Striding down the hillside to freedom, Jacinta forced herself not to look back at her lover/guide, Noctilio. His rough exacting of the payment of her body for the safe journey over the hills had repelled her, yet she left him reluctantly. Moving voluntarily into his arms had been her forgiveness and a tenderness had sprung up between them. Knowing there was no place for her in his fraught life she had quit his territory, the better to leave him free to continue his missions. The privations of war reduced some humans to acts of violent bestiality and some to acts of awful heroism.
She had trusted Noctilio and he had delivered her to this uneasy freedom in a neutral country. Neutral, but still teeming with spies and barely contained combatants under the nervous control of a government fearful of antagonising the warring parties adjoining its boundaries. Pulling her cap down closer over her face Jacinta kept her eyes down, taking occasional glimpses of her route past the outlying houses of the town, attempting the gait of the young man she appeared in her rough borrowed clothes. Rounding a corner, a guttural 'halt!' in the local patois shook her to a standstill.
One glance at the stolid shaven head told her this was no native, but one to fear, and the sleek Doberman straining on the leash perhaps more to be feared. Darting glances each way for escape, she broke and fled down a narrow passage, wildly searching for an escape or hiding place. Hearing the sound of the pursuing animal she slipped between barn doors, leaning to close them behind her as paws slammed into the heavy wood on the other side. Heart pounding, she surveyed her sanctuary, or was it a prison? No other exit appeared in the other three walls, with just straw bales stacked around, and a crude ladder leading to an upper storey where more straw was stored. Scrabbling up the broken rungs she flung herself into the loose harvest, burrowing deep then stilled to listen as the barn door swung open and two sets of feet entered below... The dog excitedly quartered the room, zeroing in at the base of the ladder.
Silent, barely breathing, Jacintas spirits fell when a gruff, "Halt!" echoed in the barn and she felt the shaking of the ladder as her pursuer ascended. The booted feet stomped loudly across the boards beneath her belly. With an "Ah, ha!", a strong hand grasped her ankle, pulling her roughly into the light. Curling into foetal position she waited...
"Stand up!" a kick landed on her ribs and she realised the role of a male might not be wise anymore. Rising to her feet, she raised her eyes in defiance, slowly lifting a hand to her cap, and with her head proud, her mane cascaded down her shoulders.