The UnTied Kingdom (15 page)

Wilson beamed. ‘Of course, Harker! Anything you need.’

Harker, somewhat apologetically, left Eve sitting on the ground, where she started to feel a little bit foolish, while he spoke in hushed tones to the other officer, who had lots of shiny braid on his uniform, and no blood at all.

Harker lit up another cigarette as he spoke, moving so fast his hands blurred. He smoked when he was upset, Eve thought distantly, or when he was thinking.

He was upset now. A mad woman had tried to kiss him, of course he was upset!

‘Of course, my lad. You come with me and we’ll see what we can find.’

Harker turned to Eve and held his hand out to her. She took it, but only because she’d have looked damn stupid ignoring it. What she did try to ignore, however, was the shock that ran through her again when his fingers touched hers.

And anyway, it wasn’t his fault. She’d just been overwhelmed, and a man fresh from battle, dirty and heroic, was always going to be sexy. Right?

It didn’t
mean
anything. He’d probably barely noticed.

Harker watched Tallulah usher Eve into the women’s tent the squad had set up. At least, he tried to watch Tallulah, and not Eve, with her clinging t-shirt and her big eyes and her soft, lush, trembling mouth.

Her t-shirt is clinging because it’s soaked with gore and blood, and her eyes are wide because she’s in shock
, he reminded himself sharply, but even that didn’t help, because now he had fantasies of helping the shocked, stumbling Eve remove her dirty clothes and tenderly wash away the blood.

‘Sir?’ Tallulah said, and Harker’s eyes remained on the tent for just a fraction of a second too long to pretend he hadn’t been thinking about her. ‘There’s some fresh water in your tent, if you want to wash.’

Wash. Eve. Warm and trembling and soft and –

Dammit, he’d been doing fine until she’d gone into her tent, and then he’d blinked and in that second had imagined her naked and soapy, and it had all gone to hell. ‘Yeah. Sure. Thanks.’

He stumbled into his own tent, hearing Banks’s voice through the thin canvas. ‘What are you smiling about?’

Tallulah, laughter in her voice, replied, ‘Major Harker. I think he’s sweet on our captive.’

If she’s not a spy, then she’s mad
. Either of these things ought to be enough to cancel out big blue-green eyes and clinging t-shirts.

Harker wished he could convince himself on that point.

‘What, Eve?’ Banks said. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say no.’

‘You’d have to fight the Major off first.’

He threw his clothes on the floor and tested the water, which was annoyingly hot. Cold would have been more useful.

‘That’s enough,’ said Charlie. She was cleaning her sword. ‘He’s not sweet on anyone.’

There was a pause. Harker nodded to himself. Damn right he wasn’t. Being sweet on a suspected spy would be a ridiculous thing to do.
If you feel sorry for the enemy, the enemy will kill you
.

‘Jealous, Lieutenant?’ Daz asked, and Harker wondered when he’d found his way to their little camp. He must have spent more time comforting Eve than he’d realised.

‘I know popular opinion says that I’m Major Harker’s lover,’ Charlie said, ‘but I’m too ugly for him and he’s too bitter for me. Besides, I saw him through dysentery when we were campaigning near the Scottish border and unless you’re mad about someone it’s hard to be attracted to them after that.’

There was an embarrassed silence. Harker frowned at the tent wall, slightly hurt. Bitter? Did she really think he was bitter?

‘And I think I’m done with my stew,’ Daz said. ‘Did you have to bring up dysentery?’

‘Sorry.’

‘I think if you really loved someone then it wouldn’t matter if they had dysentery or something really disgusting,’ Tallulah said.

‘Really?’ said Daz. ‘You ever seen any of the really disgusting diseases, Private?’

‘Well, no, sir, but I mean … if you already loved someone, then surely it wouldn’t matter?’

Harker threw himself down on his narrow, uncomfortable bunk, while he waited for the water to cool. Great. Now the squad was discussing his love life. Even Charlie! Harker knew half the army thought he and Charlie were lovers – and he’d always been both amused and depressed by the idea. Amused because they had such a lack of imagination, and depressed, because if they couldn’t see that what existed between him and Charlie was loyalty, pure and simple, then maybe they were missing one of the basic tenets of the army.

You followed your commander, and you protected your brothers – even if they were sisters. It was what Harker did. It was what he’d always done.

‘You’re quite right,’ Charlie said eventually. ‘Love’s a fine thing, and so’s loyalty, but I’d ask if you could all remember that they’re different things.’

‘You’re very loyal to the Major,’ Tallulah mumbled.

‘Yes, I am, Private. That’s my point.’

It was just because he was restless. That was all. After all, the last time he’d had a woman had been … well, it had been Saskia. And that had been well before the divorce had come through. Before Southwark. Maybe before Newmarket. He couldn’t remember.

That in itself was kind of sad.

Harker realised he was counting not just months, but years, and groaned. Truth was, for a long time the only woman he’d actually wanted was Saskia. The problem was that she hadn’t wanted him back. Lack of ambition, she’d thrown at him, and Harker had been baffled.

‘I have ambition,’ he said. ‘My ambition is to protect my men and win the war.’

‘Very noble,’ Saskia fired back, ‘but you could do it better with a promotion.’

Romance had been the first casualty of their private war. Sex had been the second.

He stuck his head in the bucket of cooling water and tried to drown out those images of Eve stripping naked in the next tent.

Chapter Eleven

When they left camp the next day, Harker offered Eve a ride in the wagon, but she chose to walk, needing to pound out feelings she didn’t quite understand. She’d always found a physical distraction helped when she needed to think, either walking or playing the guitar or doing housework.

Now she was walking, marching in fact, and with her body occupied her mind could think.

She hadn’t dreamed much last night, but she suspected Daz had slipped something into her drink to make her sleep. Probably just as well. She could see the sticky puddles of blood whenever she closed her eyes, see the saw marks in severed bones, the skin flapping loose, the steady pump, pump of veins emptying themselves of blood. She could see all the muscles and sinews, and when she let her guard down she could see the pink squibbly bits deep inside a person that ought never to see the light of day.

She was developing a Lady Macbeth-style obsession with washing her hands, which couldn’t be good.

The rest of the squad had been kind to her, in varying degrees. Harker had avoided her somewhat, but she couldn’t really blame him. The others had made an effort to talk to her, make her comfortable, as if she was an invalid.

I must have been in shock
, she told herself.
I thought I was acting quite normal most of the time
.

When they broke for lunch she talked and smiled and felt quite proud of herself for participating, but was vaguely aware that she shouldn’t
have
to be proud of herself for participating. She should just … participate.

Harker hadn’t chained her up, but she got the feeling he was watching her all the time. Probably wondering if she was going to try to kiss him again. Well, fat chance. She wasn’t crazy any more today – well, no more than she had been since she woke up in this mad world – and she didn’t tend to want to kiss people who weren’t talking to her.

Hah!

When they set off again, Daz was driving and Harker was marching with the squad. He walked alongside Eve for a while, then said, ‘You okay today?’

‘Fine,’ she said.

‘How’re your feet?’

‘They’re fine.’
Damn sight better than some of the feet I saw yesterday. They’re attached, for one thing.

‘Sleep all right last night?’

‘Fine.’

‘Three fines. You’ll notice I haven’t cuffed you today?’

‘Yep.’ She realised he was looking for something else, and added, ‘Thank you.’

Harker gave up, and went to walk with Charlie.

Eve didn’t know if they’d run out of Roman roads to travel on, or if Harker was taking back routes on purpose, but they were walking along narrow, badly made tracks between small, squalid villages, trails that were deeply rutted with the tracks of cartwheels. Every now and then, someone had filled in the worst of the holes with rocks and straw, but they frequently had to stop and haul the wagon out of the mud. They were walking with heavy packs in order to lighten the wagon, but it didn’t seem to be helping much.

On either side of them stretched endless fenland, the featureless marshes eventually fading off into chilly mist.

When it got dark, Harker ordered a rest, then told them they’d be walking another couple of hours. Banks groaned, Tallulah made a face, but no one complained, least of all Eve, who barely heard anyway.

The scent of the sea came rolling over the dark land as they crossed yet another marshy fen, this time in the dark. Harker himself was scouting ahead, although they were using a track raised above the fens and well-indented with cart tracks, so no one seemed particularly worried.

Isn’t the Wash famously unpredictable?
Eve thought.
Shifting sandbanks and moveable coastline, full of shipwrecks. Maybe we’ll find an unstable bit of coastline and just fall into the sea.

Would anyone miss me?

She’d probably have carried on in this nihilistic vein had not Harker called a halt for the night. Eve hadn’t really noticed, but they’d finally come to the end of the fens and had been walking through an increasingly dark and rather forbidding wood. Or it might be a forest. She wasn’t sure. They were in another deep ditch, a riverbed or something, sunk from sight between the trees.

Charlie handed out duties, camp was made, and food served out. Daz ordered everyone to change their socks before their feet went mouldy.

‘Court-martial for anyone with trench foot,’ Harker added, with that half-smile of his.

Eve took off her trainers automatically, and then realised she’d once again been given a pack of cooking supplies to carry, and didn’t have any spare clothes. That morning she’d been given khakis to dress in, with the explanation that her own clothes were still in rather a state. She didn’t know if her jeans, t-shirt and spare underwear had been left behind or not. She was finding it difficult to care.

‘Here.’ Someone was holding out something soft and woollen … yes, a pair of socks. She started to look up to see who it was, but then registered the missing little finger, and said, ‘Thank you, Major.’

‘Welcome. Sorry, ain’t got any spare boots for you.’

‘That’s okay. I’m fine.’

‘Yeah, you must be, it’s all you’ve said all day.’

She looked up to see what he meant by that, but he was gone, vanishing into the darkness outside the firelight. Eve put the clean socks on, and when she looked up he was back again, this time holding out a guitar as if it was a bunch of flowers.

Eve stared for a second.

‘I can’t put that on my feet,’ she said.

Harker grinned at her. ‘Can you play it?’

‘I … I’m a bit out of practice.’

‘Found it in the 33rd’s stores,’ he said. ‘Probably get used for firewood if no one can find a use for it.’

A stab of feeling caught Eve at the thought of destroying a musical instrument, even one as shabby as this. ‘Needs tuning,’ she said distantly.

‘You can tell by looking at it?’

‘Yeah. One of the strings is loose. Might not be any good.’

‘Well, maybe we can replace it. Be a shame to let it burn. What’re guitar strings made of?’

‘Nylon and steel,’ Eve said.

‘Oh. Well, it’s yours if you want it.’

He held it out, and Eve took it. Rested it across her thigh. Ran her hand over its waist, where the wood was smooth, almost silky. The guitar was small, slim, built like a Spanish guitar but with a wider fretboard.

She used to have a Martin like this, and a bigger Gibson with steel strings. Had borrowed the session musicians’ instruments, getting a feel for them, learning how to play a guitar with six or twelve strings, memorising chords until she could play them blindfolded, sitting in her hotel room playing softly into the night, calming herself, while the others were out at parties and nightclubs.

Unconsciously, she ran her fingers over the strings–

–and winced.

Blimey, it was out of tune. She turned the pegs, bit by bit pulling the sound into shape, until she could strum her fingers over the strings and get a chord that didn’t make her flinch.

‘Could use a new top E,’ she muttered, ‘but you’ll do. Yes, you will.’

Her fingers formed a D minor, a D minor 7th, a B flat, an F … familiar chords, chords she’d played dozens, hundreds of times before, sitting alone in her damp poky flat playing on the guitar she’d bought for a fiver in a pawn shop.

‘That song,’ Harker said softly from beside her. She hadn’t even noticed he was there. ‘You played that before. On the piano. What did you say it was called?’

‘
Yesterday
.’

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Yes, it is.’ She reached the chorus, those quick chords in succession, a work of genius. ‘Apparently it came fully formed into his mind, he woke up humming it. Kept asking the others if they knew the song, and he eventually realised he’d written it in his sleep.’

‘Very impressive.’

‘Well, he’s Paul McCartney. He’s a genius.’

‘He is if he wrote that song.’

Eve played the song out, not singing, just listening to the chords.
That strain again, it had a dying fall
. She used to wish she could write a song that was as good as just one of those chord changes. But the songs never came. She had nothing to sing about.

She played a few more chords absently, a few more McCartney strokes of brilliance. Then some Harrison, her fingers moving into
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
before her brain had entirely caught up.

She didn’t sing, just played. Old songs, new songs, favourites and some too obscure for anyone to know. Although none of her current audience seemed to recognise any of them at all. Some of them chatted quietly as she played, some of them listened. After a little while Martindale came off guard and was replaced by Charlie. Eventually Tallulah, yawning, stumbled off to bed. Before long the rest followed, and Eve realised she’d been playing for an hour, and her breath was clouding in front of her face. Her fingers were frozen, but she hadn’t really noticed.

Harker stayed beside her, leaning back against the ditch wall, saying nothing.

‘I should stop,’ she said, mid-chord. ‘I – I’ll keep them awake.’

‘Haven’t you ever heard of a lullaby?’ Harker said.

Eve made to put the guitar down, but Harker’s hand covered hers, and she went still.

‘You can keep on playing if you want,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay up with you.’

And she realised. Her eyes met his and she realised. He hadn’t just brought the guitar along on a whim. The wagon was small and guitars were large, not to mention rubbish material for firewood.

How did he know how much music brought her out, soothed her, calmed her? For the first time today, she didn’t feel disconnected.

‘Wow, you’re good,’ she murmured.

‘What?’

She stood up. ‘I think it’s time I got some sleep,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

He nodded, standing also, and watched her carefully fit the guitar back into the wagon and cover it over while he banked the fire.

As he brushed past her, she reached out and grabbed his arm. He glanced at her, surprised. ‘You won’t,’ she began, licking her lips nervously.

‘Won’t what?’

‘Please don’t, um, tell anyone about ...’
About me trying to kiss you. About me clinging to you like a life raft. About the way you looked at me.
‘About ... what happened after the ... at the Fen Causeway.’

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

‘About me having a bit of a breakdown and ...’
Oh God,
please
don’t make me say it.

His hand rested briefly on her shoulder. ‘About me fetching you from the hospital and bringing you back to the camp without incident?’ he said softly.

Eve nodded gratefully.

He gave her a tired, faded, and above all kind smile. ‘Not a word,’ he said, and turned away.

Just before he went into his tent, she said, ‘Will?’ and he turned, barely visible in the darkness under the trees.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and his silhouette nodded, then disappeared.

Harker let them sleep in the next morning, and travel a while in the wagon. They’d walked a long way yesterday, but he’d wanted to get off the fens before they made camp, and he was damned if he would let them sit in the wagon and sink the bloody thing.

He could have detoured west and taken Ermine Street, which was much steadier for a wagon, but was also currently lousy with army patrols and barricades every few miles. According to Colonel Wilson, the 17th was marching down to help the 33rd retake Peterborough, and Harker preferred to stay well away from that. He didn’t need any more delays, wasted days and traumatised men.

Not that Eve was one of his men. But she was no good to him in the zombified state she’d been wandering around in yesterday.

He watched her carefully as they broke camp. She seemed brighter, more like herself again.

Harker had been given some communiqué from Colonel Wilson to take to the 17th’s temporary camp at Coningsby. He wasn’t intending to stay there, but he figured if they drove the wagon at a fair pace, he could save some time and swap horses when they got there. North of Coningsby, it was another fifty or so miles to Hatfield Chase, the house on the edge of the Wolds where Wheeler had arranged for them to stay. If they’d been able to go closer to Lincoln, it would have been a much shorter journey, but the Coalitionists were apparently making a move on that city, and he didn’t really want to risk it.

As it was, they’d have to cross Ermine Street, and part of the reason for going to Coningsby was to find out where the barricades were so they could cross there and minimise their chances of getting shot by their own side.

He drove the length of the disused canal where they’d spent the night, and when it veered off course, set the squad to marching the last ten miles. Once more Eve marched uncomplainingly and he gave the reins to Daz and marched behind her, just in case she had a relapse.