But not any more.
Have mercy upon us, Lord, Tova prays silently, sitting with her back against the wall, hardly daring to breathe. As if that will make them go away. God didn’t stop them crossing the Narrow Sea that fateful autumn. He didn’t lend his aid when it was most needed: in the great battle at H?stinges, or in the rebellion that everyone hoped would drive them from this land.
Her heart thumps in her chest so loudly that she fears they’re going to hear.
This is how we die, she thinks.
She wishes this day had never begun. She wishes more than ever that she’d never come.
How long it is until she realises she can no longer hear the men’s footsteps, or their mail or the harnesses on their horses, she isn’t sure. No longer is there laughter, nor murmuring in a foreign tongue. All is still. She exchanges a glance with Merewyn.
Merewyn whispers, ‘Have they gone?’
No, Tova thinks. They can’t have. They’re only listening, waiting for us to make some sound, some movement that will give us away. They know we can’t hide for ever.
And then, on the other side of the thin wattle work, there’s the soft chink-chink of mail. Slowly, deliberately, one pace at a time, a shadow breaks the tiny moonbeams that shine through the cracks. Tova can’t breathe, can’t do anything but watch as the shadow passes gradually along the wall, towards the door.
It halts. Darkness fills the finger’s breadth between the door and the jamb. The small sliver of light is blotted out. He knows. He’s noticed the door standing ajar, and he knows!
Make it quick, she thinks as the door flies open.
One moment she’s huddled on the floor by the logs, shrinking away from the giant towering above her, the next his rough hands are upon her, dragging her to her feet. Shrieking, she flails wildly with fists and feet, trying to escape his grasp and his hot, putrid breath.
Eyes and groin, she thinks. Eyes and groin.
She lashes out towards his face, but his fingers clamp about her wrist before she can land the blow. He twists her arm behind her back as easily as he might bend a withy, and plants his other hand firmly on her shoulder. Merewyn flings herself at him, clutching at his arm, but he brushes her aside before shoving Tova out the door faster than her feet can carry her. She falls forward, landing awkwardly on her shoulder.
A chorus of cheers. She scrambles on to her back and sees the rest of them, and then the giant emerges from the woodshed, ducking beneath the lintel, all six feet of him and more. The one she took for their leader. Dark, hard eyes gaze out from beneath his helmet rim, probing her, stripping her to her bare skin. She’s seen that look before.
Grinning like a fisherman pleased with his day’s catch, he advances. She edges away, crab-wise. One of her shoes has slipped off. Her skirts are bunched up around her thighs. Her palms and one of her knees are stinging.
Nowhere to go. The giant and two of his friends encircle her. Hungry looks in their eyes. One more still in the saddle, but that only makes four. Then she sees the fifth, squat and bearded, dragging Merewyn backwards from the woodshed, his arm around her neck and shoulders.
‘Please,’ Tova says, though it’s probably in vain. Even if they understand, what chance they’ll listen?
Merewyn’s captor gives a yell as he shakes his wrist free from between her teeth. She twists away but doesn’t get far before his other hand catches hold of her arm. He spins her to face him, then slaps her across the cheek and pushes her into the middle of the circle; she wails as she slips on the mud. Eyes wide, arms outstretched, she tumbles towards Tova, who’s still trying to back away when her lady collapses on top of her.
Tangle of limbs, of clothes, of hair. The breath is knocked from Tova’s chest as the heel of Merewyn’s hand slams into her ribs. As they try to separate themselves, Tova finds her face somehow caught in her lady’s cloak. She can’t see, but she can hear the howls of laughter ringing out. She feel tears welling, like a cauldron about to boil over.
And then it happens. A sound like nothing Tova has ever heard before. A sharp whistle, like the very air is being torn apart.