Chapter Four

TW: SA/DEATH.

Beaux had known of the rite; talk in the village informed him of its existence. To a sixteen year old boy, curiosity won when it came to something like that. He couldn't imagine why anyone would see it as unholy.

Until he saw in the back of the room, a woman no more than 19 being held to a table, taken against her will by multiple smiling men. She screamed, howling, sound dampened by the sounds of music and men laughing. At this point, curiosity had been put down like a pig on market day. At this point only one thing crossed through his mind, where was Dona. She wasn't in the tavern, he could see the entire hall from the little window he peered from. He wondered to himself if there were other rooms, places that these men could slink towards. So he went in, and he prowled among the beasts in their cavern. But still, there was no sign of Dona. The filthy tables, the bar covered in beer and liquor, and the rooms in the back with women sprawled along the beds and men hovering in their self imposed splendor. The tavern on a night of rites may have been a place of true debauchery but Dona was nowhere to be seen. And so Beaux went back into the night to prowl the streets of the Sow, in hopes of finding his sister.

Alleyway upon empty alleyway concealed in darkness greeted him. Hopelessness shrouded Beaux in a cloak as heavy as the stone roads below his feet.

Maybe she had made it back home? He asked himself.

Taking Honey by her reins, Beaux turned back to the path out of the village. Halfway home he heard a sound from one of the grassy plains separating the Poncè lands and the village. A nearly inaudible sob, one that he had heard only few times before when his aunt had punished Dona too strictly. Beaux left Honey on the road and galloped through the tall grass and weeds. The sharp stickers grabbed at his clothes and skin, as if trying to stop him from what he'd see.

Dona lay in a flattened patch of grass, her skirts pulled up to her waist and bodice torn open. Her hair was wet from sweat, and vomit could be smelled nearby.

"Who?" Beaux asked, his voice strained and quiet.

Dona startled and sat up, pulling her clothes tighter against her. The only light was from the moon and stars above, and her face was the picture of terror and embarrassment.

"Tell me their names." He said, rage dripping from every hard word.

She was shaking, either from the cold or fear. "I cannot say." She breathed but the words were hoarse.

Beaux dropped to his knees and took off his coat, wrapping it around her shoulders. "How long have you been alone here?" He asked, trying to be calm and kind. The effort to control his tone was exhausting, and with so little sleep he could hardly stand it.

Dona sniffled, but did not reply. Beaux lifted her small body up, and they trudged back to where Honey waited patiently at the road. He sat her on the mare's back, and brushed the matted hair back from Dona's weary face. Her small upturned nose, had snot running down to her chin and her cheeks were red and stained with tears.

"Aunt Losa was right." She said, "I thought he liked me a bit more than that, but I suppose I was an easy bed."

Beaux didn't respond, instead grabbing her hand in search of the ribbon that usually wrapped around her wrist in case she needed to tie back her hair. It was not there, and dawn crept into the sky, leaving the world a somber dark blue.

"You will go home and sleep." He commanded.

"And where will you go?" She asked, clutching his hand tightly. Beaux had never noticed how dainty her hands were, until this moment.

His eyes met hers, and he pulled back onto the road. "I will find your hair ribbon, I will not be far behind you."

Dona nodded and sat forward, grabbing the reins tightly. He watched her trot down the road for a while, and then turned back to the paths made in the grass. One that had been blown down with his own aggressive run, and the other that seemed pushed aside in drunken stupor. He looked along that path first, only finding an empty bottle of taughty port. When he started back down the path to the village, he could see another bed of flattened grass, now illuminated with dawn's grace. In the night, he hadn't seen it but now it was a beacon in the hills. He pushed towards it, rage heating every muscle in his body.

A man was sleeping there, another bottle at his side. Rugged stubble etched his plain face, and if someone had simply passed they'd mistaken him for a drunken traveler who became too tired for his destination. One silky slip of green ribbon was carelessly tied around his wrist.

Beaux stepped closer, and reached into his waist for the pistol that had been heated from his body. His finger wrapped around the trigger and a deafening thunder ripped through the peaceful green. Beaux watched the man's head bounce from the impact, and ruby blood stained the grass stained shirt on his unmoving chest.

If Beaux had woken the man, maybe he would have pleaded for his life. Offered to apologize to his sister. Sadly, Beaux did not let mercy twist him into the kind of person who would let the brute live. Where the feelings of taking a man's life should have rested in Beaux's heart, there was only empty tranquility.

He took the ribbon from the dead man's wrist, and stalked back home. One less bullet in his pistol, and specks of blood amongst the freckles on his cheeks.

Nine months later, his first niece was born. No one discussed her birth, or asked where the missing bullet had gone. Talk of the dead man ran through the village, but no one suspected the gentle Beaux of the sow.