Chapter 6 -“Theft”

“What we hold tightest is the most difficult to let go.” - Scribonius Largus

Albion. One year later.

The force of Caradoc’s blow sent Alexenah smashing through the door of the roundhouse. The thick wooden door shattered. Broke off of its hinges. Splinters showered into the room. She landed hard on the swept dirt floor.
      In the back of the room, two newborn babies cried.
      Alexenah moaned, rolled over and coughed. She grabbed her side and forced herself to her knees. Then, half crawling, half pulling, she moved to the straw cot where her children lay.
     “You are God’s kind promise to me,” she said to the babes. “I will die first before he takes you.”
     The large center hearth-fire crackled, flamed, and sent sinister shadows writhing across the dark mud and straw walls. Smoke rose past rafters and through the peak of the thatched roof. Terrified, she glanced behind her to the doorway. Her husband was somewhere outside. She heard cursing followed by quick heavy breathing. What was he waiting for?
     She pushed herself to a kneeling position, and then pulled her torn light-blue peplos up over her shoulder. The dress covered the lengthy bearclaw-like cuts that transversed her back, from her shoulder, to just under her left ribs. Blood flowed, pooled and stained at the small of her back where the dress was belted. Her nose bled and her upper lip throbbed with pain as it swelled.
     Alexenah embraced her two boys and enclosed them in her shaking arms. She softly prayed to her God. “All-seeing One, protect my sons. I have placed them into your hands. Keep them, oh Lord, from the plans of the wicked; preserve them from violence. Don’t let him have them.” She grasped her two sons tighter to her breast.
     She placed her cheek on one of the boy’s little heads. One of the babes rooted to find suckle on her breast. She stroked his hair. “So pure,” she said, “So pure.”
     At that moment, a hulking figure raged through the open doorway and kicked the broken door aside. Caradoc cursed, and then yelled as he staggered across the room to where Alexenah knelt,
      “Rome will not have my whelps!” Her husband reached down, grabbed her by her hair, and wrenched her head back and to the side. Holding her locks tight, Caradoc bent low and whispered in her ear, “and, neither will you.”
     She felt her heart pound. Her chest heaved with each intake of air. She held it until it burned for release, and then let it out, screaming to the rafters, “You are my God. Hear the voice of my prayer!”      “Your god can’t hear you,” Caradoc rasped.
     She clamped her eyes tight, arms shielding her children, and she steeled herself for another blow.      “You’re just a slave-wife,” he said letting her go, “These don’t belong to you. Not sure they belong to me, either.” He struck her with the back of his hand. Then reaching down, he snatched a blanket from where the boys had been sleeping. One at a time, he grabbed for them.
     She turned away from his reach and tried to fight him off. “No!”
     He raised his hand to strike her again. Then he ripped them from her breast. Caradoc quickly wrapped the babes together in the coverlet and walked over to a table. He slammed the babies upon it. He lifted a wine jar and took a long draught of the thick red liquid. Then, laughing, he poured some of the drink down each bawling child’s throat. Putting the jar down, he bound the two together tightly in the blanket and shoved them both under his arm like a sack of potatoes. He strode over to where Alexenah lay crumpled on the floor.
     Alexenah pleaded, “No!” She grabbed his leg with one hand, and frantically reached toward her children with the other.
     He stared at her.
    “Don’t take them,” she said more softly. Then, letting go, she placed her hands in her lap and bowed her head, “Please, please don’t take them.” Then to God she cried, “Great Jehovah, protect my sons from this man!”
     Her husband turned, lifted his leg, put his boot on her chest, and shoved her hard onto the floor. Walking back to the table, he took another drink. He then banged the jar on the table. It broke.
     Caradoc adjusted his bundle and stormed into the night. “C’mon boys, your mother is sick.”