There was no farmer or merchant to hide behind as I crossed the drawbridge to stand before the guards at the castle gatehouse. But it didn’t matter. I was done pretending to be anything but who and what I was.
The guard named Finnet greeted me with a glob of phlegm he spat to the ground. “I know you,” he said. “And you can turn around and go back to the shithole you came from.”
“Don’t send her away yet,” said Gorn, the bearded one. “We have unfinished business, she and I. Come closer, thief. You wouldn’t take a kiss from me, no—and you spit in my face. I should cut you in two right now. But I’m a merciful man. A generous man, too, and so I’ve got something else to give you. It’ll fill you right up.” Leering horribly, he grabbed his crotch as he lurched toward me.
“Fill me?” I said, curling my lip at him. “I doubt it.”
His face darkened and his hand went to the knife at his belt. “Then I’ll give you this instead.” The next thing I knew, his blade was at my throat.
I didn’t flinch. “Certainly this is harder,” I said through gritted teeth.
I felt a bright flash of pain as the blade punctured my skin. A warm trickle of blood ran down my neck.
Gorn snarled. He put his other hand between my legs and squeezed. “So soft,” he whispered. “So lovely. But now you’re about to get your dress all bloody.”
“Get away from her!”
I gasped and put my hand over my bleeding throat as the guard stepped back. We both knew that cold voice well.
Baron Joachim stood just inside the raised portcullis, the reins of a great black horse held loosely in his hand. The guards melted away to either side of the gatehouse opening. I could see Gorn trembling. But the baron didn’t even glance at him. Instead he was staring at me.
“You’ve come back,” he said. He stroked his mount’s velvet nose. “I can’t imagine why.”
“For the same reason as the first time,” I said. “Desperation.” I took my sticky fingers away from my neck. Looking at them, I felt suddenly dizzy, and there was a low roaring in my ears. Was the cut deeper than I thought? Or was I just weak with hunger and fatigue? My voice cracked as I spoke. “I didn’t know what else to do. Where else to go.”
The baron’s eyes were fixed on my neck. “You’re hurt,” he said.
I held up red-smeared fingers. “This is nothing,” I said, with far more certainty than I felt.
“I will have it tended to,” he said.
I shook my head and the world blurred. “I don’t need any such thing. I only need to speak with you.”
“His time’s worth more than your life,” hissed Gorn.
“I’ll decide what you need and what you don’t,” said the baron, ignoring Gorn’s words. “In the meantime—” He turned and called out to a passing figure. “Take this girl to the keep.”
“My name is Hannah Dory—not girl,” I said as loudly as I could.
I took a stumbling step sideways; I was having trouble keeping my balance.
“I know who you are,” Baron Joachim said. “You’re a thief and a fool.”
His words stung for their truth. They echoed in my ears.
But no. Not anymore.
“I was those things once,” I said. “But now I am only a beggar.”
My knees buckled and I dropped to the ground. “Please,” I begged, as darkness came down over me like a cloak. “Please help.”