The Merchant's Prey
Anastasia was combing through the forest. The woods in late spring were richer than the manor kitchen had ever been. Every copper pot of any worth, every piece of silverware and porcelain, had long since been carried off. Only a few wretched cooking tools remained behind the empty counters.
Her hands moved quickly, plucking the small berries that hung from the branches. She did not know their name, only that they were edible and sweetly sharp; leave them too long and the birds and beasts of the wood would claim them first. After a long stretch of work her pockets bulged. Even so, a residual hunger made her slip a few into her mouth. The tart-sweet juice flooded her tongue until her jaw tingled and ached.
She came to herself with a start and carefully returned the half-eaten berry to her pocket.
I have to take them back.
Anastasia had seen how thin the household’s stores had grown. The last remaining maid would stare at the empty flour sack and sigh over the Countess’s meals and those of her daughters. Hearing that sigh, Anastasia had come to the forest earlier than usual and worked without rest.
Will they eat them?
She fretted at the heavy pockets as she walked. On her feet she wore one shoe Catherine had discarded and another of an entirely different shape scavenged from the luggage the maids had left behind.
One was far too large, the other painfully small. Still, she could move in them. Her gait looked strange, yet the simple fact that her feet no longer bled was enough to content her.
Listening to the loose shoe clatter with every step, she thought of the pair hidden in the chapel. He had given them to her so she might wear them. Yet she had never once considered putting them on.
The first new thing she had ever owned. Something made for her alone. A gift from him. If she could, she would take them into the coffin with her when she died.
He said he would come back.
Everyone insisted Mikhail would never return—that he had measured Edenhurst, found it wanting, and cast it aside. Even while they said it, they could not easily curse his name. Every dream they had once dared to dream had required him. So their fury turned instead upon the Countess.
“When Master Mikhail visited and when he left again, Her Ladyship never once showed her face.”
“The ones who waited table said she talked circles around him all through dinner and treated him like dirt.”
“And now she puts on airs? She was ready to sell her own daughter, yet she still plays the lofty lady.”
They mocked the Countess’s empty pride.
“These days rich commoners get more respect than half the nobility. She kept ordering him about like a servant from the old days, so of course he got sick of it.”
“It’s finished, then. A place as backwater as Edenhurst never held any claim on his heart. He won’t come back.”
They who had once called it the most beautiful estate in the land now left their curses behind them like spat seeds.
Anastasia left the trees and started along the road to the manor. Almost no one passed this way any longer; she could walk without fearing their eyes. As soon as the house came into view she quickened her uneven steps. Her pockets held more than berries. There were mushrooms and wild greens she often ate herself.
If only someone would eat them.
She needed so little. If she left the rest in the kitchen, the others might fill their stomachs a little more…
“……!”
A strange man stepped suddenly into her path as she hurried toward the kitchen wing. Startled, she stumbled backward and dropped her head low. That usually made people walk past. But the man came straight to her, reached out, and seized her arm.
“Ah!”
She tried to wrench free, yet his grip only tightened. Panic blanked her mind. Why? Who was he?
“Let go! Let go of me!”
“Hold still!”
He clicked his tongue and clamped her wrist harder. In the struggle the forest berries spilled from her pockets and were crushed underfoot. Purple juice splattered the earth in wild stains; the mismatched shoes rolled through it and came away dark red.
Anastasia twisted toward the trees, but her hand remained locked in his. A thick, greasy fist wrenched her wrist around. Unable to bear the force, she screamed and collapsed to her knees.
When the last berry had fallen and her pockets hung empty, she lay face-down on the ground with both wrists pinned behind her.
“Damn it. Looked like a quiet little thing—never thought she’d put up this much fight.”
He forced her arms up her back and drove a knee between her shoulder blades. Even through the layers of ragged clothing the sharp stones bit into her chest until every breath hurt.
“Ah… ngh…”
Terror of the stranger and the crushing weight on her spine drove her into panic; tears and wordless moans were all she could manage.
“If you hadn’t thrashed about I wouldn’t have had to do this. You’re going to be my wife—why would I treat you roughly?”
“Wh… what?”
The word stunned her. That was a word for married people. Why would this man use it of her?
“That’s right. I paid the Countess a handsome sum to take you away. She drove a hard bargain because the Lauderdale name is attached to you—even though she admitted you were a foundling. Said you don’t look a thing like the late Count. Well, we all know why highborn men bring little girls into the house, don’t we?”
With one hand still binding her wrists, the merchant snatched off her cap. The red hair she had stuffed inside spilled out like a waterfall onto the dirt. He seized a fistful and yanked her head up.
“I’ve heard it said red hair is the color of witches and whores.”
In Novgorod red hair was rare. People draped fantasy over anything they seldom saw. Onto a woman they draped the fantasy of lust.
The savage pull on her scalp left her unable to resist; she moved only as his hand directed. Hair dragged back, her face was laid bare. She remembered the words she had heard since coming to Edenhurst—the words of the people who had terrified her as a child.
Never show your face. Never show your body, Anastasia.
The dead had told her so. Her color was the color of the serpent. It tempted men. Therefore the sin was hers. Her father’s. The Count’s. And…
The merchant gripped her chin and turned her face toward him. He had seen her once before, on a day he had delivered goods to Edenhurst and was hurrying away. A gust of wind had stolen her cap; she had run after it. Even gaunt and filthy, the face revealed between the flying strands had stirred something in him.
Crimson lips framed by crimson hair. A deep, dangerous red that looked as though it would poison anyone who tasted it—and yet the hand reached for it all the same.
He was satisfied. The price the Countess had wrung from him was steep, but the goods were worth it. Someone might already have taken a bite, yet a single bite never spoiled the whole fruit.
He glanced about. Even in nearly deserted Edenhurst, taking a woman in broad daylight on the open road felt unwise.
When he began dragging her toward the trees at the roadside, Anastasia fought harder still. A bare foot, stripped of its shoe, kicked at the dry earth. A buried stone tore her toes open; blood welled and mixed with the berry stains until her foot was as ruined as the ground.
“You little—!”
He released her hair and struck. The crack of the blow spun her head sideways. Her body went limp.
Passed out?
He seized her cheek and forced her face up again. She had not fainted. Only her unfocused eyes streamed tears. He shouted roughly into her face.
“I’m… sorry…”
The muttered apology made him smile. If he had known she would fold so easily he would have used the whip from the start. He hauled her after him like a sack of goods, heading into the woods.
“Should’ve behaved like this from the beginning. Would’ve been easier for both of us. I meant to wait until we reached my house, but a little taste before we go won’t hurt. We’ll be doing it often enough soon.”
She did not understand what he meant to do, yet terror sealed her throat. When he seized her hair again and pulled, she could only half-crawl after him. Anything else would bring another fist. The old, forgotten dread of violence drained every scrap of will from her body. She hung like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Having decided to take her outside, the merchant grew impatient. Barely a few steps into the trees he flung her onto the grass and began tearing at his own clothes. The clink of a buckle, the rattle of metal buttons—Anastasia squeezed her eyes shut and prayed.
He said he would take me to his house.
Only the Lauderdales and their remaining servants lived at Edenhurst. His house, then, lay beyond—somewhere she could not even imagine.
I don’t want to go.
This place was her paradise. Aside from the tiny village of her earliest childhood, Edenhurst was the whole of her world. To leave it…
No.
No matter how frightened, how hungry, how hurt she had been, she had been happy here. She lived in paradise. But if she were taken away…
A terror greater than any beating crashed over her. Pain was only a moment. Endure it and it passed. Even the longest pain eventually ended. But once she stepped outside paradise, she would never be allowed to return.
She prayed with every shred of her soul. God, please. Send Your soldiers. All my life I have believed Your word and obeyed. You sent the golden carriage that brought me here. Please let me stay. Please. Please. Please. Have pity on me… protect Your little lamb…
She saw the man approaching, licking his lips, trousers already dragging in the dirt. Instinctive revulsion made her squeeze her eyes shut the instant before—
Thud!
A dull, heavy impact cracked through the forest.