12. Mist

A full week passed.

I counted the days and watched for the appearance of the second moon.

When it reappeared, the morning of the fourteenth day, the size of this grand continent for which no two countries it contains have ever agreed upon a name, began to take shape in my mind.

Tintar was far from Eccleston.

My panicked escape from Perpatane ten winters before had been three days on horseback, following one of the public dust roads.

And the Nyossa forest was a shortcut.

I had overheard the men speaking.

The rest of the Tintarian soldiers were marching around it, their companies too large for the manmade path through Nyossa.

The forest was endless and I was endlessly entranced by it.

I kept thinking I had seen more movement out of the corner of my eye, but it was often a bird flitting by or a swift fox’s tail disappearing behind abundant bushes.

Up ahead on the path, one morning, I spotted a wildcat sleeping in a tree.

No one else noticed her, her tail looped over the branch out upon which she had spread her svelte body.

I caught my breath, wondering if I should alert the Procurer I was riding behind, but I was too engrossed in her slinkiness.

One green eye opened and she looked down at me.

And we passed beneath her tree without an attack.

Three more times, I saw small white stones stacked, one on top of the other.

I told myself it was someone previously marking a trail even when I sensed, strangely, that the stones were stacking themselves for me.

Again, I attributed this to my abduction.

The day after I had practically kissed the captain’s skin through his tunic, he assigned me to the young Luka for several days.

Next, I rode with the silver-haired Fletch who was, as had been Luka, courteous.

We never found the luminous stream again, but smaller creeks weaved alongside or intersected with the path, shallow enough to cross on horseback.

We were allowed less luxurious baths in these, the water sometimes only coming to our knees, but we made the most of these creeks.

Desperate to be clean, I even lay down in them.

The occasional water tree with its useful, feathery leaves full of hygienic sap grew nearby and we grasped at them, rubbing the residue on our bodies and scalps.

Each night, I tried for a position on the chain closest to either Helena, Maureen or Mischa, craving the comfort of a body I knew being nearby.

First, I was able to secure a spot next to Maureen.

I rested next to the girl I had considered my niece for so long.

For a time, amused, we discussed the snarling way Mischa kept whispering profanities in Maureen’s ear all day about each soldier.

She confessed it made the days pass with some distraction, although Mischa had complained that Maureen’s bony frame was uncomfortable with which to share a horse.

“Well, we cannot all have the shape of an hourglass like our Mischa,”

I said, my face nestled in moss under one of the trees where the chain was fastened.

Maureen and I were on the end.

On her other side, Helena slept fitfully.

“Edie, have you noticed the men looking at you?”

Maureen said, leaning closer.

Her face, so young and so like Helena’s, refined in its bone structure, was troubled.

I immediately thought of Alric’s weighted stares, but after what I had begun to think of as ‘the wanton yawn’ against his spine, he had avoided being in my vicinity.

Then I chided myself for thinking of him when Maureen was upset.

“Looking at me how? In a fleshly manner?”

“Yes.

The blond one keeps looking at me.”

Luka had dark goldenrod hair.

“I believe you have an admirer in young Luka.”

“No.

Not him.

Wait, which one is Luka?”

Luka had yet to make an impression on her.

“Oh not Luka then.

The one called Nash?”

“Yes.

Him.

He always rides close to me and Mischa.

She says he is like a dog in need of a bone.

At first I thought he was looking at her because… well, you know.”

“The hourglass frame.”

“Yes.

But I think he is looking at me now.

And I’m scared.”

“I understand.

And you are right to be alert, Maureen.

However, two things can offer you comfort.

Firstly, the Tintarians are religious and that is why we are alive.

I doubt they would have their way with women they believe to be clerics.

And secondly,”

I made a waving gesture with my left hand, the unchained one, stupidly saying, “they just do not strike me as those kinds of men.”

She hesitated.

“But you have told me always to be on my guard.

And you and Mischa and Mother have all said to me that nice men are not necessarily nice.”

“Yes.

We have told you that.

And you are correct.

I’m sorry.

Listen to your instincts.

Keep your eyes open.

I think, perhaps, that I do not want to consider that as a factor in our predicament.

So much else is on my mind.”

What could I say to the girl? I wanted to offer her comfort but also keep her from harm.

I told her to stay on her guard and keep the three of us abreast of her observations.

One night, Mischa, dry-eyed, but woebegone lay beside me and told me she felt intense guilt for the complaining she had done about Brox.

I told her all women complain about their men and that she was no different.

And that while he had been a good man, he had also never picked up after himself and had often rolled off of her after making love and fell asleep whether or not she had taken her pleasure.

And while that did not deserve death and we would remember his better behaviors, at the time of her complaints, they had been valid.

Another night, Helena and I stayed up, tearing off strips of our shifts and dresses for the women whose courses had begun, Catrin and Quinn and for those soon due, myself, River and Mischa.

Helena asked me if I had been mindful of drinking my woman’s tonic since I had been sharing a bed with Levi.

I reminded her that I could not conceive a child.

And she chided me and said I should drink it anyway.

It felt outlandish and normal at the same time.

But the three of them kept despair at bay.

I hoped I had done the same for them.

The fifteenth day, we entered mist.

It was ubiquitous and looked to be pale blue, patches of it so thick, I could not make out the horse’s head over Fletch’s shoulder.

Our progress slowed as we made our way through.

It was a cloudy afternoon and the sun’s earlier brilliance lingering over the cold, trickling creeks that had found their way back to the road’s side had created a haze.

The birdsong was frantic, as if they too could not see what they needed to see.

I heard a faint ‘halt’ from up ahead.

Then more closely, Alric’s voice said, “We must stop for now.

The trees are farther apart as we near the edge of the forest and here it is not impossible to wander off of the path.

Please dismount and secure the prisoners.

They may dismount as well, but tie their hands together.”

“Is that really necessary?”

cried out Mischa, from somewhere nearby.

No response to her came.

“The sun should pass out from behind the clouds soon and offer us some light to see.

We can make our way forward then.

You may dip into your jerky and fruit rations.”

“I’m hungry too,”

came Eefa’s plaintive voice.

There was a pause and then he said, “If a prisoner asks you, please share with her a small amount of your own rations.

Thank you.”

Fletch, who I had begun to think of as a gentleman, bade me dismount first and then followed with a “your hands, madam,”

and he looped some rope around my wrists.

His tie was secure, but I was not in any discomfort.

“I’m not hungry,”

I said, as he untied a saddlebag, looking at me.

“Are you sure?”

“Because we have only been eating dinner, I do not have the urge until nightfall now.”

Around me, I heard the sounds of soldiers dismounting, leading their horses to tie to trees or to find the horses that carried the rest of the women so as to secure them.

I stood next to Fletch and his horse and searched the azure mist for a familiar figure.

I could hear Alric and Thatcher talking to the men as they felt their way through the mist.

We stood next to our horses and waited.

I cannot remember how long we stood, but when I think back on that afternoon, I lament at how long it may have been.

Finally, the light began to shine through and the mist thinned enough to make out the shadowy shapes of others.

In minutes, we could see each other enough to tell who was where.

Far off, on the edge of our company, there was a shout.

There was the sound of a scuffle and then a fist hitting flesh and then another.

“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.”

“So you remember the second half,”

Alric replied.

And then with a swiftness that one can only see when remembering what took place, not in the moment as it is happening, his dagger in his right hand, he slit the man’s throat.

Dark blood arced out of the slash, spraying across Alric’s face.

Thatcher lifted his hands from Nash and the man took a step towards Alric, made a choking noise, eyes widening as he realized he was dying.

He fell to his knees, hands flailing at his captain, who stepped back, and then Nash fell forward on his face.

Thatcher stepped towards the body and slammed his boot on the back of Nash’s head and shoved it into the road.

He looked at Alric.

“Any particular orders regarding this?”

“Strip it of anything Tintarian.

Remove the head and one of the limbs so the bones are not at peace.

It is not a body fit for the goddess.

Let the wolves feast.”

Alric tipped his wet dagger towards me.

“The horse can go to their leader.

Cut all of their bonds.”