The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [26]
He beckoned. “Come on.”
“No.”
“But before the soldiers wake up, we have to get out of here.”
“Go away.”
He reached his thick hand into the thorny tunnel and swiped for her, but couldn’t reach. She feared him then, and flinched into her corner even tighter.
“We have to go now or else we’ll never get out of here. Your parents had a plan.”
“They’re dead. Besides, their plan was to have me burnt up in the church with all the others.”
Martin sat down, hiding behind the well wall. “We didn’t know.”
“The man on the horse told you, long ago. I heard him. That’s why Padraig and I agreed to meet here. You didn’t let him.”
“We thought it was best.”
“Go away. Leave me alone.”
“Emer, you have to come now, or else I’ll leave you here.”
She thought about it. How did he know for sure if her mother was dead? How did he know anything? And what was he doing still alive? Every other man was dead.
“Why aren’t you dirty?”
“I’m not asking you again, girl.”
“You’re sure Mammy’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“You saw her?”
“I saw her.”
“Will you take me to her if I come out? I want to see her.”
“Of course. You can see for yourself.”
She crawled from the den and through the tunnel. Martin grabbed her hand and dragged her behind a hedgerow where no one could see them, then delivered a slap across her blackened face. “Don’t you ever disobey me again. I’m your guardian now, and you’ll do as I say.”
“What about Mammy? I want to see her!”
“Don’t be silly, girl.” He slapped her again, this time with his fist closed, and left a welt on her cheek.
Too shocked to answer, she followed along behind him and rubbed her face. They arrived at a small paddock with a horse. He mounted first and pulled Emer up by her right arm, nearly ripping it from her body.
“Ow!” she yelled.
He secured her in front of him, then kicked the horse and took off toward Cashel, where he had a small abandoned cottage already prepared. Her three cousins and Aunt Mary were waiting for them.
It took the whole day to get there, and when they arrived, Emer’s bottom was sorer than it had ever been. She hadn’t talked to Martin all day, not even when they stopped twice to eat and pee. He preferred it that way and said nothing. She relived that slap repeatedly, and she decided to hate Martin forever. Even when she arrived at a comfortable bed once in Cashel, she didn’t utter a word. If it took silence until her dying breath, she vowed, she would make him understand that no man strikes a Morrisey woman.
As she fell asleep that night, it all seemed like a dream—the attack, the fires, the screaming, the killing, and the circling, suffering blue bottle fly—all in a far-away place where her parents were, where her brother was, where it was her birthday.
Cashel was already in the hands of the dragon. The walls and churches were in ruins, and each road was manned by soldiers in different uniforms. Emer felt owned there. She was sure no one was to be trusted. And she was old enough to know, when she caught Aunt Mary sewing the family’s few gold rings and trinkets into the hems of different garments, that their future held more danger.
From Cashel, they traveled to north rural Limerick, where Irish people still lived in fear of attack. Emer felt the stares of villagers. She used to be like that, gawking at every empty survivor who passed through. They settled for some time on a farm there, and then moved on west before autumn. She’d discovered in those six months that Martin slapped his own children, and Mary too sometimes, whenever he was in foul humor or they said something he didn’t like hearing. She said nothing to her cousins, but lost respect for them since they never tried to do anything about it.
“Your mother was a bad woman,” her cousin said one day, a week before they left the farm.
“Are you just trying to get me to talk or do you really mean that?”
“That’s what my father says. He says she was a bad woman who didn’t teach you or Padraig any manners.”
“She fought at the battle more than