Magda handed Marsailli a fresh pad of linen and moss. “Place the bloodied one in the bucket,” she said. “I’ll burn it in the fire later.”
“I’m grateful for your assistance,” Marsailli said to the midwife, blushing. “Before you arrived, dealing with my menses was a mortifying experience. Men have no knowledge of such things, and during my last monthly time the soldiers treated me as they would a leper.”
The older woman shrugged. “They believe what the priests tell them—that a woman’s flux is a punishment for her sins. That it is somehow wretched and filthy. But we know better. It is merely the body’s way of preparing you for motherhood.”
Marsailli adjusted her dress and then pushed aside the curtain to join Magda in the larger part of their tent. “Is it not a punishment? The nuns at the priory said Eve did not bleed before she was cast from the garden.”
The midwife grunted. “Believe what you will. I follow the old ways, not the new.”
“Are not midwives granted license by the village priests?”
Magda laughed, a deep, hearty chuckle. “Do you think our captor cares whether a priest has blessed my skills or not? Nay. All he bothered to verify was my ability to keep a newborn babe alive.”
The midwife snatched up the bucket and left the tent.
Marsailli studied the fluttering tent flap with longing. As autumn advanced, the days grew crisp and short, and the opportunities to enjoy fine weather were limited. Sir Giric refused to look upon her face while her monthly blood flowed, and he would not allow her to step outside. Indeed, he blamed her for the need to pack up and pitch this one small tent—all the others had been abandoned. With a grimace, she picked up her sewing and sat on a stool before the small brazier that kept the chill at bay. The hems and cuffs of her dresses were wearing thin and required constant mending. Best she keep herself busy until her time was ended.
She sighed heavily.
She missed Caitrina. After their mother had passed, they’d become closer than most sisters, sharing every thought, every laugh, every fear. It was Caitrina who had taught her a proper running stitch and how to use embroidery to strengthen a fraying edge. Marsailli studied her mending efforts with a frown. She hoped her sister was having an easier time than she.
Giric was a cruel man, and one day he would make good on the villainous threats he heaped upon her. He would either rape her or kill her, of that she was certain.
What had Caitrina been thinking to send her off with King Edward and his brutish henchman? She must have known it would be Giric who would be tasked with returning her to Scotland. How could she imagine Marsailli would be safe in his care? Had she believed, as Marsailli once had, that his disfigured face was deserving of sympathy rather than fear? If so, she’d been a fool. He was every bit as wicked as his scar suggested. Sometimes—late at night, as she cried herself to sleep—she hated her sister for that lapse in judgment.
But not right now.
Right now, she just wanted to feel the warmth of her sister’s arms around her.
Marsailli tossed aside her sewing and leapt to her feet. A braver girl would have long since made her escape, stealing a horse and dashing over the moors in the direction of Atholl. She had been happy there, for a time. But she had never been anywhere alone, and the very thought of striking out in a vague direction without a companion made her stomach heave. She could imagine what horrors would befall her.
She pushed back the sleeve of her linen sark and stared at the bruises on her arm.
Of course, the risks in remaining were high.
She closed her eyes and let the sleeve slip back into place. As evil as Giric might be, he was still the safer option. Here, she had food and clothes and fire. Here, she had the promise of seeing Caitrina and feeling her sister’s arms wrapped around her once more. The road to Atholl held only danger.
Still, she could not ignore the warning signs.
Over the past month, Giric had completely transformed. When he had first retrieved her from the priory, he had been quite pleasant and polite. But as time passed and the inconveniences of living in a tent wore on him, all efforts to appear charming ceased. Now he was vile and vituperative. All too quick to raise his voice and his fist. She needed some form of protection, some method of staving off the inevitable. But what? She wasn’t strong enough to wield a sword, and the dull eating knife at her belt would barely pierce his thick skin.
Marsailli cast about for a possible weapon.
It had to be small enough to be easily hidden, yet sturdy enough to inflict damage. Her sewing needles failed that test—even if she jabbed them in his eyes, they were unlikely to save her from a punishing blow.
She slowly spun around, mentally itemizing the goods stored within the tent. Several chests full of clothes, three small stools, and a stack of folded blankets. Nothing useful. Her gaze lit upon the wooden crucifix hanging from the tent pole near the exit. Except perhaps that.
She lifted the cross and examined it.
The rood was carved from a single solid piece of oak wood, and if the long end was whittled into a sharp point, it would make a formidable weapon. She mimicked the act of stabbing and grimaced. It would be effective only for someone with a stronger arm than hers. Jabbing such a thick object into Giric would take a great deal of force, more force than she could hope to muster. With a sigh, she hung it back on the pole.
She needed something long and thin, preferably steel.
A blade of some sort.
But Giric was careful—he did not allow her near the weapons or the horses. All she could hope was to spy something useful once she was free to roam the camp once more, something he wouldn’t immediately think of as a weapon. In the meantime, she would prepare as best she could. She retrieved the discarded bundle of her sewing, separated the needles, and tucked them into her purse. Anything was better than nothing.
Peering through the narrow gap in the tenting, she studied the soldiers milling about in the camp. What she needed now was opportunity... and a wee bit of luck.
