Alice in Love and War (20 page)

“Oh God – oh God,” Alice sobbed.

Now the soldiers set about their work with righteous glee, striking left and right, damning all the women as Irish whores. Alice heard terrible screams, saw women cut down, caught the panic as they all tried to run and were penned in by the cordon of soldiers. Some drew their own knives and slashed at their attackers before they were killed.

Alice had run with her friends; but now, in the tumult, they were torn apart. Bronwen and Rhian had disappeared. She saw, briefly, Nia’s small sturdy figure stumbling over the tussocky grass, hunched over the child in her arms; then saw a soldier cut her down – a butcher’s blow that felled her instantly, so that she pitched forward onto her face. Alice felt such terror that her body seemed to dissolve like water, and she feared she would fall and die of fear; and yet, with some deeper instinct, she moved to save herself. As the swords hacked and the screaming women fell around her, she dropped down and tried to hide under a corpse; but she slipped and plunged into a hidden ditch, landing in a few inches of muddy water. There she lay still, covered in the other woman’s blood.

For a long time – hours, it seemed – she dared not move. Her feet and hips were in water, and she felt her skirts grow cold and wet, their weight dragging. At first her upper body lay on the edge of the ditch, one arm flung out, the hand showing above the top. Slowly, inch by inch, she drew it in, terrified at every small move that she would be seen, dragged out and killed. With her hand down to shoulder level, she let her whole body slip deeper into the ditch. She could hear the soldiers moving around, finishing off those wounded who still cried out. She prayed that if they came near they would see the blood on her and take her for a corpse.

In her mind’s eye she saw, again and again, Nia stumbling across the field; the sword coming down; her friend pitching forward with Elen beneath her. The mother’s instinct had been to run bent over her child, to protect her. Alice, reliving those moments, remembered where in the field Nia had fallen, but she did not dare go to her. She heard the soldiers rounding up those they had not killed and sending them away under guard. These, she guessed, were also marked on the face as whores, for their screams and howls of pain overlaid any groans that the dying women in the field might be making.

Now she heard sounds of plunder. From the whoops of delight, crashing sounds and cheers, she realized several wagons had been overturned, their contents shared out or fought over. The rebel soldiers must have been hungry; she heard them exclaiming at the contents of the provisions wagons, and wondered about the Erlams, what had become of them. She remembered too that her own belongings – her spare linen, her winter cloak, the basket containing her salves and ointments and her father’s book – were in the Erlams’ wagon.

Most of all she thought about Elen.

She waited hours, till the sun began to sink and there were no more voices – nothing but a faint rattling gasp from a woman close by; and that soon ceased.

At last she moved.

Her feet felt like rocks, her shoes were saturated, and the sodden weight of her long skirts threatened to pull her back into the ditch. She struggled out, eyes darting, heart beating fast. She saw no soldiers. But all around lay the bodies of women, heaped one upon another – all the Welshwomen who had come with their husbands or lovers, the women she had marched with and cooked and sung and talked with, all these weeks. There must have been a hundred of them dead in the field.

And among them were her friends.

She kept low to the ground, knowing there would be enemy guards on the sumpter wagons, if not in the road. She found Rhian first, drawn by her red-gold hair, all puddled now with blood. She lay face up, her blue eyes wide and blank. Near by was Bronwen, one arm stretched out as if to try to reach her sister. Already flies were beginning to settle on their bodies. Alice crouched beside them. She closed their eyes, and smoothed their skirts that the soldiers had rumpled, not to rape but to steal the pockets hidden beneath – pockets that they would have guessed were full of silver looted from the sack of Leicester.

A flicker of movement startled her: soldiers, horsemen, advancing along the ridge. And there were more in the lane leading to this place. She had to be quick. She remembered where she had seen Nia, and crawled there, pausing often, so as not to attract attention.

Nia lay where she had fallen, the ground beside her dark with blood. Alice didn’t want to turn her over, to see her dead face, but she knew she must. Her flesh was still warm. She pushed, and rolled Nia over, revealing the body of Elen, face up, eyes closed.

Fear gripped Alice. Had the baby suffocated? She snatched her up, hugged her to her heart. “Oh, Elen, sweeting, don’t die! Don’t die!” Tears rolled down her cheeks and wet the baby’s face; and Elen sneezed, a little
“tiss!”
like a cat, and began to cry.

“Elen!” Alice gazed in joy at the small cross face. But the wailing might bring soldiers. She licked her finger clean and put it in the baby’s mouth, and even in that moment of danger she felt pleasure and hope at the instant vigorous suck.

She paused briefly, to make sure no one had heard Elen’s cry. Then she turned to the body of her friend. Nia was beyond help, her dead eyes staring up at the sky.

“I’ve got your baby here, safe, Nia,” she whispered. “I’ll keep her and take care of her for you. I promise.”

The child’s wrappings were wet, and she was hungry. In the Erlams’ wagon, as well as Alice’s belongings, was Nia’s stock of baby cloths and swaddling bands. The wagon was still on the road. But now Alice could see that there were indeed enemy guards over there, two of them sitting on one of the carts, smoking their clay pipes. She could not go there. She had to leave this place of slaughter as quickly as possible, and find help.

There was a farmhouse close by; she’d noticed it as they came down the road. But it was too near for safety, and the people might be hostile. There might even be soldiers inside. Better to head for the village she could see less than half a mile away along the road to the west.

She took her finger out of Elen’s mouth, muffled the baby’s cries against her chest, and hid behind some furze bushes, well clear of the baggage train. From there she crept from one hiding place to another until she drew close to the nearest houses.

It was then, as she looked at the row of cottages and wondered which one to approach, that the full weight of her promise to her dead friend struck home. Elen had been soothed by the jogging movement of the walk into a fretful sleep. But she was only a month old. If she were to survive she would need a woman’s milk for a year. She was hungry now, and Alice had no milk. Her most urgent need was to find someone who had.

Nineteen

The
woman spoke from behind her closed door. “We’ve nothing worth stealing.”

“Please!” Alice called. “There are no soldiers with me. I need help. I have a baby.”

This was the third house she had tried. At the first one she had heard the bar dropped across the door inside, a dog growling. At the second a man had come from behind the house with a pitchfork and told her to be gone. People were afraid. To find that the common fields around your village have become a battlefield, that thousands of soldiers are on the loose, must be alarming, she realized.

She tried again. “Please!” By this time Elen was screaming.

The door opened a crack to reveal the wary face of an old woman.

Alice stepped forward. “The baby – she’s hungry. I’m looking for a wet nurse.”

“None here.” The woman seemed nervous.

A man’s voice came from within. “Who is it?”

“A soldier’s woman.”

“Shut the door on her.”

“I must find a wet nurse,” Alice repeated. She put her hand on the door.

“The forge,” the woman said. She pointed the way. “The blacksmith’s wife has a baby, born in January.”

“Thank you!”

The door closed, and was swiftly bolted from within. But now Alice felt hopeful. The forge was a short distance away, on this eastern edge of the village. She hurried towards it, aware that dusk was approaching. The beauty of the evening astonished her: the light still gold on the hilltops, the fields in shadow, the whistle and chirrup of roosting birds filling the oak trees on the green. And yet, only half a mile from here, the slaughtered women lay in their blood.

The blacksmith’s wife came to the door with her shift untied, a baby at her breast, another small child peeping out from behind her skirts. She was a fair, plump woman with a pleasant face. Alice knew she was Elen’s only chance. She held out the wailing baby.

“For the love of God, can you help me? She needs milk. I can’t feed her.”

The woman stared. She looked shocked, and Alice realized that she and Elen, bloodied from the battlefield, must be a startling sight.

“Her mother is dead. She has not fed for hours.”

The woman’s face softened. She stepped back from the door. “Come in,” she said. Her own child was dropping back from the breast, replete. She eased him off, rubbed his back till he burped, then laid him in a cradle. She sat down and rocked it with her foot as she took the child from Alice and put her to the other breast. “Sit down,” she said, indicating the settle by the fire. “You look half dead.”

Alice obeyed, feeling the strength drain out of her now that she no longer had to struggle.

“Are you hurt? There’s blood on you.”

“It’s not mine.” She tried to tell the woman about the killings in the field, but the words would not come. “Dead,” was all she could say. “The baby’s mother – dead.” She found she was shaking, and could not stop.

“There’s beer in the jug there. And bread on the table.”

“Thank you.” Alice sipped some beer, but could not eat.

“You’re alone?” the woman asked.

“Yes. Please – may we stay here tonight?”

For the first time the woman looked doubtful. “If my husband agrees. He’s gone out over the fields towards Naseby, to see what’s come of the fight.”

“I can pay.”

The woman nodded. “We have room. I’ll speak to him.” She turned her attention to Elen. After a few hiccuping cries Elen had begun to suck strongly, as if the woman were her own mother. Faithless creature, thought Alice. She felt a pang of grief for Nia that stabbed like a knife in her heart. But it was for the best, she knew, that the child was too young to grieve.

Later the woman brought clean linen, and Alice washed and wrapped the baby. The blacksmith came in soon after. His wife explained, and Alice repeated her offer to pay. His eyes, suspicious under heavy brows, looked her up and down.

“Camp follower?” he asked.

She nodded. She was too tired to justify herself. Let him think her a whore if he wished.

He turned to his wife. “There are many dead in the field, and on the ridge, and all along the line of the hedges over by Sulby.”

“The girl says there were women killed. In the king’s baggage train.”

“I never saw that. Didn’t go near the train; it’s guarded by soldiers. I walked straight down over the fields.” He jerked his head towards the closed door to an adjoining room. “How’s he?”

“I don’t know.” There was an edge of irritation to her voice. “Haven’t had time to look.” She gave Elen back to Alice. “There. Rub her back. That’s right.”

The man frowned. “She won’t take away my son’s milk?”

“There’s plenty of milk. And nursing will make it come more.”

“I won’t stay long,” said Alice. “But tonight? If I could…?” She felt in her pocket and brought out some coins, thinking that it was as well she had taken Nia’s advice and not thrown Robin’s money back at him.

The man looked at the coins, and she knew he thought it was her earnings as a whore. But the woman said, “She can sleep here tonight, husband, can’t she? For the child’s sake.” She turned to Alice. “Where will you go from here?”

Alice thought about this for the first time. Elen was motherless – but where was Bryn? The army had seemed to be in retreat. The King must surely have been defeated, perhaps even killed. She ought to find Bryn, but how? He was probably dead. Alone, with the baby, she could never search for him. Nor ever go to Wales with her friends, as they’d planned. There was only one place she could think of now. “How far is Copsey?” she asked.

“Copsey?”

“Weston Hall at Copsey. It’s on the road between Faringdon and Oxford.”

“I’d say it’s sixty miles to Oxford,” the man said.

Sixty miles. And she had no milk.

“She can’t travel sixty miles with a baby, and two armies roaming the countryside,” said the woman.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

There was a small room above, next to their own bedchamber. The woman aired the bed by whisking a pan of hot coals over it. She found a basket for the baby and lined it with fleece and cotton.

“We’ll put the baby next to
my
bed,” she said. “I’ll feed her when she wakes in the night.” She paused in the doorway. “Hannah, my name is. Hannah Barford.”

Alice thanked her, giving her own name.

She went early to her bed, and lay awake for a long while. She had felt reluctant to part with Elen, even for a night, and missed the feel of the baby in her arms. The events of the day forced themselves again and again into her mind, vivid and relentless. The yellow-haired whore with blood streaming between her fingers. The colour fleeing from Ffion’s face. Nia stumbling across the field. The sword coming down. She tried to shut out the images but they would not leave her. She tossed restlessly in the narrow bed.

After the blacksmith and his wife came upstairs she heard a murmur of voices going on for some time and guessed they were talking about her – wondering, no doubt, how long they would be troubled with her.

Sixty miles to Copsey. And her friends lying dead and unburied in the field.

Oh, Nia, she thought, you wanted so much to go home! We would all have gone to Wales together, you and me, and Rhian and Bronwen, and the men, and little Elen. The awfulness of being the only one left seemed too much to bear, but she could not cry. She was beyond tears.