“How godsdamn dare you,” said Thatcher from somewhere past my vision.
I turned in a circle to look for from where it came. My eyes passed over Alric’s face, his brows drawn, his hand withdrawing the dagger from the short scabbard at his thigh. The other men appeared agitated as well.
Then Maureen, her voice wavering asked, “Where is my mother?”
My eyes scanned those on the road, their outlines and countenances still blurred but identifiable. No sign of my friend. “Helena!” I shouted. “Helena!”
“Thatcher, where are you?” Alric called.
Perch and Fletch started calling for the baldheaded man too.
The sounds of a skirmish continued to sound through the trees.
Mischa strode towards me, hands tied in front of her, Maureen following. “Where is she, Edie? Where is she?”
I knew she was asking me not because I had the answer, but because she was upset. I shook my head, heart hammering in my chest. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
We shouted for her together, Catrin, Quinn and River joining us from the other side of the road.
All of the men were hollering Thatcher’s name.
There was a grunt, a shuffling and then Thatcher burst out of the trees from our side of the road, one hand on the back of the shirt of the man called Nash, the other holding his arm. Nash’s face had been brutalized. Blood poured from a broken nose and from his mouth. His lower lip was split and both eyes would soon swell. Thatcher hauled the man into the road, both men stumbling, but Thatcher regaining his footing. He stopped in front of where most of the men were gathered and took the hand on Nash’s shirt and yanked his blond hair back, lifting up the man’s bleeding face.
I noticed the skin on both Thatcher’s hands was split open.
We had fallen silent at the men’s exit from the woods but then Maureen, in a high pitch, said, “Where is my mother?Where is my mother?”
Thatcher, panting from his exertions, angled his head toward the opening in the trees he had just dragged Nash through. “Get her. She’s not that far behind.”
The tall man called Perch went into the woods.
“Is this what it looks like?” asked Alric, monotone.
“Yes, it is. The fucker,” Thatcher spat. He angled his face at Nash’s head, his voice derisive. “Didn’t hear me coming. Did you?”
“She never said no!” protested Nash, through crimson lips, his speech garbled.
“You godsdamned animal!” I heard myself screech as Mischa began to yell incoherently next to me. I stretched my tied hands towards Maureen, who was shaking, tears streaming down her face. I clasped one of her arms and pulled her to me, shaking myself, sobs coming in hiccups between Mischa’s howling.
Across the road, the other women were clinging to each other, horror on their faces. I thought I heard Quinn say, “My gods, what has he done?”
Perch emerged, carrying a wilted Helena in his arms. There was a cut on her temple and her hands, like ours, had been tied. With caution he set her down on the ground in an awkward sitting position and the three of us fell around her, Mischa and I on either side of her, holding her upright despite the rope at our wrists and Maureen in front of her, clumsily pawing at her mother’s face with bound hands.
“Mother,” she wept. “Mother.”
I will never forget my friend’s countenance on that hazy day, sitting in the road, slumped between us. It was Helena’s ghost to which we clung, not Helena. Her face was white. Her eyes held no tears. The cut was bleeding, a line of red down her cheek.
Hearing Alric speaking, through my stupor, I looked over at where Thatcher held Nash by his hair. Alric stood directly in front of him.
“I asked, what is the Procurer creed?” His voice was still flat.
The man struggled to speak through his injuries, but said, “We are the teeth in Hinnom’s jaw, the eyes of the shark, the—”
“Not their creed for us. My creed for us,” Alric cut him off. “Eight words.”
Thatcher gave the man’s hair another yank.
Blood in his mouth and dripping from his chin, Nash tried to speak, but could not. He swallowed, winced and tried again. “For king and country. No women. No theft.”
