Fallen Angels. Bernard Cornwell

air was filled with the noise of hooves, the shadow of a great horse that pounded within inches of her head and she had a glimpse of a mounted man who held a streak of light in his hand.

      ‘No!’ her attacker shouted. His shout was one of pure, sudden terror. He stumbled, one hand holding his trousers, the other warding off the sudden brightness of the long sword. Campion’s eyes were closed. Over the thunder of hooves, over her attacker’s cry for mercy, she heard the hiss of steel in air. Then silence.

      Except it was not silence. She could hear the hooves on the grass. She could hear the creak of a saddle, the chink of a curb chain.

      She pushed herself to her hands and knees. She vomited.

      ‘Madam?’ The voice was crisp, educated, and solicitous. ‘Dear Lady?’ The man had dismounted, had come close to her.

      She shook her head. Her breath came in huge, stomach-heaving gasps. She was on all fours and she could see the scraps of her cream coloured dress hanging down by her breasts. A small, rusty knife was on the ground beneath her. She sobbed.

      She screamed as something touched her, but the man’s voice was gentle. ‘Quiet now! Quiet! Gentle, dear lady!’ A great cloak was dropped about her shoulders, a cloak that enveloped her. It smelt of horses. The man’s voice was soothing, as if he spoke to an unbridled colt. ‘Quiet now. Gentle now!’

      Slowly she knelt up, clutching her own and her rescuer’s cloak about her torn clothing. Her fur bonnet had fallen on one side of her face and she shuddered as she felt his hands put it back into place, but his touch was gentle and she was glad of it.

      ‘Dear lady?’

      She looked up.

      Her rescuer was in uniform. The sight was somehow astonishing. Here, on this lonely heath, was a cavalryman in his finery, a blue jacketed and breeched uniform, bright with red facings and gold lace and looped with frogging and sword slings. An embroidered sabretache swung at his side. Small gold chains hung from his epaulettes. His voice was anxious. ‘Are you hurt, dear lady?’

      ‘Only in my pride.’ It came out as a squeaking sob. She tried to say it louder, then saw the man who had attacked her.

      He lay dead. He could not be alive. His dark rags and his lank hair were red with blood. His trousers were about his thighs. His neck had been half cut through by a great sword, steel bright, blood stained, that her rescuer had plunged into the turf. The man had died in an instant.

      Campion’s breath came in huge gasps. A gobbet of blood, thick as honey, trickled down the sun-reflecting brightness of the big sword. Vomit retched in her throat and she forced it back.

      The cavalryman turned to look at his victim. ‘I shouldn’t have killed him.’

      She frowned. ‘Sir?’

      ‘He should have hung.’ Her rescuer’s voice was suddenly full of outrage. ‘God damn him. He should have hung!’

      Oddly it seemed funny to her. She gave a choking laugh. She knew she sounded hysterical, but she could not help laughing and crying and sobbing at the same time.

      The cavalry officer crouched beside her. ‘Gentle now! Gentle!’

      She shook her head. She swallowed. She took a great gulp of air. ‘I’m all right, sir.’ It came out as a sob again and she forced calmness into her shaking voice. ‘I thank you, sir.’ The words made her cry.

      The cavalryman took from his sleeve a handkerchief, offered it to her, then realized that both her hands were gripping the cloaks to cover her nakedness. He seemed embarrassed by her tears and stood up. He went to the sword, plucked it from the turf, and cleaned the bright blade with the folded handkerchief. He had to scrub at the blood and, when he was done, he tossed the handkerchief away.

      He turned back. She had stopped crying. She knelt on the grass and stared at him. He smiled reassuringly. ‘My presence, dear lady, was most fortunate.’

      ‘Indeed, sir.’ She managed to say the words clearly. Everything seemed unreal, yet slowly the universe was putting itself back together. She could see the chalk scars on the earth ramparts of the old fort, the shadows of the gorse, the black blob of a missel-thrush nest in a bare, stunted elm.

      He smiled at her. ‘I’m travelling to Shaftesbury. Someone said this was a short cut.’ He pushed the sword back into the scabbard, the steel ringing on the metal throat. ‘My servant’s following tomorrow.’ He seemed to be filling the silence with inconsequential words. She nodded.

      ‘You were alone?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes, sir.’ She swallowed. The world seemed to want to spin about her. She closed her eyes. In her mind’s memory she heard the thick chop of the blade in flesh.

      The cavalryman went to look at her phaeton and she opened her eyes and turned to see him unbuckling the harness and leading the miraculously unhurt bays from the wreckage. She was still on her knees. She was shaking. She wiped spittle from her mouth onto the collar of his cloak.

      The cavalryman’s hat had fallen off in his charge. The sun glinted on his golden hair and moustache. He had a round face, red from the cold, and she guessed his age close to thirty. He worked efficiently, tying the bays by their reins to the broken splinter-bar of the phaeton.

      He slapped his hands together when he was done, then took big, white leather gauntlets from his belt and pulled them on. She saw that the right gauntlet was speckled with bright blood. He smiled. ‘That’s the horses looked after, now for you, madam.’

      She felt the need to apologize. ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘Dear lady! You’re sorry! God! It’s I that should apologize. A moment sooner and I might have stopped the whole damned thing.’ He stooped beside the dead body and picked up the gold chain with its diamond drops. ‘Yours? Hardly his, I suppose?’

      He said it so lightly that she laughed. It was a slightly hysterical laugh.

      He stood up, still holding the jewel, and bowed. ‘My name is Lewis Culloden, Lord Culloden. Major in the Blues when the fancy takes me, which is not often.’

      She looked up at him. ‘Lady Campion Lazender, my Lord.’ That too struck her as funny, to be introducing herself from the grass. She wished she could stop the hysterical swinging between tears and laughter. She wished she had brought dogs with her, that the groom had come, that the horrid man with his dripping nose had not pawed at her. She cried.

      Lord Culloden let her cry. He waited till the sobs had faded. He cleared his throat and sounded astonished. ‘You’re Lady Campion Lazender?’

      ‘Yes, my Lord.’ She was ashamed of herself for crying. She was ashamed of it all. She obscurely felt that it was her fault, and that annoyed her because she knew it was not true.

      ‘From Lazen Castle, my Lady?’

      She nodded. ‘Indeed, my Lord.’

      ‘My dear lady! Good Lord!’ He seemed quite flummoxed suddenly, as if St George, having rescued the maiden, discovered that he was too shy to talk with her. He blushed. He looked at the crumpled figure on the turf. ‘He must have been mad!’ he blurted out.

      She tried to stand, stumbling because she needed to keep her hands within the cloaks, and Lord Culloden came forward to take her elbow as though she was made of porcelain. She smiled her thanks. ‘Do you have any water, my Lord?’

      ‘Water?’ He said it as if she had asked for the moon. ‘Ah! Water! No. I have rum, my Lady?’

      ‘Can I beg you for a sip?’

      He walked to his horse and Campion felt another shudder of revulsion as she saw the bent neck and still body of her attacker.

      ‘My Lady?’ Lord Culloden nervously offered her a flask. She could not take her hands from within the cloaks; he seemed to understand and held the flask to her mouth.

      She almost choked. She used the first mouthful to swill the