you don't own me - the last kingdom

run

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(1)

laughter bellowed from men all around the campfire, the pillaging danes that had captured me all those months ago were having a celebratory feast. they had just made a sacrifice to odin and the old gods. but without a hall a of their own just yet, a large bonfire had to suffice to celebrate around. the wood had taken hours to collect, and once ablaze it was the biggest fire i had ever seen. apart from the one the danes had set that had reduced my village to ashes.

all the slaves at the camp had been taken when the danes had raided our village and various others near the coast of northumbria. they weren't the first danes to come. they came when we were most vulnerable, in the dead of night. hours after nightly prayers had been said, and hours before the village would wake.

the screaming and smoke had been too much to bear, i hadn't been able to move. i just hid in the attic with my family, hands over my ears, eyes squeezed shut, until eventually they'd found us. my mother always said if the danes came, i must take a knife to my own heart. better no life at all than a life as a slave, to be used by vikings whenever it suited them. i'd always nodded and replied 'yes mama' but when the moment came, i couldn't do it.

you see my father had always protested my mothers word, saying that taking your own life was forbidden in the eyes of god and that i would be damned to hell if i did so. that frightened me, of course, a mere child of 14, raised to be a god fearing saxon. back then, nothing could be worse than burning in hell for all eternity.

i'm not sure i believe in god anymore.

not after what i've seen, what they've done to me in such little time. if god is all powerful, then why hasn't he spared me this pain? what have i done to deserve this? or is it all part of his big plan, and this is my destiny? if i could go back, i would have jumped at the chance of killing myself.

yet here i am, a coward and a slave to a band of danes. not even a whole year later and everything in my life has changed. i have no family left. when they'd found us i had opened my eyes, one of them, the big one with the dark hair had unsheathed his sæx and gutted my father right there.

after that i'd shut my eyes again, trying to unsee it, cupping my ears with my palms to drown out the sounds of my family being slaughtered. i'd hoped, prayed to god, that they would just get it over with and murder me too. but god had not answered me, and one of them grabbed me and dragged me down the ladder of my small home. when i pried my eyes open all i could see were the massacared bodies of my family. my mother and my father holding my baby brother and sister in their arms even in death.

danes often only took young women for whores as well as boys less able bodied men as slaves. men too strong were too likely to start an uprising or run away. babies and elderly people had no use so they were slaughtered like animals. priests and monks were also treated harshly, as though the danes were trying to make a point that the christian god didn't exist.

i'd struggled and screamed against the man dragging me away, but he was bigger and stronger than i was. all i heard was laughter, the more i struggled, the more they laughed. soon i was surrounded by danes. the man released me and shoved me on the ground, i whimpered softly. more laughter. i pushed myself off the ground and stood up, trying to keep myself from breaking down.

the man who had slaughtered my father stepped forth and began to pinch and slap my body in places, as though inspecting my quality. i nearly brought up my breakfast in that moment.

'what is your name girl?' he asked me in a thick danish accent.

'sunniva' i replied , then quickly added 'lord' at the end. that raised some chuckles from the men. they really were a bunch of gigglers, i thought.