“We will reach Pikestully tomorrow,” said Alric, looking back at the horse. “Have your women up and dressed early. We’ve ground to cover.”
“Is she— How goes she?” Thatcher asked.
I opened my mouth to tell him and Mischa’s words rang through my head.
They are our captors.
The charity the baldheaded man had shown towards us did not negate the fact that he and the rest of this troop had meant to slaughter us and then decided to abduct us from our home, a home their fellow countrymen had invaded and set on fire. What had become of me? Did two weeks in the wild make me so weak that the basic decency of bread and the offer of clean garments eclipsed our being their prisoners?
The two men watched me, Alric having again returned his eyes to my face.
I believed they saw the closing of my features, the choice within me to withdraw. They were not our friends.
17. Prayer
As directed, I woke the women before the sun’s full reappearance with the good news that laundered dresses awaited them. Our shifts and stays would have to remain but our current filthy clothes and priest robes were shed. Plain brown and gray dresses awaited us inside Thatcher’s bundle. The Tintarian style was similar to Eccleston dress, both women’s clothing involving a long circular skirt that flared out from the hips, some from a belt, but most from pleats. Like our own dresses, the bodices were fitted and sleeves long and snug, but able to be rolled up. These dresses all had a square neckline though. The longest dresses went to Helena, Maureen and Quinn. The tinier dresses went to River, Eefa, Bronwyn and Catrin. Misha and I made do with middle-sized pieces, but I had to surrender the widest one to her to accommodate her breasts. But my own were not small and my dress fit tight across my chest and around my waist. But it was the most colorful, a rusty umber, not unlike a sugar maple leaf right before it withers. Or, I thought a little vainly, my hair. My dress had pockets at the hips and I slipped my hagstone and the comb into one.
When I first woke, I had thought to climb down the ladder to where the bundle waited and rifle through them and pick what best suited me, but I was distracted. Though still dark, enough lightness was on the horizon for me to see the scope of the farm through the loft window. As far as the eye could see, buildings and fields stretched.
A lone figure captured my attention. A line of trees bordered the field closest to this barn, where our horses had stopped on the road when we first arrived here. The man walked along the tree line, head bowed. Something about the way he moved told me it was Alric. He made no noise and moved with a measurement to his pace. The man was now close enough in my scope of vision to make out his face. It was him. While his lips moved, it did not appear he was saying anything in particular, more that he was repeating something to himself. I realized it was a prayer when he knelt in front of one of the trees, facing our barn at enough of an angle for me to see him as he prayed. Then he held his left hand out before him and withdrew his dagger with his right. He ran the knife over his left hand and placed it on the ground, bowing his head. There was a defeat to his frame that drew me in. I watched him, this callous soldier, as yet to show any emotion other than tepid irritation or disgust or what I had thought a restrained male desire towards me, which I now thought had been an observation made in error. This seemingly emotionless man was slumped over, his dejection evident, his shoulders no longer erect and confident.
I pulled away from the window with the comprehension that I had witnessed something private. I looked back at my fellow captives, all sleeping women, lost in the safety of dreams. Today, we would enter the capital of Tintar and meet our fates.
Newly outfitted, we filed out of the barn, walking back down to the road, herded by Fletch and Tristan, who had already prepared and saddled the four draft horses and Nash’s gray.
“Do you want to ride with me again? Or return to Quinn?” I whispered to Helena, watching her smooth her loose dress over her waist.
She looked up from herself to me. “With you, Edie.”
I took her hand in mine until we reached Nash’s horse. “My kindred,” I exhaled as I turned into her. My mouth was against her ear, our heads drawn together.
“Edie,” she sighed. Then, putting her face in my neck and her arms around my waist, she said, “I ate the paste. I left the bottle and the spoon in the loft.”
“That’s good,” I said, my arms drawing her close.
“Your dress only reaches your ankles,” she whispered.
“I have always been a scandalous woman,” I whispered back.
I looked down the row of horses. Most of the soldiers were mounting or preparing to do so. The other women were pairing off again next to the other horses.
“Do you want to sit in front or behind me?” I asked her. I wanted to keep holding her but it was time to leave.
“Behind,” she answered. “I am tired. I need to lean on you. To sleep.”
“You should sleep. I think the paste may make you a little weak.”
“I made strips for myself. From my scribe’s dress. I think it is supposed to induce my courses.”
“That was clever. It likely will cause you to bleed early.”
My own bleeding had come and gone during our last days in Nyossa, the cramps dull and the flow thin, as if my body wanted to grant me the gift of a less draining bleed.
I mounted the gray, my skirts riding up to nearly my knees. I already dreaded the chafing of my skin on my lower legs between my skirts and ankles in their summer shoes. I edged my foot out of the stirrup on her side and leaned down to pull Helena up, but Thatcher appeared next to our horse and held out his hands, fingers laced together.
“Easier this way,” he said, his eyes on her face.
She stared at him, her body wooden.
