"He is going to the," she said fiercely. "What
harm can it do, if I talk with him? And how can you know it will do no good for
him to see a friend for one last time? Once you and he were friends, does that
stand for nothing now?"
"It will distress you," he said inadequately.
"You can do nothing for him, and that will distress you."
"And am I not to decide what suffering I am prepared to
bear for my friends? If you are afraid I plan some treachery, then you may come
too." This last was thrown in scornful challenge, and Alex sighed wearily.
"That is not what I am afraid of."
"Well, then?" Her tears had dried, and she stood no
longer in need of comfort. Once again the courageous rebel prepared to battle
the conquerors in a just cause.
Colonel Redincoate, from his vantage point discreetly to one
side, nodded thoughtfully. Seldom had he witnessed such an interesting scene.
His old friend, it would seem, had waded into rather deep waters. Couldn't
really blame him. The Cavalier was every bit as courageous as he had said, and
quite magnificent with it. She would take some taming, though; and what the
devil would Cromwell have to say about it? Redincoate tore himself from the
contemplation of
th
is fascinating question and went to
his friend's aid.
He coughed to alert Alex of his presence. "I see no harm
i
n it, Alex, if the lady wants a few
minutes' speech with the prisoner. It had best be soon, though," he added
delicately, hoping he wouldn't have to expand on that. The rebel prisoners
would need to be drained of all information before they met their maker, and
soon Peter Ashley would be incapable of coherent speech with a friend.
Alex's grim expression showed that he understood. All his
instincts told him to take Ginny away from here, as fast as possible, so that
the healing could begin and she could forget what she had seen and what she
knew was to happen, but he knew he could not make that decision for her. She
was too strong, with a fine-honed inner strength that would carry her through
whatever she set her mind to. "Five minutes," he said. "Then we
leave. We have delayed enough already." He made his voice deliberately
brisk and businesslike. "Jack, will you take her?" Then he turned
without looking at her and strode back to his brigade.
"This way, Mistress Courtney." Ginny followed
Colonel
R
edincoate into the square building
into which the prisoners and their escorts had disappeared. An eerie scream,
more animal than human, came from somewhere, and Ginny came to a shuddering
halt. The colonel swore vividly before muttering, "This is no place for a
woman."
"I'm sure you've made them welcome in here before,
Colonel," Ginny snapped pointedly, once more in control of herself.
"I have difficulty believing you show more consideration for female
prisoners than you do for their male counterparts."
Colonel Redincoate found himself feeling some degree of
compassion for Alex Marshall. He showed her into a small, windowless,
stone-walled chamber containing only a stool. "If you will wait her,
mistress, I will have the prisoner brought to you."
In a few minutes, the sound of shuffling feet came from
outside; then the heavy door creaked open, and Peter Ashl
e
y came painfully inside and collapsed against the wall
as the
door slammed shut behind him. Ginny
took the two
paces
necessary to reach him and helped him
onto the stool. The tears were in her eyes again, but for his sake she must
hold them back.
"This is madness, Ginny. Whatever can you be thinking
of?" Peter protested, but he held her hands in a painful grip.
"I only have five minutes
,
" she said, returning the grip. "Is there anything I can do
for you? Any messages?"
"There is so much to regret," Peter said, as if in
answer to her question. "So much to regret when you know you no longer
have the possibility of changing things. I did not propose to Sally Turnham
because I thought the war would be soon over, and I wanted to be able to fight
it without thoughts of a wife at home. Tell her, will you, Ginny, that I died
thinking of her, and regretting? My family, too, tell them . . . Oh
,
" he sighed, "tell them whatever you think
it will please them to hear."
"What of Edmund?" Ginny asked in a whisper the
question that had been uppermost in her mind since she had first seen Peter. It
seemed callous to ask him of someone else, when he was facing the ultimate
loneliness, but she could not help herself.
"Please God, he is safe." Peter coughed and
clutched his ribs with a grimace. "Whoresons!" he said bitterly.
"They know where to put their boots. This war has made beasts of us all,
Ginny. If it is not over soon, there will be no hope left for
civilization." Ginny put her arms around him and held him, unable to say
anything, since there was no comfort to offer. "Edmund went to aid the
forces in Kent," Peter resumed with a visible effort that brought a sheen
of sweat to his already ghastly complexion. "His wound healed well."
Ginny told him swiftly and in a whisper of her audience with
the king, of his message that she carried, and Peter smiled weakly. "It is
good to know that we do not the in vain," he said, then spoke with sudden
urgency. "Do you continue to try to deliver your message?"
"I will continue to try," she said. "There is
something you wish of me?"
Peter breathed shallowly for a moment, then said, "If
you speak with the red fox —
i
t is the code
name, you understand, for all who act as liaison between the people and our
forces." Ginny nodded, she had already deduced that.
"
If you speak with him, tell him of
the capture of the blue band, warn him that it is likely that by nightfall the
positions of the others will be known." His face twisted in an ugly grin.
"
We can swear to hold out, but no one
is fool enough to believe
it
."
Ginny shuddered but said nothing, merely gripped his hand,
promising steadily, "I will pass the message without fail, Peter. Tonight,
if it is humanly possible."
"Good
.
" He
managed a wan smile.
"
You should have been born a boy,
Ginny. Edmund always said so." Then the smile faded. "But have a
care. Those whom we once called traitors have no mercy for those whom
they
call
traitors."
The door banged back on its hinges, and two troopers stood
there. "Don't touch him!" Ginny said as they moved toward Peter.
"Let him get up on his own. He's not going to run from you; you've made
quite sure he can barely walk with your cowardly — "
"Hush, Ginny," Peter remonstrated, pulling himself
up against the wall. She went to kiss him, holding hi
m
with all the power of loving friendship. "Pray
that I make a good death, Ginny," he said, finally putting her from him,
"It is all that is left for me now." Then, with the last dregs of
strength, he walked unaided from the room.
Ginny stood in the cold, death-ridden room, blinded by tears,
her soul a deep well of grief and horror. Ja
ck
Redincoate murmured something and motioned to the
d
oor. She marched past him, out into the yard, and over
to the brigade where Alex and his officers stood at their mounts, waiting for
her. "May God damn you all!" she said in ringi
n
g tones that included every man in the yard.
"There is no cause on earth that can justify such carnage." Springing
unaided onto Jen's back, she wheeled the mare and galloped toward the gate.
"Let her pass," Alex called to the sentries who had
moved to bar her passage. "Follow her, Diccon, but just keep her in
sight." The aide-de-camp mounted and went after her. Alex looked around
the circle of silent men. "May God forgive us
a
ll," he said quietly, then mounted Bucephalus,
and gave the order to move out.
Ginny galloped through the narrow streets of Guildford ford,
having no idea of her direction and heedless of the passers-by who cowered
against the walls of buildings at her impetuous passage. Diccon followed,
rather more sedately, but fast enough to keep her in sight, wondering what he
was supposed to do when she decided to stop
—
if she decided to stop. Would she come back with him
willingly? Or should he just stay with her until the colonel came to his
rescue?'
Ginny gradually became aware that she was being followed, as
the wild grief and anger that had prompted her flight dissipated, as it had to,
and she became aware of the world again. She reined in Jen, noticing with a
surge of guilt the mare's wet neck, the flecks of foam around the bit, her
heaving flanks.
"
Oh, Jen, I'm sorry,
"
she whispered, leaning over to
stroke her neck. The horse following slowed to a walk, and Ginny looked over
her shoulder to where Diccon rode, at a careful thirty paces behind, his face
anxious and solemn. "I am poor company, Diccon," she called.
"But if you wish to come up with me, I'll not bite your head off."
Diccon trotted up, a look of transparent relief on his open
countenance.
"
I think we should go back to the brigade
— when you're ready to, that is."
"You're the colonel's watchdog, are you?" Ginny
observed in a tone that seemed to indicate it didn't much matter one way or the
other.
"
Well, I do not wish to get you into
trouble again, so if you have been told to bring me back, then we had better
go."
Diccon looked hurt.
"
The
colonel did not say I was to bring you back. I was just to keep you in sight.
If you do not wish to turn round, we will not do so."
"And where think you this road will lead us?" Ginny
gave a short laugh. "To the end of the rainbow, mayhap. There was a time
when one believed in such things — nursery comfort! But this is the world of
grown men, isn't it, Diccon? A world where evil in the name of justice stalks
the land; where men are beaten and broken and murdered because they hold a
different opinion."
Diccon was silent, wishing fervently that he had not been g
iven
this task. He knew not how to answer her, how to
comfort her. That was something for the colonel to do, and it was clear, after
this morning, that it was something the colonel knew how to do. He had been
puzzled by several obscure remarks made in the last day or so by Major Bonham
and several of the other, higher ranking officers. Those remarks now made
sense. The relationship between his colonel and Mistress Courtney was not as
straightforward as Diccon had thought.
"Come, Diccon. It is time to return to the world."
Ginny took pity on her companion. "I will pose you no more unanswerable
questions. You know where your duty lies, do you not? If you do not ask the
questions of yourself, then you cannot possibly be expected to be able to
answer them for others." She turned Jen in the hedge-bordered lane, where
the peaceful everyday scents of honeysuckle and roses mingled in the warm morning
air, belying the presence of man's ugliness. Diccon, feeling as if he had in
some way been reproved for some fault he did not know he had, followed her
lead, and they rode in somber silence back into the town, where they picked up
the London road and soon came up with the brigade. They rode past the ranks of
marching men until they reached the front lines. Ginny was instantly conscious
of the way the officers avoided her eye, and she remembered how she had cursed
them in the barrack square, just as the whole, bitterly violent, degrading
scene with the troopers returned in devastating clarity.
But she would not cringe or be ashamed of an outburst that
had been so thoroughly justified. What she did not realize was that every one
of them was fighting his own embarrassment, his own, suddenly awakened unease
at his previously unquestioned participation in the events, brutal though they
were, of this war.
Only Alex correctly interpreted both sides of this mute
confrontation. They would be angry with Ginny for what she had made them see,
and she would use her own anger, still a vibrant force, although thankfully
controlled now, to defend herself. He himself felt only sorrow, for Peter and
for Ginny, and a vague practical irritation at the unfortunate quirk of fate that
had brought Peter Ashley into the Guildford barracks this morning. Ginny had
come face to face with the personal consequences of this war often enough
already; she had not needed to touch it so closely for the horror to be brought
home to her. War was his business, and Alex had long ago accepted
the
dar
k
side of the
coin. But he would have done anything to have protected Ginny from the
knowledge so brutally forced upon her by the events of the morning; only there
had been nothing to be done.
Throughout the day, Ginny rode slightly apart, and no one
attempted to intrude on her self-imposed isolation. When they halted for the
noon break, she refused all offers of food and drink with a mute headshake and
went to sit on a grassy bank, where she picked daisies, idly threading them
into the floral necklaces, crowns, and bracelets of childhood. It was a
peaceful, almost restorative activity, occupying her hands and allowing her
mind free reign. Renewed determination and icy purpose had replaced the grief
and the rage. It was now imperative that she prevent others from falling into
the hands of the enemy as a result of the capture of Peter and his fellows. If
she continued to behave shocked and grief-stricken, it was possible that Alex's
guard would be a
little
less rigorous. She certainly had an
excuse for being left alone when they stopped for the night, and since no one
appeared in the least inclined to disturb her solitude at the moment, it seemed
hopeful that such consideration would continue for as long as she chose. She
was aware of Alex's eyes on her much of the time, but the look was one of
compassionate understanding, not the watchful scrutiny of captor for prisoner.