“But there are more willing, right? In the other shacks?”
Avery shrugged. “A fair few more. But not even a tenth of our total number.”
Two women and a girl sitting on either side of us looked over uncomfortably. They tried to back away as best they could, but their space was limited. Avery shot each of them a look. “Cower and hide, like you always do! It won’t change anything!”
The few whispers and moans in the room stopped. Avery stood, heated, looking down on all of the women gathered.
“You heard me,” she said, her voice quiet, but her tone strong. “We’re the men’s slaves and all of you—every last one of you—is the reason why the men think they own us.”
“Don’t give us trouble,” croaked an older woman from across the room. “Just let us have peace.”
It was my turn to jump upward. “You don’t have peace!” Avery and the women in the corners seemed pleasantly surprised. The two who had been sitting stood to join us.
“I’ve come to help you!” I looked at some of the nearest faces, felt the pain and fear radiating from their eyes. “You called for me, in your hearts, I know it. You’ve suffered. Where I come from, it’s the women who bring the men to their knees! It’s the women who give the orders! Women don’t have the power to heal, just the same as the women here—but we have something more powerful than that. We have a choice! And you have a choice! You can choose to be miserable, to give your daughters the same shoddy echo of a life that you enjoy, to labor and birth and die, or you can choose to fight!” I was lifting some of the sentiment from the lord’s blessing. But what more suitable time was there than this?
The women gasped. Some hid their faces. The women standing in the corners gave a delighted cry, raising their fists into the air.
The euphoria spreading throughout my body came crashing to a halt.
“What is going on here, women?”
The sitting women screamed or buried their faces deeper into each other’s bosoms. Those in the corners slunk back down to the ground. I faced the entryway and saw Goncalo. Behind him stood a few more men, their hands locked tightly onto a number of bedraggled women.
Avery cut in front of me and bowed, immediately lowering her head to the ground. “Just trying to liven spirits with a few stories, sir.”
Goncalo scoffed. “No need to sharpen dull minds with stories in the commune, woman.” He grunted and waved his hand forward. The other men pushed the women they were holding forward into the shack and let them go. Instead of catching one another, they tripped and fell and screamed, trying in vain to move out of each other’s way.
“His Lordship is done with these,” spoke Goncalo.
The men started moving about the commune, not caring if they stepped on a hand, foot, or leg. They shoved women over, grabbing their faces, slapping through their clothing at chests and backsides. Some molested women were ripped upward into the men’s grasps.
Avery tensed in front of me. She crouched down and stuck her hands out behind her, grabbing at my bodice and trying to pull me down with her. I followed, but I hadn’t yet reached the ground when Goncalo spoke.
“You cut your hair?” He spat. “How unseemly. But you won’t hide that way.” I dared to lift my head slightly and saw he was pointing directly at me. “That one’s coming with us,” he said.
Avery rolled around to face me, pretending she was falling forward against me in the ruckus of the men moving about the shack.
“Find Ailill,” she whispered.
“Are you coming?” I asked.
“No, they can’t take me to the lord,” she replied. “He won’t speak—Ailill. But find him.”
Before I could ask why, two sets of hands seized me and dragged me across cowering women and out into the night.
I recognized the black carriages straight away. However, the black horses that pulled them shook their tails and stomped their feet, unlike the ghastly horses I had seen before. I thought that we would all be shoved inside the carriages as I’d always been, but the men instead dragged us to the back of the last carriage in the procession and bound our hands together before hooking the rope on the hitch. Then they piled into and on top of the carriages and cracked a whip. The horses trotted away. We stumbled after them.
Some of the women fell straight away.
“Keep up!” I whisper-shouted. “Keep up or the pain will be worse!”
The fallen women grimaced and pushed themselves up.