"Those you shall have," Jack boomed.
"
And a haunch of venison, a pint of
fine brandy and—
"
he winked salaciously, "for
entertainment, my friend, your choice amongst the daintiest, most willing
little wenches you've ever come across!" He rubbed his hands together, his
laughter rich with anticipation and the pleasure of providing such
unimpeachable hospitality.
Ginny coughed pointedly. It wasn't that she objected to
the
tone of the conversation; she had not been bred a
Puritan, but it seemed necessary to remind Alex of her presence since she could
not imagine where she was to fit into his host's plans.
"I do beg your pardon." Alex turned back to her,
and there was a glint of humor in the green-brown eyes that Ginny hoped boded
well for a speedy reconciliation.
"
Mistress
Courtney
,
allow me to present Colonel
Redincoate. Jack, this is Mistress Virginia Courtney, daughter of John
Redfern."
Colonel Redincoate bowed politely, but his look was both
speculative and admiring when he turned back to Alex, who had little difficulty
in reading his friend's mind. "Are there any women in the barracks, Jack?
Not of the kind you have just mentioned," he added dryly, lifting Ginny
down.
Jack shook his head. "None that'd be company for a lady,
I fear. Ye're taking her to London?"
Alex nodded. "As ward of Parliament. It's a long story,
Jack. What the devil are we to do with her here?"
Ginny began to twiddle her thumbs, staring into the middle
distance, whistling aimlessly. The two men stopped their discussion and
regarded the subject with a degree of chagrin. "I shall be perfectly
content with my own company," she said, once she was sure she had their
attention. "I would not wish to interfere with your—
u
h —
e
ntertainment.
I quite understand how I might be a hindrance in the pursuance of such a
licentious program. But I do realize, of course, that soldiers must have
certain
—
"
"That'll do!" Alex broke in swiftly before those
dulcet tones could continue on their present devastating path.
"
For the moment, you'll stay with me,
where I can see you." He
g
ave a series
of orders to Major Bonham about the dispersal of the troops and the
arrangements for the burial service to ta
k
e
place at evening parade. The officers were told to see to the men under their
direct command, then make their own arrangements for accommodation with the
help of Colonel
R
edincoate's officers.
"Now, Jack, you may lead me to that brandy
,
" he said, clapping his hands together with brisk
finality. "And we must see where we are to put Mistress Courtney for the
night." He motioned to Ginny to go ahead of him into the low, gray stone
building and with a shrug, she complied.
They were shown into a long, gloomy, sparsely furnished
chamber where the stone walls seemed to retain the chill of winter. The
promised brandy appeared opportunely. Several men were engaged in serious
conversation around a long table in the middle of the room, and at Ginny's
entrance their eyes widened. Colonel Redincoate performed introductions,
although it was clear that Ginny's anomalous position was giving him some
trouble. As a prisoner, she hardly came into the category of guest, but her
birth and breeding dictated that she be treated with all the respect due to a
lady. But then an all-male barracks was no place for a lady.
Ginny accepted brandy, deciding that the events of the
afternoon, together with this present awkwardness, which she was not enjoying
in the least, warranted the spirits. Then she settled herself in a corner of
the room, as far away from everyone as possible, and hoped that Alex would do
something about the situation quickly.
"We've not a spare chamber in the place, Alex,"
Jack was saying. "Can you not billet her in the town? There's not a bad
inn just down the road. She can sup there quite decently and leave us to our
own devices."
Alex shook his head. "She's a committed rebel, Jack, for
all that she doesn't look as if butter would melt in her mouth. There's no
knowing what she'd get up to."
Colonel Redincoate regarded Virginia with renewed interest.
"What d'ye intend doing with her, if she's a traitor?"
"I'll let Cromwell decide," Alex prevaricated.
"Too pretty for the hangman," Jack stated.
"Fine skin, too.
I
t'd be a pity to see — "
"
Quite
,
" Alex interrupted.
Jack looked at him in some surprise. "Ye're not usually
so nice in your notions, Alex."
Alex shrugged.
"
She
has courage. I've never enjoyed breaking the truly courageous. You know that,
Jack."
"Aye." Redincoate drank deep.
"
So, what's to be done with her tonight?"
He grinned. "I'll happily share my bed with her.
"
Alex winced, resisting the urge to wipe the lascivious grin
off the other man's face. "You can share yours with me, old friend. We'll
put the lady behind lock and key in my bed, safely away from any wandering
hands."
"
Yours
as well, I take it?" Jack gave him a conspiratorial grin. The icy stare he
received in return brought a dull flush to his already ruddy complexion.
"No offense, Alex," he apologized hastily. "I forgot what a
Puritan you are."
Thus it was that Ginny found herself ensconced in a small
chamber with a narrow barred window, furnished with a cot, stool, lantern, and
chamber pot. "When you go to bed," Alex said quietly, "I shall
lock you in and keep the key —
f
or your own
safety, you understand."
"Why can I not lock myself in?" she asked,
reasonably enough.
"Because you might decide to go in search of pennyroyal
or camomile in the middle of the night," he informed her. "And, while
I do not think you could get out of the barracks undetected, I cannot vouch for
your safety if you go a-wandering."
"Are you going to be quite horrid to Diccon?" Ginny
asked, taking the bull by the horns.
"That is nothing to do with you," Alex said
sharply.
"I think it is," she responded sturdily.
"Since it was my disappearance that caused the trouble in the first
place."
"It is
nothing
to do with you," he
reiterated. "It is a military matter, pure and simple. For reasons of his
own, Diccon chose to interpret his orders in a manner that suited him. That, my
dear Virginia, is a serious, chargeable offense. As Lieutenant Maulfrey is well
aware."
“Pah, such nonsense
,"
Ginny said dismissively. "Sometimes, I think you are all little
boys, playing at soldiers." A
l
ex's
jaw dropped ludicrously, but she continued, "Diccon wanted to join the
fighting, and when he couldn't find me, decided quite correctly that I must be
quite safe, so he went off to wage war. Do not say you blame him for
that
. I am sure, in his position, you would have felt the
same."
"I might have felt it, but I would not have
done
the
same
,
" A
lex
said.
Ginny regarded him through narrowed eyes. "Be
honest," she said. "When you were twenty, desperate for your first
taste of action —
w
ould you not have done the same? He
did not disobey orders, after all, just — reinterpreted them."
"You've a fondness for that young man, have you
not?"
Ginny smiled. "As have you. And Diccon worships
you."
"He knows what to expect," Alex said, frowning.
"Then surprise him. If you express yourself with your
customary —
u
h
—e
loquence,
I am certain you will achieve your object every bit as successfully as if you
reduce his rank."
Dropping the subject, Alex offered her his arm. "Come,
it is time for the burial service. As a member of this brigade, you will wish
to attend."
It was very strange, Ginny thought, accompanying him outside,
but she did feel part of this company, and she did wish to attend a ceremony of
such sorrowful importance. She would have liked to have tended the wounded
herself, but there was only so much one could accomplish in one day.
At the end of the service, the atmosphere of relief was
palpable as they all turned to go inside, to drown the tensions of the day, to
put death back where it belonged, a barely hidden, accepted fact of life. Only
Diccon continued to look strained, and as he followed his commanding officer
into the barracks, after the bugle sounded dismissal, Ginny decided he
resembled nothing so much as a man ascending the scaffold.
She positioned herself in the corridor, round the corner and
out of earshot of the room that Alex had been allotted for the transaction of
brigade business. It seemed a very long time before Diccon came out of the room
and closed the door gently behind him.
"What happened?" Ginny whispered, beckoning from
around her corner.
Diccon looked startled for a moment, then came over to her.
"I never want to go through anything like that again," he groaned,
leaning against the wall and mopping his brow with a heartfelt sigh.
"But are you still a lieutenant?" Ginny demanded
impatiently.
"Yes." He grinned faintly. "I don't know why,
but I still have my rank
— although I feel as if
I've been flayed."
There was, indeed, only so much one could accomplish in one
day, Ginny thought again, lying on her narrow cot that night. But she was not
dissatisfied with the day's accomplishments. It would have been better, of
course, if she had not lost her pennyroyal.
Chapter 11
"
Whatever
is happening?" Ginny, at the sound of raised voices, looked toward the
gateway of the barrack square the following morning.
"It's the night patrol returning,'' Diccon informed her.
"Looks like they had some success, too. Caught a few rebels for the
hangman." As if in confirmation of this statement, a cheer went up in the
yard where Colonel Marshall's brigade was assembling in preparation for
departure.
The night patrol consisted of some twenty troopers. With them
they had a half-dozen prisoners, bleeding, broken men with bound hands, who
stumbled ahead of prodding pikes.
Ginny, in distress, turned her head away from the sight,
wondering if one could ever become inured to such horrors. Then something
caught at the corner of her vision. Slowly, her hand over her mouth, she looked
at the group again. "Peter." She spoke his name in a whisper, then
shouted it. "Peter!" Under the astonished eyes of the men in the
yard, before Diccon could react, she hurtled across the cobbles and flung her
arms around a bowed, tattered, almost unrecognizable Peter Ashley.
"Oh, what have they done to you?" she murmured, in
an agonized whisper, brushing the long, disheveled Cavalier locks away from a
deep gash in his forehead.
"
What
are you doing here, Ginny?" Peter spoke through swollen lips. "Go
away; you cannot be see
n
with me."
"Eh, mistress!" A burly trooper with a brutal
mouth, caught her roughly by the shoulder. "No talking with the
prisoners."
"
Take
your hands off me!" Ginny whirled on him in icy fury, slapping at the
offending hand as if it were a gnat. "Lout. I'll talk to whomever I
please."
The trooper gave Peter a kick behind the knee, and he fell
forward onto the cobbles, unable to protect himself with his bound wrists.
Ginny flung herself at the soldier, curses and epithets
flowing from her mouth with all the fluency of a mariner. She had punched him
in the stomach, landed a solid kick on his calf before two other troopers
pulled her off him. She fought all three of them with the desperate energy of a
tigress protecting her young, heedless of her own hurts as they struggled to
hold her.
Diccon, at last freed of his shocked daze, started running
toward the fracas just as Alex and Jack Redincoate, deep in conversation,
appeared in the doorway of the building across the yard.
"What in heaven's name?" Alex exclaimed. Ginny was
visible only as a blur of blue serge as the skirts of her riding habit whirled
around her in the struggle, but her eloquence could be heard clear across the
square. Alex, who could not begin to imagine what was happening, ran as if all
the devils in hell were at his heels, easily overtaking his lieutenant.
"Release her!" At the bellowed command, the
three
soldiers came automatically to attention, and Ginny
taking instant advantage of her sudden freedom, kicked out at them viciously,
before dropping to her knees beside the winded Peter, who was struggling to
stand up without the use of his hands.
Alex recognized him immediately and at last saw the light.
"Get up, Ginny. This is no place for you." Bending, he took her arm.
Ginny shook him off. "You're as bad as they are,"
she accused him disdainfully. "He is hurt, but you would leave him lying
here, to be kicked like a cur in the gutter."
"For God's sake, Ginny," Peter mumbled. "Alex
is right. Leave me be."
"I will not." Putting her arm around his waist, she
hauled him upright, staggering under his weight. "Oh, what have they done
to you?" she said again, wiping at the blood on his face with her
kerchief.
Alex stood for a moment irresolute. Ginny didn't seem to
understand that Peter Ashley was a rebel prisoner, and there was nothing either
of. them could do to help him now. gently, he took her arm and spoke calmly and
quietly.
"
You must come away now, Ginny."
As he spoke, two of the soldiers, recovered from the furious onslaught that had
temporarily disabled them, pushed forward and seized the prisoner roughly, one
on each side.
"
Leave
him alone!" Ginny yelled, flinging herself on them again. Alex grabbed
her, and she turned on him, kicking and scratching. It was like having one of
the Furies in his arms. In desperation, he lifted her off the ground, holding
her at arm's length with difficulty because Virginia Courtney was no diminutive
sprite, but the lack of alternatives lent extra strength.
Ginny saw Peter being dragged off, partly lifted by his
captors so his toes brushed the ground, and her wild gyrations ceased abruptly.
"They will hurt him," she moaned and, when Alex set her down, began
to weep helplessly. Alex took her in his arms, cradling her head against his
chest as she sobbed brokenly. Jack Redincoate scratched his head in puzzlement,
Diccon moved awkwardly back to his horse, Major Bonha
m
looked inscrutable, and everyone else in the crowded
yard stared at the sight of Colonel Alexander Marshall of the New Model Army
comforting a Royalist prisoner who had just launched a violent attack on three
of Cromwell's troopers and men on himself.
"I must go to him," Ginny sobbed. "He is
wounded, and
they
are going to kill him, aren't they?
"
She raised her head from his chest
on this last question, her eyes, although wet with tears, full of condemnation.
Alex could not deny it because he would not lie to her.
"
You must let it go, sweeting
,
" he said gently. "It is war; Peter Ashley
knows
that
. There is nothing you can do for him
now."
"
No
. . . no." She shook her head in vigorous denial as if to shake his words
out of her mind.
"You
can do something for him. You can stop them
killing him."
"I cannot," he said with flat finality.
"
Two of my men were killed yesterday, three
others sore wounded, by Peter and his like. It is the fortunes of war,
Ginny."
She just stood still, looking at him, the tears running
unchecked down her cheeks. Alex prayed that she would never again look at him
like that, accusing, condemning, then accepting with a dull, lifeless
resignation. Her nose ran, and she sniffed ineffectually. Her kerchief was
stained with Peter's blood, and when she brought it to her wet face, it left
pink smears. "At least let me see him," she said.
"It will do no good." Unable to bear it any longer,
he pulled out his own handkerchief and mopped her face clean of blood and
tears.