by Jaima Fixsen
He signed his name with a flourish at the bottom of the single sheet, styling himself her fond Alistair.
Fond. She wasn’t sure she cared for that word. It sounded fatherly. Indulgent. Not the way she liked to be kissed, for certain.
“I like him,” Henry said, returning to his game as Anna folded away the letter. “Will he be back soon? We could show him the steam works.”
Anna carefully tied her handkerchief around the dirt treasure and tucked it into her hand. If Henry asked, she’d give it to him, but he seemed to have forgotten it in favor of snapping off thorns. “Would you like to go with Grandpapa again?” she asked.
Better to evade questions that had no happy answers. Still, she was happy a letter had come, that he was well, that he ascribed himself as fond, instead of Yr. Obedient. Now she had permission to write him again—keeping to her budget of one letter for each one she received, though she didn’t see how she would restrict herself to a single sheet.
Half-composed sentences continually jostled in her head, waiting to be spilled onto paper. She wanted to tell him about Henry’s battles with tin soldiers, tease him with the names of the gentlemen she danced with, and bore him (probably) with the results of her shopping expeditions with Lady Fairchild. She would tell him about Henry taking Lord Fairchild’s book out in the rain, feeding her sloe berries and fitting himself into her arms. Hadn’t Lord Fairchild warned her against being careful? Very well, then. She’d give up some caution and still keep some pride. She could abide by her decision to exchange letter for letter, but when she wrote, she would fill as many sheets as she liked.
“Yes, and you must come too,” Henry said.
To the steam works, Anna realized. Of course she would go. She would accompany him to a leper colony—anywhere he chose to invite her. “All right. I’ve always wondered which makes more noise—a steam engine or my very own boy.” She nipped his nose, leaving a smudge of dirt.
Henry pulled away, rolling his eyes. But he was smiling.
*****
When Alistair arrived in Madrid, Griggs and three letters were waiting for him: two inscribed in a neat hand from Mrs. Anna Morris, and another from his aunt. Alistair endured Griggs’ fussing for an hour, trying not to let his hands twitch for the letters as his batman had his way with wash towels, razors and ointment. He was worse than ever, frowning over the holes in Alistair’s hat, reminding him he’d promised Mrs. Morris to look after him. Finally Alistair couldn’t wait any longer. Dismissing Griggs with an oath and a hurled boot (true, Griggs had got him a very tolerable billet, but all the fussing had already used up any credit he’d earned there), Alistair adjusted himself more comfortably on the bed and reached for the letters.
“We’ll apply that ointment again in an hour,” Griggs said, cracking open the door.
“Let me alone with my letters, or I’ll apply it to your eyeballs!” Alistair snapped. The door closed with a thud. Alistair forced himself to open Lady Fairchild’s message first. It was short, written in thick, emphatic lines that might have bled through to the other side if not for the quality of the paper.
. . . Lovely to look at of course, but there is a Wall of Reserve I cannot get past . . . sometimes I think she is rather sly . . . it relieves me tremendously when I remember she isn’t really going to marry you. The cost of maintaining her appearance would be ruinous. You wouldn’t believe what she spent on stockings last week!
Things couldn’t be going well if his aunt was finding fault over such trifles. Alistair sighed and opened the next letter.
Dear Alistair—
It was a sight better than Captain Beaumaris.
I hope this letter finds you well.
That last, not so much. It sounded a good deal like the letters he’d been forced to write his parents from school.
For myself, I’m contemplating life as a monkey trainer—it appears so much easier than mothering my son. I took him to a pantomime yesterday and the woman in charge of the monkeys seemed to have an easier time of it. She had a very fine costume of silver spangles, so animal training seems to offer a tolerable style of living. Of course, I’m comfortably circumstanced thanks to your intervention with my brother-in-law. I could conceivably buy a silver-spangled costume without coaxing furry creatures through hoops, but I think your aunt wouldn’t like me wearing anything so revealing in her house. She doesn’t like me much, I’m afraid.
He laughed, then winced.
Your uncle has been very kind.
Oh dear. That wouldn’t help.
With the Little Season upon us, there are innumerable parties. I prefer the dancing kind, though I did win a pretty sum playing silver loo the other night. Exhilarating, when I am used to playing against my parents for matchsticks. My mother, of course, does not approve. I attend church with my parents and continue working with my mother on behalf of the dispensary. I saw the most interesting rash this week.
Alistair scanned over these gruesome details. Really, his own saddle sores were bad enough. Idling around Madrid would give them a chance to heal, as would the vile smelling ointment smeared across his bare buttocks. Griggs said, as he’d been slathering it on, that word was they’d be in Madrid for a few more weeks. Alistair rolled onto his back, pulling up the edge of his blanket to cover his midsection. Griggs wouldn’t like him getting ointment all over the sheets, but the stuff smelled powerfully enough Alistair thought it might be good against the fleas. He grabbed his boots from the floor and stuffed them under his shoulders, propping them up so he could read comfortably. He opened the second letter.
More parties of course, but they are less fun now that your cousin Henrietta is gone. We visit my parents more. I miss them and they love to see Henry. He likes to go with my father to watch the ships. They also went to see a steam works—Henry was most impressed. Since the expedition he has been trying to build his own version upstairs in the nursery. I think it will be fine since I have removed his stash of coal and made sure he can’t get any matches.
Do all children require such extraordinary vigilance? You won’t credit the number of times I’ve caught him a moment away from disaster. I have lurched from heart-stopping fear to wrath more times than I care to count. He listens to perhaps one word in ten when I scold, but he smiles at me. Several times a day now, though often with mischief. He fed me sloe berries. I’d forgotten how truly awful they are.
She didn’t mention Lady Fairchild again. Alistair went back to his aunt’s letter, frowning, aware there was nothing to be done. Anna would have to manage, and so would his aunt. If Anna’s company was irksome, all the more reason to help her to another husband quickly. Though that was a prospect that gave him no joy.
He should send off his own letters. There were three in his bags, including his dangerous gamble, written after the fighting at Burgos. Alistair chewed the inside of his lip. Writing the thing had been easy enough, but sending it . . . . Once it passed from his hands, there was no going back. Asking her to give up the comforts of London was incredibly selfish. And what could he offer her? The chance to rub grease over his bottom in place of Griggs? No, sending that letter was not the honorable thing to do. He’d keep it for himself, because he couldn’t burden her with a request like that.
The days passed, and Griggs’ face, as he inspected Alistair’s sores, grew less grim. Alistair finally threw the jar of ointment against the wall, the resulting odor a just reward for his show of bad temper. Still, it convinced Griggs to leave him alone and let him enjoy Madrid.
The city was full of diversions for the English, even though most of them had little money. It cost only a pittance to eat and drink at the cafes lining the Prado, where strolling guitarists would play for anyone willing to spare the smallest coin. There were dances hosted by wealthy Madrileños, who filled their stately homes with music, wine, and beautiful ladies, bedecked in silks and lace. Sometimes Alistair would catch a twinkling eye or slide a hand around a slender waist, but too often he’d end up thinking about Anna and the
n about Anthony Morris and the morality of taking without giving. It ruined the mood, sending the stars falling to earth, turning pretty ladies into tawdry girls and flighty gallants into callous seducers. He’d given Anna his word, and though it was only temporary, it left him with nothing to give to anyone else. He was fast acquiring a reputation as the stuffiest man in the company.
Still, Madrid and her balls were a world away from weary marches and cold bivouacs, a pleasant diversion from war—until the walk home in the early morning, when wheelbarrows filled with the dead joined you on the road leaving the city. Starvation and war always kept close company. Alistair was used to that.
When he had a moment to himself, he wrote Anna or re-read her letters. He was chuckling again about Henry’s steam works when he heard footsteps on the stairs. Hastily stuffing the letters in his trunk, he dismissed thoughts of Anna in silver spangles.
“Almost ready,” he called, reaching for his hat.
Jamieson blew through the door. “We’ll be late,” he said. “Good Lord, what’s that stench?”
Alistair wrinkled his nose, though he couldn’t smell anything anymore—the skin lining his nose had probably burned away. “Griggs’ cure for my saddle sores, I expect,” he said.
“Well, it works, from the look of you, but no wonder the ladies give you a wide berth!”
Alistair checked his watch. “Where are we going again?”
Jameson stared at him. “Hamlet. Remember?”
Now he did, but he restrained the sigh, murmuring instead, “The thespians of the 95th. Such a delight.”
“I’m going to enjoy myself,” said an affronted Jamieson. “Besides, not much else to do until the paymaster loosens his fist.”
Alistair smiled, just to be agreeable, though Jamieson was dead wrong. Acquiring expensive mistresses was what put a fellow under water. “You aren’t bringing Manuela?” Alistair asked.
“Not tonight,” Jamieson said, flushing under his freckles, like he always did when her name came up. He’d arrived in Madrid, only a little the worse for wear, and promptly found himself a stunning mistress who claimed she was partial to men with fiery red hair.
Or whoever’s paying. No point in being churlish about it, Alistair chided himself. He shouldn’t be jealous. And he wasn’t really—Jamieson’s Manuela was lovely, but Alistair didn’t want her. “Take care of your hide,” Alistair said, leading Jamieson down the stairs. “What would I do for entertainment without your blushes?” Perhaps it was unsporting to tease him over his crimson cheeks, but Alistair liked him better because of them. It took a good five minutes for Jamieson to stop spluttering.
Chapter Twenty-One
Retreats
Two days later, they were ordered to retreat from Madrid. Wellington’s siege had failed; they would attempt the liberation of Spain again another year. Outnumbered, with winter approaching, it was time to seek safety and gather in Portugal again. The army had almost become soldier-farmers they’d been at this seasonal rhythm so long. It was dispiriting news after the great victories of the summer.
Progress was slow, as always. They stopped in a few villages, waiting for orders under intermittent rain before finally climbing the pass of Guadarrama under an opaque grey sky. The snail’s pace was torturous, especially for Alistair’s brigade, who formed the rearguard, ever mindful of the reports that Marshall Soult and King Joseph’s numerous force was advancing behind them. When they began their descent at last, Alistair reached up to finger the hole in his hat. No sign yet of Soult’s army. His luck still held.
Two days of resting in Aravaca changed his mind. There were no houses, the tents were sodden, and men began falling ill with dysentery.
“You sick too?” Alistair demanded, returning to his tent to find Griggs white and sweating, hanging out Alistair’s wet clothes.
“I’m never sick,” Griggs said through chattering teeth. It had certainly never happened before.
“Forget the clothes. They’ll never dry in this. Get some rest,” Alistair said, pointing to his camp bed, concealing his alarm. Griggs began to argue, but Alistair cut him off with a curse. “You’re no good to me ill, and you’ll get worse sleeping on the ground.” Griggs didn’t argue when Alistair pressed him with a flask of brandy, and drifted off to sleep not long after swallowing the dose. Yanking on his heavy cloak, Alistair set out in the evening rain, but the doctors were too harassed to come.
“Bring him here if you want him seen,” said the exhausted orderly, but Alistair wasn’t going to consign his man to the field hospital if he could help it. Venturing into the wagon train, he bought a pot of broth from a sergeant’s optimistically named wife, which he reheated in his tent over a spirit lamp and spooned down Griggs’s throat.
“You must drink and stay warm,” he said, knowing they wouldn’t be stopped for long. Griggs needed to recover quickly. It was November, and soon the rain would become snow. Alistair passed two anxious nights dabbing Griggs’ forehead and reading him Horace before Griggs recovered enough to snap at him to put the damn book away.
Alistair pocketed Horace with a relieved smile. “It’s all I have,” he apologized, spreading his hands.
“Just let me sleep,” Griggs begged with a groan, rolling over and hunching his shoulders. “I’ll give you back your bed tomorrow.”
Griggs would have kept his word, but the next day they were on the march. Spain’s infamous roads were worse than ever. Griggs, mended save for his leaking nose, had the worst of it, driving the mules and Alistair’s spare horse around the foundering wagons. Alistair and his company ranged back and forth, guarding the flanks of the mud-covered infantry, alert for the French. Reuniting with the divisions from Burgos, they camped near Salamanca. To Alistair’s relief, everyone was too wet and surly to recount stories of the victory on the same ground just four months earlier. The scouting reports of the French numbers and positions were too discouraging.
They waited nervously, but the French attack never came. Within a few days they retreated again, leaving in the dark of night. Alistair was glad to leave the plateau, where icy winds cut through his tent and his damp clothes, but the first day’s march was no better. Unceasing rain swelled the rivers until men had to ford through waters up to their shoulders, and softened the roads to oozy pulp. They travelled until dark, making camp in the soggy woods, only to discover that they’d lost the baggage train and were now without food and supplies.
Sitting around a weak fire and devising punishments for the idiotic quartermaster who’d gone the wrong way was little comfort. Alistair emptied the liquor remaining in his flask and pulled his cloak closer, ignoring his alternating spells of dizziness and shivering. He shared out his remaining biscuit with Griggs and his horses, and accepted a cup of something stringy and boiled from one of the men in his company.
“It’s rabbit,” the man assured him with a wink.
Tasted more like horse. Alistair glanced around, but no one was admitting to losing one. The brigade major, who’d seen almost as many battles as God, passed around a hat of roasted acorns. They were scorched in places and left a bitter taste in the mouth, but it was comforting to have something to chew. “Better than nothing in the belly,” the brigade major said.
Alistair woke in the morning to gunfire. Stumbling to his feet with a potent curse, he rushed for his sword and his horse, not pausing to pick up his hat.
“Wake up!” he bellowed, throwing his saddle over the gelding. The mare had carried him the day before and needed rest. Fumbling with the girths—his fingers were half frozen—Alistair watched Jamieson vault onto a bony Spanish mare. “Get to headquarters!” Alistair ordered.
Griggs was hastily rolling blankets, hurling bowls and spoons they’d used last night into the saddlebags. Blowing on his hands to lessen the chill, Alistair quickly surveyed the rest of the company. No more than four or five troopers were mounted. The rest were reeling about like drunkards, still in a fog of sleep, or fumbling through their preparations with stiff limbs,
crippled by fatigue and cold.
If they were caught like this, there was a good chance most of them would soon be dead.
“Make ready!” Alistair bellowed. It was tempting to abandon kits where they lay—a solution that saved one from the sword but not from the snow. Mumbling about the shortcomings of youth—Jameson still wasn’t back yet—Alistair jumped into the saddle and took off after him, cantering toward the nearby village where the senior officers were quartered. The pathetic hamlet sagged in the ceaseless drizzle. It had about as many buildings as there were letters in the alphabet, most of them smaller than sheds. Alistair had probably seen a hundred such places, the lopsided shutters and sparse yards telling a familiar tale. This place had been trampled by so many armies it was a wonder it wasn’t flat.
Jamieson was riding toward him. Alistair drew rein and waited, too experienced to feel any great relief.
“Well?” he asked.
“Nobody knows,” Jamieson panted. “Could be that pack of idiots in the 28th. Maybe they saw a rabbit.”
“I heard three shots,” Alistair said. With rabbits, you never got more than one. “Did they give any orders?”
“Mount everyone and ride southwest to look. Infantry’s going to hot foot out of here,” Jamieson said. As they rode into camp, Jamieson’s mouth went white about the corners. “Damn me if we aren’t going to get nabbed by the French before breakfast! Before those troopers even get their trousers on!”
“At least we don’t have to worry about the quartermaster’s wagons,” Alistair said, trying to calm him. Ready or no, it was time to move. He glanced back to his bivouac, relieved to see that Griggs had loaded the mules and was leading them and the mare in the direction of the 28th Foot. “Stay as close to the column as you can,” Alistair called after him.
Griggs turned, handing off the leads to one of the starveling boys that always seemed to be hovering at hand. He could be English or Spanish or half of each, and might not even know himself.
