The Bleeding Land (53 page)

‘I’ll be leaving you to it, then,’ the stranger said in an Irish lilt, bidding the ladies a good night with a respectful nod. The door closed behind him, leaving the four of them in the deafening silence of unspoken words.

Then Bess opened the door again and called for Isaac to bring a plate of hot food and some hippocras.

‘Why have you come back?’ Mun asked. ‘Why now?’

‘Let him warm his bones, Mun,’ Bess chided, then turned back to Tom. ‘You look so thin,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘And you need a bath.’ Tom looked down at himself. She was right, he was filthy. And now that the fire’s warmth was seeping into his flesh he was aware of his terrible hunger and the pain in his shoulder, which all those nights of sleeping under hedges had done nothing to ease.

‘This is my house, Bess,’ Mun said, ‘and I would know what a rebel is doing here.’

‘Edmund, he is your brother,’ Lady Mary said, though she had not taken a step towards Tom since he had come into the room.

‘He is a traitor, Mother,’ Mun said. ‘To his king and his family.’

‘Stop, Mun,’ Bess implored him, but Tom cut her short with a raised hand and shake of his head.

‘Well, brother?’ Mun pressed,
brother
the rasp of a sword from a scabbard. ‘Why are you here? Are you the Trojan Horse come to deliver Shear House to your masters?’

Tom felt his teeth trying to clamp together, yet forced the words out. ‘I lay amongst the dead at Edgehill. I
was
dead.’ He held up his hand with its missing finger and Bess put a hand to her mouth. ‘But God did not want me.’ He let that hang in the air that was sweetened by the birch logs blazing in the hearth. ‘I cannot say what made me come back.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I should have stayed away.’

Now Lady Mary came from the window and, taking Tom’s mutilated hand in her own, looked up into his eyes. ‘You are home, my son,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and for now that is the only thing that matters.’

Tom pulled his hand away, glancing at Bess. ‘I will not stay long.’

‘But surely you will join the King now?’ Bess said. ‘We need you here, Tom. I have a baby now. Little Francis.’ Her eyes lit at the child’s name. ‘He is sleeping but you will meet him tomorrow.’

Tom heard the words but they did not penetrate, instead rolling off him like raindrops from a lanolin-soaked cloak.

‘I mean to kill Lord Denton and his maggot of a son,’ he said, anger flaring in his chest at the thought of those devils. ‘They have taken everything from me and I will see them dead for it. I can never join the King.’

‘I will not stand here and listen to this,’ Mun said, then raised a finger at Tom. ‘It is as well we did not meet on the field, brother.’ The threat was clear and Tom held Mun’s eye a long moment, wondering if his brother really would have killed him if they had met beneath the Edgehill escarpment on that grim and savage day. Then Mun shook his head and left the room, bitter gall, almost a tangible thing, billowing in his wake.

‘I knew you were out there, my son,’ Lady Mary said, gesturing towards the window beyond which the snow still fell, though the flakes were smaller now. There was a smile on her lips that was not even close to reaching her eyes.

‘My course is set, Mother,’ Tom heard himself say, then saw fresh tears sheen his mother’s eyes.

‘Come on, Tom,’ Bess said, ‘let us get you clean and into some of your old clothes.’

He nodded and followed her out, leaving his mother standing alone as the fire spat angrily.

* * *

He got up when it was still dark. His breath plumed in the inky gloom of the parlour where he had slept in blankets on the floor beside the fire, and he spent a moment rubbing some life back into his limbs. The hearth was piled with grey ash from which smoke still rose lazily, tainting the air. His bones ached and the wound in his shoulder, which had knitted well, nevertheless smarted. At least his belly was full, though the spiced wine had left it sour, so that he thought he might vomit, for he had not drunk anything so strong for a long time. He dressed quietly, finding some comfort in his own familiar breeches, silk stockings, shirt, doublet and a sleeveless jerkin for extra warmth. Over this he fastened a cloak and lastly pulled on a pair of tall bucket-top boots, relieved to be rid of the dead man’s shoes in which he had walked more than a hundred miles. Then he went to the kitchen and quietly opened the door, breathing out a curse as he came face to face with Prudence the house cook, who gasped at the sight of him, her hands up to the wrists in dough.

‘Master Thomas,’ she said, blinking at the vision.

He put a finger to his lips and she nodded dumbly as he went about filling a linen sack with bread and cheese and some parsnips that lay on the sideboard ready to be washed. Then he lifted a cured leg of mutton off a hook in the ceiling, putting that in the sack too and pulling the drawstring tight. He gestured for Prudence to carry on kneading the bread, then left without a word, closing the door softly behind him. He wanted to look for a weapon or two, preferably a firelock and a sword, but he could hear folk stirring now, hear voices in more than one of the rooms. He had no time and cursed himself for a fool for not thinking of weapons sooner.

But he had clothes on his back and food to eat. All he need do now was get to the stables, take a horse and ride away. For it had been a mistake to come home. There had been a look in his mother’s eyes that had managed to hurt him more deeply than
any
wound. That look was disappointment, and it cut him to the quick. She might have welcomed him back, might have wanted him to stay, but she would never forgive him for taking Parliament’s side, for fighting with those who had slaughtered her husband. With Bess it was different. When he had looked at her he had felt guilt, and that sickened him. Because she
would
forgive him. He knew her heart and knew that she would never turn her back on him, and yet he could not rest until his blood-lust was sated with the deaths of his enemies. That was no way to repay Bess’s forgiveness. Besides which, he would never fight for the King. Not now. Not after all that had happened. And Mun – Sir Edmund Rivers – wanted him gone. That was clear as a war banner in a stiff breeze and loud as a drum. So Tom would leave.

Someone was coming down the corridor and though it was unlikely to be his mother or Bess he could not chance it, so he turned and made for the front door, crossing the dark hall and all but stepping on Crab who opened one eye lazily, his head on his paws. ‘Good boy, Crab. Easy, boy, it’s just me,’ Tom murmured, drawing the bolt on the door and opening it. Crab climbed to his feet, wagging his tail at the prospect of going out, but Tom eased the door shut behind him and stepped into the biting pre-dawn, his first breath of the cold air short and sharp as a knife and sending a shudder up his spine. He descended the steps and there in front of him, cast in the copper glow of a small crackling fire, sat the demi-cannon and a canvas shelter under which some soldiers hunched, swaddled in cloaks against the night. A fire near all that black powder was not the best idea, but then neither was freezing to death, Tom supposed, turning his back on them to make his way across the white-mantled lawn to the stables.

This was my home, he thought. Once.

‘Who goes there?’ a voice in the darkness challenged. Tom did not stop. ‘You there! State your business.’

‘My business is not your affair,’ Tom said over his shoulder,
not
slowing, but then he heard boots crunching through the snow. Several pairs of boots.

‘Stand where youar, yo’ damned scoundrel,’ a big man in an ancient helmet said and Tom turned to face four men armed with muskets and blades, though they looked too cold to use them. ‘Who are yo’?’ the big man asked.

‘Who are
you
?’ Tom replied, dropping the food sack to the snow. One of the others spat a curse and came at him, reversing his matchlock and swinging it like a club, but Tom stepped in and grabbed the weapon, ripping it from the man’s grasp and punching his right arm forward, smashing the musket’s butt into the soldier’s temple and dropping him. Then something brutally hard cracked against the back of Tom’s head and he stumbled forward, into the big man who hammered a fist down, driving him to the ground.

‘Do you know who I am, boy?’ the newcomer growled and, blurry-eyed, Tom looked up to see an older man, whose one hard, knowing eye glared at him from beneath his broad hat’s rim. The other eye was patched.

‘I do not care who you are,’ Tom said. His head was spinning and he could feel hot blood working its way through his long hair.

‘Well I know you, Thomas,’ the man said. ‘Know you’re a worthless bloody traitor and God-damned disgrace to your father. Sir Francis gave his life for his king. Your brother saved the King’s colours. And you? I don’t know what you’re doing back here, rebel, but you’re a damned canker.’

‘Bastard,’ spat another man. ‘This is for my brother.’ For a heartbeat Tom wondered if the man’s brother was the soldier sitting in the snow holding his head, or one of the garrison killed in the siege – as a boot slammed into his ribs. Then another foot, poorly aimed from behind, scuffed his head, prompting cold laughter from the others. And more garrison men were coming.

‘Shouldn’t we fetch Sir Edmund, Major?’ someone asked.

‘We’ll let the lads work some warmth into their bones first, Cawley,’ the older man replied.

It was Edward Radcliffe, his father’s friend, Tom realized. The old bastard.

‘Besides,’ Major Radcliffe went on, ‘how were we supposed to know this cur was Master Thomas? My sight’s not what it used to be.’

‘Radcliffe,’ Tom snarled, ‘I’ll spill your rancid old guts—’ Another boot flew in. And another, slamming into his left shoulder, so that Tom felt the wound rip open again.

‘So you do remember me, lad?’ the major said. ‘’Tis a shame you did not remember your damned duty.’

Got to get on your feet, Tom
, his benumbed mind warned.
Before they kick you to death
.

‘Give the dog a proper beating!’ someone called. Tom was aware of more garrison men trudging towards them, shapes shambling through the murk. Like a crowd to a bearbaiting.

‘Bloody rebel!’ another man growled, launching a kick. But Tom threw up his hands and grasped the boot aimed at his head, and hauled back, pulling the man down into the snow. Then he pitched forward, slamming clasped hands into the man’s face, crushing his nose in a spray of hot blood. Some amongst the crowd cheered to see the bear fight back, and Tom clambered to his feet, turning this way and that, looking for the next threat. Which was the big man who had first challenged him. In he came, swinging his fists, and Tom blocked one of them with both arms, and slammed a boot into the man’s groin, doubling him over. Then he hauled the knife from the man’s belt and slammed it down between his shoulder blades, though the blade snagged in cloak and buff-leather and the big man screamed and the crowd bayed like hounds and rushed in, hammering Tom with fists. He lashed out blindly but could not fight them off, could not have even in full health, and his right leg gave way and he fell to one knee. A fist slammed into
his
cheek, exploding white light in his skull, but still he tried to rise.

Then a firelock cracked in the dawn like thunder.

‘Get back! All of you, get back. You, too, Major, or I’ll kill you where you stand!’

There was blood in Tom’s eyes but the eastern sky was wan with the breaking day and by that sickly light he saw Mun running through the snow. Behind him came Bess and his mother. And Jacob too.

‘I said get back!’ Mun roared at the garrison men, who reluctantly retreated from their wounded prey, two of them helping the big man away, the knife hilt still sticking from his back. Mun sent Jacob running off across the lawn, then came forward and faced Radcliffe and the largest group. ‘How dare you lay a finger on him?’ he snarled.

‘He’s a bastard rebel!’ a man yelled. ‘We should bloody well ’ang ’im!’

Mun strode up to him, clutched the man by his cloak and yanked him forward, slamming his head into the soldier’s face, then shoved him off and the man fell in a heap on the snow. ‘Anyone else want to test me?’ he challenged, glaring at Major Radcliffe. None did. Then he turned to Tom and offered his hand and Tom took it, rising on legs that felt too weak to stand.

‘Bring him into the house, Mun,’ Bess said. Beneath a woollen cloak she was still in her night clothes and shivering.

‘Leave, Thomas,’ Mun said, their eyes locking for a moment.

Tom felt a smile pull his swollen, pain-filled face. ‘That’s what I was trying to do, brother,’ he said.

Then over Mun’s shoulder he saw Jacob, and the boy was leading a saddled mare. A good horse by the looks. Tom nodded, understanding, and Mun beckoned Jacob forward.

‘He needs to stay!’ Bess exclaimed, running over as Tom mounted the horse, determined not to show the pain he was in. ‘Stay, Tom. Please stay,’ she begged him, her eyes filling with
tears
. Tom glanced over at his mother, who stood back from the rest, her eyes unreadable in the half light.

‘I need to go, Bess,’ Tom said, trying to smile. He leant over, his ribs screaming agony, and Bess put her hands on his cheeks and kissed him and he felt her tears. Then he straightened in the saddle and nodded to her, glanced once more at his mother, then looked at Mun, whose face was hard as granite.

Mun stepped up and handed him one of his pistols. ‘You’ll find powder and ball in the knapsack,’ he said, gesturing at the canvas sack tied behind the saddle, as Jacob reached up to give Tom the food sack he had dropped. It was cold and wet now.

‘Thank you, Jacob.’

Then Tom turned the mare around and flicked the reins, not looking back at those who watched him walk the horse through the snow.

And in the east, the sun broke free of the horizon.

AUTHOR’S NOTE