"Ginny?"
She
heard the voice from the past. It was weak but unmistakable, although for a
moment she thought it merely some part of this waking nightmare, a figment of
her feverish imagination that had run riot in the last several hours.
Distractedly, almost without interest, she glanced sideways at the body lying
beside Alex. And found herself looking into the eyes of her husband. His helmet
was beside him, and he was bleeding copiously from a sword wound in the neck.
As she stared at him, his eyes closed, and he lapsed again into
unconsciousness.
For a
moment, she was frozen, encased in ice, unable to think or to move. Then Alex
moaned, and his eyelids fluttered. "I am here, love," she whispered,
taking his hand. The stretcher bearers came running, and she looked again at
Giles Courtney, still unconscious. She had not seen him, had she? She would
walk away from this field of death and fight for the life of the man she loved,
and forget that she had imagined seeing her husband. As one of the enemy
wounded, he would be amongst the last to receive attention. He would surely die
out here, as he was supposed to have done nearly two years ago.
Jed
was looking at her strangely, and she realized that she was staring at Giles,
and there was loathing and despair on her face. "Tell them to bring that
man, too, Jed," she said quietly. "He is my husband, whom I thought
dead since the surrender of Oxford." Then she walked off beside Alex's
stretcher.
It was
Jed's turn to stare, at first in utter incomprehension, then with pity and
understanding. He said nothing, though, merely called over another pair of
stretcher-bearers, giving them orders to bring the wounded Royalist up to the
village.
In the
farmhouse, Ginny barely acknowledged those who had escaped hurt and, knowing
that their commander had not come off the field unscathed, waited in
near-intolerable anxiety for news. Brushing aside their questions, she directed
the stretcher-bearers to the chamber abovestairs, telling them to lay Alex
carefully on the bed.
"Where
shall we put the other one, mistress?" Jed asked hesitantly, not knowing
how to refer to the unconscious man.
"Anywhere,"
Ginny replied. "I will look to his hurts later. For the moment, he must
take his chance. You must help me with the general's armor, Jed. I cannot see
what damage has been done."
"Ginny?"
Alex opened his eyes, his voice weak but clear.
"Aye,
love, I am here." She smiled at him, even as she cursed inwardly that he
had regained consciousness before they had managed to cut away the mangled
breastplate. She took his hand. "Hold tight now, my love."
He
clung to her hand, gazing fixedly into her eyes, as Jed sawed through the
metal, shards of which were buried in his flesh under the impact of the musket
ball.
"I
would give you brandy," Ginny said, "but if the lung is perforated,
it will only make things worse." Her voice was cheerfully matter-of-fact,
masking her anguish at his agony, her fear of what she would find. The fierce
grip on her hand slackened abruptly, as Alex mercifully passed out again.
"Hot water, Jed, quickly, and cloths so that I may clean this and see the
worst before he comes to."
The
musket ball was lodged between the third and fourth ribs, both of which were
fractured. But his breastplate had slowed the impact so that heart and lungs
had escaped, and the ball had not sufficient force to reach his spine. Ginny
felt her heart lift. If she could remove the musket ball, the fragments of
bone, and the silver from his breastplate without undue loss of blood, close up
the wound, splint the ribs, and if mortification did not set in, there was no
reason why he should not eventually be as good as new.
She
told Jed in a few words what she had to do, and when Alex opened his eyes
again, reaching for her hand, she explained to him, also. "It seems I'll
live," he said with a painful grin. "Do your worst, gypsy."
"Knock
him out, Jed," Ginny instructed levelly, dipping her knife in the hot
water.
"You
do, soldier, and I'll have you facing a drumhead court-martial," Alex
threatened, some of the old fire in his voice.
"Take
no notice of him, Jed," Ginny said.
Jed
glanced at the determined young woman with her knife, then at the man whom he
had served since boyhood. with an apologetic shrug, he drew back his fist,
bringing it accurately and with carefully judged force against Alex's chin.
"My
thanks." Ginny smiled at him. "My hand will be steadier if I know he
cannot feel the pain I am inflicting."
She
worked as swiftly as she could, using a twist of silk to hold open the wound as
she probed for the fragments and the musket ball. When Alex's eyelids began to
flutter, Jed tapped him sharply on the chin again, and he became still. “Never
forgive me for this, 'e won't," muttered Jed, but he did
not sound
particularly worried about such an eventuality as he held the candle high to
cast the greatest light as Ginny worked.
It was
an hour later before she was satisfied that she had removed all that she could
see. "It is to be hoped I have missed nothing," she said with a
frown, wiping away the blood from the torn flesh. It was an ugly wound, but
somehow, cleansed, it seemed less alarming. "I must close this. If he
wakes again, Jed, we must leave him this time. It cannot be good for him in his
weakened state to be rendered unconscious so violently."
Jed
nodded and reached for Alex's leather belt lying over the stool. When Alex
resurfaced with a groan, Jed pushed the belt between his teeth and took his
hands, holding them still as Ginny stitched the wound, fighting her own nausea
even as she knew that if she lost courage at this point, she would have done as
well to have left him on the field or abandoned him to the butchers in the
field hospital. But at last it was done, and she wrapped clean bandages in
overlapping strips around his torso, tightly to restrict movement that would
disturb the fractured ribs.
"I
will prepare a potion that will help him sleep," she said quietly to Jed.
"We must watch now for fever and inflammation. Will you stay with him? I
must go to . . ." But the words "my husband" stuck in her
throat, and she left the room without saying them.
She
found Giles laid upon a bed in the chamber across the hall. He was barely
conscious and rambled as she removed his armor and his clothes, noting with
abstracted interest the twisted scar high on his hip. The wound that was
supposed to have killed him, she assumed, turning her attention to the deep
sword cut on his neck. Throughout the wandering of his fevered mind, however,
emerged a thread that bore her name, and she had little hope that, when the
delirium had passed and he regained his senses, he would have forgotten her
presence on the battlefield. What possible explanation was there for it, except
the truth? And how could she tell that truth to her husband? And how could she
leave her lover, now that her husband was here to stake his rightful claim? But
how could she stay with the lover, now that the husband was here to stake his
rightful claim?
Chapter
23
For
three days, Giles Courtney drifted in a fevered world peopled by hallucinatory
figures who tended to him efficiently and attentively, if impersonally. But
throughout, some memory constantly eluded him although he was troubled by a
vague but definite feeling of unease accompanying it. On the fourth day, he
opened his eyes on a small chamber, was physically conscious of the contours of
the mattress beneath him, of the fact that he was thirsty and weak, but apart
from that quite clear-headed.
"I'll
not allow him to be bled, Jed; he is weak enough as it is. Those damn
chirurgeons would be advised to leave my patient alone!"
The
voice was raised in exasperation, coming from outside his half-open door, and
finally the elusive memory fell into place. Giles Courtney stared up at the
ceiling. It was his wife's voice, well remembered although that authoritative
note of decision was not one he had heard often during their marriage. It was
not one he would have wished to have heard. He remembered the moment on the
battlefield, the moment when the sword had bitten into his neck; then he
remembered hearing her voice through the mists of semiconsciousness as he lay,
bleeding, on the ground.
But what the hell was his wife doing here in the
middle of the war?
The question assumed monumental proportions as he lay
there, and that feeling of unease became no longer vague, but took on definite
shape.
"If
you gather the snails, Jed, I will distill some snail water this afternoon. It
is a certain remedy against hectic fevers and will do the general more good
than all the cupping in the world." Ginny put her hand on the door of her
husband's chamber and pushed it fully open, glancing at the figure on the bed.
She saw immediately the change in his face, the lucidity of the eyes and, with
sinking heart, stepped completely into the room, pulling the door to behind
her. "You are better, I see." Coming over to the bed, she laid her
hand on his brow. "The fever has broken. I will bring you a peppermint
caudle directly. It will help you regain your strength."
Giles
gripped her wrist as she turned to go. "Where am I? And what do you do
here?"
"You
are in a farmhouse in the village of Preston," she told him.
"Parliament won the day, and you were wounded in the neck. I discovered
you on the battlefield and had you brought here." She paused, then went
on. "You are being cared for in the enemy camp. I do not know whether you
are considered a prisoner or not. But I suspect not, since the main body of the
army has gone back to London for dispersal, and only those unable to travel
remain."
"And
what does my wife do in the enemy camp?" he demanded, the light blue eyes
narrowing.
"It
is a long story, Giles," Ginny said. "We had heard that you were
killed after Oxford. I left Courtney Manor and returned to the Isle of Wight to
care for my mother who died some six months later. My father's house and estate
were sequestered as the property of a Malignant. I was made ward of
Parliament." She shrugged with a fair assumption of carelessness, as if
there was no more to the tale. "Rest a little now; you are still very
weak." She left him then, before he could find the words to stop her, but
she knew that he would not be satisfied with what she had told him. No man of sense
would be, and she still could not decide what lie would be plausible, or even
if she cared enough to keep the truth from him.
All
her thoughts and energies were for Alex, whose recovery was alarmingly slow.
Whether from shock or loss of blood, Ginny could not decide, but he remained in
a high fever, rarely lucid, and the flesh around the wound was hot, red, and
swollen. For the next few days and nights, she left his side only to prepare
medicines and poultices, spelled by Jed when fatigue overcame her. In her
anxious absorption, she almost forgot Giles Courtney, locked in the chamber
across the hall, leaving his care to Jed.
One
evening, when she sat on the window seat in Alex's chamber, watching him as he
tossed restlessly, Jed came in, closing the door softly behind him.
"Askin' a deal of awkward questions, 'e is," said the soldier, a
backward jerk of his head toward the passage serving as identification of the
awkward questioner. " 'Ard not to answer 'em, mistress."
"No."
Ginny bit her lip. "I do not wish to put you in an awkward position, Jed,
but I do not wish him to learn the general's name. Giles Courtney will guess
most of the truth, if he has not already done so, and I must live with the
consequences, but he must not know the identity of. . ." She sighed.
"What a pickle it all is, Jed. I do not know which way to turn, and I can
make no decisions until I feel sure Alex has turned the corner to recovery. Oh,
how can I ever leave him?" She looked at Jed, her eyes filled with pain,
but he had neither answers nor comfort to offer her, and Ginny went over to the
bed to smooth back the hair from Alex's hectic brow. The green-brown eyes
opened for a minute, and for a minute she thought there was recognition in
them; then, with resignation in her soul, she left his side and went to her
husband.
Giles
was up, limping around the small chamber, his brow furrowed with impatience and
frustration. "Where the devil have you been?" he exploded at Ginny.
"I have seen no one but that sour-faced trooper who behaves like a jailer
and won't even give me the time of day."
"Jed
is not one for idle talk," Ginny said. "But you should be grateful
for his care. He has tended you well."
"And
why am I not to be tended by my wife?" demanded Giles. "Who is it
that you are with day and night?"
"There
are other sick men," Ginny attempted to reason with him, "some with
wounds graver than yours."
"But
none with a superior claim to your attention than your husband," he
pointed out, his face tight with suspicion. "Or am I mistaken?" His
fingers closed over her shoulders, biting deep. Ginny winced, tried to turn
away from the pale eyes that glared with angry mistrust. "Why would a ward
of Parliament be dragged behind the drum across the length and breadth of England,
madam? Will you tell me that?"
"I
will tell you nothing, Giles," she said, making up her mind at last.
"You may draw whatever conclusions you wish; you will hear nothing further
from me on the subject. You were presumed dead, and in such a time of schism
all the rules of custom have been shattered. Suffice it that I
am
here
and was able to save your life. If you wish to return to Dorset, to consider
your wife as one dead, then I will make no attempt to persuade you to do
otherwise."