The main ingredient for the ale was derived from the bark of a rare tree that grew in great abundance in the forest that surrounded the little village. The same forest that was utilized for its rare trees was also rich in herbs. The town hadn’t had a healer in years due to the poor nature of the populace and they had received her with open arms of invitation once it became clear that she knew what she was doing. They had given her the shop she worked in free of charge and her position in the town had only risen with every grateful new patient she had helped to overcome whatever malady they had come to her with. Life was good.
The mood of the townspeople had brightened considerably with the news of the Zoarinian Empire’s great loss in the Valley Lands. Everyone breathed easier now that the domination of the entire world by the Zoarinians had been thwarted, but they talked about it quietly. The village of Lornas lay nestled in the Hills of Ernor directly above the menacing Zoarinian Empire that lay to the south. It was not good to speak to loudly in jubilation over their loss for obvious reasons.
The Zoarinians may have lost a fleet and a great army, but they were still a powerful force to be reckoned with. Many stories had filtered down about the great battle that had taken place in the north. Krista tried not to listen to the stories, but it was impossible not to. Roric had seemingly one the day single handily if the exaggerated stories were to be believed. While there had to be some exaggeration going on she did not doubt that he had played a major role.
She hoped that he had found peace along with the praise that greeted his name everywhere it was mentioned. Surely he had everything he could possibly want after such a victory? Her thoughts were interrupted as a frantic knock sounded out on her door. She opened the door and saw no one at first, but then looking down she saw little Talus Tolok standing on her door mat wringing his hands together as he bit his lip hard.
Krista kneeled down placing her hands on the boy’s thin shoulders, “What is it Talus? What’s wrong? Is it your mother?”
“Yes ma’am! She’s in an awful amount of pain! The midwife wanted to know if you could come and help her with your stuff. There’s lotsa blood and she won’t stop screaming. I’m scared!”
“Give me a moment to gather some stuff and I’ll be over!” Krista straightened and turned to hurry back into her shop, but Talus’s tugging hand on her dress stopped her.
“Father said to tell ya that we can’t pay anything and that we’d understand if ya can’t come on account of us already owing ya.”
“Sush now don’t be silly! I’ll be there as quick as I can! Now you run ahead and tell them that I’ll be their soon!”
The little boy’s face brightened like he had been given the sun and he raced off toward the even poorer section of the village. Krista grabbed a bag and threw everything she might need and some she might not into it.
It was better to have it than to not have it, if it became needed later. She rushed out the shop door with the bag not even bothering to stop and lock the door. She raced down the muddy street ducking in and around people and horse drawn carts that were in her way.
She didn’t see the rough looking man with the eye patch over one eye standing in the door of the town’s only tavern. He turned and said something to a companion further inside the tavern, who came to the door and stared after Krista’s retreating form.
Krista completely out of breath stormed into the humble one room shack at the outskirts of the village. Mrs. Tolok was breathing heavy and lying on the only bed in the room. Mrs. Lantas the town’s only midwife looked up relieved to see Krista.
“Oh good you’re here Krista! She’s not doing well and she isn’t dilated enough to push yet! Do you have anything that can help?”
Krista nodded as she rolled up her sleeves and approached the bed.
Little Talus hadn’t been wrong about the blood. Krista kept her face serene and confident as she looked down at Mrs. Tolok’s weary and fearful face.
“Relax Tarsa we’ll have that little baby in your arms before the sun sets.”
“The blood?” Mrs. Tolok responded with in question as her face reflected her worry.
“Taken care of Tarsa. Now you lay back and relax because the sooner you relax the sooner you’ll be holding your baby.”
Krista turned to a relieved looking midwife, “Is there any hot water? I need it for seeping some of the herbs in.”
Three hours later a new life came into the world.
Krista held the squalling little boy in her arms for a moment. She cooed and rocked the baby gently as she cleaned him off with a soft towel. She stepped forward and laid him in Mrs. Tolok’s arms as Mrs. Lantas helped her sit up a little.
The picture of the mother with her suckling child caused an ache to well up in the pit of Krista’s stomach that wouldn’t go away. She shoved her desires aside though and started collecting her herbs and tinctures. With one last glimpse at the mother completely engrossed in the new life that wriggled and cried in her arms Krista smiled and went out the door closing it behind her softly.
Mr. Tolok, a little wiry form of a man stepped forward out of the shadows and held out a little basket full of brown eggs. Krista just held up her hand and kept walking up the dirty path to the main street. As she passed by the tavern a rough hand shot out and caught her by the upper arm and dragged her toward the horse pen at the upper end of the town.
She had screamed initially out of surprise at the rough hold on her arm, which had caused her to drop her bag, but she started to fight when her other arm was seized by a second man. There was little she could do to resist the men who were quickly dragging her up the street so she screamed for help.
Shopkeepers and townspeople alike rushed out into the street to see what the cause of the commotion was. A chattering throng of people formed. Krista had only been in the town for a short time, but she had already left a favorable impression on almost everyone. The two men dragging her were forced to a halt by the congested crowd of people.
“What is the meaning of this?” Bellowed out the burly form of the butcher, as he waved a knife in the air.
One of her captors growled out, “Step aside and let us pass if you know what’s good for you!”
“I will not! What is it you do with our herbalist?” Replied the angry butcher.
Her captors responded, “She’s no herbalist! She’s nothing but an escaped slave and we’re taking her back for the reward on her head. Now stand aside!”
Both men drew their swords and the crowd moved backward slightly.
“Is this true Krista?” The butcher asked.
Tears in her eyes Krista nodded, “I was a slave, but I’m not any longer! My master is dead and he gave me my freedom and some money to make my own way. I swear it to you!”
The half truth came easily to her lips in her desperation. Her captors moved forward and the crowd hesitantly parted before them. What were they doing?
“Wait you can’t let them take me! I’m one of you! I’ve treated your sick! Mr. Solat if it hadn’t been for my medicine your son would have died! You can’t let these men take me!” Krista twisted her neck around to look back at the townspeople, imploringly begging for them to come to her aid, but they stayed where they were as the two men drug her to where their horses were tied up.
They pulled another horse from the coral and threw her across it and tied her hands to her feet beneath the horse, as she screamed and pleaded to the townspeople to help her. But the townspeople remained standing as they were their faces downcast as one by one members of the crowd slipped away from the scene.
The two men mounted their horses and loped out of the town tugging Krista’s horse along after them. After several miles the two men stopped and one came back and cut the rope binding Krista’s hands to her feet.
She was picked off the horse and thrown roughly to the ground onto her face. Everything hurt from the rough ride.
She started to push up weakly from the ground when a voice fro
m her past spoke, “Well, well, what do we have here but old scarface herself!”
Krista’s insides clenched as she looked up through the tangles of her hair and saw the fat corpulent form of Esmeralda standing before her, who had only grown uglier with age.
“You’ve only gotten prettier with age honey. You brought me big money once and I’ll bet you’ll bring me even bigger money this time! Throw her in the wagon boys, but be gentle! She’s a high priced sex slave if you ever saw one.”
One of the men near Krista groped one cheek of her bottom cruelly, but let go at Esmeralda’s shriek.
“Let go! Look is all you can do, you bunch of mangy cutthroats. She’s arriving at the slave market in Capeacal unspoiled!”
Krista was led to a wagon with a cage on the back of it and pushed inside it. The door slammed shut behind her.
“Pack up boys! The gods of fortune have been kind to us today!” Esmerelda said gleefully.
Krista fell to the straw floor of the cage and quivered as her body was wracked with sobs that didn’t seem to end. An older woman, who was already in the cage leaned down and pulled Krista’s head up into her lap and brushed her fingers through the wild tangle of curls trying to comfort as best as she could a prisoner of the same fate as her own.
Krista leaned up against the side of the small room she was locked in. She was the only one in the room, for which she was grateful. They had reached the city in the late afternoon and it wasn’t long after that she had been separated from the rest of the women in the wagon and sent up to this upper room of the slave market building.
All her tears gone she sat in complete apathy of emotion. What did it matter anymore anyway? No matter what she did nor how hard she tried she couldn’t escape the curse of her birth. She was a slave and no matter what she did to wipe the ugly stain of her life’s history out it just came back to plague her again and again.
The illusive dream of gaining her freedom had been crushed once again. There really was no point in searching after freedom anymore, in fact what was the point to even living? Her hand closed over the little piece of broken pottery that she had found earlier in her cell and she brought the little piece of pottery up to her face and contemplated it more closely.
The shard of pottery had one sharp edge. It was sharp enough to do the job. She bit her lip as she brought it up and held it to her wrist. Scared by the decision she had made, but seeing no other way out, she glanced up.
“If you’re up there God I’m sorry, but I just can’t take it anymore! I know what’s going to happen tomorrow and I would rather die than experience anymore of what this life has to offer me!”
She looked down at her hand and made to pull the pottery across her wrist, but her hand wouldn’t move. She tried again and it still wouldn’t move. She could move her hand back from her wrist, but when it was against her wrist it wouldn’t move!
She gritted her teeth and strained with everything she had but her hand wouldn’t move. Uttering a cry of sheer frustration and anger she drew the piece of pottery back and hurled it against the opposite wall of the room.
It shattered into dozens of tiny little pieces. As the pieces fell several dusted down onto the robe of the figure of a man sitting against the wall across from her. The man calmly reached up and brushed the fragments of baked clay off of his shoulder. Krista gasped and flattened herself back against the wall.
“Who are you?” She whispered out in fear.
“A messenger from the Creator of all life.”
Krista choked out, “God?”
The figure nodded solemnly and real fear fell upon Krista, as she realized that the Creator had seen what she had been trying to do.
Was this messenger going to kill her for what she had tried to do? The absurdity of the situation, given that had just been what she had been trying to do caused her to almost laugh out hysterically, but she held it in at the last second.
The messenger across from her smiled. It was a nice smile, surely he wasn’t about to kill her she thought to herself.
“Peace Krista. I have not been sent to cause you harm, but rather to bear you good tidings.”
Good tidings? She was about to be sold as a slave for the third time in her life. What could possibly be good about anything that could come of her current situation? The messenger across from her had claimed to have been sent by the Creator and he had appeared out of nowhere, which testified to a higher power at play within the room than could be faked.
It would be unwise to doubt what he was saying no matter how unbelievable it seemed, because she’d already seen the unbelievable take place before. She remembered full well what had happened in the arena at Santarus.
She decided to test out the waters a bit, “Good tidings?”
“Yes, tomorrow you will be set free from the bondage that has oppressed you your whole life.”
“Set free?” Krista asked, as tears flowed down her cheeks.
She wanted to ask, ‘Are you sure?’ but that wasn’t the thing to say. But not being able to put off confirming what he had just said at least a little she asked, “Really?”
She was going to make the messenger angry she just knew it, but all he did was smile warmly again at her and nod his head in confirmation.
Not being able to help it she asked, “Why?”
“Don’t you want to be free Krista? Haven’t you prayed for this to happen?”
“Yes, but I didn’t think the Creator was listening to me.”
“The Creator is always listening Krista. He has never ceased from caring for your plight. He mourns every tear that’s falling off your face even now.”
Krista couldn’t take anymore, as sudden belief in the Creator as never before coursed through her. She fell forward onto her face and cried completely overcome by what was happening.
The Creator had heard her cry for help. The Creator was going to set her free. The Creator loved even a slave like her enough to send an angel with a message of promise just for her.
“Thank You! Thank You!” Krista said over and over, as she felt faith come into her and change her as it washed away the layers of bitterness from her life.
She saw her life, as if through a fast moving lens and as bad as it had been, now all she could see was how she had been kept all along the way by a Divine hand and how it had never been as bad as it could have been.
“I love you God!” Krista whispered against the floor, as she felt peace begin to take away all of her fears.
“Come here dear one.” The messenger said, as he pulled her up to lean against him putting an arm around her consolingly.
Gradually she calmed down and the messenger asked, “Ready for tomorrow?”
“Yes!” Krista said firmly.
“Good! Now I must leave you, but do not fear as the message I have been sent to deliver to you will even so come to pass.”
The messenger rose up off the floor and headed toward the door.
“Wait! You haven’t told me what will happen tomorrow!” Krista cried out half starting to her feet to follow after the messenger.
He turned towards her, “Only have faith and you will see all that the Creator has said will come to pass. You will have freedom and joy added to you tomorrow in over flowing abundance.”
The angel turned once more and walked through the door of the cell. Krista got up shakily to her feet and moved to the door and touched it. The door was very real and yet the messenger had simply walked through it!
She went back to where she had been sitting and drawing her knees up she hugged them to herself as her mind relived everything the messenger had said over and over again. Tomorrow she would be free.
Not only free, but full of joy too. She could never have asked for more and she closed her eyes in contented peace and rested in anticipation of the future to come.
The rosy red color wouldn’t leave her cheeks, as Krista viewed herself in the mirror of the prep room. Several older
women had just finished preparing her for presentation to the buyers. Soon she would be sent to the stage and she felt her resolve of faith falter some at the prospect of having to face what was to come. She had worn skimpy outfits before when she had been in service to Sebastian, but nothing like this!
A tiny bit of green linen supported her breasts, but there was more exposed than was covered! She was all but naked except for a slip of silk fabric that hung across the front of her thighs and a slip of fabric behind her that failed to completely cover her bottom.
Her hips and the sides of her cheeks were clearly visible. She knew she was regarded as a beautiful woman, but this outfit left little to be discovered or imagined at. It was humiliating!
Why did she have to go through this further humiliation before she could be free? She bit her lip and tried to hold on to the hope that the messenger’s words had brought her, but it was hard and she fought against the tears that threatened to fall. She would not show any weakness to the mongering crowd she could hear jabbering on in the market room beyond the thin walls of the room. The door of the room opened, they had come for her.
The boards of the stage that her bare feet traveled across had been worn smooth by the countless poor souls who had been led across them before her. Stillness had fallen over the formerly mad atmosphere of the place.
The stage was well lit in the otherwise seedy and rundown building. She was led to the center of the stage and the iron anklet around her left ankle was securely fastened to a ring set into the floor of the stage. She was alone on the stage now except for the auctioneer off to her left.
A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) Page 37
