I have tagged this story carefully but just in case you missed them, it’s not a nice story. It also contains non consensual sex.

Bad things happen to people who probably don’t deserve it. Themes include addiction, mind control, slavery, sacrifice and blood play.

N.B. I’ve made some effort to create the world and characters up to this chapter. You will get more out of the story if you read Debtor’s Promise and part 1 of Debtor’s War first.

In Elizabeth’s own words:

“There are no heroes.”

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We all do as we must to survive.

March 1517

I lost my mother the year before. That would make my twin sister and I about seven years old, maybe eight? It was early spring, at all times the season of empty bellies and freezing nights, but that year was cruel. We begged for scraps and coins, but no one could afford bread, no one could spare us a copper penny.

I remember holding my sister’s hand and running as fast as we could past Old Lugoz’s place despite our hunger. We street rats were wary of the one eyed tanner. Apart from the rank smell of his work and the foul vats of mangled skin, there were rumours. My brothers said the old man stole children in the night and pickled them in the barrels outside his shop.

Claudia and I bedded down together in our corner of the big straw mattress. Our brothers were already snoring, we held each other tight. She prayed that God would keep us safe from wicked men who hunt children, then she slept. I lay awake and thought, how could pickled people smell like fish?

That morning, well before first light, I left the others sleeping. The dew had frosted on the grass. l played a game, skipping from one stone to another along the muddy verges leaving little trace of my passing. I approached in silence, hugging close to the wall where there was no frost.

The top of the pickle barrel was about level with the top of my head. I stood on tip toe, lifted the lid an inch or two and peered inside.

Wide eyes stared back at me through the brine, eyes that never blinked. Gaping mouths that never drew breath. I filled my apron with the salted eels and trout. I didn’t dare stop to eat a bite, but ran home and packed them in snow under the eaves. When our father left for work we didn’t go out begging. We fried the fish in tallow fat and devoured it all together, me and my brothers and sisters.

***

October 1529

Claudia’s eyes were wide open and listless as Stojan put her on the bed, her breathing shallow. The old soldier nodded to me, shot a glance at his mistress, then left us.

I tried to keep the emotion from my voice but I was furious. My sister was more than drunk, she was drooling, insensate. “Hemlock?” I shook my head in disgust.

“Spare me the self righteous crap,” madam Gerta said. “I hear you were popular with the sentries on the road. Before they locked us down, mind. Did he know?”

I swallowed my reply with no small effort.

“Didn’t think so,” she smirked. Her teeth were disgusting. “Well, he won’t learn it from me.” She looked me up and down. “As for your sister, you pair are nothing alike.”

Gerta sat beside Claudia, took up my sister’s arm and turned it over to show me the fresh scars on her wrists. A hollow sickness rose in my throat as the anger drained out of me.

“She cut herself,” I breathed.

Gerta nodded grimly, pulled the blanket up over my sister and hushed her as she moaned. “And I’m not running a sick house. Girls come here to work, I gave her enough chances.”

“So what?” I perched on a nearby chest. “Did she ever actually fuck the customers or…”

Gerta laughed, “Yeah, for a couple of months this summer past. Now? She’s not the only soft head I’ve taken in over the years. The special brew treatment works as a rule, loosens the girls up until they begin to appreciate the money.”

I forced myself to simmer down. I knew first hand there was a market for unwilling girls and I owed Gerta a debt for sparing my sister. Claudia. How had I missed it? How long had she been so unhappy?

The woman looked at me gritting my teeth in silence and sighed. “Poor girl’s not cut out for this, is she? But there’s other work, lass, honest work. All it takes is the right word in the right ear.”

“After the siege?” I said, uneasy. “Please keep her safe until then?”

“Pah, could be months yet.”

“Fine,” I snapped. “A week?”

“You can have until Sunday.”

Just five days. I pressed my nails into my palms and forced a smile. “That’s generous enough, Madame. Say I’d not come here tonight. Or say I’d left in anger what would…”

“Fuck you. Take the win and hurry back to your master, Sparrow.”

My master. Despite everything, I was convinced he cared deeply for me. Though things had changed so much between us, and he was caught up in his own troubles, I still hoped for his blessing. I didn’t want to leave my sister at the brothel, but I had to. If there was any hope of finding an honest living for us, the state she was in was more hindrance than help.

I kept a lamp on that night, and like old times I waited to help Enzo with his gear. It was very late when he came to bed. I stood and met him with a guarded smile, but my heart sank when I saw his eyes.

“I told you not to bother waiting for me.”

“It’s no trouble master. I needed…”

He unfastened his belt buckle, slid the leather strap out in one smooth motion. He had to take his belt off anyway to unfasten everything, but I knew by his manner I’d be in for it. The question, as ever, was whether to stay or run. Either choice would have ended badly that night.

“I didn’t think you’d mind, master.”

“Make yourself useful then.”

I took his things and carefully oiled the leather and steel, hung it all neatly, ready to put on. Tell me why I did I comply, like a mouse, like a slave, knowing him, knowing that face?

He lay back on the bed naked, his cock rose to attention as he watched me work. “Tamas is in the infirmary. How do you suppose that happened?”

His question sent a chill down my spine. “No idea master,” I answered carefully. “Fighting on the wall?”

“Six men are being flogged to death for insubordination as we speak, so you can bet I already know what happened. I just want to see if you have anything to say for yourself.”

“Fuck.” I just stood where I was, nothing to occupy my hands, confused. “What about Neni?”

“Got herself slapped trying to break up the fight, but she’s fine. She’s keeping a vigil until morning.”

Poor Tamas, beaten for Enzo’s indiscretion. So why the hell was Enzo questioning me, how the hell could he blame me? How was he still getting off on the whole fucked up situation? He disgusted me more than ever.

I leaned against the wall and watched him stroke himself harder, I dreaded it. Coming here for help was a stupid mistake. I hung my dress with Enzo’s clothes and came to kneel beside the bed. I kept my hands clasped demurely behind me, and my eyes down. “People talk, master, people are snakes. He was scared even to walk to the latrine, I can imagine… I’m sorry for Tamas.”

“What did you have to say to that old cow across the road?”

Cold and nervous, kneeling there naked, my teeth began to chatter. Not a good look for an innocent woman. “I went to visit my sister, but she couldn’t talk. Madame Gerta drugged her.”

I tensed up, already bracing myself for the belt buckle, maybe I should have seen the punch coming.

My ears were ringing when I came to my senses lying prone. There was something smothering my face, filling my mouth, pinning down my tongue, I could taste blood. My ragged breathing came faster as I heard a knife scraping against stone. I was hogtied. Reason deserted me. I screamed and thrashed, begged for my life, well past trying to play along.

Enzo laughed at me. “Is it too much?” he mocked.

The cold flat of his blade skimmed across the back of my arm, ending my hysterics in seconds.

I pleaded for forgiveness, though the gag choked my words I hoped their grovelling tone might save me. Terrified, filled with remorse for whatever he judged me guilty of. If I hadn’t pissed myself already I would have then.

I kept perfectly still as the blade teased the hairs on my sex, whimpering with every breath.

“You think you can make a living with this? Without me?”

No, I shook my head desperately, almost dying of relief when he moved the knife away.

“You’ve been selling this instead of taking care of what’s mine. Six against one, and where the fuck were you?” The belt smacked across my bound arms, the buckle cut my elbow. I bit down on the gag and held my breath, letting my mind carry me to that other place not knowing if I would come back.

He beat me so soundly I couldn’t have told him my own name when he finally took the gag out of my mouth. I could feel bones moving against bones as my bonds were cut. I was drowning, bubbling as I breathed. Someone covered me with the blanket. I could hear voices outside the window getting further and further away.

It was grave news, surely someone was dying, Tamas? I heard a woman say his name, she sounded exhausted, parched, I could have killed for a drink of water. When I moved there was a drilling pain in my head. And I really couldn’t see, even when I found the strength to open my eyes. When I closed them again, the worry melted out of me.

“There was a little house with a stout wooden door. It had a true second floor, enough room for Claudia and me, for Maggie and mother and father. There was a big table downstairs, set for all our friends. It was piled high with pork belly and roasted birds, six different plates of sausages, great big bowls of cabbage and celery root, the smell was like christmas day in heaven. We made baskets and spun flax until the light faded and as evening fell the men began to tell stories. Mother took me out onto the little step and she sat with her arm around me until everything got so quiet I could hear only my heart beat.

“Where’s your sister? You need to wake up. Wake up now.”

When I came to my senses, my eyes were caked in a pungent ointment, that was the food smell. Wholesome, appetising, rosemary? A couple of fingers were strapped together on my left hand and they ached, but other than that my body felt sound. I felt crisp linen shift against my skin, tucked up in bed under a warm coverlet.

I propped myself up on my elbows to take a look around. It was dark beyond the infirmary windows but inside, a pair of covered lanterns gave the plaster walls a pale yellow glow. On both sides of me were rows of cots filled with women and children. A nun robed in sackcloth moved down the ward offering water, repositioning stiff and broken limbs and praying under her breath.

When she came to me I knew her at once. It’s not like I expected to see her soulless eyes, but the moment I did it seemed inevitable. My heart was beating so loud and fast she must have heard it. I felt like a rat, trapped in a sack with a pinscher.

The Lady held a cup to my lips and I didn’t shy away, sipping the cool water without complaint. I can’t describe the conflict, but here we are, I needed her. It was like that impossible story, you know the one? Spin straw into gold, cross the raging river in a sieve, mad as it was, there was no way out of that sick bed but through her.

“Thank you,” I croaked.

“Bless you.” She touched my cheek with her icy fingers and moved on to the next bed.

The power emanating from her as she tended the sick was palpable. She was dressed and veiled in coarse cloth, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a twisted parody of a nun.

I shifted onto my side to take a better look around. Most sickrooms would be filled with agonised moans and the stench of corruption, but this was a peaceful, fragrant place.

Blindness, hallucinations, and paralysis are all symptoms of bleeding into the brain, but I knew nothing of such things. I only knew I had touched the hand of death. Had God shriven me for a purpose? After this mortification of my soul, could there be any hope, or were Enzo and his cruel Lady truly servants of the devil? Then why fight those monstrous fiends from the east?

The Lady left the infirmary as dawn approached. I knelt at the foot of my bed and spoke the lord’s prayer, grovelling prayers of contrition too, until the grey light of morning poured through the narrow windows. I brushed away angry tears. “Please. Give me strength,” I prayed. I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t lie quietly and wait, I couldn’t be at peace with any of this.

I found my few possessions wrapped up in a blood stained blanket that had come with me from the barracks. My moretta and the porcelain mask Radu had given me were both gone. I kept the scouts armour bundled in the pack and dressed properly for once. I bound and veiled my hair as a woman should, cinched my woolen skirts more modestly than I had become accustomed to. My coin purse was just as heavy as I remembered. I tucked it away in my bodice, minus a silver shilling that I clutched tightly in my fist.

The path through the cloister led out into the church of the sacred heart. The nuns crossed themselves and looked away when I caught them staring. A girl was scrubbing the mosaic floor in front of the sanctuary and bile rose in my throat when I thought about why. I dropped my shilling into the paupers box on the way out. No-one stopped me.

Acrid smoke carried on the air. I made my way to the traders square to collect my dole of bread, and sat on the plinth of the market cross to eat it. It was a Friday morning. During peacetime, the monument would have been surrounded by merchants and beggars, but that day everyone seemed to have other business. Honest work. What hope had I of finding honest work?

I wandered down the lanes and alleyways I’d prowled as a starving child. In the streets beside the old river Wien were the damp but somewhat grander dwellings of the tanners, fishers and dyers. I was surprised to see Old Lugoz standing on his porch, waving his walking stick at his neighbours.

A beefy looking washer woman had her sleeves rolled up, shaking her fist, calling Lugoz a cheat and a miser, which didn’t seem fair. The chances were he’d kept more than enough fish to feed himself through the siege, which was illegal, but that’s not what they were rowing about.

I joined the small crowd of gawkers and got comfortable leaning against a fence.

“He can not pay,” someone jeered from the growing crowd, “leave the poor old bastard alone.”

“Rubbish!” the washer woman shrieked, “Cough up a coin yourself if you feel so sorry for him!”

“This is criminal extortion!” Lugoz shouted, “Since when do we pay our masters to turn our own streets to mud?”

Three guardsmen stood watching the argument. I assumed they wouldn’t interfere unless it came to blows, but the oldest interrupted Lugoz.

“No talk of treason!”

The tanner’s eyes bulged in indignation, “I’m no damn traitor!”

“Hold your tongue or you’ll be ranting in the stocks, however feeble you are, friend. Pay up or you’ll be under the law.”

“Bloody treason,” some woman sniggered, “keeping too many apples in the cellar is fucking treason these days.”

The guard’s head snapped round and the speaker laughed no more. Then his eyes fell on me.

I met his stare. “How much does Uncle Lugoz owe?” I asked boldly.

The guard raised the corner of his lip and sneered at me. “Half a crown. Bit more than a basket of apples you cheeky little bitch.”

“Then I’ll pay.” I pushed away from the wall and sauntered the few feet between us. I gave him a clear view of my tits as I unwrapped my purse from under my bodice. “Who does he owe?”

All eyes were on us, and the washer woman’s rant tailed off mid sentence. I didn’t mind the attention. I didn’t mind the guard’s smirk turning to a smile. “The town crier over there.” He nodded to the washer woman. “She paid the gang master.”

“Keep your money girl! HE owes me. Tight arsed bastard,” the woman shrieked.

“It’s good then. I’ll pay you what my father owes. From when Lugoz fed his kids.” I held out the bright silver coin. I’d earned it at the checkpoint, taking Daniel’s beautiful cock, but she didn’t need to know that. She snatched it from my hand despite her protests. The small crowd dispersed.

I felt lighter already. I wondered where all my old neighbours from the slum had ended up, especially the poor woman who had suffered us stealing milk from her byre.

“Oi!” Lugoz called after me, “Don’t just swan off girl, what’s this about your daddy owing me? I don’t lend coin or borrow.”

I looked back. He was half blind, leaning heavily on his stick, exhausted from standing, out of breath though he’d barely raised his voice. He probably didn’t have another winter in him.

“Don’t worry, Uncle. It was years ago.”

“You’ve paid the wrong man.” When he frowned, his thick grey eyebrows knitted themselves into one, and his eye patch made him look rough.

It would have been sensible to walk away, but I walked towards him instead. Right up onto his porch.

“No, Uncle. Eleven years ago we had a long winter after a wet summer, remember? We couldn’t buy bread, no one could. My dad’s a barrow man, there were eight of us to feed. We would have starved without you.”

His single rheumy eye twinkled and he shook his head, “You’re the little ferret that kept getting into my pickle barrel without waking my dog?”

“They call me Sparrow these days,” I said.

“Would you believe it.” He hobbled back into his house and left the door open. I hesitated before following him.

His dog didn’t look up when I entered. How had it slept through the blazing argument? I half imagined it was dead, until it lifted its head to nuzzle its master’s hand. Lugoz sat heavily into his chair by the hearth. I pulled the door shut behind me.

“How did you drum up a half crown to save my scrawny old arse then?”

I knelt on the sheepskin beside the old hound and it nuzzled my hand as well. “I’m a sinner, Uncle. I came too close to death, and now I want to pay my debts. Live honestly.”

“I do admire that,” the old man yawned. “These are mighty strange times. Now that Moravian madman demands we pull up the bloody road! Or pay somebody else to do it! I can not walk through mud girl, I can barely walk on the flat. Why have I tithed good money to the city to keep the roads in good repair all my life?”

I let him rant. If he hadn’t seen what I’d seen, he wouldn’t believe me if I told him.

“I heard them Turks lost half their siege machines in the marshes,” he chuckled. “And folks are better cared for, and the slums are gone. Why’d they have to take it too far, eh? Madmen.”

“Sorry, Uncle. I won’t argue with you in your own house.”

“No husband, girl?” He winked.

“I ran away from him.”

“Saint Stephen’s balls.” He shook his head again. “With his money? You’ll be in more trouble than me.”

I laughed, “God help me, but it’s not his money. I earned it selling… things. Now there’s no trade outside until the Turks have gone.”

“What sort of man sends his wife out to work?” Lugoz smirked as he crossed himself.

“The truth is, I don’t know where I’ll stay tonight.” That statement of fact hung between us for a few beats. I watched the amusement fade from his face. “I need somewhere for me and my sister. She stays with this crooked gospodyni who wants her to work for her keep, but it’s not for her. That sort of work isn’t for her, and I’ve grown tired of it myself.”

“Say no more.” He sank back in his chair and set down his stick against the hearth stone.

The dog settled back to dozing and a log cracked in the fire.

“I’ve yet to have breakfast today, Sparrow, and standing at the stove tires me out. Do you think you’ve time to fix me a couple of griddle cakes and an egg? Perhaps one for yourself?”

“If it’s not… If you can spare it?”