Gunwitch (3 page)

Rose bowed in her seat toward the two girls and gave the major a nod and an apologetic smile. She did not look at Ducoed.

Janett rose from her chair when introduced and gave a perfect curtsy. Margaret did the same, but without grace. Standing too quickly, then sitting too loudly. Margaret met Rose’s eyes, then looked away. Janett was the older of the two girls, very pretty, with auburn hair and blue eyes. Rose guessed her age at seventeen or eighteen. Margaret, she decided, could not be older than thirteen. Unlike Janett’s impressive coiffure, Margaret’s blonde hair looked as if it had been only partially tamed, and her arms and legs seemed too long for her dress. Her blue eyes, though, were an exact match for Janett’s. And they stirred long dormant memories.

“You are acquainted with their father, I’ve been told,” the general said. “Colonel Laxton. Though the Colonel was only a Leftenant when you knew him.”

Rose kept her expression neutral. “Yes, of course. I remember Leftenant Laxton.” She heard Ducoed’s low chuckle, and it sent a chill down her spine along with the remembered pain of punishment. Yes, they were both acquainted with the former Leftenant Laxton. She noticed Margaret looking at her. But when Rose turned to face the girl, Margaret looked away and would not meet her eyes again.

“Good. Because you’re going to take the girls to see their father. At Fort Russell.”

Rose leaned forward in her seat. “Isn’t it traditional to ask first, general? I’m not in the army anymore.”

General Tendring put his cup down on its saucer. “I have been assured that you would be accompanying the girls. Though, after your recent display,” he added, looking at Ducoed, “perhaps those assurances were given prematurely.”

“
He
said I would go along?” She pointed at Ducoed, but her eyes never left the general.

“And I remain convinced,” Ducoed said, speaking up for the first time, “that Sergeant Bainbridge will agree to come along with me and the girls.”

The general nodded. “Yes, there is a war on. And it is possible that we’re all mad, as well. Hear me out,” he said, holding up a hand to forestall Rose. “As Janett has pointed out to me many, many times over the past weeks of her stay, the war has not come so far south as Fort Russell. Not yet, in any case. And her father is expecting the two of them to visit. After a journey so far across the Atlantic to reach here, the girls refuse to be so close and not seize the chance to see their father.”

Rose looked at Margaret. Those were the only words she had heard the girl say so far. Margaret met her eye, but only for an instant, then looked away. Rose turned back to Tendring.

“As you have said,” the general went on, “there is the war to consider. Though the main thrust of that war is happening far from the Gulf of Azteka, its tendrils have reached even here. Two days ago, I dispatched reinforcements upriver to Fort Russell. As you can see, and as I have heard at every pause, I did not send the girls with those reinforcements. This was for several reasons. Foremost among them, young ladies such as Janett and Margaret have no place on a march with men-at-arms. Secondly, the river has become too risky for them to travel. The way is too open, too obvious.”

“So you’re going to send them through the bayuk with this man?” She pointed at Ducoed again.

“Leftenant Ducoed served with distinction for twenty years,” the general said, a slight edge in his voice, “and he was discharged with honor.”

Rose looked away from the general, and away from Ducoed. She knew all about Ducoed’s honor. And the general knew all too much about her own dishonor.

“The Leftenant presented himself at the fort nearly a month ago, offering his services as a scout. At his request, I kept the nature of his past service confidential–”

“Of course,” Rose interjected. The enlisted men would trust a gunlock even less than a gunwitch. At least a gunwitch could be recognized immediately. Only one type of woman wore a uniform in the King’s Army.

General Tendring ignored her. “When the girls arrived in New Venezia, my first thought was to ship them straight back to England. But they prevailed upon me. Twice, I must confess. First, to stay, and now to see them escorted into the arms of their waiting father. Hearing their story, Leftenant Ducoed volunteered to assist them.”

“But, General–”

“Please, Sergeant Bainbridge. Allow me to restate myself and make up for my earlier mistakes. You are correct. You are no longer a man-at-arms subject to the King’s officers, and I was wrong to presume to give you orders.” He paused. “Will you accept my apologies, Rose Bainbridge?”

Rose could not keep the surprise off her face. The general had never called her by her name. Not once in all their years together. Being officer and enlisted in the King’s Army there could be no familiarity. Even as they huddled in the cold, hiding from the Hexen, two isolated English survivors of a campaign gone horribly wrong.

“Please,” Rose said, dropping her eyes. “Don’t think of it.”

“Rose Bainbridge.” The repetition of her name brought her eyes back to his. “Would you offer this assistance to your King, and to me, and see to the safe delivery of Janett and Margaret Laxton to their father, Colonel Laxton, at Fort Russell?”

Rose wanted to say
No
. She almost said it. Then she saw Margaret looking at her, face open and eager. The little girl even met Rose’s eyes, faltering only an instant. The general had said her name, and he had asked her.
Asked
her. Old loyalties stirred and quarreled in her chest.

She did not want to accept. Not yet. “Does
he
have to go?” she asked, pointing at Ducoed.

The general steepled his hands and looked at her. “You have both served me well in the past. I have no doubt that you will both serve me well in this. And I can think of no safer way to send the girls than in the company of two members of the 101st Pistoleers.”

Rose could think of many, but she realized that the general would not agree. Damn Ducoed and his distinguished service and honorable discharge.

“And
he
–” she pointed at Ducoed again, still refusing to look at him–”requested that I be a part of … of this?”

General Tendring shook his head. “No, the Leftenant was surprised to discover that I knew of your whereabouts, and that you were so near at hand. Or were, last I had heard. I suggested that you might need …” He paused. “That you might be willing to assist, and Leftenant Ducoed agreed immediately. He assured me that when you knew the full nature of my request that you would not hesitate to offer your gun and your knowledge of the bayuk. So I sent for you.”

Rose kept her face impassive and resisted the urge to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. She looked at the general, then at Janett and Margaret. “Right.”
Bloody hell
, was what she wanted to say. She would not denounce Ducoed. She never had, despite what he had done. But she would not let him take the girls through the bayuk by himself. She said, “I’ll do it. But only as a civilian. I’m not rejoining the Army.”

Rose refused to look at him. If she looked at him, if she saw his smirk, she was not sure she would not shoot him, right there in front of the general and the girls, consequences be damned. “You don’t know me,” she said. “Not at all.”

Chapter 2

Rosalind

Phillips on the Birchwood

1718 A.D.

Rosalind Bainbridge gathered the hem of her skirt with her left hand and pulled it to her knees so she could climb the fence. She reached the top using an awkward one-hand-two-leg gait and found that her skirt still prevented her from lifting her leg high enough. So she pulled the skirt up even further, exposing her legs and her underclothes. The late spring wind brushed against her legs from behind, giving her gooseflesh.

“Rosalind!” Elizabeth cried out behind her, scandalized.

“Hush!” Rosalind said, and hooked her right leg over. She pulled herself up so she straddled the top of the fence, skirt now bunched around her hips, pale legs down either side. The world looked so different from up here. Only six feet up, scarcely taller than a grown man, but it was like a mountaintop to her. From here she could see more of the village of Phillips on the Birchwood and the surrounding countryside than from anywhere else. Already fourteen, almost a woman–almost a spinster according to some–Rosalind had seen nothing of the world. Her small life, the small lives of the entire population of Phillips on the Birchwood, made the world seem tiny. But the world was huge. She had no doubt about that. And she wanted to see much more of it than one village.

“Rosalind!” Elizabeth said again. “Get down. Someone will see you.”

“That wouldn’t be a problem,” Rosalind said, “if they would let me wear pants.”

She smiled at Elizabeth’s shocked look. Her sister was twelve, nearly thirteen. Elizabeth, at least, would be easy to marry off, and had already been the subject of queries by the village’s other notable families. Rosalind’s prospects, though, despite starting strong even in the face of her tomboy tendencies, had dried up quickly. England no longer burned witches. But the rumors about her had been enough to cancel one betrothal and push the dowry demands of the few others who might be interested well past the resources available to the Bainbridge family.

Rosalind braced herself with her hands on the top beam and swung her left leg over and dropped on the far side of the fence. Squire Phillips’ field spread out in front of her, the tall grass bounded on the left by a thicket and copse of trees and far to the right by the holly hedge that separated this field from the next. Squire Phillips was pasturing this field, letting his horses and livestock forage. It was the horses that Rosalind was here to see. No animals were visible, though.

She adjusted her skirts and gave a low whistle.

“I told you,” Elizabeth said, her face pressed up against the fence, only her eyes visible between the wooden beams. “They are not here today.”

Rosalind ignored her little sister and whistled again, louder this time. “It’s me,” she said to the empty field. “Rosalind.”

The grass bowed and rippled away from her as the slight breeze at her back picked up briefly.

“I
told
you–”

Rosalind waved a hand to silence her sister. A rustling in the thicket twenty yards away became the head of a doe. The doe looked across the vacant pasture, then swung her head to look at Rosalind.

“It’s a deer–”

“Shh!” Rosalind held out her hand toward the doe, palm up, fingers together. She kept her voice low and gentle as she said, “Come here, girl. Come here.”

The doe’s ears perked, and the head swiveled to look downwind again. Rosalind could feel the tension in the animal’s muscles as it prepared to bolt.

“Come here, girl.” Rosalind took a slow step forward. Animals liked her. They always had. “Everything is alright, girl. It’s me, Rosalind.” That was what she said to the Squire’s horses when they acted skittish. Her words seemed to calm the doe, as well. The deer visibly relaxed and turned to face Rosalind again. Rosalind smiled. “Good girl.” She took another slow step forward. “It’s just me. I won’t hurt you.”

Following her lead, the doe moved out of the thicket.

Step by step, Rosalind and the doe came closer, Rosalind with her hand still outstretched. Finally, the doe was in reach of her hand. The doe stretched her neck and sniffed at the proffered hand.

Thunder crashed, startling Rosalind. Only a step away, the deer staggered and red blood splashed on Rosalind’s hand and on the front of her dress.

Behind her, Elizabeth screamed.

In front of her, the deer turned away and tried to bolt, but its left foreleg buckled and it collapsed to the ground, back legs thrashing.

“Oh, expertly done!” A young man’s voice came across the pasture, breaking the silence that had fallen after the crash of the shot.

Rosalind became aware of two shapes that had emerged from the thicket further down the pasture, young men exchanging rifles as they walked, but she could not take her eyes off the deer. The doe had forced itself into a three-legged stand and was limping away, its fear pushing it forward, its injury causing it to stumble with every step. Rosalind could feel the doe’s life pumping from the wound in its left flank.

Another gunshot crashed across the pasture. The doe reared slightly then plunged forward, front legs sprawling, rear legs twitching.

The deer tried to stand again, but failed, its limbs grown too awkward and weak. The doe swiveled its head and its eyes met Rosalind’s. Rosalind turned away. She could not face the accusation in the brown eyes. Then the deer lost even the strength to hold its head up. The legs still thrashed and struggled, trampling the grass as the red stain of its blood spread, but the doe could do nothing else.

“Damn. I missed the heart with that shot.”

Rosalind looked up and saw William Phillips, the squire’s son, walking with his cousin, Robert Phillips. William was the one who had spoken. Robert carried both rifles now, the one in his right hand still smoking. Neither was more than two years older than Rosalind, but they had reached a grown man’s height already.