Rebirth: Lady of the River

Chapter Two: Valeria

I was towed behind the two men, unkindly, and without a care in the world. It didn’t matter that I had no shoes on or that the woolen blanket I wrapped myself in was barely dry. No, I was a witch and Maggie hadn’t been kind enough to tell me that I was apparently in the wrong kingdom. 

“Hurry up, witch,” the younger of the two men snapped, glaring at me with haughty brown eyes. There was so much raw hate in his eyes and I didn’t know why. 

Their horses were waiting on a copse just outside the village and Maggie’s house. There was no third horse or a carriage. I suspected I was to ride with one of them, but the younger soldier retrieved a rope and tethered it to my strange, golden manacles. They didn’t hurt as much now, but the original pain I had felt was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Then again, much of this place was like that. Magic? Witches? 

“We’ve been waiting a long time for you to appear. What wet hole did you climb out of?” the young man asked me.

“Ceolred, mount up and let’s go. It’s still a long journey back to the capitol,” the older man instructed, having already mounted his horse.

“Very well,” Ceolred nodded, but took pleasure in giving me a rough shove as he passed by. 

I huddled beneath my blanket, flexing my fingers as I followed the horse. I tried to maintain a close enough distance that the rope wouldn’t go taut and drag me, but as we got onto the road, Ceolred took pleasure in testing me. He’d spur his horse slightly enough for it to jump forward, tightening the length of rope, which in turn jerked me forward. I looked desperately at the other man, who kept his back to me and his lips pursed. 

For the entire day, until sunset, I stumbled behind the pair of horses. My legs quaked and my feet were battered. The roads were mostly dirt, but every so often there would be discarded twigs and rocks that had made their way onto the path and that I could not avoid. If my destiny was to fix the remnants of a broken kingdom, I assumed that these men worked for a kingdom that opposed them. 

I was tied to a tree like a dog when camp was established for the evening. Away from the warmth of their fire and away from the light that chased away the shadows in the night. Against my tree, I swaddled myself as best I could in the blanket I still had. I’d managed to hold onto it throughout the day’s journey. Even the pitiful growling in my stomach seemed unimportant when in comparison to what was waiting for me in the capitol. Death, apparently. If I was supposed to be so important, why wouldn’t Maggie have saved me?

“Witch,” Ceolred approached me with food. I couldn’t see what it was, as it was wrapped in a piece of cloth. 

There was a glimmer of hope, perhaps he wasn’t as cruel as I had originally thought. He sat in front of me, offering a smile, before opening the cloth to reveal a fresh hunk of bread and cheese. “Looks good, doesn’t it?”

But my stomach dropped at his eagerness.

“You must be hungry.”

I was. I was thirsty too.

Ceolred picked up the bread and began eating it in front of me. I had to suffer through him eating his rations, watching as the crumbs fell over his leather jerkin and onto the dirt. I wondered if he expected me to lap up the crumbs, to fumble over what meager pieces had been left over. Rather, I remained in place, silent, and watching. Why was he so purposely cruel? I had never met him before.

After finishing his meal, Ceolred dusted himself off and returned to the warmth of the fire. I curled up, my stomach growling and protesting, and tried to think of ways I could escape. I could untie myself from the tree when they weren’t looking. What good would that do? If I had magic like Maggie said, I suspected the manacles I wore kept me from using it. I didn’t know this land at all, so I risked running into something more dangerous than two mean men. 

A wolf’s howl split through the night, waking me from the little sleep I had managed to get. The embers in the fire were low, but it illuminated enough for me to see the older man, Elstan, was sharpening his blade. Ceolred was sleeping in his bedroll, not a care in the world, but Elstan was keeping watch. Wolves might not be the only thing out in the wilderness. If there was magic, it was likely there were also creatures that I couldn’t even imagine… that I didn’t want to imagine.

“Get up! Get up, witch!” Ceolred woke me with a boot to the stomach. 

I cringed, wrapping my arms around my stomach as he went to deliver another.

“Ceolred, she needs to arrive at the capitol… alive. At this rate, she’ll die before we’re halfway there,” Elstan told his subordinate sternly.

“A little bruising never killed anyone,” Ceolred sniffed, but halted his assault on me.

This day continued much the same as the last. But I was weak from hunger and thirst. Still, I managed to keep up with the horses, thankful that Ceolred had relented in his little games. That didn’t mean that the road didn’t rip at my raw, swollen feet again. I was nearly crying by the time that we set down for camp again, pressed against my new tree, wishing that I’d never woken up from the river. 

“I’m going to scout ahead. There have been rumors of Thagallian soldiers impeding on our borders,” Elstan told Ceolred, who was roasting some meat over the fire. “Feed the girl today, she was lagging behind.”

Ceolred nodded, but didn’t acknowledge me until Estan had mounted and left. Fear rose in my belly. Elstan had prevented Ceolred from being as awful as he preferred, but now that he was gone… I could only wait for the misery to follow. Cowering beneath the tree, wishing I could hide inside of its trunk for safety. I remembered times like these… when my mother would let strange men into the house and sometimes they’d hit me. Other times… other times it was worse.

He approached me with rations again and I wondered if he’d eat it in front of me and tell Elstan I’d eaten. Instead, he stopped a few paces away, considering what he was going to do. Finally, a smile twisted onto his face and he leered at me. 

“You’re hungry, aren’t you, witch?”

I was. But in the pit of my stomach, I felt compelled not to beg. Hunger wasn’t worth the degradation.

“I’ll give you this… I’ll give you this soon if you do one favor for me,” he explained, crouching down in front of me. I edged away, glaring at him. “Spread your legs and work for your food.”

I knew it was coming. The aggression and beatings, it always led to one thing for men in my own experience. No. Not in the world like it had been in my past life. I spat in his face, the spittle smattering across his smirking countenance. 

I’d done it. I knew the moment the smile fell away and rage replaced it. 

“You little cunt,” he threw away the food behind him. The bread and cheese rolled away as he threw himself at me. All I could do was cover my head and face as he punched me. I went away. Away from the pain into my own head, to the dark recesses where I could hide from it all. I think this was also a place my mother would find when she drank enough. A place away and safe from all the terrible things of reality. “You’re nothing. Nothing but a little w***e who is going to hang.”

But eventually reality had to return and I found myself on the ground, my entire body aching. At least now, the throbbing of my feet was minute when compared to my ribs and back. My lip was split and I could feel that my left eye had swollen where a solid punch had landed. What would Elstan say when he came back? Would he even care that Ceolred had disobeyed his orders?

But Elstan didn’t come back. 

“Where is he?” Ceolred muttered when morning light came and his leader was still missing. “He went looking for Thagallians. Did they find him?”

I was glad that we weren’t travelling today. I don’t think I could have managed walking as it was. Ceolred’s eyes settled on me. “f**k. f**k it. You’re not going anywhere in that state. Even if you tried, you wouldn’t make it far,” he reasoned to himself, grabbing his horse. “He would have gone northeast along the road.”

Ceolred mounted his horse and left me in the encampment to go searching for Elstan. He was correct. Without food or water for two days, I was weak. With the beating I had taken the night before, all I could do was wheeze on the forest floor. Sunlight filtered through the verdant boughs of the pines and firs, their discarded needles creating a slightly prickly bed for me. I had always dreamed of traveling before, how ironic that now that I was given that opportunity, it was as a prisoner. In another scenario, I might have thought that this forest was beautiful.

Instead, I remained curled there like a wounded animal, waiting for the buzzards to swoop down and finish the job. A raven’s raucous cry stirred me and I couldn’t help but laugh, in spite of myself. When I opened my eyes, I saw the raven just paces away from me, staring with intelligent black, beady eyes.