The Pain that Made Her Beautiful

PMHB ch36

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Herman was getting nervous. There was something not right and he could see it was as evident on the others’ faces as in his gut.

“I don’t like it,” Alan said, “Everything that this points to is ambush and slavery.”

Alan was right, there was something that was wrong with this, very wrong.

“What other choice do we have?” Glaan asked, exasperated.

“We have forces on the other side, tell them to come get us,” Herbert suggested.

“But how do we get our messenger under the Romans’ noses?” Hanz asked, “it’s illogical to assume, even if we do get him past, he will make it to the Chatti or any other allies without being caught or getting lost.”

Herman was playing with fire here. Every decision he made seemed to benefit the Romans in some way, and deter him and his men at the same time.

The ‘what if’ ideas continued to fly, along with the logical rejections of each idea, shot down.

“Hermun, what do you think?” Brayden asked, suddenly.

Hermun gathered his wits and did his best to reply, “I say we give them three, girls I mean. I know what the Romans want them for, so we need to give them a hardy and old enough to handle. It is harsh and I know it is not ideal, but I don’t see any other option.”

Verganzblast looked at him with horror written clearly across his face, “How could you even say such a thing, Herman? You, of all people know what happened to Adalia.”

It felt as though someone had hit Hermun in the gut with a brick. His face paled and his heart stopped momentarily in his chest and he felt as though he would lose his stomach. The name alone gave his heart an uplifting feeling, the feeling of her waist-length golden hair, her sparkling, crystal, blue eyes which never stopped smiling, her whimsical voice which, in every word she spoke, managed to sing rather than speak in the song of her life, soon to be intertwined with his own. She was the melody of his heart, the apple of his eye, and the heart that had beaten, only for her, in his chest—and now she gone. Every moment with her was now but a memory, every fleeting look now just a star in the sky.

“Verganzblast, this is not the same,” Hanz said, clearly noticing the look on Herman’s face.

“She was taken from me, Herman, by the same kinds of men who want those girls. She was my pride and joy, and your bride to be, and they—they just took her,” Verganzblast said, beating his fist against his heart.

“I realize the pain you feel, I feel is too, but now we have to think about the future of our tribe and families,” Herman said, trying to gain back his senses.

“Herman, they took her to Rome, after, and on the way, using her, and, last I heard, she is a holy prostitute in the temple of Venus. She is gone, would you subject these girls to the same fate as she?” Verganzblast’s words hit Herman at his very core; there was a good point to be made, but they still had to get through that wall in order to get home.

Hermun breathed in deeply and he could almost see all the men lean inward for his final answer, “It is with dirt in my mouth, blood on my hands, feces under my bare feet, and all other manner of unpleasant situations, feelings, and sensations, I say, this is not out of any willing want or pleasure that I comply with the Roman price, but out of duty, preservation of our people, and mandatory need that it is done. I pray to every god on this fallow nigh, that they forgive me for this black and, truly, unholy deed, and bless those whom I love, and the families to whom I have drawn near, if not I. I want our people to thrive, and we need these people, I am aware, but we must get home safe, and whole, as to be able to preserve our own. Please, it is a vile deed, on any level, to any person, but it is a mandatory act, and all these girls’ blood, I know, is on my hands, and I will claim all responsibility for all following events; however, who supports my decision?”