Page 41 of Head Room

“He is.Look close.”

“Half-breed, maybe.Takin’ care of him’ll likely come out of our provisions.Why should we have to give up food for some half-breed?”

“He’s no more half-breed than you, Stelmen.”

“Then he’s worse, because he gave up being who he was to become one of them savages.”

“You mean that in order to survive,” the tall one spoke without raising his head, “he adapted to his circumstances and rode with his former enemies.”

Now he raised his head, and looked directly at the bearded one.

The others stilled, watching the tall one stare.The bearded one stared back.Defiant, angry.

She didn’t like the bearded one.His eyes were mean, like—

She shut that off.

But she understood his defiance, his anger.She remembered when she had let her own out.Before she’d learned to hold them near.Near and quiet.Absolutely quiet.

“What are we going to do with her?”That was the young one, called Peter.

“First thing we should do is dip her in boiling water and get some of the stink off her.”

That was the bearded one, the one who’d been so angry when the tall one made him give up his horse for her.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It was likethe specter of Mrs.P was whispering that it served me right for not doing my homework first, for reading on and having no idea what the writer had intended.

Though Mrs.P’s historical background might not provide any help with what was bothering me now.

Who was talking?Who was this boy described as a half-breed?Who was theshewho’s observed this scene?Maggie?Someone else?

Maybe I needed to consult another expert, along with Mrs.P.

I’d consider that...after I read a little more.

****

Four days’ travel brought them here, where the soldiers lived.

It looked different down here than it had from the hills.They had crossed the long bridge, that had looked like a log fallen over a stream from high in the hills, but felt solid and smooth under the horse’s hoofs.

They had been met by other soldiers and so many strange words passed so quickly she could not follow them.

They gestured her off the horse, then a few men led all the horses away, and she had stood motionless where they left her as they started into a building.But one turned back.

She kept her head lowered, but she knew it was not the tall one.When this soldier spoke — few words, but so fast she could not separate them — she knew he was the one who led them.She had seen this officer’s dark turned-down mustache and his gray eyes that held no emotion.And she had seen how, even as he rode with the other soldiers, he was apart from them.

He had taken her arm, not hard but not easy, and led her into the building with all the soldiers, placing her in this chair.

And she had felt them all looking at her, wondering the question the young one called Peter finally spoke.

“What are we going to do with her?”

“I’ll probably have to throw out that saddle and blanket,” said the bearded one in a low grumble that no one but her seemed to hear.

Gaelic.She remembered that was the name of the language of her childhood.She had not spoken its words in so long.Then, two nights after the people had taken her, she woke, screaming from a dream, words in that old language.The woman she thought was the chief’s wife beat her.