Free Untouched Concubine by Lisa Rusczyk, Mikie Hazard Page A

doing?”
                “We’re leaving. Tonight. I will not let them hurt you. Or me. Put on these clothes.”
                Mandia got out of bed and took the clothing. They were Crona men’s clothes, brown pants made from cotton and a black, slip-over dock worker’s shirt.
                “And a hat to cover your hair,” her mother added, handing it to her. Mandia pushed her knotted hair into the hat and put on the clothes.
                “Don’t be scared,” her mother said. “I know a safe place we can go. Speak to no one. Let me do all the talking. You are my son now. You hear me?” She looked over Mandia . “Those breasts. We have to do something about them. Take off your shirt.”
                Mandia did. Her mother took a scarf from Mandia’s dresser and wrapped her breasts tightly against her body so she could hardly breathe.
                “You just had to get your grandmother’s form. Come now, we go out the servant’s door.”
               
    ~~~
     
                They traveled for three nights, sleeping in the day. Mandia tried to forget the sounds of the screams from Crona in the distance that first day, the smells of the burning city, and her heart wept for all her people’s terrible fates. What would her own be?
                On the fourth day, they travelled all day, too, and Mandia and her mother reached a brook in the forest. They had been following a deer path, and her mother hadn’t explained why she knew the way. They had run into a couple of bandits along the path, but not much was said. Her mother used a gruff, low voice and spoke with a Lenn accent. The bandits showed no interest in Mandia .
                They slept by the brook that night and near dawn, Mandia’s mother woke her. “We need to bathe. Must keep clean so we don’t get sick. We bathe by the last of the starlight.”
                “Where are we going, Mother?” Mandia had learned long ago to only speak to her mother when being spoken to. It was a Crona tradition that daughters respect their mothers above all else. It was a way of give homage to the goddesses. But she was scared and needed to know something, anything.
                “I know of a place. In Lenn . I know Lenn is responsible for the king’s death and the destruction of our whole society, but there is a haven there. It is hidden, but I have been given instructions. Trust me, lovely daughter. Now undress so we can bathe.”
                They stripped off their clothes. Mandia was glad to have the scarf off her chest and took a deep breath before slipping into the cool brook waters. She untied the greasy knots from her locks and used the soap her mother gave her to rinse all over her skin and hair. It felt wonderful and she spread out in the water and closed her eyes.
                She felt a hand grab her wrist. “Got you, you sneaky little girl.”
                She opened her eyes in terror. A man stood above her, holding her arm now, and grabbing at her hips with his other hand. She looked over his shoulder and saw her mother being dragged out of the water by another man with his hand over her mouth.
                Mandia fought her captor, but to no avail. He pulled her from the brook and laid her flat on her belly, tying her hands behind her back. She saw the other man doing the same to her mother.
                The man with her mother said, “Throw them in the cage with a blanket over them. Gag them. Do not dare touch them or I’ll kill you. This young one will get a very nice price.”
                Mandia still struggled as the man who caught her picked her up and loaded her twisting, naked body into a wooden cage. Her mother was put in after her. The men gagged them with foul-tasting rags.
                “Make a sound and you’re both dead, slowly