Her abandoned Beta

A blast from her past

*Summer*

I hear a scrape, a footstep. Spinning around, I face a quite bulky woman with a hat very much resembling that of a farmer, brought low over her brow, shading a good bit of her face. The click click click of additional steps as two more women, one as thin as a matchstick, the other as tall as a tree, enter the alleyway, the three of them hemming me in with only the dark unknown at my back. My appointment is with only one.

“I'm here to meet with D.B”. I am rather pleased that I manage to keep my voice calm and level.

“Last week you met with Mags. She was arrested the following morning. Word is she's likely to be hanged for the farmin' she did”. The bulky one says.

Which means, in all likelihood, the authorities has somehow managed to already discern that she has murdered at least one of the children who had been placed in her care.

“I don't know any Mags”. I know them only by initials. Is Mags the M.K. who had handed over three little ones to me last week in exchange for the five hundred quid I offered her ? Most farmers are paid in full when the by-blows are dropped off by a parent or someone close to the mother who seeks to spare her shame. Oh, a few pay in weekly installments … those who have an interest in the child's welfare, but many simply disburse the higher one-time fee and walk away expecting … wanting to never encounter or be bothered with the child again. Since no more money is to be had after that, those infants are often neglected and then perish, buried without ceremony in unmarked graves so no one will suspect those caring for them of nefarious deeds. To many, one babe looks like another.

Who bothers to keep a tally of the number in a particular household, especially when there is soon another to replace the one lost ? “I certainly didn't report her to the authorities. I'm interested only in the babies and their welfare".

“So ye say”. She huffs.

I shake my head. “I'm not one to lie. Am I speaking with D. B. ?”

“Even yer small words sound posh. But they ain't gonna save you. We can't have you ruining our business”. She growls.

Business. My stomach roils with the confirmation that these women views children as products, produced by women they don’t know, to be sold away to women who has no love for them. “I don't care about you, I don't care what you do”. Which isn't entirely true. I do care; otherwise, I wouldn't be here. “I simply want the children, and I'll pay to take them off your hands”.

“We'll take yer coins ... after we take yer life”. She says cruelly.

Swiftly I unsheath the rapier and brandish it so the steel blade reflects off the distant

streetlamp and is visible to them. “Stay back”.

The bulky woman smiles, revealing dark caverns where teeth should have been. “Ever wielded a sword before, girlie ? Ever felt the way it slides into skin and muscle, sinking deeper and deeper till it hits bone, the manner in which the quivering of the wounded flesh slithers up your arm as it gives way to steel ?”

“Come at me and discover the truth of things”. Taking a ready stance, still clutching the wooden scabbard to use as an additional weapon if needed, with the rapier, I slice a swift X through the air, loving the way the whooshing fills the silence with menace.

Although I have never cut into flesh, I wouldn't hesitate to bring pain to these creatures who feed on the desperation of others. “Only you won't, will you ? Because I'm not helpless or vulnerable or afraid. I'm nothing at all like the sort to whom you usually deliver death”.

The bulky one looks at her comrades, then unexpectedly rushes forward while they step back.

I doubt their actions are spurred by a desire for fairness but rather they are prompted by spinelessness. I don’t want to deliver a killing blow if it isn't needed … I am not a barbarian after all … so I make an upward swipe across the woman's face where no cloth protects it, cutting into her cheek, knocking off her hat. With a shriek, the noxious trader in misery reels back, slapping a hand to her wound, and glares. “Come on, girls. We can take 'er if we all strike at once”.

“Not without sustaining a few more wounds, I would wager”. A deep voice says from within the blackness that hovers at the edge of the light. “And as you are clearly not wolf blood, you won’t just heal”.

I stiffen but don’t dare turn around, don’t dare take my eyes off the women before me.

"Who ye be ?” The leader asks, narrowing her eyes.

“It doesn't matter. I don't like the odds … for you. And I daresay, the lady and I could dispatch the three of you in a second. She seems rather skilled”. He says.

His emphasis on the word lady alerts me that he isn't using it without purpose, but to refer to my station, to acknowledge the fact I am indeed ranked. His tone also alerts me that he doesn’t think much of it. How has he discerned who I am ? Is he one of the men my brother has hired to find me and escort me home ? Something about his voice is familiar, and yet …

“Yer a cocky one”. The beefy one says.

“Not without justification. Ask any man who's crossed me. Now then, I have a use for her, so off with you”. He commands.

The woman sneers. “Then take her. Enjoy her. But if she continues to put her nose where it doesn't belong, she'll find she ain't got one no more”.

As I watch in stunned fascination, the women scatter, neither gracefully nor quietly, unlike the fellow in the shadows who approaches on silent feet and relieves me of the rapier as smoothly and easily as I might a spoon from a distracted child.

I swing around. "See …”. The remaining words of reprimand die in my suddenly knotted throat as the distant light reveals what shadows had held secret.

As though he is the lord of the underworld, hard and unforgiving, filled with malice, ready to mete out justice, the man stands there decked out in clothing so dark it blends in with the night, the hem of his greatcoat swirling about his calves in the slight breeze that also works to tangle the strands of his sandy-blond hair, left free as he wears no hat … strands I had once knotted my fingers around and found joy in doing.

He is tall, looming. Little wonder they had run. I remember how I had to stand on the tips of my toes to wind my arms around his neck, how his would come around me and he would lift me with such ease, as though I weighed no more than a billowy cloud in the summer sky. How he had made me believe myself ... treasured.

I resent it now, the way he had made me feel, that I had ever given him leave to touch me.

While I know I should be grateful for his arrival, it is his departure from my life … or more specifically, his failure to show … eight years ago that has me fuming with incensed outrage, shaking with fury, needing to lash out at the injustice of it all, especially the way my long-dead heart at this very moment seems to come alive with his presence. Damn the thing for being as traitorous as he is.

He tosses the rapier slightly, and I know he is testing its balance, weight, craftsmanship, and that he will not find it lacking in any regard. "Not very practical. A sword, knife, pistol … they can all be taken from you, used against you. Better to learn how to wield your fists as weapons”.

Oh, the nerves of him, speaking to me in the tone one uses when addressing an unmanageable child. “What makes you think I haven't ?”

Then I take my tightly balled fist and deliver an uppercut blow to that well-defined jaw I had once peppered with kisses that has him dropping my rapier and reeling back two steps. I am rather certain the punch would have felled any other man, but he is all sinew, muscle, height, and breadth.

However, my actions momentarily stuns him, which provides all the distraction I need to swiftly snatch up my weapon and close my fingers securely around it. Before he fully recovers, I lunge forward and press the tip of the blade between the part of his coat, against the linen of his shirt. I take immense satisfaction in how still he goes, how he barely breathes, watching me, waiting. The temptation to skewer him has me fairly trembling with the possibility of gaining retribution against him.

He deserves it for proving himself a scoundrel of the first degree by stealing my heart and then crushing it beneath his boot heel once he had gained what he wanted, which I had willingly surrendered to him because I had loved him so madly.

Tightening my hold on the weapon, I fight the memories bombarding me, memories of the kind and gentle young man I had once known, the one with whom I had begun falling in love when I was a mere fifteen years old.