No Title Yet- Prologue

A whip cracked high in the air. The pitiful wailing of hungry children rose out of the grim silence. Out of the pen staggered a haggard figure, thin, black hair strewn across her face, streaking it with dirt. The cold mud sucked hungrily at her bony ankles, making every step an effort as she lifted one foot ahead of the other. The woman didn’t look up as she walked the mud-covered path. A biting wind whipped her tattered rags into a frenzy, but her only response was to tug them tighter.
Suddenly the woman uttered a groan, almost a gasp, and dropped to her knees. She didn’t notice the sting of the wind as it chafed her skin, nor did she notice the kicks of the slave pen guards as they tried to drive her back onto her feet. The woman tipped her head back to the skies, clutching the folds of her smock, pain-filled grey eyes noticing nothing but the clouds above.
An gnarled old woman stepped out from the crowd gathered around the pens, wincing in pain as she lowered herself to the young woman’s side. Gently and carefully she spread the woman’s thin legs apart. Blood trickled steadily from between her legs, staining her thighs and swirling with the puddles in the mud to create a rusty stain in the water.
Patiently the kind peasant waited by the younger one, barely wincing when the girl grabbed her hand. After a few minutes she gently smoothed the woman’s sweat drenched hair and once again approached that secret area between her legs which now was pushing out blood more heavily than before. The old woman could tell she had been in childbirth for a while; the babe was just coming now.
Firmly she placed her gnarled hands on what felt like a small head, and gently held it as the woman heaved and strained to rid herself of the small being. The woman guided the babe from the womb with practiced hands, however old and wrinkled they may have been. The infant’s foot had barely been exposed to the chilly air when the new mother gave a great heave and began gushing forth blood from her. It formed puddles of its own, filling the air with its scent and driving back the curious who had come forward. Quickly the elder wrapped the baby in her shawl, chafing it and cleaning off some of the blood, turning away from the bloody, disheveled heap lying in the mud.
Another woman boldly stepped forth from the crowd, this one looking to be nearly the age of the woman who now laid dead in puddles of her own blood. She was richly dressed in silks, hovering anxiously beneath a delicate parasol that barely seemed to hold off the rain. Her neck seemed to drip with sparkling jewels. With arms that trembled but a firm set to her mouth, the richly dressed woman reached out for the infant. With some hesitance the elder woman unceremoniously handed the shrieking infant to the lady, then quickly vanished into the crowd, as though afraid this richly dressed noble might change her mind.
The young noblewoman stared grimly at the dead mother’s corpse in the mud, about to be dragged away by slave pen guards, then turned away. Gently she ran a finger down the baby’s forehead, and arranged the shawl around the child a bit tighter, holding the infant closer to warm it. Never glancing back, the young lady strode determinedly to her carriage, which had been waiting close by. She ignored the damage to her silk slippers, ignored the grasping hands of beggars which left grime on her cloak. Settling in the carriage, she tucked furs around herself and the babe, resolutely fixing her eyes ahead and not on the slave pens.
With a nod to the driver, the carriage rattled away through the mud, leaving the squalor the slave pens far behind. The babe was quick to fall asleep, having been fed goat’s milk from a stand by the road. Her mother’s body laid in an undignified heap far behind the luxurious carriage, awaiting burial in an unmarked grave with other slaves. Knowing this, the new mother fixed her eyes upon the  child’s face, and smiled sadly.
“You will never be a slave,” she whispered with convictoin. “You are my daughter now. Never.”