‘Forgive? Cuckoldry or your chilling callousness?’
Inscrutable, he slashed the bonds which held me to the post, pushed me with such force that protruding nails scored instant bloody messages across my breast, tartan-patterning the soot which striped me.
Numb-limbed I tumbled to the floor: he prowled around me, studying my face.
‘I know not whether you mean to save yourself or lied, intent on warning. We’ll waste no time deciding …’ and he pulled me to my feet, thrust me before him into the backyard and thence onto his horse, mounting behind me, one hand still clutching the castrating shears.
This is part 10 of 'The blacksmith's wife' which opens with her tied naked to a post in her husband's forge, he intent on branding her, having caught her with a younger, more beautiful lad. The whole is a prompt-led serial which began in March and continued, one hundred words at a time, for forty-one episodes. One of my aims in this 100 days project is to complete the illustrations for each episode and publish the tale in book form - comments would be appreciated.
The story can be read in its entirety here
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