Chapter Thirty-Nine
Thirty-Nine
The only thing more mortifying than being kidnapped was being kidnapped by teenaged boys.
Well, some of them might have been five-and-twenty.
When the bag was finally taken off her head, Bridget discovered them all staring down at her as if she were an exotic animal.
They were mostly pasty white or ruddy of complexion, all of them leaning in eagerly to get a good look at her—and then she kicked the nearest one so hard she drew blood, and their expressions twisted into something meaner.
“Bitch,” the kicked one said, and Bridget tried to kick him again, but he’d moved sensibly out of reach.
Right. So they were doing misogyny. Good to know. Bridget felt the ache in her ribs, the sharpness of something that hopefully wasn’t broken, and wondered which of them had kicked her in the stomach when she was lying on the ground in that ravine.
There were some older men too, who came next to look at her and pat the boys on the back.
“Nice work,” one of them said. “Didn’t give you much of a fight, did she?”
“Ha,” said a pockmarked boy in return. “Yeah, right.”
Liar, Bridget thought, but from the way the boys continued to brag to anyone else who entered the room, it was all too clear that this kidnapping had been their pet project. It made Bridget feel so stupid her teeth ached.
That might also have been from the punch to the face; the one that had come before she’d been flat on her back.
She could have felt flattered that five of them had come to take her, if it weren’t for the fact that from the moment her sword left her hand, genuine fear had driven away all her stoicism.
Soldier’s heart, she thought, feeling hers speed up to a violent pace.
She’d been walked through somewhere damp and cramped, her hands tied and a knife at her back, and after what felt like an hour, light had burst through the cracks in the hessian, someone had put her on horseback, and she’d felt the cold wind battering her as she fought for balance and tried to think clearly enough to make a plan.
Luckily, they hadn’t ridden too far. That meant that there was hope.
But sitting in a stranger’s house, tied to a chair, she felt that hope drain away like the blood pooling in her bound hands.
She was in a modest room that contained only a fireplace hung with pots and a table.
Her bindings were annoyingly comprehensive, the knots tight enough that she could barely move an inch.
If she’d been confused at first, it had quickly become very clear exactly why she was there.
“That’s a woman?” one of the boys said, after she’d delivered her second attempt at a kick. “I don’t believe it.”
They asked more things: Who did she think she was? Did she think any man would ever want her, carrying on the way she did? Did she know she was an affront to God? Did the king think they’d ever be stupid enough to let him spit on the laws of nature?
Bridget glared silently back at them, and while at first her silence riled them to more anger, eventually they seemed to find her lack of reaction terribly dull.
One of the older men, brown-haired and bearded, came and delivered to her some sort of homemade sermon, and although Bridget hated him for every moment of it, she came to understand that this thin veneer of Christian sentiment was the only thing currently keeping her from further harm.
How had she missed this? She’d known there was discontent brewing of course, the evidence plain to see in every town and village and hall, those who jeered at the king’s coming or turned their backs; Gwen had mentioned the letters written to the council, containing anger from both lords of the land and ordinary folk, but this had only made Bridget more determined to protect Gwen and her brother from harm.
But she was the one who’d become symbolic of this new era of England; the lady knight on full view to the public at every tourney, riding out into the lists all over the country.
She’d become the unintentional ambassador for change, for upsetting the order of things.
And now she was the one who’d pay the price.
What that price may be was unclear, but Bridget feared the worst. Unfortunately, this time she doubted she was overreacting.
A girl in a stained apron and coif brought Bridget food, a bowl of thin soup of dubious origin. Bridget allowed herself to be spoon-fed, staring at the girl the entire time, until she whispered, “Hey.”
The girl’s eyes widened, but she didn’t speak, just lifted a cup of small ale to Bridget’s lips. Bridget pulled away.
“Please,” she said, her eyes sliding to the girl’s belt, where a dull knife was tucked just out of reach.
The girl opened her mouth to speak, eyes darting to the doorway and back, but then there was a thud from the next room and the sound of men laughing, and she hurriedly put down the ale and rushed out.
Bridget had never really considered herself a damsel, and certainly not one in distress. She’d always been able to save herself—she’d trained to do it her whole life after all, and was the best person for the job.
Things were different this time. She couldn’t undo her bindings.
There really wasn’t anything sharp in this room to repurpose as a weapon, and even if there was, she couldn’t get to it.
Perhaps opportunity would come when the men and boys came back to fetch her—if they planned to take her on elsewhere, and not just leave her to rot in this room forever.
Her imagination ran wild with possible tortures and sticky ends that might await her.
She’d never been afraid like this in her life without finding someone to fight about it.
But with all her options exhausted, she surrendered herself to her helpless reality, watching the light dwindle outside the window as she thought of Gwen, Adah, Neil. Could they possibly think she’d left of her own accord? Abandoned the quest? Taken Sir Hurst’s words to heart, and turned for home?
She’d told Gwen that she didn’t know her at all; now she could only pray that she’d been wrong, and listen for the sound of hoofbeats on the road.