Marked Chapter 2 (Part Two)

“That is not a proper farthing, give me another.” I insisted, not wanting to take the shaved coin from the miller’s daughter. She held it out stubbornly.
“Here, here, here, just take 3 of my farthings and give me a penny back, will that suit? That flour looks more weevil than oats, it is not worth the 7 farthings you asked.”
I fell back into my custom of attending church morning and evening on Sunday. And I waited for the next call to the duty of my gift. When the knock came I dared to hope for a summons to a newborn, another voglie to be read, more silver for my purse. I opened my door to the heavy fisted pounding, and looked out to a beautiful evening of fiery sky after sunset across the valley. The shrouded henchmen of the Bishop could be mistaken for no one else. I suddenly felt icy underneath my cloak. They grabbed me out of my doorway. I counted four of them. I looked around for witnesses and saw that Sarah, my neighbor across the lane, was peeking out of the corner of her window, the curtain pulled ever so slightly to the side. Her eyes were wide and wild. Did she fear for herself, or for me? She let the sack cloth curtain fall into place after our eyes met. The men pushed me down on my knees into the flint shards of the garden path. I had no hope of standing let alone running, unless my captors willed it. A reeking, sticky, hood was pushed over my head. The smell of rotting vegetables and something coppery filled my nose and mouth. I struggled to keep calm. What were their plans? Why hadn’t they shackled me? The urge to run was strong. The men did not even bother to shackle me. I knew my surroundings even if I couldn’t see them, but I also knew there was nowhere to hide and none of my neighbors would take me in with the Bishop’s men after me. And it would not be fair to my neighbors to bring that sort of trouble to their door. Two of the men held me under my arms and dragged me away from my home, then threw me onto a flat surface about as high as my knees. My hands felt the damp wood. I sat up but was knocked down flat as my shoulder caught the blow of something unforgiving. There came a crashing sound around my ears. It sounded like iron on wood. I had seen carts used for transporting prisoners, first to prison, and then to gallows. I feared I was in such a cart. My shoulder throbbed as the contraption jerked forward. I heard a horse clopping at the front of the cart. I was certain those hollow sounds were the drums for the gallows. Dread fell over me. I felt a cold trickle of sweat from under my arms.
I reached up and felt the lid of the cart made from flat strips of iron, riveted at each overlapping joint into a lattice with 3 inch square openings, providing no protection from the weather. I thought for a moment of all the men who might have been taken away in this cart. I shuddered. I knew that my survival depended on keeping a cool head and gathering as much information as I could. The lattice left enough room for three fingers to grab each cold strip, which in its turn was the width of my thumb. That was the same width as the blade of the knife I often carried, but had left on the table when I answered the door. Between the iron lattice lid and the floor of the cart there was just enough room for me to turn over from my back to my belly, but I could not sit up. I breathed my gratitude to a kind God that I had my shoes and leggings on under my usual cloak and tunic. I prayed I would not be deprived of these. The hood over my face smelled vile, coppery, acrid. I knew better than to try to remove it. A few times the bile rose in my throat, but I focused on my breathing and the bile retreated.
The droning of the drumming hoofs, the creak of the wheels, the rubbing of the iron lid, sometimes felt like sleep to me. Each time the cart stopped, and the lid was lifted, I thought my time had come and I began to say my prayers, “Ave Maria, gratia plena. Dominus…” and received a sound cuff against my ear, “Be still!” commanded one of the guards. Six times the cart stopped, the iron lattice lid was lifted, and the hood pulled back just enough to throw water into my mouth. They allowed me to relieve myself so as not so soil my garments or perhaps the cart. Once someone held my head and shoved a pinch of bread between my lips with salty fingers that smelled of horse and something worse. Twice I saw daylight prying under the hood. Four times the stopping was but a few minutes, perhaps half an hour in all, but twice the cart stopped for a long enough time that is must have been night. I could hear rustling and low talk farther in front of the cart and assumed my captors were bedding down near the road. I was confused by their treatment of me, most likely I was meant to be. Nonetheless I was able to count three days travel from my home. Three days locked in a cage, with that vile hood over my face, felt like a year. But three days in a cart with one horse walking at a steady gait travels a predictable distance. My suspicions of our destination grew as strong as certainty.