Thirteen suns had swung through the sky and sunk beneath the mountain caps since the thane Calan had disavowed the crown. The King’s messenger had ridden into the valley to deliver the decree that the town should send twenty men of fighting age to march in the ranks against the English. Back had the messenger been sent with an unprecedented simple refusal – no men would be sent south. Of the last contribution of muscle, sword and blood twenty strong, only one had returned less a leg. The harvest that followed was pathetic without enough men to reap, and the bitter winter that year drowned the village in sadness as all went hungry.
Calan had sworn to his wife that this year would be lived for themselves.
He knew retribution would come, but the form in which it would materialise would remain a surprise. The King did not mete justice openly; known from sea to sea for his literal backstabbing approach to vengeance. Calan had not slept soundly since the day he had dispatched the messenger back down the hillside. He awoke at every distant animal call, every rustling of wind in branch and leaves, and grew suspicious of even familiar faces around him.
His daughter, Rosaline was his pride. Sixteen years of age, blessed with her mother’s fire red hair, strong shoulders and a powerful physique that carried her on long walks far up into the mountains to hunt and gather for their people. Rosaline had relinquished any notions of religion two years earlier, attending the town’s prayer but sitting mute when all around her sang. She had openly admitted to her mother that she hated the ideals preached to her, and that it was a waste of time and mind. They had agreed between the two of them that her father would not be told, as long as she at least maintained the pretence. One day she might rule this thanedom, and her standing and very safety would be threatened if she repudiated the high priest. Rosaline suspected that her father and the high priest knew anyway, but nevertheless she bowed low when passing the priest, mumbled at least a response when spoken to, and showed up for every sermon.
The setting of the thirteenth sun was her last night of peace. Calan had tightened security around the keep and outside his chambers, but it was not he for whom they came. It was hours dark when they came near silently to her; a creak as her chamber door opened and within a fleeting moment, hands over her mouth, grabbing her wrists and ankles, gripping firm. She screamed, muffled, into the palm over her mouth, and was pulled from the bed, stood up, and thrown over the shoulder of a hulking great man, bloused in a black silk. She looked down to his black and grey kilt – the terrifying sight of the King’s guard’s tartan made her heart skip a beat. The hand over her mouth was released but as she took an intake of breath to shout, a white balled up rag was stuffed between her lips and then bound in place with cloth around her jaw and tied tight at the back of her head. Rosaline’s mouth immediately dried as her saliva soaked into the rag.
Carried, shrouded still in her bed sheets like a parcel from the room and down the stone steps past flickering flame lanterns, the shadows struck against the walls vast and ominous in their sinister dance. Her eyes welled with tears as they passed both guards at the keep entrance, slain or simply knocked out, crumpled on the stone flags. They took a turn outside and headed for a service doorway behind the scullery rather than the main gates, presumably the same way they had entered – a glaring weakness in the small castle’s perimeter.
Once outside the castle, the town still sleeping made no resistance to the elite soldiers’ retreat with their prize. They mounted large black horses, and Rosaline was slung across the saddle in front of one rider. The hoof steps began quiet at first, bouncing her somewhat uncomfortably on the saddle despite the padding of her white bedsheets and her basic cloth nightwear that still enveloped her body. Soon the earth was pounded beneath the horses, the grass blurring past. She felt her pendant bounce around her neck and hoped it wouldn’t drop and be lost. The small quartz disc on a leather string was engraved with the sigil of her family, and marked her as a member of the ruling family for her thanedom. In an effort to keep it in place she tried to lift her head up slightly so her head wasn’t lolling around down at the horse’s side. She could see the trees of the lower forest whizz past. South. Well of course it was South.
[this story has not been edited, so please forgive minor errors. cc welcomed!]
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/fby0pq/the_sacred_release_an_outlanderinspired