The Kent Heiress

by Roberta Gellis

  “Don’t sit there, Brina,” he said. “You’ll get all wet.”

  As he spoke he stood up and held out a hand to help Sabrina to her feet. He was aware by the pull that she needed the assistance. Usually her hand would only lie on his out of politeness. She had made no complaint, but he thought she was in pain. Did they really need to struggle go on farther? Perce looked back along the way they had come. He could see no obvious signs of their passage, although he knew the marks of the horses’ hooves would show in the leaf mold. There was no way to avoid that, unless they abandoned the horses. Sabrina leaned against him and sighed.

  It they could ride through the woods without returning to the road… Perce looked at the trees and abandoned the idea. It would be necessary to weave and bend continually to dodge the low-growing branches. Tired as they were, one of them would surely miss and take a bad blow. Also, there would be no way to stop the horses from stepping on low weeds. All in all, it would be less effort and strain to walk. But was it necessary? If Dom José was as determined as Brina believed, wouldn’t he follow no matter how far they went?

  “Do we have to go on just now?” Sabrina asked, echoing Perce’s thoughts. “There’s a nice place just across the brook.”

  She pointed, and Perce looked. The opposite bank was higher, and a tree had fallen so that there was a small clear area, somewhat screened by the brush that grew along the bank. It would not be difficult to cross. The stream bed was full of large rocks around which the water gurgled and hissed as it hurried downhill. Those would make convenient stepping-stones, but getting the horses across was another matter. Horses hated an uneven, rocky footing that slid and rolled, and getting them up the bank just here would be a struggle.

  “The horses—” he began.

  “Leave them where they are,” Sabrina pleaded, knowing as well as he that it would take more effort than either of them wanted to expend to bring the horses over. “They won’t be out of sight.”

  That was true enough, and Perce felt sure he could catch either of the animals if one began to wander away. They were friendly, placid beasts. He nodded and went to get a blanket and the bag of food. A quick glance at the reins showed them still looped around the bush, caught lightly under the thin but numerous side branches of the main stem. That would hold, he thought dully, turning upstream to the best set of stepping-stones.

  Sabrina was already across, and she reached out for the blanket and food bag so he could make the last jump unhindered. Together they spread the blanket and dropped heavily onto it. Sabrina opened the food bag, but Perce shook his head.

  “I’m not hungry either,” she said with a faint smile, “but chewing will keep us awake.”

  Perce’s eyes opened wider for a moment. “How the devil do you know that?” he asked. “I’m the one who should have remembered it. God knows, I’ve done it often enough when I had night duty.”

  “Not as often as I have,” Sabrina replied. “I have sat through hundreds of diplomatic dinners.” While she spoke, she was searching through the bag for a particularly chewy item. “Oh,” she exclaimed, pulling a box from the bottom of the bag, “here are William’s pistols.”

  Perce was laughing at her remark about diplomatic dinners, but he reached eagerly for the box and opened it. While Sabrina broke the legs from a capon, which she decided would best serve their purpose, he loaded the guns and set the box aside. He shoved a pistol into each pocket and reached for the chicken leg Sabrina was holding out to him. Chewing hard did help clear his head a little. The wood was very peaceful, although it was not quiet sitting by the lively brook, which hissed and gurgled quite loudly. He looked across at Sabrina, who was chewing slowly on the other leg and staring around. Aside from a bruise on her cheek, several scratches, and her less than perfect coiffure, they might have been having a picnic. It seemed almost impossible that the events of the preceding day had really taken place.

  “Brina,” Perce said, “We must both have been crazy last night—me for suggesting this lunacy and you for agreeing to it.”

  She brought her eyes away from the forest, which she had been examining with glazed weariness, and smiled. “I don’t think you were crazy, Perce. I think you were giving me what I needed. Even if you didn’t know it, I think you felt my need to be away from there, and to love you. I don’t know what would have happened if I had to stay, but I’m sure I would have done something stupid and maybe even dangerous.” She touched his hand. “I had to run away.”

  “I wish I knew whether you think that’s the truth or whether you’re trying to cover up my idiocy,” Perce said.

  “It’s the truth for me,” Sabrina pointed out seriously. “Katy knew it, too. She said it. Don’t you remember she said if I didn’t go, we’d all end up in the soup. Perce, I’m pretty sure Senhor de Sousa wouldn’t take the easy way out, but last night I wouldn’t—couldn’t—say it. I had to get away from there, away from the whole ordeal.”

  Perce took another bite of his capon leg. “Well, maybe it was necessary. Anyway, it’s too late to worry about that now. The question is, what do we do next? Go on to Lisbon or go back?”

  Sabrina did not answer at once. Finally she sighed, “I’m so tired. I can’t think.”

  “Sleep awhile,” Perce suggested.

  “Is that safe?’ she asked. “I have this feeling that we haven’t seen the last of Dom José.”

  “I’ll watch,” he assured her.

  “No, that’s not fair,” she protested. “You’re just as tired as I am.”

  “I’m used to it, Brina,” he said, “but I’ll take a turn, I promise. You sleep first, and then you can watch while I sleep. You can think over whether you can bear to go back and answer questions.”

  Sabrina felt that it was wrong to stay. There was a sense of threat hanging over them, even in the peaceful woods, but she was so tired and aching that tears rose to her eyes at the mere thought of trying to go on. She turned away and straightened an edge of the blanket so Perce would not see how near she was to crying. To pull the corner smooth, she had to lean over. Her elbow gave and somehow she was lying down, knowing she should not but no longer caring.

  Perce leaned back against the bole of the fallen tree and chewed slowly and deliberately. Once he checked on the horses. The bush was bending as the gelding reached for a patch of grass, but the reins seemed well caught. He looked at Sabrina. It was very pleasant to watch her but it brought a strong urge to lie down beside her, so he turned to watch the tumbling brook instead. It ran so swiftly that the water broke into foam in places, and the bubbles danced a short way downstream before they broke. Perce’s eyes followed them, returned to the source of the foam. It was quite bright now, he thought dully. The sun must be up.

  When the sun peeped over the horizon, Dom José called his men. The villagers were reluctant to let them leave. They felt well repaid by the coarse wine, cheese, and bread they had expended for the news they had gleaned about Lisbon and the world. Dom José was impatient. If Lady Elvan had not passed through either Lousa or Góis, she must have turned off somewhere into the woods. Dom José had needed to bite his lips to keep his rage in check when he thought of that. She could have waited in shelter until they rode by, then come out and escaped back to Lousa.

  Instead of accepting defeat when that idea came to his mind, Dom José merely cast it aside. It could not have happened that way, because his revenge, and thus his life, was not complete. He had to conclude that the woman and her escort had gone into the forest, became they had passed neither Lousa nor Góis, but he chose to believe they planned to hide there until daylight. Yes, that was it. If he rode back toward Lousa very slowly, he would catch them on the road.

  It was good to ride slowly. As he mounted Dom José was aware of a pain in his chest and left arm. He must have pulled some muscle scrambling up and down that path, he thought. His breathing was oppressed also, but he often had a little trouble breathing when he was excited, and for some reason he wa
s very eager now, more even than when they were riding toward Góis. He knew he would find his quarry.

  The early sun, just fully above the horizon, was behind them as they rode west toward Lousa. It cast long, distorted shadows on the road ahead of them and lit the low brush by the sides of the road with a queer one-sided illumination that showed up any unevenness in the growth as black shadows. Three times Dom José directed his horse to one side or the other with a gasp of expectation, only to curse and continue as he found the irregularity to be natural or marked by dead leaves that proved it to be old.

  The fourth time, he uttered a cry of mingled joy and pain. When he saw the fresh breakage, even the marks of horses’ hooves, his heart had leapt and a horrible cramp had passed down his arm. It passed, but he felt queer and breathless. No matter. Here was what he had sought and here was proof that his vengeance was, ordained by God. The guilty would first be punished, then he would send his men back to des Ermidas and he would ride to Lisbon. From there, his future was in God’s hands. To Dom José, it made no matter.

  They rode in, but within a few yards it was clear that it was not safe to ride. Low branches slapped their faces and caught in their clothing. Once dismounted, Dom José had no trouble following the path of broken bushes and trampled weeds and churned leaf-mold where the horses’ hooves had disturbed it. In a little while they came to a larger area of disturbance. Dom José stopped and looked around. He felt calm and peaceful now, sure of success, and his breathing eased. It was easy to identify the place where the horses had been tied and had grazed on the few thin blades of grass and the leaves of bushes, and the spot where the blanket had been spread. So they had slept here. They could not be far ahead.

  Dom José’s eyes flew around, but he could perceive no clearly marked exit from the area. The men were also looking around, and the three pairs of eyes met with the same hope in each—that those they sought had gone out the same way they had come in, that they were long gone on the road back to Lousa. Their enthusiasm for the chase had long since evaporated.

  It had occurred to each of the men that the escape of Lady Elvan was none of his business. There were guards to attend to such matters. None had the courage to argue with Dom José, but they had discussed the matter quietly in Góis. If their master could induce the fugitives to return to the dower house of des Ermidas or Lousa without violence, they would help guard them. They would even help him by firing warning shots aimed well away from the people However, they would not shoot at the man or woman or strike either of them, and they would bear witness for each other that this was so.

  Unaware of his men’s reluctance, Dom José moved on purposefully. He spotted disturbed ground bearing the mark of a horse’s shod hoof, darted forward to make sure there were further marks, then ran back and told Carlo to stay with the horses. He was sure that those they sought were not far ahead. That they had made no obvious trail showed that it had been light when they moved. He did not want the sound of the horses, or any other sound, to warn them. The men were to be careful not to blunder into bushes, but to look where they put their feet and not to talk.

  In spite of the care Perce and Sabrina had taken, it was not hard to follow their trail. A horse can be guided around moderately large obstacles, but anything low-growing will be trod on if a hoof happens to fall in that place. However, their attempt to avoid damaging the undergrowth produced a sinuous track. Dom José did not even see the horses until one whinnied. Then he ran quickly forward toward the sound.

  Although his eyes were still open, Perce was close to being asleep, somewhat mesmerized by the bubbles he had been watching. Between that and the noise of the stream, he did not hear the men until they began to run. Even then, it took his dulled wits a moment to connect the noise with himself. Thus, by the time he shook Sabrina, called to her to wake up, and sprang to his feet, their pursuers were insight.

  “Shoot them,” Dom José shrieked.

  Pedro and Pablo, startled, promptly loosed off shots, one well to the left and the other well to the right of the targets. Unfortunately, in his anxiety not to hit the humans at whom he was looking, Pablo fired directly at the horses. The carelessly aimed bullet barely touched the gelding’s rump, but the double explosion, combined with the sharp pain and the scream, panicked the horse. He neighed and lunged away from pain and noise, striking sharply against the already startled and nervous mare. Involuntarily, Perce shouted, which merely added to the animals’ terror and confusion.

  The careless looping of the reins around the shrub had been meant to discourage the animals from wandering away, not to hold them firmly against an attempt to bolt. With the first powerful lunge the reins came loose, and the mare and gelding took off, bumping and dodging trees. Perce cursed and drew William’s pistols from his pockets.

  “Perce! Don’t,” Sabrina shrieked. “Don’t hurt them. Don’t! I didn’t kill William or Donna Francisca. Let the law—”

  Her voice cut off as Dom José leveled his pistol at her. She dropped to her knees as he fired, although he was so poor a shot she could just as well have stood still. Infuriated, Perce fired also, but not at Dom José. Mindful of Sabrina’s warning, he aimed at the madman’s gun. His shot was no more successful than Dom José’s, not for any lack of proficiency in Perce but because Dom José had surprised him. Instead of waiting a second to see the result of his shot, Dom José had dropped to his knee as soon as he released the trigger, as if to reload. Indeed, he took out a cartridge and lifted it to his teeth, but then he remembered his men. They should do his dirty work.

  “Reload, you fools,” he screamed at them, and then at Sabrina, “I may have shot them, but you are the one who is guilty. You—”

  But Sabrina had not waited to listen. As soon as the shot was fired, she seized the food bag and her riding dress, leapt to her feet, and began to run. As she moved Perce realized the wisdom of her action. It was apparent to him that all three men were very bad marksmen. If they could keep a fair distance between them and their pursuers, there was little chance that they would be hurt. He swept up the blanket, his eyes still on Dom José, who was now ineptly reloading his guns.

  Behind him Perce heard another violent spate of Portuguese. He had not understood any of it except, by implication, the orders to fire and load. He wished he had a chance to reload the fired pistol himself, but that might come. Now was not the time. Either fear or determination had lent Sabrina new strength. She was running like a deer, her brown riding dress blending with the tree trunks and the dead leaves on the ground so that from time to time she was nearly invisible.

  There was a wordless bellow of rage and then the splash of water as someone charged through the stream without trying to find crossing steps. Just as the thought that it was a mistake formed in Perce’s mind, he heard a crash of water and laughed as he ran. The loose stones of the stream bed had turned under someone’s feet and dumped him in the water. Perce increased his speed to overtake Sabrina. With luck this delay should give them time to find a hiding place.

  He was surprised at how long it took him to catch up with Sabrina. The sounds of pursuit became quite dim, but Perce was afraid to call out. Voices might travel far better than the thud of feet or the sound of harsh breathing. Finally, he was able to lay a hand on her shoulder. She stopped immediately, gasping from her effort. Terror might give her another spurt of strength, Perce thought, but she was nearly done up. He must find a place to hide her. Now he could hear Dom José’s voice, but he could not see any of the men, which meant they, too, were invisible for the moment. Sabrina was leaning against him.

  “Those horrid branches,” she gasped softly. “One nearly pulled out my hair, and another caught on the food bag and—”

  “Branches,” Perce breathed. “Brina, if I lifted you up, could you climb higher in a tree?” Even as he spoke, he was cramming the pistols back in his pockets and was lifting her. Sabrina had begun to protest that this was no time for climbing frees, but when she saw he was serio
us, she let the food bag drop and reached for higher branches without argument. Perce always knew what was best. He watched for a moment, whispering upward, “Sit down and be quiet.”

  Then he hung the food bag around his neck and jumped for a relatively low crotch in a neighboring tree. It was the devil to climb in boots and with only one hand, since he was clutching the blanket in the other, but he managed to go up about fifteen feet. Neither he nor Sabrina had been silent while climbing, but Perce was not worried about the noise. Dom Jose was shouting, actually screaming hysterically. All Perce could hear was a thin distant high-pitched shrieking. He assumed the other men answered but that all three were at some distance, so only the high-pitched sound carried.

  Then the screaming stopped, very abruptly. Apparently Dom José was listening. Perce listened, too, and was disturbed by the fact that he could not hear the brook. It seemed odd that they had come so far so quickly. Or was it quickly? How long had they been running? He had no sense of time. One way it seemed as if he had run forever another, as if no time at all had passed between the moment he had heard their pursuers so, close and this very instant.

  Pablo and Pedro had nearly been struck into stone when they heard their master confess the murder of his wife and her lover. Both would gladly have turned and run, except that Dom José, having loaded his gun, waved it threateningly at them and commanded them to take up the chase. It was then that Pablo and Pedro realized their master was crazed. Their realization, combined with his waving gun, created panic.

  Both charged headlong into the stream. It was Pedro’s, fall Perce had heard. Dom José had the energy and physical control that uphold the insane and made his way without a slip. He drove his henchmen forward with shouts, and when Pablo lagged, struck him with the barrel of his gun. Neither lagged after that, but neither did they have any notion of where they were running since they were too frightened to look for signs of Perce and Sabrina’s passing, and Dom José was too busy watching them to seek the fugitives.