"There you are, Tavington!" An unwelcome presence gave the commander of His Majesty's Green Dragoons a genial, self-satisfied smile. "And here we are, right on time!"

William Tavington straightened in the saddle to regard Major Lord Frederick Cavendish. Useless younger brother of the Duke of Devonshire, come to America to see the world and have a bit of adventure. Seconded to the Lord General's staff to keep him safe and out of the way. To his credit, Cornwallis had tried to find something this noble scion of the peerage could actually manage, but his patience had at last worn thin, and he had palmed him off on Tavington.

"Lord Frederick shall be your liaison officer," he had declared firmly. His eyes had met Tavington's, and the message was clear: nothing must happen to the wretched little snot, and there was to be no appeal of this sentence. O'Hara, standing behind them, and overjoyed at his own escape, had sniggered at Tavington's discomfiture, but quickly turned the snigger into a politely muffled cough. The wretched little snot himself had been quite flattered at the appointment, and had a Green Dragoons uniform tailored within a day. An extraordinary uniform, festooned with gold lace, and with skin-tight, non-regulation white breeches, which outlined his manly parts indelibly.

Tavington had allowed him to tag along on some routine patrols, but had mostly kept him in camp, making inspections and drilling with the Dragoons. His Lordship felt himself a man among men, and was blissfully unaware of his uselessness.

This had gone on for half of September and most of October. Feeling that he had done his duty—and then some-- Tavington had asked for, and been granted, a week's furlough, his first in years. He was off for Charlestown, to enjoy every pleasure Perdita's charming establishment offered. He had thrown his shaving kit and some fresh linen into a saddlebag, not anticipating needing much in the way of clothing. He was in the very act of mounting his horse when Cavendish now made his appearance on a splendid dappled grey, accompanied by a black slave dressed as a Turk in gaudy silks. Tavington blinked.

"You're coming with me?" managed Tavington, frozen with horror.

"Oh, yes! Wouldn't miss it for the world. Have written orders and all, you know. Lord C. said I was to go with you and see the real Carolina." He smirked, and winked broadly at Tavington.

Intolerable effrontery! Tavington sat his horse in a state of stupefaction, inwardly cursing all members of the House of Lords and their family connections.

Lord Frederick eyed Tavington's single saddlebag with wonder. "Is that all you're taking? Certainly mastered the art of traveling light. If you like, you can pile a bit on Ali Baba's nag!"

"Ali Baba?" Tavington lifted his brows.

"My new valet," said Cavendish, visibly expanding. "Isn't he a sight? Bought him for a song. Had a tailor whip up something for him. Gives a fellow a bit of dash."

Tavington looked beyond to the big black man, sitting impassively on his horse. "His name is Ali Baba?"

Cavendish gave a high whinny of a laugh. "It is now!"

Tavington looked again at the servant. His broad face, under the huge green and gold turban, had not moved a muscle. He was evidently experienced in the art of showing no emotion, even in the presence of a silly ass like his new master.

They rode hard. Tavington had hoped riding hard would prevent conversation. There was no escape, however: Lord Frederick's grey was splendid, and Lord Frederick's one talent was the horsemanship he had practised from earliest childhood. He matched Tavington easily, and generously shared his insights about America and the Americans, the rebellion, the slave trade, the superiority of Irish horses, his designs on several eligible heiresses, his colonelcy in the Dragoon Guards his brother the Duke was to purchase for him, his family's importance, the unfortunate lack of first-class claret in South Carolina, and the strategies he had devised that could end the war by Christmas.

As a result, they made excellent time. Under the lowering sky, they cantered down the road together, while the dead leaves fluttered down.

-----

He wasn't lost. He never got lost. The fog had thickened around them, reducing visibility to a few yards. They must have missed the fork in the road, and now they were on some sort of bridle-path, instead of the Charlestown highway. Tavington cursed the useless map.

Cavendish was chewing on his fingertips again. Disgusting habit. He was trying to read the map upside-down, and trying to be inconspicuous about it as well. His big grey snorted, and seemed edgy. Tavington's own Xanthus was alert. Maybe he's caught the scent of some predator.

"Here," Tavington snarled impatiently, shoving the crumpled mess at Cavendish. "Look at it all you like. We passed Wakefield miles ago, and the bloody map must not be to scale, for there can't be five miles between Wakefield and the river."

Lord Frederick's face fell. He pored over the map, trying to make some sense of the wretched thing. His lips moved as he silently read off the names of the towns nearby.

Tavington tried to orient himself. If only it would clear! The sky was impenetrably overcast, hiding the sun, hiding the stars too tonight, he predicted. Mist was rising in the stubbly cornfields, and here they were in the middle of nowhere, in the chill of October, and night coming on. He pulled out his compass. They were apparently still going in roughly the right direction, but had lost the road.

Ali Baba, too, seemed uneasy, his eyes rolling whitely as he searched the landscape.

"Do you know this area?" Tavington asked him.

The slave seemed astonished at being addressed. Lord Frederick snorted, still struggling with the map. Tavington looked at the slave, awaiting an answer.

"I reckon I knows a little bit about it, Colonel sir," he rumbled softly.

"Well, then," Tavington said tightly, "perhaps you'd be good enough to tell us how to get back to the Charlestown road."

Ali Baba, his turban now soggy with the damp, looked at the ground. "Couldn't tell you that, Colonel. Sometimes the mist jest rises, jest like tonight, and then ain't nobody goin' to find his way out. If we keep wanderin' around, we could get ourselves lost in the swamp. Best we make camp, get a good fire goin', and wait for first light."

Lord Frederick was incredulous. "You are suggesting that we sleep on the ground?"

Ali Baba was firm. "Yes, my lord. You don' want to be lost in the swamp 'round here. They's bad things in the swamp."

"Rubbish!" exclaimed Lord Frederick. He asked, in a lower voice, "What things?"

"Well, my lord," began his slave, warming to the subject, "You got the devil dogs. They's black with red eyes, and they hunts in packs when the fog is right. And then they's all the swamp hants, of everbody ever died in the swamp. Then they's the boo-hags."

"Do you hear that, Tavington?" asked Cavendish. He asked his slave, "And what is a boo-hag?"

"Oh, they's bad, my lord, sir. They get on you and ride you all night, sucking the breath and strength from your body. If they gets enough, they might not kill you, but they'll come back for more ‘til you get as weak as an old man, and then you die. And if they don't gets enough, or if they gets mad, they pulls your skin right off."

Cavendish managed a weak chuckle. "Oh really?"

"Yes, sir. You see they don't have no skin of their own. They steal a skin off somebody and they dress up in it ‘til it's all wore out. Then they steals another. They has to take their skin off so's they can ride you, though, and then they's like raw meat."

"Oh," gulped Lord Frederick, "what a quaint story."

Tavington snorted a laugh. The silly fellow deserved a good scare; no doubt when he was back in England, he could regale his fellow fops with tall tales from the colonies.

The fog was thicker now, with a cold edge to it. With no moon and no stars, it was going to be pitch dark. Tavington could see the slave's point. If they passed too close to the swamp, there was a good chance of one of the horses being caught in the muck—possibly even breaking a leg—and then they would be buggered.

He finally said, "We'll go on a little farther, but if we don't see any sign of a habitation soon, we'll make camp."

"Good God!" muttered Lord Frederick..

It was slow going, as the shadows gathered around them. Xanthus shied at a frog's croaking, at a strange bird's whistling call. The other horses were just as nervous, and the ground was softer now. There were liquid sounds of unknown creatures stirring. They must be very close to the swamp.

Cavendish's horse screamed with alarm, and staggered, as it put its right foreleg into muddy water. It thrashed wildly, but Cavendish got the brute under control and urged him back onto firmer ground. As the horse pulled back, a hideous stench rolled up from the muck. The other two horses whinnied in distress and tried to back away.

"Ugh!" exclaimed Lord Frederick. Then he laughed, "Something is rotten in the Carolinas!"

Tavington did not smile. It was something dead, all right. Xanthus shied again, and it seemed the grey was trying to free itself from something clinging to its foreleg.

"You there! Ali Baba!" Cavendish ordered. "Get down and see what Shadow is tangled in."

Reluctantly, the slave dismounted, and groped through the mist for his master's horse. He stooped, and Tavington tried to see through the fog and focus on what they had stumbled upon.

Ali Baba gave a hoarse shout and staggered back. The stink was worse, sharp and sickening.

"What is it, man?"

The slave was silent, and then said fearfully, "It's a dead man, sir."

"My lord," corrected Cavendish, icily.

"Yes, sir, that's what I say. It's a dead man, and your horse put his hoof right through him. He been here a while, 'cause he's gone all soft and mushy like the swamp itself."

Cavendish was plainly frightened and disgusted; and snapped. "Well, do what ever you have to do. Just get Shadow clear."

In the end, Ali Baba lifted the trembling horse's leg, and seemed to be scraping down with his own. He pushed with his foot at the shapeless bulk in the dark, and it rolled away, sinking back into the ooze.

Tavington thought a moment. "We'll have to dismount—all of us. It will be safer if we lead the horses. Be careful to stick to the path, though."

Tavington led them in single file. The path itself seemed firm enough. As long as he fixed his eyes on it, they went along fairly well. But there were so many unfamiliar sounds, and the fog itself rose in distracting plumes. It would be easy to forget the path, and follow some of the mysterious tendrils beckoning whitely. Tavington shook his head, and held fast to Xanthus' bridle. It was a reminder of reality.

Time seemed to move very slowly, and it grew darker. Tavington was almost resolved on stopping, when he saw a flicker of yellow light.

"Thank God!" he told the men behind him. "A cabin." Within a few minutes, they had reached it, and the solid ground it was built upon.

"Well," observed Lord Frederick, as they came close enough to see it properly. "Here is some of the real Carolina."

The cabin was a crumbling log affair, evidently a single room. There were a few small log outbuildings clustered around, but not a sound of human or animal. Still, a fire was burning inside the tiny house, proof of habitation.

Ali Baba was hanging back, and Cavendish had quite lost his usual confidence. Tavington shrugged, and approached the cabin.

"Hello the house! I am a British officer, and I require lodging for the night in the King's name!"

His voice was swallowed by the silence and fog, as if he had not spoken. Nonetheless, after a few heartbeats, the door creaked open on its leather hinges. A woman was silhouetted against the firelight.

She was nearly faceless in the dark. Bone-thin, barefoot, in a limp cotton dress that betrayed the absence of corset or petticoat, the woman stood looking at them, her hair unbound and hanging unbrushed and lank to her waist.

"I don't have room for you all in the house," she whispered in a voice that seemed rusty for lack of use. Tavington could not imagine her isolated life here by the swamp.

Cavendish came forward. "I am Lord Frederick Cavendish. My man can sleep outside, madam. Surely you will allow Colonel Tavington and myself to find room on the floor by the fire."

Tavington sneered inwardly. Cavendish had recovered his self-importance. It's only a lone woman, after all.

"I'm afraid," she replied, her voice like wind in the underbrush. "I'm afraid to have strange men sleeping in my house with me. How do I know you won't do me a harm?"

Tavington shouldered past Cavendish and addressed the woman commandingly. "You have nothing to fear from us, but we must insist. Is there somewhere to shelter the horses?"

She pointed vaguely to a tumbledown shed in the shadows.

"Come on," Tavington said to the other men. He led Xanthus to the side of the shed, and then dug into his saddlebag for his tinderbox and a candle.

"Here," he said, giving Cavendish the candle to hold while he struck a light. Once lit, Tavington took the candle, dripped a little tallow onto a crossbeam, and set the candle there. The wavering flame allowed them to look about. The shed was tiny, and filled with dusty hay. It had not been used in some time. Ali Baba found a leaky oaken bucket, and went to find water for the horses, stumbling in the dark. Cavendish protested at tending to his mount himself, but Tavington had no patience with him.

"Your servant is a valet, I believe? How experienced is he with horses?" When Cavendish could not reply, Tavington said shortly, "You may do as you please with your own animals, but I know nothing of the fellow, and would prefer that Xanthus survived this adventure."

Caring for his horse always calmed Tavington, but watered, unsaddled, and thoroughly curried, Xanthus still seemed ill at ease. Tavington smoothed his horse's flank and bade him good night. Needing to escape from Cavendish's complaining chatter, he stepped out into the blackness between the cabin and the shed. It was unnaturally quiet. How strange that the woman would not have a dog. There seemed to be no animals at all about—no chickens, not even a pig, the mainstay of these poor swamp dwellers.

Ali Baba trudged past, his horseblanket over his arm. "I found me the corncrib, sir. I'll be sleeping there."

Cavendish's uninterested voice replied from the shed. "Be sure to bring me some wash water in the morning."

Tavington sneered, and went back for his blanket and his saddlebag.

Cavendish eyed him curiously. "What do you have there?"

"The rest of my rations. I suggest you do the same. The woman might not have anything for us to eat." He removed his pistols from their buckets and placed them carefully in the saddlebag as well.

Cavendish gave an incredulous laugh. Tavington looked at him impassively, and Cavendish retrieved his own ration bag with an air of one very ill-used.

Slinging the saddlebag over his shoulder, Tavington took the candle from the crossbeam, sheltering the flame carefully, and the two of them made the short walk to the cabin.

The woman was sitting on a three-legged stool, staring into the fire. The cabin at least had a wooden floor. Tavington had expected that he'd be sleeping on packed earth. The place had a faint sour smell, and was unswept and dank. On one side of the room stood a rough-hewn wooden table and four chairs. An unmade, sagging bed was in the other, the sort in which the straw tick was supported by ropes stretched across the frame. A few dusty pots hung by the fireplace. A cradle held only a small, dingy quilt. A churn, a spinning wheel, a few crude tools completed the furnishings. Cavendish stared around him in amazement. He had plainly never imagined that any human being could be so miserably poor.

Tavington was more struck with the unused air of many of the belongings. The woman seemed not to have cooked recently. A good thing I have my own rations.

The woman said slowly, "The fire's burning low. I'd better get more wood."

Lord Frederick struggled with himself, and finally said, "We would be glad to fetch it for you…"

The woman was already going out the door. "No. I'll do it."

Tavington shrugged, and told Cavendish. "She probably wants to use the privy. Leave her alone."

She was gone quite a long time. Tavington chewed his cornpone slowly, and then bit off a chunk of dried beef. They ate in tired silence, until Cavendish spoke up.

"What's keeping her, do you suppose? Should we see if she is all right?"

Tavington grunted. "She wouldn't thank you for it. It's best we mind our own business." When the woman returned and made up the fire again, he would settle down to sleep.

She came in noiselessly, pushing the door open with a foot. Under her arm she had a bundle of firewood.

She knelt in front of the rude fireplace and the sparks crackled up as she added wood to the blaze.

Tavington asked, "May I know your name, madam?"

She seemed at a loss for a moment, and then replied, "Belle."

Cavendish smirked, arranging his blanket on the floor. "Just Belle?"

"Just Belle." The woman walked over the unwholesome bed, and sat down. Tavington looked her over. It was too dark to see much, but she seemed young—not more than five and twenty, he guessed. Unkempt as she was, she was not ugly. Her skin was smooth, and her dark hair thick and curling. With ordinary care, she would be a comely woman, though far too thin. Her eyes were set deep in their sockets, and shadowed.

He hesitated, and then spoke—she was providing him with a roof over his head, after all. "I have some food with me, Belle. I would be happy to share it with you."

Cavendish hastily added, "And I, too, of course."

"No, thank you," she murmured absently. "I have eaten." She lay back on the bed, not even drawing up the rumpled quilt.

Tavington looked at her, puzzled. "Good night to you, then."

She made no response, and the silence lengthened. Cavendish rolled his eyes at Tavington, who ignored him.

They wrapped themselves in their blankets and lay on either side of the fire, Tavington closer to the bed than his companion. He stretched out on the splintery wood, glad of a chance to rest, and stared at the fire until he fell asleep.