Susanna Fraser

by A Dream Defiant

  Five more soldiers from their company drew near and gaped at Sam’s body.

  “Poor Sam,” Roberts said.

  Pritchard, ever morbid, leaned around Elijah’s side for a better view. “Poor Rose.”

  “Wonder who she’ll marry next?”

  That was Yonge, who had hopes of being the happy bridegroom himself if Elijah didn’t miss his guess. Surely she wouldn’t pick him, though. She deserved so much better. But what if she’d never seen Yonge’s cruel streak?

  “Show a little decency,” Elijah ground out. “Can’t you wait till her first husband is cold before you speculate on her second?”

  “But she’ll have to marry someone, and soon,” Pritchard said.

  “I was born and brought up in this regiment. I know the rules,” Elijah said. Soldier’s widows generally did marry again within days, especially when the regiment was on campaign. They needed one man’s protection to save them from falling prey to the many. And only wives were entitled to draw rations for themselves and their children. “Still, Merrifield isn’t even buried,” he said. “And she doesn’t have to marry anyone. She could go home.”

  “The officers took up a collection to send Sally Davies home, after Badajoz,” Roberts put in.

  Elijah risked a quick warning glance at Lewis, who thankfully was being silent with all his might. Rose wouldn’t need a collection, if only there was some way to convert that treasure of a necklace into ready cash without drawing too much notice. Elijah supposed he could trade his haversack of silver for it. But assuming the stones were real, his money wouldn’t make a tenth part of its value. It had to be worth hundreds of pounds, maybe even thousands. Then what was he to do with the foolish thing, when next he needed shoes large enough to fit his big feet or food for himself and his men when their rations were spoiled or delayed?

  “It’s her choice,” he said at last. “It’s not decent to be talking about it so soon. If any man in this company offers Rose any disrespect, you’ll be sorry. I’ll make sure of that.” He put a note of menace in his voice to make sure the men understood he meant more than merely giving them extra sentry duty or stopping their wine rations for a few days.

  They gaped at him. He’d never been given to brawling or violence toward men on his own side. His parents had warned him as soon as he began to grow tall that if he didn’t want people to see a big black man and think of him as a beast, he’d have to take an uncommon degree of care never to act the part of one. But Rose deserved to be safe, and if it took becoming the Terrifying Negro to his own men instead of the Gentle Giant to protect her, he’d do it.

  * * *

  “Rose! We are rich women.”

  Rose finished tasting the stew from the gently bubbling pot—it needed more salt, as she’d suspected—before looking up to smile at her friend. “Rich? What did you find?”

  Luisa grinned and set her satchel on the ground with a heavy thump. “Very rich. Half for you and half for me.” She opened the bag and ran her hand through a mix of gold and silver coins—hundreds of them, there had to be. Never before had Rose seen so much money in one place.

  The thought of carrying that much coin around as they tramped from camp to camp staggered her. She shook her head as she stirred a generous pinch from her carefully hoarded salt stores into the stew. She always fed her Sam especially well after a battle—it was such a relief each time he lived through it. “It’s too much,” she said. “I’d be happy with a third, or a quarter.”

  “No, we will share like always. You watched the boys esta vez. They are asleep now?”

  “At long last, in the tent. I already fed them bread and a little of the stew.” Luisa’s Fernando was a fortnight older than Rose’s Jake. The women’s friendship had begun almost four years ago in comforting each other through the pains of pregnancy and had grown as they shared the work and pleasures of motherhood. When the boys were infants they had worked out a system of taking turns to forage, plunder or market while the other watched over the children, and they had stuck to it ever since, with the mother who stayed behind taking an equal share as the one who’d gone out. But never before had the haul been this big.

  “There, you see. You took care of los niños, and I took care of us. Next summer we will go to Paris and raid the emperor’s palace, and you may pay me back then.”

  Rose laughed at the absurdity of it—only perhaps it wasn’t impossible after a victory like today, with the emperor’s brother fleeing back toward France like a dog with his tail tucked between his legs. “That’s a whole year away. Perhaps we’ll get there sooner.”

  Luisa grinned. “If we hurry across the mountains before winter. But, here, get your bag and take your half.”

  Rose nodded, though she tasted the stew again first—ah, perfect now. She must have under-seasoned it before, when the sharp smell of gunpowder had still been heavy in the air. She gave it a careful stir, then turned toward the little tent she shared with her husband and son.

  “I would not let it burn,” Luisa assured her.

  She waved away her friend’s offer of help with the dismissive air it deserved. Luisa was kind and generous, she could coax a fire out of the wettest wood in the world, and the sweetness of her singing had soothed Jake to sleep during the teething days and nights when nothing else could. But she would never make a cook.

  Rose crawled into the tiny tent, moving carefully to avoid waking the two little boys. She paused for a fond glance at the sleeping pair. Jake slept curled in a tight ball, his tow-blond curls tousled, one hand clutching the tattered blue blanket he insisted upon sleeping with even on the hottest nights. Fernando, taller and sturdier, lay sprawled on his stomach, one arm flung out affectionately over his friend’s shoulders. Sons of the regiment, born following the drum.

  She wondered sometimes if they would make it back to England, if she’d ever live in Aspwell Heath again. She missed it every day, the bright green of the hills cradling her valley, the Sunday gossip with Sam’s sister Jenny in the churchyard after services. Sam swore he’d take her back someday. He liked to talk of buying the Red Lion together once the war ended, so she could be a famous cook, feeding the multitudes that came through on the Great North Road.

  Yet Rose couldn’t picture him ever saving enough money to make such a thing possible. Her share of Luisa’s coins plus whatever he brought back from his own plundering might give them funds enough if they could magically be in Bedfordshire tomorrow, but Sam couldn’t keep money. He gambled, he drank—but she knew she shouldn’t complain, since he was such a cheerful drunk. Drunk or sober, he’d never laid a violent hand on her, which was more than many women could say of their men. Yet it was maddening all the same how quickly he drank and diced away any bit of plunder or packet of long-delayed pay that came his way.

  She cast aside the disloyal thought, and the equally unwifely one that she could simply not tell him how much Luisa had given her. It would be almost impossible to hide. Sam wasn’t given to rummaging through her things, but they had so little space and so few furnishings that if she stopped opening some bag or box, it would soon become obvious. She sighed as she took out her leather satchel—itself a fine bit of plunder, obtained after Ciudad Rodrigo and sturdier than anything the army issued.

  It was just as well they’d never be able to afford the Red Lion. It wasn’t as though travelers hastily swallowing their food while their horses were changed would savor her best efforts properly. Let them keep gobbling down old Meg Paxton’s tasteless, over-cooked roasts. Why wish for the impossible? Rose was here, she had a kind husband, a son she adored, and good friends like Luisa, her husband Jemmy and Elijah. She made them the best dinners she could manage from their rations, and Colonel Dryhurst and some of the other officers hired her to cook for them when they gave fine dinners. Her life before Sam had been far worse.

  When she crawled back out into the fading t
wilight, Luisa was standing by the stewpot, her satchel of plunder still open at her feet, cautiously stirring. “Don’t you need more fire than this?”

  Rose knew she didn’t, but out of habit she inspected the bed of embers. “No. It’s cooked. I’m keeping it warm till Sam and the others get back. I saw them just after the fighting stopped, and he promised he’d bring me something grand.”

  “Yes, I saw him with Elijah, not long ago. And there are grand things—paintings! Silk gowns! I would’ve stayed longer if I could have carried more.”

  “But silks would only be soiled here, and what good would a painting do us?”

  “I know, so I took coins. Here.”

  They sat on the ground and began dividing the coins between them. As they reached the bottom, Luisa handed her a cloth-wrapped package. “Just for you. It’s some kind of cheese, I think.”

  Rose unwrapped the cheese enough to smell its sharp, tangy aroma. One of the local sheep’s milk cheeses. It would taste well on toasted bread, or she could mix part of it into a sauce, especially if she could find some milk. It would certainly help her improve upon the beef and Indian corn they’d lately received with their rations. “Thank you,” she said.

  “I got this, too. There was only one, so we could sell it and each take half of what we get.”

  Rose blinked and turned to Luisa, who was holding up a rosary of orange-red coral beads and a silver cross, strung together on silver links. It was no challenge to read the longing in her friend’s eyes. She wanted to wear the pretty thing, and why shouldn’t she? “No, you keep it. We have more than enough without selling it, and I wouldn’t have any use for it. We don’t pray that way, you know.”

  “Infidel,” Luisa said cheerfully. “Here, help me put it on, then.”

  Squinting in the dim remnants of the sunset light, Rose complied. Luisa preened for a moment, stroking the beads, and then kissed the cross and tucked the rosary beneath the high neck of her plain brown dress. Rose nodded approval. Even within the relative safety of the regiment, where she and Luisa enjoyed official status as soldier’s wives and not mere camp followers, it wasn’t safe to put such a thing on open display. Especially not now, with the soldiers drunk on plunder and liquor alike.

  “I hope our men come back soon,” Rose said. “It’s almost dark.”

  “I’m sure they will,” Luisa replied. “Look.” She pointed into the growing darkness. “There’s Elijah now.”

  Rose followed her friend’s gaze. Yes, that was Elijah Cameron, even aside from his dark skin, impossible to miss because he was by far the tallest man in the regiment, taller by a hand’s span than even any of the officers. He led a score or so of men, smaller and paler, but she couldn’t find Sam among them. She frowned with growing unease. Sam always stuck close by Elijah, especially in battle.

  Most of the group scattered toward their tents. But Elijah and three others kept coming straight toward Rose and Luisa. One was Luisa’s own Jemmy Whelan. The other two carried a body between them.

  Abandoning her stewpot, Rose rushed to meet them.

  It was Sam, slung limply between Adam Lewis and Ned Pritchard. He was dead, he had to be dead, or they would have carried him with greater care. In the flickering light from a nearby fire she saw the huge bloodstain across his chest and belly, darker than his red coat and marring his white crossbelts.

  She swayed, and a strong hand caught her under the elbow. “Rose.”

  She turned away from Sam’s stricken body, tilting her head back until she could meet Elijah’s eyes. “What? How?” she asked. “I saw him. After the battle, I saw him.” How had he got himself killed with the battle over?

  “I’m sorry, Rose. It was madness out there. Some of the Frogs stayed behind to loot, and one of them picked a fight with Sam.”

  They’d been fighting over some choice piece of plunder, in other words. Rose took a deep breath to steady herself. At least it had been a Frenchman. It would’ve been harder to bear if Sam had been killed by one of his own countrymen. She shook her head, unable to speak.

  “We’ll take him to where they’re burying the dead from today,” Elijah continued, “but I thought you’d want to see him first.”

  She collected herself. “Yes. Thank you. Here, bring him by my tent.” She led the way, and Lewis and Pritchard set Sam’s body down within the little circle of light cast by her slowly burning fire. The stench of blood and death warred with the rich scent of the beef stew she’d meant as a celebration feast for a living husband. Her mouth watered with nausea and her gorge rose. She swallowed hard, her hand pressed to her mouth.

  Luisa squeezed her shoulders, and the others clustered around them, offering silent sympathy. “Should I wake Jake?” Luisa asked.

  When Rose had been only a little older than Jake, she’d been the one to find her grandmother lying dead in her bed. Hers had been a far more peaceful passing, and still it had given Rose nightmares for months. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t need to see this.”

  She shrugged away from Luisa’s embrace and sank to her knees beside Sam. For the last time, she smoothed back his soft brown hair and bent to kiss his forehead. Not his lips—she wanted to remember them warm and living, as they’d been when he’d kissed her goodbye before marching out that morning.

  A hot tear slid down her cheek, quickly followed by another and another. Then she couldn’t hold back any longer, and her sobs came. The salty taste of her tears mixed with the heavy, metallic smell of Sam’s blood. Luisa knelt beside her and squeezed her hand, weeping too. After a moment, another hand rested on her shoulder, heavy but gentle.

  It was Elijah, holding a bundle of Sam’s gear. “I’m sure you’ll want these things, but was he carrying anything else, that you know of?”

  She shook her head and took one last look at Sam through tear-blurred eyes. “No,” she said. “You can take him away now.”

  Elijah murmured to Lewis and Pritchard, and they took up the body again. Rose got unsteadily to her feet. If she couldn’t see Sam buried, she must watch him out of sight.

  Just before he followed after them, Elijah bent to whisper in her ear. “I was with him at the last,” he said. “I’ll come back and tell you all about it, when there’s less of a crowd.”

  Rose nodded, though she wasn’t sure she could bear to hear the details of Sam’s death. Still, if he’d left any kind of dying message for her, she wanted to know. And she could bear Elijah’s company better than anyone else’s. He had a way of bringing comfort with him.

  “Do you want me to stay with you?” Luisa asked.

  “Not tonight, I think,” she said. “I’ll need to explain to Jake, as best I can, once he wakes up, and I think it’ll go easier if it’s just the two of us.” Luisa was a dear friend, closer than any Rose had ever had other than her sister-in-law, Jenny, back home, but she was a talker, and just then Rose hungered for quiet more than anything else.

  Luisa nodded. “If you change your mind, I’m right here. I’ll get Fernando.” She ducked into Rose’s tent and emerged a few moments later, bent under the weight of her heavy, sleeping son. Her husband held out his arms for the boy, and she passed him over and gave Rose another hug.

  “Take the stew,” Rose heard herself say. It wouldn’t do to waste food, even now.

  “What about you?”

  She put her hand to her throat and swallowed. Blood and death. Beef and garlic mixed with the red wine Colonel Dryhurst had given her as part of her pay last time she cooked for one of his dinner parties. A treat for you and Sam to share, he’d said with a kindly wink. “I—I can’t.”

  “I understand,” Luisa said. “But you must eat tomorrow. No starving.”

  Rose shook her head and blinked back tears. She wasn’t one to go into a decline. Tomorrow she’d need all her strength and wits about her to decide what she must do. Surely for toni
ght she could only be a new widow.

  Chapter Two

  Elijah intended to go straight to Rose’s tent after he entrusted Sam’s body to the burial detail, but distraction in the form of Lieutenant Farlow intervened.

  “Corporal Cameron,” the young officer called from the entry to his tent. “Just the man I hoped to see.”

  Elijah made himself smile. Ordinarily he was happy to help Farlow—to be the subject of non-patronizing respect from an officer, however junior, truly was gratifying. But now the necklace still hidden beneath his coat seemed to burn into his skin with a far greater discomfort than its bulk alone could account for. The sooner he was free of it, the better. “Good evening, sir,” he said. “How can I help you?”

  Farlow opened his tent flap wider and waved him in. “It’s these dashed accounts again. The colonel wants the Registry of Deceased Soldiers brought up to date as promptly as may be, but I don’t trust my own figures. You know.”

  Elijah did. If one judged Farlow by his speech and manner, he seemed a clever and likely young gentleman indeed—alert, quick-witted and well-informed about everything from the state of the army to debates in Parliament to the latest doings of the London stage. But those gifts deserted him when he was presented with a book or a pen. He could read and work sums, but he was slow and halting about it, prone to misspell words and scramble numbers. It was a mystery to Elijah how such a thing could be, for a man who’d had every advantage of education from infancy up, but he supposed it was something like Pritchard, who struggled to keep step on the march, or Elijah’s own sister, Miriam, who could not carry a tune. He knew Farlow had been sent into the army because his family despaired of placing him in any other genteel profession.

  “I suppose they must have imagined me doing nothing but riding about on a horse waving a sword,” he’d confessed ruefully when he admitted his struggles to Elijah not long after joining the regiment as an ensign. Colonel Dryhurst had invited him to dinner, showing his usual careful civility to a young officer. Elijah had been called into that same meal to settle a bet with an officer from another regiment about the mental capacities of the Negro. He hated such performances. It had been one thing when he was a boy, but as a grown man and an NCO, to be called into the colonel’s tent to recite poetry and demonstrate mental arithmetic was humiliating. Yet it would be churlish to refuse his colonel, the patron of his family who’d employed his parents from the day they escaped from slavery in Virginia, and who’d spoken for Elijah when at fifteen he’d pleaded to enlist as a true soldier and not only a drummer, and to stay with the Forty-Third instead of joining one of the West Indian regiments of black soldiers led by white officers.