by Ann Turnbull
“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.
But Nia, down to earth as ever, said, “What you need is another man – someone better. And I’m sure you’ll find one before long.” She smiled, and added teasingly, “Sergeant Llewellyn, perhaps? Rhian says she saw him taking notice of you the other day.”
“What?” Alice laughed, despite herself. Sergeant Llewellyn, who drilled the Welsh troops, was all side whiskers and bellowing voice.
“He’s a yeoman in a fair way of business, back in Dolgellau, so they say.”
“Never!” said Alice. And they laughed.
“Well, you’ll probably see little enough of any of the troops soon,” said Nia. “Bryn says there’s a rumour of an assault on Leicester. The city is in rebel hands.”
Leicester. Alice had heard of that place, though she was unsure of where it was, or indeed where they were – they had travelled around so much since leaving Oxford. But the next day’s march brought them to Loughborough. They were quartered in the outskirts of the town, and Alice was sure that Bryn must be right about a coming assault: she sensed an undercurrent of excitement among the troops that had not been there before.
In the morning they marched towards Leicester, and set up their leaguer outside the city walls.
Seventeen
A sudden burst of cannon fire shook the makeshift shelters where the women were camped. Alice put her hands over her ears; the sound was huge, unbearable. Smoke from the guns billowed up and hid their view of the city wall and the battery where the six cannon had been installed.
Nia, who was feeding Elen, jolted the child as she cried out, “Oh, God save us, it’s starting! They’ll be going in! Oh God, keep our men safe!”
Elen, jerked from the breast, began to wail.
“Shush, shush,” murmured Nia contritely, and the baby latched on again, gulping. “Now you’ll have hiccups, won’t you, cariad? And it’ll be my fault.”
All morning they had been on edge, hearing rumours that trumpeters were going to and fro between Prince Rupert and the burgesses of the city, the prince demanding surrender and the city wanting time to parley. This cannon fire, Alice realized, must be the prince’s answer.
The bombardment continued all afternoon. The noise was deafening and relentless, and smoke began to fill every part of the camp, causing everyone to cough. Nia tried to tie a gauze strip loosely across Elen’s nose and mouth, but the baby would have none of it, her face turning red with distress.
Alice thought how frustrated the child must feel, unable to wave her arms in protest. But most of the time she was a contented baby, and would lie in her cradle, rocked by her mother’s foot, or be carried in a cloth sling on Nia’s back. Keeping her clean and dry had been a problem on the march, since they moved every day and her cloths could not easily be laundered. Nia used absorbent moss when she could find it. Last night she had washed some linen and today had strung it on twine between the shelters. Already it was flecked with smuts from the smoky wind.
“She’s dirty,” said Nia, wrinkling he
r nose, then smiling at the baby.
She gathered dry cloths from the line, laid Elen down in the shelter and began to unwrap her. It was now late afternoon, the sun still high in the summer sky, though masked by smoke blowing across the camp. Changing the baby was troublesome with all the swaddling to undo and rewind, and it was impossible for Nia to do it often enough. Elen smelt, and had a red rash on her buttocks and thighs. Nia tutted as she washed and dried her, and dabbed on some soothing ointment that Alice had made.
“Let her get the air on it awhile,” Alice suggested, and Nia agreed.
The truth was, they all liked to look at Elen and watch her move. She jiggled her arms and legs rhythmically, and seemed happy to be free. Alice offered a finger to her, and Elen grasped it in her tiny fist. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
A thick billow of smoke engulfed them, and Nia cried out, “Oh, it’s all over the washing!” She ran to rescue her linen.
“Let me do the swaddling?” Alice asked. She began wrapping the baby as she had seen Nia do it, one side and then the other, criss-crossing down the body, talking to the child as she went.
The guns stopped firing, and the sudden silence seemed loud. Into it came a roar of voices – cheers and shouts.
“They must have breached the wall,” said Bronwen. “They’ll be going in soon.” She chewed her lip. She was anxious. They all knew that their people – the attackers, on open ground – were easy targets for those hidden behind the defences.
Alice remembered that musketeers were often first in the firing line. Robin would be part of this assault, when it began. She pushed the image away. Let his wife and that trader’s daughter fear for him, she thought; I won’t.
There was quiet now around the walls, but it was a purposeful lull, full of planning and activity. As the smoke started to clear they could see movements of men around the battery and all across the field. Rhian went to investigate, and reported back that the defenders were filling in the breach and bringing up cannon.
The men did not return for food. The women knew this meant the assault would happen soon. They ate together and went early to their beds. Alice shared Nia’s shelter, the baby lying between them. All three fell quickly asleep.
They woke to the pounding of cannon fire. It was black night. The flimsy shelter shook. Elen stirred and began to wail, and Nia lifted her up and tried to soothe her. Guns were firing from both sides of the wall, lighting up the sky with flashes of fire. For a while Alice and Nia sat stunned as the huge explosions filled the night with terror. When the roar subsided, Alice could hear the sharp crack of musket fire and, despite herself, she pictured Robin, his face soot-smudged, the lighted slow match dangling from his fingers as he raised his gun to fire. Her friends’ husbands were pikemen; they would go in later, if the defenders were pushed back.
Behind the walls, the citizens must have filled the breach with whatever they could find. In daylight they might have picked off their enemies, but now, in total darkness, the king’s forces had the upper hand while the defenders faced an onrushing wave of firepower. The attack was so close that the women could hear shouts and screams and the cries of the wounded.
The camp came alive with activity. All around, fires and lanterns were relit and people were moving about. Everyone was waiting, tense and expectant, for the outcome – which could surely only be a victory for the king? The source of the firing changed. It began to come mostly from another part of the wall, further away. Perhaps a second breach was being made, or a gate stormed? Nia was in an agony of fear for Bryn. Rhian and Bronwen came out, Rhian fussing over her half-grown cat, which was wide-eyed and sharp-clawed with terror. They all stayed together, drinking warm beer and talking to keep their spirits up. Bronwen sat puffing on Edryd’s long-stemmed tobacco pipe. She passed it around, but when it reached Alice she coughed and her eyes stung, and she gave it hastily to Rhian.
The breakthrough came about an hour later. The guns stopped firing and they heard a roar of voices and an occasional musket shot. Someone with a lantern swinging from a pole walked through the camp shouting that the city had fallen to the king.
No one expected to see their men yet unless they had been wounded; the soldiers would have gone in to plunder the city. But a large number of injured men were brought into the camp, and there was talk of many dead. Bronwen went to check on the wounded, and reported back to her group that no one they knew was there. Alice took her basket of salves and bandages and went with Bronwen to help the women who were dealing with minor injuries. For several hours they washed and bandaged or smeared salve on wounds. Distant sounds of shouting and screaming reached them. Alice knew this must be only the echo of the hell on earth of butchery, rape and robbery that was taking place in the city. It filled her with unease, particularly when she and Bronwen returned to the shelter and the Welsh girls continued to smoke and to speculate calmly on the booty their men might expect to find.
“I hope Bryn might think to take some linen, if he sees any,” said Nia. “Though coin would do as well, and it’s easier to carry.”
“Don’t you pity the people they steal from?” Alice asked. “The women, especially?”
Bronwen looked reproachful. “It’s not stealing; it’s war. They would do the same to us – except we have nothing in our homes to steal.”
Nia agreed. “It’s our right as victors. God knows, our men have given enough to this war! I only hope Bryn is there, and not lying dead in the breach.”
It was a huge relief to all of them when, towards dawn, Bryn and Gethin stumbled into the camp, followed by Edryd and other friends in search of their wives. They were all drunk, and smeared with blood and dirt. Bryn kissed Nia, and poured a purseful of silver into her lap.
She gazed at him, wide-eyed. “There must be fifty shillings or more here, Bryn! That’s more than three months’ pay! Where did you get it?”
“From a merchant’s house we broke into. Everyone’s got money. So many fine houses! So much gold and silver! It was like shaking apples off a tree. Put it away, love. Put it in your pocket and hide it.”
They spoke in Welsh, and it was only later, when the men had fallen asleep, that Nia told Alice what they had said. The Welshwomen exclaimed softly together over their good fortune, and found safe places to stow away the money.
“I never saw such wealth before,” Nia said to Alice. “I thought we were rich when Bryn joined the army! Back home he’d been lucky to earn six groats a week. The army pay more than doubled that. I reckon a lot of the men will desert now with their plunder and head for home. If it wasn’t for me and the child, Bryn might do the same.”
Alice was left with confused feelings. Her instinct was to celebrate with her friends and join in with their certainty that their men had earned this prize; and yet she could not help thinking of those who had been pillaged. Were they truly the enemy? Had they had any say at all in their city’s defiance of Prince Rupert?
Before long the drums roused everyone to move into Leicester. The infantry were to be quartered there for the night. As they entered the sacked city, where Prince Rupert’s black colours now flew from the battery, Alice began to tremble with shock at what she glimpsed through the smoke: corpses; wrecked and blackened buildings; people scurrying in panic, or huddled, weeping, in doorways. Her horror mounted as they went further in. Most of the dead – many of them piled in the gateway and around the battery – were soldiers from both sides. Many more of their own men lay dead in the streets.
But not all those slain were soldiers.
She turned to Nia, appalled. “These are ordinary people: shopkeepers, women!”
She saw that the citizens had tried to defend their homes and had been killed for it. They came upon the body of a man sprawled in the street, his shirt bloody, great wounds on his neck and arms as if he had been hacked at with a sword. He wore no coat or breeches; they had been stolen from his corpse. Alice had seen cruel sights before: public hangings, people pelted with rubbish and stones in the sto
cks, or whipped at the cart’s tail; but never violence on this scale, meted out to innocent people.
Bonfires were burning in the streets, and furniture, storage chests and empty wine casks lay scattered where the victorious soldiers had picked them over and moved on. Refugees – whole families with children, babes in arms, dogs and even pigs – were stumbling through the smoke towards the gates. Some of them panicked and ran when they saw the soldiers – running from us, Alice realized, overcome with shame. A woman burst out of a doorway and screamed in a frenzy, “You have killed my husband! My children have no father. How shall we live? Tell me that? How shall we live?” Alice could not bear to meet her eyes.
More dead lay in the side streets, and a man’s body hung limp from an inn sign. The living scuttled away into cellars and alleyways as the soldiers came through.
Alice looked at her friends, at Edryd, Bryn and Gethin. Had they been part of this? Kind, gentle Bryn? Shy Gethin? Edryd? It was hard to believe. And yet they had come back to camp drunk, laden with stolen money, and she did not know whether the dried blood on their faces and arms came from enemy soldiers or from some hapless citizen. She was relieved to see that the other women seemed shocked, and even the men appeared surprised at the devastation, as if they had woken from a dream, as if the night’s work had been undertaken while they were in some altered condition.
Their quarters for the night, along with a dozen or so others of the Welsh soldiers, were in a stocking-frame knitter’s home workshop – a tall narrow house in a poor part of the city. They tramped in while the distressed family – a husband, wife and four children – watched from their kitchen. The wife cried out, “They have dragged out the frames and burned them in the street! Our neighbours’ too! Those frames were our livelihood, but they burned them. And for what?”
“You are rebels,” one of the officers retorted. “All of you, in this city. You are lucky not to be locked up.”
