The men around her rode in silence, and only the clink of a bridle, the jingle of a spur, competed with the plaintive calls of a plover or the sudden joyous heart pouring of a blackbird.
It was too soon to make her bid for freedom, the countryside too open and still too close to the hilltop watchmen. She managed to remain inconspicuous by casually changing position. There seemed no particular order to the procession, men rode singly or in twos and threes, and Portia moved Penny around the little knots of riders, never in one position long enough to draw attention to herself. However, she kept well back from the head of the cavalcade, where Rufus Decatur rode with Will.
They soon left the open countryside and turned into a narrow, rocky defile that threaded between two folds of hills. The craggy sides rose high, almost meeting overhead at some points. There was never more than a thin sliver of blue sky, and the air was cold and dank, the continual drip of moisture down the rock face adding to the gnarled pendant shafts of ice.
They rode in single file now and in complete silence. It was as if the brooding quality of their surroundings had infused their spirits, and there was no sign of the earlier exhilaration. Penny picked her way delicately between a raw-boned gray gelding and a handsome black mare. She seemed perfectly comfortable, as if she’d taken part in many such expeditions in the past, but her position sandwiched between two other horses precluded Portia’s escape from the narrow pass. She’d just have to bide her time until the bottleneck opened.
The cavalcade was still within the defile when Rufus drew rein and signaled a halt. Portia couldn’t see what was happening at first, then she noticed one of the men scrambling up the rock face, as nimbly as if he was on a ladder. At the top, he clambered over on his belly and slithered away.
“They should be gettin‘ close b’now,” the man in front murmured to Portia, turning in his saddle to address her as he drew out a packet of provisions from his saddlebags. “The master ’as a right gift fer estimatin‘.”
Rufus must have based his calculations on how fast Leven’s men were moving. But how could he have known that from such a distance with only a spyglass to help him?
Despite the grimness of their surroundings, the men were all now unwrapping provisions, obviously stoking themselves for the battle to come-a prospect that didn’t seem to affect their appetites any. Portia was ravenous, but there was nothing she could do except sniff hungrily and pretend indifference.
The man came scrambling back down the cliff and raced to where Rufus was calmly eating bread and cheese atop Ajax. They had a hasty whispered colloquy and then the word came down the line. “They’re approaching the mouth. Get in position.”
Provisions were put away, muskets came out. The men rode forward to a point where the defile opened out like the mouth of an estuary onto a patch of open ground surrounded by leafless trees and moss-covered boulders as big as small knolls. It was a natural enclosure and the perfect site for an ambush.
The Decatur men were forming rows of five, one line behind the other, holding to the shadows of the hidden pass. Portia couldn’t see how she could fail to be discovered if she stayed around. There was no place for number thirty-one in the five-man rows. But now was her chance for escape. She edged Penny backward down the defile. If no one looked behind, she would be able to back around a corner and retrace the path to the open hillside with no one any the wiser. From there she would find her way back to Castle Granville somehow.
Miraculously, no one looked over a shoulder; no one seemed aware of the lone horseman backing away. Once around the corner, Portia turned Penny in the constricted space. Behind her she could hear nothing, not even the shuffle of hooves or a soft whicker, but she could feel the tension like a tight band around her chest as the little troop of Decatur men waited to pit their lives and skills against the enemy.
Suddenly Portia knew that she couldn’t ride away from the approaching action. She had to see what happened. She told herself she could easily leave afterward. In the post-engagement chaos she could be out of there and safely on her way without fear of detection. She dismounted, tied Penny to a spur of rock, and clambered up the cliff face. The Decatur man had made it appear easy, and there were hand- and footholds in the crevices, but it was still an arduous climb and she hauled herself onto the top of the cliff panting for breath.
Lying on her belly on the cold ground, she found she had a perfect view of the ambush point. When Lord Leven’s patrol trotted through the bare trees, her heart skipped and jumped like a grasshopper.
The attack when it came was so swift and silent that Lord Leven’s men were surrounded before they realized it. The Decatur troop rode from the defile, row after row of them, fanning out around the square until they had their quarry encircled. To the watcher above, there seemed to be a moment when it was inevitable that the Scots would lay down their arms without a fight, but then a roaring skirl of sound emerged into the strange flat silence and Leven’s men rose in their stirrups with a shout of defiance.
Portia had not at first noticed the piper, but now as the bagpipes blared their martial call, Leven’s Scotsmen hurled themselves into battle. Muskets cracked, swords clashed, and above it all the great sound rose ever louder, ever more defiant, ever more urgent.
Portia shivered. The pipes always made her shiver. She loved the sound, she loved to dance to it. It filled her with a wild exuberance when she was aware of nothing but the thrill of her blood in her ears, racing in her veins. It was elemental and savage and she responded to it as if it were a deep and essential part of herself.
It was all she could do to stop herself from leaping to her feet to join the fray. But how could she join the fray when she didn’t know which side she was on? And yet she found herself drawing her knife from her boot. Her physical being was operating now without any conscious rational intervention from her brain. She inched forward on her belly until she was lying on a slab of rock directly over the battlefield.
Leven’s men were outnumbered and they’d been taken by surprise. But they fought like demons. And the fighting was soon hand to hand. Muskets were useless in these conditions once they’d been fired. There was no time for the cumbersome process of reloading when a man was pressed on all sides. Swords and daggers flashed; a horse screamed and went down on one knee, throwing his rider.
Portia saw Will on the ground. He was on his feet in a trice, sword in hand, as his horse staggered upright, bleeding from a gash in the neck. One of Leven’s men turned and rode down upon the unhorsed man. His horse reared, hooves flailing, as he leaned down, swiping his sword in a great arc at the disadvantaged Will.
Portia hurled her knife. Only when it lodged in the sword arm of Will’s attacker, arresting the deadly sweep of his sword, did she realize that she’d chosen her side. Her aim had been instinctive and utterly true. Will had time to duck and grab for his injured horse. He scrambled into the saddle just as Rufus, appearing from nowhere, brought his own sword down hard on the enemy’s, disarming him with an almighty clash of steel on steel that made the man scream as his already wounded arm was jarred unmercifully.
Only then did Rufus glance upward, his eyes searching for the origin of the knife that had saved Will. Portia still lay on her rock. She knew she was now in full view; she knew that a minute earlier she could have wriggled out of sight and been safe from detection. The knife would have remained a puzzle until the engagement was over. Then Rufus would probably have recognized the knife as Portia’s. But by then it would have been too late. She would have been long gone.