Bridget began the savage game with a word that brought the blood to Denise’s face. The women shrieked with delight. Taunts struck her on every side as they crowded close on her, gloating, screaming, their mouths full of cursing and derision. They began to shake their fists, and to stretch their claws towards her, and the smell of their bodies was in her nostrils.
Bridget swung forward, and spat in her face.
“She would work miracles, this jade, this wanton! Where is my boy, you minion? Answer me that, I say!”
“Where is your man, eh?”
“We know him, we know him! Let him show his face here!”
“Look at her, the pretty jade!”
“Spoil her beauty. Strip her naked.”
“Out with the harlot. Let her freeze.”
Warts, Sterility, and fifty more were howling about her, drunk with the very noise they made. For a moment Denise stood white-faced in the midst of them. Then she disappeared in a swirl of coarse and violent movement, like a deer that is dragged down and smothered beneath the brown bodies of the wolves.
The road that morning was a martyr’s way as the redness of the dawn waned and the sky became cold and grey. Mouths spat upon her, hands smote her, and clutched at her clothes. Buffeted at every step, jostled, and torn, she was brought to the boundary of the Abbey leuga, and driven out thence into the world. The women even caught up stones and pelted her when they had let her go, screaming foul words, and laughing in loud derision.