Dedicated Villain (21 page)

As Mathieson had foreseen, this action failed to please the mob. Shouts of rage were augmented by the sudden appearance of cudgels. Stones began to fly.

“Ye Gods and little fishes!” He dragged Fiona behind him, and whistled shrilly. A rock struck home above his eye and sent him reeling back, but already a ringing neigh was transcending the howls of the villagers. The crowd split before a chestnut fury that reared and bucked and spun, hooves flailing, big teeth bared and snapping busily. Shouts became shrieks. Men and women ran for their lives.

“Here … Rump!” wheezed Mathieson. Snorting, the stallion danced to his side. Mathieson seized Fiona and threw her into the saddle. “Go!”

She grabbed the reins but sent Rumpelstiltskin spinning again. “No! Not without her!”

The old woman had sunk to her hands and knees and was coughing and spluttering helplessly. With a groan of revulsion, Mathieson lifted her. Despite the fact that she was tall, she was skin and bone and weighed very little, and it required no great effort to hoist her up behind Fiona. The crowd, thwarted and ugly, was re-forming. He slapped Rump on the flank, and the big horse was away, ignoring Fiona's desperate efforts to halt him.

Mathieson made a dash for the bay mare, but the villagers, normally gentle and peace-loving, were inflamed now by the mindless violence of the mob and surged in to cut off that way of escape. “Blast!” he muttered, and crouched, the dagger whipping into his left hand, the sword into his right. Momentarily, the glitter of cold steel gave pause to the villagers but only momentarily, for they were many and he but one. The burly man dragged himself from the pond and brought a good-sized stone with him. He heaved it with power and accuracy and as their target staggered, the others were encouraged and the hail of rocks began in earnest. Mathieson threw up one arm to protect his head and gave a gasp as a well-aimed missile smashed home against his wrist. The dagger fell from his
numbed hand and his arm dropped helplessly. The angry crowd sent up a roar of delight as another rock drove him to his knees.

Their enraged, hate-filled faces began to blur before his eyes. He thought dimly, ‘Dammitall, this is what I get for abandoning my principles …'

The shot was deafening. Swaying dizzily forward to the support of his right hand, Mathieson heard the clear, girlish voice as from a distance.

“You are behaving like skulking cowards, instead of honourable Englishmen! The first one brave enough to throw a rock at that most gallant gentleman will be shot. In the tummy, I think, though I cannot be sure, for my aim is not very good and I might accidentally shoot the person standing next to him. Captain Mathieson—be so good as to mount up, for I want my dinner.”

It required a considerable effort, but somehow he reclaimed his dagger and was on his feet, still clutching his sword and weaving towards the bay mare whose reins Fiona held with the same little hand that was locked on the stallion's mane. He wondered in a vague fashion how she had managed to control Rump … How she could have fired one of the damn great pistols he always kept loaded in the holsters of his saddle. Then he had dragged himself up, and they were away.

Mrs. Shadwell guided them to a belt of woodland edged by a hurrying stream; a quiet lonely spot where they felt safe in halting for repairs. Mathieson meekly obeyed instructions to sit on the bank, and Fiona knelt beside him and washed the blood from his face. “'Twas the bravest thing I ever saw,” she declared, gently dabbing his handkerchief at the cut on his temple and regarding him glowingly.

He felt properly battered, his head hurt miserably again, and he deserved it all for having behaved like a prize fool. He knew a strong impulse to disillusion the Tiny Mite, and would have done so, save that he could not seem to muster the effort just at the moment.

“Aye, ‘twere brave all right,” agreed Mrs. Shadwell in a soft country accent.

She looked halfway human, he thought, now that she had wrung out her skirts and tidied her greying hair. A tall woman with an odd dignity and dark piercing eyes that seemed to skewer right through a fellow. Come to think on it, be damned if she didn't look just like a witch! He drew back uneasily as she
pounced at him, but fear was replaced by embarrassment when she seized his hand and pressed it to her lips.

“No, no!” he said, striving, horrified, to reclaim his hand. “You must not!”

“Ye saved Oi, zur,” she said intensely.

“You thank the wrong person, madam. Had this lady not been with me I promise you I'd have ridden away and left you to your fate, so do not be—”

A slow smile softened her stern features. “That ye would not, sir, though the ending might've been different. And Oi do indeed thank your pretty lady. Oi done nothing wrong, mistress! Oi bean't no witch, Oi do swear it!”

“Of course you're not.” Fiona smiled kindly at her. “If you had been, you could have saved yourself.”

“Mebbe so. But 'cepting fer ye good folks, Oi'd be drownded dead this minute and fer nothing worse than knowing how to heal wi' herbs and roots, and having no roof over me poor old head.”

‘Hmmnn,' thought Mathieson cynically, and reached for his purse.

Mrs. Shadwell muttered, “Oi could teach they fools a thing or two …” Her head flung upward and she said with a proud gesture, “No, sir! Oi be enough in yer debt! Put up yer gold. Oi doesn't know how to thank ye, but—mebbe Oi can tell ye summat o' what lies ahead.” She turned Mathieson's reluctant hand and scanned the palm frowningly.

“Oh my,” whispered Fiona, awed. “Can you tell fortunes, then?”

“Not fortunes, mistress. The past. The future—sometimes … Ah!” she glanced up at Mathieson and said sympathetically, “Ye has known much o' grief, young sir. And have a hard road afore ye. But there be joy—ah, great joy, for a little while. Then—” She stopped speaking, staring down at his hand with breath held in check, then drew back from him, her eyes very wide. A moment longer she remained thus, then jumped
up. “Oi must go, 'fore they comes arter me. They brung dogs last time. Oi hates dogs, Oi do!”

“Wait!” cried Fiona. “You did not finish! What—”

“Nay. Oi cannot! But—” Staring at Mathieson, she cried, “Ye've a good heart, lady. Doan't ye give it to one as will—break it!” She turned then, and limped quickly toward the trees.

Fiona knelt up. “But—where will you go? Will you be safe? Perhaps you should come with us!”

‘Good God!' thought Mathieson.

Mrs. Shadwell stopped at the edge of the woods and turned to face them again. “The Folk be hereabouts. Oi'll be safe wi' me own, never worrit.” She raised her arm as if in benediction. “God bless ye both—poor childers.” And she was gone, vanished into the quiet shadows of the trees.

“What a strange woman,” murmured Fiona. “I wonder whatever she meant.” She turned to Mathieson and surprised a grim look. “Have you really ‘known much of grief,' Roly?”

“Only,” he said drily, “since I met you, Little Mite!”

“I most certainly would never have done so mad a thing!” declared Mathieson indignantly, as they rode slowly towards the encampment. “Rump bolted, is all, and I would have beaten a strategic retreat had you not come up with me. Gad! When I think of how you embroiled me with that horrid crowd of yokels, I wonder I did not turn snow white! What with your cats and your old witches, my girl, I—”

Fiona gave a low trill of laughter. “Oh, Roly! Why will you never admit how splendid you are? I vow, to listen to you, one might fancy you the greatest villain of the century!”

“I try,” he said modestly. “You, on the other hand, are a true heroine, albeit a vexatious one. How a'God's name you were able to manage Rump and your mare and that da-dashed great pistol of mine, is quite beyond me.”

“'Twas near quite beyond me,” she admitted with a droll shrug. “Which is why I dropped one.”

“What?”
He groaned. “Not my beautiful
Les la Roche
?”

“Oh, I am so sorry! But—when it went off, it jumped right out of my hand!” Brightening, she added, “Still, you were able to retrieve your pretty dagger, and at least I did not drop the other pistol! Besides, I expect we could go back and—”

“Saints forfend! And I should be flogged for an ingrate! Child, do you not know what you risked? You were mad to come back even for my glorious carcass.”

“How could I do otherwise when you charged so gallantly to rescue that poor woman. Only think of what—”

“Don't,” suggested Mathieson. “The entire episode is best forgot. Gad, but I'm starved! I believe I can smell our dinner.”

“Yes. There is the camp, thank goodness. And only look! Picayune is coming to meet—What on earth is that in her mouth …?”

The small cat approached with great strides over tufts of grass, a white, shapeless object firmly grasped between her jaws. She stopped abruptly, tossed her prize into the air, then sprang to seize and shake it, whiskers bristling.

“Devil take that revolting animal,” cried Mathieson, outraged. “She's been into my crumpets! I told you they'd not be safe! Well for you to laugh, madam! If you was to ask me, that
cat
is what those blasted rustics should have flung into the pond!”

Mathieson was the hero of the hour at dinner that evening, which irked him until he noted how much it infuriated Freemon Torrey. His spirits picked up as they sat gathered around the fires, but he was disgusted to find the crumpets as light as any bricks, and from boastfully claiming to have played the major role in their manufacture, he immediately denied any involvement whatsoever. There was much amusement at this, but
Torrey observed contemptuously that anything Miss Fiona cooked could only be perfection.

There was singing when the meal was done. The evening air held the briskness of autumn, but the fires warmed the heart as well as the feet, and listening pleasurably to the clear voices of the ladies threading among the deeper tones of the men, Mathieson experienced a contentment he'd not known since his army days. His bruises and his battered head ached, however, and after a while he slipped quietly away. In the red caravan he shared with Heywood and Alec he took off his coat and boots but lay on his bunk without undressing and promptly dozed off.

Waking in the night, he was cold and pulled the covers over him. By the time that was accomplished he was not only wide awake, but could not seem to find a comfortable position. He was unused to sleeplessness, but the several matters that preyed on his mind would not give him any peace. He spent an hour tossing and turning, by which time he was so irritated with this pointless behaviour that he abandoned all attempts at sleep. Climbing down from the upper bunk to which he'd fallen heir, he forgot the protruding nail on the support post and swore heartily as he gave his finger a deep scratch. He was just sufficiently irritable to contemplate waking Thad or Alec and badgering them into conversation, but there was no sign of either. Grumbling, he pulled on his boots—having first shaken them out to guard against feline occupation—and went into the silvery darkness.