Gunwitch (11 page)

Her eyes fell to the door. There was no latch on the inside, and Sergeant Morris had never left it unlocked. Still, she had to try. She could not even budge it.

She climbed on her bench, pressed her left cheek against the ceiling and looked out. From the sunlight, she judged it to be late morning. Or early afternoon. She could see the fronts of buildings, some of them with large windows. She could not see through the windows. Men’s heads moved across her field of vision in front of the windows. A few times she saw a woman’s hat among the men, but never their faces. Wagons piled with cargo going both directions cut off her view time and time again.

Turning to see out the other side with her right eye, she could see faces, both men and women, and the fronts and backs of wagons as they came toward her or went away from her along the street she looked down. The faces disappeared beneath her vantage when they came too close.

With a start, Rosalind realized she could scream for help and be heard. Her voice was still scratchy from screaming herself hoarse before, and it hurt, but she opened her mouth and let forth. She pounded on the door hard enough to shake the whole carriage.

No one came.

Once someone banged on the door. “Shut it up in there,” a man’s voice yelled. She started again, even louder than before.

Her voice gave out again, leaving her leaning against the unmoving door, wishing she could cry, her breathing sounding like a ruptured bellows. She could hear voices around the carriage. Men laughing and someone saying, “It’s a loony, I’m telling you.”

“Simply dreadful.” A woman’s voice. “I can not believe they brought such a creature into town.”

Her dry sobs drowned out the rest.

She was still leaning against the door when it vibrated with three rapid knocks. She started, and would have screamed, but all that came out was a hoarse, “Help me …”

“Sit back, missy, and don’t be thinking of running,” Sergeant Morris said through the door. “We got some company for you.”

Rosalind sat on the front bench, but she prepared herself to run if the chance presented. Maybe she could lose herself in the city, whatever city it was, hide from Sergeant Morris. Then maybe she could make her way back to Phillips on the Birchwood. She had no money, but surely she could do something to earn a few coins–

Her plans died as the door opened and revealed a line of red uniforms behind Sergeant Morris. The soldiers stood at attention, all of them watching the door.

The sergeant looked at her as she slumped on her bench. “Aye, missy. That’s a good girl.” Then he reached down and grabbed something out of sight on the ground. He bent his knees and heaved the hooded, shackled form of a boy into the carriage. The boy groaned, but otherwise made no sound as Sergeant Morris arranged him on the floor so he lay curled up on his side, hooded head toward to the front.

“They told me his name is Tommie,” the sergeant said. “But I’m doubting he’ll wake up before we stop for the night.” Then he closed the door, leaving Rosalind in the semidarkness with the bound boy.

The boy smelled of sweat and blood and … something else. A metallic odor that burned in Rosalind’s nostrils. His breaths came with a rattle that did not sound good. It reminded her of Mrs. Stevens, as that woman’s lungs had filled with phlegm.

Rosalind leaned over and reached out her hand. She hesitated before touching him, then put her hand on his shoulder. He groaned again, but that was all. She found herself reaching for the warmth in her chest, wanting to ease his suffering, but she could do nothing. Whatever had blocked her for the past days continued to do so. She squeezed his shoulder to let him know that she had tried, then she took her hand back and sat up.

Curled up on the floor like that, with his face covered, Rosalind could not see how old he might be. She doubted he could be as old as she was. Maybe as young as twelve.

Elizabeth was twelve. The thought of Elizabeth bound and hooded made her chest heave with a sob.

* * *

As Sergeant Morris predicted, the boy remained unconscious throughout the day. His shallow, rattling breathing wore on Rosalind’s nerves. Finally, she pulled off his hood, as gently as she could, to see if that would help. The sight of his face made her draw back to her bench and wrap her arms around her legs. Purple bruises and welts covered his cheeks and forehead, and his left eye was invisible beneath the swelling. His lip had been split against his teeth. His nose seemed intact, strangely untouched by whoever had attacked him.

Had the soldiers done this to the boy? They had treated Rosalind with rough disregard, but not this. Nothing like this.

Though it seemed he was breathing easier now without the hood, the rattling in his chest was louder. And the metallic smell became stronger, making Rosalind’s eyes water. She almost put the hood back on the boy, but did not. Could not. She did not want to do that to anyone.

She realized she still held the hood, and dropped it to the floor.

The carriage hit a pothole, shaking her and making the boy’s head knock against the wooden floorboards. Rosalind winced at the heavy sound. She slipped off her bench and picked up the hood again. She folded it, and went to put it under his head, like a pillow. Unsure how to lift his head, not wanting to touch his bruises, she hesitated. She moved to the other side of him, behind him, and slipped her fingers under his head. Slipping the folded hood under him, she drew back, to the rear bench this time.

Her eyes fell on the shackles that held the boy’s wrists. She had never had a clear view of the shackles Sergeant Morris had taken off her.

She had seen shackles on a man once before, a wanted man the sheriff had captured hiding in the woods near the village. The sheriff had paraded the man, bound hand and foot, through the main street of Phillips on the Birchwood, prodded along by a deputy using the butt end of a spear. Those had been iron bracelets connected by a short length of chain. These on the boy, though, were two pieces of metal, flat in the middle with c-shaped ends that wrapped around the wrists, hinged at one end and held together with thick bolts at the other.

Rosalind squinted, then leaned forward. The light was dim, and she was not sure what she was seeing. But the shackles seemed to … glow?

The dark metal gave off no light, but still her eyes detected a faint aura around them. Where the metal bent around the boy’s wrists, the aura was more distinct. As she continued to look at the shackles, faint sparks traced lines and curves on the flat part and formed into runes. She had seen runes carved into standing stones before, but not like these. And the runes in the rock had not glowed or given off sparks.

The runes faded back into the metal.

She blinked and stared, but the runes did not reappear. The shackles retained their lightless aura, though, so she knew she had not imagined the letters. At least, she did not think she did.

* * *

“Kind of you, missy, taking his hood off,” Sergeant Morris said when they stopped. He held the end of the long leather belt that had been looped around her waist, his back turned as she relieved herself on the side of the road. “Not strictly regulation, you understand, but kind of you just the same.”

“What happened to him?” she asked. The road they were parked beside twisted between low hills, little more than two ruts in the grass. The sun had already gone down, but twilight still held back the darkness. She had thought of running, as she always did, but the sergeant had pulled the belt snug and secured it. She could not undo it fast enough. She had tried that the first time he put it on her. And his grip was too strong on the other end. She had tried that the second time. Both times, the man had simply yanked her off her feet, then stood there while she regained her feet, her face flushed red, his face showing neither irritation nor anger. She had screamed at him. He had worn the same expression through that, as well. She finished and stood.

“I asked the same thing, I did,” the sergeant said, turning to face her again. “And the boys back in town swear it wasn’t them. They just put the irons on him.” He shrugged. “Not my concern, really. I just hauls them from here to there. Still, I don’t care if he is a witch–or whatever you want to call him, being a boy, still a witch to me–but that’s no way to treat a child.”

“I’m not a witch,” Rosalind said. Her throat tightened but she refused to cry. “I’m not.”

“I’m afraid you are, missy. I’m afraid you are.” The sergeant gestured that she was to step back into the carriage. She complied. “Not that I’m afraid of you, mind,” he went on. “Not while you’re doing what you’re told. But if there had been any doubt you was a witch, you and me would never have taken this ride together. The irons would have told the tale, and you’d be still at home nestled between your mum and da.”

She loosened the belt and let it slip down past her waist to the floor. She stepped out of the loop. “Can I ever go home?” she asked.

“Can’t say I know, missy,” Sergeant Morris said, shaking his head as he reeled in the long belt. “Can’t say I know that at all.”

* * *

The boy woke before dawn, screaming and cursing, his shouts painfully loud in the enclosed space.

Rosalind had curled up beside him to sleep, her back to his. He thrashed his head and struck her in the back, his hands found her and grabbed her skirt, his feet kicked.

“Let me go!” he shouted. “Help! Get these off me, you bastards! Help! Help!”

Rosalind tried to stand, to get away, but the cramped carriage and the boy’s struggles and his grip on her pulled her back down, almost on top of him.

His cursing and shouting got louder. “Get off me, bitch! I’ll kill you!”

He pulled harder as she tried again to stand. The material of her skirt resisted, then began to tear as he pulled. She tried to grab her skirt, as well, to stop the tearing, and lost her balance. Now she fell on him, her legs over his torso, her bottom hitting the floor in front of him, her back and the back of her head slamming against the bolted door.

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop stop stop stop
stop!
”

He did not stop. “Bitch! Stupid whore!” He tried to bite her hand when she placed it on the floor to push herself up. He brought his knees up, battering her twice in the side before she could put her other arm in the way. She pushed against the door behind her, leveraging herself up.

The boy now tried to roll over on his back. When that failed he tried to push himself against the back of her legs, his hands grabbing at her feet.

“Leave off,” she shouted, and did some kicking of her own. Her heels hit against his fingers and the metal of his shackles. “I’m a prisoner too, you stupid pig.”

He screamed as she stepped on his fingers, and he arched away from her feet. She took the opportunity and leaped for the rear bench. She pulled herself up on the bench, out of his reach.

He continued to thrash about with his head and kick with his legs and scream. He called her
bitch
and
whore
and worse names that she had never even heard before.

* * *

Sergeant Morris grabbed Tommie by the front of his shirt, and pulled the boy out of the carriage, ignoring the renewed kicks and shouts. The shouts ended with a startled grunt as Tommie was dropped to the ground.

“You too, missy,” Sergeant Morris said, holding his hand out to her. “The Leftenant will insist.”

Rose hesitated, then took his hand. He took both her hands in his as she stepped out of the carriage. As if she were a lady and he a coachman.

She tried to take her hands back, but he held them in a firm grip.

A man she had never seen stepped from beside the carriage door and closed cold metal shackles around her wrists. She saw an aura bloom around the shackles as they clicked closed, and for a second she could see the runes glowing in the dark. Then Sergeant Morris let go of her hands and grabbed the middle of the shackles. He forced her to turn around, to face the carriage again. She thought he was going to push her back into the carriage, but he did not. He pulled her arms up and hooked the shackles over a wooden peg on the side of the carriage so she hung there by her arms, face against the wood.

“I’m sorry about this, missy,” he said. “I really am.”

She felt his fingers on her neck and shoulders, then he pulled, hard, and ripped off the back of her dress. She screamed and tried to kick backward. He pressed her against the carriage, forcing the breath out of her lungs. With the other hand he removed her corset, which he dropped on the ground, and ripped the thin fabric of her undergarment. The night air chilled her. When the pressure let up, she took in another lungful of air and resumed screaming.