Glory (39 page)

Meade camped near Warrenton, Virginia. September began with hot weather that turned chill at night. Rhiannon found herself busy enough, because Meade, though he wouldn’t actually move his army further at the moment, found his troops engaged whether he liked it or not—Southern guerillas came to him and his supplies. The days simply seemed long, sometimes busy, sometimes dull, and still, far too often, tragic. Helplessly holding a gut-shot boy while he died one afternoon after a skirmish that involved no more than two companies, she wondered what difference it made when a man died in a great battle or because a single shot was fired.

In mid-September, she found herself haunted by snatches of a nightmare that involved a child. He was little more than a toddler, a handsome boy, but she could never really see his face. He seemed to walk a fence, teetering along it. Behind him, she heard the explosions of cannon fire. All around her, the landscape seemed cast in shades of darkening yellow as the sun fell, and sunset was like the drenching of an artist’s pallet in red. Men shouted, horses screamed, and she saw Julian running again, across the terrain where the dead and dying lay ...

She woke one night from the dream in a deep sweat. She was glad to have awakened. She didn’t understand the dream. It wasn’t telling her anything that she could comprehend, that she could use to help anyone.

Julian remained in Old Capitol.

Then she started, feeling a subtle fluttering in her abdomen. She didn’t know what it was at first, then realized that it was her child. She gasped, rising in wonder, thinking she had imagined it. But then it came again, and she found herself laughing, and then silent tears eased down her cheeks. Death surrounded her, she didn’t know what the future would bring, but life was so wonderful.

Julian had been furious with her for tricking him into captivity, but he was alive. So no matter what his feelings toward her, this child had a father. She wanted him in prison. It was safe in prison.

Yet, the next morning, she couldn’t help but find herself disturbed when she listened to some of the soldiers talking over coffee.

“We sit here and sit. And Lee regroups,” complained a sergeant bitterly.

“If the generals would let the enlisted men fight this thing, we might have won by now,” replied a worn private.

“Gettysburg, Vicksburg ... hey, and did you hear? They’ve got that Belle Boyd locked up in Old Capitol again.”

“Ah, she won’t stay long! Have you ever seen the woman? Now, there’s some Southern hospitality for you! She’s flirted her way out of captivity before, she’ll do it again!”

“Well, they’re certainly entertaining the Washington press.”

“They?”

“The Rebel doctor, McKenzie. She came in with a fever, and he treated her.”

The men started laughing.

Rhiannon retired to her camp tent, sat on the bed, and started shaking. She clenched her hands into fists, jealousy washing over her. She’d never seen Belle Boyd, but the Southern spy was supposed to be a rare beauty. And now Belle Boyd was locked up with Julian. Who had married her, but loathed her.

It didn’t matter, as long as he stayed alive! she told herself. But it hurt. Oh, Lord, did it hurt. With Richard, she had known peace in her marriage. But she hadn’t wanted to love Julian. But he had come to her ... She had touched him, known him.

Death would be an agony she didn’t know if she could bear again. But there was no way out of a simple truth either—love was anguish all in itself.

He was a captive; he was safe, she tried to tell herself. But the next night, she began to dream again. And she dreamed of him in a coffin ...

S
YDNEY STARTED FOR THE
door, stopped, and spun around. As she had suspected, Sissy was behind her. Sissy watching over her had been part of her deal for freedom.

She and Marla still shared an apartment—with Sissy. She hadn’t moved into her new husband’s quarters because her new husband wasn’t there. He had, in fact, rather dispassionately told her that she could obtain an annulment easily if he was to fall in battle. If she hadn’t felt so terribly resentful and off guard that night, she would have told him that he couldn’t fall, that she couldn’t believe that God would be so cruel as to allow the death of such a fine man. But she was still bitter and afraid of what was happening—and God had allowed the deaths of far too many fine men already. He had been hurt again, her cousin had probably saved his arm and his life, and she could only pray that wherever he was, he was recuperating.

Marla, she thought, had been glad to end their spying days. She had been passionate and reckless at first, but then more uneasy. And since the night when Sydney had been taken—and she had claimed she’d heard the howling of the banshees, she had been afraid.

Jesse had gone to see Marla before coming to Old Capitol the night he had married and freed Sydney. He had explained that they had been caught, that there was to be no more activity, that Sissy would remain with them until he could return to Washington, D.C., and make new arrangements for his wife.

Marla readily accepted the situation. Naturally, they had both been cold and rude to Sissy, but the beautiful young black woman hadn’t noticed. She followed Sydney everywhere. At the prison, oddly enough, she didn’t insist on sitting in on Sydney’s conversations with her brother, but she waited outside, ready to follow Sydney once again after she left the prison.

“Well, are you ready?”

“Of course, Mrs. Halston.”

Sydney lowered her lashes, thinking that Sissy had a way of being polite while mocking her at the same time.

“We’re going to Old Capitol—”

“I know.”

Sydney studied the black woman pointedly. “You’ve nothing to say? No lectures, no warnings? Don’t go helping any Rebs escape, ma’am, you’ll hang, and I’ll see to it that the noose is properly tied?”

Sissy returned her gaze steadily. “Miss Sydney, your brother is a surgeon. He has plenty to keep him busy. And when he isn’t busy ... well, his brother will see that he’s exchanged. Dr. McKenzie was taken, so I understand, because he’d saved General Magee’s foot once, and because—”

“He was betrayed by a woman,” Sydney said flatly.

“Who only wanted to keep him alive.”

“Well, haven’t you heard, Sissy? There are things worse than death. That’s what the abolitionists say, you know. Slavery is worse than death.”

“Do you doubt that?”

Sydney hesitated, remembering what it felt like to be a prisoner—to have lost her freedom. “My family never owned slaves, Sissy. In fact, my grandmother’s people, the Seminoles, helped runaway slaves all the time.”

“Well, I commend your grandmother’s people, Mrs. Halston.”

“You weren’t a slave,” Sydney said.

“Not born a slave, no,” Sissy said, suddenly angry. To Sydney’s surprise, she spun around, unbuttoning her bodice, slipping her dress down so that Sydney could see her back. Sydney swallowed back a gasp of horror at the scars there. “I wasn’t born a slave, but I was seized by some men to be returned to my supposed ‘master,’ a man who owned a plantation in Alabama. Papers were forged, and there I was, a slave. Who listens to a darkee over a rich white man? You know that’s the truth. When I wasn’t agreeable to anything he wanted, he beat me.”

“Sissy, most masters aren’t like that. Their slaves are valuable, they’re often loved—”

“That is so ridiculous, don’t you understand? Some men are good. Yes, I’ve known many really fine white men, in the North and in the South. But there are evil men who beat their slaves, who are careless with their ‘valuable’ property. A slave doesn’t have freedom, don’t you understand that? Slavery allows for men to have the legal right to whip and beat and torture other men. Slavery allows men to rape women, to sell their children.”

“Maybe, but—”

“For the love of God, I’ve seen how you care for other people. I know that you can’t just accept this because you’re Southern. You—”

“It’s a matter of states’ rights, Sissy!”

“But the important ‘right’ to the South is the right to hold slaves.”

Sydney sighed softly. “Slavery is wrong. But, Sissy, what will happen if thousands of slaves are suddenly free? Many will starve, they’ll have no homes, they’ll suffer terribly. Slavery should be abolished with a plan, with education, with—”

“Yes, it should. But men never will release that ‘valuable’ property so generously without force. John Brown said it. Our land could not be purged without blood.”

“John Brown was a murderer,” Sydney said.

“Yes, he was. He thought he was God, judge, and jury. But the land is bathed in blood, and it’s a terrible thing.”

Sydney walked over to Sissy. She touched her shoulder, near a scar. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

Sissy smiled. “I know that you are. And I’m sorry that I betrayed you. Do you understand why?”

Sydney put her arms around her and hugged her. Sissy hugged her back. They were both lost, and both found.

“Are you still a Rebel?” Sissy asked.

“I’m still a Southerner,” Sydney said slowly, meeting Sissy’s eyes. “But you sure have made me think.”

“Let’s go see your cousin,” Sissy suggested.

“It may be dangerous for me to go to him—with you behind me. My cousin longs to escape. He can’t help but want to save his own countrymen.”

“I heard he saved Captain Halston.”

Sydney paused. “You’re good friends with Jesse?”

“Yes. I admire him very much,” Sissy said solemnly.

“Well, then,” Sydney murmured. “It’s good to know that you’ll be here to watch over him if—”

“If?”

Sydney lowered her eyes and shook her head. “If I don’t happen to be here when he comes back.”

Sissy hesitated a moment as if wondering if she should or shouldn’t take the impropriety of a personal observation. “He loves you, you know.”

Sydney felt the world twist and roll. There had been a time when his smile had made her feel a trembling deep inside. A time ...

That time still existed. The touch of his eyes still made her quicken. She had been falling in love with him since she had first met him. Feeling the sweet excitement of learning more about him every time she saw him. But then ...

“He captured me and put me in a prison camp.”

“You were spying.”

“That’s the point, it’s all wrong, he’s North, I’m South, he’s from the snow, and I need the sun to survive, it’s just all—all wrong!”

“Slavery is wrong.”

“Oh, Lord, Sissy, do you know how many Southerners believe that it’s wrong? Many, and many were against secession, and against war. The division remains. And Jesse is a Yank, and I’m a Rebel.”

“You married him.”

“Yes, I did. And you may be right about everything, but ...”

“But what?”

“We are still at war. That’s the crux of everything.
We’re still at war
.”

More injured came into the hospitals in Washington—and to Old Capitol. Julian realized that he was being given more supplies to work with—medicines, sutures, opiates, and more—than he would have had he were free. It wasn’t a miserable existence. Sydney came to see him fairly frequently. She often helped him with the injured men, but as time went by, she seemed to grow more somber. Every time he saw her, he asked about his wife, and then about Jesse Halston.

Both of them remained at the front.

“What were you expecting?” Sydney asked him one day. “That Rhiannon would immediately return here to Washington because you were a prisoner here?” She smiled with a trace of bitter amusement. “All right, her prisoner at that.”

He scowled at his cousin. “I told her to get away from the field! Who knows when she’ll put herself in danger again?”

Sydney hesitated. “She might know when she’s going to be in danger.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. She doesn’t close her eyes and see the future. She has dreams, moments of intuition. She can’t protect herself from all harm.”

“She’s a grown woman.”

“Carrying my child.”

“Ohhh ...” Sydney breathed, her mouth forming a circle. “I see.” She was watching him with a greater amusement. Who was he trying to fool?

“No, you don’t see,” he said irritably. “She belongs at home.”

“But you’re a prisoner.”

“Not for long.”

“Julian, you mustn’t do anything too reckless. I know that Ian is surely talking to the right people.”

“I’m sure he is as well, Sydney.”

“Don’t put yourself into danger. Heed the advice you gave me!”

“I intend to be very careful.”

His chance came unexpectedly that very night when his last patient of the day died in the courtyard before Julian even had a chance to see him.

Few of the other prisoners were around; the guards were equally as busy. The sick and injured who had died that day were lined up against the wall. Guards and government-contracted coffin makers were busy bringing in simple, poorly made boxes for the Rebel dead.

As he stared down at the boy who had died before he’d even had a chance to find out what his injury had been, he felt a touch on his shoulder.

“So many are dead, Julian. You can’t take each death to heart, as if you somehow failed the man.”

“I know,” Julian said softly. “It’s just that now ...”

“You have to realize that you have done good work here. That you’ve saved lives.” Belle was a pretty woman, sweet, but with a wild heart. They had quickly become friends. No more, no matter what the Northern papers would like.

“Yes ... but ...”

There was so little else he could do. His eyes touched on one of the coffins. He stared into Belle’s pretty eyes. She smiled slowly. “Want a little free time, Colonel McKenzie?”

“Captain, ma’am.”

“You’re deserving of all the rank you’ve ever held, sir!” she said, and bowed gracefully to him.

“You know, Belle, you should be on stage.”

“One day perhaps I shall be. Trust me, Colonel, and I’ll put on a fabulous performance for your benefit!”

She walked away. As he watched, she entered the main building, taking a seat at a table in the common room. She was quickly surrounded.

Julian looked around himself. A few fellows were moving coffins, lifting the dead into them, like so much refuse.