Orla's possessions were meagre to say the least. She had one clean yet slightly ragged dress and an even more ragged shift tucked under her arm as she allowed Finan to lead her out of the house. She came to a halt upon the sight of her master on the ground outside, lying in a pool of blood and his own sword sticking out of him. No. He was no longer her master. She wished more than anything that she could take the sword from him and pierce his skin with it again and again, just to feel something; just to feel as though she had sought some measure of revenge against him. But the feel of his seed stuck against her thighs served as a reminder that even dead, the man continued to have a hold on her.

"They are an ugly bunch, but they will not touch so much as one hair on your head, I swear it," Finan said, as though he could sense her unease when they approached the group of men and their horses.

Orla wanted to believe him, but when one of the men turned from his horse to look at the pair of them she felt herself shrink behind Finan without even thinking about it. His hair was shaved at the sides and long on top. Everything about him screamed Dane, yet the other men behind him seemed all to be Saxons. Trying her hardest not to grip hold of Finan's tunic so that he would not leave her alone with the Dane, Orla found her mind wandering briefly.

"Why can we not hump her and then sell her?"

The Dane grinned when he saw the look of surprise upon her face at his use of her language. With horror and disgust, she realised that he wanted her to know exactly what he was saying about her.

"Because," the other man, the man who had killed her father and then taken her with them, spoke. "We will fetch a higher price for her if she is untouched."

"I envy the man who will lay with her for the first time," the fat Dane reached out for a strand of her hair, winding it around his finger and he smirked when she tried to pull herself from his grasp. She still had fire then; she still had the will to live and to defend herself. "Such a beauty. Skin as pale as virgin snow and a figure not yet ruined by children." His gaze wandered the length of her body hungrily. "What I would give to sink my cock inside of her and watch her cries of agony turn into-"

"-Are you quite done?" her captor snarled, yanking her away roughly. "You will not have this slave, do you understand? You will not so much as look at her. She is a rare find and she will bring us much silver; silver that we need. So, keep you hands and that little prick far away."

Her captor, a tall man with hair as dark as night and a gruff voice, shoved her into a cage so small that she had to sit with her chin resting upon her knees. They hoisted her up in their hall and as the men feasted and celebrated their taking of her village, and the numerous slaves they had gathered to sell, Orla was forced to endure the lecherous looks and crude remarks that were cast her way all night. She had wanted so desperately to cry but she would not give them the satisfaction. Instead, she closed her eyes and tried to drown out the splashes of ale from the horns they threw at her.

"Finan? Who is this?" The Dane's voice broke Orla from her thoughts. He was looking at her; his blue eyes assessing and questioning upon her.

"This is Orla," Finan spoke in English for the first time that Orla had heard, stepping aside slightly so that she was in full view now. "And she is coming with us back to Coccham."

The man's eyes did not disguise his surprise and when he narrowed them slightly at Finan, Orla panicked when the two of them began to walk away and leave her alone. Her eyes darted wildly to the group of warriors and then back to Finan, but he simply touched her shoulder.

"I will be right back."

He should have expected Uhtred would have questions but Finan wasn't sure he had any answers to give. The rest of the freed slaves had been given coinage and had left to seek out their new lives. He knew that was what he should have done with Orla as well, but he couldn't. Perhaps it was because she Irish, or perhaps it was because she just looked so… broken. He knew judging by the state of her disheveled dress and her former master's naked state, along with a brief explanation from one of the slaves who had been hiding in the barn, what had happened to Orla that night. And he knew he would be foolish to believe it was the only time. The broken look in her eyes told him otherwise.

"She looks worse than the rest," Uhtred muttered, casting Orla a look of pity briefly. "But we have no need of her at Coccham, Finan. We know nothing about her. Bringing her back to Coccham is only creating another mouth to feed if she cannot pull her own weight."

From anyone else, the words might have sounded harsh or even bordering on cruel, but Uhtred's tone was logical and not unkind. Winter would soon be upon them and their stores were precious. Uhtred helped feed those who truly needed it, but an extra mouth was only an extra burden.

"I will feed her, Lord," Finan said. "I will pay for the clothes on her back and the food in her belly if need be, but I cannot leave her here."

"Why not?" Uhtred was genuinely curious. "We have freed many from slavery over these few months, have we not, Finan? What is so special about her?"

"Truthfully?" Finan rubbed a hand over his beard, feeling his gaze wander across the muddied yard to Orla, who stood looking at him almost expectantly yet dejectedly at the same time. "Nothing… and yet somehow everything. I… Lord, do not ask me to explain it to you because I am having a hard enough time explaining it to myself. All I know is that somehow my fate and hers are intertwined."

"You are spending too much time with me to be talking of such things as fate," Uhtred grinned now. "Bring her if you must, Finan, but she will be your responsibility."

Finan nodded in agreement and he walked back to Orla with a smile that she could only just make out through his bearded face.

"Can you ride?" he asked, motioning to the stables where her master's mare and stallion were being led out by a slender, young man who looked to be a Dane also. She frowned. It was most puzzling to her to see a group of warriors made up of both Saxons and Danes. Not to mention the young monk who was doing a terrible job of hiding his curiosity about her.

"It has been a long time," Orla offered as an answer, and Finan could see the hesitation upon her dirtied face.

"You will ride with me then," Finan suggested. "I should not like for something to befall you now."

I should not like for something to befall you now that you are finally free and finally safe was what he wanted to say, but even without verbalising it, his true meaning lingered in the air between them. He walked her over to his horse and as he took her pathetic handful of clothes to put in his saddle bag, Orla could not help but reach out a hand to brush across the fur of the beautiful white horse before her. Turning its head, the horse eyed her and his nostrils flared as though he was trying to get a sense of the stranger touching him. Without warning he nudged Orla's face with his nose, and when his tongue licked her cheek, leaving a wet and slimy trail she couldn't help but smile. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the horses. Tears began to trickle down her cheeks but not of sadness; of relief and of hope. She opened her eyes to find Finan watching her with that same unreadable expression as back inside the house.

"We should go," he murmured, his voice sounding gravelly to his own ears.

Orla nodded and hoisted herself up onto the horse unaided, trying to avoid the glances of the men who were watching and waiting for their Lord's order to start moving. Finan mounted behind Orla and he felt her flinch immediately when his arms came around her middle to clutch the reigns.

"I will not hurt you," he spoke quietly in her ear, his beard tickling her neck.

"I know," she nodded. "I just… it reminded me of… I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to apologise for, Lady," Finan murmured.

"I'm no lady," she huffed out a laugh without any humour.

"You look like one to me."

Orla said nothing and as they trotted away, she turned around once to glance at the misery she was finally leaving behind. She caught Finan's eyes and his hand brushed against hers for a mere second before he focused again on the path before him. Orla allowed her eyes to linger on him for just a moment, and she thought it to be ironic that he was as dark as the horse was fair. Letting out the breath she had not realised she was even holding, she faced the front once more and wondered what the future now held for her.

… … …

Finan barely spoke to her as they rode, aside from occasional enquiry as to whether or not she was feeling tired or hungry; both of which she had assured him she was not. When he heard her stomach grumble loudly, he did not argue with her but simply reached behind him and into one of his saddle bags so that he could pull out a crust of hard bread.

"I am hungry," she could hear the sheepish tone in his voice. "So if you would eat something as well, it would stop these eejits from making fun of me."

Despite the knowledge that he was just saying and doing so for her benefit, she pretended to humour him; too hungry to ignore the bread that he thrust in front of her. As she chewed upon it, he spoke to her of their travelling companions. He had yet to introduce her to them formally, and while Orla presumed it was because they would have no interest in a freed slave with no one and nothing to her name, Finan had actually neglected to do so out of fear that their attention would be too unsettling for her so soon into their travels. It seemed that his friends had understood without him needing to say it and they kept their horses back slightly to allow Finan and Orla some sort of privacy.

Finan's tone was soothing, and it was at some point into explaining that Sihtric, the young Dane with the dark hair and braids, was expecting his first child any day now that Orla felt her eyes grow heavy and she drifted off to sleep. Under normal circumstances, Finan would have taken great delight in making fun of Sihtric and proclaiming that the man's life was so dull it had actually sent someone to sleep. However, he somehow found himself feeling as though that would be disrespectful to Orla. They didn't know her like he did and he wanted them to like her.

Christ, he thought to himself. He didn't know her either. He knew nothing about her other; not even where abouts in Irland she came from. All he knew were the things he had pieced together himself. So why did he feel such an inexplicable need to protect her? He told himself that it was because he knew how it felt to be bound and owned and humiliated and hurt. He knew how it felt to wish for a death that would never come yet somehow urge yourself to carry on and live another day. But deep down inside of him, there was something else. She reminded him of Mairead, his brother's wife. She had been so small, barely reaching the base of his throat just like Orla, and she too had been meek and helpless. She had married Conall, his brother, only to escape the brutal hands of her father and when Finan had fallen in love with her and tried to run away with her, he had managed to condemn her to a fate even worse. His jaw clenched when he thought about what his brother and his men had done to her. The things they had done to her while Finan was forced to watch and listen to her screaming and begging for help. It had been both a relief and an agony when his brother finally slit her throat and let her limp body fall to the cold ground. His hands clenched tighter around the leather of the reigns and he snuck a glance at Orla's face as she leaned back against his chest in deep slumber. Even asleep, her face was pinched and fraught with unease. He vowed silently never to let her know such anguish again.