by Lexy Timms
“Let’s go,” he said gruffly, and the spy only nodded, hiding her smile.
Chapter 7
“Get up.” Jasper awoke to a glimpse of blue sky before dawn and the shadows of the trees on his face before someone held his head roughly and a blindfold was jerked tight over his eyes.
“What on earth—”
“Get up.”
“I can’t unless you stop holding me down!”
A fair point, he thought, but from the rough way they hauled him to his feet, they clearly did not appreciate it. Someone sniggered when his stomach rumbled, and they let him trip and sprawl to the ground while they dragged him to his horse.
“Enough of this.” Knox’s voice. “We need him in the saddle, not on the ground.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And someone find something for the girl, she’s vomiting.”
“What have you done to her?” Jasper demanded, and he got a ringing blow around his ears for the trouble.
“You said she’s with child, remember?” Knox asked, the voice just a bit too accommodating. “So I’d assume it’s that.”
Right. Jasper was now remembering why he did not often lie: he was terrible at it.
“Which is why you need to be gentle with her,” he said stiffly, trying to recover from his slip up. “What did you try to give her, maggoty meat?”
“Stop it,” Knox muttered. “We don’t have time for this. Get in the saddle.”
“What’s got you so upset?”
Knox waited until Jasper was hauled inelegantly into the saddle and his wrists were bound to the pommel. “We’re being followed,” the man said shortly, and Jasper could fairly see his lip curling with scorn. “Don’t look so pleased, Perry. You’d better hope they don’t reach us.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Because the men have promised to rip you to pieces themselves if it looks like you won’t get to the tribunal,” Knox said, and there was an undeniable hint of savage amusement in his voice. “So you can look as happy as you want to that someone’s coming for you...but if I were you, I’d hope for the gallows.”
Jasper turned away, his heart pounding, but try as he might and desperate as he was not to see Cecelia suffer, his heart was swelling with joy. They were coming for him. Someone had noticed he was missing, and they were coming to save him. They knew, if they were following, that he had not left of his own free will.
It had been tearing him apart inside for days that Clara might believe he had gone willingly, and it made him want to howl in agony that Cecelia would be gone, too. What had they said in the town? What manner of lie had she heard?
Did it sting more, to think she might doubt him when she would be right to do so? Oh, he would never leave her for Cecelia—Clara was the only woman he loved, and a woman he loved, in fact, more than he could say. When he looked at her, he saw not the woman of his dreams, but the woman beyond them, for in every way she was more perfect than anything he could have imagined.
In her protectiveness of her sister, in her choice to break her betrothal with Cyrus, Jasper had seen a rare courage, and from courage sprang honor: Clara, in her fierceness and her unwillingness to compromise, was one of the most honorable women he had ever met. She had more principles in her management of the farm, in her spinning, in her cooking, than any of the generals, Union or Confederate, had in their fancy speeches and their brave marches into battle.
And yet, above all, Clara was kind. Jasper had known it even the first time they met, when she yelled at him to leave, get back, go! She was not going to kill him, or call the town watchmen on him, unless he left her no other choice—and when he retreated, she had given of what little they had. In the weeks that followed, as she gave ever more for Solomon’s care, Jasper had seen her get her hands dirty in the fields, talk kindly to the threshers, and always pause to embrace her sister as they passed one another.
When he was with her, Jasper wanted to be a man worthy of her kindness and courage. He looked at her and thought he might die from how much he loved her. Never had he dreamed he might feel like this, and he would never expect to find another woman like this in all his days.
So, why then was it not enough?
If he had an answer to that question, Jasper thought wryly, he would be wiser than any man living. He had the sense, at least, to know that a man’s heart was a tangle in which anyone might get irrevocably lost; no matter how the men in the fields joked about womenfolk and their fickle hearts, Jasper knew they spoke of themselves as well.
He was homesick. There was a yearning for what could no longer be: the house was gone, his family dead before their time, and Jasper thought he would give anything to have them alive once more. How could he measure his own happiness with Clara against the lives of his brothers and sisters? His life with Clara, it was true, was built on the ashes of what had been lost.
Yet it was more than that, as well. It was everything, from the way the sun rose over the mountain instead of the fields, to the different way they spiced their beer and the colors the women used to knit their shawls. Some days, Jasper could swear the sky was a different color and the clouds differently shaped. He was sick with it, for anything that smelled of home, tasted of home.
It lay deep down, in the fear of what this homesickness meant: was he not meant to stay in the north? Would this only end in despair for both of them?
A rough halt jerked him back to reality, and the blindfold was torn off as Jasper was pulled from the horse.
“Eat quickly,” Knox told him. “We’ve lost them for now, and lets you and I both hope it stays that way. And comfort that one.” A jerk of his shoulder indicated Cecelia, who was crying softly.
“Cecelia.” Jasper crunched over the leaves and broken sticks that covered the ground. His boots were filthy, he noticed, much like the shirt he was wearing and the pants that had seen far too much splattered mud.
“They’re never going to let us go, are they?” She brushed at her face ineffectually with her bound hands, and her tears began again.
“Cecelia, no matter what happens, Knox will get you to freedom.”
“And what about you?” she demanded of him.
At his white face, her own fell.
“No. Jasper, I can’t go home to Clara and tell her—”
“You may have to—”
“She’d never forgive me!” Cecelia’s voice rang with conviction. “She wouldn’t.”
“Cecelia, Clara and I both knew this might happen someday.”
“Did you?”
“...I did,” Jasper said finally. “You don’t just defect, Cee. They come for you.”
“But you... I mean, you saved...” She looked at him helplessly.
“A—” No, he could not call Solomon a Union soldier, not here. “You know what he was to them. And Cee, they must never know about him.”
“Of course.” She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. “They’re looking for him too, aren’t they? I’ve been so stupid.”
“Nothing about what you’ve done has been stupid,” Jasper said softly. The others were still walking, trying to ease the pain of muscles too long kept in the saddle. The glares and whispered threats of the first two days had given way to occasional glowers; no one thought to watch the prisoners closely now, even Knox had drifted away.
“You’re coming back with me,” Cecelia said, barely a tremor in her voice to show that this was bravado. “I’m not going to let you get killed.”
“Cecelia...” Jasper wanted to laugh, or cry. “Do you think I deserve that?”
“What?” She shook her head. “You’re going to be my brother, you said you were going to be. I can’t leave you to die!”
“I have to stand trial,” Jasper told her heavily. “Everything they’re accusing me of, Cecelia, I did it. I left my brothers in arms when they desperately needed my help. I gave aid the Union. I...left my people, and became a Yankee. Yes. I saved your brother’s life, but that is only another in the litany of my crimes.”
“You think that? You truly think that?” Her face was growing white with fury. Truly, Cecelia was more like her sister than either of them knew. Oh, for certain, Clara had once been the headstrong one and Cecelia the timid one, but the younger sister was more confident every day. “Let me tell you something, Jasper Perry, if you think that saving—”
“I don’t. I would do it again in a heartbeat.” Jasper took her hands in his, both of them clasping fingers awkwardly around the ropes, and met her eyes. “Please, Cecelia, try to understand.”
“Understand what?” she hissed at him. “That everything you say would have me leaving you here while you wound up in the south again, and Clara alone with a broken heart?”
“Sometimes men have to pay for their crimes, no matter who loves them! Cecelia, didn’t your brother learn that too?”
She stared at him, struck dumb by the sentiment, and Jasper shook his head.
“I don’t want to go back.”
“That’s a lie.” She did not spit the words at him, only said it as if she were reciting her times tables. “I’ve seen you recently, you know, staring into the woods, always alone. You told me before that you would get home to Clara, but I don’t think you’re sure—I don’t think you even want to be sure. Sometimes, when they aren’t all glaring at you, you look at home with them. Well, I’ll tell. When I get home, I’ll tell her the truth about what you are.”
“You’ve never been away from your homestead!” At last, Jasper felt his temper beginning to slip. So what if she had seen? He would not apologize for missing his family. “If all you had left was ashes and memories, if you had not seen the orchard or the barn or your bedroom for years and you could never go back. Then, even if you had someone you loved, would you not grieve what you had lost?”
She did not speak. Her mouth was hanging open, and even at the sight of her shocked face, Jasper could not stop.
“I love Clara. I love her more than anyone in the world and I would never betray her. But you, everyone, even she, you all think I must be one or the other, southern or northern, Confederate or Union. You think that to miss my home is treason, just like they think helping a wounded man was treason! Well, I never asked for any of this.”
“I never thought—”
“You did. Ever since I lived with you, every one of you has wanted me to accept the Union as my home, and maybe it is now, but you expect loyalty down to my thoughts. You try to tell me what is right, and I... I cannot bear to keep being shoved into a box and told I can only be one thing, ever. That I can never miss what used to be. I never asked to love a woman far from my home. I never asked for my home to be destroyed. I have lost more than you could ever know, and I will forever regret that you got caught up in this, but do not dare tell me that I am not loyal to your sister because I miss my people.”
“Very interesting,” said Robert Knox’s voice.
Jasper froze, his veins turning to ice.
“So she’s not your wife, after all. Is it still your child she’s carrying then?”
She’s not even pregnant. Better that they thought him faithless, than he take what little protection Cecelia still had. Jasper hung his head, biting his tongue.
“Well, we’ll find out soon enough. Along with all the details of this Union soldier you saved.” His tone dripped with fury. “Back on the horse, Perry. I don’t think anything’s going to save you now.”
Chapter 8
“You sure this is going to work?” Solomon crawled low to the ground to Ambrose’s side.
“No.” Ambrose glanced over at him.
“What?”
“You’re asking me to help you rescue two people from the clutches of twenty well-armed militia. Our odds of success are slim at best. So, no. I am not, to quote you, ‘sure this is going to work.’”
Solomon paused, holding back a rejoinder. Over the past day, he had found himself becoming more and more comfortable in Ambrose’s company. The man’s tongue was sharp, but always with a hint humor that Solomon found refreshing. Had they been two men sitting in a tavern, he would have been quite pleased to spend an entire afternoon in conversation.
Except they were not two men in a tavern. They were a spy and a traitor, shortly to be a spy and a dead man, and Solomon just wished he could make himself understand that Ambrose was far, far from being an ally.
“So why’re you here with me?” Solomon asked him quietly.
Oddly, Ambrose looked away.
Solomon brought his eyebrows together. Had the man blushed?
“Because a man of honor is an unusual thing to find these days.” His voice was muffled against the leaves so that Solomon had to lean close to hear. When he turned back, Ambrose’s face was so close they both drew quickly away. “And a man of honor, who might also be a traitor, is a puzzle I wish to solve,” the spy finished softly.
“I’m just a puzzle to you?” For some reason this disappointed Solomon.
Ambrose opened his mouth, then shut it. “Every man is a puzzle,” he said finally. “Some are simply more interesting than others.”
“No less than I should have expected from a spy.” Anger beat in Solomon’s chest. Why, he could not say. Perhaps his mind had finally remembered that this man would shortly hand him over to be hanged.
That, his mind whispered, is not it.
He was tired and hungry. That was it, Solomon told himself, and shoved away any thoughts that might say otherwise. He shoved away too the way he wanted to take the words back when he saw the fleeting hurt pass over Ambrose’s features.
And yet, for all of Solomon’s anger, Ambrose had been fair to him. Solomon had sworn his intentions not to run, and he had no wish to, but he had never for a moment thought Ambrose would believe him. Still, the man had not bound his hands as they rode, or as they slept. He had not taken Solomon’s rifle or knife. However sure he was of Solomon’s guilt, as he might be, Solomon had to admit; the man was also sure of the promise.
Neither did he ask about Solomon’s guilt. Several times now, Solomon had seen the questions in his eyes and at the tip of his tongue, but the strange man always hid the words away, as if respecting a request for peace. It very nearly made Solomon feel guilty, given that he had only withheld the information, knowing the other wanted the truth. He was not quite foolish enough to spit out everything now, but seeing Ambrose quell his curiosity always prompted Solomon to speak.
So, speak they did. Not of the trial that was to come, or Solomon’s time in the war, but of inconsequential things: Beauty’s breeding, and the type of apple trees they had planted in the orchard. Ambrose did mention, but then did not speak of it again, his elder brother, carried away by treachery. He did talk about a younger sister, his voice so wistful that Solomon almost thought he might be the one speaking, around a campfire on the march to battle, and he felt a strange dislocation in time.
For certain, if the young woman had half the grace of her brother, Ambrose, and the same delicate bone structure, she would be a beauty. Solomon let his thoughts drift to this strange woman and imagined her slim and lithe, as tall as Ambrose and yet elegant enough that men would still fall all over themselves to be seen with her on their arm. Although if she had Ambrose’s wit, perhaps they would not court her for long. That thought, oddly, made him angry; he seemed to be made of offense and resentment these days.
He shook his head to clear it.
“Well, they’ll be asleep soon enough,” he said shortly. The two of them had pushed the horses hard to circle wide around the Confederate party—a risk, but Ambrose had been certain of their path, and had been correct in his assumption.
Ambrose only nodded.
They waited, and as the sun set, a wind rose in the trees, rattling the branches and causing the birds to take flight in great choruses of calls and flapping. Solomon, who detested wet clothing as much as the next man, found him wishing for a thunderstorm for the first time. Chaos could only help them.
So absorbed were they both in waiting, they di
d not hear the footsteps until it was far too late. As Solomon felt his heart leap and he scrambled around on the hill, the soldier’s face went blank.
As well it might. They had brought soldiers on this mission who served with Jasper, and those who served with Jasper, had served with Solomon. Or rather, they had served with—
“Horace?” James Danielson asked softly. His face as white as if he had seen a ghost.
“Hello, James.” Solomon did not dare dart a glance at Ambrose. His pulse was pounding, and he could not fathom why the man was not reaching for his gun. He could not waste time now wondering also what Ambrose made of all of this.
“You come for Jasper too?” the man asked doubtfully.
Solomon stayed silent, too unsure of himself to know why the man was not firing, and too worried to let things spin out of control now.
In a rush, James’s words came again: “Was he the one, then? Did he kill you? Said he buried you. Said you were too wounded. Do ghosts carry wounds?”
For a moment, Solomon could have laughed with relief. So they had been looking for him as well. If he had not been so consumed with his own danger, he would have seen it at once. Jasper, who might have won a little comfort from sharing Horace’s true name, had proclaimed him dead and gone, out of the Confederacy’s reach.
Bloody Jasper... Solomon’s breath caught in his throat. He shook his head. “He would have brought me to the infirmary, but I told him the wound was too grave. If he is the one who set me to rest, you must thank him for me.”
“I...”
But at just the wrong moment, a branch gave way beneath Solomon’s weight, and the illusion fell to pieces. No spirit would so disturb the forest, for a spirit would walk with no sound beyond his voice.
“He lied again.” Danielson’s face closed off at once. “You’re just like him, aren’t you? A turncoat.”
Ambrose did not snort. He did not make a sound. But Solomon felt his amusement as clearly as if the man had shouted.
“Danielson, listen to me—”
“No.” The man raised his rifle, and then, to Solomon’s horror, raised his voice and yelled. “They’re here! They found us!”
