27 May; surgeon's wagon

Vickery nodded. "I won't be long, and I will try not to wake Newbury. After all he's been through, he deserves a rest."

Well, there he was. So much for trying to slip away unnoticed.

"Ah, Jenny. I hope you are all right after what happened earlier." he began. "I owe you an apology, it seems. I should not have left you as I did."

She tried to look unconcerned. "That's all right, sir," she answered with a light shrug.

"Miss Ross, I have to ask. Did you come by that bread honestly, or not?"

"Yes, sir, just like I said. I traded a Portuguese woman for it. I was hungry."

Which was as he had thought. "Why don't you tell me what happened? So I can get it straight in my mind."

She had thought of this with great care. "Well, sir, it was all a misunderstanding, really. They said my bread was stolen so they sort of grabbed me, and I sort of kicked them back because it hurt and all, and they were pretty rude about it. I won't tell you all the things they said." She gave him a polite apologetic smile. "Then they went all rough on me - well, you saw, the first time - but then we reached a sort of agreement. I explained about the bread, and offered them - well, sir, you know what services I offer," lowering her eyes modestly, "And that would have been that. But then they started on Newbury."

"Ah. You offered? Or were they going to take?" he asked delicately. He knew the words the soldiers - and their women - used to describe that sort of transaction, but to use them himself was unthinkable, especially to a woman. Even if she had no hesitation in employing those terms herself.

She stared him straight in the eye at that point. Not quite a look of defiance, but a sober and earnest look all the same. "It was a bargain, sir." Then feeling that perhaps more was due to his station, she looked away and added, "I'm sorry to have to speak of such things to you, sir."

This was not the sort of conversation he could describe in a letter home to his mother.

"I need to understand the terms agreed upon, Miss Ross. Was there to be money involved, payment in kind? Or were you simply doing your best to divert their attentions from Rifleman Newbury?"

"Oh no, sir, no," she said with gentle rebuke. "Not money. It was simply to be a favor for letting me go free, after I explained about the bread. I couldn't expect the provost marshal to take an interest in my case, and it would surely be preferable to a flogging."

He frowned. Now he was confused. "Just to allow yourself to go free? What of Newbury - I was given to understand the two of you had formed an attachment."

Why else would they be in the same wagon, after all? Unlike Newbury, Jenny did not appear to be suffering any lasting ill-effects from the provosts' unwanted attentions.

Her eyes twitched to the side where he was lying. "He was only there because you ordered him, sir."

That was true enough. And the accusation hurt.

"If you have formed any sort of attachment, I will not oppose it," he said, and another thought occurred to him. "Who was it who stabbed the provost?"

One of the others had been holding Newbury's sword-bayonet, and had accused Jenny of the deed. Vickery wondered as to the truth of that accusation.

She thought. She had thought of it earlier as well. "I don't know sir. I didn't see it." The second part at least was true.

"Miss Ross, I would like to help you. I am already going to press charges because of their unprovoked assault on Rifleman Newbury. If they had the intention of forcing themselves on you, I would like to press charges for that also, but that is the harder charge to make stick, because of your position with the army. If there is anything that you know which would help me, please tell me."

She looked thoughtful, as if casting about in her mind for something helpful to say. "I don't really know what else you can expect me to know, sir. There was so much fighting amongst them all. I didn't really see much after I fell down."

"There's something I don't understand about that stabbing, though. You say you didn't see it. Do you have any idea of who might have done it? After all, Newbury is hardly likely to have gone for the man's loins, being a Rifleman trained in the use of a sword-bayonet."

She was probably lying about something, but Vickery wasn't quite sure what.

"Well they took his bayonet away," she said slowly, squinting at the foggy memory. "He didn't want them to - mistreat me, you see. So they kicked him and took his bayonet away. And they fought amongst themselves over - well, I'm not sure." Then she looked up as if realization had dawned. "I think they wanted to kill him, sir. Newbury."

"Are you saying Newbury stabbed him?" Vickery probed gently.

"Oh, no sir, no!" she said earnestly. That was not what she had intended at all. "No, he was on the ground. They kicked him horribly, and beat him all about the head and his knee and - well, you've seen what it was like. No, they took his bayonet away as soon as he started to protest. Protest against our arrangement, you see. He's a good man," she added by way of explanation. "But they fought amongst themselves over what to do with him. Then one of them started screaming and that officer came."

It was the voices that roused him from his slumber. He had not realised he had been that tired, for it was unlike him to sleep so soundly. Newbury did not move immediately upon waking. There were voices speaking close by. Two of them. Jenny was one, he realised. And other... Captain Vickery. Damn.

"Where..." he asked, or started to ask. The word came out as a mumble, however, because his tongue was heavy and sore from where he'd bitten it. Trying to move was ill-advised as well, as he found when he attempted to sit up. The barest twitch of exertion set his whole body to throbbing with pain.

"Ow," Newbury muttered and abandoned all thought of facing his captain properly.

Jenny looked down at him with polite disinterest. "I think the surgeon gave him some laudanum, sir," she told the captain in a quiet voice.

"Easy there. You're in the surgeon's wagon, Newbury. And you're to stay here until you're fit and well, when you may rejoin the Company. I do not want you doing anything prejudicial to regaining your health, do you understand?"

Laudanum. Well, that certainly made sense. He turned his attention back to Jenny. "Was he on the ground before the provost was stabbed, then?"