As a Dare, They Sat the Poor Companion at the Duke's Chessboard — Then She Took His Queen
Chapter 14
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"She is alive," said Thomasina. "She has fainted. Who has a light?"The young clerk from the roof had come in after her. He had a tinderbox, and after three tries, he got a spark. She took the little lamp from its bracket and lit it.In the small yellow light, she saw them all: the old lady in a purple bonnet, her eyes fluttering; a fat, frightened man with gray whiskers holding his arm across his chest; the soldier's wife of twenty-two, pale as paper, clutching a basket; the clerk in the brown coat, twenty years old and sniffling, trying hard to be brave.They were all looking at her. It came to her very clearly that nobody else was going to do this."Very well," she said, and her voice came out steadier than she felt. "The guard has gone on with the mail for help. It will be some hours. We are going to stay alive until it comes, and it is going to be hard, and I need every one of you to do exactly as I say. Will you?"There was a pause."Who are you?" said the man with the gray whiskers."Nobody," said Thomasina. "A companion. It does not matter. Will you?""Yes," said the soldier's wife."Yes," said the clerk.The old lady opened her eyes. "Yes, dear," she said faintly. "Whatever you like."The man with the whiskers looked at her a moment longer. Then he said, "Yes, miss."The Duke found the road by the hedges while there were still hedges. After the turnpike, there were none: there was only the heath—open, and white, and roaring—and the snow came across it flat, straight out of the north, and filled the tracks of the mail as fast as they were made.He rode with his head down and his hat pulled low. Gallagher rode behind him with the lantern on a pole, and the bay horse struggled and floundered where the drifts had built across the road."We've lost the road, sir!" shouted Gallagher."We have not.""Sir, I can't see it!""Nor can I! But the wind was on our left cheek at the turnpike, and it is on our left cheek now. Keep it there."They kept it there. They went on at a walk, because a walk was all the horses could manage. The cold got into the Duke's hands, and then into his arms, and then into his chest, and he began, as a man does in that kind of cold, to think about things he had put away."Gallagher.""Sir?""Do you remember the retreat from Burgos? The night in the rain by the river?""I remember, sir. I remember you gave me your coat, and caught a fever, and nearly died of it, and swore at the surgeon in three languages.""I wrote to her about that night."Gallagher did not answer at first. The lantern swung on its pole.