Just Ella

by Annette K. Larsen

  And still they said nothing. Not a threat, not an order, not a curse, and most certainly not a reason for why I was being carried away by three men who didn’t look as though they fit into this nightmare.

  As we rode, I started shivering uncontrollably, not only because of my emotional upheaval, but also because I was freezing. We were riding swiftly, and the wind and rain had no trouble finding their way beneath my cloak.

  It surprised me when, after only a few minutes, we slowed. I had expected them to ride hard for hours, as far away from my home as they could get. I was also surprised when the man seated behind me took the opportunity to wrap my cloak more securely around me. I didn’t understand.

  My captors meandered for a couple of minutes, looking for something. I hoped it would take them a very long time to find it, because the less we moved, the closer I stayed to my home. I wondered if these men were fools or geniuses. Their actions were swift and intentional; they seemed to know exactly what they were doing and how to do it. And yet, as far as I could tell, we hadn’t gone far at all. We were probably close to the northern roads leading to Tride. Were they madmen or masterminds?

  We stopped. Perhaps they really were fools. We had come to a large and conspicuous tree. It was knotted with age and three times as wide as a man.

  A rope hung from one of the high branches.

  I thrashed wildly, trying to throw myself from the horse. I didn’t care about hurting myself. My injuries certainly wouldn’t matter once they had hanged me. But those inescapable arms restrained me once more, and when I started throwing the heels of my sturdy shoes back into his shins, he quickly used his own legs to pin mine to the side of the horse and threw his weight into my back, flattening me against the horse’s neck. I groaned in pain and frustration as I felt his hands working with the rope that bound my hands to the saddle. I twisted my hands underneath me to make it harder for him. Between being tied to a horse and hanging from a tree, I wanted the horse.

  But the reality was that I was entirely at this man’s mercy. The rope loosened and he sat up, his arms like steel bands around my torso. He slid us from the horse and dragged me over to where his two comrades waited by the rope, all the while putting up with the barrage of kicks I inflicted on his lower legs. When we reached the tree, he unceremoniously released me and let me drop to the ground. If I tried to get up and run I would have no success. So instead I curled into a ball and locked my bound hands behind my neck, praying this would somehow deter them in their efforts to put a rope around it. Almost immediately, I felt a tugging on my hands and tensed. But the tugging never intensified, and after a moment it stopped. What was going on? Did they have to make a noose? Something touched the back of my neck and I tried to jerk away, but once again—beyond all reason—the movement wasn’t violent. The gag loosened. I stayed still, waiting for their next move. The silence was making me crazy. They never spoke—not to me, not to each other. Only their footsteps reached my ears.

  Keeping my arms locked around my head, I turned my face so I could see beneath my arm. They were back at the horses, about fifteen paces away. Two were mounted, and the one who seemed to be the leader—the one who had been physically restraining me the whole time—was standing by his mount, holding the reigns and looking back at me. I uncurled and raised my head, prepared to duck back into my protective ball if need be, but they didn’t move.

  It made no sense. What were they doing? I had been their captive for all of ten minutes and now they were leaving?

  I pushed the gag out of my mouth with my tongue and tried to swallow. They just stayed where they were, two on horses looking anxious to leave, the other on foot just staring at me. I pushed myself to a kneeling position and still they didn’t move. I struggled to my feet, never allowing my eyes to leave them as I stumbled back several paces. They were still and silent. I turned my back on them so I could run, but after three steps my hands caught on something and I was jerked to a stop.

  I had been so intent on keeping an eye on my captors that I hadn’t noticed that the rope dangling from the tree was now tied to the cloth binding my wrists.

  It made no sense! I turned back to my captors and saw the leader mounting his horse.

  “Why am I here?” The question escaped my lips before I had made the decision to ask, but they just looked back at me with that maddening calm and started to turn their horses away. “What are you doing? Why am I here?” I yelled after them, but they just urged their horses forward. “Say something!” I screamed. My nerves were frayed, nearly gone. I felt my sanity slipping as I strained against the rope tethering me to an immovable tree.

  The rain had let up, but the tree continued to shed moisture from its leaves. I blinked water out of my eyes, my mind spinning so fast that I had difficulty forming any coherent thoughts. They hadn’t hurt me. They hadn’t delivered me to somebody else. They hadn’t asked me anything. They hadn’t even left me gagged! I was just stuck to this tree until someone or something found me.

  “Hello?” I yelled. I didn’t know how deep into the forest they had taken me, but I really didn’t think I was very far from the northern roads. “Hello? Is anyone out there?” I listened, but of course no response came. It was futile, but I kept yelling anyway. “I need help! Please, somebody! Hello?”

  I thought I heard a movement somewhere off in the trees and screamed once more, as loud as I could. “HELP!”

  Ringing silence met my ears, and then hoof beats. I strained to look toward the sound and saw a lone rider galloping toward me. My heart lifted for a moment until I recognized the cloaked rider. One of my captors had returned. I backed to the other side of the tree until the rope pulled against my wrists. He reined his mount to a halt, dismounted, and walked toward me, pulling out another length of cloth.

  So they didn’t want me yelling. “Help! Help! Someone help me, plea—” He tried to shove the gag back in my mouth but I clamped it shut and tried to knock his hands away with my bound fists. He used his body to pin me against the tree with my hands locked between us. I jerked my head back and forth and tried to cry out again, but his overwhelming strength won out and he jammed the cloth between my teeth as I endeavored to stamp on his feet. I heard him grunt in pain as I found his foot and ground my heel into it. He did not retaliate, only forced my head into his shoulder so he could make a knot behind my head. When finished, he released me, backing away from my flailing limbs. “Coward!” I tried to scream through my gag.

  I considered trying to go after him, but knew that he could easily get out of range before I did any damage. Besides, I didn’t know if at some point something I did would break the cool calm and cause him to lash out at me. So I slumped down against the tree and watched him mount his horse and ride away.

  I tried to pull the gag from my mouth, but it was too tight. I reached my hands over my head, trying to reach the knot, but could only touch it with my thumbs. I turned my head and reached over my shoulder, picking at the knot with my fingers. The knots were firm, and my bound hands were inadequate for the job. I gave up. I had no need to speak at the moment anyway. I tried to pick at my knotted wrists with my teeth, but the gag wouldn’t let me bite down to get a grip.

  After several minutes I went to stand directly beneath where the rope was tied so that I had as much slack as possible. The rope seemed long enough to allow me to lie down with a couple of inches to spare. Again, this sent my head reeling. It seemed they wanted to keep me in one place, but they also wanted me to be comfortable. Or at least as comfortable as I could be under the circumstances.

  I stepped back until the rope was taut and pulled as hard as I could, throwing my weight into it. I screamed through my gag as my bindings cut into my wrists, but I kept pulling until I could no longer stand it. Nothing even budged.

  I pulled my cloak around myself and put the hood up, then hunkered down by the trunk of the tree, hoping to retain my body heat as much as possible. It wasn’t as cold as it felt, but with my mind battling to make sense of the
situation, I couldn’t stop shaking. There must be something else coming. There had to be more to the plan than just leaving me tied to a tree like an animal. For that’s what I felt like: an animal on a leash. Was the point of this charade merely humiliation? There were easier ways, and without anyone here to witness it, mere humiliation didn’t seem likely. There had to be something else, someone else. The men who took me were like soldiers, following orders. So who was giving the orders? Not only did I not know the motive; I didn’t even know who may have had the motive.

  Maybe they wanted a ransom. Maybe they didn’t want to hurt me but my father. They moved me out of the way so they could threaten my father with my life and demand money or information or land. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  I soon tired of thinking about the why. There had to be something I could do. I stood up and examined the tree above me, trying to think my way through climbing it. The branches were sturdy and close together, but with my wrists tied, it would be very difficult to get up onto the first branch jutting out just over my head.

  I wrapped my hands around a small branch and tried to push my feet against the trunk, but my hands soon gave out. Trying to slowly work my feet up the trunk of the tree wouldn’t work. The strength in my hands wouldn’t last long supporting my weight, especially with the added pain of my wrists. I took a moment to rest, then grabbed the branch again and jumped, pulling my feet up until I was able to wrap my legs around a thick limb. I pulled my upper body onto it and from there, I could only pull with my elbows and shimmy myself up on the branch. It felt as though my arms were torn to shreds, but I finally lay on my stomach over the branch.

  Once I had my feet under me, I made my way up the tree with great difficulty. I had to plan each step and each handhold. When I wasn’t careful enough—when I forgot to take into account the rope dangling from my wrists or my dress constantly underfoot—I would slip and be forced to catch myself any way I could. My wrists were raw. My forearms were bleeding. I couldn’t see my knees to know the extent of damage, but I knew they hurt. It didn’t matter though; I could not give up on the one chance I might have of getting away from here, of ending this nightmare before it reached its climax.

  Halfway up the tree, I stopped to rest and assess my position. My heart sank as I craned my neck to look up into the tree and I realized why they had chosen the branch from which the rope hung. It was large and sturdy and could support plenty of weight; there was no chance of it breaking. Unfortunately, I realized that there were no other branches close enough for me to reach it. Someone taller—someone the size of the men who had taken me—could easily reach it, but I would be too short. I could try to get to where the rope was knotted, but in all likelihood I would fail at best and fall at worst. I didn’t bother climbing any higher, and for the moment, I didn’t have the energy to climb down.

  My knees stung and my forearms were dripping blood mingled with rain. I had several nasty cuts and scrapes where I had fought against the bark. My wrists were burning from straining against their binding. For the moment, I just sat on a sturdy branch and lay the side of my head against the trunk with my eyes closed, rethinking, planning and listening. I tried to focus on the sound of the leaves moving with the wind, to slow my pounding heart.

  An unnatural rustling reached my ears and my eyes snapped open. I sat far enough up in the foliage that I could see for quite a ways in most directions, but unless someone were specifically looking for me, they wouldn’t see me. I waited, listening and watching.

  It seemed to be a lone man, on foot. This buoyed my spirits; I didn’t think any of my mastermind captors would be on foot. Of course, neither would a search party from the palace. I caught a glimpse of a cloak several times, but it seemed to be made of rough fabric—a commoner? He was moving very slowly, pausing every couple of steps. When he made his way close enough, it was clear in the way he carried himself that he was indeed a commoner. His hood was up, so I had no view of his features, but he seemed to be examining the imprints left by the horses. Had he tracked the horses? He came right up to where my captor had dismounted to gag me the second time, and then continued to the base of the tree where my captor and I had struggled. He stared at the trunk, lay his hand on it and gazed in every direction.

  And then he looked straight up into the tree and his hood fell back. Tears of relief sprang to my eyes. “Gavin!” I choked out through my gag.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Delivered

  “ELLA!” HE UNCLASPED his cloak, letting it fall to the ground, then jumped up, catching hold of the lowest branch and swinging himself up in one swift motion. As he climbed I tried to tell him what had happened, how they had taken me and bound me and brought me here. How I had thought they were going to hang me, but they just left without saying a word, without hurting me. And of course, it all came out in a garbled mess because of the gag and my tears. I watched him, his entire body working to pull himself from branch to branch. I kept talking—needing to do something, but afraid that my body, weak with relief, wouldn’t hold me if I tried to move.

  He pulled himself onto my branch, straddling it, and I reached out to him, grabbing the front of his shirt with my bound hands to assure myself of his presence. He put one hand over mine and used the other to push my hair out of my eyes, then pulled my head onto his shoulder. I kept mumbling incoherently and he made soft shushing noises in my ear as he worked on the knots at the back of my head. He pulled the gag out and I pushed myself back so I could see him while I talked and he worked on my hands. “And I don’t know when they’re coming back, or if they’re coming back or who it will be or what they want or where I am—and how did you find me? Are you all right? I saw you fall. I don’t even know where I am, but they didn’t take me all that far and that doesn’t even make sense, none of this makes sense, Gavin.”

  He gazed at my face as his hands continued to fumble with the knots. His eyes were so deep, his brow creased with worry, but he said nothing.

  “Say something!” I begged. “They wouldn’t talk to me, they never said a word to me or even to each other. Say something!”

  He abandoned the rope for a moment and put his hands on the sides of my neck, his thumbs caressing my tear stained cheeks. He searched my eyes before wrapping his arms around me. “Ella…you’re all right. We’ll get you out of here. Are you hurt?” He pulled back and examined my bleeding forearms that had been scraped and re-scraped, answering his own question.

  I shook my head as he went back to picking at the knots at my wrists. “Those were my fault, from climbing the tree.” Blood trailed down to the tip of my elbow. “What about you? You were unconscious, just lying there in the mud.” I pulled my hands from his so that I could take a hold of his chin. Turning his head from side to side, I found a lump above his left ear.

  He pulled my hands away from the injury and kept trying to untie me. “I’m fine. Did they hurt you?”

  “No, that’s what I was trying to tell you. They were so well-planned and exact in what they did, but they were very careful not to hurt me if they could avoid it. It didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t just that they didn’t hurt me on purpose; sometimes it seemed like they were even protecting me and trying to make me more comfortable. Ahh!” The bindings on my wrist had finally come loose, and I could feel the pain of my raw flesh much better now that they were free. “Ouch.” I whimpered, trying to blink away the tears. Gavin’s hands hovered helplessly over the welts, and he furrowed his brow, clearly frustrated that he could do nothing to fix it.

  “You climbed the tree on your own? With your hands tied?” He sounded both amazed and horrified.

  “I had to do something. I wasn’t just going to wait around for someone to come back and decide to hurt me or to…to—” All the nightmare scenarios ran through my head once more, but I shoved them aside as Gavin wrapped me in his arms. I was fine now. I had Gavin here.

  He pulled back, once more pushing my hair from my face. “Take off your cloak.”

  “What?
”

  “It will be easier for you to climb down without your cloak. We are going to go down, aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” I answered, unfastening my cloak. I enjoyed being part of a “we” again. He helped me pull the cloak from around and under me and then held it out and dropped it to the ground.

  “Well, climbing down a tree in a dress will still be difficult, but I’m relatively certain it won’t compare with climbing a tree in a dress, a cloak, and a gag, while your hands are tied.” His expression still held a mixture of sadness and amazement.

  We made our way down, and Gavin stayed behind me the entire time, often stepping with me from one limb to another. He moved agilely, holding on with one hand and steadying me with the other or holding my skirt out of the way so I could see where to put my foot. We went mostly in silence, not needing to communicate verbally. Working with Gavin didn’t require words; it never had. Twice I slipped, but he was there, wrapping an arm around my waist, holding me anchored against him as I regained my footing.

  By the time we reached the lowest branch, I was pretty well spent and wondered if I could manage to land on my feet when I jumped down. But Gavin jumped first and was able to help me to the ground without much effort on my part. I immediately sat down.

  “We really should move away from here, Ella.”

  I looked up at him, exhausted, and took a deep breath. “All right.”

  He helped me to my feet and kept a hand on my lower back as we put some distance between ourselves and the tree.

  When I tripped over the hem of my dress, he decided we should take a rest. He got no argument from me. I sat with my back against a tree and closed my eyes until Gavin spoke.