The door opened and a dangerous looking man stepped into the room and surveyed the room's occupants. Seeming satisfied that all was as it should be he stepped aside and held the door open for another individual. The man beyond the door stepped into the room. He was an older man, but he still had a look of strength to him despite his evident age. He was richly dressed and moved with a commanding presence about him that spoke of an extensive experience of leadership, perhaps even some time in the military.
Esmerelda rose to greet him, but he cut her off with a terse statement, "These are the girls from which you expect me to make a selection for my new consort?"
Esmerelda looking somewhat shaken nodded yes timidly.
"Very well then."
He started at the beginning of the line looking intensely at each girl and steadily progressed down the line, with disapproval written all over his face at what he saw. Each girl fairly cowered under his intense scrutiny, until at last he came to the end of the line and Krista.
Krista however did not look at him, but stared straight ahead and showed no sign of cowering under his study of her. The man reached out and grasped Krista's chin with two fingers and turned her head to meet his eyes. Forced to stare at him she hoped that her gaze remained enigmatic and didn't betray the loathing that she felt for him and all the members of his kind.
He released her chin and turned towards his man and said, "I'll take this one. Pay her what she's due." Her new master said indicating Esmerelda.
Krista somewhat shocked watched as her new master's hired man dropped several pouches into Esmerelda's greedy fingers. Then the hired man came over to her and grasped her left arm in a grasp that was to the point of leaving bruises and half pulled her behind him, as he followed his master out the door.
Krista got one fleeting look at the other girls, as she was pulled from the room. It was likely to be the last time she saw any of them again.
There was a carriage pulled up outside the inn, which she was thrust into. She landed on the seat behind the driver, which put her opposite of her new owner. She struggled to regain her composure, as the man was watching her very closely. But she couldn't control the rapid rising and falling of her chest, which betrayed whatever calm she could portray on her face. She felt so out of balance.
The carriage ride didn't last nearly long enough. When the carriage had come to a complete stop her new master broke his intense and inquisitive study of her and got down out of the carriage. Her charade of being in control completely shattered at the knowledge that they had arrived at her new master's house. She sat in the carriage unsure of what to do next. Her master held out his hand in a gesture one would have expected to see a gentleman offer to a high born lady. She looked at the outstretched hand and her mind was suddenly made up as to what her course of action would be. She lunged for the opposite side carriage door and flung it open and bounded out towards the city lights flickering beyond. Her blossoming moment of freedom wilted within three steps, as a hand grasped her forearm with the same bruising grip once again. But of course she had been a fool to forget the warrior companion of her master.