How the priest could manage to speak at such a slow pace was incredible.
His words were slow, blurry and protracted, and they all seemed meaningless to her.
She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap as the good Christian she was, and she bit down on her lip.
The Great Church in which the whole city sat benched was badly lit, sun hardly crawling in through the small windows placed at the upper part of the walls. The air was thick with dust in here, and it always made her feel nauseous. She felt Lady Liofrun's eyes on her, which made her stir nervously in her seat and blink her eyes a couple of times. She had herself never been much of a fan of going to church, and of that she was embarrassed, because her lady and everyone else had the Lord very close to their heart.
She had never met the Lord.
She had never truly felt the presence of God, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, the Mother Mary, or anyone else mentioned by the priests.
But she was scared to admit it.
A slight squeeze on her upper arm from Lady Liofrun made her look up from her lap, and as the priest mumbled out the Latin words "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," she hurriedly crossed her chest like everyone else.
Lady Liofrun was not her real mother.
She had merely adopted that role when Fridogitha had been placed at her doorstep 15 years ago, and now Fridogitha sat there beside her Lady feeling embarrassed that she had never truly adopted the role as her daughter.
She exhaled deeply as the church bells rang.
Finally, she thought, as all the villagers got up on their feet to get in line and receive the blood and flesh of Jesus Christ.
She was glad it was just bread and wine. The real thing would have been horrendous.
A wicked part of her wanted to giggle at the thought, but she remained silent.
Now Fridogitha could return to her and Lady Liofrun's home, where she would spend her day like all other days, caring for the goats and maybe finishing the apron she was working on. Fridogitha found sowing to be one of her favorite ways of making time fly faster, and it had also always been perceived to be a good way for young Christian girls to be creative.
To everyone else, Fridogitha was as pure and faithful as any other young lady from these parts of the Northumbrian kingdom.
Fridogitha quickly downed the small glass of stale wine offered to her by the priest, even though she did not like the way it made her stomach churn. She looked up on the great cross hanging above the altar, at Christ up there looking down on them all with a defeated expression in his eyes. She looked at his dead and sorrowful gaze, and she felt something pull in her heart. She would surely never make her way to Heaven when her time came, but she was the only one in the village who knew that.
All their neighbors always complimented Lady Liofrun for having raised such a virginal and quiet daughter, but they did not know how she really felt about the Lord.
She hated him and feared him at the same time.
Everyone always talked about the blessings of God and how he would love and care for all his children, but she could not grasp that as reality. She had never felt his hands on her shoulder, nor had she seen his angels walk among the villagers of her town.
Disease, poverty and death were the only dark angels that walked among the people she knew.
Maybe Mother Mary, Uriel and the other good angels only visit the rich, she thought to herself as she and her Lady were sitting down on the hard wooden bench once more to give a final prayer to God before they could leave.
Surely, her mind wandered, the Great Lord they all worship would not have wanted for his children to be pursued by King Ælla for all their earthly riches; burned, hanged and tortured for things that they had not done, or... She felt a stone drop to her stomach and a pressing feeling in her throat.
Like my mother, burned on a stake for everyone to see, simply for being skilled in medicine.
Naturally, Fridogitha had been too young for her to remember the sentence being executed, but Lady Liofrun had explained to her what had happened to her mother. Never in details of course.
As she had come to understand, her mother had always had a great interest in nature, and she had performed medicinal wanders. Miracles even, Lady Liofrun had pressed, with the products that she brought from the forest.
"One day," Lady Liofrun had explained, "your mother came from the forest bewildered. She had been told by a bird that a disease was coming to our village, a horrible and flesh-eating disease that would destroy families and take many of our loved ones with it. Only if all ate a special plant would the disease be impenetrable."
But no one had listened to her, and when the disease spread through the village and entered the city, the King's men accused her mother of witchery.
"We, the folks of the poorer part of the village, had listened to her and had eaten the plant, and we therefore suffered not under the plague. The richer people had not suffered either, as bathing in warm waters also proved to be a cure. But she had still made the prophecy, and she therefore had to be burned publicly."
Lady Liofrun had always explained to Fridogitha, or Frida as she liked to call her, that the bird that had spoken to her mother was sent from God as a warning of the coming work of the Devil.
But Frida had never really believed that. Because she could sometimes sense the animals speaking too, and they had never mentioned anything about the Lord.
Suddenly, a loud thundering crash roared out from the back of the church, the doors flying open.
The entire church started and gasped loudly in surprise, including Frida who was ripped out of her thoughts and back to reality both by the sound and the sudden light filling the room.
Scattered frightened screams were heard, and Frida quickly turned around to see what could have caused the commotion.
Fear spread out over her skin as she saw their big silhouettes by the door, her eyes not easily adjusting to the light from the outside.
Monsters, she thought to herself, as she felt Lady Liofrun's protecting arms clasping around her. Has the Devil himself come? she asked herself, stretching her neck to get a better picture of their intruders.