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He had told her this, too: the women would be marked into slavery. This, too, she had laughed at. And why not? He seemed to her as daft as dumb Gus, expounding his crazy, preposterous ideas and nonsense.
Clarissa squinted, trying to see better. It appeared that the different groups of women had different-colored rings put through their lips. One group of older women of every shape looked to have copper-colored rings. Another group of younger women screamed and fought as silver rings were put upon them. They stopped fighting and meekly submitted after a few who fought the hardest were run through with swords.
The smallest group of the youngest, prettiest women were in the grip of the greatest terror as they were surrounded by a gang of burly invaders. These women received gold rings. Blood ran down their chins and onto their fancy dresses.
Clarissa knew most of these young women. It was hard not to remember people who regularly humiliated you. Being in her early thirties, and unmarried, Clarissa was the object of scorn among many women, but these young women were the cruelest, giving her smirking sidelong glances as they passed, referring to her as “the old maid,” or “the hag,” among themselves, but just loud enough that she could hear them.
Clarissa had never planned to be this age and without a husband. She had always wanted a family. She wasn’t entirely sure how life and time had rolled on without providing her with the opportunity for a husband.
She wasn’t ugly, she didn’t think, but she knew she was no more than plain, at best. Her figure was satisfactory; she had meat on her bones. Her face wasn’t twisted, or shriveled, or grotesque. Whenever she looked at her reflection while passing a window at night, she didn’t think an ugly woman stared back at her. She knew it wasn’t a face that inspired ballads, but it wasn’t repulsive.
Yet with more women than men to be had, being merely “not ugly” wasn’t adequate. The pretty, younger women didn’t understand; they had men in abundance courting them. The older women understood, and were kinder; but still she was an unfortunate in their eyes, and they feared to be overly friendly, lest they catch the unseen, unknown taint that kept her unwed.
No man would want her now; she was too old. Too old, they would fear, to give them sons. Time had trapped her, alone and an old maid. Her work filled her time, but it never made her happy the way she suspected a family would have.
As much as the sting of those young women’s words hurt, and as much as she had often wished them to experience humiliation, she would never wish them this.
The invaders laughed as they ripped the bodices of the fine dresses, inspecting the young women like livestock.
“Dear Creator,” she wept in prayer, “please don’t let this be because I wished them to feel the shame of degradation. I never wished them this. Dear Creator, I beg you forgive me ever wishing them ill. I didn’t want this for them, I swear on my soul.”
Clarissa gasped and leaned out the little window for a better view when she saw a band of invaders running forward with a log. They disappeared beneath an overhang below.
She felt the building reverberate with a dull thud. People in the great room screamed. Another thud. And another, followed by splintering wood. The underworld’s own pandemonium broke out below.
They were violating the sanctity of the Creator’s abbey.
Just as the prophet had said they would.
Clarissa clutched her dress over her heart in both hands as she heard the slaughter begin anew below. She shuddered uncontrollably. They would soon come up the stairs, and find her.
What was to happen to her? Was she to be marked with a ring through her lip, and cast into slavery? Would she have the courage to fight, and be killed, rather than submit?
No. She knew the answer would be no. In the face of it, she wanted to live. She didn’t want to be butchered like one of the people in the square had been, or like poor dumb Gus. She feared death more than life.
She gasped as the door banged open.
The Abbot burst into the small room. “Clarissa!” Neither young nor fit, he huffed from running up the stairs. His portly shape could not be disguised beneath his dull brown robes.
His round face was as ashen as a three-day-dead corpse.
“Clarissa! The books,” he panted. “We must run away. Take the books with us. Take them and hide!”
She blinked dumbly at him. The room of books would take days to pack, and several wagons to lug them away. There was nowhere to hide. There was nowhere to run. There was no way to escape through the throng of invaders.
It was a ludicrous command born of mad terror.
“Abbot, there is no way we can escape.”
He rushed to her and took her hands. He licked his lips. His eyes darted about. “They won’t notice us. Pretend we are just going about our business. They won’t question us.”
She didn’t know how to answer such delusion, but was denied an attempt. Three men in blood-splattered leather and hides and fur stepped through the door. They were so big, and the room so small, that it took them only three strides to close the distance to the Abbot.
Two had greasy, curly, matted hair. The third was shaved bald, but had a thick beard like the other two. Each wore a gold ring through his left nostril.
The one with the shiny head snatched the Abbot by his fringe of white hair and yanked his head back. The Abbot squealed.
“Trade? Do you have a trade?”
The Abbot, his head bent back so that he could look only at the ceiling, spread his hands in supplication.
“I am the Abbot. A man of prayer.” He licked his lips and added in a shout, “And books! I care for the books!”
“Books. Where are they?”
“The archives are in the athenaeum.” His head tilted back, he pointed blindly. “Clarissa knows. Clarissa can show you. She works with them. She can show you. She cares for them.”
“No trade, then?”
“Prayer! I’m a man of prayer! I’ll pray to the Creator, and the good spirits, for you. You’ll see. I’m a man of prayer. No donation required. I’ll pray for you. No donation.”
The man with the shaved head, his sweat-slicked muscles bulging, pulled the Abbot’s head back further and with a long knife sliced down through his throat. Clarissa felt warm blood splatter her face as the Abbot exhaled through the gaping wound.
“We don’t need a man of prayer,” the invader said as he tossed the Abbot aside.
Clarissa stared in wide-eyed horror as she saw blood spread under the Abbot’s brown robes. She had known him for nearly her whole life. He had taken her in years ago, and kept her from starving by giving her work as a scribe. He had taken pity on her because she could find no husband, and she had no skill, except that she could read. Not many could read, but Clarissa could read, and it provided her with bread.
That she had to endure the Abbot’s pudgy hands and slobbering lips was an onus she had to abide if she wanted to keep her work and feed herself. It hadn’t been that way right from the first, but after she came to know her work and feel safe in being able to meet her needs, she came to understand that she had to tolerate things she didn’t like.
Long ago, when she had begged him to stop and that hadn’t worked, she had threatened him. He told her that she would be banished if she made such scandalous accusations against a respected Abbot. How would a single woman, alone in the countryside, survive? he had asked. What truly terrible things would she suffer then?
She supposed it wasn’t the worst of things. Others went hungry, and pride didn’t fill their bellies. Some women suffered worse at the hands of men. The Abbot never struck her, at least.
She had never wished him harm. She only wished him to leave her be. She never wished him harm. He had taken her in, and given her work and food. Others gave her only scorn.
The brute with the knife stepped to her, startling her from her shock at seeing the Abbot murdered. He slid the knife behind a belt.
He gripped her chin with callused, bloodstained fingers and turn
ed her head side to side. He looked her up and down. He pinched her waist in evaluation. She felt her face burn with humiliation at being scrutinized so.
He swung to one of the others. “Ring her.”
For a moment, she didn’t understand. Her knees began trembling as one of the burly men came forward, and she realized what he had meant. She feared to cry out. She knew what they would do to her if she resisted. She didn’t want her throat slit like the Abbot, or her head bashed in like poor dumb Gus. Dear Creator, she didn’t want to die.
“Which one, Captain Mallack?”
The bald man looked into her eyes. “Silver.”
Silver. Not copper. Silver.
A maniacal laugh cavorted through the back of her mind as the man gripped her lower lip between a thumb and knuckle. These men, these men who were experienced at judging the worth of flesh, had just valued her more highly than her own people. Even if it was as a slave, they had given her value.
She clenched shut the back of her throat to hold in the scream as she felt the pick stab into the margin of her lip. He twisted the pick until it poked through. She blinked, trying to see through the tears of pain.
Not gold, she told herself, of course not gold, but not copper, either. They thought her worth a silver ring. Some part of her was disgusted at her vainglory. What else did she have, now?
The man, stinking of sweat, blood, and soot, shoved the split silver ring through her lip. She grunted in helpless pain. He leaned in and closed the ring with his crooked yellow teeth.
She made no effort to wipe the dripping blood from her chin as Captain Mallack looked her in the eyes again.
“You are now the property of the Imperial Order.”
22
Clarissa thought she might faint. How could a person be the property of anyone? With shame, she realized that she had let herself be little more to the Abbot. He had been kind to her, after a fashion, but in return, he had viewed her as his property.
She knew these beasts were not going to be kind. She know what they were going to do with her, and it was going to be something considerably worse than the Abbot’s drunken, impotent affections. The look of steel in the man’s eyes told her that they were men who would have no difficulty following through with what they wanted.
