Free Naked by Eliza Redgold Page B

heard him make before the battle had begun. “I want the Middle Lands. Then today I saw something else I wanted.”
    Yanking my hair, Thurkill the Tall wrenched me closer, so close I smelt his foul breath. “You.”

 
    9
    And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear …
    —Tennyson (1842): Godiva
    Scream. Kick. Run. Spit. Fight.
    A putrid rag stuffed in my mouth.
    The point of Thurkill’s knife jagged on my neck. His other hand a bolt around my wrists as he pushed me through the bower doorway. Across the courtyard. Toward the gates.
    No guards nearby. No Edmund at my side. No one to help me. Draped by darkness, no one to see me either.
    The rising bile of terror scorched my gullet as we passed through the unattended gates.
    My people. Feasting in the hall, unaware of my danger.
    No blame attached to them. It was I who should have expected another attack.
    Lord Leofric’s grim face flashed into my mind. The Earl of Mercia had suspected something amiss in Thurkill’s sudden retreat. Why hadn’t I listened to him?
    My mind screamed out. Help me!
    In the shadows beyond the gates, Thurkill’s horse was tethered to a tree stump. He dragged me toward it.
    He was going to take me away from Coventry.
    Don’t let him take you.
    Part of my numb brain registered. I had to seize a chance for escape, before he abducted me to another place. Where all help would be gone.
    Think. Quickly.
    He’d have to release his hold on me to unfasten his horse. My body tensed, ready to spring free.
    But Thurkill had recognized the opportunity, too. His grip became a deadlock.
    “Untie it!” he grunted, indicating the knotted rope with a jerk.
    I shook my head.
    He slapped me across the face.
    “Untie it!”
    Fumbling for time. Too soon the knot came free.
    Thurkill’s blade pressed harder against my neck. Grabbing the rope, he shifted the knife to aim straight at my heart and bound my hands with it.
    A lamb to slaughter.
    Mounted. The blade still against my neck, Thurkill forced me onto the saddle. In a loud rip my tunic tore down the middle, between my legs. Heaving himself behind me, his belly pressed into my buttocks. The butcher stench of him.
    A brutal kick against the horse’s side. Into the darkness.
    Don’t let him take you.
    The reins. Out of reach.
    The ground. Better to fall from a galloping horse than be taken by Thurkill the Tall.
    His muttered curse as I wriggled. He clamped his hold. We rode on.
    Rain began to pummel my clothes, my skin.
    To fight down the fear coming up in my mouth I focused on where we were going. Driving rain lashed my cheeks as I flung my head from side to side, scanning for landmarks—a lone farm, tall trees, a clump of bushes—anything I could make out in the dark. The Middle Lands were like the back of my hand, every hill, every valley scored on my skin. He was traveling east, a knoll to our right indicated, as the horse’s hooves thundered along. Was he taking me to the Angle Lands?
    Another slap across my face.
    Onward. An hour passed; another. My sliding survey. Still searching the darkness.
    Farther and farther. Away from Coventry.
    As he pulled to a sudden stop my neck snapped in pain. The horse pawed. Dimly I distinguished a wooden hut in front of us. It appeared to be deserted.
    Thurkill dismounted and wrenched me down. Cramped, sore. Yet as I slid off I seized another chance to wrench free from his grasp.
    My weight tumbled into him.
    A kick. Only my leather shoes. The strips of my wet, torn tunic strangling my legs. Feeble. No boots.
    He guffawed.
    Another kick. More force.
    A better aim.
    “Nidstang.” He cursed.
    Grabbing me by my hair he began to haul me toward the hut.
    Don’t let him take you inside.
    “Aagh!” My scream escaped now, shrill and desperate, forcing the rag from my mouth. A noise I didn’t know I could make.
    His fist came up.
    Then it came down.
    *   *   *
    The smell of smoke woke me as if Aine had lit the morning fire.
    But I was not in my bower. I