Fires of Delight

by Vanessa Royall

  You are never defeated unless you believe it, she thought once again. “I am glad for Lord Bloodwell,” she said. “He has won his heart’s desire, and he deserves it.”

  “And what is your heart’s desire, my fine young lady? A man? A castle? Is that all? You disappoint me. In time, the man will die. So will you. In time, the strongest bastion will crumble into dust. Even those paintings that I have created will some day fade and wither. No, a person like you must be driven by something more, by something timeless. Or am I overestimating you?”

  “What I want you could not give.”

  “Tell me, and we shall see.”

  “Freedom,” Selena said.

  “For yourself? That is easy. Just answer certain questions of a military nature that I am about to put to you now, and in no time you will be walking the streets of the city, free as air, and dressed in garments more suited to your beauty than those rags you have on—”

  “I do not mean freedom for myself,” she interrupted, “but for this country, and for the people in every nation who struggle against tyrants!”

  Selena spoke heatedly. She thought that Oakley would be angry. Instead, he simply shrugged and gave her a look that he probably meant to be understanding and indulgent. “You are very young. Your tyranny is my freedom and vice versa. I seek a world in which I am at liberty to honor my king and strengthen his empire. You and your bloody ilk would deny me such liberty. Thus I must crush your petty idea of freedom in the cause of a greater and more noble good.”

  “Who are you to say?”

  He smiled. “Because I sit here backed by the greatest empire the world has ever known, and you stand before me in a filthy dress.”

  “Your men took away my clothes—”

  “I’ll rip that dress off your back too, if you’re not careful. Enough of this.” He took up the quill again and dipped it expertly into the inkwell. “Where is General Washington going to attack?” he asked suddenly. “New York or Yorktown?”

  Too late, Selena understood that Oakley had been distracting her until now with questions and conversation of a vaguer nature. The dangerous part of this confrontation had come abruptly, and she was off-guard.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she replied, stalling for time as he gelid eyes bored into her.

  “Lie to me like this tomorrow,” he snapped, “and before you have time to take a breath I will scar you for life from temple to jaw!”

  Disfigurement. Selena felt a wave of nausea pass through her, and realized how long she had been-standing there. Her legs were beginning to ache; a hot flush of fear brought beads of nervous perspiration to naked skin beneath the clammy dress. Lieutenant Oakley knew exactly where and how to strike. Selena had imagined the prospect of pain, but not mutilation…

  “Naturally,” said the interrogator soothingly, “a woman as lovely as you will want to protect her appearance. One never knows how a man like Campbell would feel about bedding a hideous wreck of flesh…”

  He let his voice trail off ominously. Selena suppressed a shudder.

  “Let me make this a bit easier for you,” Oakley said. “I know that the French Count Rochambeau and his army are in Newport. I know that Washington and his men are north of here, in White Plains, New York. They will shortly join forces, ten thousand men in all. With that number, they could dislodge us from New York. But that would be but a partial victory. Our main battle force, under General Cornwallis, is in Yorktown, Virginia, along the Chesapeake—”

  Selena nodded. She knew all this. Royce had told her.

  “—and defeating Cornwallis,” Oakley continued, “would in effect bring an end to the war. But to attack Yorktown, Washington must cover a great distance. Besides which Cornwallis has a fleet in the Chesapeake Bay to support him. It would be stupid, even suicidal, for Washington to attack Yorktown without naval support of his own, and we have learned the hard way that the Virginian is neither stupid nor self-destructive.”

  “At least you have learned something,” replied Selena, managing a show of bravery.

  “Why did your renegade lover journey to Haiti earlier this year?” Oakley pressed, leaning forward and glowering.

  He’s guessed! Selena realized frantically. Royce had gone to Haiti as a messenger from George Washington to the French Comte de Grasse, who had anchored his fleet there awaiting instructions. France, even though under the burden of a monarchy that was in many ways even more oppressive than that of Great Britain, was striking at the English by supporting the colonial upstarts. And at this very moment, Selena knew, de Grasse was sailing northward to aid Washington in what was hoped would be the final battle in the war for American independence.

  At Yorktown!

  “Royce Campbell is a sailor,” said Selena. “That’s all.”

  “Hah! He is a gunrunner, a smuggler, a complete opportunist—”

  “He is not!” Selena cried.

  Yet once—it was true—he had been. Selena admitted it to herself. The Royce Campbell she had first known would not have troubled himself for one second over the outcome of a political struggle, let alone an enterprise without the two elements he cherished most: high adventure and monetary gain, not necessarily in that order.

  She believed that her dedication, her conviction, her own unyielding spirit had changed and gentled him.

  She remembered the Christmas ball in Edinburgh at which they had first met, Selena just seventeen. He had stepped out of the shadows at the edges of the vast ballroom and asked to be her partner in the Highland fling, a tall, lean, broad-shouldered animal of a man whose black-velvet dress coat and diamond-pinned cravat seemed out of place beneath a rugged visage and peremptory eyes. The fling was wild, as always, and the ever-strange, haunting whine of the bagpipes underscored the pace of the dance. About them, dancers shouted and leaped, whirled and spun. Selena had never felt as free, nor danced as well. All around the ballroom, dancers flashed and twirled, and when it came time for her and Royce to take their places in the circle, they had already become strangely mesmerized by motion and music, caught up in a dark attraction that was more than dance, more even than the physical magnet of their opposite natures.

  “Look at them,” someone shouted, as she and Royce Campbell danced toward then away from each other in the leaping steps of the fling. Selena felt the blood pumping from her heart, her lungs aching for air, but it was glorious. Her golden hair was flying, her body too, and her very soul screamed for joy.

  Royce had danced wonderfully too, with never a wasted motion, all economy and grace and style. And all about him, like an aura, was the glitter of the Campbell legend, of men who were more than mere men, of the timeless, moody penumbra of the Highlands. The Campbells were ready in the day, ready in the night, always ready for love or gold or glory. And if the wildest of them all had chosen her for this dance, what else might he have in mind?

  The music pounded on and finally dancers began to drop out from exhaustion, but she and Royce kept on, the audience shouting encouragement, clapping time. Her lungs were shrieking now, and every muscle in her legs begged for mercy. But if he could go on,, so could she. That is it, she had thought. We are both thoroughbreds. We are the best.

  Afterwards, he had led her out onto a balcony overlooking the North Sea. There, with the aurora borealis blazing in the enchanted winter sky, they clung to each other in the cold wind, and he kissed her for the first time. It had been the beginning of everything, of a love—she was sure—that not even death would be powerful enough to end…

  And Selena believed that she had changed him, not by curbing or taming the seignorial impulses of his matchless nature, but by using her love to evoke the compassion that had lain dormant in his heart until they met.

  Was she wrong?

  Lieutenant Oakley certainly thought so. “How much do you really know about this lover of yours?” he asked sarcastically, smoothing the feathers of a quill pen. “Did he ever tell you that an agent of mine approached him to spy for us?”

/>   “No, that’s not true!”

  “Yes, it is. It is true, my dear. And do you know how he responded? He said that we could not afford to pay him as much as the Colonials. That was, unfortunately, true. Lord North and His Majesty are men of economy.”

  Selena was about to reply that Royce accepted only expense money for his efforts—even General Washington was paid expense money by the Continental Congress—but then she saw the trap. Admitting such a thing would prove to Oakley that Royce was in the employ of the American revolutionaries. She bit her lip and said nothing.

  “Why did Campbell go to Haiti?” her interrogator persisted. “Will Washington attack New York or along the Chesapeake?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Oakley let the silence linger. He pulled a chubby gold watch from his coat pocket and looked at it. “Time runs short,” he said. “You know, Selena, I had intended to verify your answers by questioning other prisoners before I conversed with you again. I am not a man who enjoys inflicting pain, and until one has a feeling for the habits and intelligence of a witness, torture is inadvisable. The victim will say anything to mislead the interrogator and to avoid agony. That is not good, and the subsequent information is often unreliable. But I think that you are lying through your pretty teeth.”

  He fixed her with his awful stare. “Would you lie with no teeth at all?”

  “I am not lying,” replied Selena, her mouth dry. The muscles in her legs were screaming. She tried hard not to sway.

  “Corporal Bonwit!” Oakley called loudly.

  The door swung open and Bonwit appeared. “At y’ suvvice, sir!”

  “Take the prisoner to the Room of Doom. She has been particularly uncooperative, and events compel me to accelerate the procedure.”

  “No,” gasped Selena, in spite of an effort to maintain her composure.

  “Ah!” Oakley smiled. “You wish to answer my questions, do you?”

  “I know nothing,” Selena said, faltering.

  “Selena, Selena. Is there not a bond between us? We both respond to beauty. Why can we not share a love of truth as well? You cannot elude me, you cannot evade me. I shall pursue you, as it were, down all the corridors of time. Once you feel the bite of the whip, our union shall be consummated. I had wished it to be a bond of understanding, not of pain. But—”

  Oakley let his voice trail off. “So be it,” he said, lifting a hand languidly and letting it fall. “Corporal, ready the prisoner for what she has chosen. I shall join you in a moment.”

  “Why couldn’t y’ ’ave told ’im what ’e wanted t’ know?” whined the corporal, as he led Selena from the room. “I’ll ’ave t’ be there t’ take down your answers, an’ the wails an’ the cries turn m’ bowels all t’ mush.”

  Afraid herself and preparing for the worst, Selena still retained the wit to notice that Bonwit was genuinely upset. He had even forgotten to force the blindfold upon her. They walked in the open air. She saw the low buildings of New York spread out along the harbor, and the great houses along the Battery, one of which had been her own such a short time ago. (Sean Bloodwell had risen quickly in America, had become a prosperous merchant before his elevation to the British nobility.) The sun was large in the sky, gloriously warm, but falling across the plains of New Jersey to the west. It would soon be evening.

  “Y’ know, I…I take a likin’ to ye, Selena,” Bonwit babbled. “If there be some way I could get ye out of this…”

  Unlikely. Selena looked over the battlements of the fortress. She was about forty feet above the waters of New York Harbor, and it was at least fifty yards from the fortress to the piers along the shore. Quite a dive. Quite a swim. Broad daylight.

  But she could attempt it.

  “If you were to turn away for a moment—” she suggested.

  The corporal shook his head. “No kin do, missy, no kin do. Or it’ll be me a’screamin’ in the Room of Doom. Why couldn’t ye ’ave just told ’im what he wanted t’ know?”

  Loyalty, thought Selena. Loyalty to a cause, and to the people who served that cause. But loyalty is a double-edged sword, and she understood that Bonwit had his own neck to think about. Just before he guided her through a stone gateway, back into the gloomy interior of the fortress, she saw a small rowboat approaching the prison. It was filled with red-coated soldiers. They seemed excited, enjoying themselves, and she thought for a fleeting instant how wonderful it would be to be free again.

  They passed down a long flight of flagstone steps and walked along a stony corridor, lit gloomily by waning torches in rusty sconces attached to the dripping walls. Selena’s mind was racing. I could tell Oakley that I don’t know anything, she thought, and stick to it—if I can—until he tires of me. Or I can hold out as long as possible, and then confess that Washington plans to attack New York…Oh, God, Royce, where are you? Think of something, Selena. Think of something to distract your body when the pain begins. Yes, think of Royce, of holding him again…

  Oakley’s accusation that Royce was nothing but an opportunist niggled at the back of her mind. The lieutenant was deucedly clever. He knew how to attack the very foundation of personal assurance, which is faith. Strength may come from faith in a god, an idea, a nation, or a person. But when one is alone and endangered, thoughts for the safety of one’s special being have a way of usurping noble causes one reveres in safer times.

  Coldstream! The thought of her home came to her in a flash. Yes, Coldstream Castle. Think of it, of its gardens and its magnificent courtyard, of its chapel and library and towers and mighty walls. The rightful heir to Coldstream shall not yield! vowed Selena. And even if I die my spirit will return there.

  But how much better to return alive!

  Her spirit flagged, however, when, with a gulp, Corporal Bonwit reached up and twisted a sconce on the wall. Great stones slid soundlessly aside, revealing a door that opened into a chamber Selena could not have conjured in her darkest dreams. She exhaled in terror as he shoved her inside, and knew, as the stones slid back into place behind them, why this horrible cavern was called as it was.

  The Room of Doom was half-cave, half-grotto. Chains and iron manacles were embedded in one wall. Clubs and whips, pincers and tongs of all sizes hung from pegs on another. Thick ropes dangled from the high, curved stone ceiling. A squat wooden chair and a long, odd wooden table, both equipped with strange pulleys, gears, and levers, caught Selena’s eye. A coal fire burned in a grate at the far end of the chamber, the coals being stirred with a red-hot poker by a hooded figure who rose slowly and turned toward the two arrivals.

  “Bonwit, ye dolt!” growled the hooded man, glaring at the corporal through eye slits in the ghastly shroud. “Ye forgot the bloody blindfold.”

  The corporal babbled apologies. “Lieutenant Oakley’ll be jinin’ us at any moment,” he stammered.

  The man seemed to nod—because of the hood it was difficult to tell—and stalked toward Selena. He thrust the fiery poker toward her face and she leaned away.

  “What have ye done t’ bring yuhself here?” he asked without rancor, without, indeed, any feeling except possibly a professional interest.

  “Nothing. I—”

  “Save yuh breath. Ye all say the same thing. I’ve heard it all before. Did Lieutenant Oakley say what he wants t’ use on her?” he asked Bonwit.

  “N-no…” managed the Yorkshireman.

  The hooded man regarded Selena studiously through the slits in his hood, as if she were a piece of stone to be examined before sculpting.

  “Pretty,” he said. “Y’ poor thing. Tell ye what. ’Tis out of me ’ands what Oakley chooses fer ye, but I’ll hoist ye fer the lash, an’ maybe he’ll let us get away with it for a time. There’s other things far worse. Ye’re not made for pain, an’ I’ll try not t’ hit ye too hard. But ye better confess whatever it is ’e wants t’ know, or things’ll be out of my control.”

  Before Selena could respond, or even consider the strange nature of what this hooded figure probably t
hought to be charity, he had dropped the poker, thrown a loop of rope around her wrists, tossed the other end of the rope over a wooden beam, and pulled her up so that her toes barely touched the floor. The muscles in her legs, strained from standing so long in front of Oakley’s desk, began to ache even more. Very quickly, her stretched arms started to hurt as well.

  “Please, just lower me a little bit.”

  “Best I kin do, lassie. An’ don’t say that when Oakley comes. ’E’ll make me raise you in the air.”

  Gulping, Bonwit sought parchment and quill. The hooded torturer selected a whip as if he were examining and discarding apples. It took every ounce of Selena’s strength to maintain even a shred of courage.

  Then Lieutenant Oakley entered, walking heavily and breathing into his scented silk handkerchief. He looked disappointed when he saw her drawn up.

  The hooded man swished the whip a time or two and bowed obsequiously. “All ready, sar,” he said, “as ye kin see.”

  Oakley seemed to consider some of the other procedures he had mentioned in his office. “All right. Time is of the essence. Bonwit, write down everything I ask and everything she says.”

  “Yes, sir!” quavered the corporal.

  Oakley stepped in front of Selena. Their eyes were at a level. “You have brought this on yourself,” he said, as if pained. “Tell me, why did Royce Campbell journey all the way to Haiti?”

  Royce. Coldstream. Royce. Coldstream.