As Meat Loves Salt

‘Not that she told me.’

‘No. Thanks, Tom. I’ll see you all right tomorrow.’

‘O, I nearly forgot. The heir is dead, poisoned.’

I thought I would faint from the shock. ‘Poisoned! By whom?’

‘The brothers, who else?’

Most likely Mervyn had brought the thing on himself. Or had Mounseer had the last laugh after all, and at our expense?

‘God rot all poisoners, I ate some soup there,’ Tommy said. ‘As for you, you’ll have to be cleverer.’

‘How, cleverer?’ I thought he wanted more of the ration from me.

‘I called you Jacob a while back. You never noticed.’

No more I had. As I tried to think how to recover my mistake Tommy moved away into the darkness. I heard him snort to himself, ‘Prince Rupert, forsooth!’

Anguish kept me awake afterwards. I was not sure that I had paid out my bread and beef for any good end. I could not make restitution now, be I never so willing. Izzy might be a soldier, a pressed man fighting for the other side. I shuddered. But no, I could not see either him – or Zeb – being well enough. Izzy was not strong enough to bear a whipping – he would be sick a long time after. Thanks to me, my wife and brothers were all of them destitute. I told myself that Zeb and Caro had the jewels. Did Izzy understand what Cornish had done to him? Did he try to prove that those devils buried the papers themselves?

I turned over and my thoughts flowed into a different channel. Now I marvelled at the coldness of Patience, who had lain in Zeb’s arms and plotted his destruction. Carnality is of the flesh, but this was a pure deep drink of the Devil. As for Cornish, he knew who it was had killed his boy, and had doubtless laid plans for me.

There are foes against whom it is no help to be tall and strong. I was afraid of a young woman and a man past his prime, because they outwent me in imagination. Now I was possessed of a friend who might help, yet I was afraid to lose him, as I had lost Caro, in the act of unburdening myself. Tommy had said I was not clever. I had spun myself a wretched web; but I would at least try to learn from my errors. Yet it was hard to see how that might be done, and I lay sleepless long after.

Ferris was awake before me and shook me until I opened my eyes. ‘Rupert. Tommy’s back.’

‘We’ve already talked.’ I rubbed my face. ‘I’m not much wiser than I was.’

‘But he did get there?’

‘He went all right. But all he could find was, they have whipped Isaiah and turned him off. No one else has been heard of.’

He patted my shoulder. ‘You can do nothing, then. That’s hard.’ He was righter than he knew, for I was in no position to return the jewels.

Grey air blew in through the barn windows. My friend sat beside me in the straw; he looked weary and when I studied his profile he seemed not much fatter than Tommy. I dreaded the day’s marching after my broken sleep. I could hear men outside moving carts and cooking pots, and I remembered that my rations were forfeit. Ferris opened his sack and held out a piece of bread.

I shook my head. ‘No, keep it.’

‘I can’t eat if you have nothing. Come on.’

We descended to the farmyard outside the barn. Someone had found eggs and laid them in the ashes to cook; the farmer would be angry, not only for the eggs but for the hen, which was doubtless under some soldier’s coat. Our morning food and drink was handed out, and mine went straight to Tommy. I had thought of refusing him payment, but could not in front of Ferris. My friend took some water from the cauldron in a pot he had and supped half his bread in it, then offered the mess to me. Musty as it was, the smell of it broke my self-control and I ate, urgent as a starved dog.

‘It’s warm at least,’ I said. I hoped Ferris would not be too hungry without it. Not far off the thief was handing hot eggs out to his friends, laughing to see the men juggle them from palm to palm. I saw Philip come up and beg for one. He waved to me and I nodded back. The thief refused him a share, and I was glad. Then the prentice pointed me out to another man. There followed a series of curious gestures, followed by laughter.

‘Was that the lad cut my hair?’ I asked Ferris.

‘What makes you think so?’

I watched Philip pat his skull, grimacing in mock amazement. ‘It was.’

Ferris shrugged. ‘What does it matter? It’s been shaved since.’

‘You talked once of bodily dignity.’

‘I’ve seen heads shot off.’

He seemed out of sorts. We had no drill that day, and as soon as the men had eaten and packed up their belongings we were ready to go again. Mud covered the road and we sank in up to our knees where those in front had churned it. The troops plodded on like cattle, heads bowed.

‘Do you still fear action?’ I asked as the soldiers just ahead moved off.

He nodded. ‘So will you, when you’re in it.’

‘When did you last engage, then?’

‘Bristol. We were there from late August to the tenth of September. We began the real assault at two in the morning, and it was eight before the Prince appealed for terms. We were two hours at push of pike. Two hours.’ He whistled.

‘A long time?’

‘You’re a pikeman. Work it out.’

‘Last engaged at Bristol? I thought you were at Devizes?’

‘Aye, Devizes! That was nothing. They surrendered straight off. But Bristol – first I got a blow on the head knocked me out, then a fellow who took a musket ball in the guts fell with his belly right on my face, bleeding into my nose and mouth. Russ pulled him off, else—’ Ferris grimaced. ‘I can still taste him.’

I shuddered as we squelched onwards.

‘It was just after Devizes we found you, Prince Rupert. Some of the men reckoned you were Plunderland himself, others thought how a black man was lucky, and said you’d brought us luck already.’ He grinned at the memory.

‘You didn’t believe it?’

‘No, of course not! God decides these things, not a man’s skin.’

‘Amen to that.’ Yet I wanted to be lucky to him. ‘Why you? Why were you the one to save me?’

‘O, it wasn’t just me. The prentices helped.’

‘You mean they cut my hair. You were the one gave me food and drink.’

‘Well, you weren’t very thankful just at first! They held you down while I poured it in.’ He laughed, and turned to me. ‘What does it matter? Rupert?’

‘It matters not at all.’ I felt strangely cold. Perhaps I was sickening for something.

‘Are you well, friend? Nothing wrong?’

‘Only hunger,’ I said and vomited up the bread he had given me.

By the time we got to Winchester I was sweating, dizzy, barely able to walk. Ferris dragged me onwards, saying that once we arrived I could lie down.