Firebird (7 page)

Joe allowed that there was one exception. Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, was a brave man. He led his troops like the good soldier he was, riding his horse Copenhagen into the most fierce of battles.

There had been occasional rumours that the Field Marshal's high handed attitude drew more English bullets than French but Joe discounted them. He had seen the man to be fair and unafraid.

Now, if Joe's instincts were correct, there would be one hell of a battle taking place before too many moons had passed and Wellington would need all his reserves of courage.

Joe rolled the cooking utensils into his blanket and tied it securely. He repeated the operation with the captain's equipment. The small wooden box containing the captain's personal effects was strapped onto the blankets.

Joe was familiar with the contents of the box. There was the captain's pipe, the ink powder and quill and a tiny miniature painting of a lady with a small child in her arms.

The child was grown now, she was a young woman. Llinos. Joe had never seen her, only her likeness, but he knew her, she was in his heart, in his bones, in his soul. She inhabited his dreams. And in sleep, they reached out to each other across the sea and touched each other with their minds.

He would hold her in his arms one day. Their destiny was joined. Llinos, whom he called Firebird, and Wah-he-joe-tass-e-neen would be mates in body as well as soul.

Joe forced his mind back to the task in hand. There was no need to carry food; anything he needed he would obtain on the journey. There were numerous farmyards scattered around the countryside with thin hens scratching in the dusty soil where he would find any number of eggs. Sometimes, if good fortune hunted with him, Joe would catch a juicy piglet and roast it and then there would be enough cold meat to last for several days. He and the captain had not gone hungry yet.

His task completed, Joe moved across the perimeter of the camp and into the outcrop of rocks beyond. There, he sat on the ground and crossed his legs, resting his hands on his knees. He did not close his eyes, there was no need; in any case, he would never risk being taken unawares.

He allowed his mind to roam at will. Not his educated mind, the white man's mind, but the Indian part of him that knew the secrets of the universe. In the leaves on the bushes and in the clouds in the sky, he saw his images. Now, quite clearly, he saw the captain's wife, the elegant woman in the miniature.

It was the same woman but she was different. She was older, careworn. There was no smile in her eyes. Beside her was the spectre of the great spirit of death. The image changed. The girl, young but with the look of the captain in the darkness of her hair and eyes, was shedding tears. Tragedy was stalking the captain's house and it came in the guise of a drunken man.

Joe stretched his mind towards the night ahead. He saw the army of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was mighty but it was being fragmented, troops deployed in various directions weakening the main force.

The vision faded and Joe saw the sunlight filtering through the sparse trees. Soon the sun, the enemy from above, would be high in the sky. Joe rose to his feet in one swift movement, it was time to begin his search of the ground surrounding the camp.

There were guards posted, always, but Joe felt more secure once he had scanned the horizons to the north, south, east and west for himself. This was a liberty he was allowed. His instincts, as the Britishers called his inner knowledge, had saved the camp from attack on more than one occasion.

As Joe moved silently across the grass, he saw again the lovely young girl of his vision, her dark hair blowing free like that of a squaw, her eyes full of tears. There was a tugging in Joe's gut that reached to his loins and lit a fire there. He forced the image away. It was high time he had a woman; when the blood was too hot it fevered the brain. That way lay danger. He walked on for a few more hundred yards and then, satisfied, returned to the camp.

During the afternoon he rested and when night came the moon hung between the clouds, the light dimmed and Joe thanked the spirits for being with him. The captain was riding ahead of him. The horses' hooves were a steady beat against the rain-softened ground. Joe's senses were alert. If danger came, he would be ready to face it. But whatever happened within the next hours, he knew he would live another day to take Captain Savage back home to Swansea.

The shores of Swansea were shrouded in sea mist, the heavy rolling mist that came in from the channel and blotted out the craggy head of Mumbles, covering the valley, mingling with the smoke from the chimneys of the works ranged along the river banks. It had been a miserable market day.

‘I'll climb into the back of the cart, we've got a lot of crocks left over today.' Watt clambered up, standing nimbly on the wheel before heaving himself over the side of the cart. ‘I can try and hold the stock steady. We can always have another go at selling it next week.'

His voice, muffled by the heavy air, seemed to waft ghostlike around Llinos's head. She closed her eyes for a moment, wishing she did not have to return home. Mr Cimla would be there. He would be wearing his habitual frown. Gwen had forgiven him for the sake of the child and taken him back. But his return had not made her happy.

The conciliatory tone he had adopted for a time after his fall from grace had vanished. His ill temper was, once again, given full rein. He was drinking more than ever; most of the time he sat in her father's chair drowning himself in ale.

Llinos bit her lip, she must be firm, must tell him to leave the pottery. Her mother still clung to the man only because he was the father of her unborn child, yet his presence meant nothing but trouble.

Llinos shivered at the thought of having a confrontation with the man. There would be an unpleasant scene but he would have to go. And what could he do? A great deal, her mind said. He could give her the beating of her life and who would protect her? Well, just in case he proved violent, she would arm herself with her father's musket, that would deter him.

When she arrived home, it was with a sense of anticlimax that she realized she was to be spared a scene. Mr Cimla was out.

Llinos left Watt to deal with the horse and cart as she made her way through the house. It was quiet and peaceful. A pale sun was breaking through the clouds, spilling in the windows, and her home felt as warm and secure as it had been when she was a child.

Her mother was asleep in the sitting-room. She looked up in confusion as Llinos entered the room.

‘Oh dear, I must have dozed off.' Gwen rubbed her eyes. ‘I'll build up the fire.' She knelt on the mat and coaxed the dying flames into life. ‘I'm so tired lately and Nora is sick, she's gone to bed, which makes matters worse.'

She kissed Llinos and held on to her for a moment as if to gather her strength. ‘We'll have a nice bit of bacon and some eggs, shall we, love?'

‘I'll do it, Mother.'

‘No, I won't hear of it, you are tired enough as it is, your eyes are heavy with shadows.' She smiled and for a moment she appeared like the happy mother Llinos had always known. ‘In any case, you are a terrible cook!'

As Llinos washed, the smell of cooking rose through the house and Llinos remembered the sumptuous meals she used to enjoy when the pottery had been a flourishing concern. When her father was at home, the dining table would be groaning with suckling pig, roast partridge or a whole salmon surrounded by chestnuts. Now they were lucky to have bacon and eggs.

Those wonderful days were gone but perhaps there would be some improvement in her circumstances now that Binnie had come back to work at the pottery. She had been so grateful when she had seen him standing at the doorway, a crooked smile on his face. She had hugged him warmly. Embarrassed, he had disentangled himself and she knew that Binnie had grown up. He was no longer the little boy from the workhouse, Binnie was his own man.

He was as conscientious as ever but, after work, Binnie would hurry back to his Irish beauty at Greenhill. She supposed nothing stayed the same in this world.

When she had eaten, Llinos went outside to call the boys for supper. She had made changes in the last few weeks and one of them was that the apprentices ate in the kitchen.

There was no sign of Watt; the horse was grazing at the dusty grass on the roadside, the cart still loaded. Llinos climbed into the driving seat and guided the horse through the pottery gates.

‘Whoa there,' she clucked softly to the horse and the animal ambled to a good-natured halt.

‘Binnie!' Llinos called. ‘Give us a hand here.' Watt crept out of the drying shed, his eyes huge in his pinched face.

‘Binnie's bad, Llinos.'

‘What do you mean, bad?'

‘He's lying down, all crumpled like.'

Llinos jumped from the cart and hurried into the shed, her heart thumping – had Binnie fallen, had there been an accident? Where were the apprentices and Ben, where was Ben?

Binnie lay on a pile of rags in the corner of the shed, his knees almost touching his thin chest.

‘What is it, Binnie, are you sick?' Llinos knelt beside him, unaware that her freshly washed hair was hanging wetly over her shoulder.

He turned towards her and she suppressed a cry of horror. His face was grotesquely swollen, distorted beyond recognition. His eyes were closed, blackened with bruises.

‘When did this happen?' Llinos was suddenly clear-headed. She knew, with a burning sensation of anger growing in her belly, that this was the work of her stepfather. ‘It was Mr Cimla, wasn't it? Answer me, Binnie, please.'

He managed to nod and Llinos touched his shoulder. ‘All right, don't worry, I'll see to everything.' She turned to Watt, who was standing behind her, his thumb in his mouth.

‘Go and fetch Celia-end-house, tell her to bring her medicine bag with her. Hurry, there's a good boy.'

Watt seemed to be gone for an eternity. Llinos knelt beside Binnie, her hand smoothing his hair away from his battered face.

‘I'll have him for this, Binnie, I swear it. He'll be out of here so fast he won't know what's hit him.' Anger built up in her so that she felt her head would explode.

‘
Duw,
what's been ‘appenin' by 'ere then?' Celia bustled towards Binnie holding a candle in one bony hand and her bag in the other. She bent over, the candle raised high.

‘Well, son, you've been beat good and proper. Come on, now, Celia won't hurt you, let me see what's what.' She knelt with difficulty and Binnie groaned as Celia ran her hands lightly over his thin body.

‘Don't seem to be nothing broken, thank the good Lord.' She rolled her eyes heavenward. ‘But there will be bruises inside as well as out. It's rest in a good bed for you, my boy.'

She looked up at Llinos. ‘Where's Ben? I'll need his help to get Binnie into the house.'

‘I 'spects Ben's gone to the ale house.' Watt's small voice carried across the shed just as the door opened.

‘Someone taking my name in vain? Well I went for a drink but I'm back now. What's the trouble?' He smelled of ale and the bitterness of wormwood. The Neath Inn was not renowned for its good brew.

Llinos pointed to where Binnie lay. ‘Mr Cimla's handiwork,' she said.

‘There's been trouble here!' Ben rubbed his chin. ‘I wondered why the apprentice lads were running hell for leather across the fields. That man's mad, he needs horsewhipping, if you ask me.'

Between them, Llinos and Ben managed to take Binnie inside the house. Binnie drifted in and out of consciousness, unaware that he was being tucked into the comfort of Llinos's bed.

‘What's happened?' Gwen came upstairs behind them, her eyes wide in the candlelight, her face pale, and her pregnancy beginning to show beneath the light material of her dress.

‘Your man's been at ‘is tricks again, Mrs Savage,' Celia said. ‘Get rid of him before he kills one of you.'

‘What's happened? I didn't know he'd been home. What is it, Llinos?' Gwen rubbed her hands nervously over the small swell of her apron.

‘He's beaten Binnie within an inch of his life, that's what's happened, Mother.' Llinos could not keep the anger from her voice.

Celia shook her head as though warning Llinos not to upset Gwen. ‘Llinos, perhaps you'll stay by here and help me. Go and have something to calm your nerves, Mrs Savage, you look awful.'

No-one noticed that Celia referred to Gwen by her first husband's name. Gwen bit her lip but left the room and Celia turned her attention to Binnie.

It took almost an hour to bathe and clean the wounds on his face and body. The room smelled of witch-hazel and essence of laudanum but at last Binnie was resting easily.

Llinos rubbed her eyes; her back ached and her feet felt on fire. It had been a dreadful day, a wet, cold, empty day and now to return to find Binnie beaten like this was the last straw.

‘I hate that man, Celia,' she said. ‘I could kill him myself for what he's done to us.'

Celia lifted her brows. ‘My advice is to get your father's musket at the ready in case that monster comes back here tonight, though if I'm any judge of 'uman nature, he'll lie low till the dust settles.'

Llinos nodded, not bothering to say that the thought had occurred to her already. She watched as Celia walked stiffly to the door.

‘And I'll have my payment now, if you please, Llinos, for I won't set foot in 'ere when he's at home.' She held out her hand and Llinos nodded.

‘I'll get your money, just wait a minute, Celia.'

Llinos went down to the kitchen to look in the tin where the housekeeping money was kept and, as she had expected, it was empty. She smiled bitterly, she was well used to Mr Cimla's thieving ways by now and only a few pennies were kept in the house. She looked in her apron pocket at the few pence she had taken that day at market. At least there was enough to pay Celia.