Alice in Love and War (8 page)

Nia bit her lip. “My courses have not come. Not last month either.”

“You are with child…?”

Alice thought, then, of her own lovemaking, all the last week; this could happen to her too. And she realized, seeing Nia’s face, that it would be momentous, terrifying; not at all to be wished for.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Do you keep count of the days?”

“No. I’ve always looked at the moon. That’s how I remember. I think it’s two and a half months since I last had any bleeding.” She gave a little gasping sob. “I ought to be happy. I love Bryn. And I want a child. But I’m so afraid of giving birth – and on campaign! I’d always thought I’d be at home for that.” Her voice broke. “We’ve tried to be careful, but – oh, Lisi, I wish this wasn’t happening now!”

Alice said, tentatively, “There are herbs you might try. Parsley…”

“I’ve tried it. And jumping off a wall.” She managed a smile. “This one means to be born. I won’t try anything else; I see now that it is God’s will. But Bryn is anxious for me. He says when we reach our winter quarters he’ll find me somewhere safe, among women, where I can stay on after the army leaves in the spring.”

“That might be wise,” said Alice, knowing what her friend would say, because it was what she herself would have said.

“I won’t be left behind,” said Nia. “I won’t let him go on without me.”

Eight

Alice
and Nia scurried along a cobbled street in Salisbury, heads down against the driving rain. They were looking for a cobbler’s shop they had been told was near. Nia spotted it first – its sign, with a shoe painted on it, swinging in the wind. Because of the wild weather the shop counter had been pulled up, but the door was opened to their knock.

“I’ve nothing for the likes of you!”

The shoemaker was hostile, and Alice realized he had taken them for vagrants, they were so patched and bedraggled. But when they produced money and he’d bitten and tested it, he was glad enough of two new customers. Alice’s feet were sore from the sharp stones of the road. It was mid-October. She had been following the army now for over a month and the soles of her shoes were worn through. Nia wore sturdier boots, but even these were in need of repair. She showed the man how the upper of one of her boots had split from the sole.

He set to work while the two girls sat on a bench and waited, since they had no other shoes. Alice tucked her feet under her skirts, ashamed of the holes in her stockings. She was made aware, here in town, of how dirty she had become. It was an effort to wash, in public view, in the cold wet fields. There was dirt under her fingernails and ingrained in the skin of her hands. The hem of her gown was muddy, and the skirt was stained with grass and grime and had a long tear that she had mended with thread of a darker brown. On the march she was no dirtier than anyone else, but here respectable people stepped away from her.

“Parliament troops have been around,” the cobbler remarked. “Manoeuvres. Reckon a battle’s coming?”

“We don’t know,” said Nia. “We follow our men, that’s all.”

The man’s wife watched them from an inner room. She was hanging children’s linen around the fire to dry. Two little boys played with wooden blocks, and a baby lay whimpering in a cradle. Now and again the woman rocked the cradle with her foot, and the baby’s cries briefly subsided.

Alice saw that Nia was looking at the baby. Nia was sure now that she was with child and, despite her fears, was happy enough about it. Alice had bought dried camomile flowers and a tiny piece of ginger root from one of the army apothecaries; with these she was able to make Nia a tisane to relieve the sickness she had begun to feel in the mornings.

“Take it every day,” she said. “And later, when your time is near, I’ll make you raspberry leaf tea. It will ease the birth.”

“I’m glad you’ll be with me, Lisi.”

“I’m no midwife.”

“No. But I trust you.”

Nia had been greatly impressed by Alice’s book, the one her father had left her, and which Alice had consulted on the properties of camomile and raspberry. Nia, who could not read, even in her own language, had turned the pages reverently, exclaiming when she saw a drawing of a plant she recognized, such as dandelion or fennel. Alice realized that for Nia the book was almost a magical object.

“These herbs and their uses are all God’s work,” she assured her. “My father taught me how God has given us signs to show us which plants to use.”

Nia understood. “Like woundwort? With its flowers like drops of blood?”

“Yes! And lungwort. And aspen leaves, which help those with the shaking palsy.”

Alice knew how important it was for Nia to have faith in her, to believe she could achieve what both of them wanted. Once, as a child, she had asked her father about the dried turtle that hung from the ceiling of his dispensing room.

“What is it for?”

“What do you think it might be for?”

She regarded the strange creature from foreign seas. “Some remedy. Something very powerful – rare and costly.”

He smiled. “It has no medical use whatsoever.”

She looked at him shrewdly, to see if he was teasing her; but he was not. “Then why…?”

“It gives my customers belief in me. They see it hanging there and, like you, they think it must be some rare medicine, or perhaps a charm.”

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“Not at all. If they don’t believe in me they may not get better. It helps their recovery.”

“Then it
is
a medicine!”

He had laughed then. “You are sharp, Alice. Yes, perhaps it is.”

Thinking now about Nia and her unborn child, Alice became aware of a familiar ache in her own back and thighs, and thought, My courses will come soon. It was a burden lifted; and yet, after her week of love with Robin at Sherborne she had half hoped to find herself with child, so that he might make haste to marry her. Here, in Salisbury, would surely have been an opportunity, but Robin had said nothing. Of course he’s busy, she thought. The army may move on to battle at any time. His mind is on manoeuvres and drill. He’ll marry me in the winter, for sure, when the campaigning season is over. She wished, though, that she felt closer to Robin: close enough to argue, quarrel, kiss and make up, as the Welshwomen did all the time with their men. Instead she took delight in his affection when it came her way but never really knew what was in his mind.

The cobbler had finished. He gave them their shoes, and they went out again into the rain and scampered back to the outbuildings where they were lodged.

Later that day Alice saw a few of the soldiers standing in groups holding letters, some helping others to read them. There was great excitement. It seemed that a carrier with letters for Salisbury had brought mail to the army – most of it for officers and much of it months late.

None of Alice’s friends could read, and she was not surprised that they had no news from home. But a young woman came to her, holding a letter. She had the hard, blank face of a whore, but she spoke diffidently to Alice. “They say you can read. Would you read this to me? I’d be much obliged.”

Alice took the letter, embarrassed, and fearful too, wondering what news she might be required to pass on.

The handwriting was difficult, and she stumbled often as she read aloud:

“To Margaret Evans, travelling with the king’s army, from her sister Elizabeth Evans of Newell near Buckingham, the eighteenth of September, 1644
.

Dear Sister, Master Holdom at the parsonage writes this for me, it being necessary to tell you in all sorrow that our mother has departed this life but is gone into that greater life of the spirit which is the reward of true believers.”

Alice looked up to see tears in the girl’s eyes. “I am sorry,” she said.

“Read on,” the girl replied.

“She fell sick of a fever and died this Saturday last, and was buried at St Martin’s beside our brother Richard. She spoke of you at the end, and forgave you, and wished that you had never left home, as I do wish also, dear Meg…”

The girl dashed a hand across her face. “Would you write me an answer? If I can find paper for it? I’ll pay you.”

“Yes. Of course,” said Alice.

That evening she told Robin about the girl and her letter, and how she’d felt pity for her. He was with his friends, and joked, “You could make a living there, sweet – writing letters home for drabs.”

His friends laughed, but Alice felt hurt on behalf of the bereaved girl.

Next day they moved off and marched towards Andover. The women, camped in fields a few miles outside the town, saw nothing of the fighting, but they heard distant sounds of gunfire and saw smoke rising on the horizon. By nightfall the town was in Royalist hands and the enemy in flight. From the lanes all around came shouts and the clash of weapons as the defenders were pursued and taken prisoner.

Alice stayed with her Welsh friends while she waited for Robin.

“There will be more fighting tomorrow,” Bryn predicted. “We’ll go after the rebels.”

But for now they celebrated, singing, joking and playing music; a group of the men lined up and linked arms and, despite their long march, danced while the onlookers clapped and sang.

Over the next week there were skirmishes and movements of troops all around. Alice heard names: Newbury, Basing House, Donnington Castle.

“What’s happening?” she asked Robin. “We go round about the same places, day after day. Nothing makes sense.”

“We don’t try to make sense of it,” Robin said. “We obey orders, go where they send us.”

“But will there be a battle?”

“How should
I
know?”

He stared moodily at the ground. He’d been distant with her lately, as if there was something on his mind. She supposed it was all the extra drills and alarms, the prospect of fighting to come. It made her feel very alone.

“I’m afraid for you,” she said, and put out a hand to him.

He shook it off. “Then you should not have come with me!” Her obvious hurt seemed to provoke rather than soften him, and he said roughly, “This is war, Alice; not some game.”

“I know.” She spoke in a small voice and turned away, afraid she might cry and so anger him more.

They were woken next morning by the drumbeat that she now knew was to summon the men to their quarters. Word flew about that the enemy had been sighted, drawn up on the hills to the east of Newbury. There was a ferment of activity in the camp, but it was nightfall before the fighting began. Alice huddled with the Welsh girls, all four of them crowded into Bronwen’s shelter, listening to the guns: the distant sound of the rebels’ cannon, and the deafening roar and flash of their own. When all was quiet for a while they fell asleep, lolling against each other, only to wake again towards dawn to the sound of more cannon fire. The air was full of smoke.

The sounds of battle continued on and off all day. Mistress Erlam called on Alice to help make ready with linen strips and salves. The surgeon would deal with the officers and those who were badly wounded, she explained, but those with lesser injuries would be sent to the women’s camp. Alice was glad of the work. It took her mind off her fear for Robin. His harshness of the evening before had only made it more important to her that he should be safe, that they should not lose each other.

In the afternoon a cry went up: “They are bringing the wounded!” and she became too busy to think of anything else for a while.

A woman’s voice rose, keening. The sound went on and on.

“It’s that girl from Bristol,” someone said. “Poor soul, to lose her man.”

“What will become of her?” Alice asked her friends later.

Nia shrugged. “She’ll get work, maybe, on the baggage train; find another man, if she’s lucky.”

“Or, more likely, become a whore,” said Bronwen. “That’s often the only way to survive.”

For the first time, Alice realized that this could happen to her; that she herself might end up like the whores she had so much despised. It would be all too easy if she was left alone, without Robin, without a home or family. Whatever would my father have thought? she wondered; and she imagined his shock and distress at seeing her as she was now. Her eyes filled with tears, and Bronwen, misunderstanding the reason, took her hand in her own rough, grimy hand, and said, “Don’t cry, Lisi. He has a lucky face, your Robin. He’ll survive. And you’ll live to be wed.”

Alice turned to her gratefully. “You think so?”

“I do.”

The next night was quiet, but the men did not return to the shelters, and the women sat together, talking, singing and mending clothes. Alice was beginning to learn the words of some of the Welsh songs, which were mostly romantic: the shirt song; the ballad called “The Slender Lad”, about a girl who refused to marry unless she could have the boy she loved; the song about the garden of love:

I left the lily, the lavender and rose
,

Instead the nettle’s sting I chose
.

Later she slept in Nia’s shelter, the two of them close together under a rough blanket and their woollen cloaks. At dawn they woke to the sound of cannon fire. The guns thundered most of the day, and once again Alice tended the wounded. Towards evening her fears became real when Robin appeared in the camp, white-faced and bleeding from a shoulder wound.