Alice in Love and War (17 page)

Sixteen

The
cries and groans woke Alice towards dawn. Nia! She was up instantly, aware of doors opening and closing, footsteps up and down the stairs, women’s voices. They had known that Nia was near her time and had managed to get a room in a house where a good woman lived: a widow, well used to helping women in childbirth.

Nia was already on a bed with a clean sheet under her, the eagle stone tied to her left thigh. The window was closed and herbs had been burnt in the room to ward off infection.

“Lisi!” gasped Nia. She struggled up on her elbows and arched her body in pain. Candles shone near by, illuminating the slick of sweat on her forehead.

Alice went to help her. “Don’t be frightened,” she said. “Lie down. That’s right. Raise your knees.”

Bronwen came in, and the two of them rearranged the pillows behind Nia’s head and tried to soothe her. Alice winced as a cry broke from Nia; it was hard to see her friend in pain. She took a stool and sat beside her, stroking the damp hair back from her face.

The widow and Rhian appeared with more candles, hot water, soap, cloths, a ball of twine and a knife.

“Now, now,” the widow said to Nia, “you must let go of this fear. It’ll tighten you up so that the child can’t come easily. Will you drink some of this? Your friend has made it for you.” She passed the cup of raspberry leaf tea to Alice. “Does she understand a word I say? I’ve had nothing but Welsh from her since it started.”

“She understands,” said Alice. She held the cup to Nia’s lips. “Sip this, Nia. It’ll help ease the birth.”

Nia sipped obediently. Then her teeth clamped shut and she groaned as another pain began. Alice held her hand.

“I’m glad Bryn’s not here, fretting,” said Bronwen.

All the men were absent, camped in the field outside a great house near by. The house was garrisoned for Parliament, and the Royalists’ siege had already continued all day and half the night. The women could hear the roar of cannon fire and distant cries of men and horses, and smell the smoke, even in this closed room.

What a time and place to give birth, Alice thought. No wonder Nia was frightened.

The widow promised Nia there was nothing to be afraid of. “Babies come when they will,” she said. “And all is going well. Your pains are coming closer together now. We must pray it won’t be long.”

But the labour was slow. Alice continued to talk to Nia and murmur encouragement as the hours went by. She felt she was doing nothing, but the widow assured her that the three of them were essential.

“Friends and sisters are what she needs most,” she said.

While Bronwen helped the widow, Rhian hovered anxiously.

“Sit down,” Alice advised her. “Talk to Nia about home. Talk in Welsh.”

For a long time, nothing seemed to be happening except the relentless pains that frightened and exhausted Nia. The day grew light, and Alice could see sunshine seeping in through the gaps in the curtain. The sounds of battle continued, and so did Nia’s struggle. She looked very tired.

But by midday all had changed. The pains were coming fast, and Nia gasped and cried out and gripped Alice’s hand fiercely. She became incoherent, and her ability to understand English deserted her. Bronwen translated the widow’s instructions as she ordered Nia to push, or to hold back.

“The head is coming,” the woman said. “Wait, wench. Wait. Now push.”

Nia roared – a deep, desperate, groaning roar – and Alice saw the baby slither out, purplish, slippery, streaked with blood and mucus. She cried out herself, and her eyes flooded with tears.

“A girl,” the widow said with satisfaction. She held the baby head-down and its first cry broke the air. “A healthy girl.” She wiped away some of the blood and put the baby on the bed. When the cord stopped pulsating she tied twine around it in two places, then passed the knife through a candle flame and cut between them. She laid the baby on Nia’s breast.

Nia’s hair was stuck to her forehead in damp strands. She lay breathing gently, her hands on the baby’s back.
“Merch,”
she said faintly.
“Fy merch i. Diolch yn fawr.”
And she smiled.

“What’s that she says?” the widow asked.

“She gives thanks to you for her daughter,” said Bronwen.

“Ah. Tell her the afterbirth will come soon.”

The afterbirth came easily; and then the widow took the baby from Nia, washed her carefully in warm water, bandaged the navel, and wrapped her in clean swaddling clothes, criss-crossing the strips of soft linen over and around her tiny body till it resembled a cocoon with only her head free. “There!” she said. “Wrap her like that and it’ll keep her contented and make sure her limbs grow straight.” She passed her to Alice. “Will you hold her while I wash your friend?”

Alice was already in love with the baby. She held her carefully, adoringly, gazing down at the little crumpled face, the unfocused slate-coloured eyes. It seemed a miracle that this child had been born safely in a stranger’s house, with the sounds of battle all around. She said to the woman, “You are very good. Thank you for helping us.”

“We are all sisters at a time like this,” the widow said. “It’s the same for everyone, rich or poor, English or foreigner. There, my dear” – she spoke to Nia – “you’ll be more comfortable now.”

Alice placed the swaddled baby in Nia’s arms. “What will you call her?”

“Elen,” said Nia. She was speaking English quite readily now. “It’s my mam’s name, and I always said I’d call my first girl after her.” She kissed the baby’s head. “Your
nain
will be so proud to see you, little one, when we go home. And your da will! Oh, I hope this siege ends soon!”

“The longer it goes on,” said Bronwen, “the longer you can rest.”

“I know. But I want to see Bryn!”

Bryn did not come, but that afternoon a succession of women called, mostly the Welsh wives: Ffion, Marged, Heulwen, and a few others Alice had got to know. They sat around gossiping, admiring the baby, advising Nia and drinking spiced ale.

It was the following day that the siege of the great house – Hawkesley, it was called – came to a noisy end. They heard cannon fire and distant shouting, and then silence, and knew the besiegers had either broken through or given up. Alice went to find out what was happening, and heard that the house had been captured and the soldiers had gone in to plunder and take prisoners.

Bryn arrived an hour or so later. He had known the day before yesterday that Nia’s labour was about to begin, and now he had left the others to seize what they could in the way of spoils while he hurried back to her. Alice met him in the village, where she had gone to buy food, and gave him the news.

“You have a daughter, born yesterday, in the afternoon.”

Joy and anxiety mingled in his face. “And Nia? My Nia?”

“She is well, and longs to see you.” It felt good to be the bearer of such happy news.

She walked back to the house with Bryn, but could not keep up with his eager stride, and urged him, laughing, to go ahead of her. When she arrived with her basket of bread and herbs the widow was alone in the kitchen.

“They’re all upstairs,” she said, “jabbering in their own language, and your friend like a little queen holding court.”

Alice thought best to stay below and help the widow prepare supper.

“I never imagined to have so many strangers coming and going under my roof, all foreigners,” the woman went on. “You too, with your West Country talk, near as strange as the Welsh.”

But Alice knew that she did not mind at all, despite the inconvenience, and would be telling her neighbours all about it when the army moved on. She busied herself chopping leeks. Soon the woman would ask her how she came to be with the army, and she did not want to have to explain that.

She was spared further questioning when the sound of an explosion shook the building. Both of them rushed outside. They saw flames leaping up into the clear sky of evening, and among them, showing above the trees, the ruined roof and chimneys of Hawkesley House. Distant cries and screams carried on the smoky wind. Neighbours were looking out all around, and Bryn and his sisters came down from the upper room.

“Well, that’s Hawkesley gone,” the widow said sadly. “I was a servant there, way back. It was a fair house.”

“But in rebel hands,” said Bryn. “It was bound to be destroyed. That’s war.”

The woman sighed. “I wish it might end! And you, young man: what will you do, with your wife and child to care for?”

Bronwen and Rhian had the same question for Bryn. Later that evening the three of them talked of going home.

“This year,” said Bryn. “When this campaign is ended. And who knows? Perhaps the war will be over by summer.”

The next day they left the widow’s house and moved on with the army. Nia bought a wicker cradle for Elen and rode in one of the covered wagons, protected by sacks full of cloth. The weather had not been as wet as last autumn, so the roads were tolerable, and the first day’s journey, from Bromsgrove to Himley, was not overlong. Even so, Bryn was concerned that Nia would be jolted and perhaps injured, but she dismissed his fears.

“Back home we’ve all seen women working in the fields a day or two after childbirth,” she said. “I’ll come to no harm.”

There was room for one other in the wagon, and the girls took turns to keep Nia company. Alice loved being allowed to hold the baby, and she and Nia chattered together, and giggled, and sang lullabies, as the army made its slow progress around the Midlands. Elen suckled often, and seemed contented, and while Nia was feeding the child Alice occupied herself with hemming soft linen cloths for her.

It was early in the campaigning season, and the soldiers were not as hungry and short of supplies as they had been when Alice joined them last year. Flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were being driven along in the train, and the traders who sold all kinds of necessities to the soldiers had their carts and wagons newly stocked.

“It’s a good life, this,” Nia said. “Good pay, good company. Better than the life we had in Wales. We toiled like beasts there, for a pittance.”

“But you’ll want to go home now you have the child?”

“Yes. When Bryn has his pay. There’s plunder too. He missed that at Hawkesley House, hurrying back to me. But there will be more chances.”

She spoke matter-of-factly, assuming her husband’s right to the spoils of war. And Alice supposed it
was
his right, since the generals allowed it when a house or town was surrendered to them. All the same, she could not help thinking of the people who were attacked and robbed of their money and household goods, and the terror they must feel as the victorious army burst upon them.

“What we want, Bryn and I,” Nia said, “is a little patch of land of our own. A smallholding. That’s our dream.” She looked searchingly at Alice. “And what’s yours, Lisi? What do you most want?”

This was something Alice had deliberately not been thinking about. She knew now that she would not marry Robin. Would she slide into becoming a soldiers’ drab, as Bronwen had said abandoned or widowed women often did? No, she thought, I’ll never let that happen. I’ll work, take care of the wounded, make myself useful around the baggage train. But when the war is over – what then?

“What I most want,” she said, “is a home. A real home, where I belong. It’s what I’ve always wanted, ever since my father died.”

And love, she thought. A lover. A husband. A good man, like Bryn.

On fine days she put on the boys’ clothes Mistress Erlam had given her and went out with the other women to forage for green herbs to cook: young nettles, dandelion leaves, shepherd’s purse, chickweed, and the weed they called fat hen. All went into the pottages the women made each night. She also looked for healing herbs, and cut some willow bark in the way Christian had shown her. From the traders she bought a small pestle and mortar, a bowl, some pots with stoppers, a fine sieve, oil and goose fat. When they were camped for a day or more she made salves and ointments for wounds, expecting that there were sure to be some injuries soon. She also laid in a stock of linen strips to make bandages. She bought a large basket to keep her supplies in, and stored it on the Erlams’ wagon. There were a few other, older women attached to the regiment who also cared for the sick, so in order not to antagonize them she was deferential and only helped when asked.

It was around Whitsuntide that she saw Robin again. Nearly three weeks had passed since they parted, and she had stayed near her Welsh friends and tried to avoid him. That day she was buying from one of the grocers’ wagons when she saw him, a little way off, talking to a girl – a pretty girl, tall and slim-waisted, a trader’s daughter, she guessed. Robin, in his easy, graceful way, was leaning on the wagon and smiling as he talked, and the girl glanced shyly down and then up at him, clearly captivated.

Alice could not take her eyes off them. She knew that look of Robin’s well; it had been turned on her so often. She wanted to warn the dark, pretty girl, to shout to her, “Leave him! He’s a scoundrel!”

She returned to her friends, thinking back over her time with Robin. The sight of little Elen made her remember the baby she had lost before it even had a soul. Perhaps that was as well, she thought now, since he never would have married her.

“You’re quiet today,” Nia said. She had recovered her strength, and sometimes walked, sometimes rode on the wagon. She was busy now adding herbs to a pottage, the baby beside her in her wicker cradle.

“I saw Robin,” Alice said, “with another girl.”

“Oh, so that’s the trouble!” Nia turned to her in sympathy. “Well, he’ll deceive her, poor girl, as he did you. Think yourself lucky to be rid of him.”

“I do! But – oh, I did love him so much! And I built such dreams around him. Now I don’t know where my life is going, or what plans I should make.”

She thought again about Weston Hall, how much she had enjoyed working with herbs and remedies. That’s what I want to do, she thought. Perhaps I could earn enough to support myself once this war is over. I could sell herbs in the marketplace, or find someone – a wise woman? – to take me on as her assistant.