Chapter 97: The alpha and her pack
It was night, it was cold and it was dark.
It was a normal night, which any citizen of the British Island would have expected as a gift from the cold and impending winter.
Dusted with white and soft snow that delicately covered the roofs of the houses and streets, paved with a thousand greyish colored stones.
From the chimneys, above the roofs of the houses, a light smoke came out, sometimes white and thin, sometimes gray and dense, and with a stronger smell.
Brooklyn walked silently through the streets of the city.
She wore on her shoulders a cloak, black and dark as the night, the hood of which partially covered her curly, black hair, long at least just below her shoulders.
Her mulatto skin, delicate and soft, shone through the faint lights that came out of the houses.
Her eyes, blue like the sky and the waves of the sea, looked around, looked at the light, back at the road, then again at the candlelight.
No one else passed through the streets except a few guards who had been entrusted with the task of guarding the city at night.
Brooke looked at the guards with apprehension and fear of the bad experience she had gone through, of what they had done to her.
The red color of their coats disgusted her, all the power they thought they possessed as part of the militia was simply overrated.
She wore a grey dress, quite dark: she had gone back to dressing in women's clothes, she had finished bandaging her breasts, now that she could no longer do it because of the child, of her belly swollen by pregnancy, which she now kept hidden under her cloak.
A curfew had been created for everyone since the revolutions had begun, but she knew they would not dare lay their hands on a pregnant woman.
She missed all her friends a bit: she missed her half brother, she missed Abigail, she missed Francis and, however unfair she might think it was, she also missed the Dustin twins.
Everyone she knew was dead and now only she and Isabelle remained.
And Isabelle as long as she still lived, it was as if she was already dead long ago.
The princess did not sleep, she had difficulty understanding what was happening sometimes and in the night, particularly, she seemed to be talking to someone, although no one was there with her.
Maybe she wasn't crazy, she wasn't born at least, but she was just an insecure person who, from birth, had been taught that life was a war and that in any case she had to come out victorious.
Could her madness be the weight of all the expectations poured out on her or could it seriously be genetic, a condition of specific aggression inherited from her father?
Brooklyn turned behind a dark and narrow alley, no light shining protected her anymore, she was alone, alone by herself.
The streets were cold, humid, wet, sometimes from the contents of the chamber pots, which were emptied there at dawn.
Nearby ran the common sewers, which emitted a nauseating stench for a pregnant woman, particularly sensitive to odours.
It seemed so unfair, perhaps too much, that while the royal family already possessed a well-defined and precious bathroom, including plenty of warm and tepid water, when the commoners had to unload the residues of their bathrooms in the streets.
Many of the plebeians did not even always have water, certainly not hot, and if not going to the river to wash, for many it was also difficult to take care of daily hygiene.
In the darkness, an arch, carved in stone, opened in front of her, a tunnel, which was not a real tunnel, since it did not lead to another side.
Small, slippery and damp stone steps led into the depth and silence of that city, almost dead, in the oldest historical center.
As soon as she began to descend those steps in the dark, she immediately felt the cold envelop her, it was an unpleasant sensation, as it mostly pinched her nose and made her unaccustomed to the cold of winter.
She held in her hand an oil lamp, which was the only thing that gave light to her journey.
Then Brooke saw at the bottom of the stairs other lights, other voices, laughter, shouts, which in the cold outside were imperceptible.
The red coats would never have found them here, in the historic and abandoned catacombs of the old town of Warwick.
Brooklyn had discovered that place long ago in the company of Francis, one evening when they got too drunk and ended up falling asleep down there and waking up only in the light of dawn.
Francis had become in those years her best friend, he was like a brother to her, they shared their ideas, opinions, political ideals, they talked about boys.
They had so much in common, so much, despite being the daughter of a slave and he the son of a slaveholder.
Francis Hoover had been dead for a month now, he had left her alone to allow fate to do what it wanted with her.
Brooke reached the end of the stairs, noticed a large crowd of commoners below, people, from the less aristocratic and more bourgeois social classes, ready for the revolution, which she was leading at that moment.
But for many, the moment it showed up, for the men drunk on beer and no longer able to understand it was clear to everyone that she could no longer guide them in their idea that had been developing for years.
All silence fell in the huge and ancient room carved in stone, as thousands of men, armed with rifles and pistols noticed how their idol, the cult of their political ideals was actually a woman.
Everyone watched her, noticed her dress, her belly, her hair, growing up to her back.
Who was she to them? Who could she ever be?
All the space and the plebs soon burst into a common derisive laugh at her.
Brooke blushed, her light dark face, her cheeks all filled with anger and embarrassment.
-She is a woman! -Some exclaimed from the audience, making her even more the target of social and public ridicule.
-I am a woman and yet for years I have led you to rebellion, although not pregnant, what is between my legs had not made any difference to you for this time...- she actively protested, leading for a few seconds to a public silence.
Some looked into her eyes, others into their pants, as if in superstition or evidence of their sexual differences.
But what Brooklyn said was true.
For years her gender had never been in her way.
For years those men had followed her for her ideas, for her strength and mind, without idolizing a character of such importance just because of a different sex from theirs.
-What would others think if we let a woman lead us in battle, and above all how do you plan to fight now that you are pregnant?-.
-I am equally capable of holding a rifle...- Brooke whispered from her plump lips, looking away from them.
A thousand other rifles, muskets and pistols, loaded with gunpowder, aimed fiercely at her, at every part of her body.
The charges snapped in the barrel, as those, dead drunk and angry by the news were ready to end the life of their past captain and idol.
-Some of you shoot me...- threatened Brooklyn grabbing her guns from her case that she was carrying under her cloak.
-That someone dares to do it and it will die ten times more painfully...-.
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