The men seized me like they were inspecting a mare to be bred. Two of them grabbed me from either side, pulling my blouse. It tore down the center, and the third man inspected me like I was cattle, lifting my breasts and grunting dismissively.
“Skirt,” he said, and before I could wonder at that the others bent me at the waist and threw up my skirts.
I wrenched my neck to see the one on my left, holding my arm, had dark eyes and a dangerous gaze. His companion walked around behind me, grabbed at my ass cheek, his breath warm on my flesh, and I knew he was looking for my birthmark. Then he wetted his fingertips with saliva and tried to rub it away. The friction of his fingers against my skin made my stomach twist and bile seared the back of my throat.
“If I am who they I say I am, raping me will get you killed,” I said desperately, hoping that my status would stay their hands.
The one who had checked my birthmark scoffed, standing and coming to my side, shaking his head as the other two let me fall to the floor.
“Make yourself decent if you can, cunt,” he said, and the three of them left without another word.
In spite of myself, half-naked there on the dungeon floor, I began to cry. All of this, every gaze and every touch, a violation of not only myself but of Bors. I didn’t know how much more of it I could bear. When the door swung open minutes later, I met the sound of the creaking hinges with a stifled sob.
This time, however, it wasn’t yet another set of lusty guards.
Instead, I saw the weaselly minstrel that my father had said was his go-between. Bardo. And beside him stood a woman I had never seen before, but who I recognized at once, both by her manner and her crown.
She was tall and shockingly thin. Her skin looked like it was gauze, pulled over the bones of her face, giving her the look of a living corpse. Though she had once surely been beautiful, her looks had faded, leaving her with a bitter coldness.
Her graying hair was pinned together in elaborate braids, and she wore fresh buds of the Rose of Beatrice gathered into her locks. It was Queen Beatrice herself, I was sure of it, it could be nobody else.
In her eyes, I found neither comfort nor warmth.
“Are you sure it is her?” she asked Bardo.
“That’s the stolen princess, my Queen.”
“Guard,” she snapped. “Come here.”
From behind the door came the guard who had slit his companion’s throat. “Yes, my queen?”
“Who knows she’s here?”
“I don’t think anyone except—”
“I didn’t ask what you think, I asked who knows.”
“Only your own guards, m’lady. I killed the captain. He’s the only one that might have spoken out of turn—”
“Only my guards? Are you certain? Can you be sure nobody else saw you bring her here?”
He hesitated, then lowered his eyes. “No, my queen.”
She huffed, as if this was all too much trouble. “If she’s seen, that will be the end for us all, do you understand that? You should have killed her on sight, and fed her body to the hogs, you incompetent little inbred.”
“But your men, my queen…your captain…he would have killed me for…” He gulped as he stared at her face, and his hand went to his sword. “I’ll do it right away—”
“You’ll do no such thing! Others may be searching for her already. The last thing we need is to be caught here with a body. Bring her to my private quarters, make sure you aren’t noticed and cover her up. Make her look like some peasant… Shouldn’t be hard. We’ll deal with her there.” She turned to leave. “And for God’s sake clean up this mess outside the door.”
“Y—yes, my queen.” In a single stride, he was standing in front of me, roughly grabbing my wrists before he gagged me with a knotted rope. And as the black hangman’s hood went over my head, I was plunged into darkness.
Bors
I already had a splitting headache by the time I entered the city, many hours later than I had intended when I had Sara with me.
I’d woken in the animal trap covered in sticks, leaves and the huge branch that had given me a large knot on my hard head. At first, my memory of what had happened was grainy, but as I climbed from the hole on the large branch, then walked back toward our camp, and saw the bodies, it all came flooding back.
Sara. She’d been taken.
Checking the bodies, I found that I had been right about who they were. Queen’s Guards, excellently trained and rarely surprised. I’d been lucky to take out as many as I had. But the last man I’d killed, the one that had stepped away from the group as they retreated, wasn’t one of them.