*****
Krista, completely out of breath, stormed into the humble one room shack at the outskirts of the village. Mrs. Tolok was breathing heavily 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 the 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.”
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.
Initially she had screamed 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 was the cause of the commotion. 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, 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, 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 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 from 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.
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