13. Bedroll

Without needing to discuss it, Quinn helped me get Helena seated on Nash’s gray instead of with her on the roan.

I mounted the horse behind her, taking the reins, my arms around her.

Her only sign of awareness of me was a slight lean in her posture, resting against me.

Mischa managed to get a weeping Maureen up on their horse, sitting as I was, cradling her, offering the girl the meager comfort of her frame.

The regular arrangement of two men on either side of the women’s horses was abandoned.

Perhaps our captors felt for us.

Perhaps they had forgotten.

We rode side by side, Helena giving no indication of life other than her breaths, Maureen timorous and tearful.

Mischa and I looked at each other continuously for the rest of the afternoon and evening, speechless.

Where did we go from here?

When night fell, we made the same camp we had the previous nights.

The nine of us women had dismounted and Luka, one by one, took the reins from us and led our horses to the line of their grays tied to trees along the road.

I held Helena close to me, her back to my front and her hands wrapped around one of my forearms limply, but she did not return my embrace.

She had put more and more of her weight against me throughout the day in the saddle, finally resting as much of herself against me as she could.

I gladly bore her.

I had nothing to give her, nothing to say.

One of the men unpacked the length of chain from his saddlebag.

I watched Alric shake his head at the man.

Nodding towards an open swath of moss on the side of the road, he indicated we women should sit there.

The trees were now farther apart, some spaces allowing for a horse and rider to pass.

I walked Helena towards the moss.

Mischa, arm around Maureen, followed.

The other five women joined us, Eefa sitting immediately.

“I will not cuff you tonight,”

Alric said.

He was a few paces away, not facing us, offering us only his profile.

He had yet to wipe off the spray of Nash’s blood on his face.

It had dried in an angry spattering over his nose and mouth.

“If you run, wolves will be your end.

Or other beasts.

We will feed you shortly and if you need to relieve yourselves, ask.”

He turned away to speak in a low voice to Perch.

“Do you want to sit?”

I asked Helena, arms still around her.

When she did not respond, I eased her down next to me, Mischa and Maureen close by.

Maureen threw her arms around her mother and for the first time in hours, Helena showed a little life and leaned her face into her daughter’s neck, giving a sigh.

“I should have offered you this the first night,”

said a solemn male voice.

We looked up to see Thatcher, cautiously setting his bedroll at Helena’s feet.

His approach had been soundless.

I could tell he wanted to say something else, but he stood up, took a long look at Helena and walked over to Perch and Alric.

We were fed jerky and hearty nuts that Stefan had foraged, their shells an unappealing gray color, but the flesh sustaining and flavorful.

He had found apples and pears again, but they were not ripe and none of us finished ours.

The men were sedate, unrolling their kits and setting up camp.

Allowing for mother and daughter to have as much privacy as they could considering our circumstances, Mischa and I pulled away from the little nest they had created, Maureen’s arms around Helena.

Eefa, Bronwyn and River had fallen asleep.

We sat up with Catrin and Quinn, passing a canteen Perch had handed me between us.

“This is my fault,”

Quinn said into the silence.

“No,”

said Mischa.

“It was the brute whose throat they rightfully cut.”

“After she dismounted, I lost track of her in the mist.

He must have put his hand over her mouth.

I did not hear her cry out.”

“Do not blame yourself,”

said Catrin, her hand on Quinn’s back.

Her once glossy red hair was greasy with sweat.

“You did not do the misdeed. He did.”

“Agreed,”

said Mischa, taking a swig from the canteen.

“You have handled all of this remarkably,”

I commented, looking at Catrin, but also placing a hand on Quinn’s arm.

She looked at me, confusion marking her winsome face.

“I’m sorry,”

I explained.

“You are a Tigon.

Your life has been much more cloistered.

I would think so, at least.

I’m not making any sense.

Never you mind me.”

“I understand,”

she said, taking no umbrage.

“I’m surprised at myself.

I have never encountered this… this unsafeness.

And upheaval.”

“Do you think your betrothed will try to buy your freedom?”

asked Quinn.

She shrugged and said, “Maybe he cannot.

And my family cannot.

Because Eccleston is now at war with Tintar.

And I have never met him.

It is an arranged marriage.”

“That is awful,”

said Mischa.

“I never want to marry but the idea of my spouse being chosen for me by someone else? Sickening.”

Catrin shrugged again.

“His family buys malachite from our copper mine.

To make jewelry.

As is their trade.

That is all I knew before… before the invasion.

That and his name which, preposterously, I did not like.”

“Which is?”

asked Mischa.

“George.”

Mischa gave a snicker.

“Well, I would imagine your wedding rings will be nice.”

“I hope to never wear them,”

responded Catrin, warming to Mischa’s variety of honest humor.

“Well, not from him.

If I survive this, I want to choose my husband.”

“That is the least thing you can ask for in life,”

Mischa agreed.

“Especially, once you have gone through this miserable undertaking.

If she must have a man, at least this godsdamned world should let a woman choose him.”

I would not have thought them likely allies.

Mischa was sensual and sarcastic, proud of her flouting of traditional womanhood and nurturing a lifelong working-class disdain for the wealthy, despite refusing to work with her siblings at her family’s brewery and undergoing training to be a scribe skilled at translation.

Catrin, with her sophisticated beauty and lack of worldly experience, would have been someone Mischa would either have disregarded or used for a joke.

“The trees are not close anymore,”

said Quinn.

“We have to be leaving Nyossa.”

“Do any of you know what is on the other side?”

“Tintar, Edie,”

answered Mischa, as if I was a child.

“Yes, I know what lies on the other side of the forest.

I just wonder at the terrain.”

“River will know,”

said Quinn, “better than I, but my guess is their agrarian backcountry.

Agriculture is not an export for them.

All of their growth is sold within their borders.

And I have not a clue what it will look like, but they are a vast country and their citizenry legion.

There are mouths to feed.

Farming lands would be my guess.”

“And after that, Pikestully?”

guessed Catrin.

“I would have to think that is the destination,”

said Quinn.

“They are soldiers, after all, and that is where their army marshals.”

“Other capital cities make me nervous,”

said Mischa.

“It is extra foreign to a traveler, even more so than outlying country or border villages.”

“That is ridiculous,”

I said, engaging in a little of our banter, even if I agreed.

She made a patient face at me, as if I was a pest that she happened to love.

A longer look passed between me and my irascible friend, who was truly as kin.

Both of us wanted to crumble under the heaviness of the afternoon, our banter a poor crutch.

What would we do about Helena?

“Yes, they must be taking us to the capital,”

said Quinn, her eyes roving over the figures of men in bedrolls.

“To Pikestully and to the Shark King.”