Chapter 1
1812 – Spain
AYLA
The tips of my fingers are numb, blue veins stark against skin pale enough for shadows to run beneath. For the love of all that’s holy, child, put your gloves on. My mother’s voice—so real I expect to raise my head and see her. Even rubbing my fingers against my woollen shawl until they turn pink doesn’t bring them fully back to life. This is what I get for using my bare hands when the other women, scattered about this field like the clumps of wild radish we are picking, wear gloves, but gloves make me clumsy when every leaf can make a difference to our survival.
Snow lies a handbreadth deep. Deeper in the drifts. Trampled to slush where our feet have passed, revealing chickweed, wild mustard, and radish. Having waited for these things to grow, we must eat them before the animals do.
Kitty eases her back straight and ambles over. ‘Think we have enough?’
There’s never enough of anything here except death. ‘Imagine if it was just us women. No men camped out in the valley below.’
She stares at me whilst I chew on a radish leaf, the taste of pepper in my mouth.
‘No thanks. I like having men about.’
She bends to tie her bootlaces, the curve of her neck exposed—too tempting. My fingers plunge down the back of her dress, and she shrieks.
‘Ayla, that’s bleedin’ cold.’
Giggles bubble up inside me like a cork unstopped until a ball of snow smacks me in the face, taking my breath away. My turn to shriek. We laugh like nothing matters, like the freezing cold is an old friend, like our hollow stomachs are just part of the game.
‘Kitty stop, I need to—’
A woman’s scream cuts through our noise, urgent and shrill, reaching inside and gripping my heart with a fear so deep and familiar it almost chokes me. My throat closes, muscles coiled, ready to flee. But wait... My fingers unclench one by one... This isn’t Ireland. But nowhere is truly safe. Not really. Not for long.
‘Came from over there.’ Kitty’s hand trembles as she points towards the woods, her eyes wide.
The woman screams again. Not a howl of rage. Nor a cry for help. No, her scream dies away as if she is beyond saving. A flurry of birds erupts from the forest, cawing in response.
‘That’s Cora,’ Kitty says, sprinting for the trees.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, refusing to form words. The ravine lies in that direction, steep and rocky. At the bottom, flat rocks and freezing water. Dear God, Cora would never... Dropping my basket, I snatch up my skirt and run after the other women from the camp, heart thudding in time with my feet as I follow Kitty’s footprints in the snow.
Once we reach the woods, we spread out to search for our friend. We move between the trees, the forest floor a tangle of roots and brambles. Twigs snap beneath our feet, echoing like gunshots in the stillness. I duck under a low-hanging bough and breathe in the earthy scent of moss and soil and wet leaves. The air tastes of winter—metallic and sharp.
‘Cora! Cora!’
Our voices bounce back as if mocking us.
Sinking into a drift of snow, I press my back against a tree and wiggle my buried boots free. Melting ice drips from its needles, landing with a soft plunk, the scent of pine sharp in the crisp air. A fallen bough, covered in ice crystals, rests near my foot. It’s possible she tripped on such a branch and lies sprawled on the ground.
‘Cora! Cora!’
Their voices rise in pitch and volume as they move on without me—her name an echo through the woods.
‘Cora!’
Stumbling to catch up, I almost miss it. A knot of weeds, a coil of fair hair. Cora? My breath catches at a memory—the two of us hiding inside a thicket, weeping over the loss of our husbands. Pulse quickening, I crouch low, expecting to run my hands through soft strands. Instead, my fingertips brush against a skein of roots bleached the colour of my pale Irish skin by the weak winter light. What cruelty is this that even nature deceives me?
A twig snaps behind me. I jolt upright. Red-coated soldiers emerge from the trees like apparitions, faces sweaty despite the cold. Men on drilling practice, loaded down with muskets and backpacks, who’ve heard her scream and come running to help. Spread out through the wood, they walk as if stalking an enemy, shoulders hunched, knees bent, heads turning at every sound.
Our jagged line of searchers soon breaks apart. The soldiers, used to keeping up a steady pace, now far ahead of women who are not. All of us make for the ravine.
‘Cora! Cora!’ Our shouts grow louder—our pace quickens. My ears strain, desperate for her voice to rise above the rustling leaves and constant whisper of the wind.
A man calls out, ‘Here. Over here.’ His arms raised, his jacket blood-red against the darkening sky.
With my eyes on him, I slip on a slick of leaves and fall into a hidden hollow. My body jolts as if I am the one who’s stepped off a cliff into nothing but air and plunged to the bottom. Rotting vegetation releases its musty odour as I thump to my knees, tasting dirt and copper from a bitten lip. By the time I pick myself up, the others have gathered near the ravine, arms about each other, bodies swaying. Soldiers lean over the edge, hands on thighs, shaking their heads.
‘But is it her? Can you be sure she’s dead?’ Kitty asks, her voice trembling, unable to look.
A soldier takes in our clothes, our faces. ‘Sorry, Miss. Brown skirt. Plain apron. A thicket has caught her black shawl. She’s face down in the water, so...’ He shrugs.
I tug my once-white apron over my thighs, my skirt muddied at the hem—standard camp follower uniform. We do not need to be told her hair is the colour of ripe wheat, her skin pale. This is Cora.
A soldier takes a pinch of snuff from a silver box and snorts. ‘She must have jumped,’ he says, backing away. ‘This was her choice. Now she is free.’
With empty eyes and slack faces, they turn and trudge away, disappearing amongst the trees.
Free? Yes, Cora will no longer suffer the pain of her husband’s death, but the cost of that freedom—to feel nothing ever again—is surely too great.
Kitty and the others drift away too, but I do not move. Cora once told me she was helpless with grief. Helpless is not hopeless, I’d said. But what do I know? I’ve never loved a person enough to want to die for them. I’ve only ever hated enough to want to kill.
My feet carry me to the edge before my mind can protest. Not to look—that will not be my last image of her—but the pull of our friendship drags me forward as though caught in a current I can’t escape. I was her friend. Knowing how she struggled, I should have tried harder to ease her pain. But most of us here have suffered. It is the way of war.
I creep towards the ravine, bent low, shuffling through the wet grass. A lone tree grows a pace away from the edge. The urge to get on my hands and knees and crawl almost wins, but I force myself to take a step. Then another. Now, I clutch the tree and rest my head against the trunk, taking deep breaths to slow my beating heart. Running water flows in a torrent below me, and goosebumps race up my arms. The air here is damp, carrying the mineral smell of wet stone and the clean, cold scent of rushing water How did Cora do this? She always closed her eyes when we had to cross a mountain pass, clinging on to someone’s arm—just like me.
My hands grip bark the colour of old bones, speckles of red smeared below my fingers. My insides twist. Traces of blood and... scratches dug into the trunk. My fingers slot into the furrows. What if she didn’t jump? She could have gripped this tree, her fingernails ripping as someone prised her away as she screamed in fear. No, no, those are my memories, and my past does not belong here. More likely, an animal raked this trunk with talons caked in blood and dirt.
But here, at the base... more grooves. This time in the shallow soil and leading to the ravine’s edge. Perhaps she was tugged, her heels scraping against the earth, leaving a trail in the soft soil. And nestled in a dip, a pewter button, almost hidden by the stamp of a boot, proof perhaps of the violence in its loss, of slender fingers gripping it in fear and ripping it from a soldier’s coat. Or did the button dangle by a broken thread and drop, the owner unaware of its loss?
Something flutters, catching my eye. A scrap of cloth. Brown. I pluck it from the branch it’s skewered to and hold it next to my skirt. A match. So, she might have dragged her unwilling feet to the edge. Her mind urging her to jump, yet her body resisting. The courage that must have taken... and the pain.
My heartbeat quickens as a vision flashes unbidden of Cora fighting for her life, clinging to the tree, her skirt ripping as someone seizes her arms and pulls and hauls and hurls her over the edge. The thought settles in my stomach like a stone. Who would do such a thing? And why? Even if Cora was standing beside me now, playing with the gold band on her ring finger, hair tucked behind her ears, I’d never have the courage to ask what happened, for I can guess her reply. ‘Where were you when I needed you?’
I back away from the edge, each step prying the iron bands from my chest one by one. By the time I turn and head for the woods, air finally rushes into my lungs, sharp and cold.
‘Ayla.’
Kitty waits for me, frowning, squinting in worry. She wraps her arms around me, and my head sinks onto her shoulder. I’ve wept so often over death I can’t have any tears left, yet here they come. I press my lips to her neck to stop their trembling. We cling to each other, fingers digging into flesh. I breathe in her scent and count each inhale, collecting proof she remains. Neither of us speaks. Neither of us lets go. We both know our hug is saying, Don’t you ever do this to me, for I couldn’t survive the loss.
‘I–I have a confession.’ Kitty says into my hair, her voice muffled.
I pull back to stare at her and force a smile, the corners of my eyes crinkling. ‘You do?’
She nods. ‘I knew Cora was coming here—’
I squeeze my eyes shut.
‘Oh, not to jump.’ She sniffs. ‘To pick berries. She’d been waiting for them to ripen. Was going to surprise us with them.’
‘She told you that?’
Kitty picks at the skin around her nails. ‘This morning, on her way here. I believed her. Why not? If I’d had even the slightest—’ She sighs. ‘I’d have tied her to the tent pole, anything to stop this.’
‘Shh.’ I stroke her hair. ‘You couldn’t have known.’
She sobs, her voice thick with tears. ‘I could have stopped her.’
‘You’re not to blame. This war is to blame.’
‘Yes,’ she says, but the shake of her head tells me she doesn’t believe me.
And knowing Kitty, before she falls asleep, she’ll be thinking of all the ways she could have made this different. If only she’d done this. If only she’d done that. We all have our if onlys.
I close my eyes. If only I hadn’t left my mother and siblings to endure his cruelty.
We use our aprons to mop our tears—there is no use in them. Ireland taught me that tears change nothing. It’s what we do next that matters. We link arms and make ready to return to camp, but my back prickles as if someone is behind us, watching. I want to turn, but my feet are rooted to the ground, afraid I will find Cora standing there, pointing to the scar on the inside of my arm and the wounds within. The ones no one can see. A reminder of my past.
A reminder that monsters disguised as men do exist.
Chapter 2
TOMMY
If there’s a good way to die—this sure as hell isn’t it.
‘Tommy, are you listening?’
‘Hmm?’ Something squat and motionless lurks in the darkness. I train my rifle on the position. Damn, another bloody bush. God, I hate piquet duty in the winter, lying shivering in the snow. If my manhood shrivels any more, it’ll file a complaint with the quartermaster.
‘Tommy.’
‘What?’ My voice has an edge to it. Can’t be helped. Spending my evening in a Spanish meadow is bad enough, but this has turned into hell. Can’t see a damn thing with only a sliver of moon in the barren sky. In the distance, the looming outline of trees and bushes melts into the gloom and animal prints—probably wolves—circle the ground. Not forgetting the hidden French voltigeur. My breath fogs as I breathe on my hands, rubbing life back into them. This is a wretched place. The chill seeps into my bones like a creeping dread, a sense of helplessness tightening its grip. The rifle slips in my stiffening hands—useless as a new recruit’s—while shadows dance at the edge of my vision. My fingers curl around my lucky shell, tucked safe inside my jacket pocket, next to Lizzy’s last letter. Dearest Lizzy, I’m not done for yet.
‘I have a plan.’ Billy stretched out beside me, keeps his eyes trained on the gloom ahead.
Billy always has a plan. ‘Come on then. Tell all.’ For the life of me, I don’t see a way out of this.
‘I make a run for it across the field. When I lay eyes on him, I halt. Shoot me square in the back. Kill me, kill him.’
I clamp my jaw shut to hold back a curse. ‘Not funny.’
‘Not joking. If you want to live, you have no choice.’
‘Die it is then.’
Billy tuts. ‘Don’t think. Just shoot.’
He doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even smile. Oh, hell no, he’s goddamn serious. Anyone else, and I’d tell them the plan stinks because you can’t kill a man this way; the voltigeur will shoot him as soon as he runs... but... this is Billy. Even so, the idea of shooting him sucks the air from my lungs, leaving a tight pain. Sweat gathers across my brow despite the cold. Yes, he’d take a bullet for me as I would for him, but not like this.
‘No. Forget it. Not doing it.’
I drop my head onto the snow to numb my brain and stop myself from thinking of him running into that void all alone, waiting for me to shoot him. There has to be another way, but what? A shiver slithers down my spine. Sometimes, though you can’t see anything, you can feel someone watching. This is one of those times. I keep my head down. At the sharp crack of a rifle, my shako jerks free of its cords, leaps into the air and drops beside me.
You don’t hear the bullet that kills you if the old hands are to be believed. My ears still ring with that crack, so I can’t be dead.
I push a trembling finger through the ball-sized hole in the middle of my shako. My other hand follows a furrow through my hair. No blood. The musket ball missed me by a fraction, leaving my head reeling, my brain rattling around in my skull. I’d raise my face skywards to thank the Lord, only I don’t want to get my head shot off.
‘We are all going to die in this goddamn field,’ I mutter, half to Billy, half to myself. When I glance around, he’s no longer there.
Craning my neck whilst trying to keep my head down when I’m stiff from cold isn’t easy. There he is, behind me, hunched next to our sergeant. I don’t need to see the blood staining the surrounding ground the same colour as his redcoat or smell the metallic whiff drifting towards me to know our sergeant is dead. His body lies like a spent cartridge, dark matter spilling from his guts, and Billy mumbling over his prone body. The second man we’ve lost from our piquet line tonight. And damn it, I liked him and the way he shouted orders with a tilt of his head as if to say, I don’t mean to yell. It’s just my job.
Somewhere out there, hidden amongst the trees and bushes and shadows, is a French voltigeur, and he’s picking us off one by one. A musket ball thumps into the ground beside my shoulder, dumping a spray of snow over my head.
He’s got my position.
I roll away, covering my coat in a dusting of icy white crystals. His Charleville musket might not be accurate at the distance he’s shooting, but he more than makes up for it. He’s a crack bloody shot.
Flints click in the still night, sharp and unnerving.
‘Don’t shoot,’ I whisper to the redcoats behind me. ‘We’ve got a damn voltigeur aiming for the spark from our pans.’ Truth be told, he’s probably aiming for our redcoats. We must stand out like a target even in the dark like we’re saying, Here we are. Kill us now.
