Alice in Love and War (9 page)

“Robin!” She tried to still the trembling that gripped her: ran to help him, made him sit down, gently removed his jacket to reveal the shirt saturated with blood.

“Have you been to the surgeon’s tent?”

“No. He only sees officers. This is nothing…” – though he was shaking and his teeth were clenched so that he struggled to speak. “A sword cut. They always bleed a lot.”

Alice peeled the cloth away from the wound, swabbed it with warm water and saw that he was right: the flesh had been sliced open and the wound was bleeding heavily, but it did not look serious. Now that she was sure he was in less danger, she felt almost pleased that he had been injured. It gave her a chance to care for him and perhaps regain the love she had feared might be slipping away from her.

He
was
grateful. He praised her skill in binding the wound and seemed glad of her company.

“How goes the fight?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been stuck beside a hedge all day, with a row of others, firing at any rebels that come past – when we can see them through the smoke.”

He struggled to put his arm back into the bloodstained sleeve. She helped him.

“You’re not going back there?”

“No.” He grinned. “It’s my firing side, so I’m spared that.” He put his left arm, the good one, round her and pulled her close and kissed her. “I’ll stay with you tonight.”

And Alice felt happy, secure again in his affection, even though the smoke of battle was blowing across the campsite, and they could hear gunfire, and no one seemed to know which side, if either, had the upper hand.

“Fetch my snapsack, sweet, will you?” he asked. “I need a smoke.”

He opened the bag and rummaged awkwardly, left-handed, for his pipe. Something else fell out – something that showed white in the fading light: a letter, its seal of red wax broken.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “You had a letter! Did that come at Salisbury?”

“Yes.”

She was surprised he had not told her, since they had talked about the arrival of the mail and the letter she had read aloud for the girl. He must have received his own letter that day, and yet had said nothing of it.

“Is it from home?” she asked.

He nodded. “Family.” And he thrust the letter to the bottom of the bag, pulling out his clay pipe and tobacco pouch.

She waited for him to say more, if only that his parents were well. She longed to be drawn into his family, to feel part of his life. But he simply lit his pipe and puffed on it, his mood distant now. She wondered if the letter had contained bad news; perhaps that was the reason for his changed manner towards her. But if he would not tell her, how could she comfort him?

He did stay with her that night, as he had promised; and they made love, despite his painful shoulder. But she still felt shut out from his heart and his concerns.

It was later that night, as she lay listening to the guns, that she remembered, in Salisbury – about ten days ago, was it? – feeling that her courses were about to begin. She had not thought about them since. But they had not come; and the heavy feeling in her back and thighs had gone. She was very late. And yet she’d been quite certain of that feeling. Surely it meant all must be as usual? Beside her, in the darkness, Robin breathed steadily, asleep and apart. She felt lonely and frightened, uncertain even of what she wanted. What would he say if she told him she might be with child? I don’t know him, she thought; he’s a stranger to me.

Two weeks passed, and still nothing.

There was no parsley growing now, to make into a tea that might bring on her courses.

“Ask Sian,” said Nia. “She’ll give you a remedy.”

“Maybe. But I’m not sure yet…”

She could go to Sian, or she could buy rue from the apothecary. But her father had taught her to be cautious of powerful ingredients; and besides, in spite of everything, she was reluctant to lose this child, if indeed one was there. If she had a child, she thought, it might bind Robin closer to her.

The weather was cold now, the days short.

“We’ll move to quarters near Oxford soon,” Robin told her, “and stay there for the winter.”

He did not seem happy at the thought. His mood was strange these days, and Alice lacked the courage to ask him whether they might be married in Oxford.

Nine

“You
women – out! Come on! Get down! We’re stuck!”

The carter, grim-faced, the shoulders of his coat soaked dark with rain, shouted up at the four of them. He hauled on the wagon while the younger carter – the one who had allowed the girls on board – whipped the horses. The horses laboured. The carters swore. The wheels slipped and stuck in the marshy ground.

Alice had been barefoot since morning, her skirts hitched up to her knees. Now, as she climbed down, she sank into mud above her ankles. The mud was cold and full of sharp stones, and the rain drove against her, soaking her in minutes. She could hear Rhian complaining with little squeals of shock. Bronwen and Nia were clinging to each other as they staggered in the mud.

“Get behind the wheel and push!” said the carter.

Alice obeyed, but her weight was nothing. They all – carters and women – pushed and felt no response. Two men from the wagon in front ran to help. Behind stretched a long line of stalled carts and wagons, waiting. Shouts of advice reached them, followed by men with ropes.

They had come down from the Ridgeway that morning onto a flooded plain crossed by swollen streams. The heavy ammunition wagons pulled by oxen had passed through ahead of the baggage train, turning the track they were following into a morass.

“Heave! Heave!” yelled the carters.

With men and ropes all around it, the wagon at last began to move.

“Heave!”

The women stood well back, shivering, arms crossed against the cold. Above them the view of the Downs was blotted out by rain. The horses struggled; the men strained against the ropes. Slowly, slowly, the wagon came free, the wheels turned; it was out, and moving. They clambered back on board – Rhian, going up ahead of Alice, showing a flash of white, mud-spattered thigh that caught the younger carter’s attention.

“Give us a bit more!” he shouted.

The older one uttered a stream of curses as he whipped up the horses. “I should have gone with those men that ran off,” he said. “Couldn’t be worse than this.”

The other man disagreed. “They’ll freeze to death tonight – if they’re not caught and hanged first.”

A large group of Welsh soldiers had deserted and were being sought, and everyone was wondering how they would fare in this cold and rain. In the few villages the army had passed through, the inhabitants had been hostile. Alice could not imagine those people giving food or help to deserters – especially foreigners.

Everyone on the march was hungry. The bad harvest had left farmers with nothing to spare, and the wild crop of berries and mushrooms was over. People thought about food, and how to get it, all the time, and would dart into hedgerows to gather a few mouldy hazelnuts, pick up long-rotted summer fruit, or steal from cottage kitchens, the soldiers threatening householders with their swords. Alice’s skirt felt loose on her. I can’t be with child, she thought, not if I’m so thin. Perhaps it’s hunger that has stopped my courses.

It was not far to the king’s destination – a great house in Marlborough. The troops pressed on for another two miles to a village built all of grey stone: Fyfield. The same grey stone lay underfoot and bruised their feet as they walked across it in their soaked shoes and boots. The inhabitants’ manner was as stony as their dwellings, and the soldiers found themselves lodged for the most part in dank, miserable quarters.

Alice was glad she was with Robin, who always made sure those in his charge were fed. They ate pottage, hot, with a few pieces of bacon in it, and a hunk of bread. Alice was never more glad of food as she sat shivering, warming her hands on the bowl. Her gown was drenched and mud-soaked, but she had nothing dry to wear. The day before she had worn her boys’ breeches, but those were now wet through. Even her spare linen was wet.

They stayed two days at Fyfield. Alice’s friends did not know any of the deserters, but they were thinking about them; they were, after all, Welsh – their countrymen. On that first long evening the men sang sad songs of home, their voices mingling and harmonizing. They were easily moved, and the songs carried a charge of emotion that had some of them in tears. Later they fell to telling ghost stories, while the wind howled outside and the unfriendly dark closed in. Alice could not understand the language, but she was caught up in the drama of the stories all the same: the way the tellers used their voices, the sudden dramatic pauses, the listeners’ intakes of breath.

“They’re frightening themselves half to death,” said Bronwen, and Alice looked at the men’s faces and saw that she was right.

It was dusk of the following day when word began to spread around the billets that most of the deserters had been caught and brought back. They were imprisoned in the village lock-up. Alice looked out and saw the guards standing outside, puffing on their clay pipes and stamping their feet to keep warm. She thought of the men lying shackled within – wet through, beaten, vanquished – and pitied them. Robin told her that in the morning two of them would be chosen to hang, the rest returned to the ranks.

Alice was shocked. “To hang?” she exclaimed. “Why those two?”

“No reason.”

“But that’s unjust!”

“It’s what happens, sweet. The army must set an example.”

Everyone was in subdued mood that night. Next morning the soldiers were all summoned to witness the executions. Alice heard a drum roll and knew the two men were being led to the scaffold. The insistent drumming continued, and when it stopped, suddenly, the silence seemed loud. She saw, in her imagination, a young man throttled and kicking at the end of a rope, and felt distressed at the cruel unfairness of the punishment. Later the entire army marched past the place where the bodies hung. Already, it seemed to Alice, they looked like bundles of rags, as if they had never lived.

“Oh! That any man should have come to this!” exclaimed Nia.

And Alice, shaken and afraid, wondered what would become of them all, what
she
would come to; where this cold, wet march was leading them.

On a dark day in late November they turned north-west, towards Faringdon.

“We’ve finished now, for the season,” Mistress Erlam told Alice. “We’ll be sent to our winter quarters.”

“In Faringdon?”

“Some in the town, some in the countryside around. The king will go on to Oxford.”

“Is Faringdon close to Oxford?”

“Twelve miles or so.”

Alice thought of Robin, of his home near Oxford, their chance to marry now that the campaign was over. Would it happen? She wished she could be certain; wished he would turn to her and say, in that easy way of his, “Let’s be married, sweet.” But he said nothing; and although he was still casually affectionate, and still made love to her, the passion they had shared at Sherborne scarcely two months ago seemed to have waned.

And now she would have to part from Nia and her other friends. On that last day they embraced one another and said the goodbyes that they would not have time for later. By afternoon they would go to whatever quarters their men were assigned to, and it might be spring before they met again. Alice felt sad, and apprehensive about the months to come without Nia.

“I think this baby will be born in May,” said Nia. “We should be together again by then. If only we didn’t have to separate now!”

“But you’ll be with Bronwen and Rhian through the winter,” said Alice. “You three are sure to be quartered together.
I’ll
be with strangers.”

“You’ll have Robin.”

“Yes.” But it had been good, Alice realized, having a friend, another girl, to talk to. Nia had become a steady, reliable source of comfort and gossip and giggles in a way that Robin never could. “It’s not the same,” she said.

Nia understood. “No, it’s not. Oh, but we’ll meet up again in the spring, won’t we? And you’ll look in your father’s book, and help me when my time comes? I’m so afraid of the birth.”

“Don’t be afraid! I’ll be there. I promise.”

“I’ll feel safer if you are with me.” Nia glanced at Alice’s flat stomach. “You were mistaken, weren’t you? That’s lucky.”

Alice bit her lip. This was another reason why she wanted her friends around her. It was a long time since she had taken off her shift, but that morning her breasts had felt full and tender, and when she was alone for a moment she had untied the gathered neckline and looked down at them. She had seen enlarged nipples and a network of blue veins showing on the white skin.

“I think perhaps I
am
with child,” she said.

Nia’s gaze was startled, full of concern. “Are you sure? Last week you thought—”

Alice explained. She hoped Nia would say, “Oh, that’s nothing! It doesn’t happen like that.” But Nia didn’t. She looked into Alice’s eyes and said, “Tell Robin, Lisi.
Tell
him. You must be married.” She tried to make a joke of it. “You know what we said about Rhian and Gethin – you have to give these men a push!” She hugged Alice tightly. “All will be well. We are in God’s hands.”

Alice felt heavy-hearted, but she told herself that she would be with Robin for the winter, and that was what she wanted above all else. And with the end of the campaigning season, surely he would have more time. Her fears were unnecessary. She would tell him she was with child; they would marry; and he would take her to his home.

Robin came to fetch her later, and she joined the draggle of women following his company of foot soldiers along a muddy, rutted road between dripping hedges. A slippery mush of fallen leaves lay underfoot. The day had closed in early, and Alice shook with cold.

“I’d kill for a bite to eat,” one of the women said.

Alice felt hunger pains too. She was always hungry these days.

The road led on into the countryside east of Faringdon – for mile after mile, it seemed to Alice. She wondered which way the Welsh troops had gone; whether her friends would be anywhere near. At last, as evening fell early, they turned off the road and marched along a lane that wound downhill into a darkness of wintry trees wreathed in fog. A lantern appeared ahead, bobbing and flickering in the mist, and she heard dogs barking and saw, a little way off, the glow of candlelight in windows.