Page 3 of The Armor of Light

While he was drinking, Ike said: ‘That poor lad with his leg crushed could use a drink. It might ease the pain.’

Will did not reply, but a few moments later Ike came back aroundthe cart with a silver flask in his hand. At the same time, Will was walking briskly away in the opposite direction.

Sal murmured: ‘Well done, Ike.’

He handed her Will’s flask and she held it to Harry’s lips, letting a trickle flow into his mouth. He coughed, swallowed, and opened his eyes. She gave him more and he drank it eagerly.

Ike said: ‘Get as much as possible into him. We don’t know what Alec will need to do.’

For a moment Sal wondered what Ike could mean, then she realized he thought Harry’s leg might have to be cut off. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Please, God.’

‘Just give him more brandy.’

The liquor brought a little colour back into Harry’s face. In a barely audible whisper he said: ‘It hurts, Sal, it hurts so much.’

‘The surgeon is coming.’ It was all she could think of to say. She felt maddened by her own helplessness.

While they waited the women fed the children. Sal gave Kit the apples from her basket. The men started picking up the scattered turnips and putting them back in the cart. It would have to be done sooner or later.

Jimmy Mann came back with a wooden door balanced precariously on his shoulder. He lowered it to the ground with difficulty, panting with the effort of carrying the heavy object half a mile. ‘It’s for that new house going up over by the mill,’ he said. ‘They said not to damage it.’ He put the door down alongside Harry.

Now Harry had to be moved onto the improvised stretcher, and it was going to hurt. She knelt beside his head. Uncle Ike stepped forward to help, but she waved him away. No one else would try as hard as she would to be gentle. She grasped Harry’s arms close to the shoulders and slowly swivelled his upper half over the door. He did not react. She pulled him, an inch at a time, until his torso was resting on the door. But in the end she had to move his legs. Shestood over him, straddling him, then she bent down, grasped his hips, and moved his legs onto the door in one swift movement.

He screamed for the third time.

The scream tailed off and turned to sobbing.

‘Let’s lift him,’ she said. She knelt at one corner of the door, and three of the men took the other corners. ‘Slowly does it,’ she said. ‘Keep it level.’ They grasped the wood and gradually lifted, swinging themselves under it as soon as possible, then balanced it on their shoulders. ‘Ready?’ she said. ‘Try to keep in step. One, two, three, go.’

They headed across the field. Sal glanced back and saw Kit, dazed and upset, but following her close and carrying her basket. Annie’s two small children were trailing behind their father, Jimmy, who was carrying the back left-hand corner of the stretcher.

Badford was a big village, a thousand residents or more, and Sal’s home was a mile distant. It was going to be a long, slow walk, but she knew the way so well she could probably have done it with her eyes closed. She had lived here all her life, and her parents were in the graveyard alongside St Matthew’s Church. The only other place she knew was Kingsbridge, and the last time she had been there was ten years ago. But Badford had changed in her lifetime, and today it was not so easy to go from one end of the village to the other. New ideas had transformed farming, and there were fences and hedges in the way. The party carrying Harry had to negotiate gates and winding pathways between private kingdoms.

They were joined by men working in other fields, and then women who came out of their houses to see what was going on, and small children, and dogs, all of whom followed them, chattering among themselves, discussing poor Harry and his terrible injury.

As Sal walked, her shoulder hurting now under the weight of Harry and the door, she recalled how her five-year-old self – called Sally then – had thought of the land outside the village as a vague but narrow periphery, much like the garden around the house whereshe lived. In her imagination, the whole world had been only slightly larger than Badford. The first time she had been taken to Kingsbridge she had found it bewildering: thousands of people, crowded streets, the market stalls crammed with food and clothes and things she had never heard of – a parrot, a globe, a book to write in, a silver dish. And then the cathedral, impossibly tall, strangely beautiful, cold and quiet inside, obviously the place where God lived.

Kit was now only a little older than she had been on that first astonishing trip. She tried to imagine what he was thinking right now. She guessed he had always seen his father as invulnerable – boys usually did – and now he was trying to get used to the idea of Harry lying injured and helpless. Kit must be scared and confused, she thought. He would need a lot of reassurance.

At last they came within sight of her home. It was one of the meaner houses in the village, built of peat and the interwoven branches and twigs called wattle. The windows had shutters but no glass. Sal said: ‘Kit, run ahead and open the door.’ He obeyed, and they carried Harry straight in. The crowd stayed outside, peering in.

The house had only one room. There were two beds, one narrow and one broad, both simple platforms of unvarnished planks nailed together by Harry. Each was covered by a canvas mattress stuffed with straw. Sal said: ‘Let’s put him down on the big bed.’ They carefully lowered Harry, still lying on the door, onto the bed.

The three men and Sal stood upright, rubbing sore hands and stretching aching backs. Sal stared down at Harry, who was pale and motionless, hardly breathing. She murmured: ‘Lord, please don’t take him from me.’

Kit stood in front of her and hugged her, his face pressed into her belly, which had been soft ever since his birth. She stroked his head. She wanted to speak comforting words but none came to mind. Anything true would be frightening.

She noticed the men looking around her house. It was quite poor,but theirs would not be much different, for they were all farm labourers. Sal’s spinning wheel was in the middle of the room. It was beautifully made, precision carved and polished. She had inherited it from her mother. Beside it stood a small stack of bobbins wound with finished yarn, waiting to be picked up by the clothier. The wheel paid for luxuries: tea with sugar, milk for Kit, meat twice a week.

‘A Bible!’ said Jimmy Mann, spotting the only other costly object in the house. The bulky book stood in the centre of the table, its brass clasp green with age, its leather binding stained by many grubby hands.

Sal said: ‘It belonged to my father.’

‘But can you read it?’

‘He taught me.’

They were impressed. She guessed that none of them could read more than a few words: their names, probably, and perhaps the prices chalked up in markets and taverns.