It was a day like any other – waking up at the break of dawn, a small meal, and then the work. Cleaning clothes for the master's wife, fetching things for her. Then on to the kitchen, to help. She was too delicate for working in the field, her face deemed pleasing to the eye. But this did not prevent those who owned her from making her work herself into sweat each and every day of her short existence. Waking, working, sleeping. She was not special, she was nobody. Because nobody ever made her feel like she was somebody. She was but a tool, someone to be bossed around. Someone to receive orders and carry them out. If too slow, she was beaten.
The day everything turned red was the day it all changed. It was the day large men on even larger animals entered the house through the gates. She knew it were horses, as master's brother once visited them riding one. The men had harsh voices, spoke a language she did not understand. They killed the guards, and all men carrying swords. The women and children they spared... for now.
"Where is your master?" one asked, his accent heavy and his voice rough. It was almost more like a growl then a question. But for the answer he did not have to wait long, as a finger quickly pointed him in the right direction. The armour-clad man rode his horse up to where the master was standing. There he halted his step, the horse stopped inches away from the old man's face. He did not seem afraid nor frightened, and it surprised the girl as she had expected to see fear in his eyes. He seemed to expect a question. His expression was still one of arrogance. Then the man on horseback drove his sword so deep down the man's skull his face was split in half and the blade reached his neck.
Up until that point, everything had seemed like a joke. An elaborate prank, a play perhaps. But when the man they had all deemed to be practically a god fell dead in the sand, it became all too real. He had been an untouchable deity, an all-powerful ruler in his own private domain. They knew not how big the world was beyond his lands. So for his slaves, the world reached no further then the foot of the mountains. What lay beyond, few of them knew.
The armed men walked around, started addressing people at random. Kept repeating the same question over and over again... "what do you have to offer?"
So the young woman slowly started walking backwards. Into the house. Through the door she went, into the master's bedroom. She was not allowed but perhaps now his brain was sliced in half he wouldn't mind as much as before?
She sat on the bed. It felt soft, comfortable. It was her first time ever sitting on a bed. Never had her behind rested on anything more comfortable then a thin musky mat or a heap of hay. So this is where the master and his wife always sleep?
"What do you have to offer?" a deep voice said. It must have started as a question, but came out a command. It took her a while to look up and realize it was her the man was talking to. She was terrified, had not expected someone to enter the room. He must have done so silently. Quiet as the grave. A frightening thought.
"What do you mean, sir?" she asked, bewildered.
"It's simple... what do you have to offer in favour of your life?"
She was startled for a bit, did not know what to answer. What did he want? Still she decided she had to answer. If anything, she could stall him.
"I have nothing to offer except my life," she answered, "my body, my loyalty. My blood."
He looked at her. It was an intense gaze but not an unpleasant one. Dark green eyes under heavy eyebrows staring at her fiercely.
"Your body, you say?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. His voice was deep as before but there was an undertone in it that was new to her. It sounded like the master when her ordered her to bring him food. It sounded... vaguely... hungry?
"Yes, my body," she replied, as she sat up a bit more, straightening her composure. Her shoulders straight, her chest pressed a bit forward. She saw the stranger's eyes rolling across her chest. The fabric of her clothing was thin as she was practically wearing rags and rarely given new ones. It hid her shapes partially, but not entirely.
"And this body... how old might this body be?"
"I... I heard I was born 18 summers ago. I was a gift from his brother. He told him to take good care of me. My mother was a slave in his domain."
The tall stranger simply nodded, as he licked his pink lips. She could see his white teeth. He looked ferocious. Like a wolf about to dig into her flesh. She shuddered softly.
"And what might this body be like?" he went, playing along.
She noticed his size now, as if for the first time. He was so much taller than any man she had ever seen before and his hair was long and unwashed. Smelly, but weirdly not unpleasant. Her nose caught the scent of sweat, mud and steel.
"I do not know what this body is like, sir. I barely look at it you see as they say it is improper. And no man ever saw it close enough to tell."
He nodded silently, as if lost in thought. His eyes still fixated on the young woman in front of him.
"So no man saw you, then? How about touching... did any man ever touch you?"
She shook her head in disagreement, demurely bowing her face and looking down at her hands laying in her lap.
"In that case, my lady, would you mind if I take a look?" he asked with a faint smile, the same hungry tone in his voice she had noticed before.
At that moment, a hand knocked on the wooden door of the master's bedroom. Hard.
"Sir?" a voice asked.
"Yes?" the tall man in the bedroom replied.
"The slaves are dead sir. We took the strong ones and killed the worthless ones. What are your next orders?"
So he was the leader! A leader who had his mind on something entirely unrelated to warfare, as it seemed. He did not even reply again to the man outside.
"Sir? Sir, what are you doing in there?" the voice tried again.
Finally he was shaken out of his daydreams back into reality. With a brisk voice he replied: "What I am doing is none of your damned business and my orders are to take whichever valuables you can find, feed the men and reward them well. Take all you can carry... and leave me alone or I split your head in two like that old fool. I have... business to attend to!"
And the distraction was gone as quickly as it came. It was once again just two people in the room, but the tension seemed somewhat broken.
They exchanged a quick glanced, the tall warrior and the servant girl on the bedside in front of him. He smile widely as their eyes met, and she smiled back nervously.