Rufus leaned forward and plucked the cap from Portia’s head. “No,” he said distantly. “She’s not one of my men, but she travels with us.”
“Oh, aye.” The captain nodded his understanding. Camp followers were common enough, although it was unusual to see them dressed as this one was. But then, this one had been up to something more sinister than merely following the drum. “But she’s been spying, you say?”
“So it would seem,” he said as distantly as before. “And not for the first time.”
“No, I haven’t!” Portia heard the desperation in her voice. She couldn’t believe that Rufus had denied her to the captain… had relegated her to the status of a whore. “You know I haven’t, Rufus.”
He ignored the appeal. “You do not deny that you entered the castle by a secret entrance?”
“No.”
“You do not deny that you knew that by so doing you were consorting with the enemy?”
“Olivia and Phoebe aren’t the enemy,” she said, her voice dull as she understood that she was not going to convince him of the innocence of her errand… not this time.
“You were in that castle. You were among the enemy.” He waved a dismissive hand. “You swore allegiance to the Decatur standard and you betrayed that allegiance.”
Portia shook her head, her cheek and lip throbbing. “Please, Rufus – ”
“Did you take anything into the castle?” The interruption was as hard and rasping as a file against iron She looked at him, bewildered. “Just fruit,” she said. “I thought they might be thirsty.” And then she heard how she had finally condemned herself.
The captain said swiftly, “That’s offering comfort and succor to the rebels, the king’s enemies. It’s treason and a matter for headquarters.”
Rufus looked steadily at Portia. “How could I have been so deceived?” he said. “You are a Granville. You carry the germ of deceit and betrayal in your blood.” He turned away with a gesture of disgust.
“It’s a matter for headquarters, m’lord,” the captain repeated. “She’ll be sent there for questioning as soon as it’s light.”
“Rufus…” Portia held out her hand in appeal. He couldn’t walk away from her. Surely he couldn’t.
He glanced over his shoulder and said with the same cold distance. “I can do nothing for you. You condemned yourself.” He pushed through the tent door and was gone.
Portia stared at the tent flap still stirring where he’d roughly thrust it aside. She couldn’t believe that her whole world had collapsed, so suddenly, so completely, and so without just cause. But they were binding her hands with thick, rough rope and prodding her forward, out into the night, and the reality of imprisonment, of the horrors of interrogation that awaited her in York, of the spy’s noose at the end of the agony, filled her mind. She wanted to scream at the injustice, but her tongue was locked.
They forced her to sit at the base of a tree a few hundred yards from the guard tent, and they tied her securely to the trunk with rope beneath her arms. They used the loose end of the rope that held her wrists to bind her ankles as well, and then they left her trussed, wet and shivering, to await the dawn.
Rufus walked through the camp. He was blind and deaf, locked into his own world where the rage burned bright as a volcano, and the hurt was a black pit as cold as the rage was hot. But at last something broke through the trance, and he heard his own voice over and over in his head, “There is nothing I can do for you.” It became a chant, blocking out all else, and finally he stopped walking and turned back to find Will.
Whatever she’d done, he could not condemn her to what awaited her in York. The madness of obsession had driven him to speak as he had done, but he was in control now. Oh, the rage still burned, and the hurt still froze some central core of his being, but he was rational again and he could not forget what she had been to him, what she had meant to him. He could not stand aside while they hurt her, and he could not watch her death. She was false, she deserved what they would do to her, but he could not let it happen.
Will listened in disbelief to what had occurred, but he offered no comment, recognizing that the master of Decatur was but newly in control of his devils. He heard his orders and slipped away through the camp.
Portia leaned her head against the trunk of the tree. Her face burned and throbbed, and she had lost feeling in her hands. When Will appeared out of the trees behind her, she merely looked at him, her mouth too swollen to move even had she thought of anything to say.
He knelt and swiftly cut her bonds. “Come. You must be away from here before they come to take you.”
She managed to speak. “I don’t know whether I can walk.” She didn’t even know whether she could stand. Her mind could no longer keep track of what was happening, and her body seemed simply to have given up.
Will didn’t reply. He lifted her easily and at a half run carried her back to Rufus’s tent. Rufus was waiting for her, but his eyes were cold and distant as Will set her down on her cot and then hurried out.
“Get out of those wet clothes, quickly,” Rufus instructed, indicating the pile of dry clothes he’d set out. “If you’re still here at dawn, I won’t be able to save you. Be quick.”
In a daze, Portia stripped and dragged on the clean garments and her spare pair of boots. The silence that bound them was hideous. She couldn’t bear to look at his face and see there the dreadful contempt and the betrayal in his eyes. She sensed that the terrifying rage was gone, but this cold and scornful disdain was almost worse. But she did not venture a word more in her defense.
George entered just as she’d pulled on her boots. “Horses’re ready,” he said, and seemed deliberately to avert his eyes from Portia.
“You’ll need to help her to mount. She’s exhausted.” It was the first time he had acknowledged her condition, and Portia felt an instant’s hope. But when she looked toward him, he merely looked through her as if she were made of air.
George simply lifted her as Will had done, carried her out, and hoisted her up onto Penny. “I’ll lead her. Just hold on to the pommel,” he instructed.
Portia obeyed. Rufus had not followed them out of the tent, and she couldn’t even summon up the energy to ask where George was taking her. As he clicked his tongue and set their horses in motion, Juno barreled out of the undergrowth, yapping excitedly, prancing on her hind legs demanding to be lifted up to the saddle. George ignored the puppy and urged the horses to a trot.
“George, please.” Portia could hear the tears in her voice. “Juno…”
George swore. “My orders said nothin‘ about that damn puppy.”
“Please.”
He looked at her properly for the first time, it seemed, and there was a softening to his mouth. Then he drew rein and when Juno bounded up, he leaned down, caught her by the scruff of the neck, and yanked her upward. “ ‘Ere.” He handed the puppy across to Portia, who managed a painful smile of thanks. She didn’t know where she was going, but having Juno was an immediate comfort.
The next hours passed in a daze. She didn’t know whether she slept or was just unconscious some of the time. All her being was centered on her hands clinging to the pommel. If she didn’t let go, it didn’t matter that her eyes were closed, her head drooping, her body swaying. Her mind had ceased to work. She couldn’t think of what had happened, or what might happen. She existed only in this moment, this little spate in time that contained her body.
She was barely aware when they passed through the sentry posts into Decatur village. The posts were unmanned, the fires unlit. The village was no longer a martial establishment, and its few occupants were content with the small rituals of daily living that provided a threat to no one.
George led Penny to a stone building on the outskirts of the village. It was small and square, its windows barred, its single door of massive oak kept closed with a heavy bar across it on the outside. It was the Decatur prison.