The conclusive argument, however, was that John was quite willing to order him to go, whereupon a refusal would become desertion, to be punished by either flogging or hanging. Still visibly unhappy, Timothy re-packed his travelling clothes and followed the others up the hillside from Marshside.
The journey was a slow one; Miriam was not an experienced rider, and although she did not complain, she kept slowing her mount, forcing the others to slow with her, and at times John caught glimpses of her grimacing in pain. She invariably tried to hide such lapses, such signs of mere humanity, and John made no comment on them. Timothy did not appear to notice anything amiss; he was only too glad to allow his own horse to dawdle.
They camped early that evening, after covering so little ground that John almost imagined he could still see Marshside in the distance. He knew that was nonsense; they had gone up and down several ridges and across some badlands, and had put enough distance behind them that even on a plain Marshside would have been below the horizon, but still he had the feeling that all he would need to do would be to walk back up the slope of the last ridge and there it would be, just as he had left it.
With that thought in mind, he considered the possibility of Miriam slipping away while he slept, and making her way back to Marshside. Even if his men there were to recognize her and demand an explanation-which they might not, as one female prisoner looked much like another to experienced soldiers-she would be quite capable of devising one. An ambush on the road, John and Timothy dead-that would do well enough until he got back himself.
Or she might cut his throat while he slept and then return to Marshside, which would be safer for her.
Accordingly, before he settled down to sleep, he wrapped the voluminous riding skirt around her, pinning her arms to her sides, and tied it securely in place. The trailing end of the rope he then tied to the handle of the cooking pot that hung from its folding tripod over the campfire. The skirt would keep the rope from chafing or cutting off her circulation. He thought she might well be able to work her way free in time, but her struggles, he judged, would bring down the pot and tripod with enough noise to wake Timothy and himself.
She made no comment at these preparations, and in fact had not said a word since their departure, but when he had finished she sneered at him unmistakably.
Timothy seemed puzzled by such excessive precautions, but knew better than to say anything that might be construed as criticism of his commanding officer.
John was not bothered by Miriam's derision or Timothy's confusion. He knew that he was being more cautious than might seem necessary, but he preferred excessive caution to recklessness. Fewer men died of caution.
The next morning Miriam was visibly stiff, and awkward in mounting, treating John and Timothy to a flash of leg before she got the riding skirt in place. John toyed idly with the thought of raping her after all-but morning was not the time, and Timothy was with them. Timothy would have no objections, John was sure, to anything his commanding officer might care to do, but his presence still acted as a deterrent. John mounted his horse and led the way.
They camped that night on another undistinguished hillside, and by then John had forgotten his earlier lascivious interest in Miriam. For her part, she was utterly exhausted, her entire body aching, and John saw nothing particularly attractive about his dishevelled and dirty prisoner. He wrapped her up once again, though less carefully, and took no interest in the feel of her body through the heavy fabric.
The following day was similar, save that Timothy seemed to be growing ever more nervous. John tired of coaxing his companions onward, and they made camp early.
As they were eating a sparse supper of dried mutton and beans, John asked Timothy, “How much further?"
Timothy started. “How much further to what?"
“To Little St. Peter, of course."
“Oh. Ah, not far, sir. A few hours."
“Good,” John said, lifting the meat to his mouth.
“Yes, good,” Timothy echoed. He stared at the road stretching out to the east.
After they had eaten and tidied up and taken turns in the bushes John attempted to chat, to get to know his companions better, and to question Timothy further about his earlier journey. Miriam would say nothing at all, however, and Timothy's answers, which had to be carefully coaxed out of him, were brief, inconsequential, and often totally inappropriate to the question. John quickly gave up. He bound Miriam in her skirt for the night and went to sleep, leaving Timothy staring at the dying campfire.
The next morning Timothy and one of the horses were gone; hoofprints were visible on the road westward, back toward Marshside. John stared after him in disgust.
“He'll hang for this,” he announced.
Miriam, still tied in her skirt, finally broke her long silence with a great barrage of howling, derisive laughter.
“Oh, the great warrior, such an inspiration to his men!” she called.
John suppressed an urge to slap her; instead he simply left her bound while he prepared and ate his breakfast. When he was done he released her and handed her the leftover scraps.
“Don't think this changes anything,” he said. “We're still going to Little St. Peter, and you still can't afford to betray me."
“How can one betray an enemy?” she countered.
He made no answer, merely lifted her into the saddle.
It was mid-afternoon of that fourth day, the twentieth of April, when they finally reached Little St. Peter.
The town sat atop a hill, surrounded by a wall of stone braced with heavy beams of nearwood; at each corner stood a tower, and atop each tower a machine gleamed dully in the amber daylight. Looking at them, John was uncertain whether they were, in fact, machine guns; they appeared ridiculously large. There could be no doubt, however, that they were weapons. As the two travellers rode up the highway toward the western gate the guns on either side were kept trained directly at them.
Four soldiers were lounging at the gate; one called out perfunctorily, “In the Name of the Lord, Our God, state your business."
“Peaceful trade, by Christ's mercy,” John replied.
“Name yourselves, and your faith."
“Joel Meek-Before-Christ and my wife Miriam, of the Church of the Only God.” The Church of the Only God had been a small tribe comprising three villages along the westernmost extreme of the Upper New Jordan; John's cavalry had obliterated all three two years before. Since no one had escaped, he doubted the news had reached Little St. Peter.
“What are you selling?"
John shrugged. “A little of this, a little of that; woolens, mostly."
The soldier asked one of his comrades, “Do you want to bother searching?"
“Ah, let him go in,” the other replied.
The first shrugged and pushed open the gate. “Pass, friend, into Little St. Peter, free in faith under the protection of the People of Heaven. Amen."
“Amen,” John replied, startled by the open renunciation of any claim to the One True Religion. He spurred his horse and rode into the town, Miriam close behind, the pack horse trailing.
Chapter Five
“A faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent."-Proverbs 28:20
By the time they had made their way through the broad paved square inside the gate and found an inn John had decided that Timothy had grossly understated the opulence of the town. He had never seen such colors and textures. Almost every woman he saw seemed to be wearing a new color-every shade of green, blue, and yellow he could imagine, and a handful of daring young things in pink. Even a few men wore colors, blues and dark greens, and those who did wear the more customary browns and grays often used shades he had not encountered anywhere else.