Beloved Enemy (59 page)

She
was hardly aware of anything when Alex lifted her off the bench and carried her
upstairs, laying her on the bed. "I have to discuss tomorrow's battle plan
with Cromwell, sweetheart," he explained, pulling off her shoes. "Are
you able to undress yourself?"

"Do
not be foolish." Ginny sat up with a supreme effort. "I require no
nursemaiding, General, any more than you do."

"What
could a man not achieve with you beside him?" murmured Alex, bending to
kiss her. "You have more courage in your little finger, my raggle-taggle
gypsy, than has half a division put together."

When
he had left her, Ginny washed off as much of the dirt and blood as she had
energy for with the cold water in the ewer, then pulled off her clothes, and
crawled onto the bed. She was only vaguely conscious of Alex, still fully
dressed, falling much later onto the mattress beside her, asleep almost before
his body hit the feathers. The knock at the door in the black hour before dawn
awoke her, and she lay watching as he girded himself in chain mail and armor,
buckling sword and sling about his waist. Again, they said farewell as if it
would be the last time, and again she was left alone in the house, listening to
the roar of cannons.

It was
three o'clock that afternoon when she staggered out of the hospital tent,
desperate for air that did not reek of blood, for quiet that was not rent by
the groans and cries of the wounded and dying. When first she saw Bucephalus,
pounding up the aisle between the tents, she thought her eyes were deceiving
her. Then she knew that they were not; she could not imagine Alex as vividly as
she now saw him, riding as if all the devils in hell were at his heels. He
carried something in front of him over the saddle, and as horse and rider drew
closer, Ginny saw that it was a body. Alive or dead, she had no way of telling,
but she was running toward them as Bucephalus reared to a halt and Alex threw
himself to the ground and lifted the figure from the saddle.

His
eyes were haunted, his face gray. "It is Diccon," he said simply as
Ginny reached him.

"Oh,
God, no," she whispered, pressing her fingers to her lips.
"Dead?"

"I
do not know." Alex laid Diccon on the ground, looking helplessly at Ginny,
the green-brown eyes pleading as if she would be able, if she chose, to make
everything all right again.

She
dropped to the ground beside the still figure, fumbling with the catch of his
helmet. Alex, his fingers more experienced, helped her, pulling it away so she
could reach for the pulse in Diccon's neck, raise his eyelids to examine his
pupils. The pulse fluttered faintly, and when she saw the blood pumping from
the main artery in his leg, Ginny was surprised it was there at all.

“I
need a tourniquet," she said, pressing her hands below the hole where the
musket ball had entered with such force that it had torn through bone, muscle,
and sinew to leave an exit wound that bled as severely as the entrance.
"Untie my apron, Alex." He did so swiftly, twisting it for her as she
instructed, then tying it tightly where her hands had been. All the while,
Ginny knew their efforts were futile; yet she could not bring herself to tell
Alex as he worked so feverishly to save the life of his young aide-de-camp.
Later, she would hear how he had seen Diccon go down and had charged alone into
the melee of enemy troopers to pluck the boy from the ground where he had
fallen. Then he had left the battlefield with him, bringing him to the only person
he could think of who could be trusted to do the right thing. The woman whose
fondness for Diccon Maulfrey ran as deep as his own.

"It
is no good, love," Ginny said at last, moving her fingers from Diccon's
throat. She looked at Alex and saw a glaze of tears in the green-brown eyes
that carried a deep remorse mingled with the grief. "You are not to
blame," she said softly, taking his hand.

"Such
a pitiable waste!" he declared in a fierce whisper. "I could have
kept him behind the front line, but he was so damnably eager—he reminded me . .
." without finishing his sentence, Alex remounted Bucephalus and rode,
grim-faced, back to the slaughter.

Reminded
you of yourself, Ginny finished for him, as her own tears for Diccon flowed
freely. The young man's death had broken through the soldier's emotional
barricades erected to preserve him from the blows of personal loss and the
questioning of purpose that would bring diminution of courage and a wavering
from the straight and narrow paths of duty.

There
were other casualties that day amongst the officers of General Marshall's
division, but they were not major ones, and Ginny found her own skills more
than sufficient to deal with the sword gash in Colonel Bonham's upper arm, the
shell fragments embedded in an ensign's cheek. But she had not the skills to
heal the grief that hung heavy upon them all, or to fill the gap in their
number. She seemed to hear Diccon's voice, full of enthusiasm, his ready laugh,
but every time she looked over to
the
place on the bench that he had
made his own, it was empty.

On the
general's orders, they buried Diccon that evening in a quiet, intensely
personal ceremony attended only by his own troop of men, his fellow officers,
and Ginny. It was again evidence that Alex knew what he was about when it came
to dealing with the spiritual as well as the physical welfare of his men. The
ceremony was cathartic, laying to rest grief as the body was laid to rest, and
they returned to the farmhouse with renewed purpose, only Ginny knowing that it
would be a long time before Alex lost his sense of guilt, the remorse lurking
in his eyes.

The
battle of Preston went into its third day, but by that morning reports of the
enemy position indicated that victory lay waiting for Parliament after one more
concerted attack on the remaining sections of the Scottish army. When the men
left at daybreak, they were talking, laughing even on occasion, the deadly
serious atmosphere of the preceding two days dissipated by the thought that
this day should see the end and bring success.

Ginny,
standing at her casement, watched them ride out and wondered at how they could
be so lighthearted. There was no less danger in today's fighting, the swords,
the cannons, the muskets and pikes and halberds were the same weapons, capable
of inflicting the same wounds. Her day's work amongst the casualties would be
no lighter.

Giles
Courtney surveyed the train of artillery with a jaundiced eye. It was well
defended with firelocks and rear guard forces and to a practical mind inclined
to pessimism presented an impossible target for his own small troop of foot and
Lord Peter Ottshore's horse. But if they could not seize that artillery, then
the battle and the war were as good as lost. Peter raised his sword and his
voice in a rousing yell. The drums beat loud, and the assault began as the
small group threw themselves against the enemy defenses. Rebuffed, they
withdrew, reforming for a second attempt. Peter's horse went down with a scream
as a musket ball lodged in the powerful chest. His rider rolled free and ran
back to join with Giles and the foot soldiers bringing up the rear in support.

The
troop of enemy horse bearing down on them from the right scattered the foot to
the four winds. Giles saw an enormous black charger, lips drawn back against
the bit in a fierce grimace, eyes red like some creature from the depths of
hell, his rider, head and body encased in armor, only the eyes visible through
the visor, cutting a swath through the Royalist troops with a sword that he
wielded to devastating purpose. For a moment, the two men's eyes locked; then
the sword flashed, aiming unerringly for the tiny chink between Giles
Courtney's helmet and his gorget where the protective metal did not meet. As
the rider struck, a Cavalier musket fired. Alex felt the intolerable pain in
his chest when the ball crashed against his breastplate, driving the silver
inward as it penetrated his flesh. Then he felt nothing more.

Bucephalus
wandered, aimless and riderless, in the chaos as the final battle raged fiercely
around the artillery train. By some miracle, the charger escaped injury, musket
balls and pistol shots whistling harmlessly by as he roamed without direction
until he found his way out of the inferno and cantered back to the camp.

Jed,
who had returned to the camp with a wounded ensign, saw him first. His heart
leaped to his throat. There was only one explanation for the horse's riderless
state. But as Jed ran after him, he saw Ginny hurtling down from the field
hospital toward Bucephalus, reaching him just before Jed.

"Where
is he?" she demanded wildly of the horse, seizing the reins. Then she saw
Jed and asked the question again, her eyes frantic in a face as white as death.

Jed
shook his head. "I don't know, mistress. I was not with him. If he's
wounded, they’ll be bringin' him out."

"I
must find him!" Ginny began to run toward the battlefield, Jed pounding
after her. He caught her at last and hung onto her with every fiber of a
strength that was hardly sufficient against the desperation-fueled strength
that infused Ginny.

*Be
still, now," he said. "Ye cannot go into that. General'd have my hide
if I let you —and yours, too, for being so foolish."

Ginny
moaned and thought she was going to be sick, but the sense of Jed's words
finally infiltrated her fear-crazed, fog-ridden brain. "If he is in there,
wounded . . ." she said slowly, articulating the words as if she had only
just learned bow to speak. "If he is in there, wounded, and they do not
bring him out, he will be killed."

"Go
on back to the hospital, and leave this to me." Jed turned her back to the
camp and pushed her. "I'll find the general, don't you worry."

With
dragging step, Ginny went back to the camp, looking over her shoulder at the
smoke haze obscuring the scene in the field. For an hour, she sat on the
trampled grass outside the hospital tent, unable to continue with her work,
hardly hearing the sounds of pain around her, as her mind was filled with
dreadful images. When men came running and shouting up the hill, she stared
unseeing; then what they were saying finally penetrated her daze. The Scottish
army was on the run, leaving the field to Parliament. Cromwell was pursuing
them. The three-day battle was finished, Parliament's victory so unequivocal
that the Royalist army would never recover to fight again. The war was over.

Slowly,
painfully, Ginny got to her feet. There was no sign of Jed, no familiar face
she could turn to for help. If the battle was done, then she would search for
him herself, as she had known in the deepest recesses of her soul would happen
since her waking dream on the window seat in the house at Alum Bay. She would
search through the flotsam of Parliament's dead and dying.

Dusk
was falling, adding to the lack of visibility in the smoke-hazed field as Ginny
picked her way through the shapes of men and fallen horses. Why had no one seen
what had happened? He could not have been alone when disaster struck. But then
Ginny could not picture the chaos of that final charge, when hand-to-hand
fighting had broken out and no one had had time to look to their comrades.
Something grabbed her ankle, and she shook herself free impatiently, then,
horrified at herself, looked down. The soldier muttered vague and incoherent
words through swollen lips, and she pulled herself together, looking around,
noticing for the first time that she was not alone in the grisly business of
searching through the dead. There were parties of stretcher bearers, and she
called one of them over.

"This
man is alive, trooper."

The
trooper looked amazed at the sight of a woman in the midst of hell but called
to his comrades, and Ginny went on her way. When she saw Jed, kneeling beside a
body, she knew he had found what they sought, and a great calm washed through her.
"Is he dead?" she asked evenly when she reached him.

"All
but," Jed said, his face twisted with pain.

"Let
me see." Ginny knelt at his side. Jed had removed Alex's helmet, and his
face seemed extraordinarily peaceful, eyes closed, mouth relaxed. She felt for
his pulse, without much hope, but it was there. Not strong, but in the name of
the good God, it was there! She looked at the mess of his chest. It did not
appear to be bleeding much, which could be a good or a bad sign. "Get him
up to the house, Jed," she said urgently. "I cannot look at his wound
properly here, but tell them to be gentle. The bleeding must not start up
again."