The Clan of Outcasts (Seasons 1 and 2)

Part 9: "Rebel"

In the White Castle, Many Years Ago....

Head down... Face covered... Walk slowly... Be about your business... Do not speak unless spoken to... Yield to those more important than you... The rules of etiquette pounded through her brain as she meandered through the marketplace. Along with them, the list of ingredients her mother wanted also vied for prominence in her memory. Flour, oil, strawberries... Don't make eye contact... cinnamon, milk, eggs... Head down...
Azelie shook her head; she was better than this! Carefully, deliberately, she lifted her gaze and looked right at the merchant measuring out the milk for her.
His eyes flicked up and then right back down again. He handed her the jug. "What're you lookin' at, hussy?" he growled.
Azelie took the jug and placed it in the basket hanging from her arm. She strode on her merry way without answering him. This time, there were no silly rules, only the list of market items. Azelie completed her purchases in record time, racing from booth to booth and staring at the merchant to make them work faster to be rid of the discomfort. She grinned as she swung off toward the Pozreth bakery, ignoring the confused and disdainful stares directed at her back. Just a few more turns, and she could unfasten the stifling veil over her face! She reached up to her jawline and began loosening the strings.

Azelie turned the corner and stopped. A crowd blocked her way--but they weren't looking at her. Village locals gathered in an awkward sort of audience as soldiers in palace livery made their way up the lane of housing units. Every so often, Azelie heard a door banging open, but no one made a sound except the indistinct whisper and the odd whimper. She saw only the crowd, she was too short to see what was happening.
Carefully edging her slim body into the narrow spaces between people, Azelie worked her way to a spot that gave her a clear view of the soldiers. Two of them guided a line of veiled figures between them, but these were so shrouded that all Azelie could tell was that they were women. Which women in particular, she could not tell. Why were the soldiers taking these ladies? Why was everyone just standing around watching them?
Azelie barely had time to wonder before a rough, mailed hand clamped around her arm and pulled.
"Here's another one!" the soldier cried, hauling her out of the press, toward the space around the wagon.
Azelie felt her heart give a jolt as the veil chose that inopportune moment to drift free as silently as a whisper. There she stood, bare-faced among those long fabric robes with eyes. Several people gasped; they knew the reputation of women who unveiled in public.
The squadron leader stared down at Azelie over thick arms folded across his broad chest. With nothing else to lose, Azelie stared back.
Finally, the leader barked, "She'll do!"
The soldier shoved Azelie into the back of the wagon with the other women. She could count twenty faces in the dim light. The vehicle gave a lurch and sent Azelie tumbling toward an open space on the bench lining the interior.
"Why are they taking us?" she asked the pair of eyes beside her. "Where are they taking us?"
No one ventured an answer. Azelie was left to her own worried thoughts and the clatter of the wheels upon cobblestones. The wagon was just rolling to a stop when she thought of her basket; did her family know she'd been taken? What would her mother think when her father brought the basket back and told her of the broken milk jug and the spilled berries? Would she ever see them again?

The doors at the back of the wagon opened and the soldiers began herding the women out. A Council member in rich, resplendent robes stood by, surveying their arrival. The other women were far too concerned with where they might be headed and whether they were about to trip over the hem of their long gowns, but Azelie watched the Councilor, staring straight at him until he turned and looked at her. She held his gaze until the soldier behind her gave a rough shove on her shoulder. When she glanced back, the Councilor was already walking in the other direction, but Azelie hoped at least to have made her message clear: she was not afraid of him, nor what might happen to her.