He doffed his hat, sweeping it so low that the creamy plume whispered across the floor as he bowed; and the westering light shone on the greying gold of his head. ‘Lady Fairfax, I do most humbly beg your forgiveness that I have been so long in waiting upon you. I have been very much occupied this day.’
‘So I imagine,’ Anne said, unmoving, with her back to the window. ‘I fear you find Bradford a something more stubborn town than Leeds or Wakefield.’
‘So much the worse for Bradford,’ he said very quietly, without any roughening of his tone’s silken courtesy; but she saw for an instant something in his face that sickened her with dread.
There was a moment’s silence, and then, leaving Bradford’s affairs, about which she was powerless, Anne turned her weapon to another defence. ‘My Lord, will you have inquiries made for Cornet William Hill among your wounded prisoners. He was shot in the elbow and taken this morning during our attempt to break out of the town.’
His fine eyes were on her face, a little questioning, a little mocking. ‘You have some personal interest in the matter?’
‘A personal responsibility,’ Anne said. ‘I was mounted behind him. If I had not been, he might have escaped with my husband.’ She watched him realize that he had made a mistake, and pressed the momentary advantage that it gave her. ‘I am sure that I do not need to beg you to give orders for his wound to be tended, for you will have given such orders already, for all of your prisoners.’
He bowed, his gaze veiled now; and she was not sure whether the bow was agreement or mockery, or the courteous acceptance of an admonition. ‘I will have the inquiries made, Lady Fairfax. Is there anything else that I may do for you?’
‘My Lord Newcastle, I demand a pass to rejoin my husband.’
‘As soon as it is possible, you shall receive your pass,’ Newcastle said. ‘For the present, I have, as you have already realized, certain other matters to attend to, and must ask you to remain here... Let me assure you that you have nothing to fear. All arrangements will be made for your safety and comfort.’
Anne rounded on him like the wild cat that one of the troopers had called her, part furious, part beseeching, part harshly mocking. ‘Safety is not a thing I value much at this present time, My Lord, and as for comfort — I am half mad in this little velvet cage. If I give you my parole not to steal a mount from your horse lines and ride off, will you at least give me leave to walk on the terrace?’
He studied her a moment, his fine expressive eyes cool in their stock-taking, then smiled, bowing a little. ‘Who could refuse parole to so gallant a foe? If you are ready now for your walk upon the terrace, will you allow me to escort you there?’
She hesitated, looking at him as he stood aside from the door; then with a small unsmiling inclination of the head, gathered her draggled skirts and went past him into the gallery.
He spoke a quick word to the sentry, and offered her his hand. She laid two cold fingers on his grey velvet sleeve, and swept beside him along the gallery and down the wide stairway under the window where the arms of the Tempests shone in jewelled glass. At the house door he left her with another half bow, repeating his promise to have inquiries made as to the welfare of Cornet Hill, and she walked forward alone into the sunset that flooded across the terrace.
The long terrace of Bowling Hall was alive with a coming and going of men; buff and steel, velvet and Mechlin lace touched to a glowing intensity of colour by the fiery finger of the westering sun. She had not thought that she would have to face so many eyes. For the most part the men gathered there paid her the best courtesy that was in their power, by seeming unawareness of her presence; but a knot of very young gallants turned to stare at her, and one, who wore his hair in a lovelock tied with yellow ribbon, whispered something to a companion behind his hand. Anne gave them back long look for look, then turned from them as from things of very small account, and moved off along the terrace. She had a moment’s instinct to turn back into the refuge of the house, but she would not yield them so much victory, she would not strike her colours. At the far end of the terrace walk, an ancient fig-tree leaned thick roped branches across the balustrade, the figs ripening among the fleshy leaves. It seemed to offer a little refuge from all those eyes, casually interested, curious, that she felt upon her. She went to it, refusing to hurry, sweeping disdainful skirts after her along the pavement; and in the green shade checked and leaned against the stone balustrade, looking down.
Between the limes and sycamores of the garden, she saw Bradford below her, smoky in its hollow of the hills, battered and torn by the guns; while a palely angry sunset of saffron and silver-gilt flared brighter moment by moment beyond the fells.
Two men passed close to her, deep in converse, and paused to look down also at the smoky town. ‘God! It looks stubborn — the very shape of it looks stubborn!’ one man said, and the other, ‘Aye, it’s small wonder the Commander has lost all patience with the town, and given orders to sack the place …’
Behind them, Anne, suddenly sick and shaking, clung to the balustrade with hands whose knuckles and fingertips had whitened to the colour of bare bone, still staring down at Bradford. She supposed she had known; she must have known. But somehow she had contrived to hold the knowledge off a little — until now. Free rein for the Papist Army — rape and pillage and massacre in the little streets of Bradford, as it had been in the towns of Prince Rupert’s taking. Her thoughts went achingly to Mistress Sharpe, carrying the child that she had waited for so long, to the wounded boy among the other wounded in the Unicorn’s taproom down there. Suddenly she was remembering the sound of marching feet, of Lord Fairfax’s troops marching out, as she had heard it from that hot and crowded taproom. So must they have heard it again in the dark before this dawn; so must they have heard the survivors driven back; and now, with the last powder spent, there was indeed nothing between them and Lord Newcastle’s Papist Army.
A step sounded on the pavement close by, and she looked round quickly, to find that a man had halted beside her. A man? A grotesque creature who might have stepped out of some booth at St Andrew’s Fair. A man so short as to be almost a dwarf, his twisted and stunted body clad in doublet and breeches of dark green and mulberry velvet, whose sombre brilliance of colour, despite their severe plainness of cut, added to the phantasy of his whole appearance; a man whose face, in the dappled shadows of the fig-tree, was as though some sculptor with a warped and cruel sense of humour had made a gargoyle with Lord Newcastle’s features.
Involuntarily she started a little, even as she remembered to have heard that Lord Newcastle’s General of Horse was his hunchback brother; and a smile that seemed like a deeper shadow crossed his face. ‘I crave your pardon, Lady Fairfax, I startled you; but I assure you that I am completely harmless.’ His voice was beautiful, an extraordinarily mellow voice to come out of his crooked barrel chest. ‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Charles Cavendish.’
She had been right, then. ‘Lord Newcastle’s brother. So my parole is not to be relied on, after all. You watch your prisoner carefully, Sir Charles.’
‘Please do not think it,’ he said quietly. ‘I came under no orders.’
She looked at him, frowning a little, puzzled; then a movement beyond him drew her gaze further up the terrace, and she saw the young man of the lovelock, also leaning on the balustrade, turn towards her for another long cool stare; and she realized that Lord Newcastle’s brother had come out to protect her, not from annoyance — she did not think she stood in the least danger of annoyance; if she had been beautiful, even pretty, it would have been another matter — but simply from being alone to be stared at. ‘Thank you. I am not accustomed to company which stares at misfortune,’ she said.
He moved in towards the balustrade, coming completely between her and the young man with the lovelock, and set one hand on the twisted ropy stem of the fig-tree, as though he felt some kinship with its warped shape. ‘They are only children, Madam; if they wish to stare, let them stare at
me.’
Anne, who had turned from the gallant with the lovelock, to gaze down on Bradford again, looked round once more, full at the man beside her, with a sudden warm rush of gratitude, seeing him not so grotesque as she had done at first. ‘I have always heard of the Royalist chivalry, Sir Charles. When — if — I come safely again to my husband and the men of my own Cause, I shall remember that I did indeed find chivalry among the King’s men.’
Sir Charles Cavendish said lightly, ‘Ah, now, if you would have the pattern of the Preux Chevalier, you must look to my brother.’
‘Your brother!’ Anne swung round from the balustrade, her hands clenched together, her nostrils widening with her quickened breath. ‘Yet this Preux Chevalier of yours orders the sack of Bradford like the veriest butcher!’
There was a small silence, and then Sir Charles said, ‘Who told you?’
‘You should order your men not to talk on the terrace while I am among them, if you would not have me hear. It is true, isn’t it?’
‘My brother has been greatly enraged by the stubborn attitude of the town through so many weeks.’
‘Yet I think that you would not have given such an order, Sir Charles. Cannot you turn him to a gentler purpose?’
‘Why should I seek to do so, Lady Fairfax? My brother is the Commander-in-Chief, and I am his General of Horse. The decision is his to make.’ The man’s tone was cool, and armoured, but Anne knew suddenly, without shadow of doubt, that he had sought it.
‘But you have tried to turn him, haven’t you?’ she pressed him, in that certainty. ‘Haven’t you, Sir Charles Cavendish?’
‘Lady Fairfax, I had rather not discuss the decisions of my brother and Commanding Officer, nor my own private dealings with him.’
‘But I had rather discuss them!’ Anne said with swift vehemence. ‘I am thinking of a woman down there in Bradford, a woman as loyal to the King’s Cause as you are yourself, and two months gone with child; I am thinking of a boy with his shoulder half blown off — if he still lives — among the wounded in the taproom of an inn. For their sakes, I had rather!’
The silence that closed in on her words was a long one. Cavendish had turned from her to look down into the town fast sinking into the dusk below them as the sunset faded; and she could not read his long-nosed jagged profile. ‘It is your quarrel, Lady Fairfax,’ he said at last. ‘Let you take it up. I think that you are brave enough to do so. Cross swords with my brother yourself.’
‘Treachery in my own family! What, Charles, do you incite Lady Fairfax against me?’ said the voice of Lord Newcastle himself behind them. Intent on their urgent converse, neither of them had heard him come. Swirling about, Anne saw him set his hand on Sir Charles’s crooked shoulder, and the glance of easy brotherly affection that passed between them making her think for an instant of Thomas and William. ‘For what cause is Lady Fairfax to cross swords with me?’
‘Lady Fairfax not unnaturally disapproves of your orders concerning Bradford,’ Sir Charles Cavendish said.
‘So?’ The Earl raised a slim brow. ‘I grieve to hear it, but I fear that I am unable to change them.’
Anne faced him in a cold fighting mood. With the last of the sunset burning in the orange-tawny of her gown, her hands gripped together, eyes dilating until they were all black pupil under the heavy brows, she had, though she was unaware of it, her accusing angel aspect. ‘You have given orders for the sack of Bradford after it is taken tomorrow? You have ordered free rein for your men in the town?’
‘So I believe, Lady Fairfax.’
‘And your brother would have me believe that of all the King’s armies, you are the very flower of chivalry!’
Lord Newcastle smiled silkenly. ‘Charles has always had too high an opinion of me.’ He gave his brother’s shoulder a pat, and dropped his thin swordsman’s hand. Suddenly there was steel under the silk. ‘For myself, I make no such claim. I am a soldier with soldiering thrust upon me, determined to play my part in gaining the north for the King.’
‘And you will do so by allowing Bradford to go up in flames? By giving your blessing to the rape of women and the murder of wounded men? Oh yes, I know what happens when troops are given free rein in a captured town! My Lord, that is of course a sure way to win the people’s hearts for the King!’
She wondered whether he would go, after that. But no, he was not taking his leave, not turning away. ‘I will give you two good reasons, Madam, to set in the scales over against that. For the first — there is the value of example to be considered. One man hanged high enough may stop another from sheep stealing. Bradford, above the other towns of the West Riding, has been stiff-necked in rebellion against the King’s Majesty; and Bradford, above the other towns of the West Riding, must be made an example of, that other rebellious towns may see and think. For the second — my troops have had long and hard campaigning with small reward. Now the time comes when it is due to them to be given their heads a little; when if they are still restrained, they may grow restive.’
‘You give me most fine reasons, My Lord!’ Anne said with fierce contempt. ‘The value of example, that the death of rebels is due to the King, that your men must be given the run of their teeth like beasts too long leashed. I will give you another reason, and the chief among them all. It is mere petty ill temper because Bradford has dared for so long to withstand you! The great Earl of Newcastle’s pride is hurt, his vanity is bruised, because for so long he has been held in check by a garrison of dale farmers and weavers with a few muskets and many pole-scythes and cudgels between them! And for that hurt to his vanity he will make a whole brave town suffer in blood and burning!’
‘A shrew, as I live! A shining shrew!’ Lord Newcastle said, very softly; and then, straightening a little, ‘I fear that you have a very poor opinion of me.’
‘How can I have otherwise?’ Anne said with harsh candour. ‘I had hoped that the great Lord Newcastle was great enough to be able to afford mercy.’
In a moment now, he would make her a small formal bow, speak her some small courteous phrase of leave taking, his composure quite unruffled, and turn away. She felt as though she was beating her hands against a stone wall, and her hands were raw and bleeding, but the wall stood as before. ‘Lord Newcastle will be none so gentle a conqueror; not to Bradford that has withstood him so long.’ Mistress Sharpe’s voice seemed still in her ear. ‘If there was a White Lady down to the mill pond, she’d not be there tonight for thy bonny grass garland; she’d be up to Lord Newcastle’s headquarters wringing her hands at Lord Newcastle and crying, “Woe to Bradford! Alas and alas! Spare poor Bradford ...”’
‘My Lord Newcastle —’ she cried it out sharply, as though he had already turned away. ‘Wait. Will you tell me something?’
‘Lady Fairfax?’
She had hardly known, when she cried out, what she was going to say, what appeal she was going to make; a wild and fantastic appeal enough. ‘Tonight you will sleep in the big guest room, with sentries before your door that none may come at you unawares. If you were to wake in the night, and find beside your bed a White Lady, wringing her hands and crying, “Alas and alas! Woe to Bradford! Pity poor Bradford!” and in the morning the guards before your door had seen nothing, would that turn you — even a little — towards mercy, towards changing your orders?’
He looked at her very straightly, a gaze at once arrested and a little abstracted, as though he were listening to something within himself. ‘I think very probably, yes.’
‘And so you would do out of superstition, for the sake of what might be no more than a vivid dream, that which you will not do for justice and humanity, and because you must in your own soul know it to be right?’
There was a long, stark silence, while she stared at him with dilated eyes, her hands gripping and straining together against the glowing stuff of her gown. Lord Newcastle broke it in a cool voice, but touched with a new respect, a new interest. ‘As a swordsman, permit me to say, Lady Fairfax, that what your attack
lacks in finesse, it makes up for in surprise and a certain ruthless singleness of purpose. You are, it seems, an adept at driving your opponent into a corner. With your permission I shall now lower my own defensive point, cry your quarter, and betake myself elsewhere to attend to sundry other matters that await me.’
He bowed, hand on the cut silver hilt of his rapier, and turned on an elegant spurred heel. Then he was gone.
Anne, her hands still gripped together, looked after him for a moment, then she turned to the man beside her, who had stood all the while quietly looking on. ‘Well, are you not going to desert me, Sir Charles? I have just insulted your brother.’
‘It was I who bade you to cross swords with him,’ Cavendish said.
‘And to no purpose. If I could have got one thrust through to him — one thrust! But it is hopeless, he’s too well armoured.’ She began to laugh, a little wildly. ‘Pity poor Bradford! Pity poor Bradford!’
‘Lady Fairfax, I think that you are overwrought,’ said his quiet voice beside her. ‘And God knows that you have a right to be. Furthermore, it grows chilly now that the sun is gone, with this thin small wind coming down from the moors. Will you allow me to take you back to your room?’
‘To my prison, rather!’ she flashed, in the midst of her sudden hysterical laughter. And then mastered herself. ‘Yes, you are right; I — am cold. I will go back to my room.’ She set two fingers on the arm he proffered, as she had done on his brother’s a while since, aware of an unexpected warmth and strength under the rich stuff of his sleeve, and turned back with him to the house.