The Hostage Bride

At first she couldn’t tell what was happening. The scene was anarchical, straight from the pits of Chaos. She couldn’t distinguish royalists from rebels amid the surging, swaying lines of men. The smoke of musket and cannon obscured whole sections of the field, clearing suddenly to reveal the ground littered with the writhing bodies of men and horses. Riderless horses galloped panicked across the field, trampling dead and wounded alike beneath their iron-shod hooves; infantrymen wandered dazed in circles amid the fighting, looking for their own companies, seemingly unaware of the target they presented for the massive chargers bearing down on them, and the swooping swords of the cavalry bringing death from above.

Portia watched in a sick and ghastly trance, her nostrils assailed by the dreadful smell of blood, her ears pierced with the screams of the wounded, the blood-curdling shrieks of attack. She watched as a royalist officer, blood streaming from his face, his lace jabot torn, his buff jerkin ripped from neck to waist by some forgotten and maybe barely noticed sword cut, rallied a group of pikemen, forming them into a ragged line. They ran, yelling, pikes at the ready, straight for a line of rebel infantry, who immediately discharged their muskets, and when the smoke had wafted away, the bodies of the pike-men lay like crumpled dolls upon the red ground, the headless corpse of the officer who had led them Tying a few feet in front.

Now Portia was able to distinguish the opposing sides. And now she could see with dreadful clarity how completely the royalist army was overwhelmed. They would have been outnumbered anyway, but taken by surprise, they had no chance to rally, no chance to push back the overwhelming attack of superior numbers.

And Portia had a view of only one portion of the battlefield, the sector where the Decatur men were stationed. From her aerie she couldn’t distinguish individual men, but she knew Rufus and his men would be down there, fighting on that bloody field.

And then she saw the Decatur standard, the proud eagle of the house of Rothbury rising high above the carnage. And she wanted to be there on the held, fighting with her friends and comrades beneath that standard. She had missed the chance to put things right between them before the battle, and now all that was left was to share this terrible danger, to stand beside her lover, beside the father of her unborn child. And the longing was so overpowering she felt as if it could bear her like a strong wind into the center of the battle without the least assistance of muscle and sinew.

But she remained where she was, in the angle of the trunk and the branch, her hand resting protectively on her belly, her eyes riveted to the carnage, her heart filled with unspeakable dread.

Rufus was aware of men falling around him. He saw George go down, the man who had taught him so much about the handling of men, of the basics of battle, who had taught him how to face and make his own the harsh realities of a life outside the law.

Rufus fought his way through the scarlet chaos, the hideous brilliance of death, to reach the fallen man. But George was dead, his eyes staring upward into the orange sky, his stoic realism and placid wisdom leaking from him in the blood that congealed beneath his head.

Rufus closed George’s eyes and slowly straightened. Ajax stamped his feet, raised his nostrils to the wind, only the whites of his eyes visible. Rufus swung himself into the saddle again. He turned the horse back toward the battle. He saw Paul, who carried the Decatur standard, topple sideways from his horse under the swinging attack of a Roundhead blade. Ajax, under the prod of spur and rowel, burst through the men crowding the fallen man.

Rufus leaned down and swept up the standard as it fell from Paul’s limp fingers. Now Rufus fought only for the lives and the deaths of the men who had stood beneath the Decatur standard. Men who had shared his outlawed life, who had taken his quarrel as their own. He had dragged them into this fight for his own ends and now he owed them all -the living and the dead-the final victory of the house of Rothbury.

He rode into the thick of the fighting. He cut down the king’s enemies when they were in his way, he joined skirmishes when his assistance was needed, but always he was searching. He rode through the carnage like a man possessed and yet untouchable. Musket shot whistled past his ear, swords flashed so close he could feel the wind rustling his hair, but he and Ajax plunged through the churned mud and blood of the battlefield until finally Rufus saw the standard of the house of Granville.

And he saw Cato, Marquis of Granville, astride a gray stallion, rallying his men with great shouts of triumph, standing in his stirrups as he exhorted them to the final push that would break the king’s army once and for all.

“On this field of Marston Moor, the rights of the honest yeoman of England will be secured!” Cato’s voice rose on a thrilling peal of conviction, and his men answered the call with a roar. They hurled themselves onto the broken ranks of the royalist force, and as Cato’s horse surged to lead them, Rufus Decatur moved Ajax directly into the gray’s path.

There was a moment of confusion, but it was only a moment. Then Cato’s gaze cleared, he brought his horse under control, and the two men faced each other amid a murderous turmoil that faded into the distance like the bells of cows in an alpine pasture.

“So, Decatur,” Cato said in the stillness that surrounded them, closing them off from the world like the thorny thicket of Sleeping Beauty’s castle.

“Granville.”

The curt greeting was sufficient. Rufus turned Ajax aside and rode away from the fray. Cato followed, both men now intent on the culmination of the personal feud that had colored their lives, their decisions, their emotions, since childhood.

They reached a corner of the field over which the battle had flowed and ebbed an hour previously. With unspoken, mutual consent, they drew rein and dismounted.

Rufus planted the Decatur standard in the soft ground and cast off his helmet and breastplate. Cato removed his own armor and when both men stood in britches and buff jerkin, they turned to face each other.

“Swords?” Cato inquired almost distantly. “Or swords and daggers?”

“It matters not,” Rufus said with the same distant courtesy.

Cato said, “Swords only, then.” He drew out his dirk from the sheath at his belt and tossed it to the ground a good few feet distant.

Rufus did the same. Then he drew his sword.

They stood facing each other.

Portia didn’t know why she chose to climb down from her observation post when she did. There were instincts and presciences that controlled her, and she didn’t question them. She understood only that the battle was lost for the king’s men. Not an indecisive loss, not a negotiable loss, but a crushing defeat that would bring to an end the king’s cause in the north, if not across the land.

And she understood that somewhere on that bloody field she would find Rufus dead or alive. If he was dead, she would find his body. It was hers. It was all that was left to her. There had been no reconciliation, but she would find his body, would make peace as she could. Once she had had his love. And now she carried part of him within her.

Portia walked out onto the battlefield of Marston Moor. The evening star was pale but visible. The western sky was ruddy. She walked through the bodies, through the injured, through the little groups of skirmishers, as if she were a ghost, invisible and inviolate. She didn’t hear the screams of the wounded, the cries for water, the shrieks of broken horses. She didn’t smell the blood, was not aware of the sodden earth beneath her feet. She walked until she saw the Decatur standard thrashing in the rising breeze.

She heard sword upon sword. In the eerie quiet of dusk, there was at first only that sound. Then Portia became aware of the breathing, the deep, heavy breathing of laboring men. She heard the muted noise of booted feet moving purposefully over soft ground. But there were no voices.

As instinctively as she had descended from the oak tree half an hour before, Portia moved toward the sounds, her feet noiseless, her body sliding into the dusk shadows.

She saw the two men in their elaborate dance of death. Their swords were like silver fish, weaving, dancing, jumping against the dimming light. Their powerful bodies had somehow lost force and substance for the watcher, but were more like spirits in this dance, deadly but beautiful.

And then understanding burst forth, shattering Portia’s strange trance, hurling her back with explosive force into the world of living reality. And she saw how well matched they were, and she understood how this dance must end. One of them would die. Or both of them would die.

And Portia was filled with an anger so fierce it eclipsed all other emotion. Did they not understand how they were loved? Did they not understand how many people depended upon their strength, their compassion, their love? Did they not understand how much they owed to the people who loved and depended upon them, upon whose love and understanding they in turn depended?

She reached into her boot for her knife. She held it poised, her eyes narrowed, focused on the twin blades. The two men were not aware of her presence in the shadows; they were aware of nothing but their own battling concerns. But Portia now was as clearheaded as she had ever been. She was a soldier planning an intervention, and coldly, unemotionally, she watched and waited for the perfect moment.

When it came, she knew it. She didn’t hesitate. The knife flew from her hand, striking Cato’s sword in a cascade of sparks as he thrust beneath his opponent’s guard. Cato’s sword was deflected. Portia flung herself forward between the two men. She landed on her knees, ducking her head beneath the blades poised above her.

The astounded silence engulfed them all. Rufus stepped back, his point lowered. Cato did the same. Portia raised her head.

Rufus threw his sword from him. He bent and caught Portia under the arms, lifting her to her feet. He held her and shook her. He set her on her feet, took her by the shoulders, and shook her until she thought her head would leave her shoulders.

“How dare you! How dare you do something so reckless, so unutterably stupid!” he raged. “I could have killed you!” He caught her to him, crushing her in the vise of his arms, hurling his fury with liquid eloquence at the top of her head even as he stroked her hair, clasped the nape of her neck, gripped her narrow shoulders.

Portia struggled to free herself. Her own anger was still riding high. She was weeping with rage and remembered frustration and the sheer joy of knowing that Rufus loved her. She felt it in his hands even through their roughness, and she heard it in his voice despite the savagery of his tone. But she couldn’t distinguish her emotions, and her anger at what had brought them to this place still ruled.

“How could you do this?” she exclaimed, finally wrenching herself from Rufus’s grasp. “Both of you? Hasn’t there been enough killing for one day?” She turned on the stunned Cato with an all- encompassing wave of her hand. “What does it matter if your fathers hated each other? What can that possibly weigh in the scale against your own lives? The lives of your children?”

“Just a minute…” Cato held up a hand in an imperative gesture for silence, but Portia was unstoppable.

“What will happen to Olivia?” she demanded. “If you die in this pointless feud with Rufus, what will happen to your children? Do you think it matters a whore’s curse to them what occurred nearly thirty years ago? They want their father, they need-”

“Hold your tongue!” Cato had recovered his senses and now interrupted her tirade with such force that despite the energy of conviction, Portia stopped midsentence. “I’ll not be spoken to in such fashion by a mere chit of a girl!” he exclaimed. “Where in the devil’s name did you spring from?”

“How could that matter?” Portia waved the question away as she turned on Rufus. Her eyes were green fire; her hair blazed with an energy all its own; her entire body thrummed with the power of her need to stop this madness.

“What of the boys, Rufus?” she demanded. “Are you prepared to leave them orphaned, as you were? Exiled without place or family? Who will they be? What will they have when you’ve given your life for some futile vengeance?”

She saw his eyes, saw the demons spring to life, but she ignored them, stepping close to him, raising her face so that she looked him in the eye and faced down the demons.

“And what of this child, Rufus?” Her right hand rested on her belly. “I am not prepared for my child to come fatherless into this world.”

The flat statement lay between them. Cato took a step back as if standing aside from something that now excluded him.

Rufus heard Portia’s words. He saw her hand resting on her belly. He remembered his mother standing in just that way, protecting the fatherless child she carried. He remembered the infant, his sister, blue, waxen, blood streaked.

“My child?” There was a strange distance to his voice as if he couldn’t quite take it in.