A Falling Star, page 42
part #3 of Wintercombe Series
He stared at her impatiently. ‘There are a score of men here, madam, and all of them in desperate case. I have no idea if your cousin is amongst them, and no time to look.’
‘A very tall man, with black hair, a little older than yourself?’ she persisted, though he was already turning away to kneel beside a groaning man writhing on a pile of straw.
‘No,’ said the surgeon curtly, already busy with his patient. Helpless, Louise gazed frantically around her, trying to see through the fetid gloom. It was plain that if she inspected every man, she would get in the way of those trying to help them. But then she saw Harry Prescott, a bucket of water in each hand, darkening the doorway, and ran to him in relief. ‘Master Prescott! Thank God! Have you seen Sir Alexander?’
He stared at her, bewildered. ‘No, Mistress Chevalier, I haven’t seen him in some while — not since he went out to find some news. Why do you ask?’
‘Because he was apparently caught up in the fighting,’ Louise told him, dropping her voice to a breathless whisper. ‘And neither I nor my other cousins can find him — I thought he might be in here —’
‘I haven’t seen him,’ Harry repeated. ‘I’ll tell you plain, though, he isn’t amongst these here — thank God, for they’re all sorely hurt. But I’ll ask around, discreetly, see if anyone else has clapped eyes on him. You’d best go back to Moll, Mistress — this is no place for a lady, you can see that.’
She could, indeed. A man in agony was blubbering and blaspheming in a corner, another, more quietly but no less appallingly, was choking his life away almost under her feet. She thanked him and escaped, gasping, from that terrible place to the relative peace and fresh air of the courtyard.
Once there, she had to cling to one of the posts supporting the gallery as she fought her sudden weakness. Pain, unpleasantness, the everyday small sufferings of life, were not strange to her, and she had not thought herself so squeamish, but that ghastly, concentrated agony, the indignity and torment and her complete powerlessness to help, had shaken her to the heart.
‘Louey! Louey! All right, Louey?’
She turned shakily in response to Ben’s gentle touch on her shoulder. He looked horrified: unaware of her drastically altered face, she said hastily, ‘It’s all right, Ben — he’s not there — there are a lot of men badly hurt, but not Alex, and Master Prescott hasn’t seen him.’
‘Alex safe?’ he said anxiously. She managed a smile. ‘I don’t know, Ben, but we’ll find him, don’t worry. Go back to Bram and tell him that he isn’t in the George.’
It took a while to persuade him that this was the best course, and in the end she almost had to push him back into the saddle. But when he had gone clattering away down North Street, out of her sight, a black weight of despair settled on her soul. She could not believe that Alex, so vivid and alive only two or three hours ago, could be dead — he must be with the rebels, or tippling in the Fleur-de-Lys, or even back at Wintercombe, unscathed and careless as ever, while his cousins wore themselves to frantic shadows looking for him…
There was no reason for dread, and yet she felt it so strongly that the thought of returning to Moll Prescott, and more interminable hours of caged and frustrated ignorance, was unbearable. She knew the village well, and the fighting, it seemed, had dwindled into a desultory bombardment, a stalemate that was no longer threatening to any but those immediately involved. And any slight danger to herself was paltry indeed, compared with the urgency of finding Alex.
Ignoring the rain still dripping relentlessly from a gloomy sky, she walked out of the George, towards North Street, and the barricade where the fighting had been thickest.
It was much worse than the stable, because she could see them quite clearly, dead men heaped around the barrier that had kept the King’s men out of Philip’s Norton. She was not the only woman there: several villagers, taking advantage of the lull in the fighting, were busy amongst the debris of battle, offering comfort to the wounded. Many of the dead wore red coats, and seemed to belong to the Royal army, and their congealing wounds and slack, empty faces made Louise, to her shame, avert her gaze. All her life she had been unthinkingly strong, forceful and determined: and now, the aftermath of this small but bloody skirmish had completely destroyed her composure.
For several moments she stood in a doorway, trying to calm herself. At last, propelled by the urgency of her search, she stepped resolutely back into the street, and made herself study each corpse, each wounded man, looking for grey cloth, black hair, even, horribly, the lifeless stare of eyes as blue as sapphires or the sky…
He was not there. The women and those rebel soldiers collecting discarded weapons or wounded men stared at her curiously, but she could not bring herself to speak to them, for if she did, she knew that her hard-won control would shatter. One of the men said something to her, but she only shook her head mutely, and made her way to the barricade. It was ridiculous, she told herself with unconvincing fervour. She would spend all afternoon looking, she would be soaked to the skin and likely to catch a chill on the lungs, and she would go back to the George and find him sitting warm and dry in the taproom, swilling Master Prescott’s beer…
‘Don’t ee go through there, Mistress!’ One of the rebels, a kindly-looking man old enough to be her father, was trying to detain her. ‘Tisn’t safe, Mistress, not with they guns a-roaring — do ee go back to your hearth, Mistress, till all be over and done with.’
She had barely noticed the pounding of the cannon — the loud deep thunder of the King’s artillery, more distant, mixed with sharper, lighter explosions much closer at hand that must belong to Monmouth’s little two-pounders. She said urgently, ‘I’m looking for my cousin — he was seen fighting here, a tall black-haired man in a grey suit — not a soldier — have you seen him?’
The puzzled whiskery face looked at her with concern. ‘No, I haven’t,’ said the rebel. ‘Do ee go home, Mistress, please!’
He was standing stalwartly in front of the gap forced in the barricade. Louise, with sudden desperation, ducked past his hands and dived through, into the carnage beyond.
The familiar Bath road, stretching ahead of her along the hillside, was strewn with bodies, both of men and horses, some moving, others still. With a whimper of revulsion and fear, she turned away and ran down the sloping lane that led to Lyde Green, until her feet shot from under her in the sleek treacherous mud, and she fell painfully on to her back.
There was no one else in the lane. The guns continued their futile bombardment: she had seen no sign of any cannon balls landing anywhere remotely near. The man in North Street had presumably gone back to his own duties, ignoring the antics of a woman he probably considered to be crazed in her wits. And perhaps I am, Louise thought ruefully, struggling to her feet. Her Brandenburg dripped liquid mud, one of her shoes appeared to have lost a heel, her soaked, torn skirts clung to her legs, and she was chilled to the bone. And the rain, coinciding with the arrival overhead of an even blacker cloud, was falling still more heavily.
This would not find Alex. She could walk on, down to Lyde Green, turn right along the Wellow Lane, and come within half a mile to the warmth and comfort of Wintercombe. Or she could continue a search that was probably fruitless for a man quite likely to be safe and who would be the first to laugh at her frantic concern for his welfare.
She was not afraid of seeming a fool. Setting her teeth, she turned and hobbled back up the lane.
In her earlier panic, she had not noticed the bodies lying in the hedgerow, further up from the place where she had fallen, and there was a sword, glittering and rain-washed, flung down in the grass. She made herself look. A young soldier in a red coat, much cut about the chest, his broken, uneven teeth bared in a last grimace of defiance. A heavy man in blue homespun, face down beside him. And beyond them, a patch of grey, rain-darkened but distinctive.
Her heart turned over and began to thud sickeningly. She walked past the two dead men, and stared down at her cousin huddled lifeless amongst the rough nettles and seeding cow parsley that lined the ditch along the roadside. She could not see his face, and was glad of it, but his plain grey coat and breeches, wet and stained with mud and water were none the less as familiar, as unmistakable as the black hair and long, sprawling height.
‘Mon Dieu,’ Louise whispered, on a sob, and dropped to her knees beside him. It took all her courage to put out a hand to his shoulder to try to turn him over, for she dreaded what she might see.
There was blood on his face, and that was all: his eyes were closed, and he looked almost asleep. Unable to believe that he was dead, she stared dazedly down at the man who had possessed such power to arouse her, and would never do so again.
But he did not look dead: not like the other two men lying next to him. And then she realised that under her fingers his body was warm, and that his chest was moving, and that the long sword-gash across the side of his head was still leaking blood. And the relief, after such utter despair, was so intense that she buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears.
Close by, something moved. She realised that she was alone with a wounded, unconscious man, and that they were both desperately vulnerable. She took a ragged breath, fighting for calm, and removed her hands.
He was looking up at her, but it was not Alex: the blue eyes were unfocused and bewildered. She glanced round, but there was no other living being in sight. The rebel gun fired, and Alex winced; then the enemy’s piece spoke in answer, there was an eerie howl, and something thumped into the field on the other side of the hedge. They could not stay here in the pouring rain: she must find shelter, and quickly. Urgently, she bent her face down to his. ‘Alex! Alex, can you hear me?’
His eyes wandered to hers, his expression more vacant than Ben’s. Louise knew that a blow to the head commonly resulted in some temporary disruption of the wits, but this was deeply disturbing. She tried again. ‘Alex! Can you sit up? Let me help you…’
She pushed her hands under his shoulder, but he rolled over, away from her, and was abruptly and violently sick into the ditch. She waited until the retching had stopped, and then touched him gently. ‘Do you want my kerchief?’
He said something that she could not catch; he repeated it, and she realised that he was asking for water. The absurdity of it struck her with force: enough had fallen from the sky today to fill a hundred thousand drinking vessels, but there was nothing except red liquid mud all around them. Then she remembered the ditch, and, heedless of stings, she pushed the nettles aside and saw a swift-running stream. She cupped her hands in the flow and lifted them. It was cloudy, but quite drinkable compared with the muddy rivulets and puddles in the lane. It had run between her fingers, so she wrapped her kerchief over her hands to make some sort of cup, and tried again. ‘Alex! Here’s some water.’
With difficulty, he drank from her hands. She scooped up more, several times, and he sucked the water thirstily. At last, he shook his head, the black wet hair tangled across his face. ‘Enough. Give me the kerchief.’
She unwrapped it, dripping and smeared with mud, and watched him wipe his face. He looked ghastly, like a drowned man come back to haunt his enemies, but at least his eyes no longer held that dreadful, witless vacancy. Blood still washed sluggishly into his hair: his fingers explored the injury tentatively, and he frowned.
‘Does it hurt?’ she asked, and was rewarded by a growl more reminiscent of the old Alex. ‘Of course it bloody hurts. Help me up, will you?’
She was almost as tall as he was, and years of vigorous riding and exercise had made her strong and wiry, but supporting his weight was almost beyond her. Somehow, gasping, she pulled and pushed and helped him until, eventually, he was on his feet, an arm about her shoulders, swaying with the effort. She braced herself, feeling the sweat soaking her bodice with exertion, and said breathlessly, ‘I think there’s a barn or cowshed — just down there in the field on the corner — can you walk that far?’
‘I don’t intend to stand here all day,’ Alex muttered.
Louise gave a sob of laughter and relief, and tightened her arm about his waist. ‘Are you ready? Take it slowly…’
It was impossible to proceed in any haste, even if he had not been as stumbling and unsteady as a drunken man. Carefully, she guided him down the slippery, rutted lane, with the guns firing at irregular intervals behind them: but nothing came as close again as the missile that had landed in the nearby field.
She had barely noticed the barn earlier, but it was the nearest shelter from the driving rain. And now that the initial panic and urgency had receded, now that she had found him, her mind had begun to work again in its usual practical fashion. He had been fighting, God alone knew why, after all he had said, for the rebels. There was a good chance that no one in Monmouth’s army, drawn mostly from the southern part of Somerset, would have recognised the stranger in their midst, especially in the heat of battle. And the fewer people in Norton who knew that he had taken part in the fray, the better. For if Charles found out…
She shied away from that possibility and all it implied. Only she herself, Bram and Ben, and Harry Prescott, knew the truth for certain. With luck, perhaps Alex’s role in the rebellion might remain a secret.
‘In here,’ she said. It was more of a cowshed than a barn, with a partly open front, the roof supported on posts. Two wooden mangers stood at one end, and at the other, a partition and an ancient gate divided the animal shelter from the pile of hay intended for their fodder. There were a dozen curious young heifers and bullocks, their dark red coats sleek with rain, clustered round the further manger, and they turned and stared as she and Alex slipped and stumbled through the mud at the gateway to the small field in which the shelter had been built, fortunately close to the lane. Then they were under the rough thatched roof, and there was no more rain driving into their faces. She pulled the rough barrier aside, and saw with relief that there was still a quantity of hay and straw within, protected from the rain by the stone wall on three sides, and the wooden partition and gate on the fourth. It was dry, sheltered and secret, ideal for her purpose. If the fighting flared up again, with luck they would be safe here until dark. If it did not, then as soon as Alex had recovered some of his strength, they could perhaps return to Wintercombe, just down the Wellow Lane, without molestation.
Alex walked two steps unaided, and sank down on his knees in the straw. She pulled the gate shut behind her, seeing the cattle already following with wide, long-lashed eyes to investigate these strange intruders. She hoped they would soon return to their manger, for the crowd of interested bovine faces peering into the hay store was a clear indication that someone was inside.
She piled up the soft, sweet hay into a thick comfortable heap, right in the corner and out of sight of all but the most inquisitive cow. ‘Alex — over here.’
He raised his head and looked at her, and in the dim light she saw the pale shadow of a smile. ‘It’s six feet away — and it might just as well be six miles.’
‘I’ll help you,’ Louise said. She clambered across and took his arm. The sleeve of his coat was soaked, and she realised that he was shivering. Somehow, she managed to help him over to the pile of hay, and pulled off the saturated coat. By this time, he was shaking uncontrollably, his eyes closed, and she knew that her first priority must be to get him warm. She removed her wet Brandenburg, guided him gently down into the soft tickling hay, and pulled her thick coat over the two of them. Then she wrapped her arms around him, pressing her body close to his to give him warmth.
For a while, she did not think that she would succeed. She was cold herself, though mostly dry thanks to the thick Brandenburg, and even the cosy hay surrounding them did not seem to help. She dragged some of it over her, as best she could, reflecting that it would conceal them better if anyone did chance to peer inside. But that seemed very unlikely: with the rain and the fighting, most of the village was probably huddled safe round their firesides, and would not venture out all day.
Her mind turned to the problem of getting Alex, hurt as he was, back to Wintercombe without anyone suspecting the truth. It would be difficult, but surely not insoluble: he was so much a law unto himself that even his most outrageous behaviour occasioned little comment amongst his household. Perhaps, she thought mischievously, we can pretend that he spent all day in the George, drinking, and did not sober up until dark — that would explain his appearance, so long as no one noticed the wound to his head…
She became aware that he had stopped shivering, and that a new, welcome warmth had begun to glow between them. She raised her head a little, and saw his eyes closed, his face relaxed in sleep, his breathing quiet and even. With a sudden rush of grateful relief, she very carefully snuggled closer, her head on his shoulder, enjoying this strange, unarousing intimacy. He was safe, and did not seem to be seriously injured, and after her more dreadful and lurid imaginings, the joy of finding him alive filled her to the exclusion of all else.
They would doubtless return to their usual relationship tomorrow: the barbed comments, the lustful glances, the temptation, and the fear she had almost managed to deny to herself that her feelings for him might have the power to engulf her and bring her to ruin. For now, it was enough that they were unharmed, and together, and that her foolish wild despair had been the means of saving him.
She must have slept, too, for she came awake quite suddenly. It was a little darker in the hay store, and still, monotonously, she could hear the hiss of the rain, interspersed with the dull thunder of the guns further up the hill. She wondered what had disturbed her, and then saw his eyes open, watching her.
