A Rip in the Veil (18 page)

“When?”

He made a very irritated sound and twisted round to face her, his breath hitching when he moved his shoulder.

“You know when; when your life ‘unravelled’.”

She sighed, swallowing back on the fear that clawed its way up her throat.

“Some other time, okay?”

He placed a hand on her face, his thumb caressing her cheek. “I’ll hold you to it, lass,” he breathed and then he shifted even closer and kissed her, a soft feathery brush that made her lips tingle with want.

*

He was burning with fever next morning, huddling under his plaid. She had him sit up and drink some more hot water, and then she stood and scanned their surroundings, wondering what to do. Further away she could see smoke, and when she stood on tiptoe she could make out a roof.

“Would it be dangerous for you if I got help?” she asked him, crouching down beside him. He opened bloodshot, watering eyes and squinted at her.

“Aye,” he croaked. “I wouldn’t want to be like this with strangers.” He groped for her hand. “And you, it might be dangerous for you, what with your clothes and hair.”

Not her major concern at present. She smoothed a non-existent lock off his forehead.

“Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Alex approached the little cottage on her toes, an eye out for dogs. Everything was silent, a small garden dug at the back, some hens clucking in the yard. She sneaked as close as she could, tensing to turn and run, but there were no movements, no sign of life except for that plume of smoke. Someone had to be there, she thought, inching towards the door. She knocked. No response, and she knocked again, louder. Nothing.

She considered trying the door and stepping inside but decided not to, overwhelmed by fear of being trapped in the gloom. Instead, she raided the garden, found eggs in the little coop, but as she turned to leave she felt a twinge of unease. She shouldn’t steal, not from people this poor. So she took off one of her earrings and placed it on the stoop, a small stone laid on top of it.

“Thanks,” she said, and sped away.

Late that afternoon she understood she needed help. He was shaking with cold, and lying in the damp was not making it any better. She tried to make him eat some leek soup, but he turned his face away, a racking cough making him bend double.

“This won’t work. If we stay here you’ll get pneumonia or something.” She heaved him to his feet, ignoring his protests, and half dragged him down in the direction of the cottage.

By the time they reached the door, she was as shaky as he was, and she lowered him to sit against the wall before knocking, calling for help. This time the door opened and a small, round woman stepped outside, peppercorn eyes regarding them both with interest.

“Aye?” she said, eyes travelling up and down Alex. Her eyes stuck on the jeans, they flickered over to Matthew, returned to the jeans and locked down on a wheezing Matthew.

“He’s ill,” Alex said, taking in the starched white collar and equally pristine cuffs. A white cap completed the ensemble, covering most of the braided and coiled hair. It made Alex feel scruffy in comparison.

“Aye, I can see that.” The woman leaned forward, and raised a stout finger to Alex’s bare earlobe. “You were here before.”

“Yes. I’m sorry, but I did try to knock, and I had to find us some food.”

The woman shook her head. “You paid,” she said, a twinkle in her black eyes. “You didn’t steal. Not like some. You’d best come in,” she smiled, showing a row of white teeth. “Get inside before someone else passes by.” She stood aside to allow Alex to help Matthew inside, threw a look down the dirt track, and closed the door.

The inside of the cottage surprised Alex, not at all the cluttered dirty interior she’d expected, but a tidy, very bare home. Matthew was bedded down beside the hearth, and after inspecting his shoulder, Mrs Gordon sighed and set water to boil.

“It isn’t clean.”

Matthew barely stirred when they rolled him over on his front, but he gasped when Mrs Gordon sank her knife into the half-scabbed wound, slashing it wider than it had been before. Alex sat on him while Mrs Gordon poured hot water over his shoulder, finishing off the procedure by upending a small flask of what smelled like cheap brandy on the raw flesh. Matthew bucked, shrieked, and slumped into a dead faint.

“Ma…!” Alex caught herself in time – Mrs Gordon had insisted she didn’t want to know their names.

“It’s the pain,” Mrs Gordon said with a shrug. “No great matter, aye?” She produced a curved needle and stitched him together, patted him on the cheek, and creaked herself upright.

“Wow,” Alex was very impressed by her handiwork.

“I’m a midwife,” Mrs Gordon said, “and I do some healing on the side. Stitching is more or less the same wherever you do it, no?”

“So, what are you running from?” Mrs Gordon handed Alex a bowl of what tasted like salty porridge. Not entirely unpleasant, and Alex could make out bits of carrot and parsnip, the odd piece of salted pork.

“We’re not running.”

Mrs Gordon shrugged. “You’d best be careful. The countryside is swarming with soldiers. It’s a dangerous fugitive they’re looking for.” She threw sleeping Matthew a glance. “Not that he’s much of a threat, about as dangerous as a new-born babe in his present state – and just as vulnerable.” Her eyes drifted over to Alex, who squirmed under her slow inspection.

“He isn’t a fugitive.”

“No, of course not; and I’m the Queen of Sheba.” Mrs Gordon laughed, apparently very amused. “They had a hanging planned some days back in Lanark, aye? Big, burly fellow with a bad leg. He gave them the slip, and now they’re looking everywhere for him.”

“Well, he’s not got a bad leg.” Alex tilted her head in the direction of a sleeping Matthew.

“Nay, that he doesn’t. But his wrists have been fettered recently, and his back has been scourged and you seem to be travelling very light.” Alex opened her mouth, but Mrs Gordon patted her hand. “Nay lass, you don’t have to tell me. But you must be careful.”

Alex nodded, thinking about Sanderson. It could be him, big and burly with a wounded leg, but why would they want to hang him? She felt a chill in her gut and sneaked a look at Matthew. From what she’d overheard several days ago, the soldiers were convinced Sanderson was Matthew, and on the surface there was some similarity, both of them tall and with dark hair.

“Is it a hanging offence?” she asked in a casual tone. “To escape from prison – err – gaol?”

Mrs Gordon looked at Matthew and sighed. “Not always, but right now it might be, with all turned upside down as we sit and wait for the Protector to die. Especially if you’re an escaped royalist.” Her mouth pursed together as if she’d bitten into a sour rhubarb.

“He isn’t a royalist.”

“Well, that’s good, no? I don’t hold much with them myself.”

*

Alex didn’t sleep at all that night, Matthew’s head pillowed on her lap, his dirk held in her hand. He sweated and shook, and his breathing was loud and raspy, coughing fits racking his body. Alex tried to muffle the noise as best she could, conscious of Mrs Gordon in her bed, however tightly closed the bed hangings.

“Is this my fault?” she asked next morning. “Because I didn’t manage to clean it properly?” She stroked his head, strong fingers massaging the base of his skull in a way that made him groan and burrow closer, still fast asleep.

Mrs Gordon shook her head. “He’s not been well fed for a long time, lass. Look.” She picked up Matthew’s hand and let her fingers close round his wrist. It looked very fragile, all knobs and tendons, and as Alex ran her hand up his arm, down his back, she could count his bones, feel the ridges of muscle and sinews but very little else. “He’s been on starving rations for months, poor lad.”

Matthew slept through most of the day, but Mrs Gordon seemed unconcerned, assuring Alex that this was in the normal order of things. She did, however, prod Matthew out of sleep long enough to have Alex help him to the privy, plied him with a large mug of willow bark tea, and watched Alex turn the blankets up tight around Matthew’s sleeping form. She was knitting, her needles flying back and forth at an astonishing speed.

“What’s your middle name?” Mrs Gordon smiled down at Alex.

“Ruth.”

“I’ll call you Ruth then, shall I? I can’t go on calling you lass.” She extended her knitting in the direction of Alex. “Can you knit?”

Alex realised this was some kind of test and nodded.

“My grandmother taught me, but I haven’t been doing it much.” Actually not at all, not since that Christmas when her single gift to her father had been a narrow but very long muffler, in orange and purple stripes.

“It’s restful,” Mrs Gordon said and handed Alex needles and a ball of yarn, studying her as Alex clumsily cast the first knots.

“I haven’t done this in years.”

“Ah,” Mrs Gordon nodded.

*

Early next morning, Mrs Gordon came rushing into the house, the full chamber pot still in her hand.

“Quick, soldiers!”

“Soldiers?” Alex got to her feet, throwing a panicked look through the half open door. Yes, she was right. The small yard was filling with mounted men – tired, drawn men that must have been riding half the night to show up here this early.

“Hide, you have to hide.”

“But where?” Alex was close to tears, trying to wake a grumbling Matthew. One room, no back door, and in the yard someone hawked and spat. Mrs Gordon set down the chamber pot by the foot of the bed, rushed over, grabbed Matthew by the legs and began to pull him in the direction of her bed.

“Underneath,” she panted, “and let us hope he doesn’t wake up halfway through, aye?”

Together they succeeded in rolling Matthew out of sight, and at Mrs Gordon’s curt command Alex got into bed. A male voice called a greeting, booted feet moved towards the door. A lace cap was crammed on Alex’s head, a pillow was shoved into place above her stomach.

“Squeal, aye? Weep and cry, lass, sound like a birthing woman.”

“A what?” She clasped her hands over the pillow.

Mrs Gordon didn’t reply, busy at the hearth with water and herbs.

“Scream!” she hissed over her shoulder, and Alex complied. “Good, good,” Mrs Gordon said, “keep that up, regular like, aye?”

“I’m telling you, we have no fugitive hiding in here.” Mrs Gordon stood like a bulwark in the doorway, and in the bed Alex squealed like a stuck pig.

“We have to look, mistress,” the officer insisted, sounding apologetic.

“Look! How look? And if the lass dies in childbirth while you’re at it, what then?”

The officer stuck his head in, bobbed his head at Alex who gave up an extra little shriek. The little officer jumped, his head retracting from the doorway with the speed of a cobra.

“Alex?” Matthew mumbled, sounding very groggy. Not now! “Alex? Are you hurting?”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Alex hiccupped. She made a puking sound and hung over the edge of the bed, sounding as if she was dying. “Soldiers,” she hissed, sticking her hand in under the bed to squeeze down hard on whatever body part it was she got hold of. Oops! He gasped. She scrambled back up, and when the whole room filled with soldiers she pulled the quilt up as high as it would go. Mrs Gordon came to stand in front of her, arms akimbo as she glared at the soldiers.

“Make haste, I will not deliver a babe with a room full of men, aye?”

Alex did some very credible grunting and whimpering, and when a hand came wiggling up between the bedstead and the wall, she shrieked for real before realising whose hand it was. She gripped Matthew’s hand and squeezed, eternally grateful for Mrs Gordon who stood like a rock by the bed.

One of the soldiers approached the bed. Alex squawked, eyes on the drawn sword in his hand. What was he going to do? Jab it through the mattresses? Even worse, swipe it under the bed? She screamed, clutched at her make believe belly, and the soldier retreated a few steps.

Alex panted, didn’t even have to pretend panic when the soldier moved closer. He knelt down. Oh God, oh God. He set a hand on the floor. Alex couldn’t breathe. There was a loud clatter.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Mrs Gordon said, and the room filled with the stench of piss.

“Me?” The soldier scrabbled back from the spreading puddle. “No, it wasn’t me, I —”

“Of course you! Clumsy dolt. And who will have to clean it up, hmm? Who?”

“I’m sorry mistress,” the soldier mumbled. “I was just trying to look under the bed.”

“Look under the bed,” Mrs Gordon snorted. “Here, let me show you, aye?” She grabbed hold of a broom and jabbed it repeatedly under the bed. Every time she hit Matthew, his grip on Alex’s fingers tightened, but he didn’t utter a sound. Alex did.

For a further few minutes the soldiers remained in the room before the officer sent them off to inspect the outhouses. The officer sat down and accepted a mug of beer with a grateful nod.

Alex counted in her head, screamed and moaned, cursed, counted in her head, and did it all again. Hard work, this giving birth thing; her shirt stuck to her back, but she wasn’t sure if out of exertion or fear. The officer drained his mug, bowed and exited the room. Alex fell back against the pillows. Matthew gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

By the time Mrs Gordon decided things were safe again, Alex was so hoarse she could barely speak, and quite convinced they should leave – now.

“That would be foolish,” Mrs Gordon said. “The countryside is swarming with them, and anyway, your man is in no shape to do much walking, not for a day or two at least.”

Her man? A liquid warmth flowed through Alex. Her man? She slid Matthew a look. Yes, her man. Soppy idiot, she remonstrated with herself, trying to stop herself from smiling. He was smiling too, a slow smile that lit up his eyes and did strange things to her knees. Back to business; Mrs Gordon was right. No matter that Matthew insisted he could walk, was right fine, it was patently obvious he wouldn’t make it far before collapsing.

“They’ll not be back,” Mrs Gordon chuckled, “not after nearly witnessing a birth.”

“And if they come looking for the baby?” Alex said.