The Rebel’s Daughter (13 page)

“
I think
we know someone who could help you.” Gils gruff voice rumbled from
somewhere deep in his chest. “He’s one of Churchill’s captains.
He’s less eager to torture the sick and dying, unlike
some.”

“
Who is
he?” Bayle asked.

“
Doesn’t
matter. He’s been charged with listing the names of all those
brought in, so he may be able to omit a name or two from the
lists.”

“
Where
do we take him?” Helena asked, dully, her head spinning. “You said
we cannot go home. Not to Loxsbeare.”

“
Perhaps
not. We’ll take him to Ideswell, to Samuel Ffoyle’s. You mother and
brother will be there by now.”

Helena nodded, though she barely heard
him. Those dreadful words kept repeating inside her head. Edmund is
dead. He has not gone to the city for a day to return with Fuller’s
earth on his clothes, and ale on his breath. There would be no more
teasing, no more secret winks behind her mother’s back; no one to
sneak food to her room when she was banished without supper for
disrespect. He would never open his arms to enfold her in his
strong hug, while she laughed in protest that he was crushing
her.

He was gone
.

Her throat felt scratchy, and hot tears
trickled down her cheeks. She palmed them away with trembling
hands.

“
Gil
says neither Sir Jonathan nor Aaron is on the lists of prisoners,
so they haven’t been captured.” The word
yet
hung between them. “However, there is no
way of knowing whether they have been killed in battle, or escaped.
Perhaps we’ll find someone who can tell us something.”

Helena jerked up her chin and stared at
them. “No!”

Three faces stared back.

“
You’ve
been very kind to us, Master Fellowes, Mistress. However, I-we-have
no right to endanger you further.”

Gil inclined his head with a sad grin.
“This is a dangerous place, my dear, whether you are here or
not.”

Jane nodded silently beside him.

“
You
have to live here when we are gone,” Helena persisted, “where so
many are being arrested on the flimsiest of excuses.”

“
Do you
have a plan?” Bayle asked, sceptical. “The roads are going to be
filled with soldiers within the next few hours. Our journey here
was relatively easy. I doubt we’ll get home again completely
unmolested. Especially when…” He left the words unsaid, but Helena
was aware they would have been
taking a body through hostile
countryside
.
She wasn’t sure what to do next. As for a plan…she didn’t have
one.

“
I asked
some of the men if they had heard of the Woulfes,” Bayle said.
“Most knew the name, but not what had happened to them during the
battle, or even afterwards.”

“
That’s
hardly surprising; it must have been chaos out there,” Gil
said.

“
It’s
hopeless isn’t it?” Helena sniffed.

“
No one
we spoke to saw him fall, so that can only be good news,” Bayle
said. “Maybe he - they - got away.”

“
Or one
or both of them have already been hanged on the roads…like…those…”
Her welling tears blurred their faces.

Bayle
’s hand came down on her shoulder
again. “I doubt that, Helena. That soldier at the inn told me
Feversham has had orders to return all the prisoners to their home
towns to stand trial. Someone like Sir Jonathan would be a good
trophy for them.”

“
What do
you mean, trophy?” Helena blew her nose on the kerchief Jane handed
her.

Bayle exchanged a loaded look with Gil.

“
They
would want everyone who knew him to know of his…humiliation,” Gil
said.

Helena nodded, resigned. Everything they
said made sense. If her father and brother had been captured, there
was no chance of helping them escape. They would most likely reach
Exeter before she did. Her best chance would be to go home and wait
for them to be brought in by the militia. If they had got away,
they would hardly tell everyone where they were, so again, she
would have no option but to wait and see.

“
By
asking around as to their whereabouts, we not only put their names
on the list of rebels, but we put them in greater danger by those
who decide it’s worth their while handing them in for a
reward.”

“
I
didn’t think of that,” Helena said. “But couldn’t we..” A shout,
followed by the sound of scuffling feet, drew them all to the
window.

“
They’re
marching the prisoners out,” Bayle said.

Helena gripped the sill, staring at the
men in their distinctive knee-length scarlet coats with turned-back
cuffs faced with sea-green, unfastened due to the hot day. Broad
brimmed black hats with green bands worn over sweaty faces, their
leather baldricks and swords, and knapsacks completed their
get-up.

“
Karce’s
men,” Gil growled at her side.

The church door opened, and the rebels
emerged, squinting against the sudden light. Chained and fettered,
the prisoners were manacled in pairs. Some walked, and others
shuffled unsteadily. The more badly wounded, dragging bound limbs,
encrusted with dried blood, needed support from those beside
them.

Soldiers on either side of the column
shoved and jostled them to move faster. When one or two lost their
footing, they were forced back in line with the butts of
muskets.

A crowd of silent villagers gathered at
the edge of the green. Those getting too close or staring too hard
were pushed back roughly.

Helena could not see their faces. She bit
her lip so hard, she tasted blood. Even at that distance, their
despair was palpable.

The column set off down the road whence
she and Bayle had arrived on that morning, with two carts at the
rear carrying the more severely wounded.

Helena turned away. Never had she felt
more wretched in her life.

“
Poor
beggars,” Gil murmured at her shoulder.

* * *

Helena spent a restless night in
the room under the eaves, her dreams filled with scenes of her
childhood, all of which included her Uncle Edmund. He had always
been more like an
older brother than an uncle; spoiling her with trinkets and
making excuses for the boys when they got into scrapes.

H
e had left Exeter for London when he was
eighteen, to work for Master Samuel Pepys in the Navy Office
administration. With a promising career ahead of him, Edmund
purchased a house in Greenwich, and married Catherine Jenkins, a
London merchant’s daughter. Within two years they had two sons, and
life held promise.

However, as philosophers and the
dispossessed will testify, when men make plans, God laughs. The
plague that struck to London that year killed thousands, and
although Edmund escaped contagion, his young wife and their infant
boys died within days. Father had told her many times of his
frantic ride to London, where he found Edmund standing silent guard
over their wrapped corpses, waiting for the death cart to take them
to the lime pits.

As a child, Helena would often find her
uncle standing morosely on the Weare Cliffs, a faraway look in his
eyes, as if he were imagining a happier time; she accepted his need
for solitude as a matter of course.

Helena woke as the first fingers of dawn
crept across the sky, a smile on her lips as the images of her
dream lingered. Then reality hit, and she moaned aloud in grief.
She turned puffy eyes into the pillow, her chest constricted with
dread that she would have to tell her mother, and when - if - they
came home, Aaron and Father too.

Jane and Gil awaited her in the scullery,
their drawn faces showing their night had been no more restful than
her own. Refusing their offer of food, she sipped some milk.

“
Nathan
is waiting for you in the back lane with the cart.” Gil hooked a
thumb at the rear door. “The soldier helped us load it
earlier.”

Helena nodded, knowing full well what the
load he referred to was, dreading the moment when she would have to
see for herself.

Jane shed a tear and Gil bowed
self-consciously as they took their farewells.

Unable to bear their compassionate kindness a
moment longer, Helena hurried out into the lane.

Bayle stood talking to the soldier who had
let them into the church the day before. A short plug bayonet hung
from a leather baldric, heavily stained with a blackish crust. The
ponies nickered at her approach and the soldier’s eyes widened for
a second, then he turned away. He gave a sharp nod and disappeared
in the direction of the church.

“
Can we
trust him?” Helena whispered, taking the soldier’s place. “He
looked alarmed when he saw me.”

“
He has
as much to lose as we do.” Bayle circled the cart, checking the
traces. “He would rather not have seen you.”

She climbed onto the wooden bench, and
glanced into the flatbed. Her eyes instantly clouded with
tears.

A length of black cloth hung down over the
upright sides of the cart, secured at the corners with a white
ribbon fashioned in the shape of a cross. Looped around the sides
were roses and sprigs of wildflowers, their subtle scent drifting
into the morning air.

This simple and touching display of respect
left Helena speechless. Bayle busied himself with their bags, as if
to allow her a moment of private grief.

“
Shrouding a lie in a truth,” she whispered in a choked
voice.

Heaving himself onto the platform, Bayle
stared straight ahead and flicked the reins. As the cart lurched
forward, Helena turned and waved at the two figures who stood in
the shadows at the rear of their house. Would she ever see them
again?

The cart rolled through the silent
village. A row of gibbets had appeared on the Bridgwater Road
overnight, from which swung the corpses of summarily hanged rebels
dragged from their hiding places, their captors eager for
blood.

Repelled yet fascinated, Helena looked
into rows of distorted faces, all frozen in their last attempts to
draw breath. Like the corpses hanging from the trees, they followed
Bayle and Helena with sightless eyes. She bit her lip, aware the
bodies would shortly to turn to a decay the villagers would be
forced to endure.

The horses threw up their heads at the
swaying limbs and the stench of blood, only settling again when
Bayle clicked his tongue and encouraged them gently to keep
going.

“
Where
did you go last night?” Helena asked. “I heard the door catch. I
wasn’t asleep.”

He gathered the reins in one hand. “The
churchwarden has furnished me with a letter that states we are
transporting a Weston man who died of smallpox two days
ago.”

Helena nodded, inwardly congratulating him
for the foresight she knew was completely beyond her. What would
she have done without him?

Chapter 8

Helena spotted
the patrol as they topped a small rise. Her heart hammered and she
began to feel nauseous, but when she saw there were only two
soldiers, she relaxed. “Not much of a patrol,” she sniffed, though
her hands felt clammy.

“Don’t be
deceived, one musket can kill as well as six,” Bayle mumbled out of
the corner of his mouth. The soldiers looked hot and tired, their
coats flung open and hats tilted on the back of their head. Two
horses had been tethered to a tree at the side of the road, tails
lazily flicking away flies, their heads down as if they had been
there for a while.

Helena
swallowed. These two were professional soldiers. Their long-coats
had faded across the shoulders, now reddish-brown from marching
long distances in all weathers. Patched in places, the turned-back
cuffs were no longer crisp. The younger one had a front tooth
missing, while the other sported a cropped ear and two hacked-off
fingers.

“Where are ye
bound?” the officer snarled.

The soldier
raked Helena from head to toe with bloodshot eyes, then moved out
of her line of sight to the back of the cart. Her breath hitched as
he laid his musket on the ground, then flipped the corner of the
covering back.

Beside her,
Bayle tensed but his face remained calm. The cart creaked and a
bird called from a nearby tree as the first soldier approached
Bayle’s side.

“What ye
carrying?” the man at the rear asked, flicking a contemptuous hand
at the arranged flowers.

Bayle took the
churchwardens” letter from his waistcoat, handing it over.

The soldier
gave the parchment a contemptuous look, but ignored it.

“He can’t
read,” Helena whispered, gripping Bayle’s forearm.

“Whatever it
is, we’ll take it,” the officer said, laughing. “The cart and
horses too.” He raised his musket slowly, but before he could take
aim, Bayle lunged for the soldier, both hands clamped round the
man’s throat.