Alice in Love and War

by Ann Turnbull

She poured a little beer into the tankard. He was lying slightly propped against a pillow, but even with her help he managed only a few sips before he fell back, exhausted.

  Alice glanced at the Bible. “Would you like me to read to you?” she asked.

  He gave the faintest of nods. “Thank you.”

  She picked up the Bible. Its leather binding was scuffed with use and it fell open at several much-studied passages. She glanced at the flyleaf and saw his name written there: Jeremiah Banks. Jeremiah: he was the son of Puritans, then, for sure. She wondered what text to choose, what would be appropriate, and fell back on something familiar that would be easy for her to read without stumbling:

  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

  He leadeth me beside the still waters.

  He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”

  He listened, or she supposed he did. His eyes remained closed.

  She read on, and when she stopped he said, on a faint breath, “We’ve met before.”

  He was rambling. She hoped it was not the first sign of fever. “No,” she said. “You’re thinking of someone else.”

  Most of that day she sat with him. From time to time she gave him more sips of beer, but when she suggested food he seemed too tired. He slept for hours, his breathing so shallow that sometimes she wondered if he would ever wake again. Once, while he slept, she drew the blanket away and looked at his injuries. Both wounds – in the left shoulder and right thigh – had been bound in clean linen which was now soaked with blood. But the blood had dried; it did not seem to be flowing, at least while he lay still. She wondered whether any salve or poultice had been applied, whether anything should be done now, or whether the wounds were best left alone.

  In the late afternoon she helped Hannah change his bandages. He came more fully, and painfully, awake then, for they had to turn him onto his injured right side so that they could prise the stuck linen away from the wound just below his left shoulder.

  Alice flinched at the sight of the great slicing cut, but Hannah said, “It heals well. The bleeding has almost stopped.”

  They bandaged the arm again, rolled him gently onto his back, and attended to the thigh wound. This still oozed blood. It was less extensive, but deep, and Alice knew that such a wound could do much damage.

  They left him resting and went into the kitchen.

  Alice said, “I’ve been watching him. I believe he may live, if the wounds don’t fester.”

  Hannah nodded agreement. “He has clung to life for a full day now. Does he drink?”

  “Not much. He’s very weak. I think he has almost no blood in him.”

  “Some red wine would do him good.”

  “To replace the lost blood. Yes.”

  “And perhaps a thin broth, made with meat stock.”

  She left Alice with the children and went to the inn on the green, returning with a flagon of wine. Its dark red colour made Alice feel sure it would be wholesome for the injured soldier.

  Elen, meanwhile, was thriving on Hannah’s milk. Alice changed the baby and swaddled her again, all the time talking to her and getting smiles in return. She was determined to do as much for Elen as possible, for she had a jealous fear that if they stayed here long, the baby would come to love Hannah, and not her.

  Not that she intended to stay any longer than necessary. When Master Barford came in for his supper, her easy relationship with Hannah changed and the air became charged with mistrust. The blacksmith had been persuaded, out of Christian charity, to take her under his roof, but it was clear that he regarded her as a woman of dubious morals who might corrupt his wife and daughter. He avoided speaking directly to her, and she could only listen as he told his wife what he had been hearing from his customers during the day about movements of the troops. It seemed that hundreds – maybe thousands – of Royalist prisoners were being sent to London under guard; but General Fairfax was believed to be leading the Parliamentarian army towards Leicester. Alice thought with pity of the people of Leicester, who had already suffered so much under Prince Rupert’s assault.

  After supper Master Barford went out to see what he could find on the battlefield. Alice had told Hannah earlier about the possessions she had left in the Erlams’ wagon, but she did not dare ask the blacksmith to search for them. And she would not go out herself; she knew people would be stripping the corpses. She ventured only as far as the field edge at the back of the forge. From there she could see wagons, some overturned, and distant figures moving about. There were more men walking the field tracks north-east of the village, and she noticed circlings of crows over the highest ground.

  Master Barford returned with a pair of pistols, spurs and other horse trappings, and a man’s gold ring that Hannah took and examined.

  “Anything worth having has gone,” he told his wife. “I reckon General Fairfax’s army have taken most of the wagons with them. The villagers are coming out now, same as me, to look around. Some have gone up Hellcombe, towards Wadborough.” He sighed, passing a hand across his face. “Lord, there are some sights! The corpses…”

  In desperation Alice turned to him. “My friends … the women?”

  He looked at her with a reluctant compassion. “There were soldiers left behind to bury the dead. I saw them filling in a pit near where the baggage train was attacked.”

  Alice tried not to think of the pit, but the image forced itself into her mind: the tumbled bodies, purplish-white, stripped of any saleable clothes. Her friends were gone. But what of Bryn? What of Gethin and Edryd? Were they prisoners now, or were they too among the dead, buried in another pit a few fields away from their wives? And Robin? She hadn’t thought of him until now. Surely Robin would somehow have escaped the slaughter?

  Hannah had made the promised broth, and added some of the red wine to it. Alice fed it to the soldier with a spoon. He seemed better already, less hollow-faced, his eyes more alert.

  That night Alice was tired and fell asleep quickly; but once again, towards dawn, she woke from a nightmare to the sound of her own screams. From the next room she heard Prudence begin to cry, and her mother soothing her. When Hannah appeared, Alice was sitting trembling on the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It’s not your fault.” Hannah yawned. “Your baby’s awake. I’ll feed her.”

  Alice was afraid to fall asleep again. “I’ll go down and see how the soldier is.”

  They never referred to the man by his name, though Alice had told Hannah she had found it on the flyleaf of his Bible. It was as if by not naming him they would be less unhappy if all their efforts failed and he died.

  Alice washed and dressed, then went downstairs, feeling her way in the dark. In the kitchen several cats woke and pressed around her ankles. She knelt and stroked them, soothed by their warm furriness.

  The embers of last night’s fire still glowed. She lit a candle from it, and opened the door to the parlour. He was awake. She saw the gleam of his eyes in the candlelight.

  “Good morning.” She set the candle down. “How do you feel?”

  “Grateful. To you, and these good people, and to God.”

  “Your voice is stronger.”

  He grimaced. “But the pain keeps me awake. You are up early.”

  “I don’t want to sleep. I have nightmares.” And before he could ask her why and perhaps provoke her into a grief-stricken response, she said, “There is more broth in the kitchen. I’ll fetch you some.”

  “Mistress Alice – wait! Could you open the shutters? I’ve not seen daylight since I was brought in here.”

  Alice hesitated. “A sickroom should be warm and dark…” But she knew that the main reason Hannah had closed up the room was because she had thought this was to be a death chamber.

  She crossed the r
oom and drew back the shutters. The window faced east, overlooking the road where the baggage train had been attacked. The glass panes were small and greenish-coloured and distorted the view, but they let in the growing daylight.

  When she brought the broth, he got her to help him sit up; and he wanted to feed himself, so she poured the broth into a tankard that he could hold in his right hand.

  “Are you right-handed?” she asked.

  “Yes. For which I thank God. I fear I may always have pain in the left shoulder.”

  “What is your trade?”

  “I’m a carpenter. Or was about to be, before this war. Tell me, have you heard anything of how the fight went?”

  “I believe it was a victory for your side.” She could not keep the bitterness out of her voice. The news clearly pleased and heartened him, and that offended her still more.

  He saw this, and said, puzzled, “I see that my side is not yours? But I thought Master Barford was for Parliament.”

  “I am not one of Master Barford’s family.”

  “No. Your voice…”

  He gave her the empty tankard and she set it down. Sunlight was now streaming into the room; she could feel it on her face. When she turned back to him she saw that he was looking at her intently.

  “I was not mistaken,” he said. “We have met before. You are the girl from the house we raided near Oxford. Weston House, was it?”

  “Weston Hall,” said Alice. She knew him now. The officious young captain – so upright and proud he’d looked then! And she remembered how she had pushed between him and Lady Weston and demanded that he keep his men in order. She felt a flush rise in her face.

  “I recognized your voice first,” he said. “That West Country burr.” A smile twitched his lips and he imitated her reading: “‘The Lord is my shepherd…’”

  Alice, embarrassed, was seized with a desire to laugh. And then she thought of Nia only a few hours buried, and herself here with their enemy, and the shock of it all overwhelmed her and she began to sob.

  He looked instantly contrite. “Please forgive me,” he said. “I meant no mockery of you.”

  She wiped her eyes, gulping. “It’s not you. My friends – my friends were…” But she could not bring herself to tell him.

  “Please forgive me,” he repeated.

  “There is no need.”

  He sighed, suddenly weary, and leaned back, white-faced, on the pillows. “What I don’t understand,” he said, “is how you come to be here, so far from Oxford.”

  Alice rose and began gathering up the crockery to take out to the kitchen. “You’re tired,” she said. “I’ll tell you another time.”

  The fact was, she was not at all eager to tell him. At the moment, he probably imagined her to be Lady Weston’s innocent young maidservant. If he knew the truth he would despise her, as Master Barford did, and she would lose his respect.

  Twenty-one

  Alice took over from Hannah the task of changing the soldier’s bandages each afternoon. She also made him tisanes from herbs that she gathered in the Barfords’ small garden. The wounds were healing well, with no sign of infection; his appetite had improved; and he became concerned about washing and changing his linen.

  “In my pack,” he said, reaching awkwardly towards it, “there’s a shirt, cleaner than this one.”

  She found it; and at his request she helped him to wash, comb his tangled hair, and put on the clean, crumpled shirt.

  He smiled. “Thank you.”

  “You look better.”

  He looked more as she remembered him from Weston Hall, except that now he was bearded with a growth of untrimmed fair hair. His eyes, which had been dull, were blue and had recovered their brightness. She felt pleased – with herself for her care; and with him for responding so well to it.

  There was no longer any need for her to watch over him continuously, so she would leave him with a tankard of beer within reach, and a small pile of his belongings – books, pamphlets and letters – on the bed beside him, and go and help Hannah or play with Elen. Often when she came back she found him reading his Bible. Sometimes he asked her for news.

  In those first few days after the battle the village was full of news and speculation: what people had seen, what they’d heard or witnessed in Clipston or Naseby or Marston Trussell. Those who had connections to the army reported that a great Parliamentarian victory had been gained: the king’s entire army of foot was destroyed, his cavalry dispersed, hundreds killed and nearly five thousand men taken prisoner. Ammunition and cannon had been captured, and all the contents of the Royalist baggage train. It was even rumoured that a box containing the king’s private correspondence had been found on one of the wagons. People who had been out soon after the battle talked of seeing bodies – heaps of them – on the field near Naseby, along the road to Sibbertoft, around the baggage train, and on across country towards Harborough.

  “All along by Hellcombe they lay,” Master Barford reported. “They were in retreat, those Cavaliers, but they fought every step of the way. Wadborough Hill’s where the bodies lay thickest; where they made their last stand.”

  Alice looked out towards Wadborough, only a few miles away to the north-east. So that was where it had ended, that last great fight she’d been so terrifyingly caught up in.

  “What of the king?” Hannah asked. “And the princes?”

  “Fled. No doubt they’ll re-form. But if you ask me, Cromwell’s the man of the future.”

  Master Barford, as blacksmith, was well placed to gather news. He would come in for his supper and relay it first to his wife; and then, since Jeremiah Banks was now recovered enough to talk, he would spend time with him in the evening. Alice heard, from behind the closed door, their voices rising and falling, and occasional bursts of laughter.

  “They’ll be talking horses, if I know my man,” said Hannah. “Horses and horse management, and equipment.”

  Alice thought the blacksmith’s conversation would tire her patient, and was perversely annoyed, when she went in to check on him before retiring to bed, to find him cheerful and invigorated.

  The next day, when she brought him one of her herbal drinks, she asked him about his own part in the fighting, and he told her what he remembered. He described how, on that morning, he had seen the front line of the king’s army ranged along the ridge opposite – a sight of beauty, gallantry and terror: the colours rippling, the sunlight glinting on armour and weapons, the forest of pikes; how he had watched Prince Rupert’s cavalry begin to move: a trot, a canter, a gallop, a charge; how he and his comrades had raced into position to be ready to fire. He spoke of the difficult, uneven terrain, the furze bushes and rabbit holes, the confusion of battle. In the general melee he had been wounded in the shoulder, but ignored it and fought on till the Royalist foot began to surrender. Then he joined in the pursuit of the Cavaliers as they fled north. Near Sibbertoft he had been thrown from his horse by a pistol shot in the thigh.

  He was innocent of the attack on the baggage train, Alice realized. Indeed, he seemed unaware that it had taken place.

  “My friends found me later, close to death, and lifted me onto my horse and brought me here.” He took a sip of the drink she had given him and pulled a face. “What’s this?”

  “Nettle tea. Drink it!” she said sternly, with a smile. She had found nettles growing near by and knew the tea would strengthen him and restore the blood. But in truth he seemed to have a strength of his own that needed little help.

  She saw letters lying on the bed, and asked him about his family.

  “I have a mother and two sisters,” he said. “My home is in Hertford.”

  He showed her where the town was in his pocketbook of maps, and she leaned with him over the small, densely printed pages. The maps, with their tracery of roads and pictured hills, fascinated her, and she longed to study them more, to see all the places she had travelled through, to see Wales.

  “Do your sisters live at home?” she asked.<
br />
  “Priscilla does. My elder sister, Phoebe, is married and has her own home at Ware. But her husband is a soldier, in the king’s army—”

  “The king’s?” Alice was surprised.

  “Yes. I believe he was at Naseby fight, though I did not encounter him – and I’m glad of that, for I like him well, though this war has torn our two households apart. He could have been taken prisoner, or even killed. I shall be relieved when I can get news of him. And I must write to my mother and Priscilla.” He looked at her. “She’s about your age, Priscilla. Eighteen?”

  “I’m seventeen.” And nothing like your sister, Alice thought. She imagined Priscilla Banks, innocent and well protected, her fair head bent over a prayer book.

  “And you?” she asked. “What age are you? Are you an apprentice?” She knew that some of the Parliamentarian regiments were full of London apprentices, unruly and violent, who brought terror to the countryside. This young man was not of that sort.

  But he said, “Yes, I was apprenticed to a carpenter in Willesden, and was near the end of my term, when I enlisted for Parliament. I’m twenty-three, and should have been working as a journeyman by now had it not been for this war. I never thought it would go on for so long, nor grow so bitter.”

  Alice admitted, “I don’t know what it’s all about.”

  He laughed, shortly. “It’s about our arrogant, devious king, and his Catholic wife; about the will of Parliament, of the people, and their right to be heard. It’s about God’s purpose—” He stopped. “I’m sorry. Tell me about you. You sit with me, and read, and listen to me talking about myself, but you still haven’t told me how you came to be here.”

  Alice took a breath. “I came with the king’s army,” she said. “Following the baggage train.” She spoke defiantly, watching his face, challenging him – and caught the slight, shocked widening of his eyes.

  He was silent for so long that she thought he would not speak to her again; but he recovered himself, and said, “Then … you left the service of Lady Weston?”

  “I was never in her service. I stayed at Weston Hall over the winter, when the soldiers were in their winter quarters. I was already with the army.”