It was a cold day, the sky was cloudless and the sunlight slanted low and bright onto the bushes. She took the bays off the road onto the wide, flat verge, and let them go into a trot. Their breath whipped back past their gleaming flanks. Her spirits rose with the speed.
She let them go faster. The ground here was quite level, quite safe, free of hidden stones that could tip a fast-moving phaeton and smash it to tinder. She shook the reins again and it seemed to her that she rode a chariot in the sky. The bushes blurred as she went past them, she felt the joy of it, the excitement of it, the reins quivering against the tension of her forearms, and she let the horses go faster still.
The wind put tears into her eyes and lifted the cord of the whip. She thought the speed might even pluck off the fur bonnet that was pulled so low over her ears and about her face, but still she shouted at the horses, laughed, and felt the pure exhilaration of the speed.
The Reverend Horne Mounter, dining in the Earl's rooms last week, had explained the scientific fact that there was an absolute celerity beyond which a human body could not travel.
The Earl, sitting up in bed, and grumbling about an itching in his mended stump, had opined that such a scientific fact was garbled mumblelarkey.
The Reverend Mounter had laughed politely and complimented the Earl on his spitchcock'd eel.
'Always liked eel,' the Earl said. His thin face had been flushed. The room had a sour smell in it, a smell of sickness. At least, though, he was sober. Campion had cut more of her father's food, then smiled at the rector.
'An absolute celerity, Reverend Mounter?'
'Indeed so, my Lady.' The Reverend Horne Mounter swallowed his mouthful of eel and helped it with some of the Castle's best claret. 'At speeds, they say, in excess of one equivalent to thirty miles in an hour, it is certain that the blood of the body would be driven by the excessive motion to the rear of the body. Unless, of course, one was travelling backwards, in which case it would be driven to the front of the body!' He demonstrated this fact with copious movement of his plump, white hands. 'Starved of the blood the front, or back, half of the body would die! It's quite certain!'
'It's quite fiddlededee!' the Earl had said.
Now, her wheels spinning and bouncing on the frost-hard turf, Campion shook the reins again and let the horses go into a gallop. She wondered how fast they travelled and whether the tingling on her skin was the blood being driven backwards by the celerity of the carriage. She laughed aloud at the thought, and as she laughed, so she saw the shape rise from the gorse to her right.
She stood no chance.
The man ran at the bays, shouted, and hurled a thick bough of dead gorse at their feet. They swerved, Campion leaned on the reins, felt them sawing at her wrists, but the horses had panicked to their left and dragged the light carriage onto the uneven road.
The wheels of the phaeton bounced, slammed down, and caught on the thick, frost-hardened rut at the road's centre. Campion shouted at the horses, pulled the right reins, and then the front left wheel splintered in shards of varnished, gleaming wood and the carriage crashed down, dug in its spinning axle hub, and Campion was thrown clear, by a miracle the reins uncurling from her hands, and she screamed because the phaeton seemed to be falling on top of her, but it lurched back, was crashing past, and she fell onto the grass of the road's centre, the breath driven from her body, and she heard the horses slowing as the tangled, broken mess of the phaeton dragged them to a stop.
The man laughed.
Campion's right hand was on one of the splintered spokes of the wheel, fractured in the crash so that the varnished wood, picked out with yellow paint, was now sheared into a wicked point of fresh timber.
There was pain all over her. She was dazed, but she swung the feeble weapon at the shape above her, kicked, but then her makeshift spear was held and a foot was clamped heavily on her ankle.
The man's breath rasped loudly in his throat.
For a second he did not move.
Her vision cleared. She could not see him at first, so bright was the sky about his head, but she could smell him. He pulled the broken spoke effortlessly from her hand and tossed it far into the gorse.
He chuckled hoarsely as he knelt beside her. She struck at him with her right hand, but he caught her wrist and forced it to the ground, then seized her left wrist. She saw his face and screamed.
He was unshaven. There was an open sore by his right eye. He looked like any vagabond, any tramp, except that his skin was oddly pallid as though he had been in a sunless prison. His face was scarred by old boils. His hair was lank, littered with straw ends, and his mouth, as he leered at her, was filthy with blackened stumps of teeth. His nose was flat and crooked, as though it had been broken repeatedly. He felt hugely strong to her. She had a glimpse of a great barrel of a belly, dirty where his rags gaped to show a red boil, and she lashed out with her right boot, sobbing, but he put his knee between her thighs, pinning her by the skirts, and his spittle dribbled onto her face as he leered above her.
'You be nice to me, you be nice! I'll make it easy on you if you be nice to me, girly!' He laughed as she tried to kick at him. 'Don't do no good fightin', girly. I be one of the Fancy, I was.' As if to demonstrate his point he let go of her left wrist, and his fist, that had been bruised, skinned and broken by the bare-knuckle fighting so loved by the gentry, slammed into her belly.
The breath was pushed again from her, she lay helpless, pounded by the blow, and she felt the vomit rise with the panic.
She could not move. The blow had hurt her. He let go of her other wrist that hurt from his cold grip, and pushed her woollen cloak away from her body. He laughed. 'Pretty.' He moved his knee, grunted, and hauled her skirts up. 'Oh, pretty! Pretty!'
She screamed as he touched her thighs, lashed at him with both hands, but he just laughed and caught her fists, and held both her slim wrists in the huge grip of his left hand. She felt as if her wrists would snap as she tried hopelessly to pull away from him.
She was powerless. She tried to kick at him as he fumbled with frost-chilled fingers at the string which held up his ragged trousers, but he just laughed at her feeble efforts. 'You be good, girly!'
She twisted, jerked, and could do nothing. Her thrashing dislodged the collar of her cloak and the man saw the gleam of the gold chain she wore at her neck. He had untied his trousers and now he reached for the chain.
He tugged the chain free, his fingers scrabbling at her throat, and she twisted away, the sickness thick in her gorge, and then he let go of her wrists, gripped the cream linen dress she wore beneath her blue, fur-lined cloak, and jerked her with savage force as he tore the dress down to her waist.
He hit her hands out of the way, hooked his fingers on her petticoat, and she screamed again as he tore at it. The force of his tearing hands lifted her body from the grass and, as the petticoat ripped open, she fell back, screaming and sobbing.
He was kneeling over her, straddling her body, and she could feel his spittle dripping on her cold, naked breasts. His nose was running, dribbling to his mouth. He was laughing, the laughter choking in his slavering throat, and he forced her hands aside to look at her body and he laughed. 'Pretty girly, pretty, pretty girly.' He held her arms on the ground.
'No!' She screamed. 'No! No!'
He leaned back, the better to see her, and she could smell his breath like ordure and hear the air rasping in his throat. He let go of her arms and she clasped them over her breasts and then she felt his hands tugging at her waistband and she struck at him and he slapped her stingingly on the face. 'You be good, girly! You be good!'
She tried to kick him, but his weight was on her thighs, and he laughed as he took from somewhere in his rags a small, rusted knife and began to saw at the dress's belt. His trousers had fallen to his thighs. He grunted as he ripped at the cloth, beat her hands aside again, and cursed as she twisted desperately and the tangle of cotton and linen snatched the small blade from his hand. He thumped his fist onto he
r bare belly to make her quiet. His orders were to disfigure her, to scar her, to pox her, to scab her, to make her a thing that no man could ever desire. He fumbled for the knife, impatient to cut her clothes off, then, losing patience as she twisted so desperately beneath him, he raised himself up and simply pulled her skirts above her waist and forced her legs apart. 'You be good now, girly! You be good!'
She screamed in despair. The scream sobbed helplessly as she twisted and then, from nowhere it seemed, came rescue. Into her lonely place of horror came help.
It came with a shout, with the thunder of hooves, with a cry of alarm from the man who pawed at her and who suddenly scrambled away, gibbering and shouting, and Campion clutched her torn clothes to herself, rolled over, and it seemed as if the air was filled with the noise of hooves, the shadow of a great horse that pounded within inches of her head and she had a glimpse of a mounted man who held a streak of light in his hand.
'No!' her attacker shouted. His shout was one of pure, sudden terror. He stumbled, one hand holding his trousers, the other warding off the sudden brightness of the long sword. Campion's eyes were closed. Over the thunder of hooves, over her attacker's cry for mercy, she heard the hiss of steel in air. Then silence.
Except it was not silence. She could hear the hooves on the grass. She could hear the creak of a saddle, the chink of a curb chain.
She pushed herself to her hands and knees. She vomited.
'Madam?' The voice was crisp, educated, and solicitous. 'Dear Lady?' The man had dismounted, had come close to her.
She shook her head. Her breath came in huge, stomach-heaving gasps. She was on all fours and she could see the scraps of her cream coloured dress hanging down by her breasts. A small, rusty knife was on the ground beneath her. She sobbed.
She screamed as something touched her, but the man's voice was gentle. 'Quiet now! Quiet! Gentle, dear lady!' A great cloak was dropped about her shoulders, a cloak that enveloped her. It smelt of horses. The man's voice was soothing, as if he spoke to an unbridled colt. 'Quiet now. Gentle now!'
Slowly she knelt up, clutching her own and her rescuer's cloak about her torn clothing. Her fur bonnet had fallen on one side of her face and she shuddered as she felt his hands put it back into place, but his touch was gentle and she was glad of it.
'Dear lady?'
She looked up.
Her rescuer was in uniform. The sight was somehow astonishing. Here, on this lonely heath, was a cavalryman in his finery, a blue jacketed and breeched uniform, bright with red facings and gold lace and looped with frogging and sword slings. An embroidered sabretache swung at his side. Small gold chains hung from his epaulettes. His voice was anxious. 'Are you hurt, dear lady?'
'Only in my pride.' It came out as a squeaking sob. She tried to say it louder, then saw the man who had attacked her.
He lay dead. He could not be alive. His dark rags and his lank hair were red with blood. His trousers were about his thighs. His neck had been half cut through by a great sword, steel bright, blood stained, that her rescuer had plunged into the turf. The man had died in an instant.
Campion's breath came in huge gasps. A gobbet of blood, thick as honey, trickled down the sun-reflecting brightness of the big sword. Vomit retched in her throat and she forced it back.
The cavalryman turned to look at his victim. 'I shouldn't have killed him.'
She frowned. 'Sir?'
'He should have hung.' Her rescuer's voice was suddenly full of outrage. 'God damn him. He should have hung!'
Oddly it seemed funny to her. She gave a choking laugh. She knew she sounded hysterical, but she could not help laughing and crying and sobbing at the same time.
The cavalry officer crouched beside her. 'Gentle now! Gentle!'
She shook her head. She swallowed. She took a great gulp of air. 'I'm all right, sir.' It came out as a sob again and she forced calmness into her shaking voice. 'I thank you, sir.' The words made her cry.
The cavalryman took from his sleeve a handkerchief, offered it to her, then realized that both her hands were gripping the cloaks to cover her nakedness. He seemed embarrassed by her tears and stood up. He went to the sword, plucked it from the turf, and cleaned the bright blade with the folded handkerchief. He had to scrub at the blood and, when he was done, he tossed the handkerchief away.
He turned back. She had stopped crying. She knelt on the grass and stared at him. He smiled reassuringly. 'My presence, dear lady, was most fortunate.'
'Indeed, sir.' She managed to say the words clearly. Everything seemed unreal, yet slowly the universe was putting itself back together. She could see the chalk scars on the earth ramparts of the old fort, the shadows of the gorse, the black blob of a missel-thrush nest in a bare, stunted elm.
He smiled at her. 'I'm travelling to Shaftesbury. Someone said this was a short cut.' He pushed the sword back into the scabbard, the steel ringing on the metal throat. 'My servant's following tomorrow.' He seemed to be filling the silence with inconsequential words. She nodded.
'You were alone?' he asked.
'Yes, sir.' She swallowed. The world seemed to want to spin about her. She closed her eyes. In her mind's memory she heard the thick chop of the blade in flesh.
The cavalryman went to look at her phaeton and she opened her eyes and turned to see him unbuckling the harness and leading the miraculously unhurt bays from the wreckage. She was still on her knees. She was shaking. She wiped spittle from her mouth onto the collar of his cloak.
The cavalryman's hat had fallen off in his charge. The sun glinted on his golden hair and moustache. He had a round face, red from the cold, and she guessed his age close to thirty. He worked efficiently, tying the bays by their reins to the broken splinter-bar of the phaeton.
He slapped his hands together when he was done, then took big, white leather gauntlets from his belt and pulled them on. She saw that the right gauntlet was speckled with bright blood. He smiled. 'That's the horses looked after, now for you, madam.'
She felt the need to apologize. 'I'm sorry.'
'Dear lady! You're sorry! God! It's I that should apologize. A moment sooner and I might have stopped the whole damned thing.' He stooped beside the dead body and picked up the gold chain with its diamond drops. 'Yours? Hardly his, I suppose?'
He said it so lightly that she laughed. It was a slightly hysterical laugh.
He stood up, still holding the jewel, and bowed. 'My name is Lewis Culloden, Lord Culloden. Major in the Blues when the fancy takes me, which is not often.'
She looked up at him. 'Lady Campion Lazender, my Lord.' That too struck her as funny, to be introducing herself from the grass. She wished she could stop the hysterical swinging between tears and laughter. She wished she had brought dogs with her, that the groom had come, that the horrid man with his dripping nose had not pawed at her. She cried.
Lord Culloden let her cry. He waited till the sobs had faded. He cleared his throat and sounded astonished. 'You're Lady Campion Lazender?'
'Yes, my Lord.' She was ashamed of herself for crying. She was ashamed of it all. She obscurely felt that it was her fault, and that annoyed her because she knew it was not true.
'From LazenCastle, my Lady?'
She nodded. 'Indeed, my Lord.'
'My dear lady! Good Lord!' He seemed quite flummoxed suddenly, as if St George, having rescued the maiden, discovered that he was too shy to talk with her. He blushed. He looked at the crumpled figure on the turf. 'He must have been mad!' he blurted out.
She tried to stand, stumbling because she needed to keep her hands within the cloaks, and Lord Culloden came forward to take her elbow as though she was made of porcelain. She smiled her thanks. 'Do you have any water, my Lord?'
'Water?' He said it as if she had asked for the moon. 'Ah! Water! No. I have rum, my Lady?'
'Can I beg you for a sip?'
He walked to his horse and Campion felt another shudder of revulsion as she saw the bent neck and still body of her attacker.
'M
y Lady?' Lord Culloden nervously offered her a flask. She could not take her hands from within the cloaks; he seemed to understand and held the flask to her mouth.
She almost choked. She used the first mouthful to swill the sickness from her tongue, spat, and then she drank some of the crude spirit, and she saw her rescuer's smiling, anxious face and she felt a great rush of warmth and gratitude.
He led her to the phaeton so she could lean against the wrecked, tipped carriage. He smiled. 'How do we get you home? Can you ride?'
She nodded.
'And what were you doing alone on the blasted heath?' He was patting her bays' necks. 'I thought fair maidens stayed away from such places. Too many dragons!'
'Apparently,' she said. 'It has always been safe.'
'That's what King Harold said about Hastings.' He grinned. The sun was bright on the gold wires and lace of his uniform. 'Now, my Lady, you will ride my horse and I'll take yours.' One of the bays was shivering, the whites of its eyes showing. Lord Culloden ran his gauntletted hand down the horse's back. 'You're recovered enough, my Lady?'
She nodded. 'Indeed, my Lord, thanks to you.'
'Thank the rum, Lady Campion.' He smiled. 'Is it far to Lazen?'
'No, my Lord.' He was, she thought, despite his gaudy uniform, a plain, honest looking man. She could imagine him in a saddle for a day's hunting, a squire with a voice that could carry for two wet fields against the wind. He was obviously awed by this meeting with the daughter of one of England's great families. His eyes, slightly hooded, added a dash of humorous languor to his face, hinting that he might possess a wry wit. He was not, at first sight, a man of startling handsomeness, yet at this moment he was, to Campion, more handsome than St George and all the angels. She made herself stand upright. 'If we could go to Lazen, my Lord, I would be most obliged.'
A Crowning Mercy 02 Fallen Angels Page 7
