Rufus walked through the camp. He was blind and deaf, locked into his own world where the rage burned bright as a volcano, and the hurt was a black pit as cold as the rage was hot. But at last something broke through the trance, and he heard his own voice over and over in his head, “There is nothing I can do for you.” It became a chant, blocking out all else, and finally he stopped walking and turned back to find Will.
Whatever she’d done, he could not condemn her to what awaited her in York. The madness of obsession had driven him to speak as he had done, but he was in control now. Oh, the rage still burned, and the hurt still froze some central core of his being, but he was rational again and he could not forget what she had been to him, what she had meant to him. He could not stand aside while they hurt her, and he could not watch her death. She was false, she deserved what they would do to her, but he could not let it happen.
Will listened in disbelief to what had occurred, but he offered no comment, recognizing that the master of Decatur was but newly in control of his devils. He heard his orders and slipped away through the camp.
Portia leaned her head against the trunk of the tree. Her face burned and throbbed, and she had lost feeling in her hands. When Will appeared out of the trees behind her, she merely looked at him, her mouth too swollen to move even had she thought of anything to say.
He knelt and swiftly cut her bonds. “Come. You must be away from here before they come to take you.”
She managed to speak. “I don’t know whether I can walk.” She didn’t even know whether she could stand. Her mind could no longer keep track of what was happening, and her body seemed simply to have given up.
Will didn’t reply. He lifted her easily and at a half run carried her back to Rufus’s tent. Rufus was waiting for her, but his eyes were cold and distant as Will set her down on her cot and then hurried out.
“Get out of those wet clothes, quickly,” Rufus instructed, indicating the pile of dry clothes he’d set out. “If you’re still here at dawn, I won’t be able to save you. Be quick.”
In a daze, Portia stripped and dragged on the clean garments and her spare pair of boots. The silence that bound them was hideous. She couldn’t bear to look at his face and see there the dreadful contempt and the betrayal in his eyes. She sensed that the terrifying rage was gone, but this cold and scornful disdain was almost worse. But she did not venture a word more in her defense.
George entered just as she’d pulled on her boots. “Horses’re ready,” he said, and seemed deliberately to avert his eyes from Portia.
“You’ll need to help her to mount. She’s exhausted.” It was the first time he had acknowledged her condition, and Portia felt an instant’s hope. But when she looked toward him, he merely looked through her as if she were made of air.
George simply lifted her as Will had done, carried her out, and hoisted her up onto Penny. “I’ll lead her. Just hold on to the pommel,” he instructed.
Portia obeyed. Rufus had not followed them out of the tent, and she couldn’t even summon up the energy to ask where George was taking her. As he clicked his tongue and set their horses in motion, Juno barreled out of the undergrowth, yapping excitedly, prancing on her hind legs demanding to be lifted up to the saddle. George ignored the puppy and urged the horses to a trot.
“George, please.” Portia could hear the tears in her voice. “Juno…”
George swore. “My orders said nothin‘ about that damn puppy.”
“Please.”
He looked at her properly for the first time, it seemed, and there was a softening to his mouth. Then he drew rein and when Juno bounded up, he leaned down, caught her by the scruff of the neck, and yanked her upward. “ ‘Ere.” He handed the puppy across to Portia, who managed a painful smile of thanks. She didn’t know where she was going, but having Juno was an immediate comfort.
The next hours passed in a daze. She didn’t know whether she slept or was just unconscious some of the time. All her being was centered on her hands clinging to the pommel. If she didn’t let go, it didn’t matter that her eyes were closed, her head drooping, her body swaying. Her mind had ceased to work. She couldn’t think of what had happened, or what might happen. She existed only in this moment, this little spate in time that contained her body.
She was barely aware when they passed through the sentry posts into Decatur village. The posts were unmanned, the fires unlit. The village was no longer a martial establishment, and its few occupants were content with the small rituals of daily living that provided a threat to no one.
George led Penny to a stone building on the outskirts of the village. It was small and square, its windows barred, its single door of massive oak kept closed with a heavy bar across it on the outside. It was the Decatur prison.
Portia half fell into George’s arms as he reached up to help her dismount. She was clutching Juno as if the puppy were her only connection with life. She didn’t take in her surroundings, merely stood swaying as George raised the iron-bound bar across the door and opened it. He urged her inside into the dark and musty interior. There were two cells. Small, stone-floored, barred spaces, each containing a narrow cot and a bucket. It was a prison, not designed for comfort.
“In ‘ere, lass.” George swung open one of the barred doors and gave her a little push into the cell. “I’ll fetch ye some water an’ some bread. The master says y’are to stay ‘ere until ’e’s decided what to do wi‘ ye.”
Portia dropped onto the cot. There were two thin blankets and it seemed like heaven. She rolled herself into the blankets and was instantly unconscious, Juno curled tightly against her breast She didn’t hear George return with a pitcher of water and a loaf of bread, which he set down on the floor of her cell, didn’t hear the key grate in the lock or the heavy bar fall in place on the outside door.
Juno awoke her hours later. It was dark and Portia for a moment had no idea where she was, or even, for a terrifying instant, who she was. The puppy was scratching and whining at the barred door, clearly desperate to go outside.
“Oh God!” Portia sat up, memory flooding back and with it the now familiar misery of waking nausea. Her face felt stiff and sore, her mouth twice its normal size. She stumbled to the bucket and retched, but it was so long since she’d eaten, she brought up nothing. Juno continued to whine.
“I can’t let you out.” Portia sat back on her heels on the cold stone floor, for the first time fully aware of her predicament. “I can’t let either of us out.” A faint diffused light came from the barred window high up in the wall and she guessed it was moonlight. There was total silence. Was she to be left moldering here forever?
It was a terrifying thought, almost worse than the prospect of what had awaited her in York. She forced down the panic, swallowed the tears, and broke off a piece of bread. Plain bread sometimes helped the nausea. She nibbled it slowly, feeling her stomach settling. Juno had yielded to the force of nature and was squatting in the far corner of the cell, looking apologetically at Portia.
Then came a sound. The scrape as the heavy bar was raised on the outside door. Lamplight poured into the space and Portia couldn’t help a little cry of relief.
“Eh, just what’ve you been an‘ gone an’ done?”
Josiahs rather creaky voice was the most welcome sound Portia thought she had ever heard. The old man set his lamp down on a table outside Portia’s cell. A rich aroma drifted upward from the covered dish he set beside the lamp. Josiah approached the cell, the lamplight shining off his round bald head, giving the fluffy- white tonsure a pinkish tinge.