Paul was a silhouette cast by the moonlight and the frost covered earth. He faced away from her, a sword held in one hand, the tip pointing towards the ground. Something dark dripped from it. His other hand still held the pistol. A wisp of smoke rose from the barrel and the cold air carried the bitter smell of gunpowder. He dropped to one knee as she watched. She was unable to speak; shock had solidified every muscle in her body. There was a figure on the ground. A man.
Paul rested his hand which bore the gun, on the man’s chest, while his sword slipped from his fingers and fell on the grass.
He reached to the man’s throat and pressed it for a moment, then searched through the man’s coat.
“What are we going to do with him, Captain?” one of the drivers shouted, climbing down from the box.
The statement brought Ellen back to her senses. This was no dream. “God help me.” she whispered.
Paul rose sharply and turned to face her. “Get back in the carriage, Ellen. You do not want to see this.”
But she had seen it.
Her hand let go of the door handle and she walked forward.
“Ellen, go back.” Paul’s words were barked. But she couldn’t stop herself.
“Who is he?” The man on the ground hadn’t moved.
“A highwayman, chancing his luck. Go back in, Ellen. Please. Let me sort this.”
The man on the ground had still not moved. A macabre desire to see pulled her towards him.
“Ellen,” Paul snapped as she got closer, in another warning. But her body refused to be warned. She kept walking, and it only took a few more steps. The man lay there, as white as the frost stained grass beneath him. Except the grass beside his head was not white but dark, marred by something fluid that glistened in the moonlight… and half his forehead had been blown open.
Ellen turned away and cast up what little she’d eaten when they’d stopped for supper. Paul’s hand touched her back. “Ellen, I told you not to look.”
She was sick again.
He pressed his handkerchief into her palm as she fought to catch her breath. “Ellen.” Paul’s voice was quiet, as though he was afraid of her reaction.
After a few minutes, she straightened, the world about her turning to dust. “You killed him.”
“I had to–”
“Could you not have merely wounded him?”
“It was self-defence, madam. The Captain had no choice. The highwayman had his pistol aimed at the Captain’s head. If he’d not sliced the man’s leg open to get him off that horse–”
“Would that not have been enough?” Ellen’s words echoed back on the night air.
Paul raised a hand, his fingers reaching for her. “Ellen, come.” She backed away. “That man would have raped and murdered you without a thought. I had no choice.”
“I’m glad, you did it, Captain. The bastard hit me.”
“Hit you?” Paul turned away, facing one of the men who drove the carriage.
The man walked towards them, clutching his upper arm.
He looked as pale as the dead man.
“Bullet’s gone clean through my arm, Captain. I was riding postilion. He wanted to stop the horses.”
“Sit on the backboard, before you fall down,” Paul said. Then he glanced at her. “Ellen, tear a strip off your petticoats.”
She bent to do it. Any moment she would wake up in her bed at home, and this whole journey would be a dream.
She could not tear the cotton.
“Wait.” Paul walked back for his sword. She straightened as he wiped it clean in the grass.
Her gaze caught on the dead man. Paul seemed so unemotional. He rose and turned to her.
Ignoring her observation, he squatted, gripped her hem and sliced into it with the sword’s edge. After he’d done it, he dropped the sword and tore a strip with his hands. She stood still. Frozen.
When he straightened, he said, “Ellen, can you tie this about the man’s arm?”
Her fingers shook.
“Here.” He gripped one of her hands and pulled her towards the postilion rider who sat at the back of the carriage. “Do not worry about taking his coat off, just tie it over the top, just above the wound, as tightly as you can to stop the bleeding. Do you understand?”
She nodded and began as the man watched her in silence, in pain, looking faint as blood dripped from his limp hand onto the ground.
Paul walked away. She heard him talking to the driver behind her. They were moving the body. Her fingers shook so much she struggled to tie the cotton off, but she managed.
Cold seeping deep into her flesh, she shivered, her teeth chattering.
“Ellen, get in the carriage.” Paul’s words were an order. Not knowing what else to do, she did. It was just as cold within, and dark, and lonely.
After a moment he opened the door. “I am going to ride on the box to the nearest inn. We will sort everything out there.” There was a dark stain on his grey pantaloons. Blood.
She nodded; she’d left everything she knew behind her. This was a world of unknowns. She’d never imagined anything like this.
The carriage lurched into motion. She heard Paul talking on the box above her, but not his words.
Images of the man lying on the grass and Paul standing over him cluttered Ellen’s mind. Her senses waited for something to happen as the carriage rolled slowly on towards the next inn, their pace restricted by the wounded man who sat on the box beside Paul.
Every sound reverberated through her body. She could still smell the gunpowder as if it was in the carriage. She shivered, gripping her arms as she swallowed, trying to clear her dry throat. Then she gritted her teeth to stop them chattering.
The next inn was in the middle of nowhere at the edge of the road. The golden light of an oil lantern bleached out the moonlight when they turned into the courtyard, but the carriage was still dark inside, since Paul had put out the lamp.
Ellen looked through the window, her fingers shaking as she put on her cloak and bonnet.
Yawning men appeared from the stalls, grooms ready to change their horses.
She saw Paul jump down from the box and say something, and a man’s eyes opened wide, staring at Paul. Then the man ran into the inn.
Paul turned to the carriage, opened the door and knocked down the step, not meeting her gaze until he offered his hand to her. The hand that had recently killed a man. But then it must have killed many men during the Peninsular War. Her fingers shook as she took it.
“Ellen,” he whispered, “I’ve told them you are my wife. I’ve asked for a private parlour for you to wait in while I sort this mess out. Do you wish me to order a warm drink for you, chocolate? You look in shock.”
She nodded. She was in shock.
His fingers holding hers, he lead her across the courtyard, and she tried not to think of the dead man whose body lay sprawled over the back of the carriage, on top of Paul’s trunk.
But she did think of the injured man as she heard him climb down behind her. There was a word spoken, “Surgeon.” Then a single rider left the courtyard.