Page 74 of Feathers in the Wind
Kate sat in her pleasant parlour, white-faced and silent, too shocked to weep. Perdita stayed with her, seeing herself in the younger woman and knowing words were no balm to her tortured soul.
The surgeon, bloodstained and reeking, stomped heavily down the stairs. He stood in the doorway and shook his head.
‘There’s nought I can do for him. If I were you, Mistress, I’d pray for a swift death.’
‘No! No!’ Kate wept into her sister’s shoulder. ‘Dear God, tell me this is some terrible nightmare.’
Ashley had replaced the surgeon in the doorway.
‘Oh, lass.’
She pulled away from her sister and turned to face her father-in-law. ‘This is your doing, David Ashley. He had no heart for this war. He only went out of respect for you.’
Ashley opened his mouth to say something and closed it again. ‘There’s nought I can say that will change the situation. Go to him, Kate. Stay with him.’
Without another word, she pushed past him and David Ashley subsided on to a chair at the table. He picked up a fallen petal from the rose bowl and turned the blood-red petal over in his fingers. It seemed like a long time before he looked up and his eyes caught Perdita’s, registering her presence for the first time.
‘Who did you say you were, Mistress?’
‘I’m Adam Coulter’s wife,’ she said, the lie coming easily. ‘Your son brought me here at my husband’s request.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Oh yes. Adam Coulter. Good man. He said he’d left a companion with Kate.’
‘I’m sorry about your son.’ The words seemed inadequate to the enormity of the situation.
‘She’s right.’ David Ashley’s fingers closed around the rose petal, crushing it. ‘Richard had no heart for the fight. He should have remained here with Kate, where he rightly belonged.’
‘I’ve lost someone like Richard,’ Perdita said quietly. ‘A good man who should have stayed quietly by his own hearth side.’
The man looked up, a frown creasing his forehead. ‘Who?’
She shook her head. ‘My kinsman.’ She leaned forward. ‘Tell me, sir, have you any news of my husband?’
He ran a hand across his eyes and shook his head. ‘They had a hard time of it. Sir Thomas’ men were cut to pieces. Richard fell in the first charge.’
Perdita closed her eyes, her breath coming in a sharp indrawn breath as she braced for the worst possible news.
David Ashley frowned. ‘But Adam Coulter was alive and well when last I saw him which was barely three hours ago. He came through and he’s with his men, what’s left of them. They’ve gone on to York.’
Perdita breathed again, relief flooding her. ‘Praise the Lord,’ she whispered.
It seemed wrong to show exultation in a place where death and grief were so overwhelming. She stood up and placed a hand on Ashley’s shoulder.
‘Colonel Ashley, you are plainly exhausted. Can I fetch you some food or drink?’
He nodded and Perdita went in search of the kitchen. When she returned ten minutes later, she found him asleep, his head resting on his arms. She laid the tray down beside him and made her way upstairs to her own bedchamber, intending to snatch a few hours of sleep herself.
The door to the chamber where Richard Ashley lay stood ajar, and Perdita steeled herself to enter the room of the dying man. Kate’s sister sat beside the window looking down into the courtyard. She looked around at Perdita’s entrance and shook her head.
Kate sat beside the bed, stiffly upright in a chair as if braced for some sort of action. Perdita looked down at the still figure of the gentle young man who had brought her to this house. The blood had been cleaned from his face and the terrible wounds concealed by clean white bandages. A small fire had been lit in the fireplace to burn lavender, but the sweet, soothing scent could not mask the smell of impending death and it would not be a swift death. Perdita had seen enough wounds now to know that Richard Ashley may yet live several days.
‘Ellen says he had over thirty wounds.’ Kate spoke at last without moving or looking up at Perdita. ‘How could men do that to another man, another Englishman?’
Perdita laid a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. Kate reached up and grasped her hand. ‘Will you pray with me, Perdita?’
* * *
Richard Ashley layon the edge of death for three long days. His young wife barely left his side and his father sat in the parlour, a bottle of wine by his side, staring into an empty fireplace, his face a grey mask of exhaustion and grief. Kate’s sister took young Thomas away to her own home, Barton Hall, a mile distant, to be with her brood, returning to sit with her sister.
