The Knight's Scarred Maiden

‘I can get you more.’ She gestured to the purse. ‘Make more cakes, make more money. Just don’t do this.’

‘Don’t do this?’ Rudd jingled the purse a bit. ‘It looks like you were already doing it. I’ll merely profit more than I thought today. These kind gentlemen offered money as well. Not as much as you were being paid by that knight, but a deal is a deal. And you do need to pay your debt to my parents.’

This was personal. ‘Debt?’

‘You don’t know?’ Rudd laughed. ‘All the better that I get to tell the tale. Get to see your ugly pious face as I break your heart.’

Rudd ran his eyes over her and his laugh turned ugly.

‘You think they kept you here with a roof over your head, feeding you because they cared for you? That you worked all hours of the day, slaved until your fingers bled because you loved them back?’

They’d told her they loved her. So much pain she had suffered at the time, so many tears with the guilt of failing her sister, her soul, failing her family. She didn’t love herself, but the innkeepers loved her. Of course, she worked for them until her fingers bled. She’d still do it.

‘Oh! I can see you do believe it. They bought you. Two ageing failing innkeepers needed cheap help. Although I don’t think you came cheap to them. I believe you owe more on your debt.’

‘I don’t owe a debt,’ Helissent said, her eyes on the men who stepped closer. Too close. She took a couple of steps in the opposite direction and saw how their smirks increased. How had they become involved? ‘Whatever these men told you, I owe no debt.’

‘Oh, you do.’ Rudd ran his finger down the right side of his face. ‘My parents fixed you.’ His mouth turned like he tasted something vile. ‘Such as it is, but it was the best money could buy in these parts.’

He spit between his teeth. ‘You think your possessions from the ashes of your home paid for that healer. No, it was my parents, who paid that healer with my inheritance.’

He reached back and pulled out of his breeches a small, heavily written-on parchment scrap. ‘I have the evidence all here. Accounts from the healer and my parents. All about your treatment, and care, and healing.

‘Oh, they were crafty, paying for your care. But I know better. I was born and raised by those people, and everything became clear when this parchment was read to me. My parents were wondering if their slave would be working for them soon.’

For a split moment, she believed his cruel words for truth, felt the pain in them, but it didn’t take away her sudden yearning and keen desperation. For in Rudd’s hands was more treasure than she’d thought she’d ever see. A parchment, a few written words from two people she’d dearly loved and would give anything to hear from again.

She had nothing left of her own family, but Anne and John had become her second family. Now there was something of theirs, something she could read, to hold in her hand, to hear their voices again.

As he noted her fixation on the parchment, Rudd’s eyes gleamed. Let him think he’d hurt her with the words and not with the denying of a scrap of paper. He could never know.

‘The way I see it, you owe me, girl. And there’s only one way a disgusting creature like you could pay me back.’

Two sets of hands clamped on to her arms. She cried out and kicked. Too late. Her eyes focused on the bit of parchment; she forgot the men.

‘Is she ours now?’ The one on her left sneered, his breath heavy with onions.

‘Such a price you paid, how could she not be yours?’ Rudd’s snake expression turned to her. ‘Can you imagine any man would pay a price to be between your legs? But these men paid plenty. They seem to like their women damaged. Your ugliness is lining my pockets.’

‘Never had a burned one before,’ Onion-breath said with glee. ‘Last one was crippled and remember the blind one?’

The man on her left closed his eyes like he savored that memory, and she yanked her arm to hide her revulsion.

‘Our agreement was I had her first.’ Rudd tossed the parchment behind him, his hands immediately at his belt.

‘I get the ugly half,’ Ale man breathed.

‘No, I get the ugly half,’ the other argued.

In her struggle, Helissent yanked the men several feet before they dug their heels into the mud. Terror, like ice shards, struck underneath her skin. It was going to happen. She couldn’t stop it.

Rudd laughed. ‘I don’t want any half except what’s down below. Just shove her face in the mud. I don’t want to see it for a moment before I get the skirts up and over her face.’

The men chortled, their manacled hands loosening. ‘No!’ She pulled her arms free and ran. Her heart pumped; she tasted the iron of blood in her mouth. As she feared, her right leg immediately dragged behind her. Pounding of feet on the cold dirt behind her, pain in her arms as the men grabbed and shoved her to the ground. The wet mud momentarily masking the taste of blood in her mouth.

More pain as a knee jammed into the small of her back. She threw her body to the left, kicked out, made some connection. Another hand on her ankle, yanking it to the side. Too far out, her legs were now widespread.

She screamed and tried to kick again. Grunts and harsh breath from the two men pinning her to the ground. She fought harder, a foot pounded into her ribs, a fist on to her cheek.

None of her struggles drowned out Rudd’s laughter as he strolled up to them. His hands were at his waist, loosening his belt knot.

Waves of sickness crashed over her. Her lip was split open, but she wouldn’t give in. Gathering what was left of her breath, she screamed again before a muddy hand slammed against her mouth.

An unearthly growl resounded as a man leapt out of the darkness. His cape swirled like a vortex of black; the arc of his sword glinted like shards in the moonlight before he went out of her line of sight.

‘Let her go,’ he snarled.

His cold voice raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Terror gripped her harder. Let her go, let her go for what? The two men tightened their grips and laid heavily on top, suffocating what was left of her air. Through her watering eyes, she saw Rudd securing his belt. A supplicant expression now masked his face. She knew that curve of his lips when he wanted to appease a customer.

‘Here now, this is none of your concern,’ Rudd said. ‘It’s late and there’s nothing to see. We only want a bit of privacy.’

‘You harm a woman. You’ll get no privacy except in death.’

The words were menacingly calm. He had a sword. Why weren’t they getting off her? She yanked her mouth to get some air and a sharp prick bit into her side.

She was going to die. The men held her down with a knife. She prayed it would be a quick death.

‘She’s willing,’ Rudd said, pointing towards her. ‘See how she lays still?’

There was a harsh staccato of heavy breath from the men holding her down and one started nervously smacking his lips. She could feel they wanted to run, but the knife against her side held firm and they didn’t move.

‘I’ll say this only once more. Call. Off. Your. Men.’

‘See here...’

A whoosh of breath and a sharp thump of one captor’s body like someone kicked him down. Then utter stillness as the knife released against her side. Onion Breath let go of her arm, scrambled before he slumped heavily on to her with a sharp cry.

Her eyesight dimming, she watched Rudd’s smug face draw white with fear as he ran towards the trees and disappeared.

A yank of one body above her released her legs, another released the rest of her. She tried to push herself away, but her arms wouldn’t work. Her legs jerking, she clawed the mud to flee from the man she hadn’t seen, but who she was certain just killed two men.

A hand upon her back. ‘Careful.’

She lashed out. Too slow to strike him. Too vulnerable on her back to run away. She froze, expecting a knife in her stomach.

Instead, the man crouched near her, his elbows resting on his legs, his hands hanging between them. Empty hands, his scabbard bare and no sword at his feet.

‘You’re safe now. They’re gone.’ The voice was no longer cold, but laden with an awkwardness in the cadence as if he was unused to giving comfort.