Beloved Enemy (58 page)

"God
willing," she said. "If your life is spared and Parliament's force
victorious . . . if . . ." But there were too many "ifs." Only
the advent of tomorrow's dawn was certain sure.

Chapter
22

"Courtney,
you will range your troop of foot on the right wing, behind Peter's horse."
The duke of Hamilton indicated the position with his knife point on the rough
sketch map resting on a trestle table outside his tent.

Giles
Courtney indicated understanding with a grunt and shifted his aching hip.
"It's the devil's own luck that Cromwell decided to come round behind
us," he said.

"Aye,"
Hamilton agreed, looking out across the countryside to where Parliament's army
was camped. "Had he attempted to bar our march south, we would have met
him with full force and in good order. As it is—" He shrugged. "As it
is, the damn sections are scattered all over the place, and it'll be days
before we can get a full muster and a coordinated plan of attack and
defense."

There
was a reflective silence in the group of Royalist officers. Those necessary days
were ones Cromwell would not allow them. Faced with the choice of meeting the
Royalist army head on and attempting to prevent their deeper intrusion into
England, or going behind them and placing himself between them and Scotland, he
had taken the latter option. It was a decision that had paid off, since the
Scottish army, caught unawares, was divided into sections near the town of
Preston, each section unprotected by its fellows and thus particularly
vulnerable to attack.

"They
look in good-enough order,"
Giles observed, articulating the gloomy thought in everyone's minds. The rows
of tents belonging to Parliament's army seemed to stretch to the horizon, and
there was something about the neat orderliness of their lines that struck at
the struggling optimism of the Royalist force. By dawn tomorrow, they would be
locked in final combat with the opposing army—an army of highly trained, highly
disciplined veterans who had only memories of past victories to inform their
courage.

The
duke of Hamilton looked at Major Courtney with a degree of contempt. It was not
necessary to speak aloud the knowledge that they all carried. "Our cause
is just," he said curtly. "God fights on our side, and with His aid
we will be triumphant."

Giles
made no response although his spirit rose in resentment at the implied rebuke.
What possible point was there in denying the truth? And if God was on their
side, He had certainly taken His time about proving it. This army would go into
pitched battle tomorrow with nothing but the memory of defeat to bolster their
courage. He walked away from the group by the tent and climbed a low hill
overlooking the next day's battleground, at present merely an enormous tract of
land lying between the two opposing armies. Tomorrow, it would ring with the
bellow of cannons and muskets, the clash of steel, the shriek of wounded
horses, and the cries of the injured. The soft green meadow would be trampled,
churned beneath hooves and boots, reddened with the blood of the unlucky.

Would
he again be one of the unlucky? He smiled without humor. Of course, general
opinion would say that he had been one of the lucky at Oxford—not dead, not
crippled. But this time, if faced with the choice of death or a repetition of
those months of agony, Giles Courtney would choose death. He no longer cared
who won or lost this war; king or Parliament, what did it matter who governed
the land? It was high time Englishmen went back to their houses and their
farms, picked up the even tenor of their lives, bedded their wives, raised their
children, managed their affairs as they had always done. In the soft, green,
seaside county of Dorset was his home, the stately Elizabethan manor house in
rich parkland, and in the manor house was his wife, waiting for him, and he
would return to her whole or  not at all.

"Diccon,
if you do not keep still, I cannot possibly do this!" Ginny admonished the
lieutenant impatiently when her needle came unthreaded for the sixth time as
Diccon leaned forward eagerly to join in the conversation around the table in
the farmhouse kitchen that formed the headquarters for General Marshall's
division.

"'I
can manage without the button," Diccon said, shaking out his sleeve.
"I will have chain mail on top of my shirt."

"And
a loose sleeve will ride up beneath it and be most uncomfortable," she
retorted. "Take the shirt off, if you cannot be still."

Alex
grinned as the spat continued: Diccon was so excited at the prospect of
tomorrow's battle, Ginny so thoroughly determined to prick the bubble with her
maternal concerns. "Give her the shirt, Diccon. It will be easier in the
long run," he advised. "Chicken, if you must ensure that we are all
clean, pressed, and tidy for battle, could you do so quietly? What I have to
say is important, and I do not wish anyone to be distracted." It was said
with a smile, and she could not possibly take offense.

"I
will leave you to it," she said, replacing her needle and thread in her
workbasket. "I need a little air." Outside, in the dusk, she walked
slowly down the narrow street of the village of Preston where Cromwell's
officers were quartered. His own headquarters were in the tavern at the head of
the street. with a rueful smile, Ginny acknowledged that her anxiety over
Diccon's missing button, her fussing over all of them in the last days was a
displacement of her real fears. She could not say how afraid she was for their
lives, how frighteningly lunatic she thought their eager, excited anticipation
of the morrow's bloodshed. Even the experienced campaigners evinced this excitement,
although much more muted than that of the untried youngsters. Alex was as taut
as the string of a fiddle, but Ginny knew that it was the controlled tension of
the expert, the tension that would ensure maximum performance. If there was any
of anxiety or fear in it, it was not visible, even to her who knew so well
every twist and turn of his moods.

As she
walked back to the farmhouse, acknowledging the saluted greeting of the
sentries about the village, she saw Alex come out into the street, standing
motionless for a moment as if he were sniffing the wind. Her heart lurched with
love and the sense of loss as she recognized that the lover was now gone, the
soldier paramount in that magnificent frame, so tall and broad and powerful.
His hands were the hands of a swordsman, no longer of a lover, so gentle and
tender as they drew the notes of perfection from her. The man was preparing
himself for the killing time, and the time of loving was, for the moment, over.

She
came up to him and stood beside him, saying nothing. He looked down at her and
smiled. "I am going round the posts, would you like to accompany me?"

Ginny
nodded. "I would bid farewell to those who will not return."

"It
is war," he reminded her quietly, as he had done so often before.

"Do
you think I do not know it?" she replied.

Nothing
more was said as they walked out of the village and into the field where the
main body of Cromwell's army was drawn up, Alex's division amongst them. An
officer appeared, saluting with his sword at the sight of the general, but Alex
told him softly that he wished to move around without ceremony and did not wish
the troops to be alerted to his presence. They walked from company to company
in the gathering dusk. Whenever the general was recognized, the men sprang to
attention, standing tall and proud, bearing Alex's insignia on their shoulders,
his pennant flying from their tents. He talked with them, not as general to
foot soldier, but as soldier to soldier, and Ginny saw the way they responded,
the way their eyes lit up, and they stood, if possible, even taller.

The
men of horse were quartered separately from their comrades of foot,  but they
offered the same impressive stance. The horses were being tended for the night,
magnificent beasts for the most part, although none was Bucephalus' rival.
Ginny wondered, with that same desolate pang, how many of those majestic beasts
would return to be watered and groomed tomorrow night.

Far
away, across the expanse of land separating the two armies, she could discern
the shadowy figures of the enemy sentries pacing in the dark, preparing
themselves for the morrow, thinking much the same thoughts as the men on this
side — thinking of their wives, their children, their homes, or of a time when
Englishmen would again be at peace in a land unravaged by civil strife.

In the
forward lines, the atmosphere was different, the nearness of the enemy
palpable. Here, they were ready for battle, preparations already made, pikes
sharpened to a fine edge. These were the men who would launch the first attack,
and a grim silence hung over them. It was with relief that Ginny turned back
when Alex was ready to leave, and they returned through the lines to the
village.

"Will
you come to bed?" she asked softly as they approached the farmhouse.

Alex
shook his head. "Not tonight, sweetheart. I will take what rest I may with
the others."

"Indeed,"
she said with a faint smile, "I would not be responsible for sapping your
strength, General."

"You
would renew it, rather," he replied. "But I cannot have comforts that
are denied others, not on the eve of battle."

"No,
of course you cannot." Ginny sighed. "May I then stay up with you?
I
 do not have to fight tomorrow and may sleep all day if I so
choose." Her tone was ironic, meant to amuse, but it did not succeed.

Alex
shook his head. "I would like you to go to your chamber, sweeting. I know
the waiting will be hard for you, but I must think of my men first, and your
presence tonight will be a distraction and a constraint that they do not
need."

Ginny
accepted the rejection, accepted in silence the woman's place in the background
where she would not be a distraction or a constraint as men  went  about  the 
all-important business of death-dealing. Accepted it only because she had no
choice.

Throughout
the night, she lay listening to the rumble of voices below, the occasional
quick tones and step indicating a messenger from Cromwell's headquarters. In
the dark hours of early morning, there was silence. Were they sleeping? Or just
preparing themselves in the meditative quiet for what lay ahead? In the hour
before dawn, her door opened, and Alex trod softly to the bed, his body encased
in armor, his helmet in his hand. He stood looking down at her, and Ginny said,
"I am not asleep." She sat up, lifting her arms to him.

"No,
I did not think you would be." Bending, he clasped her hands behind his
neck, placing his lips on hers in a kiss of searing sweetness. "Farewell,
my own."

"You
will not say, "until tomorrow'?" Ginny whispered, trying not to cling
to him.

"No,"
he replied gently, disengaging her arms. "I will not make promises I
cannot be certain of keeping."

"As
you said once before, in a different context." Ginny smiled, blinking back
her tears. "A wise man does not issue threats or promises that he cannot
keep." She touched her fingers to her lips, then to his. "Farewell,
my love. God go with you."

The
door closed softly behind him, sounds of movement came from downstairs, of
voices whispering although there was no need for such quiet. Then came the
silence of emptiness, and Ginny knew she was alone.

Within
the hour, just as day broke, the sounds of cannon reached her and continued
throughout the day. A heavy pall of smoke veiled the battlefield, and she could
see little of the action, even from her position atop a hill at the back of the
village. But as the day wore on, she saw the encampment below begin to seethe
like an anthill, figures scurrying with burdens between the tents, carts moving
between the camp and the pall of smoke. Slowly, Ginny went back down the hill.
If they were bringing in the wounded, then there was work for her to do.

It was
grim work, and she forced herself to stay where she was most needed, with the
men waiting outside the field hospital, waiting for the attention of the
hard-pressed surgeons within. There were some whom she could deal with herself,
if it was only a matter of removing a bullet, dressing a wound, splinting a
fracture, but Ginny was no surgeon, and for those who required amputation there
was little she could do to ameliorate the knife and the bitten bullet.
Throughout that interminable day, amid the roar of cannons and the heat and
haste surrounding the broken bodies, she longed to go up to the farmhouse, to
discover if there was news, to go to Cromwell's headquarters and question the
runners. Where was General Marshall in that inferno? Was he still astride
Bucephalus, leading his men? He was not among the wounded, that much she knew,
as she scrutinized every blood-soaked, twisted figure, her heart in her mourn
as relief at not finding him warred with the dread of what could be happening
to him out there amongst the guns and the swords.

At
nightfall, the guns fell silent, and only the acrid stench of smoke remained,
hanging heavy in the air. Ginny drew a blanket over the body she had been
tending on the grass and straightened slowly. The man was dead, the hole in his
gut the size of a man's fist, and death had been a mercy. She wiped her hands
on her blood-stained apron and for the first time allowed herself to feel the
bone-weariness.

"Mistress,
the general says you're to come back to headquarters now."

"Jed!"
Ginny swung round, then flung her arms around the sturdy figure as if he
embodied a whole world of solidity and comfort. "The general ... he is
well?"

"Aye."
Jed nodded, patting her back with steady rhythm. "He's well, but he needs
you."

"How
did you know where to find me?" Ginny stood upright again, smiling through
her tears of relief.

"Not
hard to guess," Jed responded with a faint chuckle. "General knew
you'd be here, and if 'n you weren't brought back, you'd be here all
night."

Stumbling
a little now with utter fatigue, Ginny left the camp,  following Jed back to
the village.   She found an exhausted group in the farmhouse kitchen, but one
quick look and she knew they were all there, drawn and tired with faces
blackened by smoke, but no one was missing. She fell into Alex's arms with a
low cry, for once heedless of the audience but knowing, as he held her, stroked
her face, and whispered to her, that it did not matter who witnessed this
reunion.

"You
are blacker and bloodier than the rest of us," Alex said, voicing his
concern, drawing her over to the table where cold meat and wine stood.
"You have been working with the wounded all day?"

"Most
of it," Ginny agreed, taking the cup of wine he handed her. "Is it
over?"

The
look on their faces showed her how naive was the question. Alex shook his head.
"We held the day, chicken, but it is far from done. We have crushed
perhaps three sections of their forces, taken some two thousand prisoners, but
it is not sufficient to cry victory as yet." He sat down on the long bench
at the deal table, pulling her down beside him. "You must eat
something." He sliced bacon from the flitch, bread from the round loaf.

"I
am not hungry." Ginny looked at the offering with a grimace of distaste.
"The wine I am glad of, though."

"You
must
eat something," Alex insisted.

Ginny
swallowed a few mouthfuls to please him, then settled back in the circle of his
arm, listening to their talk, sipping her wine until a pleasant haze settled
over her and her eyelids drooped.