Jane Feather - The Hostage Bride

Every day of his adult life, Cato had felt himself pitted against Rufus Decatur. They were of an age. And each had succeeded to his father’s title. But whereas Cato on the death of his father had assumed the mantle and trappings of a powerful noble of the borderlands, Rufus had only an empty title and forfeit estates, and the memory of a father who had died by his own hand rather than face trial for treason, and the execution or slow, lingering death in prison that would have followed.

Cato understood that he had inherited his father’s guilt in the eyes of Rufus Decatur. His father had been a man of rigid temperament, acknowledging no gray areas in matters of honor and conscience. When William Decatur had dared to speak out openly against King James’s actions, had dared to conspire against the king’s destructive advisors, George Granville had had no hesitation in condemning his old friend. As Lord Marshal of the borderlands, it had been his task to arrest the traitor, to oversee the king’s justice, and he had not hesitated to perform that task.

Cato didn’t know whether he himself would have been able to do as his father had done in such circumstances. He shared none of his father’s rigidity and was plagued too much by the ability to see both sides of an issue. But he knew that as far as Rufus Decatur was concerned, it didn’t matter a tinker’s damn how the son would have reacted. William Decatur had died and his family was disinherited because of the actions of George Granville, and Rufus wanted his vengeance. The battle he fought with George’s son was a personal one, and Cato was forced to fight whether he wished to or not.

And if Rufus Decatur was about to enter the civil war on the side opposite to Cato Granville, their personal enmity would assume a greater dimension.

Part of Cato relished the prospect of meeting his enemy face-to-face on the battlefield, where there would be something cold and clear and comprehensible about the encounter.

“Where are you goin‘, Rufus?” The sleepy voice, sounding somewhat aggrieved, emerged from the tangle of bedclothes. There was a heave beneath the fur coverlet, and a woman struggled onto an elbow. A work-roughened hand pushed aside the veil of dark hair to reveal a pair of brown eyes.

“I’ve work to do, Maggie. And well you know it.” Rufus Decatur broke the ice in the pitcher with a balled fist and poured the freezing water over his head with a groan of mingled pain and exhilaration. He shook his head and drops of ice water flew around the small loft. The woman retreated beneath the fur with a muttered curse.

Rufus toweled his head vigorously, ignoring the curses and complaints, and after a minute Maggie sat up in the wide bed, drawing the fur to her chin, and surveyed the master of Decatur village with a disgruntled frown.

“It’s not even dawn.”

“And you’re a lazy wench, Maggie, my love,” Rufus declared, reaching for his shirt where it lay over the rail of the bed.

The woman’s eyes narrowed at the tone and she leaned back against the carved headboard. “Come back to bed.” He was a fine, strong man, this Rufus Decatur, and she was never averse to a summons to his bed. The nights she spent there brought her a deal more pleasure than she was accustomed to from her usual customers.

Her eyes ran lasciviously down his body. The same red-gold hair that fell to his shoulders and bearded his square chin clustered on his chest and sprang in a curly bush at his groin. It glistened in the candlelight on his forearms and on his legs, red against the weather-browned limbs. He carried no spare flesh, but there was something about the sheer size of the man that made him seem larger than life, as if the loft was too small to contain him.

“Get up,” was all she received for her pains. He swooped over her and pulled back the covers. “Up! I’ve a busy day ahead of me!” There was something in the vivid blue eyes that brought his bedmate to her feet, shivering and grumbling. Rums Decatur had a temper to match his red hair, and in certain moods he was not to be denied.

“Y’are raidin‘ again?” She sat on the bed to draw on her woolen stockings, then stepped into her flannel petticoat, before thrusting her head into the opening of her woolen chemise.

“Maybe.” He pulled on a buff leather jerkin and bent to stir the embers in the hearth. A flame shot up and he threw on kindling until the blaze roared up the chimney.

Maggie moved closer to the heat to finish dressing. “Talk is that y’are goin‘ to declare fer the king,” she observed, casting him a sly look. “Take yer men to join up wi’ the king’s men.”

“Talk’s cheap.” Rufus swatted her ample rear as he passed her. “You’ll find your purse in the usual place.” He gave her a quick smile before he disappeared from view down the rickety staircase to the square cottage room below.

Maggie was satisfied with the smile. Rufus was not one to share his business, and he could well have snubbed her with uncomfortable asperity. Matters in Decatur village took place out of the public eye. There were no women. Maggie and her friends visited when summoned, and for all other domestic needs the men took care of themselves.

Everyone knew that the village was more of a military encampment than a civilian community, and it was only reasonable to assume that Rufus was preparing to throw his well-trained band of brigands into a war that was bidding fair to leave no man and his conscience untouched. But so far no one beyond the borders of Rufus’s stronghold had any true inkling which side of the conflict appealed to the master of Decatur village, and it was a matter of some considerable interest and importance.

Rufus was well aware of the local speculation and guessed that Maggie had been put up to her probing by the inquisitive Mistress Beldam, who managed the affairs of the women who took care of the men of Decatur village. But their curiosity would soon be satisfied. His decision was made and would be common knowledge within a day or two.

The banked fire threw off an ashy glow that provided dim light in the simply furnished room. Rufus trod softly over to a curtained alcove in the far corner of the room. He peered behind the curtain and was surprised to see that the two small heaps beneath the covers on the cot were not yet ready to resume the tempestuous course of their daily life. They were usually awake before the first cock crow, even in the dead of winter, but he knew they’d be up as soon as they heard Maggie leave. In the meantime, their father could enjoy this small and rare extension of dawn peace.

He caught up his cloak hanging from a nail in the wall by the door, threw up the heavy wooden bar, and pushed open the door. It had snowed heavily in the night, and it required a heave from his shoulder to push through the drift piling up against the base of the door.

The last stars were fading in the sky and the moon hung low over the Cheviot Hills as he emerged into the frigid dawn. The cluster of stone cottages was nestled in a deep fold of the rolling hills, inaccessible by road. On the hilltops around, watchmen’s fires burned as guards kept sentinel over the barren, inhospitable countryside that stretched to the Scottish border.

Rufus made his way through the village to the river that flowed so conveniently past his stronghold. The water ran sluggishly now beneath its frozen surface, but it still provided water for the village and a thoroughfare into the world beyond-by sled in the frozen depths of winter, by boat in other seasons.

A group of youths was gathered at the river’s edge, their cloaks discarded beside the line of buckets that stood waiting on the bank, as they swung pickaxes at the ice to free the water hole that had frozen over in the night. They straightened as Rufus approached, and stood waiting, their cheeks pink from cold and exertion.

“Mornin‘, m’lord.”

“Morning, lads.” Rufus exchanged greetings and small talk, acknowledging each one by name. If he was aware of the naked adoration in their eyes as they gathered around him, he gave no indication.

These were his novitiates, the most recent recruits to the Decatur band. Many had followed fathers, brothers, uncles into the world beyond the law. Some were fugitives from the law themselves, some merely imbued with the spirit of adventure. They all, however, had one distinguishing feature. They were utterly and unswervingly devoted to the house of Rothbury and held no loyalty above loyalty to their cadre.

“Is it true, master, that we’re to declare for the king?” A tall young man, whose bearing made him the clear leader of the group, spoke for them all. Ten pairs of eager eyes rested on Rufus’s countenance.

“You think His Majesty will accept the aid of a band of moss-troopers, Paul?” Rufus inquired, and his bland tone deceived none of them. His eyes had a glitter that seemed to reflect the icy surface of the river under the fading stars. “The aid of a family dispossessed for treason? The hand of an outlaw, stained with years of cattle stealing, highway robbery, and God knows what other crimes against the law-abiding countryside?”

Paul met his eye. “I think His Majesty’ll accept any hand that’s offered, sir,” he declared. “With Lord Leven marching in from Scotland, seems to me the king hasn’t much choice.”

The master’s mouth quirked, but with more derision than amusement. “Aye, I believe you’re right, lad. A whole mountain of grievance will be buried under the banner of loyalty, you mark my words. And with a king’s gratitude, what could a man not achieve?” He raised a hand in farewell and strode off, his cloak swirling around his ankles with the sudden energy of his stride.

With a king’s gratitude, a man could achieve reinstatement… a full pardon… The house of Rothbury could once more take its rightful place in the world inside the law. Oh yes, there was little that a grateful king could not do for a loyal subject.

Rums laughed shortly to himself. He would play this conflict for his own ends. He had no time for the king’s cause. Charles was as much a fool as his father, James, had been. But Rufus would not make the mistake of his own father. He would support this king in his folly, and he would reap the rewards of that support. He would exact the goodly price of restitution.

He made his way up the narrow path that snaked up the hillside to the first of the watchmen’s fires. The stars had disappeared when he reached the hilltop, but the ring of fires surrounding the valley still burned brightly, as they would throughout the day, providing warmth for the watchmen who guarded the Decatur sanctuary twenty-four hours a day.

“Morning, Rufus.” A tall, lean man in his early twenties turned from the fire where he was warming his hands. “Coffee?”

“Thanks, Will.” Rufus nodded at his cousin. He was particularly fond of the younger man, whose father had guided the fatherless Rufus through all the pitfalls of youth. Will was Rufus’s uncle’s son, sired when the old man should have been sitting by the fire nodding in peaceful senility instead of rampaging through the countryside by day and lying each night with his bedmate with all the vigor and virility of a man in his prime. “Peaceful night?”

“Aye. But Connor’s men reported troop movements to the north. Leven’s men, we reckon.”

Rufus took a beaker of hot spiced mead from a man armed with pike and musket. “We’ll send out scouts later this morning. If Fairfax and Leven join up with Parliament’s forces, the king’ll be in a pretty pickle. He can wave goodbye to a superior force in the north.” He sounded as if the issue didn’t concern him unduly, but Will was not deceived by the calm, matter-of-fact tone. He knew what Rufus had invested in this choice he’d made.

“You think we might be able to delay Leven?” Will blew on the surface of his own mead to cool it. “A little judicial harassment perhaps?”

“Aye, that’s precisely what I thought.” Rufus chuckled suddenly, and his expression lightened, his eyes losing their earlier glitter. “We’ll give the king’s command a little unofficial aid. My lords Bellasis and Newcastle should prove grateful.”

Will grinned, recognizing that Rufus had lost his seriousness and was now contemplating this little jaunt in the same light as he planned their more mischievous raids.

“Granville’s for the king, too,” he observed after a minute.

Rufus did not immediately respond, but stared out over the hills as the night clouds rolled away from the eastern hills. “We’ll see. I’ve a feeling that he’s not committed as yet. If he goes for Parliament, all the better. We’ll really tweak his tail then.”