Chapter 12

The next day dawned. Even before breakfast, a churl, possibly the same one that had caught her the day before, came and released her from the stretch-neck. He didn't say anything about where she had to go, so she waited to see what they would do to the journalist. She had a feeling they were not done tormenting her and she was right. As they held her hands and feet, they placed her in a sack, with only her head sticking out of it. The neck had a collar now, like the rest of them had. What were they going to do now? She saw that the new theow tried to kick from inside the sack, probably trying to break out of it, but she shouldn't have done that straight away. They removed the sack, tied her arms and legs together, then placed her back in the sack again, all without saying a word. She tried to protest, but a third churl came at once with the gag. It seemed her time to ask questions were over. They attached the sack to a rope hanging from what Audrey could only call gallows. Were they going to hang her? What was the point of the sack then? No, it seemed they were just going to let her hang there in the sack. Like she was a bag of supplies, only with a head sticking out on top. In fact, Audrey could see several sacks of supplies hanging from the same gallows. The journalist tried to resist but all that achieved was that her sack moved back and forth. She would get quite nauseated, if she kept that up. Everyone, including the churls who placed her there, ignored her. 

Audrey soon kept her eyes away from the moving sack as well, to avoid further punishment. At least she did until the Lady entered the crew area. Had the visitors left already? No, they were getting entertained by the scop. Audrey had heard several of the stories by now, but she still found it fascinating. Though it was hard to know which stories were true, and what was fiction. A scop usually told true tales, as they were the memory of the people, but many of the tales also involved mythical beings, so the validity was questionable at best. Maybe this would be the prompt for a new tale? Audrey had heard many stories from the scop about the fates of those who had resisted becoming part of the regime here, after she had been allowed to eat down with the rest of the crew. She suspected most of those were true, used to remind the rest of them that resistance was futile. The Lady looked up at the new theow with her characteristic wide smile.

"Ah, here we have our newest theow. The one who thought she was smarter than me," the Lady said with a small laugh. A few churls chuckled as well. Then the Lady looked at the new theow with a murderous look and all laughter died. "We have long known of your attempts to uncover the secrets here. That is why your application kept being rejected. You are not the first, nor the last who has tried to fool us with false information to get in here. However, you started coming too close to the truth, so we let you think you outsmarted us. You should never have come here. Even if you hadn't broken the rules, you still wouldn't have left this place alive. Well, now you will get all the answers you've sought. And take them to your grave. Mark her."

Marking her was different than just cutting her hair. They had done that last night already. Now the executioner came with a tool that looked a bit like pliers. The sack was lowered slightly, so he could access her mouth. One of the higher-level theows, Audrey thought she had heard her being called Ædven, held her head steady. The executioner took out the gag, opened her mouth, and took hold of the tongue. Then he clipped a large piece of the front of the tongue away. Blood instantly started flowing from her mouth, but no one seemed to do anything to make it stop, other than tilting her forwards so she didn't choke on her own blood. After several minutes of this, the blacksmith came walking with a piece of hot metal that he used to seal the wound shut. Audrey wondered if the screams could be heard from the visitor area. Wouldn't this have been best saved for after they left?

"I don't think we need to hear any more words from you," the Lady said contemptuously. "You've said more than enough. I will give you a new name, to help you understand your new status. Kaneez. It is a name that means "slave." That is what you are now. And you can never be anything different." And without further ado, she turned around and went back to the visitors, her polite, normal-looking smile already in place. The executioner hoisted the sack back up where it had been and then they all went to their assigned place for the day. No one dared to look up at the now blood-stained sack that cried above them.