‘Enough!’ he bellowed. He levelled his pistol at the man with his breeches down. ‘You will desist, there. That is an order!’
For a startled moment the men all turned to look at him and were silent; and Jonathan’s heart, which was speeding so fast that he couldn’t feel its separate beats, filled with the hope that they would obey him. But then the one who appeared to be their leader, a big man with close-cropped hair and a pocked face, snarled.
‘You can buss the blind cheeks, sir. We’ve paid with our blood, and now we’ll have our sport.’ Behind him, the woman’s face, which for a moment had mirrored Jonathan’s hope, crumpled into desperation again.
‘I order you to leave her be,’ said Jonathan, but the hand that held the pistol had begun to shake, and even though Captain Sutton and their few loyal men stood to either side of him, he felt the shreds of his authority evaporate. He put a bullet in the lead man, but his aim was off; the wound was in the shoulder, and did not fell him. And then the two groups fell upon each other like bitter enemies, not like the comrades they’d so recently been. Jonathan and Captain Sutton were outnumbered, but their small band fought with right on their side, and for once that seemed to count for something. Nevertheless, most of the woman’s rescuers fell to her tormentors before it was done. One of them, a lad no more than seventeen, was driven off down the aisle with his foe hard behind him, a hunting knife gripped in his hand. Moments later Captain Sutton went the same way, pursuing two others who fled before him. Jonathan was left alone to fight the lead man, the man he had shot, with his bare hands.
They fought gracelessly, grappling at one another, Jonathan’s crippled leg offset by the bullet wound in the other man, which spattered blood onto both of them. His opponent was bigger and stronger, but he was also drunk, and Jonathan’s slim frame belied the wiry hardness of his muscles. The lead man got his hands around Jonathan’s neck and would have crushed his windpipe if Jonathan hadn’t gouged a thumb into the bullet hole in his shoulder, pushing until he found where the bullet had lodged against the bone, still burning hot. The man roared and thrust him away, so violently that Jonathan staggered and went to his knees. In front of him was another man’s musket, spent, the bayonet stained with blood. As he stood, Jonathan grabbed it by the muzzle and spun about, swinging it as hard as he could. The butt caught the pock-faced man across the side of his head with a hollow knock and a splintering sound; he dropped like an empty sack, and didn’t move. The sudden silence roared in Jonathan’s ears. He felt as though his blood was simmering in his veins, poisoned. As he turned to leave, a scuffle of movement behind him jolted him into action again. Hands closed on his arm, and he wheeled around, thrusting blindly with the bayonet. He felt it meet resistance; felt that resistance part around the sharp steel. Then he looked down into the Spanish woman’s face, and knew himself a murderer.
She made a strange gulping sound, as if trying to swallow the air instead of breathing it. Jonathan knelt and tried to hold her up as she sank forwards, to stop her pushing herself further onto the blade. He didn’t dare pull it free; he’d seen that done too many times, and knew the spurt of blood and rapid death it would bring. In his horror and shame he tried desperately to think of a way to save her, a way to undo it, when he knew there was none. He turned her carefully onto her back, and knelt with his arms around her, cradling her naked body. There was blood on her breasts; bruising on her neck. Her face was long and hard-boned, but her mouth was beautiful, sensuous and full. She tried to speak, but could not. She gulped at the air some more, staring at him with such intensity that he knew she was desperate to tell him something.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, wretchedly, over and over. ‘Lo siento, lo siento… forgive me, I beg you.’ He rocked her gently but it made her whimper in pain, so he stopped. Still she gave him that piercing look, her black eyes shining in the jewel-coloured light from the window. She raised one hand and reached it towards the wooden pews flanking the aisle; her fingers grasped at nothing. Her hands were slender, and elegant; there was blood underneath her fingernails, and the smell of her sweat and her skin was in Jonathan’s nostrils. In that moment, the only thing he was aware of, in all of existence, was the woman dying in his arms. She turned her face to her outstretched hand, murmuring in her throat, a sound too weak to be words. Then she stared back up at Jonathan for a moment, and he was looking into her eyes at the exact moment life left them. A tiny, cataclysmic shift; as simple and irreversible as the passing of time.
Her reaching arm dropped, her head lolled to the side, and Jonathan felt that he was living through the worst and blackest moment of his life. And when he followed her gaze and her gesture to the pews, and found her baby hidden there, he understood why she had bled so much, and why she had been so outraged at the thought of her own death. The child was no more than a few days old, tiny and unaware, wrapped in a grubby blanket and unharmed, untouched. Its eyes were closed, edged with black lashes; a peaceful face below a mass of dark hair. The woman had refused to accept her fate for the sake of this child but Jonathan had robbed her of everything, anyway. He lifted the baby into his arms and ran his stained finger gently down its cheek. Its skin was so soft he couldn’t tell if he was touching it or not. He knew at once that any chance of saving himself lay in saving this one tiny life, pure and miraculous amidst all the corruption.
Neither Mrs Weekes nor Jonathan Alleyn seemed to notice that Starling had returned to the room. She carried a jug of bishop – warm, watered wine in which a roasted orange bobbed – and stood quietly in the doorway between the two chambers, where she heard the latter part of Jonathan’s tale and all the anguish with which he told it. Mrs Weekes lifted his hand when he fell silent; she held it to her cheek, and the gesture struck Starling violently. Rachel Weekes looked so like Alice in that moment, with her face bowed and her pale hair shining, that it gave her a wrenching feeling inside. It’s because she loves him. That’s what makes her look like Alice. With this realisation came a flash of jealous fire, which lasted only an instant and was followed by a strange emptiness, like loss.
‘She would forgive you. You must see that,’ said Mrs Weekes.
‘Would she? I think not. She wanted so much to live, for her child. She was determined to live, and she survived the brutal treatment she was given only to die by my hand,’ said Jonathan.
‘She wanted her child to live. That’s what she wanted more than anything. The battle had nothing to do with her, but that woman gave birth to her baby amidst it all, and somehow keep her safe until that moment. And you did what she wanted – you kept Cassandra safe. I think she would forgive you.’ The pair of them stared at one another for a moment, and Starling saw that Jonathan hardly dared to believe it.
‘Mrs Weekes is right – what happened was an accident. You didn’t rape her, you meant to save her – and you saved the babe. This was no crime,’ said Starling, and at once felt that she’d intruded into their intimacy. She stiffened, and colour came into her cheeks. She deposited the jug of bishop on the side table to cover her discomfort.
‘Everything that happened there was a crime,’ said Jonathan.
‘But not one you are responsible for,’ Rachel Weekes insisted.