The Rebel’s Daughter (12 page)

“
We saw
some of them,” Helena mumbled. “I can still smell that sweet, fetid
stench.” She halted at the look Jane exchanged with
Bayle.

“
The
smell is here all the time, my dear,” Jane Fellowes explained.
“Those men in the church, their wounds are festering in the heat.
They are what you can smell.”

Helena went rigid with horror, her
breathing quickened and she gulped her ale, hoping to remove the
taste from her throat. It didn’t help.

“
They’re
being taken to their home towns for trial,” Jane spoke again.
“Either tonight, or in the morning. The parson says they’ll have to
fumigate the building when they are gone. The churchwarden is
already complaining about the expense to the parish.”

Bayle rose to his feet and adjusted his
hat. “I will see if I can find Gil. He might be able to help us get
inside that church.”

“
Be
careful,” Jane warned.

Helena rose to her feet on wobbly legs.
“I’m coming with you.”

Bale held out a hand as if to restrain
her. “It’s no place for a woman, Mistress Helena. Besides, the
guards would never let you in.”

“
They
might.” Helena looked from Bayle to his aunt and back again, their
aghast faces doing nothing to diminish her resolve.

She didn’t need
to ask why Bayle wanted to see inside the church. He was going to
find out if her family were among the wounded. Well, she had come
all this way for the purpose, and wasn’t going to be deterred
now.

“No place,
Bayle?” She cocked her head. “How much worse can it be than what we
saw in that tree on our way here?”

Bayle sighed,
glanced at his aunt and shrugged. “As you wish.” Without waiting to
see if she followed, he ducked beneath the lintel and through the
door.

Chapter 7

The soldier who kept watch at
the door of St
Mary’s church barred their way with an upheld musket. “What
do you want?” he snarled, raking each of them with a withering
glare.

“
I’m
Gill Fellowes’s nephew,” Bayle said. “The churchwarden said my
uncle was here.”

Helena held her breath. They had not seen
anyone on the short walk across the green, much less a
churchwarden. She focused on the musket the fellow held loosely at
his shoulder; but he made no threatening moves.

“
He was
here an hour or so ago. I dunno if he’s still inside.” He glanced
down at his forearm, a grubby bandage visible beneath a ragged tear
in his sleeve. “Master Fellowes bound this fer me. The pain is
almost gone, thanks to “im.”

“
I’m so
glad,” Bayle sounded anything but. “We brought water for the
prisoners.” He indicated the bucket in his hand.

“
Both of
ya?” The soldier frowned at Helena. “Won’t be much fun fer
'er.”

“
This is
my sister. She’ll be fine if she stays with me and does as she’s
told.” Bayle’s glare held all the instruction Helena
needed.

“
Aye.
Well, I has orders not to let anyone in.”

Helena held her breath. He must let them in.
This was the only way of finding out for sure if any of her family
were inside.

“
Perhaps
you won’t see us.” Bayle kept his face bland.

“
Them
poor wretches haven’t had any water all day.” He licked his lips,
his gaze darting nervously over his shoulder. “I need the privy,
I’ll be gone a while.” He gave them a curt nod and left them
standing in the empty porch.

The nauseating stench of unwashed bodies,
blood, and decaying flesh assailed Helena’s senses like brume as
they entered the airless building. She fumbled in a pocket for a
kerchief and held it to her face, willing herself not to be sick.
All Jane’s warnings had not been enough to prepare her for
this.

St Mary’s was not a small church; it had a
high timbered roof and stone arches that ran down both sided of the
central aisle. The pews had been shoved aside to make room for the
prisoners, who sat or lounged on the dusty flagstones. Sunlight
streamed through the arched windows, sending beams of white light
onto piles of rags that covered the floor – rags that moved. A
short, burly man with sandy hair approached them, his hands filled
with soiled strips of cloth he must have been using as bandages. He
frowned at Helena as he drew closer, but on seeing Bayle, his face
cleared. “Nathan? Is that you?”

Bayle set down the bucket and the newcomer
discarded his own burden so they could clasp hands. “I’m surprised
to see you in this place, boy.”

Boy! Helena frowned at Bayle, who had
always been an adult to her. Brief introductions followed, during
which Helena ignored Gil Fellowes’s disapproving looks as Bayle
explained their purpose.

She imagined Bayle would most likely receive
a lecture from his Uncle Gil later.

“
There
are so many,” Helena whispered, easing along the wall. “Not all of
them are wounded, surely?” Some sported open wounds she tried not
to see, while others appeared unharmed, though every face showed
signs of exhaustion, or despair, while some were mud-covered.
“About seventy out of the five hundred,” Gil whispered. “Though
they all look done in.”

Dull, uncaring eyes sharpened with urgency
when Bayle offered them water. The fittest slurped greedily, and
once fortified, handed round the ladles to others, helping prop up
the heads of the more badly injured who needed assistance.

“
We’ll
need more water,” Bayle said when they were still only about ten
feet inside the door.

“
There’s
a pump out back,” Gil said. “The guard there owes me; so I’ll fetch
some.”

“
Perhaps
you should go, Helena?” Bayle held out the bucket.

“
Keep
going. I haven’t found anything yet, and that other soldier will be
back soon.”

Gil exchanged an astonished look with
Bayle, who shrugged. Helena would have liked to have gone with him,
but forced herself to remain inside the stifling church, though
none of the men took any notice of her as she picked her way
through patches of floor space, searching for familiar features.
Hair of a certain colour, or a boot she had seen before.

Helena edged round a stone pillar, where a
huddle of men lay between the altar and the back wall. Helena crept
closer, her skirt hitched away from blood-soaked bodies and a pool
of vomit on the floor, peering into dirty faces and unfocussed
eyes. A sudden jolt went through her as her gaze locked with a
young face, one side caked with blood from a head-wound. He lay on
his back staring at the ceiling with glazed, unseeing
eyes.

“
You
know him?” Gil asked, moving to her side.

“
Yes.”
Helena released a long breath, guilty at the rush of relief that
had flooded through her.

“
It’s
Parry, the stable lad.” Bayle dipped a cup into the bucket and
brought it to the boy’s dry lips, but he had no strength to
swallow, and the water dribbled down the side of his
face.

“
He’s
barely conscious,” Gil whispered.

“
What
can we do?” Helena swallowed. Parry was barely sixteen, little
older than Henry. He looked so out of place here, filthy and
battered. So unlike the cheerful lad who drew Bayle’s wrath for
whistling in the yard.

“
Nothing. He’ll not last another night.” Bayle straightened
and approached a prone form that lay a few feet away. An older man
lay on his side, one arm flung over his head. He wore a brown plush
coat with a row of silver buttons that caught her eyes as Bayle
rolled him onto his back.

Helena
’s gaze shifted to his face and she
froze.

A roaring began inside her head and her
breath caught in her throat as he stared down at a familiar face
now devoid of animation and life. “Who is he?” Gil asked, his voice
flat.

“
Was,”
Bayle emphasized. “He was Edmund Woulfe.”

Gil bent and moved the stained cravat to
one side. “Slashed across the neck,” he murmured. “Must have bled
heavily on the field, for there is little blood here apart from
what is on his clothes. Had he died there they would have left
him.”

Helena couldn’t move, her welling tears
threatening to choke her when Bayle’s hand came down on her
shoulder in silent comfort.

Gil held out a cup of water to an
uninjured man leaning against a stone pillar, watching
them.

“
Almost
dead when they brought “im in,” the man whispered through parched
lips as he reached for the cup trembling hands. “Never woke
up.”

At a signal from Bayle, Gil lifted
Edmund’s body into his arms as if it weighed no more than a child,
and headed toward an arched doorway off to one side of the
church.

Numb with shock, Helena followed behind
into a small lobby that held two doors.

Gil pushed through the one on the left with
an elbow, his burden not slowing him down at all, only to be
brought up short.

Helena looked over his shoulder to where a
man sat at a table in the middle of the room, the remains of a
scratch meal in front of him - a half-eaten heel of cheese, some
coarse bread, and a jug of ale.

The three regarded each other in pregnant
silence as the man at the table rose slowly to his feet. He wore a
long cassock and Helena noticed that his hands were white and soft.
A cleric.

At Bayle’s questioning look Gil muttered,
“Churchwarden.”

“
Master
Fellowes.” The Churchwarden’s gaze flicked to the body in Gils
arms. “Are you mad, Gil? You’re risking arrest for all of
us!”

“
We must
hide this man.” Gils voice held no trace of either urgency or
fear.

The Churchwarden cast a swift glance
toward the window, and then seemed to make up his mind. “This way.”
He took them through an even lower arch where a flight of stone
stairs dropped away into blackness. “The crypt. No one will think
to look there.”

“
I’m
grateful,” Helena whispered as she passed him, though he avoided
her eye.

At the last second the churchwarden looked
into the face of Edmund Woulfe. He gave a shocked gasp and took a
step back that brought him up against the wall. “He’s
dead!”

“
He’s my
Uncle.” Helena jutted her chin close to the cleric’s face. “I’ll
not leave him here to be consigned to a death pit. I’m taking him
home.”

The churchwarden cast a terrified look at
the door, then back at the two men. “T-transporting a body through
the roadblocks won’t be easy.” He twisted his hands in front of
him.

“
Leave
us to worry about that.” Bayle impaled him with an unyielding
stare. The churchwarden looked away. His shoulders slumped and
pushing past them back into the church, he left them to their
task.

Helena doubted he would finish his bread and
cheese.

* * *

Their slow walk back across the village green
enabled Helena to study Gil properly. Shorter than Bayle, strong
and stocky like many West Country men, he had a kind, open
face.

Once back at the house, Jane sent the maid
to fetch them a cooling drink, those first minutes spent on
introductions and polite enquiries, like ordinary visitors making a
call on a summer day.

Helena squeezed her eyes shut in an
attempt to banish all the horrible things she had seen in that
church, first and foremost her Uncle Edmund, lying so still and
broken on the flagstones.

In
the crypt they laid him on a bench,
covering his face with a sack. Helena had wanted to sit with him
awhile, but Bayle wouldn’t let her, and insisted she came back with
him to the house.

When she opened her eyes again,
Jane was looking at her. She bowed her head, mortified. Why did her
feelings always show so clearly on her face? Had Mistress Fellowes
seen it too? Her mother always said she must learn more…what was
the word?
Composure
.

“
We took
some water into the church for the prisoners.” Bayle blew air
between his lips.

“
Those
soldiers showed some Christian charity at last, did they?” Jane
shook her head. “I couldn’t get near them yesterday.”

Helena didn’t like to tell her that Gill
and Bayle had had to bribe the soldiers to be allowed
in.

“
Near
five hundred of them in St Mary’s now, Jane,” Gil said. “It looks
and smells like Hell itself.” His knapsack landed on the scrubbed
table with a thud.

“
Weston
has become a dreadful place.” Jane turned soulful eyes on Helena.
“I wish you could have seen it before all this death and misery
came, my dear.”

Gil leaned closer to his wife and whispered
something. Jane blanched and looked away, a hand to her mouth as if
words were inadequate.