The Price of Honour

by Mary Nichols

  He sighed. ‘Have you not listened to a word I have said? He will take the opportunity to run back to his French friends.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘We will return to the British lines if that is what you want,’ he said.

  ‘You mean it?’ She could not conceal her delight.

  ‘Yes. We go together, all three, but Rufus Whitely goes in shackles.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said, realising that she had won a minor battle if not a complete victory, and the compromise would have to serve. ‘When do we start?’

  ‘Tomorrow, at first light.’ He paused. ‘You know it will not be easy? We have to pass through or round the French army and there will be times when we might have to fight our way out.’

  She laughed. ‘When have I ever ducked a fight? Just give me a good rifle and a strong horse under me, that is all I ask. I thrive on difficulties.’

  ‘Said like a true soldier,’ he said, taking her arm and leading her towards one of the houses where lights still showed in the upper windows. ‘Martin Davaco’s wife has offered you a room for the night and you must not keep her from her bed.’

  ‘What about you?’

  His chuckle of amusement made her feel suddenly carefree; as if a load had been lifted from her shoulders. His anger had dissipated and, though she did not think they would ever regain their old closeness, they could at least be friends, and it was no good wishing for more.

  ‘The idea of our sharing a room as we did in Ciudad Rodrigo would horrify the good people of São Jorge,’ he said. ‘They would fetch the priest from his bed to put matters right.’

  ‘It horrified Father Peredo too.’ She smiled. ‘He seemed to think we should do something about it.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I told him that we were companions, fellow soldiers, no more.’

  ‘Oh.’ He was silent for a moment, digesting this. ‘And did that satisfy him?’

  ‘I don’t know. I did not ask.’

  He stopped outside the house and turned towards her, putting a hand on her arm. ‘Olivia, I have compromised you and for that I am more than sorry. If, at any time…if you should wish…’

  She brushed his hand off and put her foot on the bottom step. ‘There is no need for you to do that,’ she said, her voice breaking with the strain. ‘I can live with what I have done; I feel no guilt.’ She did not wait for him to reply, but ran up the steps and knocked on the door, not daring to look behind her.

  He had been about to propose to her and she had stopped him! She had had to stop him. He would have been asking for all the wrong reasons and she would have been weak enough to accept him. She had been married twice before and both times for the wrong reasons; she could not let it happen again. She would not. The spectre of the unknown Juana haunted her.

  If her hostess noticed the unshed tears glistening in her eyes, she kept it to herself. She made her guest welcome and showed her into a tiny room at the back of the house which looked out on to the mountains, and left her to sleep.

  Sleep was almost impossible and Olivia was up as soon as it was light enough to see without a candle, washed and dressed in her old green skirt and blouse, topped by the now more than shabby blue coat, and made her way to the kitchen. Senhora Davaco was already up and about, putting together a parcel of food and a skin of wine for their journey. Olivia breakfasted on bread and honey and goat’s milk, thanked her hostess and joined the two men in the road outside the church.

  They were already mounted. Robert rode Thor and had Pegasus saddled and ready for her, with a rifle in a sling on her saddle. Rufus Whitely, she noted with relief, had been provided with a piebald horse and would not have to suffer the ignominy of riding into the British camp on a mule. He was bound with his upper arms tight to his chest, but his hands were free enough for him to hold the pommel of his saddle. Robert had the reins in his own hand. Both men seemed cheerful, as if relieved that their dilemma had been resolved, though they did not speak to each other. Robert and Olivia shook hands with those villagers who had come into the road to see them off, then turned their mounts to the south and the valley of the Mondego River.

  Not wanting to overtire the horses, they did not hurry. The day was bright and, once they had left the upper slopes, warm. Olivia was pensive; she was still thinking of the night before and Robert’s sudden change of plan and his equally sudden attempt to propose. Had he thought she had been asking him to marry her when she told him about Father Peredo’s comment? She had not meant that at all; she had simply been pleased that he was his old self and wanted to make him smile.

  They skirted round the towns because the French had left small garrisons in them in order to police the population and keep their supply lines open, but Robert had been given the names of Portuguese patriots who would shelter them and help them on their way.

  Two days later, the harsh outlines of the rocky peaks receded behind them and they found themselves journeying down on to a rolling plain covered with cork oak and eucalyptus and aromatic shrubs, white cystus and rosemary, thyme and lavender, interspersed with the broom which made the landscape look as though an artist had spilled a pot of yellow paint across a canvas. There were olive groves and cherry, pear and plum orchards and here and there, on south-facing slopes, terraces of vines, but every single one had been stripped of its fruit, and many were scorched by field fires.

  Once in the valley, they crossed the Mondego River, keeping a careful watch for stray French skirmishers, avoiding the main roads and using the tracks made by goatherds and shepherds when they drove their animals from the lower pastures up to the mountains in the summer and down again in the winter. But now there were no herds, no flocks and every village they came to was deserted. There were no people, no dogs, no cats, no chickens even, and all the crops had been destroyed. The countryside, which should have been teeming with abundant produce, was barren. There was nothing to sustain a company, let alone an army. Olivia was glad of the several days’ food they had been provided with.

  ‘They are fools,’ Rufus mumbled, ‘to do all this at the whim of a general and not even one of their own.’

  ‘Whim?’ she repeated. ‘They obviously do not think it is a whim. They trust Wellington.’

  ‘And where is he, then?’

  It was a good question. Wellington had moved even further back and she began to wonder if they might, after all, have to go all the way to Lisbon to find him. The prospect was not a cheerful one. Apart from the depressing thought that he did not mean to defend the country which relied on him so totally, she was more than exasperated by the two men, who said not a word to each other and addressed all their remarks through her. Many more days of it and she would explode.

  They began climbing again towards Gouveia where Robert had expected to come upon the British and Portuguese army, but they had seen no one but an ageing goatherd in the straw cloak which seemed to be the uniform of his trade; they might have been the only people in the world.

  At midday, almost a week after they left São Jorge, they stopped beside a stream to eat. There was very little food left and they had been supplementing their diet with small game, but Robert was reluctant to use what little ammunition they had in case they needed it to defend themselves, and they had to make do with hard bread and goat’s milk cheese. As soon as they had finished eating, he secured Rufus to a tree on the bank and picked up his rifle.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. She was always apprehensive when he left, as he often did to reconnoitre, knowing he trusted her to guard their prisoner while he was gone. It was all the more difficult because she did not look on Rufus as a prisoner.

  ‘To find the French. I need to know exactly where they are.’ He looked across at Rufus. The man seemed resigned to his fate, unmoving, staring into the water as it flowed over its rocky bed. ‘Keep an eye on him. The nearer we come to his friends, the more likely he is to want to join them.’

  Rufus looked up at her as Robert left, and smile
d. ‘How can you be sure he will not be the one to leave us? He did not want to make this journey, did he?’

  ‘You know perfectly well why that was.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You know he was cashiered. He feels the disgrace very keenly.’ She sat down a foot or two from him. ‘Captain Whitely, what happened? You know, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me, please.’

  He smiled and she felt a shiver of apprehension and began to wonder if she really did want to know after all.

  ‘We were in Lisbon, waiting for orders,’ he said. ‘And there was this senhorita…’

  ‘Juana.’

  ‘Yes, Juana.’ He smiled as if he could see the beautiful Portuguese girl in his mind’s eye. ‘Robert and I were rivals, always had been, right from boyhood, though, unlike the Honourable Robert, I was not blind to the kind of girl she was. He was besotted by her, would not listen to a word against her. He spent every off-duty moment with her and her family, taking them food and clothing and buying her presents.’ He paused and grinned crookedly. ‘He could afford to because, unlike me, he comes from a wealthy family.’

  Every word he spoke wrenched at her heart. That the cool, self-possessed Robert should feel such passion for someone else hurt her and hurt badly, but she had to go on listening. She wanted to understand. Sitting, with a pistol under her hand, on the banks of a stream somewhere in the Serra da Estrela, she was transported to the teeming city of Lisbon where, in spite of the war, there was still a civilised social life to be had with concerts, balls, visits to the theatre and shopping excursions. She could see it all. She looked up suddenly when she heard him laugh.

  ‘When Robert was on duty, then I met the lovely lady…’

  ‘Did Robert know that?’

  ‘Not at first. He need never have found out, but the silly bitch told him, threw it in his face and laughed at him.’ He grinned. ‘She had two brothers — rogues, they were, but he believed them when they said they were poor and hungry…’

  ‘They were not?’

  ‘Not they! Juana was a past master at persuading people to give her presents and her brothers ran a very good business selling the surplus. She was no more than a clever little whore…’

  ‘But were you not taken in too?’

  ‘Only at the beginning. Then I caught one of the brothers selling a brooch I knew Robert had given Juana and taxed him with it.’ His smile of self-satisfaction sickened Olivia. ‘He told me what they were doing, made me an offer too good to refuse. We joined forces and built up quite a profitable enterprise.’

  ‘From gifts?’ She was astonished.

  ‘Not entirely. Soldiers who had loot for sale found with us a ready market.’ He sighed. ‘’Tis a pity I lost the booty in Jeanne’s wagon.’

  ‘And Robert knew nothing about it?’

  ‘Love is blind, my dear, isn’t that what they say?’

  ‘And the army authorities, did they not know what was going on?’

  ‘Oh, they had an idea, but it was a question of catching the culprits red-handed. Then I found out they were getting too close for comfort; I had to do something about it.’ He paused, but she did not interrupt and he went on. ‘One day, when I knew the brothers were going to collect a consignment of flour…’

  ‘Bought and paid for by the army,’ she said sharply.

  ‘As you say. They were going to intercept it on the road. I felt it my duty to tell Captain Lynmount exactly where and when.’ He laughed harshly. ‘He rode out alone to stop them. I knew the chivalrous fool would not inform on them because of Juana.’

  ‘But you did.’ She could see it all now. Poor Robert. Poor, dear Robert.

  ‘It was my duty. He was caught carrying one of the sacks of flour.’

  ‘But surely he explained?’

  ‘The prosecution said he was taking it to the brothers’ wagon, while he maintained he had been removing it to return to the store. No one believed him. They knew how he felt about Juana, you see.’ He paused to watch her; she was looking down at the ground, unwilling to meet his eyes, but he knew she believed him. ‘He thought she knew nothing of what her brothers were about. Not until she laughed in his face and told him the truth did he realise what had happened, but he had been court-martialled by that time and was awaiting sentence.’ He stopped speaking, though his words still hung in the air, tormenting her.

  She felt her hand tighten on the pistol. Nothing would have given her greater satisfaction at that moment than shooting him. She lifted the weapon and weighed it in her hand.

  ‘Would that be wise?’ he asked mildly.

  She looked up at him, her eyes full of a dull hate. ‘What has wisdom to do with how I feel?’

  ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘But don’t you want to get his name cleared? I am the only one who can do that.’

  ‘Juana?’

  ‘In Salamanca.’

  ‘Her brothers?’

  ‘In gaol.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t. Would you?’ There was almost a plea in her question.

  ‘I might.’

  ‘For what consideration?’

  ‘I will think of something. But until then you need me alive.’

  ‘Alive!’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Alive but not necessarily well. I could…’

  ‘Tut, tut,’ he said. ‘For a lady, and an English lady at that, you sound more like one of those barbarous guerrilla friends of yours. That is the sort of thing Don Miguel Santandos would say.’

  ‘Don Santandos?’ She put the weapon on the ground beside her and noticed that her hands were trembling.

  ‘He is an even greater threat to me than you are,’ he said. ‘He will not listen to reason as you do. You and Robert Lynmount are my protectors as well as my gaolers.’

  ‘You!’ she said suddenly. ‘You were the one who betrayed the guerrillas to Colonel Clavier. It was you who was responsible for the death of Miguel’s wife.’ She stopped speaking and stared at him with loathing. The air was still, as if a storm was brewing; a cloud drifted across the sun and cast a shadow over the water. The old goatherd they had seen earlier was making his way slowly along the riverbank towards them, hobbling with the aid of a staff. ‘Robert was right all along,’ she said. ‘You are a traitor.’

  ‘I prefer to be on the winning side,’ he said, then laughed. ‘The pay was better too, especially when I produced the design of your father’s rockets.’

  She laughed, but her voice was cracked and it did not sound like her at all. ‘They were a failure.’

  ‘No matter. The French did not know that. And I thought what I did would please Juana, particularly after her brothers were imprisoned by the British authorities.’ He sighed. ‘I should have known better.’

  She smiled. He had not escaped Juana’s treachery either, but she could feel no sympathy for him. The sun came out from behind the cloud and their two forms were mirrored in the water again, sitting side by side as they had sat side by side on the tailboard of Jeanne’s wagon. How could she have been such a fool as to believe all his lies? Everything he had ever said was a lie. ‘You were never a British agent,’ she said. ‘There was no special assignment from Viscount Wellington…’

  ‘There you are wrong,’ he said blandly. ‘That I was sent by Viscount Wellington was the truth.’ He laughed suddenly and frightened a kingfisher hovering over the water; it abandoned its dive for fish and flew off, a flash of red and green. ‘He sent me to find Captain Lynmount.’

  ‘To find Robert?’

  ‘Yes, ironic, isn’t it? I was to fetch him back and tell him all was forgiven, his lordship needed him. You see, my dear, Robert Lynmount is one of the Peer’s best scouts, and as most of the others have been killed or captured he is needed, disgrace or no disgrace.’ He looked up idly at the goatherd, who was now only a few paces from them, and then down into the water. ‘I do believe there is a trout down there. I could fancy a bit of fish for supper.’

  ‘If you think I will release you on
so flimsy an excuse, you are mistaken,’ she said. ‘Once I might have done, but not now. Whatever sympathy I felt for you has gone and I marvel at Robert’s restraint in letting you live.’

  ‘He did it for you, my dear.’ He sighed melodramatically. ‘The man will never learn not to trust the fair sex. He believes in their essential goodness, Juana notwithstanding.’

  ‘And I am glad that he does.’

  ‘Even if it means he still loves her?’

  She did not want to answer that one and turned away to gaze along the path from which she expected Robert to appear. That she loved him she did not doubt, but neither did she doubt that all his thoughts and longings were tied up with the Portuguese girl, in spite of the way she had treated him. Men, she decided, could be even more perverse than women when it came to giving their affections to the wrong people.

  ‘Look!’ Whitely’s voice, coming in the middle of her reverie, made her jump. She turned to see him attempting to point at the water, though his bonds made it impossible. ‘There is a trout down there, under that rock. You could almost catch it with bare hands. It’s a beauty too.’

  Curious in spite of herself, she leaned over the bank to look. She could see nothing in the water but their two reflections and then they were joined by a third. The goatherd was standing behind them. In horrified surprise, she saw his bent form stand up straight and her mind registered how young and tall he was as he raised his staff above his head with both hands. Then there was nothing but darkness.

  She came to her senses with Robert leaning over her, calling her name in what seemed something akin to panic. He had a water-soaked cloth in his hand and was bathing her forehead. She smiled weakly. ‘Has he gone?’

  ‘Yes.’ He breathed a prayer of thanksgiving. ‘I should never have left you alone with him.’ He paused to smooth her hair from her brow with gentle fingers. ‘How do you feel? You’ve been out cold for an age.’

  She lifted a hand gingerly and winced as she felt the bump on her head. ‘A little dizzy, as if I’d drunk too much champagne.’