Page 52 of The Knight's Pledge
He looked around for Effie and saw her atop the wagon with Chumley and Dana, pulling back the filthy canvas covering the cargo. A woman’s scream shot through the air, but it didn’t come from either Effie or Kit Katey—and definitely not from Dana. Lucan urged Agrios closer toward the wagon.
His heart stopped. Through the slats, he saw what must have been a dozen women and girls, in various modes of dress—and lack thereof. It seemed that all of them were weeping.
The oldest looking of the women—strawberry blonde and perhaps a score—held her bound, dirty palms up toward where Chumley and Effie were looking down at them.
“Please,” she begged. “Pleasedon’t hurt us.”
“Ah, we’re not going to hurt you, love,” Chumley soothed. He held his hand out toward the woman. “Come on out now.”
But Effie was already climbing down into the melee of bodies, and Lucan could only see slices of her through the wooden slats as she drew her short blade and began cutting bonds, one after another as she made her way from the front of the wagon to the rear.
“There you are,” she said quietly. “Up you go—out of this thing. Careful. Turn ‘round. Is this your mum? Tell me true. Go on, then, and stay close to her. That must smart—we shall have it looked at in a moment.”
Lucan felt as though he were frozen into place on his saddle as the forest around them grew darker with approaching evening and the clouds seemed to lower to the treetops. Around him, Bob and James and Gorman were dragging the bodies of the caravan riders from the road into the deep underbrush. Chumley and Dana were helping the women and girls to the road, where Kit Katey waited to receive them—herding them together with a gentle touch or slow, graceful gesture.
Finally, Effie climbed from the cage of the wagon to the top and stood a moment, looking about the road. She seemed to pause to perhaps count the women gathered with Kit Katey and Dana, then her gaze suddenly swung to Lucan, with the twilight forest behind her.
“It’s no longer safe to stop in the village,” she said to him. “We must put as much distance as we can between these woods and ourselves before these monsters are discovered. God willing, most of the women are from Edinburgh.” She paused, her gaze never leaving his. “Youraim was true.”
She made the sign Lucan had seen Winnie perform a hundred timesnow.Thank you.
He nodded at her, still unable to speak.
“Let’s gather the horses,” Gorman called out, disrupting the brief moment. “Bob, you drive the wagon. We’ll put the lasses astride and lead them. Look lively, now—let’s clear out before anyone comes across us.”
Lucan swung down from Agrios at once and set to, waving the spooked, hungry-looking beasts back toward the road where Gorman and James caught them. He couldn’t help but liken them to the frightened women and girls Kit Katey had gathered and calmed with her touch and quiet words. They finished quickly and managed to turn the wagon around in the road, seating the mother and child next to Bob. Everyone else was mounted, some of the women wearing borrowed cloaks, some riding two astride, and they set out for where Winnie and Gilboe waited inthe road ahead.
It would be a long night, Lucan realized to himself as he fell into the pack behind Effie and Gorman, the stars now hidden by the thick blanket of clouds. He felt a cold drop of rain on his cheek. But he reckoned it would have been a much longer night for the women now under their care had they not passed on the roadwhen they did.
Too long of a night. Too long ofa life, likely.
Ahead of him, Lucan saw Gorman reach out his hand toward Effie. She took it and they were joined for a brief moment before their fingertips slid apart. Lucan’s heart clenched in his chest as the rain began to fall in earnest.
Stupid, foolish Lucan Montague.
Chapter 13
They used the canvases as shelter for camp that night when they finally stopped. The rain fell steadily through the bare trees—large, cold drops that cracked on the dripping covering and then ran together in rivulets and ribbons and then streams into the cold mud around the raised fire. No one opted to take shelter in the filthy, shit-smelling wagon, and beneath the canvases was smoky and windy and wet despite their best efforts. Their party now nearly tripled, they had not quite enough food, but Effie was at peace as she looked around at the faces huddled together for warmth, chattering in relieved tones as they were ministered to by Winnieand Kit Katey.
Effie used to lie awake at night and worry over how many were lost forever. How many passing so close to the Warren, smuggled into and out of and through Northumberland that they had missed, and would never know about. But that fate was not for these girls.
Fourteen lives, saved.
Fifteen, if she counted her own life, saved byLucan Montague.
He was sitting beyond the fire across from her—he always seemed to place himself at the extreme distance from Effie, but still in sight, like the North Star. Effie could tell that Winnie was attempting to coax his boot from his foot, but Lucan seemed to be putting her off in his stilted,polite manner.
She smiled to herself. Foolish man.
Effie made her way around the fire, pushing up on the overlapping, sagging edges of canvas to slough the water off as she went, until she stood before the victim and his perpetrator.
“You might as well just go ahead and take the boot off, Sir Lucan.”
He looked up at her as if hoping for aid. “It will be fine until we reach Roscraig. Good Winnie need not trouble herself this wet night. She should rest.”
Winnie looked up from her crouch at Effie with an exasperated expression, and her hands flew inthe firelight.
“Ah, I see,” Effie mused, and then looked back to Lucan with a smirk. “Winnie wants to know if your foot feels warm.”
