Page 103 of Homeless

Elizabeth blinked, her chest shaking on a sob, and her eyes went to Darcy. He had got his head up, his bleeding chin in the dirt, and his eyes were pleading with her to do nothing rash. Or to run — kick the mule and run, and trust to wide musket shot that perhaps they would miss her head as she escaped. But they would not miss his.

Her hands shaking, she braced them on the pommel of the saddle and slid down, then backed slowly away, her hands up, nothing behind her. “Take what you want,” she told them. “Please, we will give you no trouble.”

Their English was too good for common Spanish soldiers. These men must have ridden with Wellington. Served with the British, defending their country from the French with British artillery, British coin, and British supplies. Perhaps they yet had a place in their hearts for the detritus of that country. Or, perhaps, they were merely hungry, and would take whatever they could get from whomever currently owned it.

She had thought to open up another point for them to cover. One man was already kneeling on Darcy’s back, another going for the pack mule. If the third tried to come for her, he would lose the other two mules, so perhaps…

“Back here! Beside him,” barked one of the men. He waved a musket at her, and she had no choice but to obey. A moment later, she was on her knees in the dirt beside Darcy. If she gave them no trouble, they would not have to lay hands on her. They could take what they wanted and go.

The man behind her grabbed her left hand and stripped the wedding ring off before she could even blink. She snatched her hand back, clutching it to herself as if she could still feel the warmth of the metal against her finger, and she gave Darcy a mournful look. His lips thinned, the blood still trickling, but he tried to smile some reassurance at her.

“Es falsa!” he laughed. He held it up to his companions, the shining pinchbeck ring she had worn since Estella, and even peered at Elizabeth through the circle of it. “I wonder if the English wench knows her husband gave her a fake ring,” he said in Spanish.

“Worthless,” one of his companions grunted. “Not worth being caught for and taken before the law for stealing a woman’s ring.”

The ring dropped into the dust before her face, but Elizabeth did not dare reach for it.

They stripped it all fast. The purse. The pack, dragged down and split open on the ground and gone through. In moments, the good things were taken. The oil, the bread, the herb tea, and certainly the four remaining silver coins were swallowed up. The worthless things — papers, a heel of bread that had gone dry, her one spare gown — kicked aside into the dirt. Darcy’s signet ring was already on the finger of the man holding the knife. They took the reins of all three mules. And the whole time, the man knelt on Darcy's back with the muzzle at his skull.

Darcy lay still under it with his cheek in the dust and his eyes open on her. She could read his thoughts, the silent plea in them. Say nothing. Do nothing. For mercy’s sake, do not look them in the eye.

That was when it happened.

She had been listening — the whole time she had been listening, sorting the quick Spanish over her head, and one of them, the younger one, the one whose musket kept drifting off her, had said to the leader, “Not the killing. I'm done with the killing, Mateo. We did enough of that with the English. I'll not have a sick man and a woman on my head, not for what they've got. They’re already almost bled dry.”

The leader had laughed something short and ugly back, some reference to the gold from Darcy’s finger and the turn of Elizabeth’s ankles and how her husband was too weak to object to sharing a little. Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and her breath quickened. No… Not that…

And Darcy, flat in the dust with a pistol at his head, was watching her. Darcy saw her eyes change, and alarm came into his face.

The one pointing his musket was not finished with his protest, though. “She is bleeding,” he retorted in Spanish. “I saw it under her skirt when she fell. I’ll not touch her, and I want nothing to do with killing. What harm can they do? Leave them to the road, take what we can and go.”

The man still sorting through their possessions with the tip of his knife looked up, took in the dusty faces of his English captives, and waved a hand. “Check her petticoat. She may have sewn coins into it. It makes no sense. A man with a signet ring and three mules should have more money.”

Oh, no, she could not have that. The last handful of their copper coins were sewn into her petticoat, and without them, they would starve long before Santander. Besides, she did not want to encourage anyone to put their hands on her. Even if the intent were not to ravish her, Darcy would do something foolish and get himself killed.

She could not stop it, the flicker of calculation crossing her face before she made her decision. Darcy’s eyes narrowed as he caught her intent. He shook his head, ever so faintly, but she only stared back, willing him to trust her. She saw the brief look of doubt, then the faint intake of breath. And she saw him do the bravest thing she had ever watched him do, which was nothing at all — he did not say her name, did not warn her off, did not let his own face change by a hair. He lay still under the gun, and he gave her the only thing he had left to give, which was silence, and the safety of not being given away.

Before the younger one had moved to obey, had reached to put his hands on her, she turned to him, and she pitched her voice to shake, which was easy. She let the tears come, because they had been waiting.

“Please, Señor. Take it. Take all of it, we do not fight you, you see we do not fight. But we have come up from Burgos out of the fever. Both of us. Ten days, I have watched him almost die, and he is not strong. Look at him, you can see he is not strong. He tried to defend me because he is a good man, but he could barely stand, and he is still very sick.”

The younger one's eyes went to Darcy and came back to her. “He is poor besides, Señora. Where is all your money?”

“Gone to medicine. It was nearly everything we had, saving only enough for passage back to England, and barely that, as you can see. Please, all we want is to go home to our families, and if you leave us here with nothing, on this mountain, with no beast and no bread and the cold coming, you do not rob us. You kill us. Slower, but you kill us just the same, and you will know that you did.”

He gritted his teeth and looked away without saying anything.

She kept her eyes on him. “You are young, but you have already killed many times, I think. In the war.”

The young man’s musket wavered slightly. “Every soldier kills in war.”

“I think you took no pleasure in it. Pray, leave us one mule and a blanket and bread enough to reach Reinosa, and we will bless your name and never speak of you, and our blood will not be on your head. A sick man and a woman, dead on the Reinosa road. That is a thing that stays on a man. Do not let him put it on you.”

The younger one's face had gone white and furious, and she knew that she had read it right, that she had put her finger exactly on the wound the war had left in him. He lifted his musket, only a little, and called to his companion in Spanish.

“Mateo! She speaks true. The man looks half dead. We cannot leave them like that.”

The leader spat and argued. She did not understand all of it and did not need to; she watched the younger man round on him and heard, “One mule, Mateo, one, and a blanket, or I swear before God —”