NINETEEN
The first thing Melitta was aware of was the lecherous thoughts of a group of nearby men. That was hardly a surprise, though the vague inclusion of herself in those thoughts was worrying. More worrying still was the realisation that if she was reading their minds, she must have shed some of her blood. Only then did she recollect the blow to her head, which now throbbed faintly. She had been unconscious for several hours, then, she decided.
Melitta attempted to reach for the back of her head, to assess the damage, but she found that she could not. Her hands were tightly bound behind her with coarse rope. A normal girl might've panicked, but as the daughter of a master weaver who was as experienced at untangling knots as she was at breathing, Melitta simply set to work. In a mome
