Fallen Angels (37 page)

She petted it desperately. It pushed its nose into her face, licked her, turned to rub its stern on her crouching shoulder, rolled over to be scratched and then started all over again. Like most hounds it received no human affection. It seemed to want the lack made up on this warm afternoon.

She willed the hound to go away.

Culloden whistled.

She pushed at the bitch. It licked her face, wriggled in ecstasy, and she pushed again. It barked playfully.

'Come on, damn you!' Culloden's angry voice sounded almost above her. She pushed at the hound, who thought it was a game, and then the leaves above her head shook and she looked up to see her husband's astonished face. He had pulled the privet back to find the hound, instead he stared at Campion.

He sat his saddle in shock as if, though hunting her, he had not expected to find her, and then he bellowed out a great 'hollo!' The fox was sighted. He was calling in the other hunters and Campion, knowing it was useless, scrambled out of the bushes on the far side from him and ran.

She heard his laughter. She heard the hooves.

She was running as the deer had run. The hound ran with her.

She twisted, she turned, she doubled back, she ran where elders grew close and a horse could not gallop, but always at the corner of her eye Culloden's bright uniform flickered among the leaves and trunks. His horse crashed through undergrowth while his voice summoned her other enemies to head her off. She went into coppiced timber, twisting between the withies, and saw, waiting on the far side, one of Larke's men who laughed because she was trapped.

She stopped.

She gripped the cudgel, knowing it was useless, but not willing to surrender without a fight. Sweat stung her eyes. Flies buzzed at her forehead.

Two more horsemen rode into the coppice. The hounds, bored with the poor sport, streamed towards the deer in the park.

Lord Culloden dismounted. He told the three horsemen to guard the coppice's edges.

The coppice was uncut, its tight branched trees too close to permit a horse access. Culloden had to edge sideways to force a path between them. He smiled at her. 'Good afternoon, wife.'

For answer she held the damp oak branch ahead of her.

He laughed. His face was gleaming with sweat. He touched his moustache. 'What a pretty leg you do show, my dear.'

She dodged between two trees. She was slim and could move faster in the small coppice, but she was surrounded. Culloden laughed. 'We have all day, dear wife. And then our wedding night.' He lunged suddenly, forcing branches apart, and she twisted away, a twig lashing her cheek, then turned and struck at him. Her club bounced off the withies and Culloden laughed again. 'Playing games after your brother's death? It's hardly seemly, my Lady.'

A voice shouted from further up the wood and one of the horsemen twisted in his saddle and shouted back. All her pursuers were coming now, a band of men to watch her humiliated. She plucked uselessly at the white silk of her dress, vainly trying to cover her leg. Culloden smiled. 'You'd give us better sport if you took the dress off, dear wife. You want to run naked and take a ten minute start?'

One of the three horsemen laughed. 'Do it, my Lord!'

Culloden smiled at Campion. 'Why not? I've never hunted a naked female.' He lunged at her, snatching the hem of her dress and she screamed, twisted away, and heard the silk tearing as she ducked under a spread of branches. She felt his strength pulling on her skirts and she forced herself away, scrambling on the ground as he tugged at her. The silk tore, she could feel her petticoat tearing, and then she was free and she turned and lashed with her oak club. He laughed triumphantly and brandished a swatch of stained silk. 'Now for the rest, my dear.'

The front of her skirts had almost gone. She beat at him with the club again, but the springy, slender withies that separated them protected him. He smiled. 'I'll give you two minutes, wife. Either you come quietly to me, or we'll hunt you through the wood. First man, first serve, yes? So what will you do?' He laughed.

She hit blindly with the club, shaking the slender branches and making Culloden step back.

A voice shouted again from the wood, this time the shout more urgent, and the sound of it made Culloden turn his head. Campion twisted and wriggled deeper into the coppice. She could hear more hooves, more shouts. Her dress was caught again and she pulled it fiercely, hearing it rip further, then she turned again with her club raised to beat at the man who had stood beside her at Lazen's altar.

But Lord Culloden had not followed her. He was staring up the slope with a puzzled frown.

Campion could see men on foot. They were far off, running slowly in the heat towards the coppice. They shouted a warning and she saw what she had dared not hope for.

She saw a horseman who rode as no other man rode, a horseman of arrogant confidence and dark splendour. Beside him, empty saddled and stirrups flapping, came Hirondelle.

Campion wanted to shout this triumph aloud. She wanted her joy to fill this wood. He had kept his promise.

A black-dressed man on a black horse, a sword in his hand, riding towards the coppice with a smile on his face and, as Campion's heart leapt with sudden joy, he touched the flanks of his horse and came at her enemies in a gallop.

Christopher Skavadale had come back.

The first of the three men spurred to meet the Gypsy. The man drew his own sword and rode so that his right hand would meet the Gypsy's right hand and Campion held her breath as the two men came close, as Skavadale's horse swerved and she saw the Gypsy toss his sword from his right to his left hand, spear it forward, and the wood was filled with a terrible, rising scream and the man was folded on the steel, falling, blood bright as his body turned, and Skavadale let the weight of the man tear his twisting blade free of the spilling guts.

The other two horsemen were riding to help the first, but the first man was already dead, his blood in the leaf mould, his belly opened, his body dragging from one stirrup so that his guts trailed in the dead leaves.

He had kept his promise. He had come back. She laughed with the joy of it and she saw his face, thin and bright-eyed, lit with the relish of battle.

Lord Culloden was pushing through the coppice, Campion forgotten, as the second man swung his sword in a great blow at the Gypsy, but the black horse turned at the last moment, taking the man's target away, and Skavadale's sword, back in his right hand, butchered down to the man's skull.

A pistol banged, the noise clattering pigeons up from the trees, filling the wood with alarm.

Two men were dead, the third threw away his pistol that had missed and drew his sword. He had never seen a swordsman so fast or a horseman so good. To run was to invite the Gypsy's blade in his back, to go forward was to meet death, and he did neither. He sat still and parried the first lunge so that the swords rang in the wood like a struck anvil and then the man screamed because the blade had twisted beneath his guard and was rising to his throat.

Skavadale did not wait to watch the man die. He turned, letting his horse's motion razor the steel through the man's neck and Campion put a hand to her mouth as she saw the blood fountain up, bright against the turning leaves. She was shaking.

He wore black breeches, black boots and a black shirt. His sleeves were rolled up, his tattooed eagles flecked with blood. He turned from the last death and plucked the reins of Lord Culloden's horse, drawing it away from the coppice and from its owner who stood now at the coppice's edge. Skavadale leaned over, took Culloden's pistol from its saddle-holster, aimed, and fired.

The shot echoed through the wood.

The bullet churned leaves in front of Larke's men who ran towards the coppice. It checked them. They had seen three men die in the time it took to draw a breath, and none wished to join the dead who lay sprawled on the leaves. The first man, his horse panicked, bumped and jolted as his corpse was dragged through the undergrowth.

Skavadale turned back.

She felt her breath catch in her. His face was so strong, so implacable, the eyes harder than stone. His sword point dripped blood as it dipped towards Lord Culloden's face. She thought the Gypsy was going to kill the cavalry officer, but Skavadale smiled. His stained sword point was within an inch of Culloden's eyes. 'Remember me, my Lord? The Prince de Gitan?' The sword came forward, forcing Culloden to step back. He made no effort to raise his own sword.

The Gypsy forced him back another step. 'Drop your sword, my Lord. Then mount.'

Culloden, terrified of this man who had killed with such speed and skill, obeyed. The men on the hill, a hundred yards away, watched, but dared not come forward.

'My Lady?'

'Mr Skavadale?' Her voice was weak.

He smiled, a smile of joyous welcome, of a secret shared. 'I owe you an apology, my Lady.'

'An apology?' She had dropped the makeshift club.

Christopher Skavadale glanced at Culloden who was mounting his horse. He looked back to Campion. 'I should have been here yesterday, but Rom magic doesn't control the Channel's winds. Can I suggest you come with me?'

She scrambled out of the coppice. Hirondelle waited for her and Campion, modesty gone to the wind, climbed astride the saddle. Her legs were bared by the torn dress.

Culloden was shaking with fear.

Skavadale, his bloody sword still drawn, glanced once more at the men on the hill, then backed his horse until it was behind Lord Culloden. 'Give me your hands, my Lord.'

Culloden frowned. I've given up my sword!'

Skavadale smiled. 'I'll tear out your spine if you don't give me your hands.'

There was no fight in Lord Culloden. Meekly he put his hands behind his back and Campion saw him wince as the Gypsy tied them. The men up the hill fired a single pistol shot, the bullet ripping at leaves overhead and frightening the birds once more. Skavadale looked with disdain at the men, then smiled at Campion. 'Now we can go.'

She glanced down as they rode away. The last man to die lay with his head half severed, just like the man on the Milett's End road. She almost gagged. Flies crawled on the blood and gaping flesh, and then Hirondelle stretched her legs and she rode behind the Gypsy out of the wood. He had come back. Amidst the stench of blood and the ring of steel he had come back. She laughed aloud. He had come back.

No one pursued them. Skavadale led Culloden's horse by its reins, Campion followed, and they rode westwards until Lazen was out of sight and then the Gypsy turned south. He smiled at her and spoke in French. 'I didn't expect you to run for the hills!'

'Expect me?'

'I was in the house!' He glanced at Lord Culloden. The Gypsy's drawn, blood-matted sword had mesmerized his Lordship. Skavadale looked at her bared thighs and smiled. 'It seems a pity, my Lady, but perhaps you should take this.' He pulled a cloak from the straps of his saddle and tossed it to her. 'You'll have fresh clothes at Periton House.'

'Periton House?' She was spreading the cloak like a blanket over her legs.

He grinned. 'I took the liberty of sending some of your servants to Periton House. You don't mind?'

'Mind?' She seemed to be in a daze. One moment she had been hunted through an autumn wood, the next she was riding across a water meadow with the Gypsy. Skavadale smiled.

'I don't think you can go back to the Castle yet.'

'No.' That much seemed obvious.

'So there's some bedding, food and servants at the other house. You'll be comfortable enough.' He laughed and urged his horse into a canter.

Campion followed. He was arranging her life and somehow, though she was more than capable of arranging it herself, it felt good to be looked after. She laughed again. He had come back.

—«»—«»—«»—

That night the Gypsy sat on the floor of Periton's half finished kitchen and cut a sponge into squares three inches thick. Campion, wearing a dress of blue linen beneath a black cloak, watched him. Edna, her maid, had brought the clothes. She had brought news of the Castle, too. It was, she said, all confusion. The new Earl gave orders, Valentine Larke gave orders, and no one knew what was happening. 'They're foul, my Lady. Talk to us like dirt!'

A dozen servants, led by Simon Burroughs, had left Lazen. They guarded Periton House this night, including the empty tack room where Lord Culloden had been locked for the night.

Edna sat in the kitchen with Campion. The smell of damp plaster was made worse by the smell of lard that Skavadale had melted in a huge pot on the fire. He was busy with the sponge, slicing it with his knife, but he obstinately refused to explain why he did it.

He spoke in French with Campion. He said he had come to Lazen because he feared for her, that he had cause to fear for her.

'Cause?'

He cut the last piece of sponge into halves, then took a ball of twine. 'You had a portrait painted once. You wore a cream dress and held flowers?'

'Yes.' She frowned at the seeming irrelevancy.

'Where is it?' His blue eyes shone in the candlelight.

She shrugged. 'I gave it to Lord Culloden.'

He had cut a length of twine and was tying it about one of the lumps of sponge, compressing the sponge until it resembled an odd, string tied ball less than an inch in diameter. 'I carried that portrait, my Lady, from England to France. I had orders to give it to Bertrand Marchenoir.'

She stared at him. She wondered if she had heard correctly. 'You did what?'

He started on the second lump of sponge with another length of twine. 'I'm Marchenoir's messenger. I can't read his letters because they're in code. But Marchenoir did say one thing to me.' He grunted as he tied the lump tight.

'What?'

'How much he'd like to be the one who killed you.' He looked up at her with a quick, apologetic grin. 'He didn't merely say kill, but I'll spare you the rest.'

She was appalled. Edna, who spoke no French, watched her mistress's face. Campion's voice was low. 'Kill?'

'So he said.' Skavadale was tying the next lump. 'It seems, my Lady, that your house has enemies. They killed Toby's bride and they want to kill you.' He spoke mildly, as though they chatted about the weather or the prospects of harvest. He began compressing the next scrap of sponge into a tight ball. 'Why would your husband be in league with Marchenoir?'