by Amy Boyles
The first man frowned. “He passed right by me and didn’t say anything about it.”
The second man shrugged. “Those are the orders I got. If you want to tell the colonel that you didn’t give me the girl because you needed to make sure he’d given the order, go ahead. I’m sure after dealing with a riot, that’s exactly the kind of competency he wants to deal with.”
That was enough to convince him apparently. The first guard pulled his pistol and focused it on me. “No sudden moves.”
I obeyed. It wasn’t as if I could manage any of those anyway. A broken hand does not any easy escape make. So I lay on the table passively as the second man untied all my bindings. He must’ve seen the state of my hand, for he was very careful with the left one. He helped me up.
“Aren’t you going to tie her?” the first guard asked.
“Have you seen this hand? I don’t think she’s going anywhere.”
Kindness? From a patriot guard? It was almost as if he sympathized with me. Almost. One can only think so much of a red.
He pulled me to a standing position and pushed me toward the door. “Get on with you.” As I said, one can only think so much.
The red led me through the cavernous prison. At one time, when there was still electricity, it had probably blazed with light. Now, it was a dark husk of a building, dank and cold. I was elated to be leaving it. Though what was in store for me was worse. At least in the mansion I wouldn’t be locked in a building full of men. There, at least people knew me. My chances of convincing one of them to help me escape were much greater. My wheels were already turning, trying to figure out who in the household I could recruit to my cause. Of course, whomever I enlisted would probably take one look at my hand and balk. I’d have to hide the damage, which I still hadn’t gotten a good view of. Mainly because I didn’t want to. I feared the hand was beyond saving and looking at it wouldn’t change that.
It didn't take long to reach the outer door. There, the first guard left us. We walked across the lawn and met a horse-drawn cart. At the front of it sat a man with broad shoulders. I thought I recognized him from behind, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. After all, the past two days had been anything but fantastic.
The guard placed me in the cart and sat beside me. Once we were clear of the gate, he handed me a flask and bread. “Can you use the other hand?”
“I think so.”
“Eat up,” he said. “We've got a long journey in front of us.”
Startled, I replied, “The mansion isn’t that far.”
The man gave me a long look.
“We’re not going there,” I said slowly.
The driver turned around. Branthe. He smiled at the man beside me. “I guess you did your job all too well, Fief. She didn't even recognize you.”
I gave Fief another look. With the pain of my hand, I’d barely looked at who was taking me.
“Her hand needs attention,” Fief said.
Branthe took a quick look at it. “As soon as we’re a safe distance away, I’ll set it. For now”—he pulled a pouch from his coat pocket and tossed it to Fief—“give her some willow. Drink some wine,” he remarked to me. Then he flashed a smile. “Not too much. Just enough to dull that pain a little.”
For some reason, maybe it was the pain, maybe it was the entire situation, panic set in. “Have you rescued me only to capture me again? If that's the case, you can take me back to Colonel Mann.” What was I saying? The man was going to break my other hand once he got ahold of me.
Branthe replied softly. “Don't worry, Anna. We're taking you someplace safe. Or, as safe as you can be since you're now a wanted woman.”
“Wanted?”
He tipped his tricorn hat to me. “Stay around rogues and rebels long enough and you'll be considered one. I'm afraid that's the fate you've found for yourself.”
“Oh. Is there any way out of this?”
“You've seen our faces. I could have you killed.” My expression must've revealed my fear because he added, “Don't worry. I'm only joking. Now eat some food. Fief was right; we have a long way in front of us.”
Seven
It was late when we reached the small house. It sat on the edge of Corinth, which was close enough that I made out the fires lit atop the city wall. By now, everyone inside the city was tucked in for bed, safe behind the stone barrier that separated them from the outside world. Though thieves and bandits sometimes attacked lone houses, I felt safe enough with Branthe and Fief. Regardless, even if we’d wanted to enter the city, it was impossible. The reds locked it down at sunset. They locked every city down.
Fief quickly set about lighting a fire in the hearth and getting a few lanterns blazing.
Branthe led me, now groggy from wine and food, over to a table. “Let me look at your wound.” When I barely moved, he picked the hand up himself and rested it on the table. I cried out, yanking it away, which made it throb worse. So I yelled again.
“Can you place your hand on the table?”
I did so, biting my trembling lip the entire time.
“He did a good job on this, didn’t he? Did he harm you anywhere else?”
I said he hadn’t, but it must’ve come out all jumbled.
“Did he harm you anywhere else?” he repeated, this time louder.
“No,” I replied, feeling like I shouted it.
“Good. Sit down. Here’s a chair.”
I sat, laying my head down on the cool wood.
“Fief, you shouldn’t have let her drink so much.”
“I figured she needs it. You’ve seen her hand.”
“You’re probably right.”
The conversation drifted to me in bits and pieces. Mostly I tuned them out as I tried to stop my wine-drenched world from spinning. I failed miserably at the task.
I heard Branthe say something about sticks and twine. The next thing I knew, pain shot down my arm, and a scream flew from my mouth. I twisted away, but that made it worse.
“Fief!” Branthe yelled. “Hold her.”
I quickly found myself forced to undergo what Branthe referred to as “setting” my hand, which consisted of twigs and twine holding each finger in place. That wasn’t the bad part. The worst was when he straightened the fingers. After the second round of Branthe pulling, tendons popping and sweat beading on my forehead, I needed this to stop.
“I can’t do any more! I don’t care what happens to them. I don’t care what it looks like.”
Branthe rubbed his forehead. “I know this isn’t easy. Let me look at the rest of your hand.” I begrudgingly moved the red and black swollen appendage back toward him. Without touching, he inspected it. “I think those are the only two fingers that could be straightened. It looks like the rest of the damage is in the hand itself. If I don’t attend to it, I can’t promise that you’ll ever be able to use it again.”
At that moment I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I never used my hand again. I didn’t care about anything except making the hurt go away. “I just want it to stop.”
He nodded to Fief. “Give her more wine.”
Fief brought me a skin, and I happily drank until my belly felt full.
“Let’s give it a few minutes,” Branthe said.
I laid my head down on the table and barely noticed when I felt the tugging and manipulating of my fingers. The next thing I knew, my hand was wrapped in cloth and sticks. It was immobile and felt much better.
Several hours later, the sunrise shone through the windows. Too much wine had made my stomach sour, but that was easy enough to overlook, given what my hand had felt like earlier. It still ached, but setting it had dulled the pain some. Some. Not completely.
“You’re awake,” Branthe said softly.
“Barely.”
“How’s your head?”
I pulled it off the table. It felt like lead. “Shouldn’t you be asking about my hand?”
He smiled. “I know how that feels—not good. I’m not as certain about your head.�
�
Rubbing it, I replied, “It’s throbbing.”
He poured water from a clay jug into a mug and set it before me. “This will help.”
Eyeing it, I asked, “Is there anything in it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You mean other than water?”
“Yes.”
He sat down at the butcher-block table across from me. “No. You need to get hydrated. It’ll help.”
I looked at the hand that was a mess of fabric strips and sticks. “How long will it take to heal?”
“If it completely heals, you’ll be lucky. The majority of it should take about three to six weeks.”
“And if it doesn’t completely heal?”
He shrugged. “Your ability to use it will be limited.”
“So I’ll have a shriveled hand,” I said glumly.
“Hope for the best. I try to.”
“If I went around kidnapping people, I might share your optimism.” I couldn’t help it. Apparently I remained bitter from our earlier encounter.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “So you’re still under the assumption that I enjoyed doing that.” My silence seemed enough of an affirmation to his question, for he continued. “Do you also think I wanted to risk Fief’s life by sending him inside the prison?”
This time I didn’t know what to say, but I didn’t want to remain quiet. “I don’t know. I can’t tell the type of man you are other than that you take girls captive. So yes, you might not have had any problem sending your man into a dangerous situation.”
His jaw tightened as he rose from the table. “I can’t blame you for that opinion. All you know is that I’m a scoundrel who forces people to do things against their will. Since your view of me is already so base, I won’t bother trying to contradict it. It’s probably for the best anyway,” he mumbled.
For some reason his words got to me. I started feeling bad—like I judged this man without getting to know him. He had, after all, saved me from Mann and set my hand. Did that mean I owed him, at the very least, my thanks?
“Thank you for rescuing me.”
He looked at me, his expression blank. “Thank you for not revealing anything to Mann about me or my men.”
“You’re welcome.” I frowned. “Wait. How did you know that I didn’t say anything?”
A thin smile surfaced. “I didn’t. But now I do.”
“I suppose you think you’re very smart.”
His eyes brightened with amusement. “And I suppose you don’t think you should be outdone by a rebel.”
“No, I don’t,” I replied honestly. “At least not by you.”
“So sorry to disappoint.” He regarded me for a minute and then lowered his eyes. His lashes were so long they looked to brush against his cheekbones. “Are you hungry?”
My stomach growled right on cue.
“Let me rephrase that—I don’t guess you’d accept food from a dirty rebel?”
“I never said you were dirty.”
He rapped his knuckles on the table. “That’s true. I took some liberty there.”
Against my will, a shy smile spread across my face. “I’m hungry.”
“Great. It’s a beautiful morning, and I have a basketful of bread and cheese. I have wine as well, but I don’t want to burden you with that.”
“I appreciate it.”
“If you can walk, there’s a small creek not far from here.”
“All right,” I said, standing. “Let’s go have a picnic.”
I admit I didn’t exactly know what to think. Here stood a man I’d admired. No, let’s be honest—I’d lusted after a figment of an idea of him for ten years. I’d been giving him hell for kidnapping me when he’d clearly risked himself to save me and was doing a damn fine job of taking care of me. Perhaps Branthe felt he owed me something. In a way I felt I owed him for saving us so many years ago. But that was beside the point. He was escorting me to a picnic. It was intriguing, though I didn’t want to label it as romantic. I would be attaching too much weight to the gesture if I did that. So I chose not to think much about it.
I followed him demurely. And by demurely I mean I tripped on the threshold of the door frame upon exiting the cottage. With the reflexes of a cougar, he turned and caught me before I collided with the ground.
“Um, thanks,” I said, trying to protect my hand from connecting with something, anything.
“Try to be careful. I didn’t expend all that energy getting you from Mann in order for you to have a catastrophic accident by simply walking.”
My face heated up. Yes, I was beyond embarrassment. “I’ll do my best.”
He held out his elbow. “Here. Take this with your good hand. If you’re going to fall, it’ll be much easier for me to stop you this way.”
“Thanks.”
He escorted me through a grove of trees. On their back side ran a small stream. It was early, and a chill set in my bones. “Bit cool for a picnic.”
“We’ll have to leave soon. We won’t have this opportunity again.”
I wanted to kick myself. Clearly this was his attempt at something, romance maybe? And even though the temperature wasn’t being agreeable, the sentiment shouldn’t be overlooked. “It’s hard to have picnics when reds are around?” I asked.
He pulled his arm from my hold and spread out a blanket. “It’s hard to do anything with reds around.”
That reminded me. “Where’s Fief?”
“Out doing some work for me.”
“I hope it’s not dangerous.”
He laughed quietly.
“What?”
“Suddenly you show some concern for one of my men? A few days ago you wouldn’t have anything to do with them.”
I sniffed. “Sometimes things change.”
“Sometimes they do,” he replied, eyeing me. Taking my good hand, he helped me sit. I did my best not to grimace while maneuvering myself onto the ground. The attempt was not successful.
“It’s going to hurt for a while, I’m sorry to say.”
“I gathered that.”
“A bitter tongue won’t help anything.”
I eyed him, and then we both burst into laughter. It felt good. It felt great, actually. “Thank you. I needed that.”
He handed me a hunk of bread and soft cheese. “You weren’t the only one.”
“What? The life of a rebel isn’t all games and jokes?”
“As if.” He laid a flask of wine on the blanket. “If it were, it would certainly make things more tolerable.”
“Like what?” I asked, curious.
He looked toward Corinth and then said, “Like the deaths of your friends and family.”
Oh. That. Yes, I supposed that was true. Suddenly I felt like an idiot. Of course that’s what he meant. I’d lived in the country for so long I didn’t know what the world was like anymore. My greatest enemy was Colonel Mann. These men were rebels; their enemies lived all around them. Enemies that couldn’t be avoided. Ever.
“I’m sorry,” I finally managed to say.
“There are just some things you never get used to. I do what I can to protect my men, but nothing is one hundred percent. I’ve seen good men die. I’ve seen bad men die, and in the end it’s all blood—just two different sides of it. Someone mourns for every man that dies. I don’t care for the reds, but they have families, same as my men.” He paused, looked at me and then smiled. “But that’s enough of all that. I didn’t bring you here to discuss things that would depress you.”
“I don’t mind. It’s better than thinking about my hand.”
His smile widened. “I suppose almost anything is.”
“That’s true.” I chewed on a bit of cheese. “Why do you do it, then? Why be a rebel if it’s so hopeless?”
He chewed on a piece of bread. “I didn’t say that. I don’t think it’s hopeless. If I thought that, I’d never get up in the morning.”
I smirked. “Well, you’d need your daily ration of food. You’d probably get u
p for that.”
Branthe arched an eyebrow. “Yes, I’d be one of the sad masses taking my daily payout for supporting the government.”
I squinted at him. “You think that’s what it is?”
“That’s exactly what it is. It’s bribery to continue supporting the reds. The meal used for the bread they bake is subpar, and the cheese is barely that. It’s the worst food they could possibly feed their people—yet it’s all the masses have, so they eat it.”
“But there isn’t much to begin with.”
“Anna, the Farms are producing. It’s just that most of the food goes to the elite.”
“I didn’t think Farms produced enough for the people.”
Branthe brushed crumbs from his breeches. “They produce. In fact, they do so quite well. If there were only a few, things would be different. But there are a lot of Farms and enough workers that the government doesn’t have to worry about labor.”
Somehow, for as smart as I thought I was, he always made me feel the opposite. A long pause sat between us until I finally asked, “Do you like being a rebel?”
He laughed. “Do I like it? No one’s ever asked me that before. I don’t know that any of us like it, but it’s necessary. I don’t want to risk people’s lives. I have no problem putting my own on the line, but someone else’s? That’s a different story.”
“Yes, but it’s not as if you’re forcing them into it. All your men are willingly fighting for the cause.”
Amusement danced in his eyes. “How right you are. But there are times when I can’t be alongside them, when I’ve put my men in harm’s way and had to remain at a distance.”
“Once again, they’re doing it willingly.” I took a bite of bread. It tasted like baked heaven, if such a thing could exist. “Do you remember what it was like when there was still religion?”
“I do,” he said quietly.
“Well?”
“Well,” he repeated slowly, handing me another hunk of cheese, “not everyone believed, but those of us who did, believed that we would be saved from all this.”
“But it didn’t happen that way.”
He shook his head. “It did not. That’s what made it so easy for the church to crumble. Many had spent their lives devoted to the idea that when the time came, they would be saved from the chaos and misery. But the chaos and misery came, and they were stuck here. So the Patriot Party took advantage of the situation, abolishing what was left of religion. The people followed. I think because they felt that they’d already been betrayed. It was the natural course of events.”
