Chapter One
Major Nathaniel Treloar, late of the 18th King’s Irish Regiment of Light Dragoons, known nowadays as the 18th Hussars, stepped out of the coach that had brought him up to London from Canterbury and stared around himself at Fetter Lane. He’d been away for over a year and a half, seen a war fought and won, and, somehow, he’d expected London to have something to show for it. But there was nothing. All seemed just as he’d left it in January 1813, when his regiment had taken ship for Lisbon and rejoined the Peninsular War.
His fellow passengers, a bluff gentleman with thick grey hair and whiskers and his stout wife, descended from the coach as well, although unlike Nat, they seemed to know where they were going.
The guard threw down the luggage from the top of the coach with scant respect for whether it might contain anything breakable. Nat picked up his own valise before any of the loitering riffraff could attempt to grab it and turned towards the hostelry the coach had delivered him to. Large lettering across the smart brick façade above the windows declared it to be The White Horse Tavern and Family Hotel, an establishment recommended by his friend Captain Ned Cavendish. It possessed an added advantage to Ned’s recommendation in that it was only a short walk from The Saracen’s Head in Snow Hill, from which Nat had to catch the coach to the West Country first thing in the morning.
Slinging the heavy bag over his shoulder, he pushed open the door and entered the hostelry. He found himself in a long room with a counter running all the way down one side. At this time of day, a few men of somewhat dubious appearance were already sitting around playing cards, tankards of ale gripped in their hands. They looked him up and down, no doubt assessing whether he could be gulled into playing a losing hand with them, and stayed put.
Nat approached the aproned man who seemed to be serving.
This worthy, a long, skinny drink of water with heavily hooded eyes and a burgeoning bald spot, wiped his hands on his wraparound apron and tugged the scant remains of his forelock in respect. He probably recognized in Nat the gait and bearing of a soldier, despite his civilian dress of blue frock coat and breeches. The long scar on the right side of Nat’s face must have reinforced his guess, and might also have had something to do with the card sharps’ reluctance to engage him. Nat still hadn’t become accustomed to the way people stared at his disfigurement. This man, though, made a creditable effort not to. “Good evening to you, fine sir. And what can I do for you?”
Already the blaring of a horn and the clatter of a second coach arriving at the inn sounded outside on the cobbles. Nat, cocking an ear for the noise of fresh passengers in search of overnight accommodation, was seized by the urgency of the situation. “I should like to procure a room for the night, my good man. The best you have at your disposal.”
The barkeeper tugged his forelock again. “If you’d like to foller me, sir, I’ll take you up right now. The boss keeps only the best for officers like yourself. Overlooks the street, so you’ll not be bothered by the comings and goings of the stableyard too much.” His eyes slid sideways towards the scar before he dragged them back again. “This way.”
The room, which was of more generous proportions than Nat had expected, did indeed look out over the street, from which the second coach had now vanished, presumably into the stableyard for the horses to be unhitched. “I’ll take it,” Nat said. “And a roast chicken for my dinner, along with a flagon of good claret and a bottle of brandy, here in my room.”
When the barkeeper had departed, Nat checked the bed. He’d had more than his fill of bad beds in Spain and Southern France, and there could be a lot of things amiss with a bed in a public inn, even in England. The feather mattress didn’t feel too lumpy, the sheets seemed clean and well aired, and he couldn’t spy any bedbugs or other small visitors. He took off his coat and flung it over the bed’s foot, then lay down, still in his dusty boots, and put his hands behind his head. As he stood a little over six feet tall, his feet touched the solid oak foot, and he was reminded of the story of Procrustes and how he would either stretch longer, or cut bits off his visitors in order to make them fit in his bed, until Theseus came along and sorted him out.
Well, what a turn up for the books this was. Only a few short weeks ago he’d been with the army in the South of France, at Bordeaux to be precise, and now look where he found himself. No longer a soldier at all. He glanced down at his long body, virtually untouched by war if he hid the missing fingers on his right hand. His civilian clothes made quite a change from the brocade festooned uniform he’d been wearing as a Hussar, but he liked it. He’d had his fill of fighting, an unsurprising feeling considering how much of the Peninsular War he’d seen and taken part in. Too much. He touched his fingers to his cheek, feeling the raised and thickened flesh. A man could have more than enough of violence.
His grandfather, Sir Hugh Treloar, had bought him a commission as soon as he left Harrow, and a few years later, in July of 1808, he’d been sent as a captain with his regiment to Portugal at the start of the Peninsular campaign.
After Julia.
He’d enjoyed it at first, if that was how he could have described it. Perhaps at best it had been a much-needed distraction from his sorrows. Soldiering had always been something he’d felt he was born for, and he’d sunk into this particular posting like a welcome comforting blanket. For the last six years, he’d allowed soldiering to blot out all else.
Not now though. Not after… No, he wouldn’t think about it. If he did, he’d never muster an appetite for his dinner, which must surely be coming up soon. But what to think of instead? He ran his fingers through his unruly hair, a little too long at the moment and much in need of a trim. Rather than let the regimental barber in the Canterbury barracks hack away at it, he’d decided to wait until his return. He’d never been a stickler for following fashion. What soldier ever was? Any of those who did so were rarely good soldiers.
Home. That was it. He’d think of home. Only it hadn’t been home now for eleven long years. In all that time he’d only been back to Cornwall once, and that just a flying visit for the funeral of his Aunt Endelyn’s husband, John Polmear. Even before he’d taken up his commission, he’d been away at school for six years and glad to be so. Yet, in his heart, it remained his home, as much as any soldier, with his nomadic existence, could call anywhere home.
If he’d been inclined to self analysis, he’d perhaps have reasoned that he needed its gentle balm, in contrast to the frantic furore of the recent war. As it was, his mind wandered unbidden down winding, flower-strewn lanes to leafy green Cornwall, such a contrast to the stony aridity of Northern Spain and Southern France. How hard it was to conjure up an image of Roskilly House as he remembered it. All he could make out in his mind’s eye was a vague shape, devoid even of windows, the gardens remaining invisible. Had he been gone so long it had all but faded from his memory?
Fil Reid - Author 