Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 .. (3 page)

An overturned vehicle there in the wheat! He veered toward it, fighting back panic. Other officers kept coaches close during action, why assume it was his? His mount shied away from what seemed a bundle of rags. Brian looked down. The Thing was Jacques! The body was smashed horribly, but the face was recognizable.

"Lise!" He reached the coach and flung himself to ground. A terrible cry—half prayer, half scream—broke from him as he found his wife. Time stopped. There was only a great roaring in his ears.

Toward dawn he entered Louvain, unaware that all made way for him in superstitious horror. Nor did he realize that during the night he'd overtaken the whole of the pursuing army and the rearguard of the pursued. But for months afterward men told in a dozen tongues of how a ghostly rider on a gray horse had ridden past them, carrying a nude woman on his saddlebow.

When his exhausted mount was forced to halt by the press of humans in the grand place, he was equally unaware that around him were generals without commands, colonels with mere fragments of once-proud regiments, and corporals even without privates.

None of this he knew, for his eyes were upon the still, dark head against his shoulder and he was whispering into a pale ear. "The inn's full, beloved, but soon there'll be room for us."

He didn't even hear the shocked cry: "Jesus, 'tis the Captain himself! Give aid here, boys!" Hands, gentle with pity, tried to ease him of his burden, but his arm locked the harder around the stiffened waist.

"Soon, beloved, we'll sleep," he murmured.

That he and his dead had been lifted down, but that he alone was carried to a makeshift hospital, he did not know. Nor that later Clare's own chaplain stood by a new grave and prayed for the soul of a noble lady.

How could he, since now he'd found a room in the inn and Lise and he were sleeping in each other's arms?

CHAPTER 2 FLANDERS,

1706-08

"It won't do." Frank Edwardes paced the room protestingly. "If you must pose as a father, get a younger brat."

"No," Dick refused, swigging hot spiced geneva. "I'll not find a handsomer one in all Flanders."

"Think! You're writing you married a Holland wench who died in childbed and her parents kept the babe till they was lately carried off by plague, so now you've had to take him. Well, we guess this one's past two, and you must count you was wed at least nine months before his birth. Yet you've writ your mother once a year, but never before told of the marriage. Bah!"

"Pox take her!" Dick scratched his balding head. "She robs me

of my patrimony so's she can increase the farm. God's name, I don't want wealth in my dotage, but hard money now! Should I die, brother Will inherits, and he has kids. But if I'm a live father, she'll have to be more tender of my interests." "Let's see what you've writ." Frank picked up the letter.

"Att ye siege of Menin 20 August ijo6 New Stile Gracious Mother

Tis no doubt ye heard of ye grate battail wch my lord Duke beat ye Messieurs att Ramillies. I am still harty but have urgent need of 200 ginnies for to purchase ye Captaincy I must have for to care for my infant sonn whose poor Mother died 0 his berth these 2 years since and" . . .

"It won't do." He flung it down. "Wait! That deserter we retook last week, didn't he act as your servant once?"

"The provost's hanged him by now," Dick yawned.

"Aye, but suppose before he ran you'd long entrusted him with letters home, telling of your wife and babe, but he never posted 'em? Only now, at his retaking, have ye got 'em back. You send 'em with this one and your dam'll believe all." Draining his pot, Frank added generously: "I'll draft 'em for you." He opened the door, admitting snatches of song, laughter and the hubbub from below. "Grietje!" he bawled. "Vite, apporte du genevre!"

"Ye have it!" Dick rubbed his hands. "If the old bitch won't believe, I'll ask leave for England and go thrust 'em down her throat. I've been Toor Dick' too long. Now it'll be 'Lucky Dick,' with a son of my own so's the farm can never go to Will or his brood." He glared around. "Now, where's that slut with the geneva? Where is the whore? . . . Ah!"

A girl had entered, carrying a flagon. Though fair enough, with a creamy skin, the discriminating might have thought her somewhat too fat. But not Dick, he liked 'em plump, ecod! He coughed pointedly at Frank. "Sir, isn't it time you inspected the men's quarters?"

"Servant, sir." Frank left, grinning sardonically.

Dick tossed a guinea idly in his hand. "For the geneva—and more?" he suggested in his poor French. "You understand?"

The girl nodded. After hours of being pawed by privates, it was a relief to be up here with an officer, especially one generous with gold. Smiling, she drew closer.

"Now, I've some duties awhile," he said, stroking her hefty thigh, "but in two hours I'll be needing another flagon to share with a pretty maid. Hey?"

Impassively she kissed his unshaven jowl, as impassively she slid the guinea into a pocket. "Two hours. Good." Before leaving, she permitted him other minor intimacies.

A new drink in hand, he croaked out a song Frank had taught him from Vanbrough's Provok'd Wife.

"No saucy remorse intrudes on my course.

Nor impertinent notions of evil: So there's claret in store, in peace I've my whore And in war I jog on to the Devil!"

He sighed luxuriously. After weeks of chasing the French, it was good to be in snug quarters with only trench duties to do around Menin. He was spending that horse, saddle and pistols most pleasantly, even if they hadn't brought all he'd hoped for.

Presently he frowned. Meg should be here now with the boy, whom he'd seen only once since the battle; the wagon trains had only rarely caught up with the fast-marching army. Split me, I'll have her flogged if she ain't cared for him, he decided. Well, a squint at him, an hour for the letters, then—Grietje!

But at that moment, and outside his very door, Frank held Grietje in close embrace. He, too, had gold—mostly won from Dick himself—and she preferred twentyish lieutenants to fortyish captains. "An hour and I'll be done with the old fool," he was promising. "Those stairs lead to your garret?"

Nodding, she kissed him wetly. Then they had to break apart, for a woman and two children were coming up from below.

When Meg knocked and identified herself, Dick put on his wig to make the meeting more official. She came in, subdued and dressed with near refinement. Her brocaded cloak could have graced a born

lady. Indeed, it seemed vaguely familiar to Dick; but if it dimly recalled a gown of the same fabric and a pitiful, still face, the picture dissipated in the thick haze of geneva. "Well, Mrs. Meg, it seems the pilfering's been good."

She smiled modestly. "Please, your honor, following the army's indeet good this campaign. The French leave much behind."

"Where's the babe?" he demanded. "If ye've harmed him . . . !"

She moved aside, uncovering the children. One was her own, a girl of three. Holding her hand and regarding Dick solemnly was the boy. A woman would have noted that in the three months since his finding, he'd grown, so that now his torn, soiled clothes were too small. But Dick merely thought: So, she ain't slit your throat yet! Well, now you'll help me to promotion and ease. Aloud, he demanded: "What's your name, boy?" When no reply came, he blared: "Damme, your name!"

The child smiled, pointing at the girl. "Carla."

"That's hers," Meg scolded. "Yours, ye brat!"

"Brat," he parroted, nodding.

Meg shrugged. "He hath no name, sir. At first he had a few words—French likely. Now him and the lass jabber stuff of their own making. Make him talk!" she ordered Carla, so sharply that the girl's large eyes filled and she began to cry. "Slut!" Meg flared and slapped her. "Do as I bid or I'll flay your arse!" Carla merely cried the harder, but the boy ran at Meg, his small fists flailing. "Slut! Slut!" he cried in pure fury.

"Ha, here's a gamecock!" Dick caught him up onto his knees. For a little the child went on shrilling "Slut!" as if it were a battle cry, then stopped and looked up at Dick trustfully.

"Here's none of your oaf stock, but good blood, Meg," the latter grunted. "Keep your hands off him or you answer to me."

"Yes, your honor." She dropped her eyes.

Ecod, she's near handsome, he thought. Should he send the babes away and lock the door? True, she was only a remount for privates, but he'd had her before. As if understanding, she let a smile touch her mouth, softening it voluptuously. There was a strained silence. He shivered, but then remembered the blonde Grietje. Bah, he could have Meg at any time.

"His name," he pondered. "Why, since now I'm his father, he

takes mine—Richard." He patted the boy bluffly. " 'Twas a good day for you, lad, when I came on ye at Ramillies."

The boy's face lighted. "Wamee!" he aped, liking the sound.

"Begod, you're right!" Dick cried. "Not Richard, but Ram— Ramillies Anstruther! Meg, ye'll so call him henceforth,"

She nodded, furious that the moment between them had passed, that he no longer intended to have her, for which he'd have paid well. She wanted to scream, to spit at him. Instead, she said: "Yes, your honor. But you'll keep him yourself now, I think?"

"Hey?" He put the boy down. "What would I do with him?"

"He eats," she pointed out. "Hard enough feeding my own."

"So that's it. Here." He tossed her a guinea. "For what you've done and will do. There'll be more later."

She smiled then, aware that her services in the other way wouldn't have been paid so well. "I'll care for him, sir, like he wass my own."

"God forbid!" he grinned, studying the children. The boy—his boy now—had fine red-brown hair, hazel eyes and a build that suggested good ancestry. Carla had Meg's sturdiness and hair but with an olive skin that was oddly foreign. When Meg had joined his company two years before, he recalled, she'd already been abroad from Wales some while.

"Whence came that bauble?" he asked idly, watching the lad toying with a greenish stone that Carla wore around her neck on a silver chain. " 'Tis a devilish odd color."

"A mere good-luck charm, sir, no more." Hastily, Meg thrust the stone into Carla's bodice, lest Dick remember its looting.

Frank re-entered, looking guileless. But when he heard the boy's new name, he bowed mockingly. "Fostered by an old goat like you, he'll indeed be a ram—whoring and warring all his life!"

"Have done!" Dick growled. And to Meg: "Away with ye now, and mark ye care well for my lad." As she was shepherding the children, he called genially: "Good day to ye. Ram."

"Wam, Wam!" the new-named one crowed as Meg led him out.

Frank regarded Dick slyly. The situation was much to his liking: what was more amusing than to help a man make a fool of himself? But to the writing. Grietje would soon be waiting.

He began scribbling inventively. The first letter, dated from the

Hague in May, 1703, told of how Dick had married a merchant's daughter a month before. "Her name?" he demanded,

"Huh?" Dick looked blank. "A good Hollandish one, I s'pose."

"Meg's the foster mother, so let's use hers, only in Dutch. Meg's Margaret, and Margaret's Grietje—like the wench here. Now a surname." Frank licked his lips. "Horns! Grietje van Hoorn! Most lavish she was with her charms, eh, you old stoat?"

"Damn your eyes! What date's next?"

"After the babe's birth and her death." Frank counted on his fingers. "Say April, '04. The third will be this spring, telling of the plague taking the grandparents. That'll do, with the covering letter. Tell about the deserter not posting 'em, mind." He wrote industriously.

When done, he chortled inwardly at the richness of it all: gulling Dick's mother, cutting out Dick himself with the wench and with more japes to come! After all, war was a humorless business and the next tim.e in action could be the last.

He left, to mount the garret stairs stealthily.

Cheated Dick began copying the drafts. Soon he poked his head out and bawled for more geneva. When Grietje didn't appear, he roared so hard that a serving lad came scurrying with a fresh flagon and news that the girl had already gone to bed.

Confident that she was making herself sweet for his pleasure, he took the fresh gin back to the letters. He wrote on stubbornly, though his spidery scrawl danced before his eyes. One more drink and I'll rest till she comes, he decided. But soon he was snoring, and daylight faded into a darkness that was lighted only by mortar bombs bursting upon besieged Menin.

He was still snoring when several tipsy officers poured in, carrying torches and being stage-managed from the rear by Frank. "Where is he?" they whooped. "Where's Benedict Dick, who's wedded a whore and sired a ram without telling us?"

Gin bemused, he was cursing and rubbing his eyes when they forced him into his coat. Someone worked on his hat so that two bayonets jutted up from it like horns. Frank, in fine fettle because of Grietje's compliance, ordered the next step. "The hoisting! Mr. Drew, is all ready?"

"All!" Bob Drew agreed dmnkenly. "Gentlemen, come."

They dragged Dick down the stairs, through the crowded taproom and into the night. " 'Fore God, what's to do?" he bellowed. "Is the alarm sounded? Do the French make a sortie?

In answer his hat, strangely heavy, was jammed on his head. He was then shouldered and borne toward the small square, preceded by drummers and fifers playing the Pioneers' Call, which was also the Cuckold's March. Laughing, jeering men swelled the procession, and the villagers wondered at the madness of it all.

Storming now, Dick thumped the heads of his porters, who pinched his broad buttocks in return. At the square, Frank bawled: "Bring the blushing bride!" and Meg, screaming obscenities, was dragged fonvard. Someone thrust Ram into her arms.

"Behold the happy pair and their spawn!" Frank cried. " 'Tis a marvel—wedded, bedded and besonned, all in a single night!"

"Dick'll be cuckolded ere dawn, if I know his lady aright!" Young Drew lurched over to whack Meg's bottom. She spat at him, which he had cause to notice; but he had no cause to notice ex-Corporal Ely glaring at him from the crowd. True, Meg was a company woman, but in her own way she was loyal to jealous Ely.