The Tortured Escapee
“Get up,” he growled, his breath a sickening mixture of uncleansed mouth and potent alcohol. I scrambled to my hands and knees, nodding as he got unsteadily to his feet.
As I crouched there like a cowering mongrel, I was forced to wonder how I had been reduced to this – again? Had it been something I’d said? Or perhaps something I’d done? Surely I had driven him to this rage. Surely.
“Get up!” he bellowed, stomping a foot in my direction. I yelped, getting to my feet even as my body quivered in terror.
He glared at me as he went back to the cauldron that bubbled over the embers in the hearth. In one, swift motion that caused me to throw myself against the wall, he kicked at the cauldron, dumping the contents over the remains of the fire. The dying flames hissed and the cottage was filled with the stench of burning venison and roots, everything that had been in the stew in that pot.
He looked over his shoulder at me, and I hunched against the wall, “Fire’s gone out,” he said, “You should rebuild it.”
I nodded emphatically, leaping eagerly towards the door, my egress. I paused only long enough to snatch my tattered shawl from a chair, but just as my feet touched the threshold of escape, his voice froze me in mid-step.
“Be back before nightfall,” he warned, “I don’t want to have to go looking for you in the dark.”
Before he could say anything further, I sprang out the door, making my way down the road as fast as my feet could carry me, until the cottage was out of sight. Once I felt myself safe, far enough away from him, I slowed to a walk as I gradually regained my breath. I curled my shawl over my shoulders, as I rubbed my arms, wondering what had happened back there. It had all started out as any other day. I had risen early to begin to prepare Olaf a meal before he went to town to begin another day at the forge. As I had done for many mornings, I prepared the meal in silence, enjoying the slight chill of the morning air, and the rising birdsong. I awoke Olaf after I had cleaned the cottage and deemed the stew nearly done, just as I had done in days past. After waking him, I left to tend once more to the pot lest it burn, and I heard Olaf enter the room.
I did not realize he had crossed over to me until he kicked the stool out from under me, and I sprawled across the floor, looking up at him in confusion. He screamed unintelligibly at me about the mess in the cottage, and accused me of everything from neglecting my chores to dalliance with some passing stranger. I was appalled at this, and I told him I had done nothing but clean and cook all morn.
That was when the first blow fell. His hand, hard from his days as metal-smith in the town down the road, landed upon my cheek with all the force of a falling stone. I rolled across the floor, raising my hands in a desperate attempt to protect my face, but his onslaught was relentless. He kicked hard at my hip, making me cry out in agony as I curled into a fetal position, striving in any way possible to protect myself. He screamed above my head, calling me a worthless harlot, the blows of his meaty fists striking my shoulders, my back, and my legs. Tears streamed down my cheeks in torrents, but I had no will to fight back. I knew only apprehension and pain. I knew nothing of fighting, he was a monsterous man that could easily kill me with his bare hands. I, a mere woman, had no chance against such brute strength.
The mercy of the Gods smiled upon me, for he soon tired and left me on the floor. My cheek throbbed still, from that initial blow, and my body cried out in anguish from the torment I had endured. I struggled to rise, but my limbs would not respond. My heart beat painfully in my chest, wracking against my ribs from the thunder of fear. Absently, I wiped away something on my lip, and I was alarmed to see the crimson streak of blood on the back of my hand. I had never before seen my own blood, and for some reason, even that small display struck a cold terror into my soul. Even as I heard him come again into the room, I quaked in apprehension, curling tighter into a ball at the expected rain of anguish. But there was none, and now I was here, walking in the midmorning light.
I looked back at the trail that led through the scrubland to the cottage Olaf and I shared. I half-expected him to come raging up that trail to rave at me once again, but there was nothing, only the songs of the birds and the occasional whisper of the wind through the trees. My muscles unknotted themselves from the balls of tension they had amassed into as the soothing murmur of the outdoors filled me. I began the task of gathering firewood, doing so slowly, for I was loathe to return to the cottage. By the time I did so, it would be after noon-tide, and Olaf would be more than famished. He would, of course, blame his state of being on me, and take his anger out upon me again. I frowned at myself, wondering how I had come to this pass.
Olaf was neither husband nor lover, he had been neither for many months. Since the construction of the taverna in the town, he loved nothing but the fiery water he found there. He was a man I no longer knew. I looked to the simple wooden ring on my left hand, remembering a time when we had been happy, and had known that fleeting thing known as love. I sighed as I picked up another branch of deadfall, for those times were no more. Moreso, that man was no more; he had been washed away by the foul-smelling concoction that had been brought by the taverna.
As I knelt there, I realized that there was nothing here for me anymore. I raised my eyes, looking around at the forestland that surrounded me, peering back in the direction of the cottage. I had not a thing to keep me here; not Olaf, not the cottage, nothing. I rose to my feet, the bundles of faggots I’d gathered falling back to the ground. Almost trance-like my feet took me to within throwing distance of the cottage, and I pried the ring from my finger, twirling it between my fingers for a moment. I regarded it silently, the tiny, intricate oak leaves carved in deep relief into the wooden band had once been a symbol of our love and devotion to one another. Yet, as I raised my eyes to look upon the cottage, my fist clenched the ring and I hurled it toward the door with all my strength. It tapped upon the door and fell upon the stoop with a miniscule clatter, perhaps Olaf would notice it. Perhaps not. At this point, I didn’t care which.
I was free.
