Chapter 38

Nora felt her hands clench hearing just a little bit about what Audrey had gone through. Then they heard someone outside again. Audrey started to crawl in under the bed and Nora made sure to make noise as she crawled up on the bed. But she had no intention of sleeping just yet. She couldn't waste a moment of her time alone with Audrey now!

Half an hour later, when the sound of someone patrolling outside had disappeared, she silently went out of bed again and sat down on the floor. Seeing Audrey laying in the cage like it was a completely normal thing to do broke her heart.

"Can I ask you something? Something you probably aren't supposed to answer?"

"Yes. Though I may not know the answer."

"Do you know what happened to a woman caught about the same time as you named Rita?"

"I don't know anybody's names. We get new names, most of us. But because mine already meant "servant" the Lady let me keep it. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have reacted to the name at all."

That made sense, but it was also sad. They really did everything they could to strip them of who they had been, didn't they.

"She is a journalist and has a husband. I have a picture, wait a moment."

"No, don't move." Audrey's hearing was better than hers. A moment later, there was another commotion and a shout.

"Hey, you can't do this to me, I didn't do anything wrong, I just asked…" it was the man that had suggested that they should share a bed. Had he seriously tried to find her room? Or just any female room.

"You were warned, visitor. You lost your privileges."

Neither of them said anything as they heard the man protest as he was led away. Nora breathed a sigh of relief when they were gone. Audrey seemed to relax as well. She even got out of the cage.

"It seems they weren't here for us. They probably won't hear us if we whisper. But let's sit on the side of the room furthest away from the door, to be safer."

Nora couldn't disagree with that. She didn't want to end up like that man who had apparently done something wrong. It would be easier for her to whisper rather than sign everything, signing took longer since they were both out of practice.

"I wonder what he had done," she whispered as she sat down next to Audrey. "I think it was one of the men I tried to flirt with. He tried to suggest that we share the bed tonight."

"Didn't you hear the scream? I suspect he tried to sneak into a room with one of the female visitors. Whether he actually tried something sexual or not, we'll probably never know."

Scream? Audrey really did have better hearing than her. She had probably developed it during the years of having to be constantly on guard.

"What will happen to him now?"

"I don't know. It is possible that they do simply just send him home. Or they will keep him. Probably the latter."

"What about those who come as a couple? There was a couple that went missing a few months after you went missing. Were they taken as well?"

"Hild and Edward. Yes. At first, they tried to just keep him, but apparently, she refused to leave without him, so they kept her as well. I actually don't know what happened to them, but Edward died, I think. Hild was quite mad at him, apparently, he had been lying about having a job. But how do you know about them?" 

The man's name was Edward, though most called him Eddy. But the woman's name was definitely not Hild.

"It became a huge news story when they didn't return, there were searchers out and everything. But they can't have said anything about going to this place, since everyone assumed they were out in the wilderness somewhere."

"The Vikings…" Audrey murmured.

"What?"

"We had to relocate faster than planned from that place. The Lady said they had heard rumours of a nearby Viking raid. It must have been the search teams. That was about the time I lost my memories, so it's a little hazy."

"But how would they know that there were search teams?"

"The radio…"

"You guys have a radio?" Nora felt more and more confused. 

"No. But I think the wizard does. He's the one who hacks the phones and sends the messages you got. They don't force the new theows to do that, it wouldn't be safe. Besides, they start at once to pretend that the outside world doesn't exist. I never even saw my phone, or most of my stuff, since I texted you that they confiscated it. But you mentioned something about a journalist?"

"Yes. I met her husband when we both searched the last place you were on and shared our findings. She had a list of people who'd gone missing before her, I had a list of the ones taken since then. Those who are missed anyway. How many have been taken since you were taken?"

"I have no idea. That depends on how many survive to come back to the base, but at least 20 each tour."

"How many deaths have you seen, since you can talk about that so calmly?"

"Too many to count. The first one was just after I was taken. A woman the Lady named Karen, though I don't know if that was her real name. She was very unpleasant and never stopped shouting profanities and hate, until she was completely exhausted. They had to keep her gagged, most of the time. But that wasn't the worst."

Nora didn't dare to break the silence. What could she even say, when her best friend sat and talked about people dying around her like it was a completely normal thing that happened? Hearing Audrey tell about the man she had worked with who had been burned alive made her feel sick. Elderly man with husbandry experience? Could that be the missing landowner?

"I thought you said Arthur wasn't as bad as the Lady and Morcefres?"

"He's not. That is the only time he's done something like that." Nora just shook her head. What a world Audrey had lived in.

"But you mentioned a journalist. I don't know her name, but there was a woman taken right after me who claimed to have a list of names and that she tried to find answers. They knew who she was before she even got here, and watched her like a hawk, waiting for her to make a mistake."

Nora took out the small picture she had hidden in the fold of her bag. Audrey looked at it, sighed and nodded.

"That's her."

"You don't seem happy to confirm that, is she dead?"

"She wasn't the last I knew. But that may have changed."

"Why, where is she?"

"Back at the castle. They would never risk bringing her on tour. But I know her as Kaneez. She is the one of us who has been treated the worst. The name literally means "slave" and they call her that instead of theow, to drive it home that she can never be anything different. She is also the one who made me lose my memory."

"What? How?"

"She was going for my seax. She tried to attack Morcefres, but of course she didn't succeed."

"Your… sex?" Nora must have misheard.

"The knife. S e a x. They had just given it to me, when I proved that I was loyal."

"How did you prove that?"

"A variety of ways." Audrey replied evasively. "Kaneez was also the reason I had to spend another night out in the stretch-neck, since I tried to warn her when I saw her in a forbidden corridor, and I spent the time trying to explain to her that she wouldn't get away now. They interpreted that as me having given up hope of escape and I didn't contradict them. Kaneez was punished quite severely for injuring me. Since we had to leave right after, and I couldn't walk with a concussion, Kaneez had to drag me on a pallet. It was mortifying for both of us, since everyone else, including the Lady, walks. That incident, and failing to escape with Æthelric later, made her suicidal. But they seem to go to great lengths to keep her alive, I really don't know why."

"Suicidal?"

"Yes. She's tried to throw herself down a well, only stopped by the yoke on her shoulders, tried to throw herself into a fire, tried to attack churls and Morcefres on several occasions, to get them to kill her, and refuses to eat at times. She has given up. She's not the only one, but she's the only one they try to keep alive anyway."

"Oh no. I can't tell Bryan that!"

"I'm sorry."

"You shouldn't be sorry. Nothing that has happened to you, or that you've seen is your fault."

"You don't know enough to make that judgment."