As Meat Loves Salt. Maria McCann
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Ikept with him from then on, except when we were forcibly separated, as for drill. By dint of frequent repetition I was now grown proficient in this, and not only joined with the rest of the men in proper form as regards rank and file, but also went through the pikeman’s postures without pause or bungle. In addition I had learnt to follow the drum, and to know the beats for Call, Troop, March, Preparative, Battle and Retreat, all of which lessons I endeavoured to put into practice as best I might, for I was the same proud and careful workman I had always been.
Ferris’s task, as he had said, was to help with the artillery, and there were many times when we could not be together. Besides, he had his own mates among the gunners. In fact, he had plenty of friends among all the better sort of men – after two days he had my coat ready, for one of these friends was a tailor – and he would often joke with them. But he hated certain kinds of bawdry, in particular tales of amours struck up with women obliged to give free quarter, when the men jeeringly recounted their conquests afterwards. At times, too, soldiers would chronicle some rape reported of the Cavaliers, speaking with a relish which showed them secretly envious, and this he perceived and despised.
Some of the men jestingly called him Mistress Lilly to his face, and must certainly have had a name for me too, but took care not to let me hear it. I was not so much under Ferris’s sway that I was grown soft. One quick step up to a man, my eyes staring into his, settled most arguments.
‘You frighten me, Rupert,’ said Ferris one day after watching me see off a man who had tried to steal my snapsack.
‘Have I ever picked a fight?’
‘Not of late. But when I see you like that, I ask myself, will he know when to stop?’
This again put me in mind of Izzy. ‘While you are there, I will always know when,’ I said.
‘You haven’t in the past?’
He waited. I turned away.
‘You should try to be friends with the men.’
I knew what he meant. Those walking near us did not care for me. More than once, coming back from the latrines or from drill I heard the tail end of some speech, perhaps my name, and then men’s eyes would shutter over as I approached and the group would break up. As for their prattle, I cared nothing for it. But on occasion they would come and talk to Ferris, and he, being kind, seemed to relish it, and then I felt them squeezing me out. I had reproached him therewith, and he said that a man needs friends on the battlefield, that one of these had pulled him out from under a corpse at Bristol and that they were his companions still.
From time to time Nathan would join us, but some coolness was grown up between Ferris and him. The boy would hang about, seeming not to know what he should do, and though he spoke to me always with courtesy, I more than once found his glittering eyes fixed on mine as if I had done him some hurt. I could not recall any insult offered to him, and since his talk was wearisome, I was glad when he wandered away.
Not long after the time when Ferris said I should make me some friends, we were marching together and he asked me had I family living. That was a question I dreaded. He had once started on this tack before, but one of those fools broke in on us – the only time I was glad. Afterwards, I had chewed over my story, and now it was needed I had it at my tongue’s end.
‘I know not if my brothers are dead or alive,’ I said. ‘One of them I last saw at our Master’s place in the country. He was wrongly suspected for…something, and I had to go without knowing what became of him.’
Ferris raised his eyebrows at me and I felt I might as well have confessed. ‘And the other?’
‘Wounded, the last time I saw him. Not by me. He had a fever. I lost him in a wood and when I came out of it you found me on the road.’
His eyes rested on me, grave, considering. ‘You left home in a great hurry, it seems.’
‘Aye.’
We walked on a few yards. I knew he was waiting for more, but when he spoke it was to ask, ‘Are they like you, these brothers?’
‘In their persons? Not nearly so tall. But we are all dark-skinned. Zebedee – he’s the youngest – is the properest man you ever saw, gentry not excepted. Everyone that sees him, well, women…’ I paused.
‘A black man is a jewel in a lady’s eye, eh? And the other?’
‘Isaiah is the eldest, the one before me. He is weak of body and looks older than his years. But he does as much work as most.’
Ferris nodded. ‘What I meant was, are they troubled in soul like you?’
‘I would say, they have no cause.’ It was the nearest I could get to a confession.
‘If only you could find out what became of them,’ he mused.
We walked on in silence. I felt his goodwill towards me. Perhaps one day I would be able to tell him everything, even that I was that detested being, a ravisher. I knew Ferris would not admit that her being my wife changed the case. He had already expressed himself more than once on this subject, and said no man might force a woman, no not his wife, for that it took away her bodily dignity. Whenever he talked of it he clenched his fists and jaw, and I at first concluded he must have witnessed many instances among the soldiery; yet when I asked him he said it was a thing, thank God, that he had never seen for himself.
‘We may pass near your Master’s house,’ he suddenly cried. ‘Who knows, they may demand free quarter there.’
I had told Ferris where Beaurepair lay, and he had frighted me most cruelly by letting me know that the army was headed back in that direction.
‘I can never go back.’
‘You have a new name, Prince Rupert, a new round head and a beard coming.’
‘I can’t disguise my height.’
‘You’re not the only tall man in England. I’ll shave your head for you the night before.’
‘Christ preserve me.’ I felt my guts coiling at the idea of entering the grounds.
Ferris said soothingly, ‘Most likely they’ll quarter us elsewhere.’ I thought of Mister Biggin’s household, which was worse still. He went on, ‘That means sending Fat Tommy over at night to find out.’ Fat Tommy was a living skeleton who could walk as fast as some people could run. ‘He can go as a beggar; you’ll give him a day’s bread and beer.’
‘This is building castles in Spain.’
‘What else should a man do on march? Come, to whom shall we send him?’
‘Zeb’s great friend was Peter. A manservant.’
‘And your sir-name?’
‘Cullen. My brothers, Isaiah and Zebedee.’ It was a knell on my tongue. ‘And—’
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing.’ I could not unpack the stinking wound that was Caro, not yet. ‘I need to know what the master did to Izzy, and whether they caught them—’
‘Them? You said Isaiah was left at home?’
‘Him, I mean. Zeb. Will Tommy remember all this?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Ferris. He fixed me with his eyes. ‘Tommy’s story will be as good as your own.’
There was a little coolness in him after this speech, but we got over it as we got over many awkward moments. He did not like my trying to deceive him, but he could also see that I was in travail with myself. As we drew near my own country I grew almost possessed: I had difficulty breathing, my head ached, and the ration, poor and plain as it was, would not lie quiet in my belly. At last, as the sun was sinking, I recognised