The pain jolted him and sent spots of light spinning in front of his eyes. A knife appeared, hanging in the air, its wielder near-invisible in the darkness. He looked past the blade, followed the arm to the face of the man holding his mouth shut. “Make a sound and you die,” the man hissed. Thomas recognized the voice at once. He had heard it before, at Timothy’s wagon and at his father’s house. The man shoved his head against the wall again. “And so does the girl.” Thomas risked a glance at Eileen. The second of ‘his Grace’s’ men had a knife at her throat. His other hand had pushed away the blanket, and was fumbling with the edge of her dress. Eileen was rigid; her breath was short and ragged with fear and anger, and her legs clamped hard together. From the other corner of the porch, a near-animal growl followed by a whispered reply told him that the third man had George. He turned his eyes back to the man in front of him, nodded his understanding. The man took his hand from Thomas’s mouth and wrapped it around his throat.
