buy food and none of them seemed welcome.
The food had lasted her only the first two days. On the third night, she’d stolen bread from a cottage window where it had been left on the sill to cool. She’d almost been caught. A man stumbling out of the local inn, barely able to walk a straight line, had seen her swipe the round loaf and took chase. Quicker on her feet, she’d outrun him, only looking back once when she’d heard him shout out in pain as he’d tripped over a tree root. His slurred curses let her know that he’d live, so she’d not stopped.
The next night she’d not been as lucky at finding anything to eat. So, the following evening she’d joined the gathering outside the gates of a castle and waited for the food scraps that would be tossed their way. She’d managed to nab a sodden, hard bread trencher and a couple of pieces of half-eaten fruit, food that would seem like gifts from heaven to her growling stomach.
But she recognised the half-dead stare of hunger from a bedraggled child at her side. It had been a part of her own childhood. Without having to think twice, she placed over half of the trencher, along with the fruit, in the small, shaking hands.
Thus had become her life—a woman alone, on the run, hiding from all who might seek to harm her, or worse, return her to her father. She’d been sick from hunger and exhausted from her non-stop march south. At times, she’d considered giving up her quest for escape. But then an image of the man waiting to become her husband flashed through her mind, lending her enough strength to put one foot in front of the other.
To her relief, she’d managed, for the most part, to avoid others by keeping off the main roads and staying out of town. But one afternoon, while she’d been leaning against a tree bemoaning her fate, an arrow had whizzed right past her nose to pierce the tree trunk, quivering less than a finger’s width away.
She’d run wildly through a forest to a narrow, rutted road and kept running until she’d fallen to her knees. Exhausted she’d crawled from the road to hide beneath piles of leaves and underbrush. The sun had been high in the sky when she’d finally woken to find herself hungrier and more tired than she’d been the evening before.
She’d happened into a good-sized town and quickly found the common well in the centre. That was where Hannah had found her—gulping water from the bucket while sobbing like a spineless fool.
The good lady had coaxed the story from her—it hadn’t been hard considering her mind was as numb as her body—and she had brought her here, to the brothel above the town’s inn where Hannah and a few other women made their living.
So far nobody had tried to talk or force her into plying the same trade. They’d simply given her the use of one of their rented rooms while two of them shared another and brought her food and drink.
Avelyn was more than grateful for their help in her time of need and vowed to herself that she would find a way to repay them some day soon.
Movement in the street below caught her attention. Three men she’d not seen before walked towards the inn, their booted feet splashing muddy water from the puddles on to the hems of their long, hooded mantles.
The tallest of the three looked up as if he knew she watched. Avelyn leaned away from the window, hiding from his searching gaze. Something about him and his companions sent worry skipping along her spine. She shivered as the apprehension settled cold in her belly.
A soft, quick knock on her door drew her away from her troublesome cares. Recognising Hannah’s gentle tap, Avelyn rose to cross the small room and open the door to invite her newfound friend inside.
The boisterous sounds from the main room below had been loud, but they grew impossibly louder when she pulled open the door. She’d grown accustomed to the jovial laughter and curses of drunken men, but tonight the tone held a tension-filled undercurrent that had not been present before.
She motioned Hannah inside and quickly closed the door against the troubling voices. From the concerned look on her friend’s face, she, too, felt the tense heaviness in the air. ‘What is wrong?’
With a roll of her eyes, Hannah headed towards the bed. ‘Let us sit.’
Avelyn closed the door, then joined the other woman. The foreboding chill from seeing the strangers still lingered and now turned to icy cold pricks of warning with each step she’d taken.
Again, she asked, ‘What is wrong?’
Hannah sighed as she looked around the room before saying, ‘You know that Mabel has been unable to be here the last three nights.’
‘Yes. She’s been at home with a sick child.’ Avelyn gasped. ‘Did something happen?’
‘No. No, the child is getting better. But Edward, a favoured customer of Mabel’s, is below and he demands a woman. If it can’t be Mabel, it must be someone who looks like her.’
Avelyn frowned. He wanted a whore, what did her looks matter? ‘What difference does the woman’s looks make to him?’
Hannah patted her arm. ‘Not all men come to us for pleasures of the flesh. Some require nothing more than simple human contact, a hug, a kind word, a caress. This man is old and he lost his wife two years ago. Apparently, she had black hair and a slim body in her youth.’
Avelyn closed her eyes. Since the others had often remarked that she and Mabel could be sisters, she knew why Hannah had come to her. But to be certain, she looked at the woman and said, ‘What are you asking of me?’
‘You are not daft. You know what I’m asking you. I need you to take Mabel’s place this night.’ Before Avelyn could protest, Hannah quickly added, ‘The man is unable to perform, so it is not as if you would need to do anything more than let him hold you.’
‘Hold me?’ There had to be more to it than that.
‘Well, he’d hold you through the night, in bed, unclothed. He will call you Agnes and might require a kiss or two and sometimes he likes to fumble with Mabel’s breasts, but I swear that is all.’
That was all? Avelyn blinked. Other than a quick, chaste peck on the cheek, she’d never been kissed by a man before. And she certainly had never let a man see, let alone touch, her naked flesh. What seemed nothing to Hannah was far more than what Avelyn had ever done, or wanted to do, with a man not her husband.
Hannah broke the lengthening silence. ‘Nobody ever need know and for very little more than your companionship, he will give you enough coins to compensate for what we’ve provided you.’
The reckoning Avelyn feared might one day come had arrived. She shouldn’t have let Hannah convince her to stay until the rain ceased, no matter the logic behind the woman’s reasoning.
Now she was faced with paying off a debt and had no means to do so except by surrendering her grandmother’s ring, or doing as Hannah requested. She couldn’t give up the ring—it was all she had left from her mother.
Avelyn wanted to cry at her lack of options, but forced the useless tears back. As Hannah had said, no one would ever know. As long as even a slender thread of luck remained on her side, she would soon be gone from here—maybe in the morning, if it stopped raining. She could then rush on to Normandy or France and start a new life where nobody knew who she was, or about this night, or that she’d even stayed in this place.
Except, no matter where she ran, one person would know—she would know and, somehow, she would have to learn how to live with her shame.
She nodded her agreement, adding, ‘If he tries anything other than what you have stated, I will gut him.’
Hannah laughed and patted her arm. ‘Rest assured that will not be necessary.’
* * *
From his seat in the far corner of the establishment, Elrik watched and waited for the right moment. Two of his men were situated in different corners of the main room, doing the same as he—listening to the conversations of the others.
Everyone in town seemed to