(Featured Story in Spanish) Ardith Cuthberht is the daughter of the powerful duke of Harzburg. When she was a girl she lost her beloved mother and as a grown lady the man she loved was sent to battle in far away regions. One day Ardith found a seve...
Time passed with its slow and piercing pace. Every day lasting an eternity and the nights unveiled the most dreadful nightmares tainted in blood and death. Dreading for the worst Ardith found no ease, thinking of Edmund and the delicate and dangerous situation he was nearly a month of his departure.
It was well known, the lands along the bank of the Rhine were hostile, untamed, precisely the boundaries with neighboring kingdoms that once formed part of a now decadent Roman Empire, characterized to be an unstable and tense regimen. A vast region covered by dense and dangerous woodlands inhabited by ferocious and wild beasts. For centuries it's been the hub to ancient lore, where stories of evil mythical beings prowling through mountains and forests evoked the most terrifying legends of men eaters and witches. 'There was always a bit of truth in superstition', Orla often told her. 'We must fear what we can't understand, what we can't see, that we choose to ignore and deny its existence, being denial the source of ignorance and what makes us vulnerable to external, invisible or more powerful forces'.
Invisible and powerful forces she said, yet Ardith never feared of ghosts, humans were the true evil, and war was never ran by dead, but by ambitious men. Ardith recalled her lessons about the gory campaigns that, in a not far away past, were led by the Visigoth's on their expansion through Middle Europe. Their fierce and violent determination to create an empire was traced in crimson red and all this shook her to the bones. She wouldn't bear to lose Edmund. Her heart wouldn't stand it.
By times, the lady waited standing behind the window pane in hopes to spot a messenger riding a horse bringing news of her beloved, or even better, the miracle of seeing him coming back home sooner than expected, however, as days gone by, faith became more fragile.
To revive hope and her shattered spirits, Ardith went almost every day to pray at the little chapel by the family's graveyard. Saying her prayers was always the best way to conceal resentment, though she'd found herself more than once blaming God for her misfortune.
Certain day, after the young duchess finished her prayers in the old stoned church, she visited her mother's grave. Feeling overwhelmed, she dropped to her knees and cryed inconsolably. It was too much for a girl having her mother dead and his father out of the region, always attending political affairs, and now having her fiancé gone into battle was way too much! That was the breaking point. "Oh Edmund, I miss you so much... Please God bring him back to me safe." Tears rolled down her face and sobbing she stared at the cloudy skies demanding an answer to her misery.
A cold wind breezed making Ardith shiver. Rising up, she covered her head with the hood and took the path that led to the mansion. The darkened sky above and the swirling chilling gusts presaged a storm and so she speeded up her pace. Half-a-way out the woods, the lady heard some noises by the woods' trail. It was more like a faint crying, a moan coming not from that far behind her.
Curious, Ardith strode whence the sobs came from, nearing to a huge beech tree. Tracking down the bellows, definitely female and increasing strong and plaintive, she skirted around the beech tree. To her surprise, she found a woman curled on the dirt, wiping inconsolably refuged beneath the massive roots.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Her clothes were smutty, ragged, stained with dry blood. She covered her face with her delicate white hands and hair, thick and black like a veil.
Deeply moved by the scene, Ardith kneeled, leaning towards the woman. "Hi... I heard your cry and I came immediately... I... I want to help you."
"I'm afraid no one can help me now", the woman sobbed, there was a hint of bitterness in her voice.
Motherly, Ardith removed the hair strands covering her face to give her a closer look. The duchess almost fell on her back, to see the most beautiful woman she had ever seen before. A pair of huge onyx black eyes popped almost magically, yet reddened and swelled. A trail of dried blood in the corner of her mouth, reaffirmed the theory that the young maiden had been beaten. Ardith's heart shrunk and her eyes watered. "What's your name?"
"Leila... Leila Von Dorcha."
"Please, tell me what happened to you?"
"Vandals... they... they were several... I was kidnapped. My father is the Count of Swabia... Oh milady , 'tis a nightmare! I was riding my stallion in the forest adjacent my castle when I was intercepted by the robbers. It's been horrible! My father must be crying my fate believing me dead. I reviled everything! Each one of them! Cowards! Bastards! They thought me dead and left me on the woods to my own fate. I don't know... maybe a day after I found the strengths to get up and I crawled through the woods until I couldn't anymore. Finally, I got here.". The woman told her story, she was all shaky and crying.
There was so much suffering in the girls eyes... glossy black eyes like the darkest night without moon yet bright and hypnotizing. There was something in that woman that captivated young Ardith. Gems that reminded of death's itself, maybe because of the sad story behind them, the windows to a broken soul.
A knot in her throat made it hard to ask more. "Leila, I'll take you with me to my castle. Come, let's get you up carefully. Here, grab my arm, lean on me. We're not too far, we can do this... we'll take good care of you now." Ardith helped her up.
"Oh, thank you Ardith. You have become my savior."
Ardith noticed how light Leila felt, and how cold was her skin to the touch. It was weird the sudden goosebumps raising up her spine, a tinkling sensation from head to toes that made her shiver to the contact with Leila. 'Poor thing', she thought all this had impressed her too much and soon she guilted, ashamed of thinking her suffering the worst when there was a woman who's been kidnapped and raped and abandoned to die in the woods. Hers was nothing compared to Leila's.
Shortly, they arrived to Harzburg mansion. After being alerted, Orla and a male servant came running to help young Ardith.
"Orla, send message to the physician immediately. I've found this woman in the woods near the cemetery. She is badly injured."
"But who is she and what happened to her?" Orla asked.
"Her name is Leila from the region of Swabia... She'd been kidnapped and brutally assaulted by a group of vandals... please take her inside. She needs help."
The servant lifted Leila on arms and took her into the castle. Orla looked suspiciously studying the girl. "She's pretty far from home, I'm sorry but the whole story seems awkward to my my dear."
"Orla, please. We've got no time for a scene now... did you hear me? Do not stay there! Help me prepare a warm bath, get towels and enough water to wash Leila's wounds!" The duchess commanded to Orla and the rest of the servants standing and murmuring at the entrance doorway.
"I'm sorry lady Ardith, I'll do right away." Orla hurried and followed Ardith diligently to fulfill her mistress' orders.
Hey guys! I'm glad you'd made it through here! That means you are liking the story so far! What do you think of this woman? Do you pity her also? What do you think of the whole chap? Please leave your comments and let me know.
