Beyond the Sunrise (31 page)

It all happened in seconds. And if a higher power had not guided her aim a few moments before, certainly one was looking after her now. The only wounds she could count after it was all over were the scratches and bruises she had acquired from the ground.

She hurtled down the steep hillside somehow without stumbling, and the rifle was in her hand before Captain Blake whirled
around and regarded her from astonished eyes that looked remarkably blue against his bloodied and blackened face.

“Jesus Christ!” he said.

But she did not even hear the blasphemy. She was on her feet and hoisting the unfamiliar rifle to her shoulder and sighting along it and screaming out against the thunder of sound around her.

“Marcel!” she shrieked.

Whether he heard her, or whether his attention was caught by the unusual sight of someone—a woman—standing up straight despite all the shells and bullets whizzing about her, she did not know. But he saw her. And he recognized her, she knew. And he saw that she had the gun pointed at him. It was all the matter of a split second, but she knew that he had seen her and that he knew, and she knew that this time she could not miss.

She fired the rifle.

And watched him stop midstride, an expression of surprise on his face, and twist sideways before going down.

She laughed in triumph.

And then the strange feeling she had had since coming over the top of the hill, that time had been suspended, left her as she came crashing down onto the ground, two powerful arms about her waist.

“Jesus, woman!” he said. “Jesus!”

She lay panting on her face beneath the full weight of his body. And she felt a chilling terror at the steady beating of the French drums and the heavy thunder of the British guns and the harsh cracking of the skirmishers' firearms.

“I killed him,” she said, her voice a gasp of triumph. “I killed him.”

But he was not listening to her. He was on one knee beside her, his sword sweeping the air, his voice a great roar. “Back,” he yelled. “Back, you bastards.”

He kept a bruising grip on her arm as they retreated up the hillside, his men shooting as they went. The sergeant had grabbed his gun and was reloading it, Joana saw. And she prepared her mind
for death. There was no way of avoiding it, she decided, caught as they were between two vast armies in all the chaos of a living hell.

“Give me the rifle,” she said, reaching for it. “I'll help.”

But he pushed her roughly behind him so that she stumbled. He spoke with a snarl. “You are not going to escape,” he said. “You will remain my prisoner or die with me. Get down and stay down.”

She did as she was bidden. Their very lives depended upon her being meek for once in her life, she knew, even though she could have helped if only he had allowed her to use his rifle. But it was no time to argue.

Every inch of ground was hard-fought, and on every inch of ground Joana prepared herself to die. She would not mind dying, she told herself, now that she had avenged the deaths of her half-brother and half-sister—if only Duarte could know. And she would not mind dying with Robert beside her. She felt strangely calm after the first bone-weakening terror.

But if she was to die, it was not to be just yet, after all. As the skirmishers neared the top of the hill, the French columns hard upon them, the great guns were withdrawn to avoid capture and General Crauford sat quietly on his horse outside the mill assessing the moment. Joana caught a glimpse of him as he was in the act of sweeping off his hat. And then she heard his high-pitched bellow, quite audible above all the noise.

“Now, Fifty-second! Avenge the death of Sir John Moore!” he roared.

“Company!” The bellow was Robert's, in her ear. He had a grip on her arm that cut the circulation from her hand. “Join the line!”

“Charge! Charge!” the general roared. “Huzza!”

The British lines that had been waiting behind the skyline were stepping forward to make their presence known to the unsuspecting French, their muskets leveled, their bayonets fixed. The skirmishers fell in at the end of the line and joined the charge.

Captain Blake flung Joana back behind the lines. “Go back!” he
yelled at her. “Get yourself to safety. I shall find you later and beat the living daylights out of you.”

And he was gone to join his men in their charge back down the hill. Joana heard the murderous volley of musketry and knew that the French advance had been halted, that hundreds had died in that first moment. She got wearily to her feet and retired to the far side of the lateral track.

She felt mortally weak, mortally tired. If she could just sink down to the ground and close her eyes, she thought, she would surely sleep for a week. But she would not do that. Not yet. Not until she knew that he was safe. Not until she had given him the chance to beat her black-and-blue. There was a thin thread of amusement in her smile.

Until she remembered that she had just killed a man.

And then she began to shake.

*   *   *

It
was all over. The French had been routed, and there would be no more attacks that day. As usually happened after a battle, or sometimes even in the midst of a battle when a temporary truce had been sounded, the French and the English mingled on the hill, all hostility gone, gathering together their dead and wounded. Some men even exchanged greetings and drinks of precious water with men they had been shooting at just minutes before.

It was perhaps the strangest part of war to those who were not accustomed to it.

Captain Blake toiled uphill with his men. He could drink two brooks dry if they would just present themselves, he thought. But his main duty was to find his own dead and arrange for their burial—always the most painful part of a day of fighting—and to see that his wounded were tended if their wounds were slight or carried away to the hospital tents if they were in need of amputation.

And yet he made one detour from the path that he had taken with his company earlier in their retreat uphill. He walked over to where a larger-than-usual group of Frenchmen was gathered, a sure sign that an officer of high rank was about to be carried away. And he found that he had not been mistaken. He had wondered—though he had not had a great deal of leisure in which to wonder. But that strange out-of-time, slower-than-time experience had seemed unreal. He had doubted the evidence of his own senses.

But he had not been mistaken. The French officer, who had died from a bullet wound just above the level of his heart—roughly in the same spot as his own wound had been the year before, Captain Blake thought—was Colonel Marcel Leroux. And Joana had killed him.

Hadn't she?

Had he imagined it? She had stood up, quite recklessly exposing herself to harm, yelled out his name, quite deliberately taken aim, and killed him.

Captain Blake frowned and made his way off to join his men again and to direct the burials and the removal of their wounded.

Almost at the top of the hill he knelt down beside a sobbing boy and touched him reassuringly on the shoulder before recognizing him. Private Allan Higgins turned his face away as Captain Blake's jaw tightened.

“You will live,” he said as another private cut the trousers away from the boy's leg to reveal the bullet hole. “We will have to have the bullet removed, but you will keep your leg. It is hurting badly?”

The boy made an effort to control his sobs. “No, sir,” he said, obviously lying. “But I could not shoot her in the back, sir. She ran, but I could not shoot her.”

“No.” Captain Blake squeezed his shoulder. “A man does not shoot a woman in the back even if she
is
the devil's dam. Well, lad, you have had your first taste of battle and you have acquitted yourself well. You came forward when you might have stayed back.”

“But I let you down, sir.” The sobs resumed.

“Get ahold of yourself, soldier,” Captain Blake said, straightening up and nodding to the two privates who had come to carry the boy up the hill. “We will discuss that matter later. It is sufficient now that you have survived.”

The boy did not seem in any way consoled.

Captain Blake felt bone weary. It was a feeling he recognized as one that always succeeded the excitement and even exhilaration of battle. A ball had grazed his temple. He felt the soreness suddenly and lifted a hand to touch the crusted blood on the side of his face. But there were no more injuries. He was fortunate. Hundreds of men—thousands, if he counted the unfortunate French—had died that day in a battle that was, after all, indecisive. The French would either attack again the next day or find a way past the hill, and the British would resume their retreat on Lisbon.

They had played one more hand in the deadly game of war. That was all.

He wondered where Joana was. If she were wise, she would have taken herself off back to the convent and thrown herself on the mercy of Lord Wellington or whatever senior staff officers were likely to defend her against him—and all of them, to a man, would be only too happy to do so. Though he was far too weary to do to her the things he had contemplated doing when he last saw her.

And far too puzzled as well. She had killed Colonel Leroux.

He came up over the crest of the hill alone, his task done. And amidst all the milling masses of men and guns and horses there, he saw her immediately. She was standing on the far side of the track, and was apparently sending a staff officer reluctantly on his way to the convent without her. She was favoring the man with her usual beguiling smile.

He stood and watched her with narrowed eyes until she looked about her again and saw him. She smiled as he approached.

“I was afraid to come to the top of the hill,” she said. “I was afraid to look down. I was afraid that perhaps you were dead.”

“You were not afraid earlier,” he said harshly. “Not when there was a chance of escaping to your own people.”

“Robert.” She was no longer smiling. She set her head to one side and looked very directly into his eyes. “You know that was not what I was doing. You saw me shoot him. I did kill him, did I not?”

He stared back at her. “Yes,” he said. “He is dead.”

And then she did something he least expected her to do. She bit at her upper lip, and her eyes filled with tears, and her whole face trembled.

“Well, I meant it,” she said, her voice a whisper. “I meant to kill him. That has been the sole purpose of my life for the past three years. And I am glad that it is done at last. I just wish I could have told him the reason why.”

“Joana,” he said as her hands came up to cover her face. “Oh, Joana.”

And she was in his arms while noise and confusion swirled about them, gulping and sobbing against his chest, beating against it with the sides of her fists.

“Fighting to the end,” he said. “The battle is over, Joana. And your private war too, whatever it was.”

“W
HAT
was it all about, Joana?” he asked her, and she stopped pounding at his chest and stopped the stupid crying and looked up at him. His face was powder-blackened, the dark blood crusted down one side of his face.

“You were hit,” she said, raising one hand but not quite touching the wound.

“Grazed,” he said. “It is nothing.”

“You must bathe it,” she said. “I shall do it for you.”

He surprised her by grinning. His teeth looked very white in contrast to the rest of his face. “You behaving like a normal woman?” he said. “I never thought to live to see the day.”

“Had you been standing one inch farther to your right,” she said, “you certainly would not have. Is it sore?”

“Excruciatingly,” he said. “What was going on, Joana? There is a great deal about you I do not know, isn't there?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but a group of horsemen passing along the track reined in suddenly, distracting her attention, and she found herself looking up into a stern and frowning face.

“Joana?” Viscount Wellington said. “Whatever are you doing here?” His stare shifted to Captain Blake, who had swung around to salute him. “Captain? Did you not have orders to escort the Marquesa das Minas with all haste to Lisbon?”

“No, he did not, Arthur,” Joana said quickly. “I passed your
orders on to him, you see, but I somewhat twisted them in the telling.”

Lord Wellington's lips twitched. “I can imagine,” he said. “Well, it seems I have the two of you to thank for a job well done. Marshal Massena has certainly been tricked into coming this way. I am sorry I could not take you more fully into my confidence before you left for Salamanca, Captain Blake. But I thought your behavior would be more convincing if you really did believe that the marquesa was betraying you and us.”

“It worked wonderfully well,” Joana said, glancing hastily at the stony face of the captain. “Didn't it, Robert?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. “It worked well.”

The viscount nodded curtly. “This victory today is little more than a booster of morale,” he said. “Might I beg you to leave without further delay, Joana, and make for the safety of Lisbon?”

She smiled brightly at him. “Yes, Arthur,” she said. “I shall withdraw with everyone else.”

“With
everyone else, not ahead of them,” he said with a sigh. “Well, I shall not waste any more breath on someone who is not directly under my orders. But take care of yourself. You had no more success than usual with your other mission?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Full success, Arthur. I hope you will not need me to make any future visits to my aunts in Spain. I have no plans to go there again.”

He looked at her keenly and nodded once. “I am pleased for you,” he said. And he saluted her, nodded to Captain Blake, and continued on his way to the convent, his aides in close attendance.

“Have you seen Private Higgins?” Joana asked, turning back to the captain. “I lost him, I am afraid.”

“I plan to take him apart limb from limb once he has recovered from his bullet wound,” he said. “He will wish the bullet had lodged in his heart rather than his leg before I have finished with him.”

He was deadly serious, the steely soldier from the crown of his
head to the soles of his feet. She smiled at him and linked her arm through his.

“But, Robert,” she said, “you know how difficult it is for any man to obey orders when I am involved. I am a match for any man, am I not? It would be unfair to chastise an inexperienced boy for allowing me to get away. He is a very sweet boy and was very concerned for my safety.”

“He had a strange way of showing it,” he said curtly. “And I have no room in my company for sweet boys.”

“And yet,” she said, smiling up into his face, “you were one yourself no more than eleven years ago, Robert. It took time and experience to mature and toughen you. And what about your orders to take me to Lisbon yesterday? They have not been obeyed. We are still here.”

“For the simple reason that I did not receive those orders,” he said.

“And why not?” she asked. “Because of me, that is why. But they were orders nevertheless, Robert—and from no less a personage than the commander in chief. If I had not spoken up just now, Arthur would have been very vexed with you. Perhaps he would even have torn you limb from limb and made you wish that you had been standing one inch to your right earlier this morning.”

He looked down at her, his granite look broken only by exasperation. “All right, Joana,” he said, “you have made your point. I shall go and kiss the boy and tuck him up in his bed while he rests his leg.”

“Don't kiss him,” she said. “He may be embarrassed.” She laughed gaily.

But he was not to be teased out of his vexation. “And what sort of a fool have you been making of me?” he asked. “You have been, haven't you, and enjoying every minute of it?”

“Not quite every minute,” she said. “There have been times when I have been remorseful, Robert. But yes, on the whole it has been fun. Are you going to forgive me?”

He drew his arm away from hers without smiling. “You are a
dangerous woman, Joana,” he said. “You will get any man under your power somehow, won't you? If not by fair means, then by foul. Well, you have made me your fool just as you have every other man on whom you have ever set your sights. But I have provided you with amusement for longer than most, I believe. No more, though. Enough is enough. It is time for you to find someone else on whom to practice your wiles. I don't suppose you have ever failed, have you? Well, perhaps one day you will. Excuse me. I have important matters to attend to.”

And he strode off away from her, leaving her standing staring after him—and feeling less confident than she could ever remember feeling. If only Arthur had not come along at that precise moment. Robert had known already, but she had not had a chance to explain fully to him. She had been about to do so, but she had been too late.

And so he had learned the truth from Viscount Wellington and felt humiliated and betrayed. Drat Arthur!

I don't suppose you have ever failed, have you?
he had just said to her. Well, she just had. And she felt a chill somewhere in the region of her heart and a feeling that must be very close to panic. He had been very serious. Perhaps too serious. Perhaps he would never forgive her. And even if he did, there was very little left for them. Only the retreat behind the Lines of Torres Vedras and the inevitable parting of the ways—a week, perhaps two.

Joana shrugged and looked about her at all the moaning wounded being carried up over the hill and in need of tending. She would help tend them even though she had never done such a thing before. Later she would think about Robert and how she might smile her way back into his good graces again. Later she would think about the future. But not now. Now there was plenty to keep her busy.

But she would think about those things later, and do something about them too. For never in her life had she been able to resist a challenge, and she was not about to start now.

*   *   *

He
lay on his back in his tent, one arm thrown across his forehead, staring up into the darkness. He was exhausted. The battle seemed days ago, not just earlier that same day. There had been so much to do since—writing up reports, gathering his men together and making sure they were prepared for further action in the unlikely event that the French should attack again, writing to the relatives of those who had been killed, visiting the sick of his company again.

Visiting Private Higgins and arriving just at the moment when a surgeon's assistant was digging the bullet out of his leg. Standing watching as Joana cupped the boy's face in her hands and smiled at him and talked soothingly to him as sweat broke out all over his face and he gritted his teeth and refused to shame himself by screaming.

She had moved off after the ordeal was over and the boy had fainted, without looking his way at all. She had moved off to another, even younger boy—not of his regiment—who was screaming for his mother. She had been incredibly dirty and untidy—incredibly beautiful.

He had waited by the boy's side until consciousness came back, and talked quietly to him until he saw hope and pride come back into the pain-filled eyes. And then he had squeezed his shoulder and moved on. Perhaps after all, the boy would make a good soldier. He had thought of a lieutenant, long dead, who had talked quietly to him when he was blubbering with terror after coming under fire for the first time and had made him feel that perhaps his behavior was not quite shameful after all.

He had caught sight of Joana several times during the day. But he had not approached her, nor she him. He felt bruised and hurt. She had been laughing at him the whole time, playing with him. While
he had been falling in love with her and fighting his feelings because she was the enemy, she had been enjoying herself immensely. She had even admitted it.

He was as much a fool as any of those men in that ballroom in Lisbon whom he had so despised. More of a fool because he had allowed her to make him so much more her toy than she had any of those men.

He closed his eyes but he knew he would not sleep. Where had she gone? he wondered. To the convent? To some other man's tent? But he did not care. He would not think of her any longer. His mission was at an end, and everything else along with it.

Against his closed eyes he saw her, standing straight and reckless in the midst of battle, aiming his rifle at Colonel Leroux and shooting him almost through the heart, though she had probably never used a rifle before. She never had told him what that had been all about. But he did not care.

He saw her quietly watching him that morning as he prepared to leave to join his men. And telling him that she loved him. He felt sick. But he did not care. She was not worth caring about. She was not worth a sleepless night. Not when the coming day promised to be almost as busy as the one just past.

There was a rustling suddenly at the opening of his tent, but he did not open his eyes. He only stiffened slightly. He did not move as she settled beside him, her arm brushing against his in the close confines of the tent.

“I had nowhere else to go,” she whispered to him.

“The convent,” he said harshly. “The arms of any other man in this damned army.”

“All right,” she said. “Perhaps I did not quite tell the truth. I meant that there was nowhere else I wished to go. Not that I wished to come here either. You are as cross as a bear.”

“Joana,” he said, “go away, or at least be quiet. I have no desire to be teased into a more congenial mood. Or to listen to any of your lies or wiles.”

“Would it help,” she asked, and he could feel her turning onto her side to face him, “if I promised never ever to lie to you again?”

“Not at all,” he said. “You would not be able to keep the promise for five minutes.”

She was quiet for a while as he lay beside her rigid with tension. “Did you think I was lying this morning?” she asked.

He drew in a slow breath. And he cursed himself for not having the courage or the good sense to order her from his tent.

“I was not,” she said. “I was never more serious in my life.”

“Don't, Joana,” he said. “It will simply not work this time.”

She touched his arm but removed her hand immediately. “You are not relaxed,” she said. “I would be mortally afraid if you were. As it is, I am only afraid. Robert, is there nothing I can say?”

“Nothing,” he said.

She sighed and he felt her forehead against his shoulder. It was impossible to move away from her in the tent. But she seemed to have nothing more to say. There was a long silence, a silence during which he listened to the rustlings of the camp about them.

“He killed Miguel and Maria,” she said quietly into the silence. Her voice was toneless. “Duarte's brother and sister, my half-brother and -sister. Or at least he ordered their killing—with a jerk of a thumb.”

He could feel the rigidity of his own body. He could scarcely draw breath.

“He raped Maria first,” she said. “On the floor while some of his men looked on. And then they took their turns. And then the jerk of the thumb.”

Breathing had become a conscious effort. “How do you know?” he asked her at last.

“I watched,” she said. “From the attic. His face will be forever burned on my memory. I searched for that face for three years. Thank God I could go among the French because I am French. But he had returned to Paris and only recently came back again. Duarte wanted me to tell him when I saw that face again. He wanted to be
the one to kill him. But it was something I had to do myself. I always knew I had to do it myself or carry the nightmares with me to the grave.”

He opened his mouth to suck in air.