The invaders began sorting through the men, pulling aside those with trades: smiths, bowyers, fletchers, bakers, brewers, butchers, millers, carpenters-anyone of a craft or trade who might be put to use. Those men were chained together, to be marched off as slaves. The very old, young boys, and those seemingly without useful trades, like valets, yeomen, innkeepers, city officials, and merchants, were slaughtered on the spot-a sword hacked to the side of the neck, a spear through the chest, a knife in the gut, a flail across the skull. There was no system to the slaughter.

Clarissa stared as an invader clubbed the head of a man on the ground who wouldn't seem to die. It reminded her of a fisherman, clubbing a catfish on the bank-thunk, thunk, thunk. The man doing the clubbing didn't seem to think any more of it than a fisherman would. Dumb Gus, the poor half-wit who ran errands for merchants, shopkeepers, and inns, his work paid for with food and a bed and watered ale, kicked one last time as his thick skull gave way with a resounding crack.

Clarissa put trembling fingers over her mouth as she felt the contents of her stomach lurch up into the back of her throat. She swallowed it back down and gasped for air.

This wasn't happening, she told herself. She was dreaming. She repeated the lie over and over in her head. This isn't happening. This isn't happening. This isn't happening. But it was. Dear Creator, it was.

Clarissa watched as the women were culled from the men. The old women were summarily put to death. The women judged worth keeping were shoved, screaming and crying for their men, into a group. Invaders sorted through them, further winnowing them according to age and, apparently, looks.

Laughing invaders held the women as others of the beasts methodically went from woman to woman, seized them by their lower lip, and poked it through with a thin spike. A ring was pushed through each woman's lip, its split opening efficiently closed with the aid of the invader's teeth.

He had told her this, too: the women would be marked into slavery. This, too, she had laughed at. And why not? He seemed to her as daft as dumb Gus, expounding his crazy, preposterous ideas and nonsense.

Clarissa squinted, trying to see better It appeared that the different groups of women had different-colored rings put through their lips. One group of older women of every shape looked to have copper-colored rings. Another group of younger women screamed and fought as silver rings were put upon them. They stopped fighting and meekly submitted after a few who fought the hardest were run through with swords.

The smallest group of the youngest, prettiest women were in the grip of the greatest terror as they were surrounded by a gang of burly invaders. These women received gold rings. Blood ran down their chins and onto their fancy dresses.

Clarissa knew most of these young women. It was hard not to remember people who regularly humiliated you. Being in her early thirties, and unmarried, Clarissa was the object of scorn among many women, but these young women were the crudest, giving her smirking sidelong glances as they passed, referring to her as "the old maid," or "the hag," among themselves, but just loud enough that she could hear them.

Clarissa had never planned to be this age and without a husband. She had always wanted a family. She wasn't entirely sure how life and time had rolled on without providing her with the opportunity for a husband.

She wasn't ugly, she didn't think, but she knew she was no more than plain, at best. Her figure was satisfactory; she had meat on her bones. Her face wasn't twisted, or shriveled, or grotesque. Whenever she looked at her reflection while passing a window at night, she didn't think an ugly woman stared back at her. She knew it wasn't a face that inspired ballads, but it wasn't repulsive.

Yet with more women than men to be had, being merely "not ugly" wasn't adequate. The pretty, younger women didn't understand; they had men in abundance courting them. The older women understood, and were kinder; but still she was an unfortunate in their eyes, and they feared to be overly friendly, lest they catch the unseen, unknown taint that kept her unwed.

No man would want her now; she was too old. Too old, they would fear, to give them sons. Time had trapped her, alone and an old maid. Her work filled her time, but it never made her happy the way she suspected a family would have.

As much as the sting of those young women's words hurt, and as much as she had often wished them to experience humiliation, she would never wish them this.

The invaders laughed as they ripped the bodices of the fine dresses, inspecting the young women like livestock.

"Dear Creator," she wept in prayer, "please don't let this be because I wished them to feel the shame of degradation. I never wished them this. Dear Creator, I beg you forgive me ever wishing them ill. I didn't want this for them, I swear on my soul."

Clarissa gasped and leaned out the little window for a better view when she saw a band of invaders running forward with a log. They disappeared beneath an overhang below.

She felt the building reverberate with a dull thud. People in the great room screamed. Another thud. And another, followed by splintering wood. The underworld's own pandemonium broke out below. They were violating the sanctity of the Creator's abbey. Just as the prophet had said they would.

Clarissa clutched her dress over her heart in both hands as she heard the slaughter begin anew below. She shuddered uncontrollably. They would soon come up the stairs, and find her.

What was to happen to her? Was she to be marked with a ring through her lip, and cast into slavery? Would she have the courage to fight, and be killed, rather than submit?

No. She knew the answer would be no. In the face of it, she wanted to live. She didn't want to be butchered like one of the people in the square had been, or like poor dumb Gus. She feared death more than life. She gasped as the door banged open.

The Abbot burst into the small room. "Clarissa!" Neither young nor fit, he huffed from running up the stairs. His portly shape could not be disguised beneath his dull brown robes.

His round face was as ashen as a three-day-dead corpse. "Clarissa! The books," he panted. "We must run away. Take the books with us. Take them and hide!"

She blinked dumbly at him. The room of books would take days to pack, and several wagons to lug them away. There was nowhere to hide. There was nowhere to run. There was no way to escape through the throng of invaders. It was a ludicrous command born of mad terror. "Abbot, there is no way we can escape."

He rushed to her and took her hands, he licked his lips. His eyes darted about. "They won't notice us. Pretend we are just going about our business. They won't question us."

She didn't know how to answer such delusion, but was denied an attempt. Three men in blood-splattered leather and hides and fur stepped through the door. They were so big, and the room so small, that it took them only three strides to close the distance to the Abbot.

Two had greasy, curly, matted hair. The third was shaved bald, but had a thick beard like the other two. Each wore a gold ring through his left nostril.

The one with the shiny head snatched the Abbot by his fringe of white hair and yanked his head back. The Abbot squealed. "Trade? Do you have a trade?"

The Abbot, his head bent back so that he could look only at the ceiling, spread his hands in supplication.

"I am the Abbot. A man of prayer." He licked his lips and added in a shout, "And books! I care for the books!" "Books. Where are they?"

"The archives are in the athenaeum." His head tilted back, he pointed blindly. "Clarissa knows. Clarissa can show you. She works with them. She can show you. She cares for them." "No trade, then?"