Page 227 of The Armor of Light

My dear wife,

Here I am in Rodrigo City in Spain. It’s a small town perched on a cliff above a river. It has a cathedral – sadly Roman Catholic, of course. I live in a tiny room in a house occupied by officers of the 107th Foot Regiment.

Well, he had got there safely, which relieved her. A sea journey was always worrying.

She was not in love with Kenelm – she never had been – but over the years she had come to appreciate his strengths and tolerate his weaknesses. And he was the father of her five children. His safety was important to her.

She read on:

I thought Spain was a hot country, but the weather is bitter cold, and the house has no glass in its windows – like most houses here. To the east, we can see snow on the mountains, which they call sierras.

She would have to send him some warm wool clothes: underwear, perhaps, and hose. Poor thing. And people talked of Spain’s intolerable heat.

The army is recovering from something of a setback. The siege of Burgos was a failure and our forces retreated in some disarray,losing men to cold and hunger on the long march back to winter quarters. This was before I arrived.

She had read about the retreat in the newspapers. The marquis of Wellington had enjoyed some victories in the past year, but at the end of it he seemed to be back where he had started. She wondered whether he was as good a general as he was made out to be.

The men here are in dire need of spiritual guidance. One would imagine that battle would remind them of the nearness of heaven and hell, and make them take stock of their situation and turn to God, but it doesn’t seem to work that way. Few of them wish to attend services. Many spend their time drinking strong liquor, gambling their wages away, and – forgive me, my dear – whoring. There is a great deal for me to do! But mainly I tell them that I am their chaplain and I am always ready to pray with them if they need me.

That was something of a change, Elsie felt. Kenelm had always been attached to the ceremonial aspect of Christianity. He attributed great importance to robes and jewelled vessels and processions. Praying with men in distress had not been a priority until now. The army was broadening his mind already.

Now that I have settled in, I thought I should pay a call on Wellington. His headquarters is in a village called Freineda, a bit of a walk from here, but I would not demand the use of an army horse. The village is frightfully dilapidated and dirty. I was sorry to notice the presence of several young women of a certain type – you will skip over that sentence when you read this letter to the children.

Our commander-in-chief occupies the house next to the church. It’s the best house in the place, which is not saying much; just a fewrooms over a stable. His father was the earl of Mornington, and he was raised in Dangan Castle, so this must be a change for him!

When I arrived I spoke to an aide-de-camp and learned that Wellington was hunting. I suppose he must do something with his time when there are no battles to be fought. The aide was rather supercilious, and said he was not sure whether the general would have time to see me. Of course I had no choice but to wait.

While doing so, guess who I met: Henry, earl of Shiring! He’s thin but he looks cheerful. In fact, I would say he’s in his element. He has been seconded to headquarters staff, so works closely with Wellington. They are exactly the same age and met back in 1786 as students at the Ecole Royale d’équitation in Angers.

And the two men had something else in common, Elsie reflected: Henry was more interested in the army than in his wife and, if the rumours were true, Wellington was the same.

I remembered the distress of Alderman Hornbeam and mentioned that Joe Hornbeam and Sandy Drummond had volunteered for the army out of patriotism, and Henry was interested. I told him that they were two bright young men from Kingsbridge Grammar School, and might be officer potential, and Henry said he would look out for them; so please tell Hornbeam that I have done what I can to pave the way for his grandson to become an officer.

Elsie certainly would pass that on to Hornbeam. It was not particularly reassuring, but at least he would know that two Kingsbridge men were looking out for his grandson in Spain.

At last Wellington showed up, wearing a sky-blue coat and a black cape, which I later learned was the uniform of the Salisbury Hunt. I saw immediately why they call him Old Nosey: he has amagnificent beak, with a high bridge and a long end. Otherwise he is a handsome man, a little taller than the average, with curly hair brushed forward to hide the slight extent to which it is receding.

Henry introduced me, and Wellington spoke to me for several minutes, standing by his horse. He asked me about my career at Oxford and Kingsbridge, and said he was glad to see me. He did not invite me into his house, but I was quite pleased that so many people had seen him taking an interest in me. He was amiable and informal, though something gave me the feeling that I should not like to be in the position of having displeased him. The iron fist in the velvet glove, was my instinctive thought.

Elsie was glad for Kenelm. She knew how much he valued that sort of thing. A conversation with the commander-in-chief in front of numerous people would make him happy for months. This was a harmless weakness, and she had learned to be tolerant of it.

I will finish now and make sure this gets on the weekly packet from Lisbon to England. My letter will travel alongside Wellington’s dispatches and many more letters home to loved ones. I think often of the children – please express my love to them. And I need hardly say that I convey the fondest sentiments of esteem and love for you, my dear wife.

Your devoted husband,

Kenelm Mackintosh

She put the letter down and thought about it for a while, then she read it again. In the last paragraph he had mentioned love three times, she noticed. That was about as many times as he had said the word in the eighteen years they had been married.

After a minute or two she asked all her children to come to thedrawing room. ‘We have a letter from your father,’ she told them, and they all saidoohandaah. ‘Sit quietly,’ she said, ‘and I’ll read it to you.’

*

Mayor Fishwick called an emergency meeting of the town council to discuss the outbreak of Luddism. Spade knew more about what had happened than anyone else, but he had to conceal his knowledge. He decided to attend but say little or nothing. He could have stayed away, but that would have looked suspicious.

Meetings of the council – which consisted of all the aldermen – were usually ebullient affairs, as well-dressed and self-assured men confidently made decisions about the management of the town’s affairs while helping themselves from the decanter of sherry in the middle of the ancient table. They believed it was their right to run Kingsbridge, and they felt they made a pretty good job of it.

They were not so smug today, Spade thought. The mood was pessimistic. They looked scared.