Chapter 1- Thea

**Thea**

“Get up!” shock tore through my body as the freezing cold water assaulted my skin. I gasped and struggled to move away from the source of the water. I sat back on my hands panting and trying to steady my heart beat. I looked up through my bedraggled hair at Gurtar. She loomed over, with her now empty bucket dripping on the straw covered floor that was my bed. She looked at me with pure hatred “If you make me come and get your lazy arse one more time, I will take you out of the kitchen and make you open your legs for the punters instead!”. She threw the bucket on the floor beside me and turned on her heel towards the inn’s back door.

I was furious with myself, why did I keep oversleeping? I knew her comment about forcing me into prostitution wasn’t an idle threat. A few people, patrons of the inn mostly, had pointed out what good money I could make her if she allowed it. However, her late husband had spent a lot of the earnings from the inn on women, and she therefore hated anyone who was or used a prostitute. That had kept me safe and untouched, apart from the odd grope, for 19 years. At least I thought I was 19, it was hard to know when you didn’t know when your own birthday was. If I kept pissing her off though, I wasn’t sure how long her principles would last. The thought of being touched by some of the inn’s visitors made my skin crawl.

I got up quickly, not bothering to attempt to dry myself off apart from ringing out my hair and dress, and went straight through the back-kitchen door. Tess, the inn’s cook, was stirring a large pot of grey porridge. She rolled her eyes at me as I entered. “Can’t say I have any sympathy!” “I don’t expect it” I replied, a little braver than I felt. She scoffed. “Just get on with what you should be doing, breakfast needs to be ready for serving.” I began arranging plates and bowls- despite the warmth coming from the stove I still felt cold in my wet clothes. I wished that they would dry quicker.

I busied myself with the rest of the preparation for breakfast. The kitchen was worryingly one of the dirtiest places in the inn. It had two large agar ovens, both equipped with a hob. Ever since I could remember, these ovens had never been cleaned. The layer of grease and grime was astonishing. Tess insisted it added flavour to her dishes, though my stomach churned whenever I ate something prepared in here. As I didn’t always get fed every meal time, being picky wasn’t an option.

 It wasn’t long before Tess was asking me to slice the fresh bread to take out to the patrons. As she turned to begin portioning out the porridge, she looked me up and down. “I know it’s warm in here, but I think you’re bloody lucky your clothes have dried off so quickly, you would have been heading for a chill!” I looked down. She was right, my clothes were almost dry. “Must be the heat from the ovens” I mumbled not making eye contact with her. She narrowed her eyes at me, but didn’t comment further as she had too much to do with breakfast.

We carried on in silence. Things like this had been happening now for roughly the past year. I say ‘things’ I didn’t really know what else to call them. I’d drop a clay bowl on the floor and it wouldn’t break. I’d leave the bread too long in the oven and yet it wouldn’t be burnt. I’d wish there weren’t as many dishes to wash, and suddenly there would seem to be less to do. It felt very strange, but I didn’t dare mention it to anyone in case they thought I was mad. Tess however, had recently been making occasional remarks about the odd occurrences. I didn’t engage with her about it, afraid that if I did, she would tell Gurtar. At that point I was sure I would be thrown out, and I had nowhere else to go.

 I don’t remember it, but Gurtar told me they found me abandoned as a toddler in the stables of the inn. The only thing I had on me was a dirty dress and a crude necklace made with a piece of thin braid and a pebble hanging down like a pendant. It was an ugly thing but I always wore it. After all, it was the only true belonging I had. Gurtar had decided to keep me, as she had no children of her own to help her run the inn. However, she had never shown me love. I had not even been allowed to sleep in the inn, and remained in the stables with the horses where I had been left as a small child. 

I felt a slap on the back of my head, dragging me from my thoughts. “Stop day dreaming, and start taking these out!” Tess motioned towards the now full plates of porridge, sausage and bread. “Where's Elena?” I asked. I never usually served. “Not that it's any of your business, but she's ill, so it's up to you today!” Tess snapped back. My stomach dropped, I hated serving the patrons. Some of them looked at me in the vilest way, and worse some tried to touch me. I hurried out anyway, not wanting to get into any more trouble with Tess and Gurtar this morning. The inn’s main room was nearly as filthy as the kitchen. It was a large space with various mismatched tables and chairs. Some of which I had tried to repair after bar fights. The bar was on the back wall. It was so sticky if you left your hand on it too long, you’d struggle to get it off again. Gurtar didn’t believe in too much decoration as most things got broken in fights. Even the floor had been left as bare wood because the furs always became ruined in days from spilt drinks. The inn always smelt of stale ale, vomit and pipe smoke. Why anyone would choose to eat in here was beyond me. The first few people were seated, some yawning, waiting for their breakfast. Apart from a few dirty smirks, no one made any comment towards me, and to my relief the morning service passed uneventfully.   

After I had cleared and washed up the breakfast dishes, Tess had already begun preparing lunch. She told me to go outside to get fresh water from the well to boil the vegetables. The well was built just off the market place, and was only a short walk from the inn. I wound the crank down to lower the bucket and watched the water pull the lip of the bucket under. As I was leaning over the well to bring the bucket back up, I felt someone watching me. I hurriedly tipped the water from the well’s bucket into my own, spilling some on my boots in the process. Ignoring this, I picked up the heavy bucket and started walking back towards the inn as quickly as I could without running. My heart stopped as I felt a hand on my shoulder. I reluctantly turned around to see who was there. A middle-aged man with yellow teeth and greasy hair was grinning at me dangerously. “Now Miss, that bucket looks far too heavy for a little thing like you to be carrying, looks like it made you all wet” he emphasised the last word as he looked my body up and down. I pretended not to notice him leering and replied “Oh no, it's fine thank you, I'm used to it.” I went to turn but he put his hand on my waist “Now now, no need to go scurrying off, is it the inn you work at?” Not knowing what to say I nodded, he smiled widely. “Well that's just lovely, I was looking for a nice warm bed for tonight” He winked at me and my blood ran cold. “I really must be going” and before he could say anything else, I ran towards the inn door. 

“What took you so long?!” Tess spat as she pulled the bucket from my hands. “It looks like you’ve spilt half on yourself you stupid girl!” I was too shaken up to respond properly, so I mumbled an apology in her direction. “Blimey, an apology from you, never thought I'd see the day! Now help me put the carrots and potatoes onto boil.”

Once lunch was ready, I had to take out the dishes again. As I left the kitchen I froze. He was here. Sipping an ale not far from the kitchen door and eyeing me as if he was the hunter and I the deer. I made myself move towards him, the sooner I served him the sooner I could ignore him. I placed the plate in front of him. I went to move away but he called me back. “Always in a hurry little miss, now tell me what you’ve brought me to eat” He gave me that same look as he had outside. From this close I could smell his stale sweat. “It’s just a beef stew” I tried to say as evenly as possible. “Ahh…is it rump?” His hand moved to roughly grab my behind, but almost instantly he pulled his hand away screaming “YOU FUCKING BITCH!” He was holding the hand he’d used to touch me by the wrist, I gasped as I saw it was blistering as if it had been burnt. The other patrons were looking over at us with curiosity. I began to back away from him, scared of what he might do in revenge. “You come back here you filthy whore!” but I was already through the kitchen door, panting with fear. I was going to be in so much trouble.