Who says women can't be heroes?
Marilyn is watching Lord Grimston as he is sitting at a long, thick, and heavy dark wood dining table in the mess hall of his keep. His only company is two hunting dogs beside him while he is eating a roasted beef leg. The two dogs watch him with unwavering gazes as they beg for morsels.
His sword is lying next to his plate on the table unsheathed. He is cutting chunks of beef with a dagger and either eating it himself or tossing scraps to his dogs, which they gobble up with a single snap of their jaws. His matted blond hair hangs to his shoulders and is bound in a rough ponytail at the base of his neck. He is watching her with cold brown eyes that look more as if they are looking at a piece of furniture than a person. His beard adds more to his rugged features and makes him appear more intimidating. A dark fur cloak that hangs over his plate armor completes the picture.
She still cannot fathom how he can hold favor with the crown, looking more like a rugged bandit than a merchant. He eats alone and she has to stand and watch him eat. This man is very rude and tells her through this action that he will not tolerate any disobedience and he is the master of this keep and all that lives in it. With a hand, she sweeps a troublesome strand of her slightly curving auburn hair and tucks it behind her ear. She purses her lips and looks Lord Grimston in the eyes, unphased by his threatening demeanor. He meets her defiant gaze with a sneering glare.
The sword next to him gleams at her with a promise of malice. A message for anyone that he will not take no for an answer. You either obey or face the consequences.
Marilyn had to listen with great sorrow as she had to go and live with her uncle until her pre-arranged marriage was at hand.
Marriage is my worst enemy.
She feels her throat choking up at the idea of marrying any man. This is not what she wants for her future. Her uncle organized this wedding against her father's wishes. She is supposed to live free to choose with whom she wants to spend the rest of her life. Not this. She does not even know the man's name.
Just my rotten luck to be afraid of marriage.
"This is not what my father wants for me, Lord Grimston..." She tries to reason with him.
"Marilyn your father died on the battlefield. Your mother died of illness and you aren't married. You are not a boy who can choose for himself! So be grateful we even worry about you! You are a part of this family and you should act that way!" he cuts her off.
What?! How dare you throw family values in my face.
She opens and shuts her mouth like a fish as anger boils through her veins. The indignation and humiliation. How could they do this to her? Force her to marry someone she does not even know. Why do they not give in to her father's final wish? Her anger is so devastating that her heart beats painfully as it is torn between sorrow and wrath. Sorrow for her mother's loss and wrath against her uncle's dishonor of her father's memory.
They didn't even give her the time to mourn. "I can not and will not accept this. I would rather die than be m... ugh..." She makes a gagging reflex as her throat closes up on the word marriage. "...To someone, I don't even know." Marilyn takes a step back and the blood drains from her face. What the hell is wrong with her? It's just marriage. She has dreamed about getting married a few times, but somehow the thought always makes her feel like this. The idea of permanently binding herself to another and sacrificing her freedom frightens her immensely and she has never dwelled on it for too long. She also did not get the chance to while taking care of her ill mother. Now that she is face to face with it, she finds herself afraid in such a sense that she could feel her entire body freeze and shudder at the thought. What will happen if she is dragged to the altar against her will?
Grimston seems not to notice that Marilyn's face has gone stark white with fear. "You shall work in the kitchen with the rest of the women." Her uncle's cold words felt like a knife in her gut and his following words were like a judgment from the gods. "As is a woman's place. In the kitchen with a baby at her breast. That is all that a woman is good for and it is high time you accept it rather than be filled by dream castles of grandeur that your father filled your head with. You will not leave this keep until I say you can! If you run I will find you and drag you to that alter in chains! Is that clear?!" He bangs his fist on the table with emphasis and the two dogs yelp and run in fear of his anger.
"Yes, sir." Her voice is filled with venom and feels more like ice than a meek understanding, while she furrows her brow angrily.
"You will do well to answer with greater respect and not someone that just received a death sentence," Grimston misinterprets her cold defiance.
"Forgive me if I do not agree with your reasoning, my Lord but this meaningless life you insist I follow is a gilded cage," she replies coldly.
"Watch your tongue before I decide to feed it to my dogs. I am certain they will find it very useful. Marian put her on laundry duty. I do not want to see this filth until she is married!" Lord Grimston shouts angrily.
She snarls at him. "Why should I watch my tongue if it is the truth!"
"Enough! You have no say in this! Marian!!"
His wife, who has been watching and listening from the scullery doorway comes to her without speaking a word and yanks Marilyn after her with a hard jerk. She is half-dragged by the woman past two empty tables lining the dining hall, through the scullery, where several women are busy preparing a meal, and into the laundry room, past several servants already working in the laundry. The dark-haired, green-eyed woman in a silver satin tabard watch her like a hawk as she labored at the laundry until her arms were raw and bleeding from the rubbing of the laundry in the large washbasin. The heavy smell of starch and animal fat made her gag. She bit back the tears of her humiliation. Never did she have to do this much washing in her life.
She is watching the men of the family as they pass her in their armor and an idea starts to coarse through her mind. She knows she looks like a boy when she pulls her hair away because when she has worn her hair in a ponytail before, she was mistaken for a boy even though she was wearing a dress at the time. She still lived with her mother at the time and Lord Grimston does not know this fact.
The idea takes root and grows into a fully-fledged escape plan. But to escape she will need her father's armor and for that, she needs to find the armory, but she has to do it discreetly. Later that day when everyone has retired she lay awake until late, fine lining her plans until she falls into a fitful sleep of nightmares of being caught and her uncle cutting out her tongue. His smug laughter as she is dragged off by a complete stranger is the last cobweb of her nightmares. This alone should have kept her from doing what she is about to do.
She set her mind into one single gear. To escape. Nothing and no one will stop her and if she is discovered she will welcome death with open arms. Peace settles deep within her being and her heart pound with both excitement and fear. She is placed with the laundry again, but the moment the linen touches her still has raw skin. She jumps away in alarm as searing pain roars up her arms and she cries out in agony. Tears flood her eyes and roll down her cheeks. One of the men hears her and gleefully points at the washing again. Laughing. She sends him a venomous glare before fleeing.
Their laughter only worsens her situation as she continues to flee blindly through the grey stone hallways of the keep and deeper into its dark interior. Her footsteps sounding like thunder in the hallways. She cries as emotions wrack her body. She tries to fight it, but to no avail. When she finally came to she finds herself in the armory of her uncle's keep. There, shoved in a corner is her father's armor casket. Marilyn recognizing the telltale royal coat of arms on the trunk and the small engraving of a glyph in the lower corner near the floor. The glyph is the first letter of her father's name.
She comes unto her feet, from where she has been sitting in a corner. She grabs the handle and hauls the trunk after her. She also takes great care so no-one would notice what she is doing. She is very lucky not to encounter anyone along the way.
She opens the trunk in her room. Inside lies her father's old armor. A plate and chainmail armor, complete with chainmail shirt, trousers, forearm bracers, calf bracers with metal hinged boots, breastplate infused with chainmail at the waist for easy movement, and gauntlets.
Considerably lighter than full plate armor, but still heavier than leather armor. She is in luck. She can create a woolen cap inside the chainmail hoodie for her hair. She throws the bracers on the bed and slides the trunk under the bed. She knows she has to hide the armor somehow and return the trunk. She will have to think about this for a while.
She pulls back the sleeves of her dress and sees her arms. The wounds on her forearms have made ugly scabs where the blood had congealed into a crust. In some places, her skin is also red and raw.
She search the room hoping that the previous occupant might have left some herbs behind. She is in luck to find it hidden under a loose floor board. She finds the room sparsely furnished with only a bed and a flimsy wooden dresser that have seen better days, and as cold as the granite stone walls of the keep. It felt more to her like a prison than a home.
She prepares the herbs and rubs them over her raw skin. It burns like hell, but she ignores the pain. Once her wounds have been treated she covers her forearms in strips of cloth. She then straps the forearm bracers unto her arms and covers them with the sleeves of her dress. Thanks to the wide girth of her sleeves she is able to hide the bracers. She went back to work and this time the bracers are protecting her arms from the worst.
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Three weeks pass as she works in silence and when someone asks her something she did it with a loathsome expression of absolute hatred, so much so that everyone in the keep steers well clear of her. Her uncle came to hear of her behavior, but when he corners her about her rude behavior she looks at him with the same hate as she does with everyone else in the keep.
"I am certain that marriage will wipe that awful look from your face. Marian, have her taken to the seamstress next week to get her measurements for the wedding dress." She increases her cold glare as much as she could muster and pulls her mouth into a cold sneer. She refuses to utter a word.
"Do try to be more civil with the people of your family. You will only push your family away if you keep acting like this. You were always such a bright and happy child. I only want what is best for your future even if you don't like it now. You will thank me one day and I will see you smile again."
The rage in her is boiling like the flames of war and the promise of violence. It takes every ounce of self-control she has to root herself to the ground and not say or do something she would regret.
"Am I free to leave this keep, without being part of your deal?"
"No. Don't start this again, " Grimston replies with an exasperated sigh. "I am not in the mood for another one of you tirades."
"It has never stopped and it will only stop if you let me go. Now if that will be all, I have work to do." It takes everything from her not to let her true emotions show.
For a while, Lord Grimston pulls his face into a disdainful sneer as if he has just bitten something very unsavoury.
"Fine! Before you go. You don't happen to know what happened to your father's armor casket? I could have sworn that it was delivered along with the rest of your mother's belongings."
"What would I want with my father's armor? It is not as if I am ever going to see it again." She feigns ignorance. She is still trying to figure out how she is going to escape her uncle's keep disguised as a young soldier. Her plan was only to use the disguise to get out from under her uncle. Once she is free from his rule she will figure out where to go from there.
"Very well, if you do happen to stumble upon it. It will be wise of you to return it to the armory. You know that the punishment for impersonating a soldier is execution by hanging." She just stares at her uncle coldly. "I just thought you should be aware of the punishment. Now go and finish your work." She curtsied and left.
It is now or never. She just hopes she is not discovered before she has a chance to complete her disguise. She just has to find out when Grimston is not at the keep. At least then she stands a better chance to pull off the ridiculous disguise. She can not risk him recognizing her. She still cannot believe that she has to resort to this to escape the marriage. She pulls her hand into a fist. She pass a door and she overhears the conversation of two guardsmen and she learns by chance that Grimston will be leaving ahead of the recruits for some business with the seamstress about a wedding gown. She snarls in anger as she left. She curses Grimston heavily under her breath.
That night she could not sleep. She kept rolling around as her mind kept churning with the scorn she felt towards Grimston. At dawn, she stand up and checks upon the guardsmen and listens in while keeping a discreet distance. She hears that he already left before dawn. Elated she quickly makes her way to her room as discreetly as possible. She quickly hides her dress under the floorboards and put her father's armor on. Just after she pulls the chainmail cap over her hair, Lady Marian bursts unannounced into Marilyn's room.
"Guardsman, where is Lady Marilyn?"
Marilyn's heart hammers loudly in her own ears in fright. She lowers her voice, knowing that this is the moment of truth and she is a nervous wreck when she replies. "I have not seen her since she said I could use her room to rectify a very embarrassing problem with my armor. Why is she so cold to everyone in the keep? It is as if she hates it here."
Lady Marian stares back at her. "It is because Lord Grimston has pushed her into a pre-arranged marriage against her will and she refuses to accept the it."
"Poor thing. Well, I have to get going. I can not stay here any longer. The recruits will soon head out to town and, I for one do not want to miss the opportunity." Marilyn is astonished that Lady Marian did not recognize her. Now she has te keep her face neutral keep her emotions on a very tight leash and act like her life depends on it.
"If you happen to see her, just tell her to report to me."
"Yes, m'lady."
"What was wrong with your armor that you had to ask Lady Marilyn?"
"The part that covers my privates has come loose and I had to move quickly. I will have the blacksmith take a look at it as soon as I get the chance." Marilyn becomes more confident in her disguise as Lady Marian still fails to recognize her.
Lady Marian burst out laughing. "I agree. I would hate for one of the women to be caught by surprise." Lady Marian then notices the empty armor casket at the foot of the bed. She opens it but finds it empty. "Funny, what would Marilyn want with the empty armor chest? Would you mind returning this to the armory, please? I will ask her later what she wants to do with the thing. If she wanted a trunk she could have just asked."
"Of course, m'lady." Marilyn picks up the empty armor chest and carries it to the armory. She then takes a short route to the gate with the simple intention of walking out of the gates without a backward glance.
Just as she makes it to the gate and unto the drawbridge of the keep she hears the thundering of hooves behind her. She spins around and her heart slams into her throat. Barreling straight at her is a riderless large black stallion.
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Feel free to comment and vote.
Marilyn is very lucky as everything seems to fall perfectly into place for her escape, but will it last or will someone catch her?
Will she survive the charging stallion?
How and when do you think will she meet the Prince and who is he?
Will she finally be able to mourn her mother or will circumstance throw her a twist in the tale?
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