Cold horse dung.
Never had she felt so insulted before in her life, and she didn’t even have the time to stand still and digest her emotions as they continued to drag her through the field of enemy soldiers. She took a deep breath, trying to ignore what was being thrown at her, keeping her head high and proud like the princess she had been. She wouldn’t allow them the satisfaction of seeing her upset.
That was until she finally caught sight of Gerhard, who was holding open the door of a cart that had been turned into a small cage. It looked like it had once carried goats or chickens. Now, it looked like it would carry a princess. Gerhard merely looked at her with a dark, disconnected look that was so unlike the man she had made love to the night before that she wondered if it was the same man at all at first.
“Princess Susanna!” Gerhard greeted with a cruel tilt of his lips. His words were loud enough to be heard throughout the crowd, or at least fifteen men deep. “May I introduce you to your new kingdom?” The guards propelled her toward him, and although she pin wheeled her arms, she fell down into the cold mud. Sputtering from the cold, she was grabbed by the scruff of her robe and lifted from the ground. Gerhard’s strong hold freed her of the mud but then he thrust her into the open cage, which she quickly realized wasn’t empty after all. There was a baby pig in there with her.
“Hail Susanna! The princess of the pigs!” he cried out to the crowd as he slammed the door of her cage shut behind her. There was a loud roar of “Hooah!” from the whole army, who laughed and then continued to throw rotting food into the cage at her. The baby pig squealed with delight and immediately began to munch on a cabbage leaf.
She looked through the bars of the cage and up at Gerhard, who now would barely spare her a single glance. How was this even possible? She had thought that they had something between them, she’d thought that she meant something special to him! All those drawings, all that time looking deep into his eyes and seeing only a man who wanted to be something to her.
Now, the only thing he seemed to want to be was a complete prig! Her bottom lip began to tremble again and she struggled not to cry in front of all these people. She would not break down.
“Soldier, take this filth to Vienna. Let the emperor meet out justice to her!” Gerhard demanded in a loud bark, and again the soldiers cheered around her. In moments, there was a violent jerk as the large horse carrying her cart pulled forward.
She watched as the crowd parted around her and more food and dung was tossed on her through the wooden bars. At least there were no more rocks… but at the moment that wasn’t much solace. As the cart moved forward, she watched Gerhard, curious if he was going to look at her with even a sliver of regret. But as he watched her being carried off, he showed no expression.
Her heart felt broken, but she wasn’t able to cry as she had last night after getting her spanking. For some reason that pain was able to open her up and wring out most of her depression. Now, she was beginning to realize that no tears would come even if she did want them to.
She looked upwards at the hill, at Hohenzollern, and it came to her that she would never see her home ever again. She saw the faint outline of people watching from the ramparts, but she couldn’t make out faces. She wondered if her sister could see her, or any of her kin, but then she hoped that they couldn’t, that they would never know how she was carried off.
There was a small snort and a nudge on her thigh. She looked down and saw the little face of the piglet looking up at her, and as she watched, it invited itself onto her lap. She placed her hands around its warm, chubby little body and she melted a little bit, feeling the stone in her throat return. At least something in this world seemed to like her…
* * *
The cart was far away from the army before they were joined by several men on horseback a couple of hours later. Apparently, they were her guard to keep her safe from highwaymen. Rennio, unfortunately, was among them.
“It took you long enough!” the cart driver snapped. “I was nearly thinking of turning around!”
“It’s his fault,” one of the soldiers, a large, bald man, grunted unhappily as he jerked his head in Rennio’s direction. “My wife could pack a whole trunk faster than it took him to pack his satchel!”
“Well, the commander was suddenly in a rush to get her as far away from him as possible,” Rennio replied defensively. “Gave me absolutely no time at all to prepare!”
“Prepare what, packing your dresses?” another soldier teased. All the other soldiers laughed.
“They’re called robes,” Rennio replied with weary exasperation, then took a swig of his horn, which she had a feeling was filled with ale or wine rather than water. She had scorned food the night before, but now her lips were parched and her stomach was growling. She licked her lips.
Rennio seemed to notice and leaned his horse toward the cart, putting out his horn. “Wine, your majesty?” he asked, mockery in his tone.
She pursed her lips together in response to his sarcastic tone, but then she reached for the horn. He pulled it out of reach just as her fingers had nearly grasped it. He laughed, pulled it back, and then took a mouthful of wine, only to spit it on her a moment later.
She heaved a cry like an angry animal, unable to put her emotions into words. He laughed. “We’ll feed you at camp if you’re a good girl,” he mocked.
The pig snorted, sounding angry on her behalf. She knew it was probably just coincidence of course, but it endeared her to the little animal even more. Rennio even glared at the piglet in response and then turned away as if told off. The pig, as if wearied by the effort, turned back around on her lap and lay down, continuing to warm her against the chill of the wind that was beginning to become so violent that it was making the cart sway back and forth.
As the hours paced on, her nose began to feel numb from the bitter cold, which she actually found to be a blessing. It made it nearly impossible to smell the stink of her confines. She sniffled loudly, then rubbed her nose against her sleeve, mostly in an attempt to warm it.
“Stop your noise!” Rennio growled at her as he trotted his horse along by her. Apparently her chattering teeth and her sniffling were beginning to offend him.
“Oy, bishop! Leave her be!” one of the soldiers groaned. “I’ve seen dogs treated better. I thought you were supposed to treat her kindly.”
“I had to read too many men’s last rights this week to treat her kindly. Make no mistakes—it’s jezebels like her that doomed us out of the garden in the first place,” he replied, taking another swig of wine.
She squared her shoulders. “What harm have I done to you?” she asked him defensively, nearly as surprised at his harsh turn around as Gerhard’s. He had never been particularly nice, true. But he hadn’t been particularly mean or nasty, either. It was as if he hadn’t met her before that day and thensimply decided to blame her for every sin of humankind. Yesterday she had thought that, even though he obviously didn’t take his religious duties very seriously, he wasn’t a cruel man.
He then listed far too loudly to be necessary all the things her uncle had done in her name as she stared blankly at the back of her cage, not bothering to listen. She was contemplating what must have happened overnight, what sort of evil seemed to possess these men, because the world was undoubtedly crueler today than it was yesterday.
She sat back in her cage and looked up at the sky above. Her dolling up that morning had obviously not done any good. Somehow this actually bothered her, though she hadn’t ever been accused of being particularly vain. She had hoped she would at least be able to be presented to the emperor looking more like a princess during her trial, and not so much like a pig farmer.
