He deserved to be a suspect, because he was guilty. No matter how much he felt friendship for Benjamin, despite the trust between them, Winn had deceived him all along with full intent to lead an attack upon the English. He had grown up believing that following the orders of his Weroance somehow made it honorable, but now, as he stared into the blue eyes of his oldest friend, he could not deny that he and the rest of the Powhatan would soon take everything from the Englishman.
Winn avoided his stare and bent to cut Nemattanew loose. He would have liked to leave him there to face the English justice but knew he could not.
“We go,” he said, directing the order to Nemattanew, who Winn feared would want to retaliate. It would only bring down the rage of Opechancanough on them all if he allowed that to happen. For once, Nemattanew offered no protest. Winn took it as a sign that he knew he was beaten for now.
“I can’t let you do that, Winn. Winn!” Benjamin yelled.
“Shoot me if you must, brother,” Winn replied. He stepped out of the barn and scanned the courtyard for Maggie. “Where is the woman?”
“She is safe. You must tell me—”
Winn ignored his plea and stalked off toward the house. He would not make the mistake of leaving her again. Nemattanew mounted up, watching him. She stood grappling with the two servant boys, looking the victor of the group in her fury, her thick fiery hair streaming out behind her and her eyes alight with heathen rage.
“Unhand my wife,” he said simply. He reached for the spear slung over his back, and both boys immediately retreated. He left the weapon sheathed and held out his hand to Maggie. Her chest heaved from her struggle, and he could hardly wait to feel her in his arms again.
“Knihelel!” Nemattanew screamed, swinging his horse wildly in circles as he cried out, lifting his fist back toward the Englishmen and screaming his promise to end them all.
Winn turned to the warrior, but before he could issue a command, Nemattanew was thrown back off his horse. The echo of the rifle came afterward, and in the melee that followed, Thomas Martin shot off another round.
“No!” Maggie screamed.
He felt the shot before he heard it, the sound trailing behind through the space of the open meadow. He hit the ground, the warm sticky sensation of his own blood running over his chest, the wound pulsing even as he tried to stop it with his hand. He sat up but fell back down, his left arm burning as if shards of glass filled the bone. He let it take him for only a moment, knowing he could not give in before he made her safe.
“Stay down! Do not move!” Benjamin ordered from somewhere above him. The voice trailed off in an echo, the sound of his heartbeat thudding louder through his ears as he winced up at the blinding sunlight. He wondered if perhaps time travel felt the same, and if Maggie had suffered when she came through to him. He would ask her that later, when they lay by his fire beneath warm furs, when he held her and whispered a song to lure her into sleep.
“Is he dead?” another voice asked.
“No…but the wound is bad,” Benjamin answered.
Winn felt his chest squeezed as Benjamin placed pressure to the wound. His eyes slid open into slits to look at his friend.
“Keep her safe, Benjamin,” he said, his voice strained from forming the words.
“Maggie – you mean Maggie?” Benjamin replied hoarsely. Winn grimaced when Benjamin pushed down harder on the wound, and he felt the warmth of his own blood as it ebbed down his ribs. He could smell its coppery scent and knew that too much of it had left his veins.
“She is…my wife. Let no man harm her…brother.”
Winn closed his eyes.
“Catch me if you can, warrior!” she laughed.
So she would make a game of it, and he would chase her. Her long auburn hair streamed behind her as she ran laughing down the beach, the wet sand sticking to her skin. Her footsteps marked her trail like breadcrumbs across the sand, and he followed it.
Should it take forever, he would find her again.
CHAPTER 29
Maggie screamed as Nemattanew flew off the horse and Winn swung back around to face them, and before she could stop him, Thomas fired off a round and Winn fell to the ground.
“No!” she screamed, throwing herself at the rifle Thomas held. She fought Benjamin when he pulled her off Thomas, kicking and biting anything she could make contact with. Her teeth sank into Benjamin’s arm and he shook her off, finally subduing her in a bear hug to avoid her sharp fingernails as she clawed him.
“Let me go!”
“Boys! Take her inside – and for God’s sake don’t let her out of your sight!” he ordered the servants who stood by. She relaxed and let them think she was willing, and then darted easily out of their grasp to follow Benjamin as he ran toward Winn. Benjamin kneeled down next to Winn, who lay fallen on the dirt.
“Enough!” Thomas shouted. He grabbed her by the back of her dress, and with one thick fist, he struck her across the face. The blow was a powerful one, sending her to the ground.
Maggie winced as Aunt Alice dabbed at her split lower lip with a bit of clean wool. They both jumped when Thomas entered the bedroom and slammed the door behind him.
“Leave us, good wife,” he said, his graveled voice steady. She could see the menace in his beady black eyes no matter how calmly he spoke, and she knew he had nothing but harsh intention behind his mask. Alice immediately obeyed, reaching out to touch his arm before she left, but drawing back at the last moment and grasping for the door handle instead. She avoided eye contact with Maggie as she skittered away.
When the door clicked softly into its latch, Thomas took a step toward the bed where she sat. Her first instinct was to move away, but she was already sitting back upright to the plaster wall and had no space left to go.
“Ye will tell me now why ye helped those savages, girl. It will not save ye from what is to come, but God shows mercy on those who speak truth,” he snarled. She curled her knees to her chest and her heart began to pound against her ribs when she saw him slide the heavy leather belt from his breeches, the brass buckle catching the light from the single lamp in the room and casting a glare as he swung it in front of him.
“Don’t you dare come near me with that!” she whispered.
He breached the space and grabbed her by the hair, but then was distracted for a moment by her braid. He pulled her off the bed by using her hair like a lever, shaking her hard while his face contorted into a bright red mask.
“Ye like the savages? Should I have left ye there with them? My own niece, loyal to the savages?” he shouted. She lurched away but he was faster, his hold on her hair bringing a rush of tears to her eyes as he pulled her across the floor. Her fingernails tore and split on the plank flooring when he dragged her back, falling on her with not the belt, but his fists. He was careful in his punishment, aiming his blows to her chest and belly, anywhere her garments would cover, and finally when she lay on her side gasping for air with her arms curled around her belly, he reached for the belt.
“You’d choose them over yer own kind? It that what ye’ve done? Which one was it? Was it that bloody Winn, that blue-eyed devil?” he roared, striking her with the belt across her back. She clutched her side and tried to crawl away, but he was relentless in his rage. She felt a blow to her hip from the tip of his boot which sent her sprawling, and when he came back for another blow, she scrambled around and used the strength she had left to spit a mixture of blood and saliva in his face.
“He’s a better man than you’ll ever be!” she hissed.
“Well,” he said slowly, ceasing his pursuit to gasp a few quick breaths. “He is a dead man, is what he truly is.” He reached into the pocket of his brown breeches, and Maggie felt the blood and fight drain from her as she saw the object hanging from his hand. Two black feathers hung from a rawhide cord, and between them, she could see a Bloodstone set in copper.
“Yer lover is dead. I will have no harlot in my house, so if no man will contract ye, ye are going b
ack to England.” He threw the pendant at her feet. “Clean up yourself, and clean up this mess.”
He wiped the back of one hand across his face and stomped out, slamming the door behind him. She sat on the floor, her chest heaving with effort of each painful breath, and although she felt the sticky wetness of blood trickle down from her mouth, she did not move.
The Bloodstone lay only a foot away, the smooth dark orb staring back at her. A crimson vein ran through its center, like a lone ray of brilliant light slicing it in half.
No. Not Winn. It could not be true. She knew with all the fiber of her being that he would never part with it. Not if there was breath left in his body.
But when she finally reached for the stone and felt the weight of it in her hand, coldness crept through her limbs as she brought it to rest against her heart. Her split lower lip began to tremble and a rush of tears rounded her swollen eyelids, the wetness streaking her cheeks and coursing down onto her hands.
CHAPTER 30
Aunt Alice allowed Maggie no time for grief. In a future life that felt long lost, Marcus had shared equally the loss of Maggie’s grandfather, and through the patience and comfort of the giant man she drew reassurance from the bond they shared. Although the sorrow had been harsh, the passing was natural and necessary, a final blow to seal the fate of a man who lived a good life and loved well. Winn’s death held no such illusion for her. She found no meaning in his loss, and among the numbness and sheer ache that littered her bones she only could see despair, licking at the wounds created by a mallet that took slow joy in crushing her soul piece by piece. She could neither run from the pain nor stop it, nor would she, if able, because at night when she curled up in her narrow bed and cried she clung to the grief, as it was all she had left of him.
Alice, however, hovered more than usual, and though she did not ever say Winn’s name, Maggie could see the sympathy in her grey eyes as the woman helped her into her dress. Alice altered a new garment by loosening a seam on the side of the bodice, and Maggie was grateful for the kindness, which made it easier for her to take a deep breath. Maggie realized by her actions that Thomas had likely beaten his wife in the past, and the woman simply knew the means to help hide the after effects.
Maggie had not left the room in two days, not from petulance but more from sheer pain, unable to make her battered body do more than use the privy pot to void or vomit. It was Alice who finally took charge, bursting into the room as if it were any other day and throwing open the shutters to the lone window. She would take no argument, Maggie was getting dressed, and that was all there was to it.
While Alice rifled through her trunk looking for a more presentable apron, Maggie felt another surge of bile rise in her throat as she sat on the edge of the bed. She reached the pot just in time, and Alice made a clucking sound as she helped hold back her red hair. Thicker and shinier since she had arrived, it was quite a bit longer, too, so she was glad for the assistance. She smiled ruefully at Alice.
“Sorry,” she murmured. Alice shrugged and took the pot in both hands to dispose of the contents.
“You need to eat, child. Nothing to fret upon.” Alice opened the door with a swing of her ample hip and glanced back at Maggie. “Leave that one apron out, ‘tis threadbare. We will cut it for rags—for when ye have need.”
Maggie nodded in acknowledgment, but when the door closed behind Alice another sickly feeling assuaged her, and this time it was not only her stomach. Rags? Well, women were still women, no matter what time one lived in. She picked up the worn out apron and stared at it for a moment, counting backward in her head.
No. It could not be.
“No!” she moaned, pressing the apron to her lips.
She counted again, and suddenly she felt like the passenger on a freight train when her heart began to hammer away behind her bruised ribs. Her hand slipped down over her belly, swollen she assumed from the more palatable food in town, then up to her sore and heavy breasts, which she had blindly ignored. She realized that she had not bled in six weeks, and promptly vomited into the apron.
“Oh, dear! Again? Come to the parlor and we will feed you, dear! I will clean this mess. You cannot go on without food!” Alice sighed over the additional disorder when she entered the room.
“And Margaret, Young Benjamin is here. He worries terribly for ye and asks to see ye,” Alice commented as she buttoned up the back of Maggie’s dress. Maggie winced when Alice pulled the apron and knotted it at her waist.
“I don’t think so,” she replied.
Alice took her hand firm in her grasp. “Yes, dear, ye are leaving this room, and a fine young man waits for ye. He told Thomas of his intention to court ye, take yer comfort in that. Here,” she said, taking a white linen kerchief from her apron pocket. Alice wiped it gently across Maggie’s eyes and mouth and then paused for a moment with her palm on her cheek. She offered Maggie a cup of water, which helped wash the sour taste away. “He is a good man, child. He is quite different from…yer uncle.”
Maggie lowered her eyes. It was probably the most the woman could ever admit to what a beast her own husband was, and Maggie appreciated the sentiment. She wondered how many times Alice had suffered the same under his twisted form of personal justice. She also wondered if the life in her belly had survived his onslaught.
Alice unlatched the bedroom door, and as Maggie peeked out from behind her, she saw Benjamin jump to his feet, his wide-brimmed hat clenched in one fist and his shoulders sprinkled with fresh snow. His high cheekbones were flushed with cherry red dimples as his eyes met hers across the room.
Maggie was relieved to see Thomas was not present, so she felt somewhat safer as she let Alice lead her into the parlor.
“Miss Martin,” Benjamin said with a curt nod of his head. His eyes remained fixed on Maggie as he spoke, pained and searching, and she dropped her gaze to break the contact. She did not wish to hurt him, but she could hardly find strength enough not to run screaming from the house, let alone continue to pretend to be a compliant Englishwoman. With her head still spinning with the news of her discovery, she tried to cling to some vestige of sanity, but knowing Winn would never come rescue her from the façade left little motivation for her to continue the ploy.
“Good morning, Young Benjamin,” Alice replied. “Margaret is feeling much better today. Will ye please sit with her while I fetch more kindling?”
“Of course.” He dipped his head to Alice as she passed, leaving them alone in the parlor, the crack and spit of the fire the only sound between them.
“Are ye well, Maggie? Ye look quite pale.”
She wanted to tell him he would look just the same, having been beaten within an inch of his life, but she bit back the retort for lack of caring or strength to argue. She shrugged.
“I’m fine. You can go away now.”
She stood up and turned her back to him, her eyes focused instead on the fire. Anything was better than looking into his tragic face, full of guilt, longing, and other unmentionables.
“I’m sorry for what happened. He was my friend as well as yours. I can see it pains ye, and I wish I could—”
“You could what, Benjamin? Bring him back? Give my child a father? Get out,” she whispered, the anguish spilling forth like the swell of a hurricane. “Get out. Just get out!”
She shrieked and slapped him in a reflexive response when he put his hands on her, a swell of rank fear bursting forth with memories of what Thomas has done to her. Benjamin did not block her blows, merely stood there, his hands on her shoulders as she sobbed, until finally he closed his arms around her. She hated every ounce of his touch, every gentle pat, every calming word he spoke, and finally when she lost will to continue she simply cried against his shoulder, clutching his hated chest with her fist.
“Ye carry his child?” he asked quietly. She did not raise her head, but nodded.
“Yes.”
His arms tightened around her and she grimaced against the pain.
“Th
en grieve for him tonight,” he murmured. “And tomorrow I will see ye to church.”
He placed a gentle kiss on her brow, placed his hat on his head, and left.
CHAPTER 31
Maggie walked dutifully beside Benjamin, wishing she could pull her hand away from where he had it tucked firmly in his elbow. As the stale days passed and left her aching with loneliness, she found it best to make plans on her own and decided it was time to speak with the Pale Witch. No one could help her but Finola.
She knew the time of the massacre was approaching, but her memories of history were fuzzy at best. Yes, she knew it happened in early spring, but she could not recall the exact date. For that matter, the English kept dates differently than she was accustomed to in the future so she was not quite sure how the numbers would correlate anyway. The only truth she knew for certain was if she wanted to avoid the upcoming massacre, she needed to get out of Martin’s Hundred as soon as she possibly could.
Benjamin continued to press his attentions, but she was relieved he seemed somewhat shy and reserved in his courting and remained patient to gain her favor. She felt sorry for deceiving him, letting him believe she was a happy recipient of his affection, but she had no other option save telling him the truth.
Well Benjamin, soon the Indians are going to kill pretty much everyone in Martin’s Hundred. How do I know that? Oh, I’m from the future. From 2012. Care for some tea with your dinner?
She was sure that conversation would not go over well.
They took a different path to town than she was accustomed, and as they passed down a lane through a narrow stretch of dense woods she wondered if he chose the seclusion on purpose. His intentions became clear when he stopped walking and took her hand more intimately in his own.
The Blooded Ones Page 18
