LITMIR.BIZ

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she could smell his breath like ordure and hear the air rasping in his throat. He let go of her arms and she clasped them over her breasts and then she felt his hands tugging at her waistband and she struck at him and he slapped her stingingly on the face. ‘You be good, girly! You be good!’

      She tried to kick him, but his weight was on her thighs, and he laughed as he took from somewhere in his rags a small, rusted knife and began to saw at the dress’s belt. His trousers had fallen to his thighs. He grunted as he ripped at the cloth, beat her hands aside again, and cursed as she twisted desperately and the tangle of cotton and linen snatched the small blade from his hand. He thumped his fist onto her bare belly to make her quiet. His orders were to disfigure her, to scar her, to pox her, to scab her, to make her a thing that no man could ever desire. He fumbled for the knife, impatient to cut her clothes off, then, losing patience as she twisted so desperately beneath him, he raised himself up and simply pulled her skirts above her waist and forced her legs apart. ‘You be good now, girly! You be good!’

      She screamed in despair. The scream sobbed helplessly as she twisted and then, from nowhere it seemed, came rescue. Into her lonely place of horror came help.

      It came with a shout, with the thunder of hooves, with a cry of alarm from the man who pawed at her and who suddenly scrambled away, gibbering and shouting, and Campion clutched her torn clothes to herself, rolled over, and it seemed as if the air was filled with the noise of hooves, the shadow of a great horse that pounded within inches of her head and she had a glimpse of a mounted man who held a streak of light in his hand.

      ‘No!’ her attacker shouted. His shout was one of pure, sudden terror. He stumbled, one hand holding his trousers, the other warding off the sudden brightness of the long sword. Campion’s eyes were closed. Over the thunder of hooves, over her attacker’s cry for mercy, she heard the hiss of steel in air. Then silence.

      Except it was not silence. She could hear the hooves on the grass. She could hear the creak of a saddle, the chink of a curb chain.

      She pushed herself to her hands and knees. She vomited.

      ‘Madam?’ The voice was crisp, educated, and solicitous. ‘Dear Lady?’ The man had dismounted, had come close to her.

      She shook her head. Her breath came in huge, stomach-heaving gasps. She was on all fours and she could see the scraps of her cream coloured dress hanging down by her breasts. A small, rusty knife was on the ground beneath her. She sobbed.

      She screamed as something touched her, but the man’s voice was gentle. ‘Quiet now! Quiet! Gentle, dear lady!’ A great cloak was dropped about her shoulders, a cloak that enveloped her. It smelt of horses. The man’s voice was soothing, as if he spoke to an unbridled colt. ‘Quiet now. Gentle now!’

      Slowly she knelt up, clutching her own and her rescuer’s cloak about her torn clothing. Her fur bonnet had fallen on one side of her face and she shuddered as she felt his hands put it back into place, but his touch was gentle and she was glad of it.

      ‘Dear lady?’

      She looked up.

      Her rescuer was in uniform. The sight was somehow astonishing. Here, on this lonely heath, was a cavalryman in his finery, a blue jacketed and breeched uniform, bright with red facings and gold lace and looped with frogging and sword slings. An embroidered sabretache swung at his side. Small gold chains hung from his epaulettes. His voice was anxious. ‘Are you hurt, dear lady?’

      ‘Only in my pride.’ It came out as a squeaking sob. She tried to say it louder, then saw the man who had attacked her.

      He lay dead. He could not be alive. His dark rags and his lank hair were red with blood. His trousers were about his thighs. His neck had been half cut through by a great sword, steel bright, blood stained, that her rescuer had plunged into the turf. The man had died in an instant.

      Campion’s breath came in huge gasps. A gobbet of blood, thick as honey, trickled down the sun-reflecting brightness of the big sword. Vomit retched in her throat and she forced it back.

      The cavalryman turned to look at his victim. ‘I shouldn’t have killed him.’

      She frowned. ‘Sir?’

      ‘He should have hung.’ Her rescuer’s voice was suddenly full of outrage. ‘God damn him. He should have hung!’

      Oddly it seemed funny to her. She gave a choking laugh. She knew she sounded hysterical, but she could not help laughing and crying and sobbing at the same time.

      The cavalry officer crouched beside her. ‘Gentle now! Gentle!’

      She shook her head. She swallowed. She took a great gulp of air. ‘I’m all right, sir.’ It came out as a sob again and she forced calmness into her shaking voice. ‘I thank you, sir.’ The words made her cry.

      The cavalryman took from his sleeve a handkerchief, offered it to her, then realized that both her hands were gripping the cloaks to cover her nakedness. He seemed embarrassed by her tears and stood up. He went to the sword, plucked it from the turf, and cleaned the bright blade with the folded handkerchief. He had to scrub at the blood and, when he was done, he tossed the handkerchief away.

      He turned back. She had stopped crying. She knelt on the grass and stared at him. He smiled reassuringly. ‘My presence, dear lady, was most fortunate.’

      ‘Indeed, sir.’ She managed to say the words clearly. Everything seemed unreal, yet slowly the universe was putting itself back together. She could see the chalk scars on the earth ramparts of the old fort, the shadows of the gorse, the black blob of a missel-thrush nest in a bare, stunted elm.

      He smiled at her. ‘I’m travelling to Shaftesbury. Someone said this was a short cut.’ He pushed the sword back into the scabbard, the steel ringing on the metal throat. ‘My servant’s following tomorrow.’ He seemed to be filling the silence with inconsequential words. She nodded.

      ‘You were alone?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes, sir.’ She swallowed. The world seemed to want to spin about her. She closed her eyes. In her mind’s memory she heard the thick chop of the blade in flesh.

      The cavalryman went to look at her phaeton and she opened her eyes and turned to see him unbuckling the harness and leading the miraculously unhurt bays from the wreckage. She was still on her knees. She was shaking. She wiped spittle from her mouth onto the collar of his cloak.

      The cavalryman’s hat had fallen off in his charge. The sun glinted on his golden hair and moustache. He had a round face, red from the cold, and she guessed his age close to thirty. He worked efficiently, tying the bays by their reins to the broken splinter-bar of the phaeton.

      He slapped his hands together when he was done, then took big, white leather gauntlets from his belt and pulled them on. She saw that the right gauntlet was speckled with bright blood. He smiled. ‘That’s the horses looked after, now for you, madam.’

      She felt the need to apologize. ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘Dear lady! You’re sorry! God! It’s I that should apologize. A moment sooner and I might have stopped the whole damned thing.’ He stooped beside the dead body and picked up the gold chain with its diamond drops. ‘Yours? Hardly his, I suppose?’

      He said it so lightly that she laughed. It was a slightly hysterical laugh.

      He stood up, still holding the jewel, and bowed. ‘My name is Lewis Culloden, Lord Culloden. Major in the Blues when the fancy takes me, which is not often.’

      She looked up at him. ‘Lady Campion Lazender, my Lord.’ That too struck her as funny, to be introducing herself from the grass. She wished she could stop the hysterical swinging between tears and laughter. She wished she had brought dogs with her, that the groom had come, that the horrid man with his dripping nose had not pawed at her. She cried.

      Lord Culloden let her cry. He waited till the sobs had faded. He cleared his throat and sounded astonished. ‘You’re Lady Campion Lazender?’

      ‘Yes,

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