The Bleeding Land

by Giles Kristian

  ‘I was beginning to think we’d lost you,’ O’Brien said, looking up at Mun with glazed eyes and offering him the cup. Mun drank of it deeply, handed it back and shuddered, dragging a frozen hand across his mouth and beard.

  ‘Captain Boone was looking for you,’ Vincent Rowe told him, the feeble flamelight making sharp angles of the young man’s face.

  ‘With a face like a bulldog licking piss off a thistle,’ O’Brien added, cocking an eyebrow but not taking his eyes off the flames.

  ‘And there was me thinking that bastard would be too busy enjoying his spoils to care,’ Mun said, holding his hands near the flames and wincing as the hot aches began to fill them.

  ‘Want some?’ Downes asked, ripping a hunk of bread off a loaf and offering it to him. He took it with a nod of thanks. ‘Found it in the rebels’ train,’ Downes said through a mouthful. But when Mun tried to eat the bread he found that his mouth would not work properly. The jaw bones themselves were numb, so that he could not chew, and he stuffed the bread between his sash and his breastplate instead, saving it for later.

  ‘I heard we got the King’s colours back,’ Rowe said in an obvious attempt to lift the mood. One man muttered that they should not have lost them in the first place, and another questioned what was an ensign against the lives given for it. Mun sat by O’Brien, looking into the flames and half listening to the talk but not wanting any part in it. Some managed to get a little sleep. Others, many still in armour for want of anything warmer, walked back and forth between the resting men, for it was the only way they could find to keep some vestige of heat in their flesh and bones. Mun gave himself over to this strange semi-conscious state, too weary to be properly one of the living but too repelled by the day’s events to sleep. And before the first hint of the new day announced itself as a cold, white glow beyond the hill upon which the King’s army hunched, Captain Nehemiah Boone returned, his tired eyes flaring when they recognized Mun amongst those still huddled by the smouldering embers.

  ‘Rivers,’ he spat, beard and moustaches unkempt, his cloak pulled tight at his neck. In his other hand he clutched a wine pitcher that moved as though empty or nearly so.

  ‘Captain,’ Mun acknowledged him, blinking exhaustion from his own eyes, trying to sharpen them. With Boone were Corporal Bard, Humphrey Walton and several of the others in the troop who had lingered amongst the rebel baggage train rather than rejoining the battle, but from their looks they did not seem eager for the confrontation.

  ‘You care to finish what you started earlier in the day, you brazen cur?’ Boone snarled, handing the wine jug to Bard and stepping in amongst the ring of slumberous soldiers. Bard put the jug to his lips and drained the last of the liquid, never taking his eyes off Mun.

  ‘And get myself hanged for fighting an officer?’ Mun said.

  ‘Let’s put the whole thing behind us, eh?’ O’Brien suggested with a smile.

  ‘Shut your damned Irish mouth,’ Boone warned, pushing his long, lank hair back from his face and glaring at Mun. ‘You won’t live long enough to hang, you base bloody villain.’

  ‘So be it,’ Mun said, climbing to his feet, every muscle complaining, every sinew taut as a bowstring.

  Then a shiver ran through the assemblage thronging the hillside and with it came a murmur like that of the sea and all turned east towards the spreading glow of dawn.

  ‘What is it now?’ Rowe said, craning to spy what was causing the fuss, huffing into cold hands as, all around, men were getting to their feet.

  ‘Holy Christ, it’s the King himself,’ O’Brien said, standing with the rest as the King of England, Ireland and Scotland descended the slope with a retinue of knights and musketeers. He wore a broad-brimmed hat and a black cloak and was conspicuous as much for not being apparently armed as for being the King.

  ‘He’s smaller than I imagined him,’ Downes murmured as men began to fall to their knees and bow their heads, though all, Mun noticed, watched their king from beneath their brows as he passed.

  ‘And he has a face like thunder, too,’ O’Brien added, wincing through aches as he went down to one knee, and Humphrey Walton replied that that was hardly surprising seeing as His Majesty had today learned that his own subjects were prepared and willing to turn their muskets and cannon on him.

  ‘Make way for His Royal Majesty, Charles, by the grace of God King of England, France and Ireland, King of Scots and defender of the faith!’ a courtier yelled in a sergeant’s voice, and Mun saw another man beside the King, in a buff-coat and three-barred pot, point in their direction.

  ‘Smarten up, boys, they’re coming this way,’ Corporal Bard said through a grimace, sweeping a filthy hand through his filthy grey hair, and suddenly the men in Mun’s troop looked as terrified as they had before the day’s first charge, turning their eyes to the ground as though they wished it would swallow them. And then he was there, amongst them. Charles Stuart, King anointed by God.

  ‘You are our nephew’s fellows, are you not?’ the King accused, his Scots accent taking some by surprise, Mun saw from their furtive glances. ‘You swept Ramsey’s Horse from the f-f-field but having done so it was a p-p-pity you did not see f-fit to return to us. In your beating of them you near beat us,’ he said.

  Mun kept his eyes on the ground, wondering if any would dare reply. Then someone coughed into the awkward silence.

  ‘Your Majesty, many of our men are young. Inexperienced.’ It was Captain Boone. ‘Their enthusiasm for the fight ran away with them.’

  ‘Devious God-damned worm,’ Mun whispered to himself.

  ‘But if it please Your Majesty, we will do much better next time,’ Boone went on. ‘If the traitors dare face Your Majesty in the field again, for surely we have today given them a rare thrashing.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Captain Nehemiah Boone, Your Majesty,’ he said, seizing the moment. ‘I served with the Prince in Germany. It was I who seized the enemy’s baggage train today after a fierce fight of it.’

  ‘Indeed?’ The King turned one eye on him. ‘And we had been led to understand the rebels flew like sparrows from the cat.’

  ‘I can assure Your Majesty—’

  A royal hand silenced Boone. ‘Is this the man, Captain Smith?’ the King asked. Mun lowered his head again and could see the King’s bucket-top boots now, the brown French calfskin leather stained at the toe, and it struck him how small the feet must be inside those boots.

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty, this is the lad.’

  ‘Edmund Rivers.’ The King spoke as though he had long sought the face to the name, and Mun raised his head though did not look his king directly in the eye.

  ‘At your service, Your Majesty,’ he said.

  ‘Indeed,’ said the King again. ‘Captain Smith – Sir John – tells us that you and he alone were responsible for retrieving our colours from the miscreant devils.’

  Sir John? thought Mun, glancing at Smith, and nodded. ‘I rode with Captain Smith, Your Majesty,’ he said.

  ‘And Sir John tells us that the two of you defeated ten of the base fellows?’

  Mun’s eyes flicked to Captain Smith who gave an almost imperceptible shrug and the ghost of a grin.

  ‘It all happened so quickly, Your Majesty,’ Mun said, ‘that I cannot say how many we faced. I merely followed the captain’s bold example.’ His eyes were drawn upwards until they were looking into the King’s. ‘By God’s grace we wrested the prize from them and they had not the heart to make a chase of it.’

  The King glanced at Smith then as though what Mun had just said did not entirely match the captain’s story.

  ‘Well, we are g-g-grateful to you, Edmund, and are pleased to have men of courage and virtue in our army.’

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Mun said, lost for words.

  ‘Neither do we forget the service of your loyal father, Sir F-francis Rivers, who we f-fear did not survive the day.’ The words struck like a musket ball and Mun’s soul shuddered under the impact. ‘Indeed
, there is a certain tragic irony that the son should recover what the father died trying to protect. But take comfort, Edmund, that your loyal father is now with G-god, f-f-full of glory and never again to know sin or sorrow. His king shall not f-forget him. Neither shall your courageous act go unrewarded.’

  ‘I seek no reward other than to serve Your Majesty and put the rebels back in their place,’ Mun said, at which the King cocked his head, pulling his thin beard through bone-white knuckles.

  ‘Nevertheless, I have come all this way,’ the King said. ‘And have had my fill this day of what my subjects would or would not have. Sir John, will you stand as Edmund’s sponsor?’

  ‘I will, Your Majesty.’

  The King nodded. ‘My spurs,’ he said, at which Captain Smith, now Sir John Smith, for the first time that day, it seemed to Mun, appeared ruffled; yet he went to one knee and began to fumble at the buckles of the King’s spurs.

  ‘Do you swear to never traffic with traitors?’ the King asked.

  ‘I swear it,’ Mun said, hardly believing what was happening.

  ‘Do you swear to never give evil counsel to a lady, but to treat her with respect and defend her against all?’

  ‘I swear it,’ Mun heard himself reply.

  ‘And do you swear to serve God and your king f-faithfully so long as you live?’

  ‘I swear it.’

  In the distance men were yelling and oxen lowing as gun teams yet hauled cannon up the Edgehill escarpment, but for a hundred paces in all directions around the King the only sounds were of crackling flames, the snorts and whinnies of horses and the occasional bark of a dog.

  ‘Sword,’ the King said. There was a rasp and the next thing Mun felt was the flat of a blade on his left shoulder. ‘I dub thee Sir Knight,’ King Charles said, then struck Mun’s other shoulder. ‘Arise, Sir Edmund Rivers, loyal Knight and defender of the realm.’

  Mun climbed to his feet and glanced about him at those still on their knees. O’Brien winked at him through matted strings of thick red hair. Downes and Rowe were grinning. He could not see Captain Boone’s face but could guess well enough the expression on it.

  The King circled a finger in a get on with it gesture at which Captain Smith fell to one knee again, this time behind Mun, and took off Mun’s spurs, replacing them with the King’s own, whose highly polished silver yoke and rowels glowed in the ebbing gloom.

  And with that Charles Stuart turned and swept away, his well-armed entourage, including Captain Smith, rattling in his wake as they made their way back up the hill through the press of battle-stunned men.

  ‘Sir Edmund bloody Rivers,’ O’Brien said, half looking at Captain Boone which was the same as rubbing salt into a cut. ‘Who would have thought it?’

  Boone glared at Mun and there was murder in his eyes, but then he turned and strode off, leaving Mun trying to make sense of all that had just happened. ‘Is there any more where that came from, Clancy?’ he asked, nodding at the cup on the ground beside the big Irishman.

  O’Brien frowned at the use of his Christian name, but then teeth split his red beard and he held up a thick index finger. ‘It just happens I might know where the last of it is stashed, Your Grace,’ he mocked, bowing his head deferentially. ‘And as my da used to say, it’s the first drop that destroys you; there’s no harm at all in the last. So we might as well drink ourselves silly.’

  There were more than a few murmurs of agreement at this, from men who wanted nothing more than to forget all that they had seen that day. All that they had done.

  Mun turned and looked down onto the field where the slain lay in heaps yet swathed in night’s shroud. It would be several hours before the breaking dawn spilled its light over the escarpment, flooding the plain and illuminating the extent of the carnage.

  ‘Dear God.’ He felt the whisper escape his lips. ‘What have we done?’ He shivered. Down there somewhere, amongst tortured flesh, amidst the ruins of countless families, lay his own father. Alone in the cold. Defiled by looters.

  Emmanuel was down there too and Mun’s heart bled for Bess who would never see him again, and for the unborn child in her belly who would never know its father.

  ‘Try not to think about it, lad. At least not tonight.’ He felt the arm on his shoulder and recognized the voice of Corporal Bard, smelt the tobacco on the man’s breath. But he did not turn round. Because there were tears in his eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  AM I DEAD? he is coming for me. I hear him. his breath.

  Hell.

  His next conscious thought – some considerable time after the last, he somehow knew – was that he was not dead. Satan was not coming for him. The faint, rhythmic sound in his ears was his own breath, shallow as a puddle of blood.

  I am blind! Panic flooded in, crushing him, and then the stench hit him and he screamed but the sound was blunt and stifled and he tried to thrash his limbs but he could not. He was being crushed. He screamed again, the terror rending his soul, and suddenly he could feel his heart pounding in his chest and he thought it must burst.

  Then a flare: burning white light that ripped into his eye sockets. Instinct turned his face away. He was going to be sick.

  ‘Mother of God!’ A man’s voice. Not his own. ‘Margaret! Margaret!’

  The searing blaze shrank away and Tom blinked again and again and the brilliant white light became blue.

  Sky. I am alive.

  ‘It is a miracle!’ A woman’s voice. ‘Dear Lord! The poor boy is alive!’

  ‘A Lazarus before our very eyes!’ the man said.

  Then Tom was shivering wildly, teeth rattling, limbs jigging like a hanged man.

  ‘Here, lad, take my hand. You’re safe now.’

  There were arms and legs and pale faces. Blood. And that atrocious stench. He flailed and thrashed amongst the dead, horror clutching his being, and then strong hands gripped him, living hands, and pulled him from the cart, from the pain-filled, questioning faces of the naked, stiff corpses who had accepted Tom as one of their own. Who would not have him leave.

  He bent, then fell to his knees and retched, but his stomach was empty and all that came up was bitter strings of bile that burned his throat and mouth.

  ‘Get him some beer, Margaret! It’s all right, lad. It’s all right. You’re safe now. Here, put this on.’ The man took off his cloak and a moment later Tom knew the cloak was wrapped around his shuddering body but he could not feel it. He was naked. All the corpses were. Three feet away was a pit and in it were more of them, arms and legs entangled in a macabre intimacy that only the dead would countenance.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘What’s that, lad? What are you saying?’

  He swallowed. It felt as if he had a length of burning match stuck in his throat. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Kineton village, lad.’

  Tom glanced around expecting to see soldiers and colours, horses and tents. But there was just open land, brambles and hedges and rough grazing. A stone’s throw away were the ruins of an old church. Two crows squabbled on the overgrown remains of the nave wall.

  ‘The ground is still consecrated, so they say,’ the man explained guiltily, brows arching outwards, eyes glancing away.

  ‘Makes no difference to me for I’m not going in it,’ Tom said through chattering teeth. He looked at his right hand and retched again. The third finger was gone, in its place a gory stub of congealed blood and white bone, and the wraith of a memory skimmed through his mind, of a shadow man stooping over him with a knife.

  Then the woman was back and she gave a leather jack to her husband, who carefully gave it to Tom, wrapping Tom’s hands around it and keeping his own over the top of them to help guide the jack to his lips.

  He drank it all, feeling the liquid splash in his empty belly, then handed back the empty vessel and the man nodded brusquely. ‘We had better get you inside,’ he said. ‘Don’t want you dying on us after coming back from the dead like that. That’d be a pity, eh? Thin
k you can walk?’

  Tom nodded, accepting the arm offered him, and climbed to his feet, his head spinning and his brain hammering. And then he felt the agony in his left shoulder. It felt like a red-hot knife twisting in his flesh.

  ‘Aye, you were shot from the looks of it,’ the man said. ‘I’d say the ball went through yer flesh. Don’t think it’s still in there. Probably did for the fellow behind you instead. But we’ll give it a good wash and have a proper look. Now now, lad, no more looking at them. That won’t do you any good. You’re with the living again now.’ With that the man turned him round, away from the open grave and the cart still laden with bluish corpses, and his wife, Margaret, who before had seemed afraid to come too close, took his other arm and put it across her shoulder.

  ‘My boots,’ Tom said, looking at his bare feet, numb as stones and white against the mud and grass.

  ‘I found you as you are,’ the man said.

  ‘Achilles!’

  ‘Peace, lad. Save yer strength.’

  ‘My horse,’ Tom said, as the memory of Achilles falling and of him being thrown came crashing in on him like a wave on shingle.

  ‘As I said, lad, there was nothing else. Just dead folk and dead horses. And bloody crows.’

  Worse than the pain of his ravaged shoulder and the loss of his finger – the stump of which was still numb, thankfully – and the loss of his pistols and everything he owned, worse even than the horror of spending a night among the dead, was the hard cold truth that Achilles, his loyal friend, was dead.

  The Dunnes’ house was a small, timber-framed affair in a modest row of dwellings on Warwick Road across from St Peter’s church. Two rooms above two rooms, its ancient wattle-and-daub walls were crumbling and its thatch looked hard-pressed to prove a challenge to anything more than a spit of rain. And yet inside it was warm, dry and safe, and what little Edward, Margaret and their daughter Anne had they seemed happy to share with Tom. He had the sense they would have taken him in even if he had fought for the King, with whom they had ‘differences’, as Edward had put it, though he could not be sure because the Dunnes did not seem inclined to discuss their allegiances. Which was fine by Tom. Edward had set a fire in the dark, modest parlour and sat Tom beside it to thaw his bones. Then Margaret had washed Tom from head to foot and he had let her do it, being too exhausted for a show of modesty now after all he had been through. Besides which, the Dunnes had two sons of about Tom’s age, who were off fighting for Parliament.