hands all around her belly button. Her uterus felt firm, like there was a softball inside her. She dropped the nightdress. If she went back to her old life, would she be pregnant there? Am I trapped here until the baby comes?
She glanced at Jack stretched out in the bed, still snoring. Does he know?
Victoria frowned. She needed answers. Until now it seemed she had been playing a role, enjoying herself with Jack, exploring the nether realms. This was different. She put her hand over her belly again. Three months? Four? She didn’t know. She could not think of this as a game anymore.
Later, Jack grinned as he ate his porridge, his eggs and his toast. He knew. He went out to the forge whistling and swinging his hammer. Victoria watched him walk away from the door way, drying her hands on a cloth. He had a long striding gait because he was so tall, and his shoulders moved side to side because he was carrying the heavy hammer. She sighed. This would be heaven. This could be everything I ever wanted.
But something was wrong. It had been wrong from the first day she came here. Jasper had warned her. Now the oppressive feeling was stronger. Her day was set out for her. Every day was. There were more tasks than could be done by one woman.
“Mam?”
Victoria jumped. A girl stood in the doorway wearing an apron and smiling shyly.
“I’m here. What do you want me to start on?”
Victoria was flooded with information. The payment for the sword had gone for many things. A servant girl from the village was one of them. She smiled. The girl’s name was Katy. Victoria even knew what their tasks were for the day. “First the cow and chickens, Katy. Then we bake today.” Katy dipped a little curtsy and moved away to get a bucket from the drying board outside in the yard by the well.
Well then. Victoria picked up her own bucket and went to the well for more water. She heard the first ringing sounds of the hammer on metal and the low roar of the fire. She realized that every day she listened for those sounds. Every morning she waited until she heard them before her own tasks could be started. There was something comforting in the regular pounding that told her that Jack was here and that he was doing what he loved to do, and that she could stop what she was doing at any time and go watch him make something useful out of a lump of metal.
He liked it when she was there, but she could not use her time in idleness often. She might hurry today, though. While the last loaves were baking she might have an hour to sit near the forge. She nodded, planning that moment as she set her bucket down and reached for the well handle.
She had not heard him behind her. As she leaned forward to steady the rope someone grabbed her around her waist and jerked her back, off her feet. A gloved hand was pressed over her mouth and both her air and her scream were cut off in a muffled squeak. She was dragged backwards; her shoes were ripped off by her dragging heels. She could see over the hand that Katy was still in the barn. Jack and his forge were hidden by the bulk of the cottage, and as ever, the sounds from the fire and the hammer would mask any sounds softer than a cannon shot.
Victoria kicked as hard as she could, but the man who had her had arms like steel. She was turned and handed up to another man on a horse, hands changed places over her mouth and the horse leaped to the road. As she was repositioned on the saddle by her captor, her eyes spun around to see Katy staring open-mouthed between the barn doors. The ringing of the hammer faded and became the pounding hoof beats of the horse beneath her. Her mouth was free now and she screamed, but knew her voice would not be heard.
She was sick and sore when she was finally taken down from the saddle. She bent and puked her breakfast in the grass. The two men waited for her to finish, then strapped her wrists and ankles with leather thongs. After she was trussed they picked her up and carried her to a two wheeled cart filled with straw hidden among the