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Authors: Jessica Trapp

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BOOK: Defiant
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Why would he give it to her?

Puzzled, she opened it, recalling the strange way he had said it would instruct her on the place of women. The sly wink and grin he had given her—as if they shared some grand joke together and he was fully on her side—was vexing. ‘Twas not at all monklike and she suspected the book had nothing to do with instructing women at all.

The writing was in clean, beautiful loops and lines of various lengths and heights, artistry all to itself. She squinted at the pages, flipping here and there and holding it this way and that, trying to understand what any of it said. She could make out an A on one page and three T’s on another, but she did not know any other letters.

She ran her hand across the carved cover, wondering at the care that the craftsman had taken in fashioning it. It was a beautifully fashioned golden dragon with delicate scales and a long, curved tail. Its wings—open and lovely—seemed to beckon her to soar, too.

Why had the monk given her something so expensive? Why had he been so cryptic?

Questions with no answers.

Frustrated, she tapped the binding a few times with her palm.

Her father said that women didn’t need to learn to read; the church and society preached that educating women wasted time and resources—a sin to be so lavish—but curiosity burned inside her. She wanted to know what it said! Surely learning to read was only a small indulgence in the pleasures of sin.

Stuffing it into her bodice, she determined that when she returned to the feast she would demand answers from the young monk.

She tugged at her dress, but the bodice was cut so low the book’s spine poked out the top no matter how much she tried to adjust it. She frowned, irritated once again with her father for insisting on displaying so much of her cleavage. She pressed her breasts down, wishing she could make them flat again as they had been only a year ago. Her body had changed so much in the past months it felt as though an animal lived under her skin—a lump here, a lump there.

A sense of deep loss chilled her inside. Her own body had betrayed her, growing in places that once were flat and trickling blood down her thighs each month. She wanted her dolls back, her sister back, her own clothing back—the plain kirtles and tough leather boots—garments she could kick a ball in unhindered. These huge fancy houppelandes with their immodest hems and delicate embroidery seemed too flimsy for any use but to make men leer and women jealous.

A woman’s scream rent the air, interrupting her morose musings.

Gwyneth jumped, terrified it might be Adele, her younger sister. She had not been at the feast and often walked in the woods with her two dogs.

The sound, like that of a wounded animal, came again. She whirled. “Adele?”

A long stone’s throw away, through the thick trees, a flash of colors—blues, reds, purples—sharply contrasted with the greens and browns of the forest. A large man with dark hair, a short beard, and cruel features was tackling a girl, pulling her to the ground. Not Adele. A peasant.

The girl fell, her skirt hiked to her waist, and the man reached to yank down his hose. She twisted to one side, scrambling for freedom. He slapped her across the face.

Gwyneth’s body jerked in reaction. Her legs liquefied. She crumpled forward, clinging to a sapling for balance. She should run, go get help.

The man ripped down his hose and a sausage-shaped piece of flesh sprang out. His tunic slanted to one side. His clothes bespoke the noble class. He wore a fancy pair of green leather boots with silver buckles. “Lay still, wench.”

There was another scream and another slap.

The girl ducked her head and put up her arms to guard her face.

Bile rose in Gwyneth’s throat as the man lunged atop her. His hips thrust between her legs, forcing her thighs to part. She didn’t scream again, but let out a yelp that sounded like a cow being impaled.

Nay.

Nay.

Nay.

Terror mixed with indignant rage gripped Gwyneth’s mind and she wanted to kick herself for standing helplessly about while another woman was being brutalized. She had to do
something.

She glanced back at Windrose. The turrets hung over the tops of the trees. Too far to go for help.

Heart pounding, she stooped to a crouching position and searched around frantically for something to use as a weapon.

“Blasted dress,” she muttered as her legs tangled in yards of useless silk, then felt her heart jump against the book that rested in her bodice. She needed to be quiet, enormously silent, speechless—use her mind, not brute strength.

Her hand closed around a fallen limb. She lifted but it didn’t move. A curse on being born female.

Carefully, she selected a smaller stick, one about four feet in length and only about the thickness of a woman’s wrist. The wood scraped her palm, rough and dry. She would sneak behind him, wallop him over the head. Surely she could distract him long enough for the girl to get away.

And mayhap the brute would turn on her …

She tightened her grip on the limb.

Her stick, her wits, the element of surprise—those weapons would have to be enough.

Please, God,
she started, wishing desperately that she had not neglected her prayers all this past week.
Dear Mother Mary,
she tried again. Perhaps Mary would be more generous than God with religious shortcoming.

She would attend Mass twice a day, confess how she’d watched a spider crawl across the tiles instead of listening to the prayers and hymns.

Holding her breath, she crept through the woods as quietly as she could, working her way behind the man. The brute twisted the girl’s titties in his fingers so that they looked contorted. Pain laced her face, but she no longer fought him. The scent of sweat hung in the air.

“Un, uh, uh,” he grunted, hips pumping in and out between the tangle of her skirts.

Determination flooded Gwyneth’s mind and in that moment, she hated men. All men. This would be her lot as well if she were sold in marriage. Mayhap it would be on a soft, clean bed and not some dirty forest—but ‘twas the same for all women. They were forced to open their bodies for a man’s brutish lusts.

The girl’s eyes rolled back in her head, her face pulled into a grimace.

A knot twisted in Gwyneth’s stomach. Her satin slippers sank in the mud, making hideous sucking noises as she advanced, but the man did not turn.

He continued his onslaught.

She took another step. And then another. Only five steps more and she would be upon him. The stench of unwashed bodies and some sickly sweet toilet water assaulted her nostrils.

A bramble snagged the hem of her gown, pulling her up short with a lurch. The damn blasted gown. She would shred the thing when she got home, take out all her fury on the yards of lace and silk.

She twisted to pull her skirt loose but the movement caused another section of it to entangle in the thorns.

Curses!

She pulled harder and a ripping sound rent the air.

The man’s piglike noises stopped abruptly and he turned, his eyes going wide.

Coldness burst in her chest and for an instant her lungs refused to breathe.

Too panic stricken to think, she tore her skirt free, raced forward and slammed him across the forehead with her weapon. The stick splintered into two pieces.

Gasping, she clenched her fingers around the remaining part of her weapon so tightly that her palms went numb.

The man began to rise; his hands reached for her. “You little wench.” His dark brows were drawn together and his lips lifted in a snarl.

Oh, saints. Oh, Mary. He was going to kill her. With a scream, she raised her shortened club and clobbered him across the face.

“Run! Run!” she yelled at the girl. At least one of them should get away.

Blind panic took hold of her mind and she beat him again with the stick.

A crunching noise sounded, red streaks appeared on his cheeks and blood splattered from his nostrils to his chin.

He yowled. His eyes glowed with fury. Greenish black. Like a dark, evil spirit dredged up from the bog.

“You’ll pay for that, bitch.” He lunged for her.

The numbness in her fingertips spread to her arms, to her legs, across her shoulders.

She hit him again.
Wap. Wap. Wap.
And
wap
again.

He staggered to his feet, but tripped on the hose that he had shoved down his legs. His eyes rolled back in his head and he melted atop the girl.

With a grunt, the girl pushed him off. His body landed with a
thuck
in the mud. Blood pooled beside him.

The girl began straightening out her garments—a dirty peasant skirt and a simple blouse—and rose to her feet.

Gwyneth heaved uneven breaths and pressed her palm to her chest; the book was still safe. Her shoulders ached and all she wanted to do was run back to Windrose. The feast that had been so awful only moments before seemed tame compared to this.

The man twitched, or maybe he just slid farther into the muck. Rivulets of blood ran down his face and his nose hung lopsidedly to one side.

“Um. I think ‘e’s quite down,” the girl said, dusting her hands back and forth on her skirt and pulling her blouse to cover her chest.

Gwyneth’s spine seemed to crumple of its own accord. Sickness washed over her.

“Ain’t ne’er seen a noblewoman do that.” The girl cocked her head to one side and looked impassively from Gwyneth to the man lying among the leaves. Red blood and brown grime oozed together. “I do thank you, me lady.”

Startled, Gwyneth stared at the girl, seeing her clearly for the first time since the ordeal began. The girl might have been two or three years older than herself. They were similar in height, but she wore a patched homespun dress and no jewelry whatsoever. Her tattered garments smelled of some sort of cheap toilet water and the stench of male sweat. She had mussed brown hair, a crooked nose, high cheekbones, and a large mole on her chin. Despite her common appearance, her chin lifted and her back was straight. A dark wisdom flashed in her brown eyes.

Unsure what to say, Gwyneth scrutinized her for signs of distress, for some indication that the girl was about to collapse into a sniveling heap. Perhaps she should take her back to the castle. At any moment, she would surely sink to the ground and start crying.

Instead, the girl stared back, a hand on her hip.

After a long pause, when no such fits of hysteria seemed to be forthcoming, Gwyneth asked, “Are you all right?”

“Better now.” The girl gave a slight smile and the corners of her mouth quivered, the only tangible sign that she might have been upset by what she had just suffered. She plucked her yellow shawl from the ground and wrapped it around her shoulders.

Reaching forward, Gwyneth patted her awkwardly on the arm, wanting to give sympathy but confused about the best way to go about doing so. Having no female friends these past months since her mother had passed on left her feeling insecure about how to handle uncomfortable situations. She found herself retreating into formality, the mere crust of what she should do. She tried to think of what her mother, a grand lady of the keep, would have done.

Maybe she should hug the girl. But that did not seem quite right. She was a peasant after all, not a particularly well-off one based on the look of her. And she was dirty.

They both gazed down at the man. Mud splattered his tunic, which was flipped haphazardly to his waist showing his turned-down hose. His male member flopped against one thigh.

Bile rose in her throat. Gwyneth drew a hand over her mouth and averted her gaze.

Above, a lone hawk circled, black-and-white wings flashing in the lowering sun. An omen?

The man’s eyes were still weirdly wide open. They were dark green, nearly black, but had a glazed, dull look about them.

He wasn’t moving.

“Is ‘e dead, you think?”

Chapter 3

Dead?

The question about death was asked so mildly that the girl could have been asking if soup was finished, but it struck Gwyneth like someone had punched her in the gut.

She stiffened, then shifted her body so she faced a nearby shrub. “Surely not. We’ll just be on our way and when he wakes up, he’ll wonder what happened.” Her father would be livid and she needed to return to the feast. Every second she lingered, she would have more questions to answer. Likely he would take a belt to her for her disobedience. “I’d best be heading home.”

Ale spilled from the man’s drinking horn and the stench clung to his prone body. It would serve him right to awaken with a throbbing headache and with his hose entangled, undignified, around his legs. Mayhap his member would even become reddened and burned by the sun. Or a wild animal would come by and bite it off so he could ne’er again force a woman.

Whirling, she turned to leave.

“Nay, me lady. Methinks ‘e really am dead.” The girl stopped her with a light finger on Gwyneth’s arm and peered closer at the man lying crumpled on the ground.

“Of course he’s not.” She would not even entertain the possibility. “I’ll just be going now.”

“Um.”

Stomach churning, Gwyneth took two steps away. Of course the man wasn’t dead. That was impossible. Unthinkable. She could not have just killed a man. She delicately lifted the hem of her houppelande to walk home, noticing that it had a few ripped places on one side and splotches of brown swirled with red around the bottom. Her father would be furious.

Behind her, she heard the girl shuffle as if she were tapping her foot a few times. “Me lady, why’d you rescue me if you weren’t meanin’ to save me? That seems downright selfish if you ask me.”

Gwyneth spun, a flash of anger sparking inside her. Her enormous skirt swirled around her ankles. “I just saved your life, wench, and you dare call me selfish.” Who knows what her father would do when he saw the state of her dress. She should have turned and run when she first heard the girl scream.

“Beggin’ your pardon, me lady, you didn’t save me life. You only stopped a man from tupping me.”

Frowning at the fuzzy-headed girl, she put her hands on her hips. “He was hurting you.”

BOOK: Defiant
3.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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