She didn’t hear all that Reynevan agreed to. Duke Jan ordered his soldiers to remove her. She fought back, it didn’t help, they dragged her into the cloisters and the corridors. Her dress and chemise were torn to her waist, her breasts exposed. The soldiers, naturally, couldn’t let a chance like that pass them by. Barely had they reached a secluded place than they pushed her against a wall. One pressed a stinking hand to her mouth and the rest pawed her, cackling with laughter. She trembled in disgust and shook spasmodically, which excited them and made them redouble their efforts. Their laughter and coarse comments finally attracted someone more important, blows fell on the soldiers, Jutta heard the sounds of slaps and dull punches. Released, she slumped to the floor and fainted.

She came to in a dark, empty cellar reeking of rancid wine. She squeezed herself into a corner, pulled her knees up to her chin and hugged them tightly. She froze in that position. For a long while… A very long time.

When she was led out of the cellar, she was sore and stiff, dazed like a corpse with rigor mortis. She had absolutely no idea what was happening to her, not even terror could break through the mist that had enveloped her senses, swaddled her in a thick layer of something soft and impenetrable.

There was suddenly the fresh night air; cold, almost freezing. At first, it appeared it would bring her to her senses, but that was an erroneous impression.

A whip cracked. Horses whinnied. The world began to shake.

When she came to it was day. A sunny, frosty day. The courtyard of an inn or homestead, the snorting of fresh horses being hitched up, steam belching from their nostrils. Ravens cawing. A rooster crowing.

“Miss Apolda.”

A man, short, keen-eyed. A stranger. Completely unknown to her.

“If you would change, Miss,” he said in a strange accent. “I beg your indulgence, but it doesn’t befit you to be seen in such torn garments. It is shameful, on top of which it attracts the eye unduly. Please put these things on.”

A rooster crows. A dog barks. A horse being harnessed snorts.

“Do you hear me, Miss? And understand me?”

A whip cracks, the horses whinny. The wagon bounces and thuds on the frozen ground. The cold clears her head. Her thoughts become sharper.

“Miss Apolda. We shall make a stop here. Please, do not—”

She burst into tears. And wailed. Her nose was running like a child’s, and like a child she smudged the tears over her face with a shaking hand. Through the tears she saw him grimace. He threw the reins to a servant boy, put his arm around her and led her towards a building. He said something. She wasn’t listening. She was busy planning.