by S E Zbasnik
The pain in her gut was radiating deeper, knotting around her intestines as if she guzzled down bad water. Maybe that was it; no way Ania’s jab should hurt that bad. Fishing her pants off fast, Hayley squatted safely in the limited privacy of nature, her bladder happy to free itself. It was hard to believe she managed to trick the knight-captain. Trick two of them, in fact, into thinking she was really a squire. Just last a few more weeks, month at the most, then she could be out of here before Christmas.
Hayley moved to stand, a hand gripping her hose, when her eyes darted down. A stain the color of bloody rust coated the apex of her green hose. Oh god.
Ripping a few leaves free of the bush, Hayley gave them a quick swipe right over herself. Another deep rumble of twisting pain rolled through her guts as she stared at blood coating the leaves. Her blood.
What did Ania’s blow do to her?
Did it break something?
Was she dying?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Blood.
Maybe enough to coat three of her fingers, but the longer Hayley stared the more she saw a continual gush of crimson. Her twinging guts now screamed in agony, her mind certain that somehow all of that viscera inside of her was ripped apart. Torn to shreds, with blood popping through the rips in her intestines and stinking up the floor.
She staggered to her legs, air guzzling in bursts as she stared around. The estate was quiet, Ania having vanished. But, how would a random servant girl help? Who could Hayley go to? Who could save her from dying? Far as she knew, no saints of mercy lived here.
Would anyone even care?
“Squire?” Gavin’s voice rang out from the little house. He sounded content, almost happy, blissfully unaware that his little squire was about to drop dead at his feet.
Uncertain what to do, Hayley walked stiff-legged towards her knight. She had to bandy her gait to keep the wet plop of insides from oozing across her thighs. It wasn’t entirely helping, as the chilled mess slopped to the right.
“Ah, Hayley,” Gavin began before his eyes swooped down her deathly pale face, her stricken grimace, and her trembling knees. “Is something wrong?” he gasped, seeming to shrink closer to her.
Hayley turned away, tears of fear welling in her eyes. “I…I’m hurt,” she stuttered out, still in shock.
“Hurt?” He took a knee, trying to peer directly into her eyes, but she couldn’t meet him. “Hurt how?”
Biting on her lip, Hayley flashed her bloody palm at him and Gavin’s eyes bulged. It’d have made her laugh, the idea of a big, brave Knight scared of a little blood, but she was too terrified. He cupped the back of her palm with his hands, seeming to inspect it for a cut. “Where are you injured?”
“Blood, it all…” She pointed towards her whole lower parts by way of explanation when a flush burned on her ice cold cheeks. That stuff wasn’t supposed to be talked about to others, but how else could she explain?
“From your…” Gavin began, his eyebrows knit in confusion, when he suddenly leaned far back. “Oh,” he spat out quick, then leaped to his feet. A hand dug around the back of his neck, then another, both seeming to try and rend away the tension growing thicker.
“Ooohhh,” he repeated as if that in any way helped.
“Am I dying?” she sputtered, unable to shake away the tears in her voice.
“What?” The man who looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but near the dead Squire whipped his blushing face to her. “No, no you’re not… You don’t know about, it’s an, um. I’m not really the person to explain it. Not having the various, this.” He snapped his fingers a few times, before gesturing towards the little house. “The knight-captain, she can…she’ll help.”
He practically scampered away as if Hayley had the plague. Nodding dumbly, her bloody hand extended as if it was cursed, she followed after him. Gavin beat her inside, Hayley walking in to find him whispering to Erin. While he appeared like his skin was going to crawl off his bones, she looked softer. Almost approachable as she seemed to reach an understanding of what was going on.
“Squire,” the knight-captain said, then her commanding tone lightened, “Hayley, come and have a seat.”
Hayley sniffled against the snot building from her tears. She moved to wipe it away but flinched at the blood. Before he vanished out the door, her knight paused and lay a tattered towel in her fingers. Gavin didn’t say anything, only nodded and closed the door behind.
“Come on, it’s all right,” Erin continued. The knight-captain lost a damn near foot of imposing presence as she walked a circle around a chair. Sliding across the floor, Hayley perched right on the edge. Pain pounded between her ears, the headache of fearing death knocking about in her brains.
The knight-captain dropped to a knee just like Gavin, her onyx eyes melting as she stared up the sniveling brat. “You’re not dying,” Erin said and Hayley whipped her head up.
“How do you know?” She wanted to hear that, wanted to believe it, but lying seemed just as likely. Lull Hayley into a false sense of security so she didn’t make a fuss until it was all over.
Erin didn’t thunder away. She said softly, “It’s your courses starting.”
“My what?” Hayley’s face crinkled. Courses? Like what a horse runs? Was this from her riding on one of those monsters? Finn deserved an entire pine tree shoved up there!
“You don’t know about…?” Erin paused, her head dipping as she started again, “Did your mother never tell you about it?”
Hayley sneered deep, her fingers biting into the flesh of each other as she clasped her hands together.
“No other female relatives? A friend…? No, I suppose it is asking a lot.”
What was she going on about? The snot and tears slowed, Hayley’s body rigid as she glared hard at the woman not making any sense.
“Squire, you are becoming a woman,” Erin said as if it should be some big celebration.
“By bleeding?” That was the biggest load she’d heard.
“Yes, and it’s perfectly normal.”
Blood was leaking out of her, and they were all acting as if it was expected, normal, boring. Not all of them. Gavin seemed to be about to combust on the spot at the thought. This had to be an act, some incredibly stupid lie.
Erin shifted on her knees, “How does your stomach feel?”
Rubbing her palm over the lower part, Hayley spat out, “Hurts.”
“Like a snake’s wrapped around your innards?”
Hayley’s eyes opened wide and she bobbed her head. Exactly like that.
“When a girl reaches the state of becoming a woman, her courses begin. There is pain and blood. To combat the blood most use…” Erin staggered up, searching through a bag left sitting on the floor. She hefted out a towel wrapped around something bowl-shaped. Undoing the knot, the knight exposed three discolored rags all twisted and folded into long rectangles, a tan sponge, and a small water basin.
“This is a kit. You’ll want to make one for yourself. In the meantime, here,” she passed to Hayley one of the rectangle rags with strings wrapped around the sides. “A basin for washing up, two or three changes of wrappings, and — if you have little choice — a sponge for the direst of circumstances.”
“What do I do with this?” Hayley flailed the rag around, one of the strings coming undone. “What do I do with any of that?”
“It keeps you clean,” Erin said. Picking up one of hers, she unrolled the bundle to reveal how to lace it to one’s thighs and stomach. “Though, you have to wash it after each use. This is why you need three or four, to wear one as the others dry.”
Hayley clung tighter to her new leash, her fingers denting deep into the linen.
“Make up your own pack, especially to carry with you on missions. It may take you some time to get the hang of it, but eventually it will become old hat,” Erin smiled sympathetically at her as if it was so simple.
Her own pack? Changing the damn things so often she wouldn’t even notice the extra work? “H
ow long does this last?” Hayley sputtered, her nose wrinkling in disgust at the idea.
“Depends upon the person, could be anywhere from three to seven days.”
“Oh,” Hayley brightened immensely. The way Erin was talking she feared it’d take months before this ended. “I don’t see why I’d need my own kit if it’ll clear up in a week. Just have to…”
Her thoughts leapt off a cliff at the slow blink rising in the knight-captain’s eyes. “This will occur every month until you are an elder.”
“WHAT?!”
“For three to seven days out of every month, you shall bleed. It is a sign of health,” Erin said as if this was a good thing. As if Hayley should be excited about it.
“No, no, nonono, no. No!” Hayley tried to hurl the rag back at Erin, but the woman remained steadfast. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to deal with that. Take it back. Shut it off!”
Erin sighed. “I wish it were that simple, but you are growing up. This is a sign of adulthood.”
Hayley’s teeth clattered back and forth trying to grind through this new hell before her. Every week out of a month her insides would liquify and squirt out. Plop out. Whatever. There’d be a big mess that she had to clean up. Because what was more work for her, after all?
Closing her eyes tight, Hayley asked, “What about boys?”
The only adult in the room straightened hard. “What of them?”
“Do they have to-to go through all of this?”
Erin sighed in relief. “Ah, that is…” She shook away the sudden burst of rapture to sigh, “No, they do not.”
“So, one week out of every month I have a mess in my pants, my insides feel like someone took a hot poker to them, and…and they just walk around all perfectly fine?!”
Something in her plea for the world to be fair just once must have struck a chord with Erin, as the cold, indifferent knight reached over to wrap a comforting arm around Hayley. She didn’t want to burrow into the half-hug, Hayley’s brain burning in anger, but she was exhausted. And she couldn’t remember the last time anyone hugged her, even at arm’s length.
“I am sorry, but you will be expected to perform your duties the same, regardless of your situation during the month.”
“Big surprise,” Hayley rolled her eyes. Why start being easy now?
“It will get better, you will find a rhythm to it. If the pain is too much, take a few river rocks and place them by the fire. Once they’re heated, wrap them in a towel and put that over your abdomen.”
Hayley blinked through the mist rampaging over her brain, her palm digging hard into her roiling gut. “That helps?”
“It does for me,” Erin said with a tip of her head. “Try and record your dates where they fall in the month. It will help you to predict when the next shall begin.”
So that was to be it, her life one week out of each month. Blood, pain, calendars, calculations, and her only relief was scorching rocks and wadded up linen. She wanted to scream, not at Erin but the world. At how she wanted it turned off, how she wanted to not ever deal with it, any of it. How she wanted to be normal.
But that was normal, apparently. Hayley tried to think through all the women she knew or met. Each of them was dripping blood, or hobbled over in this gut-boiling pain and she had no idea. It was like stumbling into a secret society on accident and learning half the population was in on it the whole time.
“I should,” Hayley twisted the rag around in her fingers, “figure out how to put this on.” Dumbstruck, she stumbled to her feet, trying to ease her way back to her little room.
“Do you want any help?” Erin asked.
Hayley’s eyes drifted towards her right thigh. Even with her mind on fire, she knew better than to expose herself. “No, no. I need to do it myself. I guess.”
She made it into the stone room, her eyes drifting out of the window to spy Gavin standing watch. He was staring towards the main house, but couldn’t cease twitching in place. Despite not knowing a thing about these courses, Hayley caught on quick that it was something you didn’t tell boys about. They didn’t seem to be built to handle it.
Turning over her shoulder, Hayley mumbled, “Thank you.” It felt weird for her to be grateful to the knight-captain who hated her, but…she’d be in even dire straights without her.
Erin smiled and bowed her head. Hayley was about to head in, when the woman suddenly said, “Oh, and…you must be careful now.”
“Careful?” She had to wear rags and count days, how much more careful was there? Could she not go in water or touch doorknobs now too?
“If you were to lay with a man you would be with child.”
Hayley’s entire face scrunched up in confusion. Lay like…sleep near? In the same bed or just under a roof because, shit, where would she go? The barn? No way Gavin would move to another bed if it was all her mess to deal with. “What? Can I still sleep here?” She jabbed her hand to her little bed over the pantry. “There aren’t any kids around, but…”
Erin snorted and shook her head. “I mean, you are now capable of becoming pregnant.”
“How?!” Hayley shrieked, shrinking away from both her bed and anything that existed. Oh god, what if the doorknob could cause that?
The knight snickered. “I believe that is a discussion we’ll save for another time. Go and get cleaned up. I’ll tell your knight that all is well.”
Hayley nodded, but her brain was churning over what little scraps of information she’d managed over the years. There’d been something about a man peeing inside a woman, but that couldn’t be right. That was just stupid and disgusting. Maybe Ania could help clear it up.
It took Hayley a few tries to get the knots on, the damn rectangle sliding further ahead with each attempt. By the time she slipped a fresh pair of hose on, the ends of the rag both slid up to cover her butt crack and so far ahead she looked like she was smuggling a book down there. Washing her hands, Hayley spotted that Erin left her little courses pack on the table — all neatly tied up for her to use.
She still wanted to rant about how unfair it was, but when Hayley stepped out she came face to chest with Gavin. The man looked spooked, more scared than when they were facing possible battle before the castle. Her resolve crumbled in an instant, Hayley bundling away her secret in the back of her brain.
“Squire,” Gavin tipped his head to her, “are you…well?”
Hayley nodded her head even as she wanted to say no. She may never be well again. But that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, so she played along.
“Good, I’m glad.” He wiped a hand against his forehead as if clearing away the flop sweat. “If you ever need to take some time, to work through the pain or…wash yourself, it’s not a problem.”
Hayley’s jaw dropped wide open. The way Erin spoke of it she’d have to bend and twist her life to try and mash this complication in without anything else changing. “How…how come you’re…?”
Gavin smiled. “I grew up with many, many sisters. Come along. If you’re up to it, I think it’s time we give the rope another go.”
She groaned at the potential humiliation of Erin watching her swing back and forth on the end of the rope but smiled a bit in her gut. Maybe it wasn’t such a taboo after all.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
With the rise of cooler days and longer nights, the Lady Duchess Bernadine Battle-Axe decided to throw herself a fancy feast. It was to celebrate the harvest, oncoming though it may still be — or so Ania kept insisting it was for. Apparently, they’d often have fancy meals at the big manors for no reason. Hayley thought she’d have nothing to do with it, most of her days spent either shaking off goose pecks or swinging around her sword. Though, when some of the cooks appeared, eyeing up the flock for the meal, she happily suggested the biggest assholes.
So long, shin pincher. Hopefully, your pure malfeasance makes you extra delicious.
Everyone was busy the day before the big event. Hayley didn’t catch sight of Ania save a blur of the girl�
�s kerchief as she raced from one end of the estate’s grounds to the other. Finn was a different matter.
When she spotted the bright yellow hose and feathered cap, Hayley nearly fell to the ground in stitches. The fact he had to keep a shit eating grin on the entire time while dressed like some bardic travesty under the delusion it was a sashaying elf made it all the sweeter. Finn would tip his bonny head to the traveler, assist them off their mighty steed, then take the horse back to the stables to be bedded down.
Hayley watched the first three trips, Finn not breaking character for a second. He’d even managed a string of innocuous small talk that the fanciest fancies always ignored. It wasn’t until he paused behind the barn, yanked off the feathered hat, and drew a hand over his forehead that Hayley slipped closer.
Barely voiced cursing plummeted from his thick lips, as Finn patted at the frilled thighs on his trousers. He fished out a flask, fumbling for the cap, when Hayley slowly brought her hands together in a clap.
Finn panicked, nearly tossing the no-doubt stolen alcohol through the air. He must not have noticed her as terror-stricken eyes whipped over to find the sound. Upon recognizing it was just Hayley and not the Mistress of the Manor, or the uptight Knight come to ream him out, Finn sighed.
“Blessed Christ, Hayseed,” he placed a hand to his buttressed chest, “don’t scare a man like that.”
Hayley snorted. “Since when are you a man? In that outfit, you’re like a pastel sheep.”
His eyes darted down the ruffles that reminded her of curly wool, both hands yanking upon the coat in mint green. “I say I look dapper.”
“I say you’re dippy,” she spat back, but her lips couldn’t stop smiling. It was nice to see him put in his place for once instead of her.
“People of your upbringing cannot possibly understand the sophisticated intricacies of fashion,” Finn bit into her, his head held so high the sun glinted off his sweaty forehead.
Hayley’d been poking some fun, but at his snobby assessment, her veins chilled. “What do you mean by that?” she snarled at him, tempted to rip all that golden filagree off and hurl it to the ground.