Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Jesse decided in the morning that the horsemen had been his imagination. Elinore shook her head when he asked if she had heard anything. Harper frowned, and Jesse saw the concern on his face, and an even more unexpected reaction: shame. "Gor, Captain, I should have heard something. Some soldier I am."

With surprising ease, Jesse resisted the urge to make one of his patented cuts at Harper's military prowess. He knew that only yesterday he would have done so, but the sight last night of Harper alert at the campsite waiting for him and Elinore to return changed his mind. "Do not trouble yourself with it," he said instead. "I could very well have imagined the entire episode. In fact, I think that likely."

He knew Harper was not convinced, but he noticed something else, too. He smiled. "We're all a bit edgy, what?"

Harper smiled back. "Aye, sir," he replied.

Jesse saw his wariness and did not hesitate. "Go on, man, speak."

Harper looked at Elinore, who was folding the blankets, and lowered his voice. "Sir, if she gets tired, give me a sign. I can always carry her. She can't weigh much."

Oh, Hippocrates, who would call me sentimental after all these years of war? Jesse thought as the tears started behind his eyelids. He touched Harper's arm and nodded. He realized with a start, that despite his closeness to the soldiers by the nature of his work, he was in deep danger at that moment of seeing this bumbling, inept scoundrel as a man. The moment was only reinforced when Harper cleared his throat again.

"Captain, I know you can throw me in the stockade for what I'm going to say."

Jesse looked around elaborately. "Not a stockade in sight, Private."

"Captain, I know you married her on the quick," he whispered, "but I'm thinking—excuse me—that maybe ..." He stopped, looked at the ground, and gave a short laugh. "Gor, who would think I would ever blush?" He looked Jesse in the eye then, his expression kindly. "You love her, sir, don't you? We'll see that she gets to the border, no matter what." He looked down again. "Wilkie and I just wanted you to know."

You're a braver man than I am, Private, Jesse thought. I haven't even the courage to look you in the eye after that statement. "Thank you," he whispered, his eyes on the tree line beyond the river. "I can't tell you what that means to me to know that."

"Gor, sir, I think you just did. Like I said: she can't weigh much." Then he was gone to help Wilkie with the bedrolls and argue about the remaining ham. Jesse watched him and thought of his maestro, who had reminded him, after he hooded him at graduation, to learn something new every day.

Se?or Maldonado's word was good. When they finished breakfast, the bailiff arrived with a wagon. "I can't take you any farther than Torquemada," he told Elinore, who translated. "Se?ora, mi jefe wants his cart off the road if the French are nearby."

"We understand, se?or," she replied, and favored him with her sunniest smile, which only made him blush, then tug at his collar, good Spaniard that he was. "Please tell Se?or Maldonado that we are in his debt."

"I didn't mean to embarrass him, but it is so easy with Spanish men," she said to Jesse as he helped her into the wagon, which was loaded with sacks of grain. She patted his cheek. "They are almost as shy as you are, Captain. Jesse."

"Or you?" he teased in turn.

Or me, she thought, even as she nerved herself to smile at him, too, and wonder how shy he really was. She had wakened once last night to feel his hand inside her unbuttoned bodice, next to her shimmy, his fingers warm. She could tell from his breathing that he was deep in sleep, and she enjoyed the moment with its irrational sense again of safety in a world where there was no safety.

Before she returned to sleep, she had lightly traced her finger down one of his fingers, and wondered if a prerequisite to matriculation in medical school demanded that all surgeons have elegant hands. She had seen them wrist-deep in blood before, or spattered with less exalted detritus from the bodies of his patients, and there he was last night, his hand pressed to her stomach, holding her close. She didn't know why it should touch her, but it did. How long have I really been in your care? she asked herself, then dismissed the idea as profoundly stupid.

She looked at his back as he seated himself beside the bailiff. He was not a tall man, or even particularly robust-looking. He took off his cap to scratch his head, and she admired the deep red of his hair, long now, and curling around his uniform collar. I should probably offer to trim that, she thought.

"From the way you admire him, I think you repose more confidence in Captain Randall than I do."

"Beg pardon?" She looked in surprise at the Frenchman, who sat behind her, sacks of grain between them. When he did not reply, she said, "I did not know your English was so polished, monsieur."

He shrugged, and leaned back against the grain, closing his eyes. "Life is full of surprises, Madame Randall," he said, when she thought he was asleep.

She debated all morning if she should tell Jesse. He will think I am too suspicious, she decided, and resigned herself to the bumpy ride. It's no crime to speak excellent English. She took another look at the man before turning her attention to the view.

She did take time to mention the matter to her husband when they stopped at noon, pulling him aside. He listened carefully, inclining his head toward her. In fact, they were almost touching, and she felt again that irrational comfort. "I suppose I am being foolish," she concluded, aware of his proximity, rather than the message she carried.

"I've never noticed that foolishness was one of your traits, Elinore," he replied.

What are my characteristics? she wanted to ask. Tell me about myself, from your point of view. Do I look different from your perspective than I do from my own? "I just don't like to feel suspicious," she said, almost wincing at the lameness of her words, especially when his head was touching hers now. She put her hand on his arm to steady herself, and in another moment found herself in his embrace, there in the clearing at bright noon, with everyone looking on.

He didn't do anything but hold her. Not that she was planning to kiss him, she told herself, but what a pleasure to stand so close. Why am I doing this? she thought. More to the point, why is he?

He offered no explanation, at least not until they realized that they were standing there with others' eyes on them, and pulled away slightly. "Better?" he asked, and she nodded. He released her, then pointed her toward the trees. "Go on, now. I'll stand here and give you a little privacy. Can't be pleasant, being the only woman in this army."

She did as he said, relieving herself in the shade of a tree nearly bare of cover, but sheltering, all the same. I wonder what it is like to have a room for a commode, and perhaps even a bath. As she straightened her skirts again, she thought of her mother and the other women of the baggage train, who would gather around each other in a circle on those long crossings of the Spanish plains, facing out and spreading their skirts while one of their number took a turn inside their protection. "Oh, Mama," she murmured, even as the tears came. It was such a homely situation, but she suddenly wanted her mother.

She couldn't hide the tears in her eyes when she left the trees and found the surgeon standing there. "Thank you," she said, and she knew her voice was unsteady. "I think this is when I miss my mother most and the other women," she said, bringing up what she knew was a topic men and women left unsaid. He only looked at her, noted her tears, and regarded her with no embarrassment.

"If you need to relieve yourself oftener than we stop, just let me know," he told her as he took her arm and walked with her back to the clearing. "Don't hold back, just because you're shy." He nudged her, and she couldn't help laughing.

She was still smiling when they started again. Jesse decided to walk, and Harper helped Wilkie into the wagon. "His wound's plaguing him, Mrs. Randall. Right, Wilkie?"

"Bugger off," Wilkie said succinctly. "Pardon me, Mrs. Randall."

He settled himself carefully beside a grain sack, tilted his cap over his eyes and was soon asleep. Or so she thought, until she noticed him raising up now and then to take a long look at Armand Leger, who glared back. Harper the slouch and cut purse, and Wilkie the malingerer and opportunist, Elinore thought, and both of you my protectors.

She watched the Frenchman, who sat, his knees drawn up, staring at nothing. When he helped her into the wagon, Jesse had asked her to see if she could draw him out, but there was nothing about the man that invited conversation. He even sat with one shoulder raised, as though ready to ward off inquiry. In for a penny, she thought. "Monsieur Leger, I suppose this is not my business, but since we must exist together until the Portuguese border, why is it that you are fleeing the French? One would think. . ."

He stopped her with a stare that could have drilled through iron. "You are right, Madame Randall: My affairs are none of your business." He closed his eyes and turned away, shutting her off as surely as if he had slammed a door between them.

Her cheeks burned. Count to ten, Nellie. She did. "I apologize for intruding on your affairs, monsieur," she said quietly. "I will not do it again." She glanced at Wilkie, who shrugged and composed himself for sleep as well, now that his chief reason for riding was incommunicado.

The oxen were slow, but they traveled at least twice as far that day as they could have on foot. When dusk came— that time when she began to feel uneasy, despite the presence of the other men and the bailiff and his two riders— they stopped at a village not far from Torquemada. "I am going now to Baltanas," he told her in Spanish, naming a village to the east. "I know that you wish to stay on the road to Valladolid."

Jesse helped her from the wagon, and she thanked the bailiff for his assistance. They stood in the plaza, attracting a small crowd. She stood close to Jesse. No one looked particularly angry, but she could see no welcome, either. "I think they just wish we would all go away," she whispered.

"I have been feeling that for two or three years now," Jesse whispered back. He took her arm formally in his. "Come, my dear. There is the church. That is always the place to begin in Spain."

The priest stood at the door of his sanctuary, from the look on his face no less wary than his parishioners. "Here I go," Elinore said, and released her hold on her husband. With enthusiasm she did not feel, she introduced them, and invited the priest to summon his parish in the morning for sick call. In exchange for the services of the Royal Army's Medical Corps, their only request was a meal, a place to spend the night, and perhaps some food in the morning.

When she finished, the priest invited them inside to share his evening meal of lentil soup, bread, and a small sausage shaved thin so all could have a taste. Another poor village, she thought How they must dread it when even a remnant of the British army shows up like hungry relatives. She knew that Jesse suffered the same thoughts, from the way he refused seconds, even though she knew he must be hungry.

Through her, the priest asked Jesse if he could visit an old fellow that night who was troubled with boils. "He could wait for morning, se?ora—please tell your husband that—but I fear it would be like the crippled man at the Pool of Siloam. Others would rush in front, and he will never see the physician."

The priest shook his head when she offered to interpret. "We will manage," he assured her. "He has lived alone for years, and pretty ladies only frighten him."

Harper insisted on accompanying the two men. Her cloak tight around her, Elinore stood on the church steps until the chill drove her inside. Wilkie had spread out his bedroll and wrapped himself in it. In a few moments, he was snoring. She wished there was a spot with some warmth in the sanctuary, but there was none. She spread out their two blankets and sat down, hoping the cold from the stones would not seep into her dress.

"Mrs. Randall, may I join you?"

She looked up in surprise at the Frenchman, who had said nothing more to her all afternoon. She had almost forgotten he was even there. "Yes, certainly," she said, knowing that she did not want him there, but not relishing another rebuff.

She could not tell if he had something to say to her, or if he was just feeling the solitude of the building. The priest had left them with no lights, and the gloom seemed to seep up the walls along with the cold. The only light came from two rows of candles burning in an alcove closer to the altar. He was hardly more than a dark shape beside her. "Madame, I am Armand Leger," he began.

"Yes, I know," she replied, faintly amused, when he paused.

"The name means nothing to you?"

She shook her head, embarrassed at this example of her paltry education.

"I did not think fame was that fleeting," he said, and he did nothing to disguise his condescension.

She felt a little spark burn inside her. "Monsieur, if you have chosen to humiliate me further, now that my husband is absent, I wish you would not. I am well aware of my own lack of accomplishments."

"No, no," he said quickly. He was silent a moment. "Perhaps I do not know how to speak to anyone anymore." Another pause then, "I want you to know this: I need to get to the British lines because I have no regard for my own people anymore."

She knew her surprise must have registered on her face, even in the gathering gloom. He made a gesture with his hand. "Leger is only one of my names. I used to consort with kings, Madame Randall."

"Oh, my."

"I am a relative of the Marquis de Lafayette. You have heard of him? Pardon, madame, but I am being rude again."

"Well, you are French," she said, not willing to let him get away with that. She was rewarded with a laugh.

"We were cousins, and we frequented the same clubs. I liked the equality he brought back with him from the new United States of America. He and I were the chief engineers who guided the Declaration of Rights through the National Assembly in the summer of 1789." He leaned against the wall. "I do not think there was a finer place to be than Paris, in that summer," he said simply. "The world was ours, and there was a future for everyone, and not just the aristos."

"And then it all changed, did it not?" she asked. "If you are royalty yourself, monsieur, how did you survive the Terror? Wasn't Lafayette imprisoned?"

"Madame, your education is not so piecemeal as you think! Indeed he was. I was safe enough in your own country as a representative of Louis Capet's government, at least, his government before it turned on him. I thought it prudent to wait out the Terror in London. I prefer my head upon my neck."

She looked at him, and he must have interpreted the look. "Madame, I am not a very brave man."

"You left family, didn't you?" It was only a hunch. Elinore sucked in her breath when he leaped to his feet and strode out the door of the church. She followed him, berating herself for her unkindness. "Oh, please, sir, I did not mean to upset you."

He said nothing for a time, then sat down and patted the step beside him. She gathered her cloak tight and sat down. Elinore, be kind enough to not butt into his thoughts, she told herself.

"My wife Amalie and daughters were forced to keep an appointment with Dr. Guillotine in La Place de la Concorde," he said finally, and there was nothing in his voice of arrogance or disdain now. "I am told that Amalie's last words before they strapped her to the board were to curse my cowardice."

Elinore could think of nothing to say. She put her hand on his arm and inched a little closer. He did not pull away, and gradually she felt the tension lessen in his arm.

He cleared his throat and sighed. "I returned to France only after the Directoire was formed, and do you know, I was hailed by that wicked threesome as a great old warrior, a living testament to the revolution." His laugh was bitter and made her shiver. "They hauled me out for formal occasions like an icon. No wonder. All the other old revolutionaries were dead, cannibalized by the Jacobins and Girondists when they turned on each other, and themselves."

After a long pause during which she watched the sun set, he turned to her. "! have probably intimidated you into not asking the question that I know must be on your mind: Why am I sitting here in a poor church in a poor town, in a wretched country?"

"The thought did cross my mind," she murmured.

"How are your arithmetical skills, my dear?" he asked.

"Probably no better than my history," she admitted.

"You are wise in ways I am not. In the Directoire, there were three, and then there was one."

"Napoleon."

"Precisely. Something changed for me when he began his rampage through Europe." Leger took her hand between his own. "I could no longer lull myself with the fiction that he felt much concern for the aims of the revolution. The Declaration of Rights? Bah! In his own way, he is no better than the kings he supplanted." He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. "Madame Randall, you are only a few years younger than my Charlotte and Eugenie, and their innocent blood cries out to me."

"Monsieur," she began, and could not continue.

He did not release her hand, but he turned slightly on the steps so that he was facing her. "Do you know my only consolation?" He gripped her hand tighter. "I learned from others present that day in the Place de la Concorde that Amalie died first. My only consolation is to know that she did not have to see the terror and hear the screams of our little ones who followed her. Who went first? Were they bound together? Their necks were so small. Think of the economy."

"Stop, please!" she begged him. "Oh, stop!" She threw her arms around him, holding him to her. As he cried into her hair, she wondered how many times he had conjured up that nightmare in La Place de la Concorde. She wondered if he ever closed his eyes without seeing his family so alone in the middle of thousands. And I am hurt because he is rude, she thought. God forgive me.

He released her finally and sat with his hands clasped together. She rested her hand on his back. "Napoleon would like nothing better than to display me in Paris. It is people like me—the old warriors from '89—who give him any legitimacy, and I refuse."

"Why Spain, then?" she asked.

He shrugged. "We have already established that I am a coward. It seems that I have no sense of timing, madame. I waited too long in Paris. It was impossible to sail from Calais, once the British began their blockade. Where could I run to in Europe? Napoleon owns it all. I came south because I am a cousin of Ferdinand, that pathetic Bourbon who sat on the Spanish throne, and then what does Napoleon do but move on Spain as well? And who would have thought the Spanish would rise in revolt? Make no mistake, madame: You are looking at fortune's fool."

No, I am looking at a man who is desperately unhappy, she thought. Someone who is still arrogant enough to think he can bear the sins of the world. God forgive him. She leaned against his arm. She felt him draw a quavering breath, and closed her eyes, knowing that he was thinking of his little daughters. "Why did you tell, me this?" she asked. "Was it because of Charlotte and Eugenie?"

"Yes." Another sigh. "I confess that when I saw you and your surgeon, who so obviously adores you, I was jealous, because you have what my darlings do not. I wanted you to know, so you would be reminded how much you have. Don't take it for granted."

She could hardly believe what she was hearing. "Oh, monsieur, you must be mistaken. We have been married but a few days, and he married me out of charity." It was her turn. The words tumbled out as she told him about her silly parents, the debt, Major Bones, Captain Randall's impulsive proposal, the horrible death of the Chief, brought on because of her ramshackle family, and their retreat, unprotected by the army. "Jesse tells me not to blame myself, but I cannot imagine that he would want to continue his protection of me once we are safe behind the lines." He held her hand during her entire confession. "If it is love, sir, it is love on very short notice," she said.

He laughed softly, and she was relieved at the sound, because it told her that at least he was not thinking—If only for a moment—of Charlotte and Eugenie. "I think you are mistaken, Madame Randall," he said finally.

"I don't see how it could be any other way."

"My dear, through the years I have become a great observer. If I cannot explain human nature without exposing my own hypocrisy, I can at least watch it. I have been observing your husband. Are you aware how often he looks at you?"

"Well... no ... I ... Oh, monsieur, he is concerned for all of us!"

"Or how often you look at him?"

She could think of nothing to say. Leger released her hand and stood up to stretch. "I am finally too old to sit on cold church steps, even with a charming lady. Good night, my dear. Do think about what I said concerning the redoubtable Captain Randall. And the rest? Take this lesson: We know not what burdens others bear, do we?"

No, we do not, she thought. She was still sitting on the step when her husband returned with the priest. He sank down beside her. The priest touched his shoulder, and went inside. "I had an interesting experience," he said finally.

You did? she wanted to ask. I am beginning to wonder lately if Spain has anything but interesting experiences. "What happened?" she asked instead.

"We saw the old man. He has numerous bed sores. I only had water and soap, but I cleaned them and showed the priest what to do." He made a face. "He had been applying a local remedy containing sheep dung. Imagine! I couldn't help but wish for a little permanganate of potassium, but soap and water still trump sheep dung." He looked across the plaza. "I wonder what could drag Spain into the nineteenth century."

"A miracle?"

He laughed, and tucked her arm through his. "At least! Elinore, while I was cleaning the sores, the priest cooked a little parched com for him. You won't believe this, but when it was cool enough, the priest chewed a bit, then put it in the old fellow's mouth! He's quite toothless, and relies on the priest to chew his food for him." He patted her hand. "At first it disgusted me, and then I began to wonder if I could ever be as kind as that priest, or as humble as his parishioner. Forgive the pun, but it's food for thought."

How is it that such kindness and such cruelty exist side by side in this world? Elinore asked herself. She leaned against her husband, and closed her eyes when she felt his lips on her hair. I shouldn't be feeling as good as I do, considering everything.

"Let me tell you what I learned tonight from Monsieur Leger," she began, and told Jesse everything except what the Frenchman had said about him.

"We'll have to do all we can to get him to the border, won't we?" he said when she finished. She could tell by the way his arm had tightened around her that he was affected by the story.

"I'm not so certain that is what he really needs."

"He probably needs absolution worse than most of us," Jesse said frankly. He shook his head. "But who am I to say what will make a man's heart right? I try to heal bodies, don't I?"

"You do it well."

"It's just puny medicine, Elinore. Up you get." He pulled her to her feet, and kept his hold on her hand as they went inside the church. He stopped, and she held her breath as he dipped his fingers in the holy water at the door and crossed himself, something she had never seen him do. "You know, I hope that someday there is room in medicine for physicians of the mind and heart." He laughed, and it sounded self-conscious to her ears. "A lunatic idea, eh? No one ever said you were married to a rational man, Elinore Randall."

She thought he would come to bed, but he didn't. When she finally closed her eyes, he was standing by the altar, then kneeling by the row of candles, which gleamed a little brighter.