Women of Courage (155 page)

“So.” She pushed him away and sat up. “You must help me to find them, Robert, for the sake of those poor girls. If you can trust your men with them, that is.”

“Never fear that. But are you strong enough, Ann, to show us the place and ride?”

“I can manage.” But her small bruised smile seemed feeble when she stumbled even as she got to her feet. Her legs began to shake as they had done before. She felt cold suddenly and ashamed to be so naked and weak. She hugged the cloak tightly around her.

“You may ride before me on my horse. Don’t be afraid of the men.” Nonetheless she did fear and hate them as she walked the few yards through the ferns to the horses. Their muttered conversation stopped, and a dozen hungry eyes explored her. She feared them as she had never feared men before, and felt a new meaning to the story of the tree of knowledge.

There was nothing to see in the glade by the road. Even the cart had gone, though its tracks were still there. Robert set his troopers to search the coppice round about for the best part of an hour, but there was no sign of the girls; just a long ribbon of cloth on a bramble, and Ann’s ripped dress thrown in amongst some trees.

Only later, when they had ridden halfway to Chard, did they overtake a cart which had turned down a side road at the sound of their coming. The old man driving it sat still as a tree trunk, as he had done that afternoon. But Ann recognised him in the moonlight. When she assured old Amias he would come to no harm, the bundle of sacks stuffed under the seat moved, and Elspeth crept out, still pale and dumb with shock. Ann dismounted and rode with her in the cart, but Elspeth neither wept nor spoke all the rest of the way, except to say that old Amias had hidden her in the trees while the dragoons had been chasing Ann and Kate, and that they had not seen Kate again.

21

S
HE HAD not seen a man flogged before. It gave her no satisfaction. The cold, disbelieving way in which the colonel of dragoons had received the complaint; the humiliation of the identity parade in which every man had ogled her knowingly, and one of the three, the man she had thought of as like her kindly village butcher, was not there and could not be accounted for; and the prolonged, prurient questioning of the court martial, had so filled her with cold fury that she longed to get to the punishment; yet when she and Elspeth were finally led into the inn courtyard where the two men were stripped to the waist and tied to rings in the wall, she was too exhausted to feel anything.

She and Elspeth were the only women present, and gradually, as the flogging began, she realised that the same horrible prurience had returned. The officers and men were interested, not in the cruel whip slashing into the backs of their comrades, but in the effect of this sight on the two girls. It was as though each man was thinking he would have done the same, if he had known he would not be caught; and so the blame and real punishment were for the girls, for having dared to tempt them and then escape. Elspeth could not bear it, and turned away; but Ann bit her lip and watched every stroke, dry-eyed and pale and scared, until at last the bloody torsos were cut down, and staggered clumsily away, every unassisted step winning them glory in the eyes of their comrades.

“I trust you are satisfied, ladies?” The dragoon colonel’s sneering bow rubbed salt into their wounds, and took in Elspeth’s tears with covert pleasure.

“I shall be satisfied when Kate Grenfell has been found, and I am out of the care of his Papist Majesty’s lawless troops!”

Ann had thought her words a triumph, but in fact even they had only added to her own frustration, for when she had asked Robert when she was to be sent home, like Elspeth, he had smiled in surprise.

“You surely cannot think it safe to travel the roads by yourself? Elspeth’s mother lives in Chard, but yours is many miles away. And I have no soldiers to spare to escort you, even if you could bring yourself to trust them, which does not seem likely, after your words today.”

“Then what am I to do?”

“In the first place, answer some questions.”

“More questions? But Robert, I have spent all day answering questions!”

“About the misconduct of the dragoons, yes - but you must allow that we have been more than courteous in getting you prompt redress for that; now perhaps you can help us. We are after all here to put down a rebellion, and you are in the fortunate position of having spent some time with the rebel troops. Brigadier Lord Churchill has specially asked to speak with you this evening.”

Ann stared at him, shocked and disbelieving. This masterful, supercilious Robert was new to her - or rather, it was a return to the Robert she had first met, before he had started professing love to her in a way that had seemed real, and that had coloured all her own feelings towards him with passion. Surely he had not forgotten? He could not have been playing so cold a game, that he was merely indifferent to her? But then he, too, was a man – he had been part of the conspiracy of this afternoon.

Her stare troubled him. A slight tinge of red came into his freckled cheeks, and he stood up suddenly and strode to the window to look out.

“Here he comes now. He must have seen us return.” There was no disguising the relief in his voice. A moment later there was a knock at the door and he almost ran to open it.

“Good afternoon, sir. This is the young lady - Miss Ann Carter. Ann, allow me to present Brigadier John Churchill, the - er - commander of his Majesty’s forces in the West.”

It was ridiculously formal, yet how else was he to present her? Despite her anger, she grinned at Robert’s confusion, and saw her amusement mirrored in the faintly raised eyebrows of the Brigadier. He solemnly took off his hat to her in a sweeping bow, and smiled quizzically at her hasty curtsy.

John Churchill was a strikingly handsome man in his late twenties, of middle height, with sparkling brown eyes and a smooth, boyish, almost ladylike skin that reminded her irresistibly, in the first moments, of the Duke of Monmouth. The same polite, open manner, that made people feel instinctively that they could trust him.

“A pleasure indeed, Miss Carter. I see that I was not misinformed about your attractions.”

Ann paled with anger, all amusement gone. She was in no mood to blush and simper at such remarks from any man. “I am sure all of Chard is talking about my attractions by now, my Lord.”

“Forgive me.” She was pleased to see a blush on his face rather than her own. “I must apologise once again for the actions of my men. Though I trust you will have received ample apologies, and satisfactory redress, by now.”

“I have had a bellyful of apologies, Lord Churchill, and two of the men have been punished, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t believe they regret what they did.”

Lord Churchill’s blush deepened slightly, conscious at once of the accusing look in Ann’s wide, bewitching eyes, and the compelling shape of the young body beneath the worn blue dress which Robert had bought – or perhaps borrowed – from the innkeeper’s wife.

“Regret? I think ... I am sorry to say that that would be asking too much, Miss Carter. You must remember that I, and my men, have just returned from two years fighting the King’s battles in Tangier, which is a very different country from our own, and where honest Englishwomen are a rare sight indeed. Any women are, in fact. And so perhaps they have forgotten some of the decencies of normal behaviour.”

“Forgotten?” Ann felt her voice rise in fury, but she could not help it. “And you excuse them for it? Then all I can say, Lord Churchill, is that I thank the Lord that this invasion of ... of our country by foreign savages will soon be swept into perdition where they belong! You needn’t fear my father or Tom Goodchild treating little girls like that if they find them! God bless the Duke of Monmouth!”

“So your father is with the Duke?” Her rage calmed Churchill; he was used to being in command of his feelings when others lost control of theirs. This, Ann realised when she thought about it later, was the difference between him and his old friend James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth; under the surface similarity of their easy charm and boyish good looks, John Churchill hid a calm level-headed self-confidence, a severe unchanging certainty in the success of his own decisions, which his former friend constantly aspired to and seldom attained.

“He is, sir - as I hope you and your soldiers of Satan will find to your cost soon enough!”

“Indeed! But I thought he was marching away from us, towards Exeter, now!”

“No, Bridge ... water.” Ann’s voice trailed away as she realised how she had fallen into the trap. She shut her mouth and bit her lower lip to keep it in place, glaring at him.

“Bridgewater!” The two men smiled at each other. “Well, that’s what your troops said, was it not, Captain Pole? So it seems we must go after them, if we can get past the guard they left in Taunton. Let us hope your father isn’t among them, eh, Miss Carter?”

But Ann was not to be drawn this time. She had already said too much, though perhaps Robert had known it already. The two men looked at her quizzically. Oh, why did they have to be so rich, so handsome? At any other time it would have honoured her for two such men to be paying her close attention. But then, devils could take the most pleasing shapes imaginable; her eyes widened as she remembered the words of Israel Fuller’s sermons.

“Tell me, Ann, is your father well armed? Surely he must be, for you to be so confident of his victory?”

“Well enough.”

“And what does that mean? A scythe blade tacked to the end of a pole?”

“My father is armed with the spirit of the Lord, sir, as is all the Duke’s army. That is why they will beat a thousand of your Papist devils!”

“Amen. But the Lord often uses earthly means to put his wishes into practice. Even Oliver Cromwell’s men did not go into battle wholly unarmed.”

“They had muskets when we met them coming out of Colyton, sir, as I told you,” said Robert. “Killed old Will Danvers with a shot in the chest, damn ‘em!”

Ann’s eyes shone as she saw the pained, bitter look in Robert’s face. She had not known Will Danvers, but she knew her father had been at the bridge and the thought of it hurt Robert badly. Just now that filled her with a fiery, vindictive pleasure that she had longed for all day.

“Yes, that was my father did that,” she said, her eyes drinking up Robert’s reaction. “And he’s got a better musket now, they all have. Brand new muskets from Holland - and they know how to use them, too.” She broadened her accent deliberately. “So I wouldn’t go riding too near the likes o’ they, Robert Pole, if I was you. ‘Twon’t be like that night you met us after chapel; not this time!”

She saw John Churchill watching carefully, and did not care. This was between her and Robert. He stared back at her, his nostrils flared with fury.

“Will Danvers was a good friend of mine! The man who did it will hang for that, when I catch him!”

“You’d better pray he don’t catch you first, Robert Pole! The whip’s in t’other hand now! The men of Colyton have got their company in the Lord’s army, and they’re out looking for you! If my father don’t get you, there’s always my lover, my betrothed, Tom Goodchild! You remember we spoke of him, that day on Colyton Hill? Well, he be out lookin’ for you too, with an army of five thousand men and the spirit of the Lord behind him!”

“You told them!” Robert rose to his feet, white, his lips shaking as he spoke. “You went home and told them what I said to you, and laughed! Ann, you vile, tattling ...”

“Captain Pole, be quiet, sir!”

“But ... “

“Hold your tongue, sir! I will not have you air your quarrels in my presence, do you hear! I am come to interrogate the girl about the rebel army, not to listen to a lover’s tiff! Sit down, sir!”

Robert subsided into a chair, staring bitterly at the triumphant fury on Ann’s face. Churchill turned to her, suave and polite.

“I was not aware you had met Captain Pole before?”

“Oh yes, sir, I have met him before. He promised me all kinds of things, too, to tempt me to do his will. I was to go to London, and live in a fine house with a servant of my own, and I know not what else besides. Only when I did not agree, the next time I saw him he was firing a pistol at myself and my father on the roads at night, like any common highwayman. I see now what a fine officer he makes, for soldiers such as yours!”

“We were policing the roads in search of dissenters, sir,” said Robert stiffly. “She has already admitted she had been to chapel.”

“To worship the Lord in the proper way, instead of bowing and mumbling all your Papist high church idolatry! We worship as everyone will do, when we have a Protestant King!”

“Quite so, Miss Carter. But that day is hardly upon us yet, when the Duke of Monmouth is wandering around the countryside at the head of a rabble of fanatical yokels with no horsemen and no guns, now is it?”

“He’s got guns, all right! Four great field guns. I’ve seen them. And horses - I took him some!” In her anger with Robert and all men Ann did not care that she was telling Lord Churchill vital information about the Duke’s army. It was not as though she were showing them its weaknesses. She had seen the army, and knew it was far too strong to be beaten. What did it matter if she enjoyed frightening them a little with its strength?

“You took him some horses? How many? How?”

“Six. We rode them from Colyton. And half a troop of militia joined us on the way. There was militiamen running in to join us all yesterday, and the day before.”

“I see. But militiamen do not have horses. How many horsemen do you think the Duke has?”

Ann looked at him carefully, thinking hard. She knew it was an important question, and she knew the Duke’s army was short of horse; that was why she had taken her pony to join them in the first place. But what kind of number should there be? What number would impress this man, frighten him? She tossed her head, carelessly, affecting boredom.

“Oh, I don’t know. Hundreds.”

“Hundreds. How many hundreds?”

Hundreds was too few
. He tried to hide it, but his tone had been a shade too patronising, too complacent. His eyes were as intent as before. She took her time, enjoying the game now that her rage had subsided and she knew some of the rules. She started by making the numbers small, to build up their hopes.