Page 214 of Feathers in the Wind
The parliamentarians hit the line with a palpable thump. Above the inhuman screams and yelling, the battlefield faded in a haze of smoke from the muskets. I jumped to my feet, desperate to keep that red feather within my sight, but it had disappeared.
Christian looked up at me and began to cry. I picked him up and held him close, whispering quietudes in his ear as he sobbed into my shoulder. All the while, I was scanning the far bank for a sight of Nat.
His men broke, running across the bridge toward the village. Now I saw Nat, bareheaded, leap onto the parapet of the bridge and urge his men to the safety of the pre-prepared defensive positions on the village side of the bridge. Hard on their heels, galloping horsemen cut the men down as they turned to run.
Nat didn’t move. My arms tightened on the child, I wanted to scream at Nat to run, to hide, to save himself. Not until the last of his men had crossed did he jump down and begin to run.
‘Now!’ I heard his command as a single shot rang out from the far side of the river.
Nat checked his stride, stumbled and fell to his knees.
I gave an involuntary cry, my heart jumping to my throat, as Nat regained his feet. The first of the parliamentarians reached the bridge. Without looking backward, Nat hurled his sword across the span of the bridge in front of him. The world around me disintegrated in a succession of explosions that lit the darkening sky and the central span of Chesham Bridge collapsed into the River Nene.
The force of the explosion knocked me to the ground and I huddled under the tree, curling around Christian to protect him from the shower of debris that reached as far as us. As history had related, Nat had mined the bridge. Had he also sacrificed himself in the attempt? Without daring to raise my head, I heard shouts, the whinnying of horses, screams from wounded men and the rattle of musket fire.
Christian howled. Without moving, I cradled him as he sobbed inconsolably. My own tears ran down my cheeks, splashing onto his soft curls. I had failed.
Chapter 9 - BACK FROM THE PAST
I will not die. Not today, not like this.
The water drags me down in my heavy clothes and my lungs feel as if they will burst. All I have to do is let go of the slender thread of life, but I don’t want to die. I have been living with the thought of my death for so long, now I know it can be defeated.
I strike out and break the surface, taking a deep lungful of air with a grateful prayer to God who had spared me. The river has carried me downstream. I look back and see the shattered bridge rising above the river like a gap-toothed old man. I just need the strength to strike out for the bank and pray that Jessie the Witch finds me before it is too late.
* * *
The rain began, first as the odd drop and then a summer downpour, soaking my heavy clothes. I raised my head as the exultant cries of Nat’s men told me I was still in 1645.
Christian had stopped crying and I stood up, settling the child on to my hip and walked down to the river bank with a heavy heart. If it hadn’t been for the child in my arms, I probably would have thrown myself on the grass and given into my grief. For all Alice’s fine words, Nat could not have survived the explosion.
The familiar bridge across the Nene lay upstream, its central span gone. Across the river, the red-coated soldiers had pulled back a little distance, leaving the broken bodies of the dead and wounded lying on the ground before the bridge. My doctor’s instinct tugged at me again but I had a two-year-old child in my care and at best, I hoped, a wounded man of my own to find.
I did not have to go far. He lay face down in the flattened grass on a curve of the river about fifty yards downstream from where I had been sitting.
‘Papa?’ Christian pointed at the bedraggled figure.
I set the boy, still holding his precious horse, on the ground.
‘You stay here, Christian. Don’t move. Okay?’
He gave me a quizzical look. I don’t think he understood my strange speech patterns but he did as he was told.
My heart cold with dread, I knelt beside Nat, and with professional efficiency, turned him over. His eyes were closed, his face deathly pale. Swallowing hard, I stilled my breathing and pressed my fingers to the pulse in his neck. Faint but still beating. An involuntary sob of sheer relief escaped my lips.
Now my training as a doctor took over. I knew he had been hit by the musket ball but in the rain, and with the risk of discovery by either side, I could not even begin to examine him. I bent my head and kissed his forehead. It was icy beneath my lips and my Sleeping Beauty did not wake to my kiss.
Instead I slapped his face—hard.
‘Nat! Wake up. I have to get you home.’
His eyes fluttered and a slow smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. ‘I might have known. Jessica, my witch.’
‘Where are you hurt?’
‘Leg,’ he murmured. ‘Sweet Jesu, it hurts.’ Fully conscious now, he grasped my forearm. ‘Do you have Christian with you?’
I nodded.
