“There was fighting here, wasn’t there?”she said.
“Yes.”They rode on in somber silence.In Brussels he had acquired a pamphlet that had been prepared for English tourists wishing to visit the site of the great battle, and was able to direct her attention to some of the sights.
Marcus led them straight through the village of Waterloo without stopping, Tessa glanced at him with a puzzled expression.“I thought this was where the battle was.”
“No, Waterloo was the village where Wellington wrote his final report from, and that’s how the battle got its name, but the actual fighting was further along.”
As they passed close to the village of Braine-l’Alleud, Marcus pointed to the church of Saint-Étienne.“See that church?They used that as a field hospital to treat the wounded.”
She nodded, but said nothing.He glanced at her.Her eyes had sheened with unshed tears.
Next was the building that had become the hospital at Mont-Saint-Jean.
When he pointed it out, she gave him a troubled look.“I don’t even know whether Louis was wounded or killed outright.Only that he went to war and never came home.”
Marcus frowned.“You never received a letter?”Her brother was an officer after all.Surely someone would have sent an official notification.
She shook her head.“Edgar might have, but if he did, he never told me.It’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here.The only thing I know for certain is that Louis was at the battle of Waterloo.And never came home.”
Marcus clenched his teeth and hoped the captain of the ship had decided to throw Blaxland overboard after all.
Finally, the main part of the former battlefield lay before them, a wide sward of gently rolling green grass, dotted with little white daisies and tiny wildflowers.Marcus gave a quiet sigh of relief.Nothing here too obviously distressing.
He pointed to a large elm tree.“I think that tree might have been where Wellington’s command post was.”
“Do you mind if we walk for a bit?”Tessa asked, and without waiting for his response, she slipped off her mount, looped the long skirt of her riding habit over her arm and began to walk slowly across the field, scanning the ground before her, as if looking for something.
Wildflowers perhaps?Or maybe just grieving for her brother.
He left her to it, not wanting to break in on her reverie and private grief.
He strolled on, leading the horses, deep into the pamphlet guide.Names of places he had only heard of, or read in English newspapers had now become unsettlingly real to him.Hougoumont, La Haie Sainte, Plancenoit, La Belle Alliance, Papelotte, the Chemin d’Ohain, the ridge on the Mont-Saint-Jean.Just names to him before; now they carried a weight of emotion, and not just for Tessa’s sake.
He’d avidly followed the various reports of the battle at the time, consumed with anxiety for his brother, Gabriel, and his friends, and to some extent, his half-brother Harry from whom he was estranged.
He hadn’t realized how much detail he’d absorbed.
It was hard to imagine this peaceful green scene churned up with blood and mud and the horrific sounds of battle, and men and horses screaming and the constant shattering sound of gun and cannon fire.His own brothers had fought here.
Not that they’d ever spoken of it.
It seemed to him that most soldiers—men who had known war—real war—rarely talked about what they had seen and done.Not to him, anyway.
Raised voices caused him to look up and turning, he saw Tessa had been surrounded by a small group of men and boys he had seen earlier, loitering in the distance.They clustered around her, jabbering at her in a mix of French, Flemish and broken English.
She flinched from their importunities, and Marcus hurried to intervene.
“Get them away,” Tessa pleaded.“It’s hideous.They are selling people’sbones!That’s some poor boy’s fingerbone!”
“Souvenirs, madam, monsieur,” the men insisted, holding out their ‘wares’— a jumble of white bones, teeth, pieces of shrapnel, musket balls, and bits of lead, brass, bronze and rusted iron.He saw several brass buttons with the Imperial eagle grasping scattered thunderbolts,presumably from a French uniform and pieces of fabric bearing British regimental insignia.It was a grotesque collection.
Cursing himself for not paying closer attention, Marcus chased them off with a mixture of French and English and some threatening gestures.
“Are you all right?”he asked her, pulling her close.She was shaking.
“Y, yes.I’m all right,” she stammered, leaning into him “I just didn’t expect it, that’s all.”
After a few moments she recovered and they walked on a little, their horses trailing behind them, cropping occasionally at the grass.“Why would they imagine I’d want to buy such gruesome things?”She shuddered.
