Young Bloods Read Free Page A

due to the nature of his conception and the life that she and Carlos had been forced to lead during her pregnancy. For over a year they had been fighting the French: long months of trekking across the craggy mountains and hidden valleys of Corsica as they set ambushes for French patrols, or attacked one of their outposts, killing its garrison, then fleeing into the interior before the inevitable column of infantry arrived to hunt them down. Months of hiding in caves, in the company of the rough band of peasants that Carlos commanded. Patriots, hunted down like animals.
    It was in such a cave, she recalled, that the child had been conceived. On a bitter winter evening, shortly before Christmas, as she and Carlos lay on a bed of pine branches, covered in worn and soiled blankets. Around them, their followers had slept on, or pretended to, as their leader and his young wife moved quietly beneath their coverings. She had felt no shame over it. Not when the next day might bring death for either, or both of them, leaving Giuseppe an orphan in the house of his grandparents.
    They had fought the invaders through the winter, into the first flushes of spring, and all the while Letizia felt the life growing inside her.With the early successes of the rebellion, Carlos and the other patriots had been so sure of victory that General Paoli abandoned his small war of ceaseless skirmishes and led his forces into battle at Ponte Nuovo. There they had been roundly beaten by the ordered ranks and massed volleys of professional soldiers. Hundreds of men cut down; their passion for Corsican independence no defence against the lead musket balls that whirled through their ranks. A waste of fine men, thought Letizia. Paoli had squandered their lives for nothing. After Ponte Nuovo the surviving patriots were driven into the mountains, there to remain until Paoli fled from the island and the triumphant French offered an amnesty to the men deserted by their general.
    Letizia had been with child for seven months by that time, and Carlos, fearing for her health, and by no means content to spend any more time living like a savage, had accepted the enemy’s offer. Within a week they had returned to their home in Ajaccio. The struggle was over. Corsica, so long the property of Genoa, had a fleeting taste of independence and was now the possession of France. And so the child inside her would be born French.
    Without warning Letizia felt an explosion of fluids between her thighs and gasped in surprise as she snatched a hand to her mouth in an instant of confusion and fear.
    Carlos turned to her quickly. ‘Letizia?’
    She stared back, wide-eyed. ‘I must leave.’
    Faces nearby turned towards them with disapproving expressions. Carlos tried to ignore them. ‘Leave?’
    ‘The child,’ she whispered. ‘It’s coming. Now.’
    Carlos nodded, slipped an arm round her thin shoulders and with a quick bow of his head towards the huge gold cross on the altar, he led his wife down the aisle towards the entrance to the cathedral. Letizia gritted her teeth and waddled slightly as she made for the doors. Outside in the dazzling sunshine, Carlos shouted at the bearers of a nearby sedan chair. At first they didn’t move, but then stirred when they saw that the woman was in pain. Carlos gently handed her inside and gave curt directions to their house.The bearers raised the sedan from the ground and set off. Carlos trotted alongside, casting anxious glances at his wife as she sat on the narrow seat, clenching her teeth and gripping the window frames tightly. The bearers grunted under their load and soon their breaths came in sharp gasps as their footsteps echoed off the sun-bleached houses crowding the narrow streets of Ajaccio.
    A sharp cry drew Carlos closer and he looked on in terror at his wife’s tightly clenched face.
    ‘Letizia,’ he panted, and forced himself to smile as she glanced sidelong at him. ‘Not far, my love.’
    Letizia lowered her head and