to its habitual pocket.

  “No,” I said. “You must stay here. The guards will protect you.”

  “Ye cannot go alone,” Peg insisted with a huff, her face blazing in indignation.

  “Who is this Captain Comrie?” Thomas challenged. He looked me over as though he did not know me, offended.

  “Do you remember the man you so ungraciously met yesterday and again in town?”

  “Yes.” He nodded, suspicious of my intent. “I know, the odd tinker.”

  “That tinker was one of Prince Rupert’s lifeguard captains.”

  “I am not surprised. I told you as much.” He returned to his chair, extended his arm, resting it on the wide chair arm. “You were kissing him,” he said with a sudden frown, his voice hoarse with accusation.

  “I will return,” I said firmly, not interested at the moment in his criticism or Peg’s demands.

  “You cannot leave us.” Thomas came up off the chair, straight to me, and clenched my shoulders in his hands. “These guards mean nothing. Your safety is our safety. Do you not understand this?”

  “You will be fine,” I responded sternly, dismayed at his groveling. This was something left over from childhood. It surprised me to still see it in him, this display of why he should be kept safe, his underlying fear etched into his face and imbedded in his words.

  “We will await thee.” Though Peg’s face drooped in disappointment, she escorted me to the door, twin lines of concern deep between her brows.

  “Yes, we will stay.” Thomas stood aside. “Godspeed,” he spouted resentfully.

  We entered the street that I knew would take us close to the center of town and the town hall. Roaming crowds of soldiers greeted us on foot and ahorse. The dead littered the doorways and alleys. We passed a corpse sprawled in a puddle. A pike protruded from his back. The sight made me nauseous. Had Duncan truly survived this?

  At the first square, Burke, who rode close beside me, smiled languidly at me, belying the threat of his drawn sword held across the pommel of his saddle.

  “Do you know, Sergeant, if Lord Devlin is in Bolton?” I asked.

  “Somewhere, yes. Trying to control the thievery, I believe.”

  “We must avoid him.”

  “As you wish, my lady,” he said, with a wiggle of his mustache. He studied me, and apparently decided that I meant my words, for he nodded.

  Huge, rain pocked puddles were everywhere, complicating our progress. As well, it took some skill to avoid the filthy water that ran down the center of most streets, dark with blood and human waste.

  After the next small square, we passed into a more affluent area of towering houses under high peaked roofs. Cries and screams sounded in the distance.

  “Is it a fight to find the enemy, house to house?” I asked the sergeant.

  “No, my lady.” Our horses side by side, he leaned close. “It is mostly pillaging now.”

  “You mean, our own men?”

  He could see my shock and so explained the common soldier’s right of free quarter. Each man had a right to housing and food, supplied by his conquered subjects. He confirmed my suspicions, what I did not want to believe of our Royalist troops. We had seen no Roundheads, just city folk struggling to escape.

  “It has gotten out of hand, then?”

  “Our men have long been hungry and without pay.”

  We went down more roads crowded by tall houses, their second stories leaning over the cramped streets. We turned a corner, where carousing soldiers eyed me with obvious relish, until they got a clear look at my escort. They stumbled away behind us.

  We passed an inn that had attracted a large number of men at arms. Musketeers were clumped in the street, reeling drunk. Something about the look of them, the way they fell back into one another and a nearby rearing horse brought back . . .

  . . . Hundreds of musketeers forced together between opposing cavalry charges. The musketeers, who fought on foot, were unable to bring up their weapons for lack of space. In brutal attempts to escape, they shoved at one another. Their coughs hacked through the heavy black gun smoke. There was something in their way, something I could not see that they could not get past. Royalist horses reared and struck down their own men. The remaining musketeers fell back into one another in an attempt to clear the way for their cavalry to get through, but they went down in massive numbers under the pikes and swords of the charging enemy . . .

  Back where I belonged, thank God, the stench of offal and blood tainted the wet air in Bolton. I swooned, nearly unhorsing myself. Burke’s horse came up beside Kalimir, who allowed it with
a snort. Our knees touched and his gloved hand caught me, held me upright in the saddle until I recovered.

  “We’re almost there, Lady Elena. Can you continue?”

  “Let us go on,” I said, shaking not from the cold rain, but from the impact of a returning vision, something I had never experienced before. The soft drizzle fell in my face, like a gentle admonition. What is this thing in my head?

  Finally a dim, crowded street opened out into the main square where large numbers of gathered Royalist musketeers and cavaliers milled around the imposing town hall on the other side of the square. No plundering here. Sergeant Burke asked an officer where he might find Captain Comrie. The officer pointed to the large house to the right of the town hall.

  We tied up our horses at the plain ring post mounted before the house and entered to find somber walls and a simple sturdy table in the hallway. Directed to a back room where voices and a familiar explosive laugh sounded, we went down the austere hallway and entered the open door.

  I pushed my hood back and looked around at a bed, a chair, a table, and one candle and holder. It was cold and uninviting, but I appreciated the simple smells of wood, clean bedding, and damp humans after what we had come through to get there. I stepped into the room, stopped short, and jerked my wet cloak tight around my neck, a defense against the sight before me. My heart dropped. I could not breathe.

  Duncan stood before me, still in his body armor, though his hat with its droopy turquoise feather and his bridle gauntlet lay as though they had been flung onto the bed. His perfect smile was directed at a woman who hung off his arm.

  She looked to be a baggage-train tramp, her breasts leaning out over the tight, boned bodice that seemed out of place in the unadorned room.

  He turned his head and saw me. The smile fell away, and his essential confidence flagged.

  “Elena?” he stepped toward me, hand extended in entreaty. “What are you doing here, out in this chaos?” Confidence back in spades, his stern gaze shifted abruptly to Burke. “Sergeant, your orders were—”