The Fallen Angels

by Bernard Cornwell

  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 toward 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 smelled 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 by 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 mold 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 farther from Lazen, farther 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 farther 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 toward 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 mold. 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 toward the deer in the park.

  Lord Culloden dismounted. He told the three horsemen to guar
d 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 farther 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 toward 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 splendor. 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 toward 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.

  The other two horsemen were riding to help the first, but the first man was already dead, his blood in the leaf mold, his belly opened, his body dragging from one stirrup so that his guts trailed in the dead leaves.

  He had kept his promise. He had come back. She laughed with the joy of it and she saw his face, thin and bright-eyed, lit with the relish of battle.

  Lord Culloden was pushing through the coppice, Campion forgotten, as the second man swung his sword in a great blow at the Gypsy, but the black horse turned at the last moment, taking the man’s target away, and Skavadale’s sword, back in his right hand, butchered down to the man’s skull.

  A pistol banged, the noise clattering pigeons up from the trees, filling the wood with alarm.

  Two men were dead, the third threw away his pistol that had missed and drew his sword. He had never seen a swordsman so fast or a horseman so good. To run was to invite the Gypsy’s blade in his back, to go forward was to meet death, and he did neither. He sat still and parried the first lunge so that the swords rang in the wood like a struck anvil and then the man screamed because the blade had twisted beneath his guard and was rising to his throat.

  Skavadale did not wait to watch the man die. He turned, letting his horse’s motion razor the steel through the man’s neck and Campion put a hand to her mouth as she saw the blood fountain up, bright against the turning leaves. She was shaking.

  He wore black breeches, black boots and a black shirt. His sleeves were rolled up, his tattooed eagles flecked with blood. He turned from the last death and plucked the reins of Lord Culloden’s horse, drawing it away from the coppice and from its owner who stood now at the coppice’s edge. Skavadale leaned over, took Culloden’s pistol from its saddle-holster, aimed, and fired.

  The shot echoed through the wood.

  The bullet churned leaves in front of Larke’s men who ran toward the coppice. It checked them. They had seen three men die in the time it took to draw a breath, and none wished to join the dead who lay sprawled on the leaves. The first man, his horse panicked, bumped and jolted as his corpse was dragged through the undergrowth.

  Skavadale turned back.

  She felt her breath catch in her. His face was so strong, so implacable, the eyes harder than stone. His sword point dripped blood as it dipped toward Lord Culloden’s face. She thought the Gypsy was going to kill the cavalry officer, but Skavadale smiled. His stained sword point was within an inch of Culloden’s eyes. “Remember me, my Lord? The Prince de Gitan?” The sword came forward, forcing Culloden to step back. He made no effort to raise his own sword.

  The Gypsy forced him back another step. “Drop your sword, my Lord. Then mount.”

  Culloden, terrified of this man who had killed with such speed and skill, obeyed. The men on the hill, a hundred yards away, watched, but dared not come forward.

  “My Lady?”

  “Mr. Skavadale?” Her voice was weak.

  He smiled, a smile of joyous welcome, of a secret shared. “I owe you an apology, my Lady.”

  “An apology?” She had dropped the makeshift club.

  Christopher Skavadale glanced at Culloden who was mounting his horse. He looked back to Campion. “I should have been here yesterday, but Rom magic doesn’t control the channel’s winds. Can I suggest you come with me?”

  She scrambled out of the coppice. Hirondelle waited for her and Campion, modesty gone to the wind, climbed astride the saddle. Her legs were bared by the torn dress.

  Culloden was shaking with fear.

  Skavadale, his bloody sword still drawn, glanced once more at the men on the hill, then backed his horse until it was behind Lord Culloden. “Give me your hands, my Lord.”

  Culloden frowned. “I’ve given up my sword!”

  Skavadale smiled. “I’ll tear out your spine if you don’t give me your hands.”

  There was no fight in Lord Culloden. Meekly he put his hands behind his back and Campion saw him wince as the Gypsy tied them. The men up the hill fired a single pistol shot, the bullet ripping at leaves overhead and frightening the birds once more. Skavadale looked with disdain at the men, then
smiled at Campion. “Now we can go.”

  She glanced down as they rode away. The last man to die lay with his head half severed, just like the man on the Millett’s End road. She almost gagged. Flies crawled on the blood and gaping flesh, and then Hirondelle stretched her legs and she rode behind the Gypsy out of the wood. He had come back. Amidst the stench of blood and the ring of steel he had come back. She laughed aloud. He had come back.

  No one pursued them. Skavadale led Culloden’s horse by its reins, Campion followed, and they rode westward until Lazen was out of sight and then the Gypsy turned south. He smiled at her and spoke in French. “I didn’t expect you to run for the hills!”

  “Expect me?”

  “I was in the house!” He glanced at Lord Culloden. The Gypsy’s drawn, blood-matted sword had mesmerized his Lordship. Skavadale looked at her bared thighs and smiled. “It seems a pity, my Lady, but perhaps you should take this.” He pulled a cloak from the straps of his saddle and tossed it to her. “You’ll have fresh clothes at Periton House.”

  “Periton House?” She was spreading the cloak like a blanket over her legs.

  He grinned. “I took the liberty of sending some of your servants to Periton House. You don’t mind?”

  “Mind?” She seemed to be in a daze. One moment she had been hunted through an autumn wood, the next she was riding across a water meadow with the Gypsy. Skavadale smiled.

  “I don’t think you can go back to the Castle yet.”

  “No.” That much seemed obvious.

  “So there’s some bedding, food and servants at the other house. You’ll be comfortable enough.” He laughed and urged his horse into a canter.

  Campion followed. He was arranging her life and somehow, though she was more than capable of arranging it herself, it felt good to be looked after. She laughed again. He had come back.

  That night the Gypsy sat on the floor of Periton’s half finished kitchen and cut a sponge into squares three niches thick. Campion, wearing a dress of blue linen beneath a black cloak, watched him. Edna, her maid, had brought the clothes. She had brought news of the Castle, too. It was, she said, all confusion. The new Earl gave orders, Valentine Larke gave orders, and no one knew what was happening. “They’re foul, my Lady. Talk to us like dirt!”