Miranda was not expecting to make this walk alone.
Well, perhaps alone is not the right word. She is surrounded by people. There are her mother and cousin, who are also her prisoners. There is her brother, a criminal.
Miranda certainly feels alone. She’s the only Stuart left doing her duty to king and country. Now, the weight of all that responsibility – to the town, to the army, to the family – falls squarely on her shoulders.
And there is certainly no end of things to do. Miranda is in charge of this evacuation effort. She had a responsibility to step up and take the lead, and she has done so. But that means that she now has more than a thousand people who she must keep alive as best she can, and she is constantly busy doing exactly that. The Leeds garrison is on its way, she knows, and they will hopefully bring help. Until then, it falls to her, and to the veterans of Little Avoning. They might have been placed under command by Evelyn, but in the face of recent events, their loyalty is to Miranda alone.
And once everyone gets to Leeds… Miranda does not particularly want to think about it. She knows her duty, and she will turn over her prisoners to the law. One wants to believe that the law will be just. But what even is justice, here? Miranda does not wish to think about the sentence that must be handed down to those found guilty of kidnapping and attempted murder. And the real criminal, the one her relatives sought to imprison and kill, has escaped.
Besides, Miranda is not so naive to believe that the law is always equal, and the Stuart family is influential and wealthy. It seems more likely than not that her mother and her sister will never see the inside of a courtroom, never be made to face the consequences of their choices. But that is beyond Miranda’s responsibilities. She must simply ensure that her prisoner-relatives are handed over to the correct authorities.
She does not want to think about this. Instead, she thinks about war. The echo carried by the rifle on her back, of a battle, keeps the reality of her experiences fresh in her mind. Still, for all that war is sound-loud and echo-loud and chaotic and miserable, she finds she misses it. War is also predictable, regimented. The camaraderie and support from the veterans she leads is also welcome, and the only thing that makes her feel more just alone. She knows who she is in the army. She know who she is trying to be.
Miranda no longer has a home to return to. Her town is gone, her family no longer people she recognizes. So she will make a new home for herself in the military. She is lucky, she knows, to have even this chance, and she will not be so lax in her responsibilities as to ignore any chance she is given.