Authors: Lady Keisha
Angus picked up his ale and took a deep gulp. Donald pushed the coin across the table towards him, and Angus picked it up and eyed it before fixing his blue-eyed gaze on Freya. Holding Freya’s frightened gaze for a moment, he then shifted his eyes back to Donald.
“I wouldn’t sell you scrap for that!” Angus laughed and flicked the coin back at Donald. Donald sniffed again as he caught the coin and shoved it in to his pocket.
“Ehh, a man can try.” Angus laughed again and nodded his head.
“That he can.”
Freya pulled her arms close to her body in an attempt to create some space between her and Donald. Donald saw her and moved closer, putting his hand on her upper thigh and squeezing it tightly. Freya looked up at Angus hopefully, but found his eyes locked instead on one of the tavern wenches.
“You dirty wench!” Angus shouted as he grabbed the arm of a young dark-haired girl in a tight corset. She tumbled backwards and Angus pulled her in to his lap. She laughed loudly as she slapped at him playfully. “Oh, Angus!”
Angus leaned in and kissed her neck roughly, rubbing his rough beard against her soft pale skin. “Angus stop! You’re such a beast!” He laughed as he let her go and she paused for a moment before jumping out of his lap.
“You’d better watch out, next time I’ll have a surprise waiting for you!” Angus reached down and grabbed at his crotch with roaring laughter. The wench squealed and scurried off in to the crowded room. Angus continued to laugh breathlessly as he watched her go.
Freya felt Donald’s hand sliding further up her thigh until he slid it between her legs and began to rub her. Angus caught a glimpse of the movement.
“Wife!” he hollered so loudly that a silence fell over the tavern. “Wife, why do you let another man touch you where only your husband should?”
Donald pulled his hand away quickly and Freya didn’t dare to look up. She knew that the entire room was staring, Angus had made sure of that. “Well?” He boomed. Freya shook her head. She didn’t dare accuse Donald of being in the wrong. She had learned long ago that it was far easier to take the blame than to try to deny it.
“I am sorry, husband.” Her voice was timid as she dared let her eyes glance up to Angus’s face. His cheeks were red and his eyes stared at her intensely.
“That’s what you get,” Donald sneered, “when you wed a girl like her. A loose woman.”
Silence fell as Angus’s eyes shifted over to Donald. Freya thought for just a moment that perhaps Angus would defend her, that he might hit Donald to defend her honor. He laughed. He laughed such a loud and booming laugh that the rest of the tavern began to laugh as well. Soon the walls of the tavern were echoing with laughter again, only this time it was all directed at Freya.
She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and she wanted nothing more than to run back to their home. In a split second, amid the uproarious laughter she found the courage to jump up from the bench. Shoving her way through the laughter she pushed against the tavern door and fell forward into the afternoon sun.
When she arrived home she was breathless and her face was streaked with tears. Freya knew that when Angus returned home she would have to face the consequence of his public humiliation. For the time being however, she sat in front of the mirror calming herself as she combed her luxurious long red hair. Though tears still streaked down her face she watched herself in the mirror and smiled.
“Someday he will learn to love you,” she said as she looked into her teary blue eyes.
To Freya’s relief and heartbreak, when Angus returned home he was too engrossed in the serving wench he had brought with him to remember to punish Freya. Freya listened as he laughed drunkenly and the young girl laughed along with him. If only they knew, Freya thought. If only they could see what he was really like they wouldn’t laugh like that. She rolled over in bed and pulled the blanket up over her face. The thin material did little to muffle the noise though.
“Now that is what a woman’s body should look like!” Angus roared from the kitchen. Freya knew that he was purposefully being louder than usual. “Come here you wench!” She listened as the girl squealed while Angus grabbed at her the way he used to grab at Freya.
Freya heard the thud of the girl being bent over the kitchen table and she squeezed her eyes closed. She tried to think of the days she had spent with her sisters instead, the days that they had imagined their perfect husbands. She tried to imagine being free.
Chapter Two
Freya had just opened her eyes when the first screams came through the small window in the bedroom. At first she was sure it was the sounds of Angus and his latest conquest rubbing more salt into her wounds as they frolicked in the street. When a series of screams followed however, she knew that she was wrong. The screams were not those of levity, rather those of terror.
Quickly jumping out of bed, Freya threw open the door to the bedroom, searching for Angus. What she found instead was the front door of their cottage standing wide open and Angus and his wench both gone. They had left her all alone. Freya looked around frantically for something, anything to defend herself. She had heard screams like these only once before and she knew that she needed to arm herself and find somewhere to hide if she was to survive.
Freya had been seven the last time that the Highlanders attacked the village. She remembered clinging to her sisters as they hid in the dirt cellar. The screams overhead were louder than anything she had ever heard before. She hadn’t forgotten them in all these years. For two days Freya and her sisters had hidden in that dirt cellar, too afraid to come out in case the Highlanders returned. Her father and mother had to bring them their food and water there and it was only when a neighbor visited that the girls could be coaxed out with the help of his small dog. Freya remembered asking her father how they had survived the attack and he had shrugged and told her that perhaps God had seen how little they already had, and had taken pity on them.
The screams from outside came louder now and accompanying them was the sound of metal on metal as swords crashed together. Freya could find nothing to defend herself and, knowing that time was growing short, she ran back to the bedroom to find somewhere to hide.
The small cupboard was barely large enough for her to crouch inside. The doors would not shut completely unless she pressed herself all the way against its back and held just as still as she could. She tried to still her breathing as she listened to the sounds outside. Moments later the sounds outside came inside, and Freya heard someone inside the house. There were footsteps as the person walked in through the kitchen.
“Argh!” A frustrated cry came and was followed by a loud scraping thud of the kitchen table being overthrown. Then more noise. Freya held her breath as she listened to someone ransacking her home just feet away from where she hid. Then came the footsteps again. They were drawing closer. She could see a flash of light through the cupboard doors and peering through she saw the tall man begin rifling through her belongings. Squeezing her eyes closed, Freya began to pray, hoping that once again God would see that she had nothing and would spare her.
Had Freya not closed her eyes in prayer she would have seen the shape of the man approaching the cupboard. Had she not been so devoted in her prayer she would have heard him coming.
The doors of the cupboard flew open and the shock of light forced Freya to open her eyes. Opening her mouth, she tried to scream but nothing came out. She found herself paralyzed in silence. She lifted her eyes to the Highlander’s face. She blinked slowly as he paused looking at her as she looked at him.
The man stood towering over her, his long brown hair cascading over his shoulders and his beard cut close to his face. Freya took a slow breath in as she watched him lean down. He grasped her arm and tugged her so hard that she came tumbling from the cupboard.
“Where is your money?” he said gruffly. Freya shook her head in silence. “I said, where is your money? Your coin?”
Freya shook her head again. “I have none.”
His nostrils billowed as he stared down at her. Instinctively Freya lowered her eyes, catching sight of his dark skin under the hem of his kilt.
“Lies!” The Highlander pulled at her arm, forcing Freya to get to her feet.
“I have none…” she repeated, “my…my husband…he has all we have.”
The man stared in to Freya’s dark blue eyes and paused, his free hand wrapping around the handle of his sword.
“Please…” Freya’s voice was trembling as she begged the man for her life.
“You will come with me.” He pulled at her arm. Freya shook her head.
“No, no please! Please don’t take me! Please, I have nothing of worth!” She had heard the stories of Highlanders looting and pillaging, but the ones that scared her most were the stories of rape. “Please don’t…”
Before she could finish her sentence, the Highlander reached down and grabbed Freya around the calves. Throwing her over his shoulder, he marched through the bedroom door.
It was the bobbing up and down that finally brought Freya back to consciousness. She had fainted no sooner than the Highlander had thrown her over his shoulder. Now she found herself staring at the back of his kilt as he walked steadily over grassy terrain. Freya had no idea where they were going or what her fate might be. She listened for the sound of others. The sound of feet marching through the damp morning grass was all she heard.
She wondered if she was the only one to be taken captive in the raid. As she contemplated whether or not she should scream, the Highlander came to a stop and carefully he lowered Freya down to the grass.
“Ye can stop pretending, I know you are awake.”
He stared down at her as he reached for his flask and unscrewed the top before offering it to Freya. She turned her head from him in defiance. “Drink or you’ll die of thirst!” He shoved the flask towards her again, and again Freya refused.
“If I am going to die, I would rather die from thirst!”
She didn’t know where the courage to speak up had come from, but no sooner had she said it than she wished she hadn’t. She prepared herself for his sword. The Highlander paused for a moment before bursting into laughter and pushing the flask at her again.
“Drink, woman. You won’t be dying today.” Freya could see that this wasn’t a battle to be won and reluctantly she grabbed the flask and drank from it. “That’s right, take all you need.”
Freya guzzled from the flask hungrily before handing it back to the Highlander, half empty. He took it.
“Are you going to rape me?” Freya asked, her voice trembling as she contemplated the possible answer. The Highlander frowned.
“I have women offer themselves to me freely, why should I want one who does not?” He took a drink from his flask before tucking it back in its holder.
Freya shrugged. “Then why take me at all? If you aren’t going to kill me nor rape me…what use am I to you?”
He seemed to think about this before gesturing for her to get up.
“Come, we must keep moving.” He looked her over as she stood in her bed smock. “Ye are fit enough to walk on your own.”
Freya didn’t want to walk on her own; she didn’t want to walk at all. After all, why should she make it easier for her captor to kidnap her?
“I won’t.” She flinched again as an unusual defiance slipped from her lips.
The Highlander sighed. “Walk,” he said. Freya shook her head. With another loud sigh the Highlander reached down and once again threw her over his shoulder. “Then we do it the hard way.”
The journey to wherever they were going was a long one and Freya couldn’t help but marvel at the Highlander’s strength. With the exception of a few small breaks, it was only when the sun began to slide down the horizon that he finally put her down for good. Freya stared at him stubbornly.
“You will stay with me until morning.” The Highlander nodded towards a small house with a roof topped with thatch.
Freya turned around and looked at it for herself. It didn’t look like the type of place in which someone like this should stay. She almost didn’t want to ask as she turned back around to face him.
“What happens in the morning?”
The Highlander began walking towards the door of the house and gestured for Freya to follow. Anxious for an answer to her question, she did as he asked. “I said, what happens in the morning?”
The Highlander opened the door to the house and gently pushed Freya inside.
“In the morning you will be sold to the highest bidder.”
He slammed the door shut.
Chapter Three
Candlelight spilled out across the room from the center of a large wooden table. Freya sat on a straw filled mattress in the corner of the room and eyed the Highlander. He sat at the table, his flask in front of him.
“Who will be bidding on me?” Freya asked as she leaned back against the cool stone wall.
The Highlander looked up at her and shook his head. “Whoever has the money.”
Freya frowned. “But I am married.”
He shrugged. “That is not my business.”
Freya could feel her anger rising. “But it is mine! I will not be bought and sold like a piece of meat! I am a married woman.” She felt the rage pour out of her. All the rage she had felt at Angus, all the rage she felt at her life, all the injustice of it all. “You cannot treat me like cattle!”
The Highlander looked up at her again, surprised at the conviction in her voice. “It is the way of it,” he said simply as he picked up his flask and took a drink.
“No, it is not the way of it.” Freya said. “The way of it is that I have a marriage recognized by the Lord, a marriage that you nor anyone else will overlook for the sake of a few coins!”
The Highlander smirked at her and then shrugged. “It
is
the way of it,” he said again, as he stood up and walked to a cupboard in the kitchen, and opening it he pulled out a large round of bread. Bringing it back to the table he tore it into two pieces, taking one for himself and pushing the other to the opposite side of the table. “Eat.”
Freya shook her head. “I won’t. I’d rather starve.”
The Highlander shrugged as he took a large bite of his piece and chewed it while watching her.
“Still good!” He held it up as if he were toasting her.
“You’re disgusting.” Freya stared down at the bed and began to pick at loose pieces of straw poking through the mattress. She wondered why she had never been able to talk to Angus the way she could talk to the Highlander. She supposed that love had something to do with it – that, and honor. She knew that if she chose to speak her mind to Angus he would never stand for it; he would leave her and she would be forced to return to her family, disgraced.
Still, the fear that this man should have put into her should have been enough to keep her quiet. Perhaps it was the possibility of death versus dishonor that allowed her to speak so freely, or perhaps something had simply been shaken loose.
“I’ll live.” The Highlander tore off another bite of bread.
“I’d rather not to be quite honest.” Freya didn’t look up, she continued picking at the mattress.
Standing up, the Highlander swiped Freya’s half of bread from the table. He walked over and after pausing for a second he sat down beside her. She looked over at him and he offered her the bread. Freya looked at him for a moment before taking it. She couldn’t deny that she was hungry, after all Angus had eaten her supper the night before. She took a bite.
“Perhaps you would after all?”
Freya looked at him, her brow furrowed. “Hmm?” she said with her mouth crammed full of bread.
“I said, perhaps you would rather live after all?”
Freya shrugged as she finished off her mouthful of bread. “I was hungry, that’s all. Besides, I doubt hunger will kill me before you do.” She took another greedy bite of the bread and the Highlander sighed.
“I’m not going to kill you. If I were going to kill you, don’t you think I would have done it back there and left you, rather than carrying you all this way?”
Freya shrugged again as she chewed the bread. “Well, I’d rather you kill me than sell me.” She spoke with her mouth full and crumbs spilled from her lips. The Highlander chuckled at the sight.
“I’m not going to kill you.” He was silent as he watched Freya destroy the bread in minutes. He offered her the rest of his. She took it hungrily and began to eat that too.
“Whether you are or not, I was simply saying that I would rather you did.”
The Highlander frowned. “Why are you so insistent on death?”
Freya swallowed her mouthful, and before taking another bite she shrugged. “What else is there? As a married woman I am damned to Hell if another man takes me. If you sell me I shall become another man’s woman.”
The Highlander scratched his head. “Do you really believe that God would damn you to Hell for a choice that you have no control over?”
Freya nodded as she handed back the rest of the Highlander’s bread. “It is the way of it.”
The Highlander leaned back against the wall and stared into the room in front of them. “My God would never do such a thing.”
Freya laughed derisively. “Your God is one who allows for the death and destruction as a means to an end.”
The Highlander seemed to think about this. “But isn’t yours just the same? Even when your battles are not fought on a battlefield, you are killed in other ways. He allows for this to happen.”
Freya was silent as she followed his gaze across the stone cottage floor. He was right. For the first time in her life, someone had said out loud what Freya had been afraid to think. Angus had been destroying her, slowly bleeding her of everything she had in order to get what he wanted.
“He has been killing me since the day we married.”
The Highlander glanced over at her without saying a word.
“Angus, I mean. My husband. Some days he makes me believe that death truly would be a better option than life.”
He listened, saying nothing.
“I have always been a good wife to him. I always believed that one day he would learn to love me and treat me as a wife should be treated…” She sighed loudly. “That day has never come, and every day since we married he has treated me worse than the day before. I suppose in a way, if what you are saying is true, that this is my punishment.” She paused. “I think, if that is the case, then I would much rather spend an eternity in damnation than another lifetime as Angus’s wife.”
Freya couldn’t believe that she had said something so blasphemous out loud, but it had felt so good to finally speak. She felt so much lighter for telling someone, anyone, what life was truly like as Angus’s wife.
“Perhaps there is something else out there? Something other than damnation or a lifetime of being his wife?” the Highlander suggested.
Freya looked at him for a long time in silence as she tried to understand what he was saying.
“Perhaps you were meant for something else…someone else…” he trailed off.