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orders, that Duncan was to push the general to get done what needed to be done, giving Duncan essential control of the general’s command. Despite a suspicious glance at me, he was alert and excited. I did not understand it. It surprised and upset me, not so much his questions of me, but his obvious enjoyment of his precarious situation.
    “Sergeant.” He turned back to an officer who had dismounted and stood at attention behind him. “Get me Cornet Price.”
    Within a few minutes, the cornet strode up to us, a bright red and white cassock worn over his buff coat. Tall and raw-boned, he wore heavy gloves, a large gorget, armor that protected his neck and chest, and a trumpet slung over his shoulder on a black cord.
    “Cornet, you will return to Tor House and advise Prince Rupert, in his hearing only, that we have received intelligence that Rigby is massed at Bolton and ripe for the picking. Tell him we await his orders.”
    I looked at Duncan, astounded at how easily he changed his plans. No consultation with the general; no consideration of what awaited them in Bolton.
    “Wait,” Duncan said, holding the cornet in place with an outstretched, commanding hand.
    “Lieutenant Foster,” he then said to the intimidating cavalier who had challenged me on my approach.
    The helmeted lieutenant saluted.
    “Pick a dozen men of your choice. There’s a Roundhead cannon and its crew lost out in the fog. About a mile toward Bolton, the lady says. They can’t have gotten far. Take them and their gun. Quietly. Be sure none escape.”
    The lieutenant moved away, gathering his men.
    “You will take Lady Elena back to Tor House with you,” Duncan commanded, turning back to the cornet.
    “Honored, sir,” he said in a voice too deep for his thin build. He went for his horse.
    “I will not go back,” I insisted. “I cannot.” My cloak crumpled under my clenched fingers as I pulled it close under my chin and looked around, uncomfortable under the curious gazes of seasoned cavaliers. “As it is, I’m not so sure the house guard, which was behind us, did not blunder into Bolton.” The shifting mists and solid walls of fog that huddled below the hilltop left me wary and uncertain. “If they did, the Roundheads may very well come looking for all of us.”
    “You were not alone?” he asked, his face frozen in concern.
    “Peg was with me. She has gone on to my friend’s home in Bolton.”
    “Under the nose of the Roundhead occupation,” he said flatly, and I suspected, not so sure of my loyalty.
    “The house is on the outskirts of town, easy to approach overland.”
    His face brightened, and he nodded. His sudden, enlightened manner intrigued me.
    The cornet arrived, mounted, his gorget and trumpet strapped to his saddle, his standard passed to another cavalier.
    “The lady will remain here. Deliver that message, Cornet. At your best speed.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    The cornet spurred his mount along the hilltop and into the mist, moving faster than I would take my horse in the treacherous fog. As though awaiting the cornet’s departure, thick droplets of misty fog flowed over the hill top. One moment the forward sentry stood out in the darkness, the next moment all that remained was a nebulous shape concealed in the mist.
    I collected my dignity, pleased that I had not been forced to return to Tor House, but uncomfortable with Duncan’s intentions. He led me, our horses with us, to the side of the massed cavalry into an open spot among a stand of bushes barely visible for the fog, where he took off his red cloak with a flourish and threw it across Ajax’s saddle, followed shortly by his sash and his baldric flipped over the saddle bow, his sword left there, suspended. His breast and back plates, he unbuckled and slipped off.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Changing clothes.”
    “Now? Whatever for?”
    He did not answer, intent on unstrapping the bridle gauntlet on his left hand and forearm. Despite my feelings for him, I