Exile’s Bane

by Nicole Margot Spencer

  “You will be his mistress? Does it not bother you to leave all you know?”

  “Bother me?” The neatly arched eyebrows rose. “No, I look to the future. I always have, Elena. It is one of the great differences between you and me. Though ye dream the future, ye dote on the present.” She distanced herself from me in a move around the table. “I am his mistress. I belong to him, heart, body, and soul.”

  “This will destroy your life.”

  She shook her head. “He is my life.”

  “So you plan to depart with him tomorrow? He is leaving in the morning, you know.”

  “Yea, I know.” She gestured at Annie, who remained on the stool, watching us intently. “Since Annie wishes to stay close to Duncan, her only relative, I was hoping we could go together. Would ye come with us? We could share a wagon.” She surveyed me doubtfully.

  “I will not.”

  “Ye are stubborn as an ox.” She studied me in dismay, her mouth prim and determined. “Ye love Duncan. When ye came to me in the hall just now, his love beamed all around thee, like a shining cloud because ye had been with him. I know. Why can ye not accept this, instead of ruining what ye have with Gorgon’s black-hearted presence?”

  “I could ask you the same,” I said with a difficult swallow, “about the prince’s future state bride.”

  “Ah, yes, thee could ask this.” Her eyebrows rose again, but this time her face assumed a look of reluctant righteousness. “But the prince and I are prepared for that duty, whenever it arises. Duncan, however, has not accepted Tor House as your bridegroom, nor should he have to.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Do not look at me with thy big jeweled eyes like that. I have thought about this. It comes down to belongings or love, Elena. My choice is made. I wish ye luck with yours.”

  I gasped. My hand fluttered uselessly on my chest.

  Annie’s mouth formed into a round, red bud of astonishment.

  A hasty knock rattled our door. I stiffened, went toward it, and opened it a crack. Duncan pushed his way in.

  “We have to go now,” he said, heavy insistence deepening his voice. Despite the heat, he was dressed for war in wide-topped riding boots, back and breast plates over his buff coat, and plumed hat in hand. His bridle gauntlet reached from the tips of his fingers to his left elbow, and his other hand rested on his sword hilt, which hung in its baldric at his side. “The prince has the earl and the steward in a strategy session in the library. The Manx guards at the postern gate have just gone to dinner. Wallace’s house guards have taken over for them. This is our chance. Use plain servant’s cloaks, all of you.”

  “I will stay,” Peg said. She stepped backward a few steps and shook her head.

  “The prince specifically placed your safety in my hands, Mistress Carey. You must come with us. You, Annie and Lady Elena.”

  Peg’s face lit up. “In that case, I will join thee.” She walked into her bedroom, calling out behind her, “We have Rosemunde’s good cloak and her old one.”

  “I have my own.” Annie crossed the room in her old hip-swaying manner and clasped Duncan’s gauntlet arm. “I want to go with you.”

  “The baggage train is not acceptable this time, Annie. It is too dangerous.”

  My recurring dream came to mind and, despite the heat of the day, I shivered.

  Annie’s face drooped in disappointment. Duncan enfolded her in his arms and comforted her. He patted her shoulder, hat hanging from his hand at her back. He uttered a low-voiced vow, of which I caught only a part. “. . . for our kin’s honor.”

  The blond head nodded within his embrace.

  I felt none of my former anxiety at Annie’s proximity to Duncan. I knew her too well now. She was as he had described her, a cousin with whom he shared a close relationship, their clan apparently the cement that bound them.

  “Where are we going?” Peg demanded when she returned from her bedroom.

  I gestured at Duncan, unsure at the moment of my feelings for him.

  Peg handed me the better cloak of the two she carried. We put them on quickly and pulled the hoods over our heads.

  “Lady Elena can tell you as we go,” Duncan said in a clipped tone of voice.

  I glared at him.

  “Come, hurry.” He waved us out the door with his hat as though we were a company of cavaliers under his command rather than women forced to flee without so much as a change of clothes.

  We met Captain Wallace, who had saddled our horses and led them out into the stable yard. Heat still radiated out of the parched earth, the stable itself a shadowed, steaming pit of hot manure and moldy hay. We mounted quickly, slipped out the postern gate, and made for the eastern tree line at the top of the depression Tor House inhabited.

  I had not expected Wallace to join us, but he was at our rear, where he watched carefully for any sign of pursuit. I dropped back beside him.

  “Are you certain you want to do this, Captain? It will be the end of your position at the house.”

  “The state of affairs is changing dramatically, my lady. I cannot support Gorgon.” He shook his head, his lower lip extended in grim dismay.

  My spirits rose, despite my concern about Wallace and Peg. Peg would not be running off with the prince any time soon, and Wallace had merely placed his loyalties where his heart had been all along. I would not fail him.

  For all my fears of leaving my home, the cool, dark night with its thin crescent moon, the heavily starred vault above us, and the homely comfort of the leather creak of saddles and girths around me gave me a surprising sense of freedom. Yet a deep-seated anxiety remained. My gaze frequently returned to the black horizon, back toward the fading lights of Tor House, for I was not certain of this flight that had been forced upon me. It was as though I strived against fate and could not win. I could not overcome the feeling as Kalimir took me resolutely onward into the night.

  We skirted ditches and hedges for sometime before moving out onto the desolate moor. Duncan came up beside me, our stallions snorting and blowing their displeasure at one another’s company. Wallace remained behind us.

  “The prince told me that Gorgon and your uncle were planning your wedding for tomorrow morning. That was part of their agreement regarding Gorgon’s new position at the house.”

  “Oh.” I raised my eyebrows and assumed a look of graceful interest, as though he spoke of a game of cards. “Is that why Wallace has deserted the house?”

  “Partly, yes. He is devoted to you.”

  “There can be no wedding,” I announced with assurance. “Marie Louise took the priest with her.”

  “Why would she do that?” he asked. He leaned toward me in the saddle, his mouth curved into a suppressed smile.

  “Father Theobald is her personal priest.”

  “That turns out to be convenient for you.”

  “She probably meant it as a barb against Gorgon, and perhaps against the earl,” I said, with a mischievous smile I could not contain.

  “So be it.” He straightened in the saddle. “The King has ordered Prince Rupert to march on York and engage the three enemy armies laying siege to that town.”

  “What you thought might come to pass has happened?”

  “It seems so.” Still riding close beside me, he compressed his lips and shook his head. “The prince has hesitated as long as he dares, here and at Liverpool.”

  “That does not sound like the prince. Is he not known for his quick actions?”

  “He is. His impetuosity is his detractors’ chief complaint. His current hesitation is not fear of the enemy, but wanting to be certain before he commits himself, that he will not have to break off his advance to rescue the King, who remains in the field.”

  “How can he be certain of such a thing, especially if it has happened before?”

  “That is just the problem. He cannot be certain, and it angers him. But the King’s order has overruled the prince’s doubt. Rupert has called in all the troops from the nort
h.”

  “So he is committed.”

  “Yes. And I must leave with him.”

  “You will return to me at the Ramsey’s?” I straightened, stiff in the saddle, yet shuddering within. How could I go on, having seen the details of where and how he faced death? This man I adored, needed, and whose body I so passionately desired—how could I stand it? I ached to hold him and be held, yet if ever there was a time to be strong, it was now.

  “The prince and I will return to you, Annie, and Peg at the Ramsey’s,” he said softly.

  “I see you are aware of their relationship,” I said staunchly. Had he felt my terror? I averted my gaze in an attempt to control the tears that threatened.

  “Yes. The prince confided in me earlier today. He cares deeply for Peg.”

  “Let us hope he keeps his pledge to her.”

  “He keeps his promises, Elena, as do I.” He studied me as Ajax shifted under him. “You seem so unhappy. There are black lines under your eyes.”

  “You have wrenched me from everything I know, everything I care about.” And I am terrified of losing you.

  “Because I love you and cannot stand to see you thrown away,” he said. Despite the night, the desire in his dark, gold-flecked gaze glowed, a longing that matched my own.

  “Your presence, your vital confidence, is all that makes this bearable.” I could not keep my lips from quivering. “I do not know what I will do when you leave me at this place.”

  “Deliberate,” he said. His white smile flashed in the dim starlight. “As only you can, to insure that I live to return.”

  “Speaking of that.” I nodded and took a deep breath. If I was going to do this, it had to be now. “I must tell you of my vision.” To interfere in what was to come could bring about all sorts of evils, the loss of my own life among them, for I had often heard the old women in nearby villages talk of the price a witch had to pay for tampering with the future. On the other hand, what would my life be worth without Duncan, Peg or the Royalist cause? This was my last chance to perhaps save them all.

  Duncan forced his horse closer to mine, our mount’s snorting protestations notwithstanding.

  “You must keep the Royalist musketeers out of hedges.”

  “What?” He looked a little frantic, reining in his horse, only to move ahead again. “I have no control over general troop movements,” he called back to me.

  “I understand.” Ajax sidled in beside Kalimir again. “But that is the start of it. I feel certain the future is upon us, for the dream is complete and repeats, night after night, in the same gruesome detail. Until a few nights ago, that is. I have not dreamed since then.”

  He sat straighter in the saddle, his hands clenched on the reins. His intense gaze dropped from my eyes to my mouth.

  “When the battle goes against you, you must stay close by the prince. I tell you this only because I know that is where you would want to be. For myself, for my love for you, I would keep you safe and draw you far away from the prince.”

  “What have you seen?” he insisted. He leaned toward me.

  “Without escort, at a vital moment,” I whispered. I looked around to be sure Peg did not overhear my words. “The prince will be encircled and captured by the enemy. Someone must be there to prevent it.”

  “Like you changed my death in Bolton?” he asked, after a moment’s consideration.

  “That was . . . different. I am not even certain I did it.”

  “Of course, you did.”

  “If one or more of his men are with him when the enemy surrounds him, they may be able to break out.”

  “I see.” He set his jaw and nodded slowly. The plumed feather in his hat waved at me in the near darkness.

  “Captain,” came Wallace’s crisp hail.

  We looked up and he pointed at a light spot far toward the east. The bright spot was too small and far too early for sunrise. An orange tint flared at its edges.

  “We need to move faster,” Duncan called out. “I am afraid it is the Ramsey house.”

  Within a mile, the light in the distance had grown and extended across a wide swath of the moor. It was fire of a magnitude I had never witnessed. By the time we arrived at the Ramsey compound, the old manor house among the trees on its rock-edged hill was in full flame, everything around it consumed and starting to blacken and wither into ash.

  Air rushed around us in the eerie, red-tinged dark, rekindling the devastating fire before us. The scent of ash and death hung heavy upon the rising breeze.

  Loud whinnies traveled from one horse to the other, their ears laid back. They were all uneasy, jerking at their reins and dancing about. We came upon a small burn and dismounted at its edge. We settled the horses, watered, and hobbled them against a high bank where they could not see the flames. I spoke gently to Kalimir for a few moments, then went to join the others.

  No one would stay behind, so hand in hand to keep together, we walked carefully across the uneven ground to the far edges of the hot crackle and lick of the overwhelming fire. Nothing in that huge cauldron of fire and ash so much as resembled a structure or even a tree. The stench of wind-driven, thick smoke, and of what I imagined to be burning flesh set us to coughing. We turned back.

  “No one could survive that,” Wallace said, between Peg and me, his hands lightly at our backs.

  We returned to the horses and coalesced into a warm circle in the cold wind. I turned back to watch the fire in the distance, when, a little off from the burning knoll, a wavering pink eye, that same glow of a matchlock fuse that had immobilized me on the Sheffington Road all those weeks ago, caught my attention. I extended my hand to point it out to Duncan. But he turned away. A shot rang out. At the same moment, a bonk sounded close beside me, and Captain Wallace let out a cry of pain.

  “Ricochet,” Duncan mumbled. He looked down in amazement at his dented breast plate, then up. “Captain?” he called out to Wallace.

  “I’m fine. A nasty graze is all.”

  Peg and Annie were beside him. The two of them insisted he allow them to see the wound. He grimaced and leaned over his hands. He had his right hand wrapped tightly around his left wrist, blood seeping through his fingers.

  “Everyone, down into the burn,” Duncan called out. Assured of Wallace’s life, he studied the darkness, his face rapt.

  There,” I said, still beside him. I pointed to the right of the great fire. “A second before the shot, I saw a lit matchlock fuse. The wind probably made it flare.”

  He flashed a glare me, then looked out to where I pointed.

  “Whoever they are, they may still be there. For me to see that burning cord, they cannot be far. . . .” My words trailed off, for Duncan was already in movement toward Ajax.

  “Stay here,” he said quietly over his shoulder. He pushed his hat down over his long locks, dark in the lowering light of the distant fire, and he mounted. “Get down in the burn, and for God’s sake stay together.” Bent over along the black stallion’s neck, he moved off into the windy darkness, instantly invisible. Even the soft sound of his horse’s hooves in the short, hardy grass ceased after a moment.

  I could not spot the pink eye again. Down in the soft depression at the edges of the small stream, Peg held Wallace’s bleeding hand. Annie looked on in concern, her yellow hair falling out of its pins and hanging over her ears in clumps.

  “Not too bad,” Peg said. “The bullet went straight through.” She had already stripped off and torn apart the lower edge of her petticoat. She went to the little stream and soaked two larger pieces in the dark water. She brought them back and carefully washed the open wound, hardly able to see what she was doing, though the distant fire cast a reddish pall over everything. She handed the remaining dry strips to me, and I wrapped the captain’s wrist tightly.

  “Don’t fret,” Wallace said as I worked.

  He, like I, must have seen Peg’s shaking hands and wild eyes. She had always been especially fond of Captain Wallace. She smiled and seemed to respo
nd to the captain’s fine voice. As well, I gave her a pat on the shoulder, knowing how she felt, for my limbs were equally unsteady.

  “You will do fine,” I said to our wounded captain. I tugged at his sleeve in childish affection.

  Even Annie rested her hand gently on his shoulder.

  Down in the stream bed, the four of us huddled together between the horses. Again and again, I stroked tall Kalimir’s heavily scarred shoulder to reassure him until he finally settled. I studied the sky, sorry I had never learned the names and shapes of the constellations. Two stars, close together in the expanse of the sky, winked at me . . . and were suddenly gone. I studied the dark firmament. Heavy cloud cover, of which the rising wind was a harbinger, already covered the thin crescent moon. Half the sky was pitch, starless black. Our long overdue storm was near upon us.

  My fears for Duncan began to nip at my false bravado, when noises came out of the dark. A single shot sounded, followed by furtive movements not too far away. Low voices strained over the keening wind. Another shot broke the night and some time later, all of us on alert, weapons drawn, Duncan rode into sight and down into the burn, still ahorse. He passed a heavy matchlock to Wallace.

  “I figure you own it now, since it wounded you. How is your hand?”

  “It hurts, but will heal nicely, I think.” Wallace nodded at Duncan with some urgency, more interested in what had happened, it seemed, as were we all.

  Duncan dismounted, took Wallace’s hand, and studied the neatly bandaged wrist. “I am relieved it is no worse than this.”

  “What did you find? Whose musket is this?”

  I moved toward him, anxious to be near him, and he tucked me up against his side under a protective arm.

  “The steward sent two men to burn Ramsey’s place.”

  “How did he know of our plans?” I asked.

  “One of the house guard in his cups.”

  “Walston,” Wallace intoned. “Had to be. He was with us, and he drinks.”

  “There’s more,” Duncan growled. “They were to wait until we arrived—”