The Devil of Nettlewood (The Anarchy Tales) Read Online Free

relative through with their swords. A slash and her most near and dear would lie dead.
    Not Ysenda. At all costs, her vibrant sister must live.
    Mitri squared her shoulders. In the space of the next few heartbeats, her whole world would turn upside down, but she would make sure no harm befell her too-brave sister.
    “I shan’t st-st-struggle,” she stammered, her heart hammering in her chest. “Do what you will to me, but not here in the house of my dead parents.”
    For if God had yet to hear her petition and Ysenda did return, her brave sister would discover this foul-scented man-at-arms attacking her, come charging to the rescue, and be killed in the attempt.
    Stay gone in the woods, sister. Please, God, keep Ysenda safe.
    Mitri looked up into her attacker’s squinty eyes, rheumy and red with hard spirits. “Take me elsewhere. I pray you, sir, not to violate me in my own home.”
    Her plea fell upon deaf ears. In front of the stone hearth, where Mitri had just a few moments before been busy making candles, her attacker tore at her neat woolen garb, ripping her simple kirtle to the waist.
    She refused to cry out. Cleared farmland surrounded the cottage. Dense woodlands lay immediately beyond. At this point in the day, Ysenda would be gathering herbs at the very edge of the tree line. A high-pitched scream would perchance carry there. Upon hearing the sign of her distress, her sister would not think to save herself. Nay, she would run bravely back here.
    Biting back her fright, Mitri made no sound. Instead she retreated deep within herself, where this soldier could do her no hurt. ’Twas as though she looked at herself from some distant place outside her body—a star, mayhap—observing the event unfolding, a spectator at her own rape.
    Her disgusting assailant removed his helm, and his flabby lips came within a stinking breath of her face. She stood still, bracing herself against the outrage rising in her throat as he removed a mail gauntlet with his yellowed teeth and wrapped his now bare stubby fingers around her naked nipple. His snout rooting to the hollow in her neck as if he were rummaging, he pinched her tender flesh.
    Mitri willed herself to feel naught.
    “No time for that now,” someone barked. “Bundle up everything of value, then torch the roof. We move to the next farm down the road upon finishing here.”
    “What of taking the wench with us for later use, Commander Axehand?”
    “Aye,” answered the leader. “But mark you this, one and all share seized bounty. For now, take her outside, away from the flames. She is red enough already with all her blushes.” He guffawed.
    “Aye, her fair cheeks glow like fire,” her assailant snorted and ripped the modest white coif with its attached veil from her head. After trampling the symbol of her chastity under the heel of his filthy boot, he then yanked the leather cord from the bottom of her plait. He raked a hand through her loosened hair. “Plain brown,” he said in disappointment. “I had hoped for chestnut tresses or raven black or even golden. But come dark, all women look the same. This plain, brown-haired one will do us, I reckon.”
    With a hard shove, the pig-nosed soldier sent her tottering out the splintered portal. Once outside, a pull on her hair ended her forward motion.
    He turned her round to face him.
    “Remain here,” he spat, saliva spraying.
    The man-at-arms made no attempt to tie her.
    Why would he, she thought, utterly dazed, so confused and shocked by her ordeal she could hardly think, never mind make a break for it. Much akin to hunted deer before the arrow strikes, she simply stood there.
    And even if she could bring herself to act, to move, to flee —where would she go? There was no escape from the destruction.
    Smoke billowed in the air, blocking out the sun and painting the sky gray. Ashes floated on a breeze coming from the demesne of Lord Harold, the baron to whom Ysenda and she paid their annual tithe.
    In