Beloved Enemy, page 34
“Chicken, I have many matters to discuss with the officers here. We shall be in conference until dinner and probably long into the night. Do you wish to stay in the castle until after dinner? Or would you rather go to the inn now, sup there on your own, and retire early?”
Ginny frowned. The idea of spending the rest of the day alone in a strange inn in a strange town was not appealing. “I do not wish to be in the way, but I would prefer to stay here. If I may go freely among the men, I too have matters to attend to, some physicking—one or two injuries that require attention . . .”
Alex nodded. “Go where you wish within the confines of the castle, then, and I will send Diccon to find you when we dine.”
Ginny went out into the inner courtyard. It was a dark, brooding cobbled square where the sun was a stranger, unable to strike down over the high stone walls that seemed perpetually damp, as were the mired cobbles beneath her feet. With a grimace, she crossed the square and went through the arch in the wall that gave onto the larger, sunnier outer court. Here there were soldiers, some of whom looked slightly askance at the extraordinary sight of a young woman in their midst. She approached the sentry at the main gate to ask where General Marshall’s division was to be found.
“Far side of the keep, mistress,” she was told. “On the west hill.” The sentry saw her bewildered expression as she looked around the courtyard, trying to work out how to reach the far side of the donjon, and took pity. “Hey! You!” He beckoned at a passing corporal. “The mistress here has business with General Marshall’s division, on the west hill. Show her the way, will you?”
“My thanks, trooper.” Ginny smiled at the sentry, then at her escort, who simply nodded, striding ahead of her toward one of the circular towers standing at the corners of the court. She scurried after him since he seemed disinclined to slow down for her through a bewildering series of long passageways, whose gloom was but slightly alleviated by narrow slits high up in the walls. Heavy, iron-barred doors with shuttered peepholes were set into the walls. Cells, Ginny presumed, as she hurried after her guide, holding up her skirts to prevent soiling them on flagstones that looked as if they had not seen a mop and water in years. Alex had told her not to wear her britches on today’s ride to Nottingham, on the grounds that they would be in strangers’ company overnight, in the midst of an army that was unaccustomed to the sight of a respectable female in such guise.
After countless serpentine twists and turns, the corporal opened a door at the end of a narrow corridor, and Ginny found herself outside the castle, at the top of the grassy hill sloping down to the town. The slope was covered with tents, hardly a blade of grass visible, and the scene under the afternoon sun struck Ginny, after the dreariness of the castle, as immensely cheerful. The familiar call of the bugle summoned and dismissed in its regulatory, incessant fashion as she made her way, skipping over guy ropes, toward the formation of tents flying the pennant bearing Alex’s shield. Her escort acknowledged her thanks with another curt nod, then turned, and made his way back to the castle.
She spent a pleasant hour among men whom she now thought of in much the same way as she had thought of the tenants and servants of the great house at Alum Bay. She heard many a story of the families left behind as she tended to the minor ailments and injuries and dispensed sulphur to the dysentery sufferers, who seemed to be getting no worse, at least, and the sickness appeared to be still contained. She left the camp when the position of the sun and the smells of cooking from the braziers indicated suppertime. No soldier, friendly or otherwise, appeared conveniently to offer guidance as she went back into the castle, and Ginny resigned herself to relying on her imperfect memory to lead her safely through the warren of passages.
She was halfway down one of these passages, not a soul in sight when she heard the eerily familiar sound for which not even familiarity could provide inurement. Ginny paused at the barred door in the wall, pressing her ear against it. The moaning came again, low but unmistakable. Standing on tiptoe, she pushed back the shutter over the jailer’s peephole, but it was too high to afford her a view of anything but the wall opposite. The cell was in almost complete darkness anyway. She glanced up and down the passage. It remained deserted. The groaning came again, but this time there were words, indistinct but recognizable.
“God damn your eyes, you miserable bastard! Come in, or get your black soul away from that door, and let me die in peace!”
Obviously, the occupant of the cell had heard the opening of the peephole and assumed his jailer was casting a cursory eye over his prisoner. Ginny pulled back on the heavy bolts. They were heavy and had not seen oil in many months. It took her nearly five anxious minutes of alternately pulling and twisting, while the bolts scraped in complaint, the noise sounding to her ears like the clamoring of church bells in the damp silence. At last, the door swung open with a protesting whine and Ginny stood in the doorway, accustoming herself to the gloom, wrinkling her nose at the fetid stench.
“Who the devil—?” A ragged figure, lying on a filthy straw pallet against the wall, struggled onto one elbow, every movement obviously causing him excruciating pain, but the blue eyes still flashed with the angry spirit that she had heard in the cursing tongue. “No devil,” the man said, sinking back on the pallet. “I’m closer to death than I thought. ’Tis an angel come for me.”
“No angel,” Ginny said, coming into the cell, putting her basket on the floor by the pallet. “Flesh and blood, I assure you. Where are you hurt?”
“Don’t tell me that after leaving me to rot in this sinkhole for five days, the bastards’ve decided to send me a nurse?” The man laughed, then coughed, a trickle of blood sliding from the corner of his mouth. “Get the Cavalier fit for the hangman, is that it? Fit enough to dance on the end of the rope . . .” He coughed again.
“Do not talk,” Ginny instructed him, wiping the blood from his mouth. “Show me where you are hurt.” She pulled off the thin, blood-caked blanket and then gagged at the stench of corruption. The jagged edge of his thigh bone pointed up through the swollen, livid flesh already turning bluish-green. Biting her lip, she sat back on her heels. “The leg must come off.” It was a brutal truth, but one the wounded man must already know.
“Too late for that now,” he said. “If they’d wanted me to live, they’d have done it before.” There was a moment’s silence, then he croaked, “Is there water, for the love of God? They left a pitcher, but God damn them, it is out of my reach.”
Ginny filled the tin cup from the pitcher by the door and held it to his lips. It was true. He had not the strength to survive an amputation of the limb, even if his captors could be persuaded to provide the surgeon to perform the operation. That slow, fierce rage filled her again. They had thrown a desperately wounded man into a cell and left him to die as slowly or as quickly as his wounds would dictate, and she could do nothing, absolutely nothing to save him. But she could ease his condition a little, and she could create such a scene with Alex that he would be forced to intervene and at least have the man moved so that he could die like a man and not like a rat in a cess pit.
Fighting her nausea at the reek of putrefaction, she cleansed around the wound and bandaged it, then washed the thin feverish body with cool water that brought a moment’s easement. “Were you wounded in battle?”
“Skirmish,” he said with an effort, closing his eyes. “Not enough of us left for a battle, all we can do is harass the rebel bastards and try to get up with Hamilton’s forces . . .”
A string of the foulest oaths Ginny had ever heard suddenly came from the corridor outside, and booted feet thundered, coming to a screeching halt in the doorway. A trooper, pike at the ready stood there, still cursing until he saw that his prisoner had not moved and the intruder was a mere woman in a serge riding habit, bare-headed, carrying a wicker basket. “Who the devil are you, wench?” He grabbed her arm with a painful wrench.
Ginny drew herself up to her full height, ignoring the pain of the soldier’s grip. “Fetch General Marshall,” she demanded without raising her voice.
He didn’t drop her arm, but the grip loosened, and a flash of uncertainty appeared in the bloodshot eyes. “What’s the general got to do with you?”
“That is no concern of yours, soldier. Do as I say, and fetch him immediately. Otherwise it will go hard with you, I promise.” She was every inch John Redfern’s daughter, and he released her arm.
“Come out of here, mistress. This is no place for the likes of you,” he said, almost beseeching.
“It is no place for the likes of any but rats,” she spat. “Maybe you are only following orders in your treatment of this man, if so you will not be held personally responsible. If not . . .” She stared at him, then repeated. “Fetch General Marshall here, at once. I wish him to see this man.”
“I can’t do that, mistress.” The soldier looked aghast. “Generals don’t concern themselves with . . .” He gestured helplessly.
“Then summon your superior officer, and he may fetch the general.” Having started on this course, Ginny didn’t see how she could back down, but the thought of Alex being summoned from a high-level conference by some bewildered sergeant at the orders of his troublemaking mistress with her inconveniently humanitarian propensities was more than a little intimidating. He would probably be furious, but he would certainly come.
“You may lock me in with the prisoner if you are afraid I will spirit him away on some magic carpet while you are gone,” she went on, seeing him waver. “For heaven’s sake, man, get on with it!”
Impatiently, she gave him a push, and the arrogant gesture seemed to convince the trooper that he had best do as she said. The heavy door slammed, the bolts were shot, and Ginny’s heart plummeted to her boots. That suggestion had been made out of bravado, and she had not been prepared for the reality of imprisonment in semidarkness with a dying man. The cell contained only a pail, the straw pallet, and the pitcher of water.
The sergeant in the guardhouse listened incredulously to the trooper’s halting tale. “A woman with the prisoner in fifty-seven? You been drinking, man?”
“Come and see for yourself, Sergeant. And she’s no wench, either. Proud as a queen, givin’ me orders, tellin’ me to fetch General Marshall for all the world as if the general hisself was her servant.”
“But where’d she come from?” The sergeant looked around, bewildered. Enlightenment came from the sentry on the main gate who had just been relieved.
“Rode in with the general’s division,” he informed the sergeant. “Went looking for the men some time back. Orders are she’s to be let alone to go where she wants.” He shrugged and grinned salaciously. “Keepin’ the general’s bed warm, I’ll be bound. ’S all right for some.”
A rumble of agreement went around the circular chamber, together with a few lewd remarks. The sergeant scratched his cropped head. “Well, I dunno what to do fer the best. Guvnor’ll ‘ave me ’ide if ’n I disturb ’im fer no reason.”
The sentry grunted. “That General Marshall’s a bad man to cross, I’ve ‘eard tell. If his lady wants summat ’n you don’t jump, could lose more than yer ’ide, to my way o’ thinkin’.”
There was a silence as the unhappy sergeant cogitated. ‘“Left ’er in the cell, did you?” he asked the trooper.
The trooper nodded. “Locked the door ’n all, so she’s there all right an’ tight.”
“Shouldn’t ’ve done that,” the sentry pronounced judiciously. “Not locked ’er in.”
“Got no right interferin’ with the prisoners,” the trooper said stoutly. “Guvnor’d say the same. ’Is prisoner, after all.”
“Ye’re right!” The sergeant sprang energetically to his feet. “We’d best lay it before the guvnor wiv no more ado. Com’ on, lad.”
When the knock came at the messroom door, one of the junior officers went immediately to answer it. He returned to the room looking nonplussed. The governor and General Marshall were deeply involved in a discussion about dispensing pay to the troops in the castle, and the ensign coughed apologetically.
“What is it, Ensign?” Alex looked at the young man impatiently. “If you wish for our attention, you do not need to cough, standing there like a goose waiting for Christmas.”
The young man’s ears reddened. Not being a member of the general’s staff, he was unused to the acerbic tongue or to the emphasis placed on correct bearing. “Beg your pardon, sir.” He saluted stiffly. “Sergeant Smith says that the young lady wishes to see you at once.”
“Well, send her in,” Alex replied.
“It seems she’s with a prisoner, General, and wishes you to go to her.”
“What prisoner?” the governor interrupted. “How’d she find the prisoners?”
“The prisoner in fifty-seven, sir,” the ensign said. “I don’t know how she found him, sir, but the guard says he was doing a routine check on the corridor and found the door to fifty-seven open. The young lady was inside and refused to leave until the general came.”
“Is this prisoner by any chance wounded?” Alex inquired with a prickle of foreboding. There was an uncomfortable silence. “Well, Governor?”
“Near death,” the governor replied. “By all the odds, he should’ve died two days ago, but he’s a stubborn so-and-so, like all the Calverts.”
Alex sighed, drawing his own conclusions. It was typical of Virginia to put him in this impossible situation. He was a guest in the castle, and what the governor did with his prisoners was no business of General Marshall’s. He could not go around demanding changes just because something was happening that offended Ginny’s sense of decency. It was also outrageous of her to cause this kind of scene, in front of total strangers, and in the middle of what was proving to be a very difficult session as it was.
“My apologies, but if you’ll excuse me, Governor, I’ll go and sort this out. It will not take me many minutes.”
“I will accompany you.” The governor pushed back his chair firmly. Alex could hardly blame him for wanting to see for himself what was going on on his territory, but he would have preferred his confrontation with Mistress Courtney to have had no witnesses. However, he was obliged to acknowledge the governor’s presence with a gracious smile and grit his teeth as the rest of the room followed for all the world as if the circus was come to town.
“Who are you?” the prisoner asked as the door clanged shut behind the jailer. His face was twisted with the effort to speak lucidly, but the eyes were still clear.
“Virginia Courtney, daughter of John Redfern,” she said, sitting on the floor beside him, ignoring the chill as the damp stone struck through her skirt. “As good a Royalist as any.”
“Aye, you must be cousin to Edmund Verney,” her fellow prisoner said.
“You know Edmund?” Ginny asked eagerly. “Can you give me news of him? Have you seen him?”
“Two weeks ago,” he replied. “But what do you do in Nottingham Castle demanding the attention of Parliament’s most feared general?”
“Oh, it is a long story,” Ginny said dismissively. “Tell me of Edmund quickly before they come back. I had news of him in Wimbledon, but none since.”
“If you’ve a mind to find him, he’s not more than ten miles distant,” her companion said with a weak chuckle. “There’s a few of us left, gathering up the stragglers for the march north.”
“Where?” Ginny asked breathlessly, then saw the man’s eyes sharpen suspiciously.
“Is this the latest trick they’ve come up with? Boots and screw haven’t got a thing out of me, not even lying here without food or water, unable to reach the pail . . .” He coughed again. “Send a pretty woman, pretending to be a loyal Royalist who somehow has access to Parliament’s generals, with hands as soft and skilled as . . .” His voice faded, and an expression of disgust crossed his face.
Ginny reached into the pocket of her skirt, drew out the king’s parchment, faded and cracked now, but the seal was still clear. “I will not betray you,” she said softly, holding it before his eyes. “The king himself trusted me to bear his message, and I have done what I could since we left the Isle of Wight. Will you not tell me where I may find my cousin? I would see him, perhaps for the last time.”
Footsteps sounded outside, and she thrust the parchment back into her pocket. “Grantly Manor,” the prisoner whispered. “Ten miles to the east as the crow flies. Outside Grantly village.”
“Virginia, this time you have gone too far,” Alex said in clipped tones, pushing into the cell, then stopping with a gasp, putting his hand over his mouth. Behind him stood the governor, Colonel Bonham, and several others whom Ginny did not recognize. They all reeled at the stench, stepping backward into the passage.
“It is not pleasant, is it, gentlemen?” Ginny said coldly, getting to her feet, deciding that attack was her best form of defense. “This man is dying, Alex. He is sore wounded, and the wound is mortified. He has been left to rot away. Will you not allow him the right to die with some decency?”
“He is not my prisoner, Ginny,” Alex said with a weary sigh. “I have no authority in the matter.”
“General Marshall has no authority?” She looked at him in scathing disbelief. “I have noticed that General Marshall has whatever authority he chooses!”
Alex flushed with anger, aware of the men behind him, the ordinary soldiers behind them, all listening to the cold contempt of this slip of a girl who had caused him nothing but trouble ever since he had first laid eyes upon her.
The frail figure on the filthy straw laughed. It was amazing such a sound could come from that broken form. Alex looked down at him, met the clear flash of blue eyes that somehow retained their dignity and humanity in spite of the appalling degradation of his position. With swift decision, he turned on his heel and instructed the governor in cold, clear tones. “Newton, get this man out of this hellhole immediately. I want a report on his condition after dinner.”
