Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 9

loose as we reached the boulder I had stood upon earlier. I let him go, uncertain as to why he wished to be released.
    "Look." Doyle pointed at a sketch on the rock-face that I'd missed. "Ancient. Half worn away, but you can see it's just like the one in the guidebook."
    I stepped forward to look. There, almost entirely hidden by the bush that the spaniel had been pawing at, was the frieze of the soldier saving his love-mate's life. I leaned forward to take a closer look as Doyle chattered on.
    "Third century, my boat-captain said. Right old. I heard there was another monument somewhere, over their grave."
    I felt the shock all down my spine; I straightened up abruptly. "Their grave?"
    "Well, they died, of course." Doyle was giving me another of his "you blockheaded officer" looks. "All that shilly-shallying the clean-shaved man did over whether to save his friend . . . He waited too long, and the spear killed his friend, and then the chariot-wheel went over the clean-shaved man, and he got killed too. My boat-captain, he said that there are later tales about the two friends. The way folks tell it, the men kept meeting again, time after time over the centuries, and each time the clean-shaved man would be granted the chance to save the bearded man, but he'd wait too long, and they'd both be killed. The Fates kept giving the two men another chance to be together – another chance to show that they was worthy of each other's love."
    I couldn't look at Fairview; I wasn't sure what I'd see in his face. But I didn't have to look. A moment later I felt his hand warm around mine, squeezing it as tight as a clam—
    Do you remember now? Ah, I see that you do. I suspected that your memory, made faint by your healing wound, would sharpen if I recounted the events of Spy Hill. So you know what that clasping of hands meant to both of us: A reminder of life. We were both alive now, and what happened in the past – what I failed to do for you in the past – no longer mattered. We had each other now.
    I felt your hand's strength pressing against mine in a silent, sacred vow to each other that we would not allow history to repeat itself.
    "C'mon," said Doyle, nudging me in his familiar manner. "The General, he's waving at us. Guess he's impatient to go on."
    "Yes," I said, turning to match your smile with my own. "Yes, I guess we all are."
    THE END
    Author bio: Thrice honored in the Rainbow Awards, Dusk Peterson writes fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction, and contemporary fiction. Suspense plays an important role in many of the tales; the conflict in those tales is both external and internal. Peterson's stories are often placed in dark settings, such as prisons or wartime locations. The mood of the stories, however, is not one of unrelieved gloominess: friendship, heterosexual romance, gay love, and faithful service are recurring themes.
    Love in Dark Settings
    HISTORICAL NOTE
    This is the latest story in my Turn-of-the-Century Toughs historical fantasy cycle, which is set in an alternative version of the Mid-Atlantic states of the USA. Specifically, this particular story is set in an alternative version of Washington County in western Maryland, at the close of the nineteenth century.
    Stone Quarry Ridge actually exists in Washington County, as do all the other locations mentioned in this story (although I have renamed Indian Springs as Ammippian Springs, and the Magisterial Turnpike is known in our world as the National Turnpike or National Road). Spy Hill, however, has another name in our world: Spion Kop.
    That name reverberates for many people, for Spion Kop ("Spy Hill" in Dutch) is the location of one of the deadliest attacks in military history.
    In 1899, negotiations broke down between the British and the Dutch settlers in South Africa, who were at that time called Boers. (The British claimed they wished to defend the rights of British citizens living in Boer territories; the Boers claimed the British wanted the gold being mined there.) As a result, Britain sent the might of its imperial army to subdue the Boers – an easy task, the British thought, for the Boers were mere farmers and shopkeepers, with no standing army.
    When part of the British army became trapped and besieged in the fortified town of Ladysmith, another British force was sent to the rescue. On the summer evening of January 23rd, 1900, British soldiers scaled the southern slope of Spion Kop, chased away a small number of Boers from what they