Chapter 16

Ædven goes up to the front of the train car. The scop comes up next to her and starts her traditional "Hwaet!" to get our attention. But it isn't the scop who tells a story this time. It's Ædven.

"I have been allowed to tell you the story of how this all came to be. Some of you have not heard it before, since it is not often told. I will tell you the story of me, of my parents, so you will understand how fortunate you are, what you are allowed to be a part of."

Kaneez looks like she wants to interrupt again, but I push her to keep her quiet. I want to hear this, how they justify their actions. Kaneez takes the hint and stays quiet as I feed her more bread.

"There were three families when this started. The noble family of Bamburgh, the family of Daiger and my family, the Anises. We started this place together.

I was only a child, yet I remember the eagerness and joy we all felt as we built the first burh, tilled the ground and learned the arts we needed to make the place sustainable. The noble family contributed most of the money, but the others had most of the knowledge. I was trained from a young age how to care for the animals, make clothes from wool or flax, and all the other arts that the world outside has lost. Together we made what started as a small wooden burh into a castle society.

At first, we all took turns doing the hardest labours, but that grew tiresome. It was clear to John, the late husband to our Lady, that we all had different strengths, so why did we have to rotate and do tasks we weren't suited for. The Lady especially disliked having to do the manual labour, as she wasn't suited for such work. Whenever it was her turn to plough, she ruined it more than she helped. I am not saying this to make you think less of her. I am saying it as an example of her husband's wisdom. He also saw that my father was not comfortable when he had to be a leader. He was at his happiest when he could discover new things, new ways to do things with the limited tools we had available. So, John suggested a new division of labour. However, the family of Daiger didn't like this idea and was completely against it. They didn't want to be the only ones doing the hardest labour. Yet John and our Lady were the ones who contributed the money. They didn't want to have to work hard at the same time. We tried to compromise and instead hired other people to do that work for us. But that didn't work in the long run either, as no one else wanted to work in the hard conditions we had set for ourselves. No one else understood our vision.

That was when John had the idea of rescuing other people who were already heading to a life of abuse and slavery. He got the idea when a train much like this one crashed near our castle, and we saw that the inside was full of illegal immigrants. While most of them ran away, some were more than happy to stay with us and give us their labour, for food and board. John interrogated the leaders of this group, one of whom survived with only a broken leg, and discovered that the fate these immigrants were headed to was terrible. They were either to work at a sweatshop or be sold as sex slaves. That was when John decided that this was the solution to our dilemma. We would find others who were in the same exposed position and rescue them from a terrible fate. They had to work hard, yet they didn't have to sell their bodies for sexual abuse. Most of them were quite grateful, once they realized that. The leaders were kept in our prison, until they died. The man who survived his injuries became our very first theow.

John was given the title of earl and a clear division of labour between each of us was agreed upon. My father was in charge of the repairs and improvements of our land. I was soon given the charge of explaining our system as more and more people joined us. We all work where we are seen to have a gift or knowledge."

I suspect that isn't the full story, but I am still captivated. If this all started when Ædven was a child, it has gone on for far longer than I thought. But when had they started moving around and kidnapping visitors? And what had happened to the family that disagreed with John and the Lady? If Ædven didn't know, I will probably never find out either.

"That is the idea we continue to this day. When our beloved Earl John died, the Lady took over. They do not have any children, but she adopted her nephew, Arthur. He keeps the castle in order, while she is away. But make no mistake, she is the one in charge of the community. This fellowship. You are no longer alone, no longer lonely. We will see to all your needs, and you will never have to worry about being sexually abused or sold to terrible people."

"But we weren't headed for sexual slavery," one of the others says. "How is being chained and forced to work as a slave better than what I had before?"

"If things were better where you were before, why did you choose to come here? You were all alone, and craved fellowship for at least a weekend. That was why we started to allow visitors in the first place, to find fellow people in need of a place to belong. Now you can escape that cruel world for the rest of your lives."

"You call this less cruel?" Kaneez says, unable to hold herself back any longer. "You whip us, chain us to the wall, hang us in sacks. How is that any less cruel than what the world outside might do?"

"We only punish those who have deserved it. If you do as you're told, none of that will happen to you. I do not expect you to understand this right away. Very few do. But you will understand eventually."

Having told her story, Ædven once again leaves the train car. We're all quiet for a while, thinking about what we were just told. I find myself called out by her comment. If my life on the outside was so great, why had I come here? I wasn't happy. I pretended to be, for the few friends I still had, but I wasn't. Especially not after I lost my job. It wasn't even the job itself that I missed, but the colleagues. They all said they would keep in touch, yet none of them did. No, the only one I miss is Nora. I had almost forgotten her too. But was she worth going back there for? Without a job, I have very little chance of surviving. My apartment was already headed for foreclosure, and despite the pay-out of my family's life insurance, I wouldn't be able to keep it.

I had already sold the farm to the next-door family looking to expand. They had come to the funeral, and I had asked if they were interested. They had looked at me with pity, yet in the end I had to sell for far less than it was worth. I mainly wanted to get away from there as soon as possible and never have to return. Away from the town where the man who killed my parents would still be welcome, when he was done serving his sentence for drunk driving and gross vehicular manslaughter.

Everyone knew he had a drinking problem, yet they all defended him. Sure, it was terrible what had happened to my family, but he was also sick. None of them had said it to my face, but I heard them whisper it. I don't think any of them resented me for him being imprisoned, but they would still welcome him back when he got out. He got 10-15 years in prison. Far too little. It was called life, but they all knew he would get out sooner. Half of them had vouched for him to his probation officer already.

I feel anger rising in me just by thinking about the unfairness of it all. And this time I don't have Nora to calm me down.

Screw them! Screw all of them! I am better off here. Sure, I might still die from exposure, or a myriad of other things, but at least I won't have to live in the same world as the man who killed my family, and the people who defend him.