Chapter Text
Iron horseshoes thudded atop the cobblestone road, a steady pulse against the irregular rise and fall of the commotion from the crowd that filled the village street. Intermittent shouts broke the air. In the epicenter of the commotion stood a man waving a sheet of crumpled paper clutched in his grimy fist, and beside him, a bare footed girl on top of a crate. Her head was bowed low so that her face could not be seen, concealed behind a tangled curtain of grungy hair. The tattered smock of a tunic she wore hung from her hunched shoulders. Her wrists were shackled together, weighed down by a heavy chain that connected to a wooden pole beside the crate on which she stood. The man stopped waving the paper long enough to consult it and scribble down a mark with the stick of charcoal in his opposite hand, before he began shouting back at the crowd. “Can I get sixty? Sixty silver!” The man called as he paced back and forth. “One fresh young laborer! Ripe and suitable for any work you need! Just look at this face!” Upon making this statement, the man hopped up beside her on the crate, seizing her jaw in his grasp and forcibly tilting her head upwards so that her features were revealed. While she wasn’t unattractive, she was certainly no beauty. Ordinary at best. Unremarkable. “Sixty!” Someone thrust their arm in the air. “Sixty one!” Another voice interjected. “Sixty five!” A third voice cried.
The chestnut gelding snorted, jolting its head upwards in alarm as a member of the crowd bumped into its flank, too enthralled in the events of the auction to see the scathing glare from the man astride its back. His frigid grey eyes slide past the individual to the location that had so thoroughly captured their attention. At the sight of a slave on display, nausea roiled in his gut and he had to repress a noise of disgust.
“Excuse me!” A frustrated voice sounded from just ahead of him. A second rider was attempting to navigate a path through the mob of spectators, with little success. The people afforded him no more than irritated glance, even as the brown haired young man urged them to move aside.
“Seventy! Seventy silver pieces!” The auctioneer bellowed. In the absence of the bruising hold, the girl had once again dropped her head to her chest. She was the only thing that remained motionless amidst the chaos. “Seventy five!” A nasally voice called. The shouted price could be traced back to a pot bellied old man with thinning hair and a greasy face. There was a ravenous glint in his beady gaze as he eyed the girl on the stand through the smudged spectacles perched on the end of his ugly bulbous nose.
The revulsion grew ever more turbulent, an acidic sea in the pit of his stomach. Feeling a sharp tug on the reins, the horse planted its feet, the white of its eyes beginning to show more the longer it was forced to linger in the area. “Jean.” The man called. The second rider twisted in his seat to look back. “My lord?” He questioned, bringing his own steed to a halt. The man raised one pale hand, a gesture instructing him to wait.
“Ninety!” A man in a beige waistcoat called. “Ninety five!” Shot back the potbellied pig, er, man, from moments earlier. The man seated on the back of the horse tightened his jaw, teeth grating together uncomfortably. He had no desire to remain here a moment longer, and yet, something told him to stay. Perhaps it was the pitiful sight of that unfortunate soul on the stand. Perhaps it was the future that took so little imagination to conjure up of what would happen to her if that foul individual won the auction, which judging by the extravagant gold pocket watch cradled in his pudgy fingers, he would. Perhaps it was some other reason. Regardless of the root of the motive, he inhaled and called,
“Five hundred.”
His voice, so dark and cold, carried across the crowd to the ears of the auctioneer. A hush fell over everyone in a thick blanket of silence. Distantly, a flag flapped in the breeze, a sharp disturbance in the suddenly quiet street. For the first time, the girl moved. She slowly and stiffly raised her head until she could lock her sights on the newest bidder. “F-Five…Five hundred?” The auctioneer sputtered, his arm that held the betting records dropping out of the air like a stone. “Five hundred.” He repeated flatly. All eyes had turned away from the individual on the stand to the man sitting serenely atop his horse at the back of the crowd. The auctioneer seemed to recover from his apparent state of shock, clearing his throat. “Any challenges to five hundred?” The potbellied man, beady eyes glittering with malice, jammed his pocket watch into the folds of his cloak and waddled off down the street. Anxious whispering spread through the crowd as each second ticked by in which no one offered another bid.
“Sold!” The auctioneer slammed a gavel against the wooden post with a definite thunk. The members of the crowd began to whisper unashamedly at this point. The young man, Jean, recovering from his own shock allowed himself only a single perplexed look in the direction of his lord before he clambered down from his horse. “Excuse me. Pardon. Sorry.” He rambled off a dozen pleasantries as he squeezed between the tightly packed spectators. Untying the string that secured the coin pouch to his belt, Jean placed it in the waiting hand. Examining its contents, the auctioneer gave a single satisfied nod. “Did you want the restraints?” He asked. Jean stared. “Oh, no. No.” He emphasized with a shake of his head.
Metal clinked as the auctioneer produced a ring of keys, shuffling through them until he found the correct one. “C’mere.” The auctioneer reached up, grabbing a hold on the girl’s tunic and yanked her so forcefully from her perch that she fell, hands and knees slamming against the stone. The auctioneer seized her arm, wrenching her hands high above her head so that he could insert the key into the lock on the manacles.
Her limbs fell limply to her side, free for the first time in years from the confines of the iron shackles.
“You alright?” A gentle hand grasped her arm just below the elbow and pulled her to her feet. “Fine.” The voice that answered was so soft spoken it was nearly inaudible. Releasing his grasp on the girl, Jean hesitated. “Um…Follow me, uh, please.” He prompted with a hand. Hands reached out, stopping just short of contact, driven by a sense of wonder. What about this girl was so special? What in the world had possessed anyone to pay such a steep price for her? She was your run-of-the-mill merchandise, not a thing was special about her, and yet…
Jean hooked one foot in the stirrup and hauled himself back into the saddle before extending his hand downwards. The girl blinked up at him in surprise. She had expected to walk to whatever her destination was. Hesitantly, she reached up and grasped his hand. Jean, with unexpected strength, pulled her up and into place behind him. Leaning around her to look behind them, Jean spotted something as a sign of confirmation and spurred his horse back into a walk. Unlike the prior attempts, the crowd divided, forming a clear pathway down the street. Dozens of eyes watched until the figures vanished from their line of sight.
“I don’t know what’s happened to him,” An old woman in a straw hat muttered to the man at her side, “but Lord Ackerman’s lost his mind.”