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Eulalia - The Thief Of Medesham

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My first post here, so be gentle - it's a story that arose from a conversation I had with @Eulalia about Bernard Cornwell's "The Last Kingdom", which refers to convents being overrun by the Danes, though Cornwell doesn't explore that in any detail. I thought there might a story there, nuns living under constant threat of being captured, raped, taken as slaves. Could Eulalia see herself in a story like that? Oh, yes, she could!

The story is set in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia in the late 860s. Medesham is a fictional town, based on Medeshamstede, the settlement that became the English city of Peterborough. It was an important monastic centre and it's at least feasible that it housed both monks and nuns. With Eulalia's help, I have tried to avoid anachronisms, but if there are any, I claim dramatic licence.

@Eulalia is Aelf, the thief of the title.

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Part 1

"Thief! Thief! Stop her! Thief!”

Aelf ran, weaving through the slow-witted market day crowd, with the practised agility of one who lives by evading capture. Between stalls laden with produce, straight through a knot of gossiping women, laughing at the fading, now breathless cries of her pursuers. And for what? A loaf of dry bread and a couple of apples. A small loss of profit for the trader, but life or death for an orphan girl surviving on her wits.

As she rounded the corner by the monastery, Aelf was confident of escape. The pursuit was too far behind now, she could lose herself easily in the alleys and byways that proliferated around the church. And then, crunch! Her legs whipped from under her by the crook of a stick, she tumbled awkwardly onto the dusty earth, grazing her knees and squashing the loaf she concealed under her rough cloak. Two apples fell from her grasp and rolled slowly towards the ditch.

“Take her inside,” the Prioress of Medesham commanded, waving her stick at the half dozen monks watching the shocked and winded thief. “Let us see what else the whore has concealed under her shift.”

“I am no whore!” Aelf protested, as rough hands dragged her into the monastery compound. The party of monks dragged their struggling captive into an open space between the buildings. The Prioress followed behind, now leading a small procession of devoted monks and nuns.

Between the dorter and the kitchens stood a tall, stout wooden post with a ladder leaning up against it. The discovery and punishment of immoral conduct was the personal project of the Prioress and the whipping post was in frequent use. The monks ripped away Aelf’s cloak, itself stolen some months before, and pulled her shift over her head. She was wearing nothing else. Clothes were expensive and hard to steal. Aelf had more need of food and, anyway, she was saving for her future.

The men wound rope around her wrists, made her stand on the bottom rung of the ladder and tied her hands to the post. They spread her legs and tied her ankles to the ladder's side rail. Male hands took advantage of her helpless state and remorselessly probed her body, searching, apparently, for whatever contraband she might have concealed between her breasts.

Another hand explored between her legs, fingers combing and tugging the brown curls of her pubic hair, then tentatively exploring the slit concealed beneath her bush. The investigation was careful, because even accidentally deflowering a virgin carried penalties. Aelf squealed in protest and bucked her hips to escape the invasion, but her defiance earned her a smacked vulva and several hard swats across her backside.

“Keep still,” a male voice threatened, “if you know what’s good for you.” The inspection continued, with Aelf whimpering pathetically, but not daring to move.

“What she says is true,” the monk conceded at last. “Her virginity is intact.”

That news caused some consternation. Virginity, in the male-dominated morality of Anglo-Saxon England, was a highly prized commodity. A female vagrant of child-bearing age was assumed, certainly by the religious community of Medesham, to be copulating at every possible opportunity, and, most likely, for money.

Another monk stepped forward, gripped her jaw and thrust his salty fingers into her mouth. “Don’t think we’re fooled, virgin whore,” he sneered malevolently, pushing his face close to hers. “We know there’s more than one place you can take a prick.”

Aelf resisted the temptation to bite him and gagged instead.

“Search in her arse” the Prioress demanded. “She could conceal any amount of stolen trinkets up there.”

Aelf heard a monk spit on his fingers and felt him push two of them roughly into her anus. It hurt, a feeling unlike any she had experienced before, accompanied by a terrible sense of humiliation and shame. “Owwww! Stop!” she cried desperately. “Please, you’re hurting me, OWWW! AHHH!”

The monk took no notice, shoving his fingers further in, till her sphincter closed over his knuckles. She felt his fingers curl, poking and stretching the cavity until at last he pulled them out and stood in front of her, ostentatiously wiping his hand on her cloak.

“Nothing in there,” he announced with a smirk. “Quite the angelic little virgin, in fact.”

“Whip her,” the Prioress ordered coldly. “Twenty lashes, for the theft. Then take her to the dorter, the novices will tend to her.”

Blinking back tears, Aelf looked around her. Behind the Prioress, in the doorway of the kitchens, nuns were stood quietly watching her humiliation. Even in an institution intended to protect women, the destruction of her defiance and self-esteem was being left to men.

As a twelve-year-old, she had hidden in a barn while a group of warriors brutally raped her mother and older sister in front of her father. Ever since, she had feared and distrusted all species of men. It wasn’t as if they had been Danish brigands from the north; these were good Christian yeomen from Wessex, sent by Æthelberht to dissuade the Mercians from cutting a deal with the heathen invaders. Having killed her family, the raiders set fire to the farm. It was a miracle Aelf escaped.

In front of her, the monks were preparing her punishment and were making sure she could see. They took a length of rope, tied several evenly spaced knots at one end of it and soaked it for a few minutes in a bucket of salted water. The first stroke slashed diagonally from her left shoulder, across her back, finally scoring her right side under her bust. It left a livid red welt that burned like a brand. Aelf screamed, horribly aware that this was only the start.

“One!” The Prioress began the count, a gleam in her eye betraying a sadistic delight in the young girl’s torment. The monk with the lash swung it again, lower across the middle of Aelf’s back, the renewed shock causing her to scream a second time and pull at the rope holding her wrists. The movement pulled the bonds tighter and chafed her wrists. “Two!”

Another stroke brought up a deep red and blue welt across Aelf’s buttocks and caused her knees to buckle. The fourth went higher and opened a new ribbon of fire along her shoulders, the fifth filled in the space above her waist and so on. By the count of “ten” her skin was a striped with red from her neck to her buttocks. She could no longer scream, but hung by the rope around her wrists, sobbing, her whole body shaking.

By the time they had finished and threw the contents of the bucket over her, Aelf’s back was a raw and bloodied pulp. The brine stung the open wounds and brought her briefly back to the conscious world, but she only stayed long enough to mumble something between a prayer and a plea for mercy. The monks cut her down, laid her face down on a broken door and carried her to the novices’ dormitory, where they dumped her unceremoniously on a cot.
 

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No need to be gentle; I can be quite honest in saying the story is very good so far. The historical setting is not one that has been done that much and that adds to the interest. The word dorter was unfamiliar, though the meaning was fairly clear from the context and it's always good to learn a new word. The use of the term self-esteem seemed a bit out of place; I doubt folks back then even would have thought about such a thing. I look forward to reading more.
 
In front of her, the monks were preparing her punishment and were making sure she could see. They took a length of rope, tied several evenly spaced knots at one end of it and soaked it for a few minutes in a bucket of salted water. The first stroke slashed diagonally from her left shoulder, across her back, finally scoring her right side under her bust. It left a livid red welt that burned like a brand. Aelf screamed, horribly aware that this was only the start.
Madiosi2017-394-Eulalia Thief01a.jpg
“One!” The Prioress began the count, a gleam in her eye betraying a sadistic delight in the young girl’s torment. The monk with the lash swung it again, lower across the middle of Aelf’s back, the renewed shock causing her to scream a second time and pull at the rope holding her wrists. The movement pulled the bonds tighter and chafed her wrists. “Two!”
 
Medeshamstede, the settlement that became the English city of Peterborough.

I was about to chunter on about Mercia not stretching that far East, but thought I would check the facts first.

Very flexible boundaries in that time period, and confirms my oft-stated belief that reading CF alone gives one a broad education.

Good story ronnie, welcome, and I'm glad Eulalia persuaded you to join us.
 
No need to be gentle; I can be quite honest in saying the story is very good so far. The historical setting is not one that has been done that much and that adds to the interest. The word dorter was unfamiliar, though the meaning was fairly clear from the context and it's always good to learn a new word. The use of the term self-esteem seemed a bit out of place; I doubt folks back then even would have thought about such a thing. I look forward to reading more.
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the beginning. I agree with you about "self esteem", but it's me as narrator saying it, not her so ... maybe I can get away with it. :)
 
In front of her, the monks were preparing her punishment and were making sure she could see. They took a length of rope, tied several evenly spaced knots at one end of it and soaked it for a few minutes in a bucket of salted water. The first stroke slashed diagonally from her left shoulder, across her back, finally scoring her right side under her bust. It left a livid red welt that burned like a brand. Aelf screamed, horribly aware that this was only the start.
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“One!” The Prioress began the count, a gleam in her eye betraying a sadistic delight in the young girl’s torment. The monk with the lash swung it again, lower across the middle of Aelf’s back, the renewed shock causing her to scream a second time and pull at the rope holding her wrists. The movement pulled the bonds tighter and chafed her wrists. “Two!”
Thank you for the picture, that really gets the spirit of the scene I was aiming for.
 
I was about to chunter on about Mercia not stretching that far East, but thought I would check the facts first.

Very flexible boundaries in that time period, and confirms my oft-stated belief that reading CF alone gives one a broad education.

Good story ronnie, welcome, and I'm glad Eulalia persuaded you to join us.
Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it. I spent the first few episodes checking practically every sentence I wrote, and Eulalia proof-read it too, so I hope nothing that glaring got through. It's kind of a fantasy, alternative reality version of Anglo Saxon England though, I wouldn't use it to research a degree. :)
 
Here's Part 2 for you to chew on.

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“Strip, virgin whore! Prostrate yourself!”

Aelf pulled her thin shift over her head and lay face down on the stone-slabbed floor. She stretched out her arms in front of her, spread her legs and rested her chin on the hard, cold surface. Burhtred, the monk who christened her “virgin whore” and thrust his filthy fingers into her mouth before she was whipped, kicked viscously at her ankles. “Wider, whore” he grunted, “the way you were shown.”

It had been two weeks since the flogging. A sweet girl known as Candida, a novice with short blonde hair and the face of an angel, had been assigned to tend Aelf’s wounds and she had carried out her duty conscientiously. For two days Aelf lay on her stomach while Candida bathed her back and smothered the welts with herbs, mashed up with oil and water.

When Aelf wasn’t sleeping they had talked and become friends. Candida’s real name was Hwita and she was the youngest daughter of an ealdorman, who had given her to the nunnery to secure his own place in heaven. As soon as Aelf was strong enough, she went with Candida to work in the kitchens and on the farm.

There were boys there, strong young men who did the heavy work, the digging, the fetching and carrying. Candida toyed with them, laughing, joking, flashing her liquid blue eyes. Sometimes she would lick her lips and stroke her breasts, so her nipples showed under the linen. Aelf didn’t think this was a good idea, but she said nothing.

Meanwhile, the Prioress had declared that Aelf should become a novice. Why wasn’t clear, as the young waif brought no dowry or other benefit to the nunnery. None that she was prepared to admit to, anyway. In any event, her preparation had been entrusted to Father Burhtred and there were distinctly sexual and sadistic overtones to his particular brand of religious education. Maybe that was the motivation, a powerless stray for the holy men and women to abuse.

“Tell me your sins, whore!” Burhtred snarled, stalking Aelf’s defenceless body with a plaited leather whip. “What have you done that offends the sight of God?”

“I was a thief, Father,” Aelf whimpered. “I stole food from the market. I had to eat.”

The monk lashed her skinny buttocks with the whip. The wounds from two weeks ago had not long healed and now he would open more. “Food, yes, good! What else did you steal?”

“A few clothes, on wash days. A little money when I could get it. Really, that is all.” She had stolen more, a lot more, but she wasn’t going to tell the priest that. Not if she could help it. She closed her eyes and prayed he would believe her.

“So a thief. And, no doubt, a liar. You tell lies, don’t you, whore?”

Aelf allowed herself a faint sigh of relief and hoped her interrogator wouldn’t ask for details of the lies, because she couldn’t think of any she wanted to confess. “I tell lies, yes, Father. When I need to.”

The whip slashed across her buttocks again, driving a cry of pain from her lips. “Thief, liar, what else? Pride? Gluttony? Fornication?”

Hardly gluttony, it had been a struggle to find enough to eat most days and the food at the nunnery was sinful excess by comparison. “I felt proud, Father, when I ran around a fat friar and he fell against a barrel of apples.”

That was a mistake. The whip lashed cruelly across her shoulders as Burhtred almost danced with rage. “You dare to mock a man of God, a man you are not fit to have piss on you? You will pay for that. I will make you pay.”

“Forgive me, Father,” Aelf screamed as the pain and his anger overwhelmed her. “I am sorry, please, please, forgive me.”

Burhtred left off his frenzied assault and walked calmly to the spot where his victim’s hand was resting on the stone floor. He slowly and deliberately placed the heel of his rough leather sandal on her fingers and, using the full weight of his body, ground down on them.

“What about fornication?” he growled lecherously. “Tell me about that.”

Aelf’s free hand balled into a fist as she bit her lip and felt his sandal twist the skin off her knuckles. It seemed crazy that, outside, as a thief, she had felt strong, powerful and in control, whereas here, in the supposed sanctuary of the monastery, she was weak and helpless.

“I am a virgin, you know that,” she protested bitterly. “A boy kissed me in the market, once or twice. That’s all. Let me go, I’m no whore. I haven’t done anything.”

Burhtred lifted his foot and let Aelf see the red, raw patch where the skin had rubbed off the backs of her fingers. He knelt on the floor in front of her and pulled her head towards him by her hair.

“You are a woman,” he grumbled. "Your body provokes lust and is steeped in sin. There is no forgiveness for you, even if you remain chaste till you die.”

With that, he pulled up the hem of his cassock, pinched her nose until she opened her mouth to breathe and thrust his cock into it, ramming himself mercilessly into the back of her throat. Aelf gasped, struggling for breath, unsure what was happening or what this assault would lead to.

She knew he smelt and tasted vile, that he was choking her with every thrust, that biting him would probably get her killed. Then his muscle in her mouth began to twitch, he groaned, a deeply satisfied look came on his face and warm, glutinous liquid began to fill her mouth. Aelf struggled, but he held her on him until the pumping stopped and he pushed her away. He stood up, letting his cassock fall back to the floor.

“Get a rag and some water from the kitchen,” he said, as she retched and puked onto the floor, “and see that mess is cleaned up.”

A few days later the Prioress came and took Aelf to the church. The whole community assembled there, monks, nuns, novices arrayed in front of the Abbess. Father Burhtred rattled through the ceremony in Latin and Aelf responded as best she could, with whatever words the Prioress prompted. Finally the new novice was dressed in a woollen habit with a white cloth veil covering her hair and wrapped around her neck. “From now on,” the Abbess said, “you will be called Eulalia.”

When the initiation was over, Aelf was embraced by the other novices. Her new friend Candida held her close and whispered, “You are one of us now, Eulalia.”

“I didn’t need a new name,” Aelf protested, as they hurried back to the kitchens. “I don’t know anyone called Eulalia. Where did that come from?”

“From Spain, a place called Mérida. She refused to make offerings to the Roman gods, so the governor had her body pulled apart with iron hooks. When she still refused, they put lighted torches to her breasts, until her hair caught fire and she burned to death. When she died, a white dove flew out of her mouth. It is such a beautiful story!”

“Beautiful!” Aelf exclaimed. At first she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to commemorate such an awful death by taking the poor girl’s name. Later, lying on her cot in the darkness of the dorter, hearing the soft breathing of the other novices and the moans of the ones that cried out in their sleep, she began to imagine the hooks in her own sides, ripping through her soft flesh, the flames burning her breasts, the pain, the fear, the euphoria.

It was a noble, defiant death and one that was not as futile as it might at first appear. In time, the one god that Eulalia of Mérida believed in must have defeated the multitude of Roman gods. It was the same ‘One God’ the men of Wessex invoked as they murdered Aelf’s mother and sister. There was nothing defiant about their deaths, split open with swords once the assailants’ pricks had gone soft and they had no further use for the women.

Slowly Aelf began to see something she needed in Eulalia. If she was going to die at the hands of men, she would go down resisting, cursing and mocking her attackers. Whether it was the men of Wessex with their one god, or the Danes with their many, they would not find Eulalia whimpering quietly as they humped her. They would have to rip her thighs apart with iron hooks as she cursed and spat and gouged at their eyes with her nails. Thus reconciled to her new identity, she fell happily asleep.

“Eulalia, it’s dawn,” Candida called, shaking the sleeping girl awake. “Get up! It’s time for prayers.” Eulalia rolled off her cot, shuffled into her sandals and raced after her friend. It was, it seemed, always time for prayers. At some ungodly hour past midnight, at dawn, before breakfast, after breakfast, at midday and so on until evening. In between prayers there was work, tending the kitchen garden, milking the goats, preparing the meals.

There was no time at all to pay attention to the young men who did the heavier jobs, although Eulalia was learning from Candida how to arouse their interest, but keep them at arm’s length.

The first news of approaching disaster came while they were gathered in the church for Prime, the third morning service. A woman, half naked and bloody, staggered through the open door and collapsed in the middle of the nave. A group of the older nuns ran to her and carried her towards the dorter.

The word spread quickly. An army of Danes was moving south, sacking towns and monasteries in their path. The fleeing nun came from Crowland, a community ten miles north east of Medesham. The heathens had demanded food and silver and, being told at first there was none, and later not being offered enough, they had slaughtered the inhabitants, except for one or two, who were sent ahead as a warning of what was to come.

There were rumours too. “I heard,” Candida confided breathlessly, “of an abbess who cut off her own nose and lips so the heathens wouldn’t rape her. She told her nuns to do the same.”

“What happened to them?” Eulalia asked sceptically.

Candida looked rapt and crossed her arms over her chest. “They died as virgins and went to heaven.”

Eulalia rolled her eyes. “And that’s what you think we should do?”

“I don’t know ...”

Taking her friend by the shoulders, Eulalia looked straight into her eyes. “I’ve seen the lust that drives these men. They would turn you over, put a cloak over your head and hump you like a dog. Then slit you open with a sword. We can’t stay here.”

“But ... Reverend Mother said ...”

“We must go. Now!”

Eulalia took Candida’s hand and pulled her along the path that led out of the compound. There were people everywhere now, fleeing to the supposed sanctuary of the monastery and its church. The two novices slipped easily through the throng and out into the town. Eulalia used her thief’s knowledge to lead them through the back ways and alleys, around the edge of the market, which was rapidly being abandoned and looted. No one bothered with two novice nuns filling their pockets with bread, cheese and fruit. Then onward, past the futile defensive embankment and onto a track leading into the cover of woodland.

“Where are we going?” Candida panted as she hurried after her guide.

“South,” Eulalia said. “It takes us away from the fighting and I know somewhere further on where we can hide.”

Abruptly, Eulalia turned off the track and pulled Candida into a hollow in the ground, covered by ferns and brambles. “We can stay here for a while,” she said. “We’ll move again when it’s dark.”

The two girls made themselves as comfortable as they could on the rough ground and sat, clinging to one another for warmth and support. Eulalia was used to taking decisions for her own survival, but now she felt a heavy weight of responsibility for her friend. The ealdorman’s daughter wasn’t used to living by her wits and she’d never had to worry about where she would sleep or where her next meal would come from. Eulalia just hoped she could be smart enough for both of them.

As the day wore on, they ate some of the food they had stolen and hid the rest. Around midday, the gentle breeze brought the distant sound of shouting, crashes of metal and, with increasing frequency, screams.

“Shouldn’t we be further away?” Candida asked uncertainly.

“No,” Eulalia replied, pulling her companion closer. “We’re going back there after dark.”

“Back?” Candida cried in horror. “To the monastery? And the Danes?”

“If we go on,” Eulalia explained, “they will overrun us tomorrow for sure. If we go back tonight, the men will be tired and drunk, they will have had their fill of rape and killing. So we will go back and take something to bargain with.”

“What do we have to bargain with?” Candida asked. It was her turn to sound sceptical.

Eulalia got up and went to the back of their lair. She scraped away dead leaves and soil, then removed three planks of wood. She reached into the void and came up with two cloth bags and threw one to Candida.

“That’s your ransom,” she said, “or your dowry, who knows. And this,” she held up the bag she had kept, “is mine.”

Candida looked into her bag and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. The bag was full of coins, mostly silver, a few looked like gold.

“Where did you get this?” she cried in surprise.

“I was a thief, remember,” Eulalia grinned. “People saw a street urchin, who stole food from the market. They never wondered what else she might steal. Come and look.”

Candida went over and looked into the hole. She could see the glint of a few silver plates, a candlestick, spoons, jewellery. Eulalia put the planks back and carefully covered them with leaves and earth.

“Where would the monks hide the monastery’s treasure?”

“Under the altar,” Candida said, “there’s a flagstone at the back that can be lifted.”

“Good,” Eulalia said. “We may be able to use that, if the Danes haven’t found it.”

“But, that’s … it belongs to ...”

“They’ll all be dead,” Eulalia interrupted. “What use will they have for silver?”

When it was thoroughly dark and the sounds of what they assumed to be a massacre had died down, the two novices left their hiding place and made their way cautiously down the moonlit track. By time they reached the embankment it was obvious there had been little, if any resistance and even less mercy. Fires still burned, throwing an eerie light on the bodies littering the streets. Everywhere there was the stench of smoke and death.

“Why did we have to come back here?” Candida whispered, trying not to retch as she clung desperately to Eulalia’s arm. “It’s horrible, the bodies … and the smell.”

“Look straight ahead,” Eulalia said, “and stay close to me.”

The girls had reached the remains of the monastery before a shout told them they had been noticed. Eulalia instinctively went into thief mode, feinting left and right, dodging the tired, drunk Danes who tried to block her path. Candida tried desperately to keep up, but she didn’t have the experience or the agility. She cried out in terror as she was caught, Eulalia looked over her shoulder to see what had happened and ran full pelt into Halfdan Ragnarsson.

The Dane scarcely felt the impact. Moving swiftly, he twisted Eulalia’s wrists up to her shoulder blades and held them there with one hand, pressing her firmly against his chest. With the other hand he tilted her head back by her hair and looked into her face. All around them, torches guttered and smoked, lighting a growing circle of maliciously grinning faces.

“Well,” Halfdan said at last, “what do we have here?”

“They must have been well hidden,” one of the Danes holding Candida replied. “We have found no more since sunset.”

“So why run into the middle of our encampment?” Halfdan asked, painfully twisting his captive’s hair. “Why not stay hidden, or run away?”

“We have silver,” Eulalia gasped. “Enough for a ransom.”

Now Halfdan laughed. The sound rang around the burning wreckage of the monastery and was taken up by the warriors around him. He released his grip and pushed Eulalia away, cuffing her head with the back of his hand as she fell. “A ransom!” he sneered. “Where would a skinny waif like you get silver for a ransom?”

Eulalia wiped blood from her lips and fished in the pocket of her habit. She found the cloth bag and threw it towards Halfdan’s feet. A handful of silver coins spilled out onto the ground.

“Well, well,” he said thoughtfully. “And the other waif. Does she have a ransom too?”

Candida squealed as the men holding her searched none too carefully for the loot. One of them retrieved her bag of coins and held it up.

“Let her come here,” Halfdan snarled. The men pushed Candida towards their chieftain, who reached out and gripped her by the throat.

“What is your name, waif?”

“Candida, lord.”

Halfdan laughed again. “Ha! A Christian saint’s name. So you are from here, the nunnery. You and your friend.”

Candida gasped, struggling for air against his grip on her windpipe. “Yes, lord, we are novice nuns.”

“And so you are virgins, that is good.” Halfdan released his grip on the blonde girl’s throat and turned to his henchmen.

“Chain them up with the other slaves,” he ordered, “and take good care they stay virgins. When we get them to a market, I’ll expect them to fetch a good price.”
 

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I was about to chunter on about Mercia not stretching that far East, but thought I would check the facts first.
Yes, the history's complicated and not well documented, monasteries like Medeshamstede lost their documents along with everything else during the Danish raids, but it was in the territory of the Middle Angles (north-west corner of that territory on the map), which had been a bit of a no-man's-land between Mercia and the Kingdom of the East Angles until Penda took control of it and put his son Peada in charge some time before 650. By the time of Ronnie's story, it was certainly under Mercian rule, but was soon to be lost to the Danes.

Kingdom_of_Mercia.PNG
 
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It had been two weeks since the flogging. A sweet girl known as Candida, a novice with short blonde hair and the face of an angel, had been assigned to tend Aelf’s wounds and she had carried out her duty conscientiously. For two days Aelf lay on her stomach while Candida bathed her back and smothered the welts with herbs, mashed up with oil and water.
Madiosi2017-395-Eulalia Thief02.jpg
When Aelf wasn’t sleeping they had talked and become friends. Candida’s real name was Hwita and she was the youngest daughter of an ealdorman, who had given her to the nunnery to secure his own place in heaven. As soon as Aelf was strong enough, she went with Candida to work in the kitchens and on the farm.
 
It had been two weeks since the flogging. A sweet girl known as Candida, a novice with short blonde hair and the face of an angel, had been assigned to tend Aelf’s wounds and she had carried out her duty conscientiously. For two days Aelf lay on her stomach while Candida bathed her back and smothered the welts with herbs, mashed up with oil and water.
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When Aelf wasn’t sleeping they had talked and become friends. Candida’s real name was Hwita and she was the youngest daughter of an ealdorman, who had given her to the nunnery to secure his own place in heaven. As soon as Aelf was strong enough, she went with Candida to work in the kitchens and on the farm.
Thank you again, it's great to see the story brought to life in this way. I really appreciate it.
 
I was blown away to see the first picture and then to find a second... it's such a fantastic thing to do.
Ah, well, you've captured the imagination of our Madiosi. We don't call him the "Depictor of Dreams" for nothing. ;)

A splendid beginning to your story.:clapping: One does get tired of Romans after a while, as amusing as they are.:rolleyes: Some Danes and novices are interesting. I suspect Eulalia and the unfortunately named Candida will have some difficulty hanging on to their virginity as we progress, but I'll leave that up to you. Welcome to the authors' ranks. Looking forward to the next sections. :beer:
:popcorn:
 
Well, Ronnie, you are very much in my territory now, late 9th century England! I will refrain from historical criticism as far as I can, but I will say I don't like Cornwell's take on the period, and I don't like his Alfred the Great. So far your story is interesting and promises much :)
A note on the behavior of the religious in the story. Alfred in the preface to his translation of Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care said: "Remember what punishments befell us in this world when we ourselves did not cherish learning nor transmit it to other men. We were Christians in name alone, and very few of us possessed Christian virtues."
He was tempted to see the ravages of the Danes as a punishment for falling away from the true and virtuous path, which is quite appropriate for this story.
I look forward to seeing what the Danes may do with their fresh and "innocent" captives. I suspect they returned to the convent largely in order to be captured, and to be forced to endure the suffering that Aelf had heard about in the stories of the martyrs.
 
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