Chapter 21: Damsel Annie’s Tale

Pēteris was taking a break in the common room, when Annie and Katja came down with Hester trailing. They sat, and Annie began to nurse Tina.

Annie took a hard look at Pēteris, and deciding something, she began, “You’ve rescued me, gathered me in, protected me, and sheltered and fed me. Not once have you questioned me or chastised me for breaking the rules and having Tina on Chaos. My name is Annie Veterinarian. I never had a reason to tell you ‘til now. I want you to know my story.”

She looked to Hester and said, “You may end up stuck with me, so you should know as well.” Looking at Katja she added, “And Katja, I want someone to tell my story for me if I don’t make it back.

“Did you ever wonder how Damsels arrive on Chaos?” Annie asked and then continued. “Before I got here, I never gave it a thought, and I still don’t know. Katja doesn’t know either. When you heard all the tales about Heroes and Damsels, did you ever wonder why not one of the Damsels was given even a modicum of self-defense training? Even stranger when there are so many Caretakers who have training with weapons and in unarmed combat, and they never put their lives on the line on Chaos.”

She observed, “I’ve thought about this over the last year or so, and I can’t find any racial or individual survival factor inherent in any answer to that last question. Nor can I see why being forced to allow rape and torture is better than being willing to take the risks.”

Pēteris nodded to encourage Annie to continue.

“For the first part,” she picked up her tale, “I was summoned before a panel of interviewers and questioned for about two hours. The themes were: ‘Did I really want to go to Chaos?’ ‘How desperately did I want a child and why?’ ‘Did I understand the risks?’ and the like. After two hours, I was fed a good meal and told I would be staying and sleeping overnight. They were to confer, and I would learn my answer in the morning.”

Her voice became bitter, “My answer came in the morning when I woke in the room of a Chaos inn. I had the clothes I was wearing and a purse that contained some money. I determined after a while that the money would support room and board for a little over a month - if I was very frugal.” Katja nodded to show her story was similar.

“I went down into what I learned was the common room,” Annie was picking up steam, “and attracted a lot of attention. A lot! The innkeeper came over and asked my business, and I told him I had been an overnight guest. He didn’t remember me and was incredulous until I described the inside of my room. Then I asked about breakfast, and he was about to charge me when I asked if the meal didn’t come with the room?”

“He must have made a fast decision, because he set me down and brought me bread, cheese, sausage, and a mug of ale. Not having seen him draw the ale, I asked for watered wine and watched him as he poured some from a pitcher on the counter. When he returned, he sat down and made me an offer.

“I’d like to hire you,” the innkeeper told her. “If you wish to be a whore, I’ll let you keep half your fees and all your tips. I also need a serving wench and would pay you two pinches per day plus any tips. For either job, your room and board is included.”

Annie looked at Pēteris and Hester, “He hadn’t attempted to drug me, that I could tell anyway. He had not pawed me. The food was decent and the inn was reasonably clean, so I negotiated a slightly higher pay and accepted his offer as a serving wench.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” she mused aloud. “I thought maybe the tales I’d heard and read were exaggerations or receiving prominence because they were unusual. AND most stories concentrated in exquisite detail on the Hero’s prowess in bed. The reward, don’t you know.” Pausing again, she said, “I think now that those women on the interview panel knew what they were doing. The tales we get are so romanticized, it is impossible to know the hell we’d go through - not a chance.”

She switched Tina to her other breast, then thought better of it, handed her to Hester, and said, “You’d better take a turn. Let her suck for a while, then give her back to me. She’s greedy, but we need to take turns so that one of us doesn’t lose her milk.”

“So there I was,” Annie proceeded with the tale, “reasonably content and waiting for my Hero. Jesse, that was the innkeeper, was good about keeping roving hands under control, so it wasn’t too bad. Then,” her voice darkened, “my days and weeks and months of hell began. Flynnt came in, saw me, immediately killed poor Jesse, threw me over his shoulder and rode off. I don’t think anyone realized what was happening until it was over, and we were gone.”

Annie shuddered, “I don’t see how anyone on Cassandra could have envisioned the creature that was Flynnt, or they’d never have invented that ‘cock burner’ defense. Maybe they would have anyway; it’s a pretty stupid idea - burning hell out of the person you’re supposedly protecting. Anyway, Flynnt was a sadist and an extreme masochist rolled into one package. Every time he raped me, he got his jollies both ways. He was a pain addict, and every day he was in town, he raped me at least once. Usually more than once.”

“Jesús Hernández Cristo!” yelled Pēteris, echoing a swearing he’d learned from Robyn. “I’d have fed him his balls raw!”

“And the bastard would have loved the pain,” replied Annie.

Hester, sitting beside her, shifted Tina and reached an arm over to hug Annie, and Annie explained, “I don’t think I told you that my Hero’s name was Martin. Martin heard Flynnt bragging about how he was slowly fucking me to death, and he really was. I was too weak to commit suicide or I would have.”

“Flynnt had me locked in a room of an inn where he liked to drink and gamble. Martin was so mad that he just walked up behind Flynnt and looped some kind of rope around his neck, lifted him from the chair and backed up to a wall where Flynnt’s men couldn’t get to him. Martin told me later that Flynnt had an erection the whole time he was being strangled, and that he came at least twice. That was Flynnt all right.”

“Once Flynnt was obviously dead, his men had no interest in avenging him, so they left. He wasn’t a popular leader, just a strong bully.”

“Jesús Hernández Cristo!” exclaimed Pēteris again. “Your Hero Martin certainly had balls. There was no way to know he wouldn’t need to fight his way out.”

“He was kind and gentle, too,” replied Annie. “Martin found me nearly dead and started nursing me back from death. He washed me, fed me, emptied my chamber pot - everything. I was far too weak to travel, and he told me the nearest bank was a hard five weeks’ ride away. So he nursed me, talked to me for hours, and slept with me to keep me warm. By the time I was approaching being well enough to travel, I was madly in love.”