Page 25 of The Swordmaster's Daughter

“I start early, before sunup, to get the furnace going and work a few hours until Maud brings me breakfast after she has done her chores. It is only Maud and I as her mother and brother died in the plague. By mid-morning when she had not come with my food, I came to seek her, a right hunger in my belly, all set to punish her laziness. Until I found her.” He shot a look towards Grandma Jones, grimacing at the recollection. “Are you sure you want to bring your granddaughter to see this?”

“She needs to learn what to do.”

Lucinda already had a fair idea what they might encounter judging by the supplies and remedies packed in their basket.

“And you heard nothing?” Grandma probed.

“A working forge is not a quiet place. It is also hard to make much sound with a knife held to your throat.”

Lucinda’s hand flew to her neck, an unconscious act of self-protection, as she swallowed down the foreboding that thickened in her gut. A healer cannot afford the indulgence of emotion. Steady hands and clear thoughts could only be achieved if you set aside your feelings. Grandma had drilled this into her over and over again. Placing one foot after the other, she repeated in her head an inventory, all the items in Grandma’s basket, to distract her jangling nerves as they continued to follow the blacksmith. Root of wild carrot. Common salt and lemon. Tincture of rosemary. Valerian. Poppy extract. Wads of flax and cloth. She held them in her thoughts like a crucifix to ward off demons, longing to ask more questions but dreading the answers more.

Ten minutes later they arrived at the forge. The dwelling was at the front, and the workshop out the back, accessed via a wide laneway at the side. All was quiet in the street. All was neat and tidy downstairs in the living area, the blacksmith’s breakfast of cheese and bread still laid out on the board table and untouched. The fire in the hearth was dead and cold with a faint smell of ash and barley. He led them up a narrow stairway, his spine rigid and his pace unnaturally slow. Pausing at the top, he cast a worried glance back at Lucinda before stepping onto the timbers that creaked under his weight.

The upper room was generous, being one large open space with a central post dividing the area in two. On one side of the room was a timber-framed bed, the marriage bed; on the other a chest for clothes and a simple truckle bed where a girl sat with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs, forming a fortress with her skirt and tightly locked limbs. She had light brown hair which would have been wound around her hair in a braid on each side, but now one braid was still pinned up while the other dangled forlornly. Two lengths of severed rope lay crumpled at the base of the timber post. Lucinda shuddered as she imagined how the rope had been used.

“Best if you hear it from Maud.” The blacksmith directed his words to Grandma, avoiding looking at his daughter. “I am carrying too much rage to be of any real help. I shall go and strike an anvil while you do what you need to do.” He snatched up the discarded rope, crushing it between his meaty fists. “If I get my hands on the devil that did this, I shall strangle him with his own rope.” He hurtled it across the room so hard it bounced off the wall and landed at Lucinda’s feet. After he had gone back down the stairs, she picked the rope up to examine it, heart thudding as her fingers noted the familiar texture.

Maud told her story in a quiet faraway voice as if she was relating events that happened to someone else, giving the impression that creating distance was the only way she could get through to the end. If her story was difficult to speak, it was almost as difficult to hear, but listen they must, to every foul and sordid detail. The detail might be important. People follow patterns. Their habits give them away. Even rapists.

He had tied Maud to the post, forcing her to kneel on all fours like a dog. He wore a mask that fully covered his face, and he held a knife to her throat.

“Apart from the rope marks, did he hurt you or make you bleed?” Grandma asked, sitting next to Maud but not touching her as yet.

“He hurt me inside.... After he left, I found some blood at the top of my legs but not a great deal given how much it hurt. He...he put the knife down here. I thought he was going to...to cut me, but it was my hair he was after. He cut some from here and another lock from my head and took it with him.” She pushed back the hair that hung down over her forehead to reveal a section of severed hair. “He is evil. He has wickedness in his eyes.” Grandma reached for Maud’s hand and held it gently.

“What color were his eyes?” Lucinda asked. Grandma gave her a warning look to keep quiet.

“Dark, almost black but that is all I could see of his face. I have never been with a man. After what he did, I do not think I ever could,” she shuddered.

“Oh sweetheart, being with a man who is kind and good is nothing like that at all.” Grandma held out her arms for Maud to fall into, her face seeming to absorb all of Maud’s pain in the way that water is drawn into wool. She had never seen Grandma affected like this. She was always calm and kind but never let any distress show upon her face. While she hugged and comforted Maud she instructed Lucinda on what to do. Boil water and make a salty brine, squeeze lemon juice into the solution. This she would use to wash away any blood and flush the stain between Maud’s legs. “It will not hurt. It will help you to heal and make you feel clean again,” she told Maud.

“Am I no longer a virgin?” Maud asked when the sluicing and cleansing were finished.

“You are a virgin in every way that matters. You were forced. You gave nothing away.” Grandma’s response was as vehement as it was inaccurate, but it did seem to be what the girl needed to hear. Turning to Lucinda she added further instructions. “In the small green pot you will find the root of carrot already prepared. Please add a little ale along with one measure of valerian.” A brew such as she prescribed was a concoction used by women healers to prevent a woman falling with child, but it was only effective if it was drunk soon after the event.

“Here, take this,” Grandma held the brew to Maud’s lips. “It will help you sleep.” Tellingly Grandma did not mention the brew’s other effects. Once Maud swallowed the brew, Grandma went downstairs to speak with the blacksmith leaving Lucinda alone with Maud.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question?” She did not say yes, nor did she say no. “I only wondered, did the man speak or make any sound while he was...here?”

Maud shook her head. “He used his knife to do all the talking.”

“Do you remember anything else about him? Was he tall or short, fat or thin? Did he smell?” Maud pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose as if the act of remembering was physically painful. “If you do not want to say any more...”

To Lucinda’s surprise instead of clamping her mouth, everything came spilling forth. “Neither short nor tall, about my father’s height. Not as tall as you. Fat or thin, I could not tell. He kept his cloak on. It was black. He was very fast at tying knots and pulled the rope tighter even though I cried out because it hurt. He made panting noises. His hands were sweaty. He did not smell like a man involved in heavy work, and he wore some kind of perfume which I was not familiar with. He cut my hair as you already know, and when he was done, he hummed a tune to himself. I did not know the tune, but I thought it exceedingly cruel. Humming is what people do when they are happy.” Releasing her fingers from where they were pressed to the bridge of her nose, she looked up at Lucinda. “Why do you want to know all this?”

“I plan to find him and stop him.”

“But you are only a woman, not much older than I.”

“When I find him, I will tell your father.”

“Good. He will take out his eyes with a branding iron.”

“How old are you Maud?”

“Fifteen.”

“And no mother. I know what that is like. I lost my mother and brother a long time ago, and I help to look after my father’s business. He is a fencing master, and he has taught me to look after myself, to fight a man off if he should try to attack me. I could teach you. There are some other women I teach, one who has suffered much like you.” Maud had reverted to her fortress position, knees up, arms locked around her legs raising the possibility she had probed too far. “You do not have to tell me now. Think on it and come to see me if you feel it may help. Even if you do not wish to learn how to defend yourself but would like someone to talk to, your father knows where we live.”

---