They didn’t reach Yetholm until after sunset. By then a hard frost was forming and the horses were quivering and stamping, and the injured man in the litter could no longer control the moans that emerged from his violently chattering teeth.
Portia, riding in the rear of the column, felt colder than she’d ever been, although rational memory told her that wasn’t so. But hunger gnawed at her backbone and she could not stop shivering. So locked in misery was she that she didn’t at first notice when Ajax surged up out of the shadows. Rufus’s voice, sharp with concern, brought her head up with a start.
“Come here… take your feet out of the stirrups.” He leaned over and swung her out of the saddle and onto Ajax. He pulled off his own cloak and wrapped it around her, then drew her against him. The breastplate was hard at her back, but even so she could feel his body warmth. “Will, take Penny’s rein.”
Portia hadn’t noticed that Will had accompanied Rufus. The younger man took Penny’s rein immediately and followed Rufus as he returned to the head of the column.
“How did you know I was so cold?” Her teeth chattered unmercifully.
“An informed guess,” he responded wryly, conscious of how the bitter wind was cutting through his leather jerkin now that he no longer had the protection of his cloak.
The village of Yetholm straddled the cart track, and on its outskirts stood a two-storied thatched building. Light spilled from its parchment-covered, unshuttered windows, and smoke curled thickly from two chimneys. Raucous laughter and shouts of a generally genial nature found their way out into the night through the cracks in door and window frames.
“Thank God!” Rufus muttered, nudging Ajax to quicken his pace at the sight of sanctuary.
“Aye, I doubt that poor fellow would survive much more of this,” Colonel Neath said, riding beside him. “ Tis the kind of cold that’s no‘ fit for man nor beast.” He cast a curious glance at the tightly wrapped figure huddling close against Lord Rothbury’s chest. Soldiers didn’t ordinarily cuddle up to their commanders.
If Rufus noticed the look, he offered no explanation, observing merely, “It’s too cold to snow though… for which we might be thankful come morning.” He drew rein before the door that opened directly onto the track.
Will had jumped from his horse, but before he could reach the door it was flung open with a wide expansive gesture.
“Well, well, and who have we here on such a night?” a light voice called merrily. A woman held a lantern high above her head. “Eh, if it’s not Rufus. It’s been too long since you graced my door, Decatur.”
“I know it, Fanny. I’ve wounded here. Will you send for the bonesetter?” Rufus swung Portia to the ground and then dismounted behind her. He turned to Will, issuing rapid-fire instructions as to the disposition of their own men and their prisoners.
“He’s naught but a horse doctor, but I daresay he’s better than nothing,” Fanny observed, her shrewdly assessing eye taking in the large party with a degree of calculation. “You been scrappin‘, Rufus, or on the king’s business?”
“The latter,” Rufus said. He gestured to Neath, who had dismounted and stood quietly by his horse. “May I present Colonel Neath. He and his men are prisoners en route to Newcastle, but we’re all in need of warmth, food, and wine.”
Colonel Neath bowed. “We’ll be grateful for any hospitality you can offer us, mistress, in the circumstances.”
Fanny nodded. “We don’t trouble ourselves too much with politics in my house, sir. And it’s a slow night, this night. No one’s venturing far from home in this cold, so you’re all right welcome. Come you in. It’ll be a squeeze, but it’ll be all the cozier for that.”
“Get inside, Portia. Someone’ll see to Penny.” Rufus urged her toward the door and Portia scuttled in, guiltily aware that she was not going to object to someone doing her dirty work for her.
She found herself in one large room furnished with long tables and benches, two massive fires burning at either end. Women and a few men lounged at the tables among pitchers of ale and flagons of wine. A staircase led up to a gallery that ran the width of the main room. Lamps hung from the rafters and tallow candles burned on the tables. The air was thick with wood smoke and the acrid smell of tallow and oil overlaying spilled wine, stale beer, and roasting meat. But more than anything it was warm.
Portia threw off Rufus’s cloak and then the frieze one beneath. Her hair blazed orange in the lamplight.
“Lord above, ‘tis a lass in britches!” Fanny exclaimed. “Is she prisoner or doxy, Rufus?”
“Neither,” Rufus replied, taking his cloak back. “Give her a cup of wine, Fanny, she’s half dead with cold.” He spun back to the door. “I’ll be back in a minute. Neath, let’s get that man of yours off the litter.”
The two men went back outside and Portia found herself the object of a calculating examination from Fanny and the other women in the hall.
“Well, get to the fire, lass. Tare white as a ghost… never seen anything like it.” Fanny gave her a push. “Lucy, give her a cup of that burgundy. It’ll put color in her cheeks.”
“I doubt that,” Portia said. She took the wine with a grateful smile. She felt oddly at home and a wave of nostalgia hit her with the first sip of wine. She could almost hear Jack’s voice, rising with the drink, as he toyed with some deep-bosomed harlot and every now and again remembered to dilute his young daughter’s wine with water as she sat beside him, gazing at the scene with sleepy indifference. Portia had spent many a night in establishments like this one, huddled before the fire or curled under a table while Jack amused himself. She’d been befriended by more than one of Mistress Fanny’s profession and had resisted a good few offers in the last couple of years to join their girls, who, compared to Portia’s condition, were more often than not enviably well dressed, well fed, and comfortable.
“Scrawny thing, aren’t you?” Fanny observed. “Y’are not kin to the Decaturs?”
“No.” Portia drank her wine. Her frozen toes and fingers were thawing, and she grimaced with the pain as the circulation returned to their numb tips.
Any further questions remained unasked as the door burst open and Rufus and Neath came in carrying the litter. Behind them men poured in, some supporting the walking wounded, others exclaiming in vivid language at the contrast between the freezing conditions without and the warmth within.
Portia was struck by the easiness they all seemed to feel with each other-a camaraderie that transcended political differences. They all came from the same sphere of society. Civil war had torn them all from the farms and workshops of ordinary life, and on the long ride they had battled the miseries of midwinter campaigning together. Tomorrow they would separate again into prisoners and captors, but for now they were just men grateful to find themselves out of the deadly cold. They took up wine and ale, eyes lighting up at the sight of the women who moved forward eagerly.
“En, Doug, ye’ve need of this to wet your whistle after all that playing!” One of Neath’s men thrust a foaming tankard into the piper’s ready hand. “ ‘Twas a brave sound you made, man.”
“Aye,” the piper said complacently, once he’d downed his ale. “An‘ there’s more where that came from when I’ve had a bite. I’m fair clemmed.”
“You’re not the only one,” Portia muttered.
“Girls, to the kitchen!” Fanny snapped her fingers. “They’ll be no good to you wi’out food in their bellies.”
Laughing and chattering, the women surged toward the doors at the rear of the hall just as the bonesetter entered, bringing the icy blasts with him. The injured man on the litter was plied with brandy until his teeth ceased chattering and his moans grew faint while the bone was set. The horse doctor bandaged a sprained wrist, examined Portia’s tourniquet and pronounced it sufficient until the man could get to a surgeon in Newcastle… so long as the wound didn’t mortify, and then he settled before the fire with a cup of wine in his hand, prepared to enjoy his evening.