She edged backward and stood up. Paul was sitting on the ground, his back to a rock, placidly eating an apple. Their two horses, tethered to a sapling, were busy with the contents of their nosebags.
“How long d’you think it’ll take the others to get here?” Portia inquired casually.
“Will said to expect ‘em afore sunset,” Paul replied. “I don’t reckon ’e thought we’d get done quite so fast.” He grinned and tossed aside his apple core. “We wouldn’t ‘ave been either if you ’adn’t picked up them tracks.”
Portia unbuckled her saddlebag and withdrew a cloth-wrapped package. “Did you eat all the chicken, Paul?”
“I thought you said you didn’t like it.”
“I never said any such thing,” she protested. “Oh well, I suppose I can make do with cheese.” She perched casually on the rock with her bread and cheese.
“Yeah, I reckon if you ‘adn’t picked up them tracks, we’d prob’ly ’ave missed ‘em altogether,” Paul said, picking his teeth with a twig.
Portia’s smile was a little smug. “They were certainly surprised when we jumped out in front of them.” She and Paul had been given the task of following two men, traveling as well-to-do farmers, who Will had heard on his spy grapevine were actually rebel couriers, carrying information from General Fairfax in Hull to Lord Leven, who was camped outside Durham.
Paul chuckled. “Aye, the master’ll be pleased wi‘ what we got out of’em.”
They’d tracked the two men to a hamlet some five miles away from their present picnic spot and had managed to spring an unpleasant surprise on them. With the result that the two couriers were now lodged, bound and gagged, in a henhouse awaiting an uncertain rescue, and the papers they’d been carrying were tucked away in an inner pocket in Portia’s saddlebag. They were interesting papers, too, revealing information about troop movements that would be of vital importance to the royalist armies.
Will had sent Portia and Paul off on this errand while he and the rest of the patrol had gone after a small troop of Granville militia, hoping to engage them in a skirmish.
It had been a desultory war in the north border lands during these winter months. One of skirmishes and spies, of sieges and needling harassment. No decisive battles had been fought since Leven had brought his Scots army across the border. The royalist forces still held the north, except for Hull, but spring was in the air, armies would soon be able to move more freely, and the royalist forces under Lord Newcastle were new outnumbered. If the two wings of the rebel armies joined forces, the king’s cause would be destroyed in the north.
Rufus would certainly be very interested in the information Portia carried in her saddlebags.
“I’m going for a little stroll, Paul.” She slid off the rock.
Paul merely grunted and closed his eyes, arms folded over his chest beneath his cloak, preparing to take a nap.
Portia knew he assumed she was merely going to answer nature’s call and left him with that assumption. With any luck, he’d sleep most of the afternoon… she might even be back before he awoke.
She moved with all the speed and cunning she had learned in the last weeks, through the small grove of trees that covered the hillside leading down to the castle, darting from trunk to trunk, using the concealment of bushes and rocks. Her britches and jerkin were dark wool, blending with the landscape, and her bright hair was concealed beneath a cap that hugged her head. She had both rapier and knife in her belt… and if she had to use them it wouldn’t be the first time. She had learned many things in the last weeks, not least that scruples about shedding blood vanished into the wind when one’s own blood was threatened.
She inched her way around the moat until she faced the little island. There was a warmth in the March sun now; the vicious bite of the winter wind softened. In a week the ice on the moat would be too thin for Olivia to venture forth on skates. This was Portia’s last chance to leave the promised missive beneath the boulder.
She had been agonizing over how to get a message to Olivia, but there had been no opportunities until today. Even if it would have been possible to leave Decatur village without detection, she’d been kept far too busy to make such an expedition.
The master of Decatur had been true to his word, and the new recruit to the ranks had been absorbed without reference to her sex or her relationship with the master. Her position was lowly, and she was regularly assigned to the boring and tedious tasks that went into keeping a full-scale armory in pristine condition. She took sentry duty according to the roster, and if it meant she was absent from Rufus’s bed, the commander accepted it without a murmur. And when Rufus went out on expeditions, he didn’t always include her among those he chose to accompany him. She’d challenged her exclusion on one occasion, only to be told that he’d checked the roster and seen she was assigned to culverin drill. And Portia had reluctantly come to the conclusion that Rufus genuinely had not considered the possibility of changing her duty to accommodate such conflicts.
Today’s little excursion had begun as routine. Will was checking up on the network of spies he had around the countryside and had taken a detachment of ten with him, including Portia and Paul. Ordinarily he would have been content just to pursue the rebel couriers, but the news that a small troop of Granville men was approaching from York had fired his blood. He wanted to conduct an engagement, without either Rufus or George. It would be the first time ever, and it was too good an opportunity to prove his skills as a battlefield commander.
Sending Portia and Paul after the couriers, not a particularly dangerous task since they’d be better armed than their quarry and would have the advantage of surprise, had seemed to Will to be the perfect solution. They had arranged to rendezvous for the ride back to Decatur village at sunset. Which gave Portia two hours to complete her business on the moat. Plenty of time.
She looked up at the castle, the standards flying from its battlements and keeps. On the ice, hidden by the island, she would be out of sight of the drawbridge and the watchtowers, and once on the island she’d be quite safe from detection. Nevertheless, it took a deep breath of courage to force herself to emerge from the safety of the bushes and step down onto the ice. It looked greenish and transparent, and there was a single ominous crack as she walked forward.
“Hell and the devil!” she muttered, and, crouching low, raced across the ice. She had no idea how deep the moat was, but even if it was shallow, she’d be in a pretty pickle if she went through the ice. She scuttled onto the island amid a quacking flurry of ducks and dived into the screen of bushes.
The boulder was there as she remembered. She took the letter out of the inside pocket of her jerkin and slid it beneath the boulder, then prepared to make the dash back across the ice.
She heard the voices the instant before she stepped out from concealment. They were a little way away and it took her a minute to realize that one of them was Olivia’s. But who the hell was the other one? It was one thing for Olivia to see her here, but she couldn’t afford anyone else to catch her.
There was nowhere to go. The island was little bigger than a large rock, and she was taking advantage of its only concealment. Perhaps Olivia was skating on the moat and would bypass the island. The voices came closer. They were high and intense, both female. Portia frowned, searching errant memory. There was something familiar about the second… ah, she got it. It belonged to Phoebe. Diana’s little sister. Not dangerous unless she’d changed dramatically. She perched on the boulder and waited.
The girls came onto the island. “The boulder is behind the bushes,” Olivia said, her voice somewhat breathless. “She p-promised to leave a message, but she hasn’t yet. I’m worried that maybe she didn’t get to Decatur.”