by Vicary, Tim
"A King should never be tired, Ann. Or at least, he should not show it. Certainly he should never show fear, or irresolution, when the lives of eight thousand men depend on him. But as you see, all men are mortal, even kings, and ours has not yet been King for so long."
He paused, and looked at her carefully again. She felt she was being measured, to see how much she could be trusted. But she did not feel demeaned; somehow, the care with which he looked at her made her value herself more.
"What I want to say to you, Ann, is this. You will do our cause no service if you tell your father or anyone else of some of things our King said to you just now - of his fears, the broken promises, and the reward offered by his uncle. He should not have said them in front of you and you would be serving the Devil if you told anyone what he said, or how he said it. For if an army is to win, Ann, it must believe in what it is fighting for, and in the man who is leading it. So if you were to go out now and tell anyone that the man who is leading this army is worried and afraid, and does not know what to do next, you would be helping to destroy our last chance of victory. Do you understand?"
"Yes. I shan't speak of it, at all." Ann looked back at the young Colonel gratefully, drawing strength, as her father had done, from the sense of calm determination that filled everything he did. "But there is one thing I don't understand."
"What's that?"
"If Monmouth is like that, and those things that he said are true, why aren't you afraid?"
Wade smiled, and she saw in him something of that reckless, cavalier confidence that she had hoped for in Monmouth, and which, allied to the sturdy puritan virtues beneath, might still win them this war as it had won their grandfathers the last.
"I am afraid all the time, my dear, though it doesn't do to show it. But then, I'm a lot more afraid of the flames of Hell than anything King James can do."
37
"WE'D BE making ready for our wedding now, if it wasn't for that bastard."
Tom looked moodily down across the fields and rooftops towards the main street of Frome, where the tiny distant figure of Monmouth rode his white horse through a cheering crowd of soldiers and citizens. They saw him wave back, graciously enough, and then he disappeared behind the leaves of a rowan tree which grew on the hillside where they were standing. Ann picked a moon daisy, and twirled its stem idly between her fingers as they strolled on in the warm evening.
"'Tis just because he's not a bastard that we've come, isn't it? Because he's the King's legitimate son? Because King Charles married Lucy Water before he married the Queen. So he’s the rightful heir to the throne!"
"Well, I don't believe it any more. If so, why did his father deny it? There's more to being King than wearing fine clothes and waving at folks. Any bastard can do that - 'tis like being a whore, that's all!"
Ann sighed. It was easy enough following Colonel Wade's advice with her father, or William Clegg, or John Spragg; though they were tired, they had won a victory, as they thought, and their spirits were still high; and now, after a second day of rest in Frome, they were ready and eager to march on again towards London. But there was a dreadful bitterness in Tom which she had not seen before, and which frightened her more than anything Monmouth had said. At least Monmouth could hide his fears in public, but if Tom went on talking like this the despair would spread, and then surely all the men from Colyton would be killed, because they had lost the belief for which they fought.
She longed to reach Tom, for their sake rather than his own, and give him back that bluff, angry courage he had had at the beginning.
"He comes from a different world to us, Tom, that's why he wears fine clothes and such. But he was brave enough in the fight at Philip's Norton, wasn't he? John Spragg told me he was right up in the front of everyone on that white horse, where anyone might have shot him."
"Oh yes, he was fine enough there at the beginning, like a proper cock on a dunghill, 'e was. But why didn't 'e let us come off the hill, and drive the Papists back to the Devil where they belong?"
Tom slashed savagely at the grass in the hedgerow behind them with a stick he had found, cutting down some foxgloves and pink campion. Ann picked them up carefully, to add to the little posy she was collecting to take back to the sick men in surgeon Thompson's care.
"Perhaps … I heard Colonel Wade say that it was because we had not enough horse, and so 'twas better tactics, I think he called it, to stand till they attacked us."
"Tactics? To stand in a line and be shot at? And all because he gives command of the horse to that bloody coward Grey, who could hardly fight a fox if it didn't run away from him! Oh Ann, don't you see? 'Tis blind deceit to call ourselves God's army when we're led by men like these! The Lord will forsake us!" He slashed wildly at the grass again, and then sent the stick spinning away into the woods beside the path, startling a blackbird into indignant flight. "We should never have made him King. It was a sin."
Ann stood very still, stroking the posy of flowers gently across her face, feeling the calm of the woods around them.
"So would you rather we had stayed at home then, and done nothing?"
As he looked at her, wonderingly, the wide eyes scared and serious, she saw the familiar boy she had grown up with, the boy who had protected her and whom she had helped with his schoolwork when it puzzled him. But the boy was in a man's body now, and there was something dark and afraid in his eyes; something which she had occasionally glimpsed in Colyton, but which had grown. He was at once the familiar Tom she had always known and also a stranger, alone with his fear. She pitied him for the fear, and yet it frightened her.
He watched her carefully while he answered, as though she had changed for him as well.
"It was right to come when we did, Ann, you know that. But ..."
"But what, Tom?"
"But if we hadn't come, we might be married now. We should be settled into that little cottage and ..."
She shook her head. "How could you have stayed, Tom, when all the others went?"
"I don't mean that. I mean, if Monmouth hadn't come. If he'd come later, or somewhere else. Just think, Ann, we had all our life in front of us, and now ... I may be killed tomorrow because that fool leads us the wrong way, and we'll never know any of it."
She bit her lip as the religious answer came pat to her tongue. It was so obvious, she remembered how her father had used it at the time. ‘He who sets up store for himself in this world shall have nothing, but he who sacrifices his desires to God shall have eternal joy in Heaven.' But it was a measure of the change in Tom that he, with his everlasting doglike following after Israel Fuller, had not realised it for himself. If Israel could not restore his courage through religion, surely she could not.
She looked up, and saw the passion in his dark fearful eyes, before he looked away in shame. And she saw what she must do. She trembled, like a bride holding her posy at the altar, and reached out one hand for his.
"We are together now, Tom, at least."
His big hand tensed as she touched it. Even so much contact between them was strange. She stroked the hairs on the back of his hand gently and looked up into his face, seeing his heavy lips part in doubt. She thought how strange it was that someone so strong could be paralysed by fear, and wished she could set him free. She threw the posy onto the path and took each of his hands in hers, leaning back and smiling up at him.
"See, I am here, Tom. Now. Do we have to wait for the future?"
He scowled, as though he could not quite believe what was happening, but he did not push her away.
"Kiss me, Tom. We may not have another chance."
He looked around suddenly, as though he thought they were being watched, but there was no-one, only the birds beginning their evensong among the leaves. He swallowed, then bent forward suddenly and put his lips to hers.
It was a wet, clumsy kiss, and his sudden rough embrace drew her to him so tightly that her head was bent back sharply over her shoulders; but she gave herself completely, mouldi
ng her lips to his, running her hands through the back of his hair, feeling her body almost lifted from the ground in the strength of his grip.
At last he let her go. She stumbled back, holding on to his arms, and saw the look of shock and wonder on his face. Yet he dared not speak; a half-smile flickered on his lips, and then his arms stiffened and the darkness returned to his eyes.
"Shall we go to the wood, Tom? Someone might see us here."
He was as still as though he were in a dream, so that for a moment she wondered if he had heard her at all. Then the darkness in his eyes changed to hope and the tension in his arm relaxed so that she could lead him off the path and in amongst the trees.
As they walked together, hand in hand, ducking their way under the low sprays of light hazel leaves, it was like the days when they had been children and played house in the copse by the river at Colyton. It had always been she who had had the ideas and taken the lead, he who had had the strength and the physical courage. Now she meant to give him back his courage. Yet as they walked on, she felt her own courage failing her. It was too cold-blooded, to walk into a wood like this, to couple with a man she did not love, even if she was betrothed to him. It felt like a sin, but why? Surely God would not disapprove?
She stopped, at a place where a tree had fallen and made a little glade of grass and ferns.
No, this wouldn’t be a sin against God, she realised. It would be a sin against Robert!
"No ... " she began, but Tom spoke too.
"No-one can see us here," he said, and then he was kissing her again, and her resistance was crushed in his huge, clumsy embrace. But she found she did not want to resist; the strength which she had awakened excited her so that she responded eagerly to the kiss, her hands pressed flat against the hard muscles of his back. The very feel of his back was a surprise to her, for they had hardly touched each other at all during the past year of their courting; now suddenly all caution was gone, and neither could touch enough. She felt his hands clutch her bottom, and clumsily pull up the back of her skirt. She kissed his neck in delight at the crude violence of it. Her own hands pressed his buttocks and legs hard against her, and her mouth sought his lips for another hot, urgent kiss. Then he groaned, and pushed her down on her back in the grass, pulling her skirt up around her waist.
“Wait, Tom! Let me … “ she fumbled with the ribbons at the back of her bodice, suddenly wanting to be out of her dress completely, to give him exactly what she had denied the dragoon, but the ribbons on her dress were too tightly tied and Tom misunderstood. He forced her dress up higher, so that for a moment a fold of the brown cloth came over her head and she had to fight to push it down so she could breathe. She felt him fumbling with his own clothes and the scratch of his belt buckle on her thigh as he pulled his breeches down. He looked at her, his face flushed and urgent, and she thought he would kiss her first and lifted her face to be kissed.
“Yes, Tom, yes!” she said, glorying in the strength she had released, but he was too preoccupied to kiss her. His arm and knee forced her legs up and apart and then she felt a sudden hot tearing pain between her legs, again and again as he thrust himself in and out, his breath coming in great hot gasps through the lips pressed against her neck. She cried out with the pain and tried to arch her back and force him off, but his great weight pressed her down, her arms and legs pushed helplessly aside. He rammed himself hard up into her and shuddered and she cried out again as his back arched and he drew in breath in a huge, moaning gasp. Then he slumped down on top of her and she lay limp, crushed under his bulk, staring up at the pattern of the leaves against the sky, her hands clutching the cloth of the shirt on his back as she drew breath and felt the first long sob well up inside her.
After a while he stirred, and lifted his head to look at her. His face was flushed and heavy, but not cruel. He bent to kiss her, but she turned her head away, feeling the tears trickle off her nose. He kissed her anyway and sat up, heaving at his trousers. She let her bare legs flop uselessly to the ground and pushed some of the skirt down between her legs where the pain was.
He turned to look at her and she hunched away from him on her side, weeping, her arm over her face. He dragged at her skirt.
“Come on, pull it down. Someone might come.”
“Let them! I don’t care!”
“But what are you crying for. It was you who wanted it!”
“Not like this.” She took her arm away from her face and glared at him in fury. He looked a little irritated, but under that, proud – pleased with himself!
“You hurt me!”
"It always hurts for women, first time. That's why you're bleeding - look." He pulled her skirt up again. She flinched, then sat up and stared at the wet blood on her thighs.
"You'd better clean yourself up." He got up, walked over to the fallen tree, and sat down on it quietly with his back to her.
"You ...!" But she was too shocked to think of a word. She stared at his back for nearly a minute, watching the picture slowly blur as the tears returned. She shook them away and tore up handfuls of grass to wipe her legs. Then she made a pad of leaves to stop the rest of the bleeding, wincing as she touched herself. She did it hurriedly, suddenly afraid that someone might come, and take Tom's side as the soldiers in Chard had taken the dragoons'. There was blood on the hem of her skirt; she rubbed it frantically with mud to hide it. No-one must know about this. But what would happen if the bleeding did not stop? Who could she go to for help?
"Are you clean?" He turned and looked at her when she did not answer. She stared back at him, not moving. This is the end of childhood, she thought. She had led him into the wood as she had always led him, when they were children. Now she was a woman, and she had lost control. He stared at her like a stranger, and she did not know what to do.
A pheasant called in the wood, and the distant church clock of Frome chimed the half-hour.
"We'd better get back," he said. "There's muster at nine o'clock."
She followed him out of the glade and back to the path. Twice he held back branches for her, but they did not touch. She had stopped crying, and tried to hold her head up high, to salvage something from the mess; but his eyes, like his body, avoided hers, and the look of pride in his face began to darken to guilt. He did not speak to her, and as they came nearer the town, she looked down at the ground, absorbed in her own sense of shame and failure. When at last they had to part, in the crowded street, it was too late for words, and she hurried back to her room, hoping that the blood would not stain its way through her dress.
38
JOHN SPRAGG had hammered the dent out of Adam's helmet, and the padding of the bandage made it fit better, so that it did not shift and rub his scalp on the march as it had before. At first Adam had been surprised by the weight of his musket and rest, and thought someone had filled the barrel with shot for a joke; but after a few hours on the march he had got used to it, although his legs still trembled and threatened to betray him when he stumbled in a rut.
But anything was better than that horrible jolting on a cart through the wet darkness on the way to Frome. He felt sorry for those poor wounded men whom Ann and Nicolas Thompson had loaded onto the carts this morning. They would be lucky if their wounds were not opened and their bones put out of joint again by the end of the day. Adam rejoiced to be back on the march again, with the solid reassurance of his friends all around him, the familiar steady tramp of their feet, and the larks singing above the hazy dust-cloud kicked up by the thousands of men and horses in front and behind.
Occasionally a psalm broke out, led by the rich baritone of Sergeant Evans; and earlier in the day they heard bits of a sermon preached by the chaplain of the army, given at the top of his voice on the text from Deuteronomy chapter 20: 'The Lord your God is He that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you'. The pauses and crescendoes of his sermon had been punctuated by deep 'Amens' from Adam and the others.
It had not perhaps been one of the be
st sermons he had heard, Adam thought reflectively; for since they were marching away from the enemy the preacher had had to avoid the earlier part of the text 'Ye approach this day unto battle against your enemies'. So he had not quite worked up that air of fiery conviction which Israel Fuller used to have in the secret meetings in the woods near Axminster. But then it must be hard to preach on the march, when you were constantly having to avoid the ruts, or step in the hedgerow out of the way of horsemen taking messages up and down the line, and still keep the thread of your argument and your voice loud enough to carry over the noise of marching feet and creaking leather, and the violent coughs and sneezes of the men plagued with the hay fever. William Clegg had it worst; today, with the warm sun and all-enveloping dust, his eyes and nose were streaming, so that when they had paused at midday he had looked as exhausted as if he had walked twenty miles instead of ten. Adam caught himself hoping he would not have to stand near Clegg in the battle line, and offered up a short prayer instead that he would be cured of the affliction on the day of battle so that he could fight his best for the cause, though he doubted, as ever, whether his prayers would be heard.
Adam wondered when the next battle would be. There had been murmurs of dismay from several men, not only Tom, when they had found themselves marching west out of Frome that morning, instead of east to Warminster, as they had expected. Last night John Clapp had come over from the cavalry, with the news that small detachments had already been sent east to find lodgings and look for arms and recruits on the road to Warminster, Longleat and London. Roger Satchell and Sergeant Evans had agreed in warning them all to march ready for battle, for Lord Feversham would surely not let them out into the plains of Wiltshire without a fight.
Instead, here they were marching briskly back to Shepton Mallet, with not a royal soldier in sight. Roger Satchell had tried to cheer them by suggesting it had all been a trick to send Lord Feversham the wrong way, at which one or two had laughed. But what was the point of giving the enemy the slip, John Spragg had asked, if by doing so you let him get between you and London? Roger had scratched his head, and said he did not know, but perhaps they were marching to join up with some more recruits. No-one thought that particularly likely, since they had already been this way before. Perhaps, William Clegg said, it was due to the kindness of their leader in not wanting to make his men start out the day with the sun in their eyes; but if so, they should then have made camp at midday, or turned round, instead of tramping on all afternoon into the west.