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“Are you sure?” George manages as he trips on an uneven cobblestone, grateful that his arm is draped over someone else’s shoulder. He certainly hopes not to be an inconvenience.
His companion pauses mid-stride, waiting for George’s affirmative grunt before he takes another step.
“Shut it, me ol’ mucker. Course I am. We need to get that arm looked after.”
The arm? But it’s over your shoulder.
Oh. Right. The other arm. That arm.
“Right bastard slashing at ye wi’ that broken pint glass.” The Yorkshire accent is thick tonight. “Once ‘e’s out of the cells the barman’ll ban that bloke in a hurry or I’ll lay him out too, ‘fore I shut the whole place down.”
A brief flash: a howling man falling backwards, hand rising to a broken nose as his assailant shakes out his own hand and winces.
“There was a fight. You punched a fellow.”
“I did indeed! You looked like you could use the help.” The inspector—or Brother Brackenreid, as he was when they began the evening at the Masonic Lodge—chuckles aloud. “Knocked him flat, I did!” George can practically hear him beaming. “Had it coming, too! Bloody tosser.”
Nobody mucks with Thomas Brackenreid’s men.
George glances at the arm that is not holding on to his stalwart companion for dear life, and whistles. Rather a lot of blood, then. A hand clutches the wound, crimson seeping between the fingers. The inspector is holding him close and stanching the flow as they move forward, step by unsteady step.
“What was it about?”
“What?” Now that he has noticed it, George’s arm is starting to throb.
“The set-to. The fight. What did the bastard want of ye?”
George tries to recall. A large, ruddy face hovers far too close to his, screaming incomprehensibly as he squeezes his eyes closed to protect them from the furious man’s spittle. He can summon nothing more in his memory from the mists of the evening.
“I, I, I… I’ve no idea. Sir.”
Brackenreid rolls his eyes. “Ah, sod off with the ‘sir’ for now, son. He likely looked at ye cross-eyed and saw two of you, and thought he’d be a man and fight one in front of the other. Bloody git. Now let’s take you to Doctor Ogden to get you looked after, and then I’ll see you home.”
George feels something loosen in his chest. His head sinks onto Thomas Brackenreid’s shoulder. The older man smells faintly of sage from the brilliantine in his hair, and rosewater from his shaving oil. George inhales deeply and closes his eyes. Though he is wounded, for now, he knows he is safe.