Phoebe wanted to lean back against him, into the encircling embrace of the arm that held her. But how could she?
“There’s someone up ahead,” she whispered suddenly. Her ears were particularly acute and she’d heard what she was certain was the chink of a bridle. “Listen.”
Cato drew rein, signaling that his men should do the same. They all sat still, ears stretched into the darkness of the woods on either side of the track.
Then Cato heard it too, at the same moment that Giles raised a finger and pointed to the right. A twig cracked, then another. And then the faintest whicker of a horse. Then it was hushed and silent as the grave. Nothing stirred, not a squirrel, nor a rabbit, not a pheasant, not so much as a sparrow. And it was this silence, this total lack of ordinary sound, that told Cato they had company in the woods and it was company that didn’t wish to be discovered.
He stared frowning into the trees. If it was a royalist party, he should engage them. In ordinary circumstances he wouldn’t hesitate. He could feel Giles’s eagerness as the man drew close beside him on the narrow path.
But Cato could not do battle with Phoebe on his saddle.
Phoebe took matters into her own hands. She would not be a burden to him when it came to military decisions, whatever else he thought of her. She leaned back and mouthed against his ear, “I’ll wait up a tree. I’ve done it before.”
Cato’s teeth flashed white in the darkness. “So you have,” he murmured. “Get down, then.” He lifted her down to the path and Giles nodded with satisfaction.
Phoebe, still clutching her basket, slid into the trees to the left of the path. Whatever was going to happen would happen on the right, so she’d be out of their way. She felt a curious exhilaration mingling with her apprehension. Cato would be all right. She’d seen him in action. She had faith. No one could get the better of him.
She set the basket at the base of an oak tree with low branches and hauled herself onto the bottom branch. Her gown ripped under the arms as she reached upward to grab a higher branch. Phoebe gave a mental shrug. The dress was too small for her anyway.
She scrambled up until she could sit astride a branch that overhung the path. There were no leaves to obscure her view of the track below, and she leaned into the trunk so she wouldn’t be easily visible to anyone passing underneath. Her gown was a dull gray and blended well with the bark.
She was barely settled before the evening quiet was riven with sound. Yells, then the clash of steel, the violent thudding of hooves. And now Phoebe was no longer exhilarated, she was terrified. Why should she believe Cato would survive a hand-to-hand battle? What made him immune?
A volley of musket fire, the smell of cordite on the soft evening air. A barrage of shouts, a whole confusion of sound. Phoebe tried to imagine what was happening from the noise, but it was hopeless.
Suddenly she couldn’t bear to sit in her perch a moment longer. She had to see what was happening. She inched forward along the branch to give her room to swing her legs down to the branch below. Then she froze. Hooves thundered along the narrow track, coming away from the sounds of fighting.
Three horsemen hurtled along the path, spurring their mounts, whips slashing flanks as they urged the sweating beasts to greater effort. A gust of wind snatched at the plumed hat of the man in front. He reached to grab for it but it was lost, and his long, flowing hair cascaded free in the wind as they raced beneath Phoebe’s tree. For an instant she saw his face clearly. And then they were gone.
Phoebe almost fell from her perch in her excitement. As she reached the track, Cato with Giles and four other Granville men came galloping towards her.
“It was the king!” Phoebe shouted as they reached her.
“What!” Cato hauled back on the reins and his horse came to a rearing, plunging halt, the others following suit. “What did you say?”
“The king! He just went past here.” Phoebe pointed down the track.
“Are you sure?” Giles demanded, staring at her.
Phoebe’s chin went up. She said with that faint hauteur that Cato had noticed before, “Do you doubt me, Lieutenant? I assure you I’ve seen the king many times.”
Her tone had its effect. Giles looked for once a trifle discomfited. He coughed and then said, “We’d best be after ‘im then, m’lord.” He kicked his horse and it leaped forward.
“Follow me!” he yelled to his men, and they galloped in pursuit of His Sovereign Majesty King Charles.
“They won’t catch them,” Phoebe said to Cato, who had not followed Giles. “They were going like bats out of hell.”
“I had an inkling,” Cato murmured, more to himself than to Phoebe. “When those three didn’t even stay to fight, I had a feeling one of them was of more importance than the rest. But fool that I am, it never occurred to me we had the king within our grasp.”
“I saw him clear as day.”
“Well, he’s away now,” Cato said with a vigorous oath. “And if I know anything, he’s heading for the Scottish border.”
This was a significant development. If Charles had fled Oxford and was heading for Scottish protection, it must mean he’d given up hope of prevailing against Parliament. He would surrender to the Scots, who would guarantee his safety and their support to regain his throne, in exchange for his commitment to establish the Presbyterian Church in England. A commitment Cato, from his knowledge of the king, was convinced Charles would not make.
He would prevaricate; he would negotiate; he might appear to agree; but in the end he would renege. The king’s false dealings with both the Irish and the Scots were well known. He was a supreme wriggler, a past master at the art of making and breaking promises, of twisting his own words and those of his advisors to make a simple statement suddenly mean something quite other.
“We lost ‘im.” Giles’s disconsolate shout preceded his reappearance. “Vanished into thin air. Should we search the countryside, sir?”
“We don’t have enough men,” Cato replied. “And we need to attend to the wounded. Get Jackson and Carter to organize a litter party, and have the others escort the prisoners to headquarters. You accompany me back to the manor. I’ll write up a dispatch and you can take it straight off to headquarters.”
“Aye, sir.” Giles rode back to where the sounds of fighting had now ceased.
Cato reached down a hand for Phoebe, who hopped for his boot, clutching her basket, as he pulled her up.
“You’re not hurt?” she asked, turning to look at him over her shoulder.
“Not a scratch,” he said, absently removing a twig from her hair before licking his thumb and wiping a smudge of dirt from her cheek.
“It was the tree,” Phoebe said.
“Yes,” he agreed, looking back down the path, a frown in his eyes.
“What would have happened if you’d caught the king?”
“Good question,” Cato said, his tone abstracted.
Phoebe didn’t press for further information. The exhilaration of excitement was wearing off and her brave front with it.
“Right y’are, sir.” Giles came up with them. “They’re seein‘ to the litters. Job’s got a nasty sword gash, but the rest is minor, I reckon. The prisoners is on their way.”
Cato nodded and they started off back down the path towards the village.
“You think there’ll be talk at ‘eadquarters, m’lord, about us lettin’ the king slip, like?” Giles ventured after a minute. His tone was unusually tentative.
“No!” Cato responded sharply. “Why should there be? We didn’t even know he was there.”
“Jest that I ‘eard rumors, like,” Giles said with a shrug. “Like what not everyone’s fer gettin’ rid o‘ the king.”
“You mean, like I’m not,” Cato said with a touch of acid.
“Well, summat like that.”
Phoebe was listening intently now. This touched upon what she had overheard last night in headquarters, the altercation between Cato and Cromwell that she’d listened to as she lay upstairs on the cot. It had sounded serious to her then. Now it seemed there were ramifications.