Firebird

by Iris Gower

  Llinos felt at a disadvantage as she followed Binnie into a spotless kitchen.

  ‘I want you to come back to the pottery,’ she blurted out, cursing herself inwardly for her clumsiness. Binnie raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘Things are different now,’ she said quickly. ‘My mother has put that awful man in his place for good, I hope. Please Binnie, say you’ll come back, I can’t manage without you.’ The words seemed to hang in silence for a long time and then Binnie rubbed his hand through his hair, making it stand on end.

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’ He looked at Maura and she stared back in angry silence.

  ‘Give me time, will you?’ Binnie was apologetic as he followed Llinos to the door. ‘I’ll come up and see you at the pottery tomorrow, all right?’

  ‘Right, yes, see you tomorrow.’ As Llinos mounted her horse and made her way back along the river bank towards the pottery, she was fighting back the tears. She had thought it would be so easy, just ask and Binnie would come with her. Well, it seemed that Binnie had other ideas. He had a new life, a life that included a beautiful Irish girl.

  When she reached home, Llinos found her mother in the kitchen. There was no sign of Mr Cimla.

  ‘You should have offered him a rise,’ Gwen said when Llinos told her of Binnie’s reaction. ‘Where is Binnie working now and how much is he getting?’

  ‘I don’t know, I was so taken aback that I didn’t ask him.’

  ‘Ah, well, we can always apply to the union workhouse for a boy, I suppose. That’s where Binnie came from and he proved reliable, didn’t he?’ Her voice was muffled. ‘I know it’s partly my fault Binnie left us; I’m sorry, Llinos, but perhaps it’s for the best.’

  Llinos was silent for a moment. ‘No, Mother, it won’t do, I must get Binnie back. A boy from the workhouse would be inexperienced. I need help now.’

  Gwen turned to face her then and Llinos took a deep breath. ‘Mother! Oh, Mother! Your poor eye is all swollen and bruised. That man has hit you, he’s nothing but a cowardly monster!’

  Gwen began to cry. She closed the kitchen door and sat down at the table. ‘I don’t want Nora to hear but it’s over, I’ve sent him packing,’ Gwen said. ‘I hope and pray he never comes back.’

  ‘Good for you, Mam! Now we can start to live a normal life again,’ Llinos said.

  ‘It’s not quite as simple as that.’ Gwen bit her lip, struggling for composure. ‘I have something to tell you.’

  Llinos felt a sense of foreboding as she looked across the table at her mother.

  ‘I’m expecting his child.’ Gwen’s voice faltered. ‘A month ago I would have been beside myself with happiness. Now I don’t know what I feel.’

  Llinos closed her eyes trying to imagine her mother nursing a baby, Mr Cimla’s baby. ‘Does he know?’

  Gwen shook her head. ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘What can we do?’ Llinos felt panic begin to weave a knot inside her. How could she hope to deal with the work of the pottery and look after her mother?

  ‘There’s not a lot we can do, not about the child. But Mr Cimla is a different kettle of fish. If he returns, you must send him away. This is your house and if you don’t want him here, he has no right to stay.’

  ‘All right, I’ll tell him, don’t worry.’ Even as she spoke she heard the sound of the front door slamming. She rose to her feet, suddenly tense. Mr Cimla, it seemed, had decided to come home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Joe watched the older man as he bent over the card table in the tent. The scratch of the quill over the paper as Savage wrote seemed extraordinarily loud in the silence of the early morning. Joe felt a moment of sadness. The captain wrote home almost every day. His letters were taken away from the battle lines by the rider but there was never any reply.

  Perhaps Mrs Savage did not know if her husband was alive or dead. It was more than a possibility. If a soldier, even a captain, was missing for more than a few days, someone in command would assume the worst. Letters of condolence would be written, families devastated. But that was war.

  Joe left the tent silently and crouched over the fire. He was boiling gruel for breakfast, it was nourishing but thin, and to thicken it Joe stirred in the milk he had stolen during the night.

  It had been quiet in the cowshed, the farm animals docile, soothed by Joe’s gentle tones. He had closed his eyes, leaning against the warm flank, drawing down the milk, enjoying a moment of peace.

  Briefly he had seen a candle flicker in an upstairs window of the French farmhouse. As he watched, ready for flight, he heard the sound of an infant crying. Shortly afterwards, the light was extinguished, there was silence and the inhabitants of the farmhouse slept once more.

  The captain came out of the tent and stared down into the pot. ‘That looks like a hearty breakfast.’

  Joe smiled up at him. ‘We’re having eggs too, a little feast before we march to battle.’

  He heard Savage sigh and knew the reason for the heaviness reflected in the captain’s eyes.

  ‘Your letters are not getting through.’ Joe spoke with finality. ‘I saw the rider dead beneath his horse.’

  Savage crouched down beside him. ‘Do you mean literally, Joe, or in one of your . . . your dreams?’

  Joe looked up briefly. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No, I suppose not. You are probably right. You always are. But I’ll keep writing, you never know, one or two of them might reach my wife.’

  Joe ladled the gruel into the tin vessels and handed one to the captain.

  ‘Eat while it is hot. It will put heart into you.’

  ‘How old are you, Joe?’

  Joe smiled. ‘As old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Clever sod.’ Savage scraped the bottom of the tin. ‘I ask because you seem wise beyond your years.’

  Joe finished the gruel and began cleaning his tin and the cooking pot with the sandy earth. He wiped the utensils with fresh dewy grass and poured a small amount of the precious supply of water into them, swirling it around before tipping it onto the ground. Joe was always sparing with the water, conscious that the next spring might be miles away.

  He cracked four eggs into the pot and added some of the milk. ‘You’ll enjoy this, Captain.’

  ‘My mouth is watering already.’

  Joe was silent, intent on the task in hand. He watched the egg solidify. When the meal was ready, the two men ate silently for a time and then Joe looked up. ‘What time are we to leave camp, Captain?’ he asked.

  He watched quietly as Savage considered the question, knowing the answer already.

  ‘Directly after sundown. You and I will set out ahead of the rest.’ He waved the letter he had just written.

  ‘This is the last letter I might ever write home, Joe. I have made my prayers to my God. Have you made supplication to your God for our safety? We are going to need all the help we can get.’

  ‘We will be safe, Captain.’ Joe finished his meal in silence. ‘I’ll pack up the kit and then I shall walk out for a while.’ He allowed himself a small smile. ‘I shall commune with the spirits of my ancestors. That is unless you need me for anything?’

  Savage shook his head. ‘I have a briefing to attend. The orders will be duly given that we search out the location of the French armies and as usual, you and I will interpret those orders freely.’

  Joe inclined his head. What did these generals know? They sat on their fat backsides and directed operations, sending hapless men to their deaths with a few dashes of ink on parchment. Always, the generals kept well to the rear of any attack. Cowards ran the armies of England and heroes fought in them.

  Joe allowed that there was one exception. Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, was a brave man. He led his troops like the good soldier he was, riding his horse Copenhagen into the most fierce of battles.

  There had been occasional rumours that the Field Marshal’s high handed attitude drew more English
bullets than French but Joe discounted them. He had seen the man to be fair and unafraid.

  Now, if Joe’s instincts were correct, there would be one hell of a battle taking place before too many moons had passed and Wellington would need all his reserves of courage.

  Joe rolled the cooking utensils into his blanket and tied it securely. He repeated the operation with the captain’s equipment. The small wooden box containing the captain’s personal effects was strapped onto the blankets.

  Joe was familiar with the contents of the box. There was the captain’s pipe, the ink powder and quill and a tiny miniature painting of a lady with a small child in her arms.

  The child was grown now, she was a young woman. Llinos. Joe had never seen her, only her likeness, but he knew her, she was in his heart, in his bones, in his soul. She inhabited his dreams. And in sleep, they reached out to each other across the sea and touched each other with their minds.

  He would hold her in his arms one day. Their destiny was joined. Llinos, whom he called Firebird, and Wah-he-joe-tass-e-neen would be mates in body as well as soul.

  Joe forced his mind back to the task in hand. There was no need to carry food; anything he needed he would obtain on the journey. There were numerous farmyards scattered around the countryside with thin hens scratching in the dusty soil where he would find any number of eggs. Sometimes, if good fortune hunted with him, Joe would catch a juicy piglet and roast it and then there would be enough cold meat to last for several days. He and the captain had not gone hungry yet.

  His task completed, Joe moved across the perimeter of the camp and into the outcrop of rocks beyond. There, he sat on the ground and crossed his legs, resting his hands on his knees. He did not close his eyes, there was no need; in any case, he would never risk being taken unawares.

  He allowed his mind to roam at will. Not his educated mind, the white man’s mind, but the Indian part of him that knew the secrets of the universe. In the leaves on the bushes and in the clouds in the sky, he saw his images. Now, quite clearly, he saw the captain’s wife, the elegant woman in the miniature.

  It was the same woman but she was different. She was older, careworn. There was no smile in her eyes. Beside her was the spectre of the great spirit of death. The image changed. The girl, young but with the look of the captain in the darkness of her hair and eyes, was shedding tears. Tragedy was stalking the captain’s house and it came in the guise of a drunken man.

  Joe stretched his mind towards the night ahead. He saw the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was mighty but it was being fragmented, troops deployed in various directions weakening the main force.

  The vision faded and Joe saw the sunlight filtering through the sparse trees. Soon the sun, the enemy from above, would be high in the sky. Joe rose to his feet in one swift movement, it was time to begin his search of the ground surrounding the camp.

  There were guards posted, always, but Joe felt more secure once he had scanned the horizons to the north, south, east and west for himself. This was a liberty he was allowed. His instincts, as the Britishers called his inner knowledge, had saved the camp from attack on more than one occasion.

  As Joe moved silently across the grass, he saw again the lovely young girl of his vision, her dark hair blowing free like that of a squaw, her eyes full of tears. There was a tugging in Joe’s gut that reached to his loins and lit a fire there. He forced the image away. It was high time he had a woman; when the blood was too hot it fevered the brain. That way lay danger. He walked on for a few more hundred yards and then, satisfied, returned to the camp.

  During the afternoon he rested and when night came the moon hung between the clouds, the light dimmed and Joe thanked the spirits for being with him. The captain was riding ahead of him. The horses’ hooves were a steady beat against the rain-softened ground. Joe’s senses were alert. If danger came, he would be ready to face it. But whatever happened within the next hours, he knew he would live another day to take Captain Savage back home to Swansea.

  The shores of Swansea were shrouded in sea mist, the heavy rolling mist that came in from the channel and blotted out the craggy head of Mumbles, covering the valley, mingling with the smoke from the chimneys of the works ranged along the river banks. It had been a miserable market day.

  ‘I’ll climb into the back of the cart, we’ve got a lot of crocks left over today.’ Watt clambered up, standing nimbly on the wheel before heaving himself over the side of the cart. ‘I can try and hold the stock steady. We can always have another go at selling it next week.’

  His voice, muffled by the heavy air, seemed to waft ghostlike around Llinos’s head. She closed her eyes for a moment, wishing she did not have to return home. Mr Cimla would be there. He would be wearing his habitual frown. Gwen had forgiven him for the sake of the child and taken him back. But his return had not made her happy.

  The conciliatory tone he had adopted for a time after his fall from grace had vanished. His ill temper was, once again, given full rein. He was drinking more than ever; most of the time he sat in her father’s chair drowning himself in ale.

  Llinos bit her lip, she must be firm, must tell him to leave the pottery. Her mother still clung to the man only because he was the father of her unborn child, yet his presence meant nothing but trouble.

  Llinos shivered at the thought of having a confrontation with the man. There would be an unpleasant scene but he would have to go. And what could he do? A great deal, her mind said. He could give her the beating of her life and who would protect her? Well, just in case he proved violent, she would arm herself with her father’s musket, that would deter him.

  When she arrived home, it was with a sense of anticlimax that she realized she was to be spared a scene. Mr Cimla was out.

  Llinos left Watt to deal with the horse and cart as she made her way through the house. It was quiet and peaceful. A pale sun was breaking through the clouds, spilling in the windows, and her home felt as warm and secure as it had been when she was a child.

  Her mother was asleep in the sitting-room. She looked up in confusion as Llinos entered the room.

  ‘Oh dear, I must have dozed off.’ Gwen rubbed her eyes. ‘I’ll build up the fire.’ She knelt on the mat and coaxed the dying flames into life. ‘I’m so tired lately and Nora is sick, she’s gone to bed, which makes matters worse.’

  She kissed Llinos and held on to her for a moment as if to gather her strength. ‘We’ll have a nice bit of bacon and some eggs, shall we, love?’

  ‘I’ll do it, Mother.’

  ‘No, I won’t hear of it, you are tired enough as it is, your eyes are heavy with shadows.’ She smiled and for a moment she appeared like the happy mother Llinos had always known. ‘In any case, you are a terrible cook!’

  As Llinos washed, the smell of cooking rose through the house and Llinos remembered the sumptuous meals she used to enjoy when the pottery had been a flourishing concern. When her father was at home, the dining table would be groaning with suckling pig, roast partridge or a whole salmon surrounded by chestnuts. Now they were lucky to have bacon and eggs.

  Those wonderful days were gone but perhaps there would be some improvement in her circumstances now that Binnie had come back to work at the pottery. She had been so grateful when she had seen him standing at the doorway, a crooked smile on his face. She had hugged him warmly. Embarrassed, he had disentangled himself and she knew that Binnie had grown up. He was no longer the little boy from the workhouse, Binnie was his own man.

  He was as conscientious as ever but, after work, Binnie would hurry back to his Irish beauty at Greenhill. She supposed nothing stayed the same in this world.

  When she had eaten, Llinos went outside to call the boys for supper. She had made changes in the last few weeks and one of them was that the apprentices ate in the kitchen.

  There was no sign of Watt; the horse was grazing at the dusty grass on the roadside, the cart still loaded. Llinos climbed into the driving seat and guided the horse through the pottery gates. />
  ‘Whoa there,’ she clucked softly to the horse and the animal ambled to a good-natured halt.

  ‘Binnie!’ Llinos called. ‘Give us a hand here.’ Watt crept out of the drying shed, his eyes huge in his pinched face.

  ‘Binnie’s bad, Llinos.’

  ‘What do you mean, bad?’

  ‘He’s lying down, all crumpled like.’

  Llinos jumped from the cart and hurried into the shed, her heart thumping – had Binnie fallen, had there been an accident? Where were the apprentices and Ben, where was Ben?

  Binnie lay on a pile of rags in the corner of the shed, his knees almost touching his thin chest.

  ‘What is it, Binnie, are you sick?’ Llinos knelt beside him, unaware that her freshly washed hair was hanging wetly over her shoulder.

  He turned towards her and she suppressed a cry of horror. His face was grotesquely swollen, distorted beyond recognition. His eyes were closed, blackened with bruises.

  ‘When did this happen?’ Llinos was suddenly clear-headed. She knew, with a burning sensation of anger growing in her belly, that this was the work of her stepfather. ‘It was Mr Cimla, wasn’t it? Answer me, Binnie, please.’

  He managed to nod and Llinos touched his shoulder. ‘All right, don’t worry, I’ll see to everything.’ She turned to Watt, who was standing behind her, his thumb in his mouth.

  ‘Go and fetch Celia-end-house, tell her to bring her medicine bag with her. Hurry, there’s a good boy.’

  Watt seemed to be gone for an eternity. Llinos knelt beside Binnie, her hand smoothing his hair away from his battered face.

  ‘I’ll have him for this, Binnie, I swear it. He’ll be out of here so fast he won’t know what’s hit him.’ Anger built up in her so that she felt her head would explode.

  ‘Duw, what’s been ‘appenin’ by ’ere then?’ Celia bustled towards Binnie holding a candle in one bony hand and her bag in the other. She bent over, the candle raised high.

  ‘Well, son, you’ve been beat good and proper. Come on, now, Celia won’t hurt you, let me see what’s what.’ She knelt with difficulty and Binnie groaned as Celia ran her hands lightly over his thin body.