Captive

To run, to run with the wind in my hair, sliding over my body caressing my spirit, breathing freedom into my heart…to run.

My captor sleeps now, his breathing slow and relaxed. His beard burns ridges into my shoulder. His hands still clutch at my bruised breasts, He dreams, of what? More villages to sack, more fields to burn, more babes heads to be smashed against walls, more virgins to rape? ? It is the Will of his Lord he tells me. His Lord? His Lord? I do not know his Lord, nor would I wish to. I know The Lady, she who blesses the fruits of the vine, the grain of the field, the suckling babes and the mother to be. He calls her a harlot, a she –devil, the accursed One! Perhaps that is why His Lord demands such cruelties, such rapes and monstrous acts of him. Perhaps he has never known my Sweet Lady, giver of life and love. I do not know.

Yet I weep and I dream of vengeance, of a blade sharp and thin, cutting through my master’s life vein; a torch blazing through his tents. But most of all, I dream of the cool night wind touching my skin, and my long black hair cascading down my back, wrapping around my shoulders.

Morning comes and I struggle with the stinking black goat-hair robes he gave me. He burnt my finely woven ones, woven by my mother and aunts, woven with love and care. I brush away my tears, He Will Not See A Single One!! I shall not weep for those who are in the care of My Lady, The Mother of All. Ah! But it is hard to forget, harder to forgive those who laid claim to our lands, who cut down the sacred grove, who laid waste to my birthplace.

I go now, to join his other slaves, to grind their pilfered grain, to draw their water and present the fruits of my labor to him and his companions. My thighs hurt, my secret place is raw with pain, but I do not moan, I do not weep, nary a word shall I speak until I am in the arms of My Lady at the end of all things.

How long has it been? How long since I was carried away from my desecrated home land? A cycle? One? Two? Ah No, four full moon-cycles have passed and my cycle has not come. I do not go into the Woman’s tent, The Red tent, the blessedly peaceful tent, where the men do not go and where I can put aside the robes of my captivity. Ah no, I can feel his child, this alien presence growing within my womb. My captor is proud now, he boasts about his virility, his potency and his man-child growing within me. He is kinder now; no longer does he beat me when I am slow with his meal, or when I do not speak. He does not come to me in the night, to grind his hairy loins into mine, to bruise my breasts and raise welts on my shoulder. Yes he is kinder, but I still dream of the torch, of the thin, little knife, of the cool night air on my body, of running.

But it is harder now, for I am not one but two and must decide between the mother and the she-warrior, the parts of me which hungers for a baby sucking at my breast and the part which seeks freedom and revenge. Ah, Lady, it is so very hard. What should I do? What can I do?

The Lady has decided. I trip over the hem of my stinking robe; I fall and feel the hot, red blood pouring over my legs. He is angry! His curses fill our tent and his fists pound against my body. My blood is impure; I have desecrated his home, his stinking goat-hair tent. It will have to be burnt. He throws me out of the tent, my body is one mass of pain, but Ah, I feel the clean night air on my skin, revitalizing my soul, adding wings to my spirit. The knife is in my hands, I rise and then it is against his neck, I cut and then his blood mixes with my blood, with the baby’s blood. I grab the torch and run. Run through the encampment run through the flocks of goats and sheep. I am a flame of freedom, a flame enkindling their tents, a daughter of rage and anger. I run though my enemy’s arrows cut deep. I run, through death is upon me. I run into the arms of the Dark Mother, into the warm embrace of my Sweet Lady.

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Stories For A Winter Night