The Rider of the White Horse

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  The skirmish did not last long, for that first perfectly timed charge of Tom’s had done its work well. Within a few minutes the thing had become a running fight, as the Royalists, broken apart, fell back up the Gowthorp and took to the network of lanes under Brayton Barf. Tom Fairfax, pressing in among the enemy, saw a burst of flame as a trooper just ahead of him wrenched round in the saddle to fire into the thick of his pursuers, and felt a numbing blow on his right wrist; no pain, just the sense of shock, and the sword dropped from his grasp. But glancing down, he saw his sword-hand dripping red, the blood pulsing in little jets of crimson from the neat hole where the pistol ball had drilled his wrist. He clapped his bridle hand over it, but the blood spurted between his fingers.

  Damnation! He couldn’t go on long like that. Already the world was turning dim and sickly cold about him. He was aware that the running fight was becoming a rout. One of his own troopers ranged up alongside him, and he heard someone say, ‘Look out, the General’s hit. Black Tom’s hit.’ And then, ‘Steady, Sir, best pull out this way …’

  He was vaguely conscious of wheeling White Surrey out of the general scrimmage and the pursuit sweeping on without him; aware most vividly, of a lane that was like a tunnel of green and gold stretching into infinity and, framed in an archway of the green and gold, against a pale clear blueness of sky, Moll’s face, still and terror stricken, swimming towards him. He tried to smile reassurance at the child, but all the green and gold and the little white face were wavering as though they were under the sea, and there was a roaring of many waters in his ears. He swayed in the saddle, and would have pitched headlong had not two of his troopers caught him and laid him on the ground.

  *

  Moll had heard the turmoil of the running fight sweep nearer, and felt Christian’s arm tighten round her. She had struggled her nose free of the grey folds of Christian’s cloak which her nurse had wrapped protectively over her head, craning beyond Charles D’Oyley and the trooper in the lane. And then suddenly the trooper wheeled his horse aside, and with a shining rush of joy she saw her father. He was riding towards her, she saw the blue flash of the scarf across the sheeny darkness of his breastplate. And then she saw the crimson. Crimson everywhere, blood all down White Surrey’s shoulder, dripping in little gouts and runnels from her father’s sword-hand, and her father’s face growing whiter, whiter. She saw him try to smile at her. Then he pitched down into the arms of two troopers who caught him and laid him on the ground.

  Father was dead. She knew now what happened when people died; the warm ran out of them, crimson, and left only the cold and the white behind. Father was dead, and in one instant of time the world tipped over to shrieking nightmare about her, a formless void of terror in which there was nothing to cling to because all the landmarks were gone. There was a feeling of icy cold on her; she began to scream like a hare in a trap.

  Fairfax drifted out of a buzzing darkness to hear voices above him. ‘Wish to God I could get hold of Davey Morrison.’ That was Charles D’Oyley.

  And the deeper tones of Trooper Wagstaff answered him. ‘Not a hope, Sir, t’whole main force’ll be across t’river by now. ‘Tis well enough wi’out, though. Not t’first bullet hole I’ve plugged, and tis clean drilled wi’ no lodged ball to get out, and t’bone nobbut a bit chipped ...’ And then a few moments later, ‘Slacken up a bit, Sir, and see if we’ve stopped t’bleeding.’ He opened his eyes to find White Surrey nuzzling at his shoulder, and see the blurred faces of two men bending over him.

  ‘So — he’s coming to himself,’ D’Oyley said; and then, ‘How goes it, Sir?’

  ‘Well enough,’ Fairfax said muzzily. ‘How goes fight?’

  ‘Enemy in full retreat, Sir.’

  They had slit up his buff sleeve, and twisted a rag into a ligature above his elbow, and young D’Oyley was little by little releasing the stylus that they had used to tighten it, his eyes fixed on the strip of linen lashed tightly about the General’s wrist. Trooper Wagstaff also watched his handiwork with a frown of anxious concentration; and Tom himself, his sight clearing, cricked his neck to peer in the same direction. A fleck of crimson sprang out on the white, blurred into the linen and spread a little, but not much. ‘Done it, I reckon,’ said Trooper Wagstaff, with satisfaction.

  Fairfax was already struggling rather gingerly into a sitting position. ‘Whose shirt?’

  Young D’Oyley grinned at him. ‘Mine, Sir ... Here, take a pull at this,’ holding a flask to his mouth.

  Fairfax swallowed a few mouthfuls of the fiery stuff, and felt the life begin to run back into him. As his head cleared still further, a horse stamped and stirred close by, and looking up, he saw that it was the old dun mare. The dun mare standing by riderless, and as he looked quickly about him, no sign of Moll or her nurse. ‘Moll — the bairn — where is she?’

  Charles D’Oyley had by now slackened off the last turn of the ligature. ‘Only just beyond the hedge, Sir. She was sick, and her nurse has taken her down to the stream to clean her up and make her decent.’

  ‘Poor bairn,’ said Fairfax, bending his swimming head on to his hand. ‘Poor little lass; was she so hideously afraid?’

  ‘Not of the fighting,’ his galloper said with a sudden flick of laughter. ‘No Sir. Madam was not afraid of the fighting at all. Madam fought her nurse because she wished not to be left behind when we got word of the Royalists, but she saw you fall and she thought you were dead.’

  Fairfax was silent a moment, then he said mildly, ‘I trust that someone has told her I’m not.’

  ‘Lord yes. Never you worry, Sir. She’ll be as right as a trivet by now.’ And then as Fairfax settled his hand in the silken sling and drew his long legs under him to rise, ‘Where away, Sir?’

  ‘Just through the hedge to seek my daughter,’ Fairfax said. ‘Nay lad, I’m well enough now. Mun be in t’saddle again in a few minutes, anyways. Give me another swig of that moonshine —’

  Beyond the screen of nut-trees was a small secluded hollow below the field’s edge. Fairfax found Christian kneeling at the water’s edge, with Moll standing still and rigid in the curve of her arm. ‘Moll,’ he said quietly.

  The child turned, showing him a face the colour of a scraped cooking apple, in which the dark eyes that seemed to leap and cling to him were enormous. She said nothing, but gave him a pitiful little grimace for a smile, and wobbled towards him.

  ‘What a pair we are!’ Fairfax said, with a finger in the warm hollow under her chin. But the hollow was less warm than usual, and he realized that the child was shaking from head to foot. He looked across at the nurse, his brows raised, his heart rather sick within him. ‘What’s to do, Christian?’

  The woman raised her eyes to his. ‘She’ll do well enough, Sir. Better if we could get her some milk, maybe — she’s lost most of what we got down her this morning.’

  He nodded, with a hurried glance towards the nearest cottages of Selby, scarce the width of the open field away. ‘We’ll get her some. I’ll tell Wagstaff.’ Then to the child, who stood quite still save for her shuddering, gazing up at him with those enormous dark eyes, ‘Bide with Christian a little, my honey,’ and he turned back to his men beyond the screening nut-trees.

  His Major had called off the pursuit, and what remained of his troop were gathering again. ‘Thought it better not to get drawn too far from the ferry, Sir,’ he said, standing helmet in hand before Black Tom and wiping his damp forehead.

  Fairfax nodded. ‘Good enough. The embarkation of the main force must be complete by this, but the ferry is no further use to us, of course.’

  They looked at each other, sharing as though it were spoken between them, the thought of the possible, indeed almost sure return of the Royalists. While embarking, they would be virtually defenceless. ‘No Sir,’ Major Ledgard said. ‘I was thinking that, too. We have no rearguard.’

  Fairfax was silent a moment. He knew the country south of Selby less intimately than he did Wharfedale, but enough to know that southward
of them the Ouse ran into fen country that would make Cavalry action impossible. Once into the fenlands the dykes and the marshy ground would give them some measure of cover from attack. That way would add twenty miles to the long road to Hull, but ... ‘Get the men mounted again,’ he said. ‘We’re heading south. If we can gain Owston Ferry, we’ll be across the Trent by nightfall.’

  Chapter 15 - A Gift in Love

  When dusk flowed up over the flat lands of Lincolnshire at the end of the long hot summer’s day, Fairfax and his tattered Cavalry were across the Trent. Ahead of them the road to Barton reeled out, winding its way through the marshes of the Humber, its course marked by planted willows. Fairfax had drawn rein in the lea of a tump of ancient thorn trees, his troopers about him. He could feel White Surrey’s legs trembling under him as he stood with distressfully hanging head and he knew that the old charger’s valiant and willing heart was near to bursting. Poor brutes, they were all in like case, but there could be no rest for man or horse; not yet. Himself, he had got beyond weariness. He felt light-headed and oddly insubstantial, his wound was still bleeding, though not much now, staining juicily to blackberry purple the blue silk of his sling; and all his reactions seemed slower than usual, so that it was hard to make decisions. Christian was saying, ‘The bairn’s done. If ye carry her any further, Sir Thomas, t’e’ll kill her. They’ll na’ harm a bairn...’

  Fairfax looked again at the child. She hung in the trooper’s arms as though he had killed her already. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘Charles, Trooper Wagstaff, take them up to the farm yonder. Stay —’ letting the reins fall on White Surrey’s drooping neck, he felt in the pocket under the skirt of his buff coat, and bringing out two gold angels, gave them to Christian. ‘There’s to pay for your night’s lodging and the bairn’s. I’ll send a boat up river for you in the morning.’ To Charles D’Oyley he said, ‘We shall ride on. Catch up with us as and when you may; we shan’t — be travelling very fast.’

  He remained a few moments sitting his weary white horse under the thorn trees, watching the three shadowy riders dwindle down the driftway, towards that kindly rushlight glimmer. Then wheeled White Surrey, his scarecrow troopers behind him, and rode on into the gathering twilight, following the snaking line of willows that marked the road to Barton. Barton bells would be ringing, as they rang every twilight to guide in travellers benighted in the fens; but they must be seven or eight miles from Barton yet, and even across these wind-open levels the sound could not carry so far.

  *

  Maudlin Gibberdyke was smooring the fire for the night. These days one had to save anything; it was so difficult to live at all, with the troopers of two armies loose in the world and driving off one’s best cow as they had done last week. Maudlin was for neither King nor Parliament; all she knew about the war was that it had taken her man for the militia and only left Dicken to help her with the farm because he was a mazelin and therefore no use to them. Maybe if they’d known what a one with his hands he was, and how good with horses, they’d have taken Dicken too, mazelin or no.

  She looked across at him with a kind of harsh and exasperated tenderness; sitting beside the hearth with his boots already off, wagging his big toes and watching them with a child’s interest. She saw his broad dulled face under the thatch of rough dry-looking hair, the bright blue eyes with their curious, happy emptiness, as though one were looking through his face and seeing the sky behind; and wondered why she had borne a mazelin son, and whether she was most bitter that it was so, or most glad that it had kept him from the militia. Ship, the black and white wall-eyed sheep dog sat against his knee, and the tabby cat, having had kittens in the dairy, had brought them in, two tabby and one golden ginger, to a box on Dicken’s side of the fire, with an old jerkin of his in it. The kittens should have been drowned, but Dicken was set on finding homes for them. That, thought his mother, with more exasperation and more tenderness, was Dicken all over. Anything young and soft ...

  She realized suddenly that Dicken was listening, and so was old Ship; the boy’s ears almost as visibly pricked as the dog’s. ‘What dost hear?’ she said.

  ‘Horses,’ he said, smiling with excitement. Dicken quite understood that troopers were a bad thing, but they were something happening, and he liked things to happen, all the same. ‘There was horses on t’road, and now there’s horses coming up ‘long side dyke, but none so many as was on t’road.’

  Maudlin sat back on her heels, feeling her tired bones creak under her, and listened. Now she could hear it, too. The soft beat of hooves coming up beside the dyke. Ship began to bark, and she reached out and grabbed him by the rope collar round his neck, dragging him towards her so that he was strangled quiet.

  The hoof beats were right beside the door now, trampling to a halt. She heard a murmur of voices and the thud as someone dismounted heavily, and then a beating on the door. She gave Ship’s rope collar to Dicken, bidding him not to let the dog go unless she bade him, and getting up, went to the door — delay only made them angry — and opened it.

  As the candlelight flowed out into the marsh, she saw a man in the buff coat and crimson sword-scarf of a Parliamentary officer, his arm through the bridle of his horse, and dim-seen behind him, two mounted figures. ‘What dost want?’ she demanded before he could speak. ‘There’s nought here left for thee taking.’

  ‘A night’s shelter for a bairn and her nurse,’ the young officer said. ‘You can spare that, Mistress, and the nurse can pay well for it.’

  Maudlin looked beyond him, seeing that one of the shadowy figures did indeed seem to be a woman; and that the other, a trooper, carried a child in the crook of his bridle arm. ‘What’s a bairn doing wi’ t’likes o’thee?’ she demanded.

  ‘She is Sir Thomas Fairfax’s little daughter.’ The woman of the house had a right to know that. ‘Rather than leave her to fall into the hands of the enemy, her father brought her out of Leeds with him; but she can go no further.’

  ‘Leeds! Eh, that’s a killing long way.’ Maudlin was looking at the child. The mention of payment helped, but the white blank stillness of Moll’s face and the way she hung limp as a rag doll in the trooper’s arm tugged at the unwilling kindness in her. ‘That’s a killing long way,’ she said again; and then, grudgingly, ‘Bring t’lass in, then.’

  ‘Thank you,’ the young officer said, with a small quick bend of the head; and as the nurse slid from her horse with a sound that was half a groan, turned to his trooper and reached up to take the collapsed child from him. ‘Right — I have her.’ He carried her over the threshold into the kitchen, Christian stumbling after, paused an instant, glancing about him in the light of the tallow dip that shone like a small smoky star in its brass pricket on the mantel, then carried her across to the high-backed settle beside the hearth and laid her down. ‘Sir Thomas will send up river for them in the morning,’ he said to the woman of the house, bowed to her as though she was a great lady, and tramped stiffly to the door and out into the night. They heard him speak to his trooper, mount, and ride away, the led horse with them.

  The woman crossed to the door and dropped the heavy night-time bar into place, then returned to Christian, who was bending over the child on the settle. Moll lay very still, pathetically vulnerable, the lashes of her closed eyes lying like the dark heart-fringes of an anemone on her white cheeks, her lips, drained of all colour, drooping a little open over the gap where she had lately lost her first milk tooth. The woman bent to look at her in the light of the tallow dip. ‘Eh, poor bairn, she’s fair spent.’

  ‘She’s been all but two days and nights on a horse — and she saw her daddy shot i’ the wrist and fall for dead wi t’blood loss.’ Christian was unfastening the hood of holly leaf green as she spoke, putting it back from the little brown head, loosening the child’s clothes.

  ‘I’ll get her some milk, ‘twill be best for her poor little clemmed belly, and then happen she’d best go into t’other bed.’ Maudlin jerked her head towards one of the two great box
beds that flanked the hearth. She looked at Christian and added with harsh kindliness. ‘You, too, ma lass,’ and departed.

  Christian, slipping the child’s rolled cloak under her head for a pillow, rubbing the small cold hands, found a black and white muzzle thrusting under her arm, and at the same time became aware of somebody breathing heavily down the back of her neck. Dazed with weariness as she was, and in the dim light, she had not noticed Dicken and Ship watching in their corner; and she looked round startled to see a wall-eyed sheep dog, sitting beside her, and a boy peering over her shoulder. A big powerful lout on the edge of manhood — but it was hard to judge his age, for the broad platter face under its thatch of fair scurfy hair had the peculiar agelessness of the mentally defective. He was looking down at Little Moll, his thick red lips parted in a smile. Then as she watched, not knowing what to do, he put out a hand with completely square finger tips, and touched the sprigged stuff of the child’s loosened gown. ‘Bonnie!’ he said.

  ‘Don’t —’ Christian began sharply, and then carefully softening her tone, ‘Don’t wake t’little lass.’

  He shook his rough head. ‘Not wake her.’ But he advanced the blunt forefinger as though fascinated, and touched Moll’s cheek with an agony of gentleness. ‘Bonnie!’ he said again; and then ‘Soft!’ and looked at his finger tip as though he expected to find that the softness had clung to it like the jewel dust of a butterfly’s wing.