Closed in Chains

“You had no right to tell me to keep quiet until we were in this camp!” she snapped at Tandro, her small hands closed into fists. “Being forced to sit like that not only hurt, it also made me hot again. If you’d let me say so, we could have stopped to let you do something about it again.”

“That’s one of the reasons you weren’t allowed to speak,” Tandro responded mildly, looking down at the much smaller girl. “You seem to think that I’m the slave, bound to cater to you in all ways, but you’re about to learn better. Go to the other slave now and ask her politely to show you where the provisions are. You’ll make some food for both of us, we’ll eat, and then we’ll see about easing you again.”

“Absolutely not!” E

Just about as soon as E

And as soon as Tandro had the thing in his hand, he took E

Which, of course, turned out to be giving the girl the punishment she’d been begging for. Tain flinched just a little when that narrow paddle came down on E

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving girl, Tain thought as E

The paddling lasted a good number of minutes before Tandro decided he’d punished his slave enough. E

“That’s better,” Tandro said in the same mild way while E

It was perfectly clear to Tain that E

“I—I need to be shown where the provisions are,” E

“What you want is over here,” Tain said at once as she rose to her feet, not about to let the girl reach the point of asking her to do the cooking. “I’ll also tell you what has to be done, but you’re the one who’ll be doing it.”

“Please, don’t make me do something I have no idea how to do right!” E

“No, you’ll just want to die,” Tain corrected, turning to look at the girl. “Being paddled is rarely fatal, but I have no interest in finding that out first hand. You were the one who was told to do the cooking, so if I do it for you I’ll be helping you to disobey. If you’d rather not have your seat made even more tender than it is right now, you’d better learn fast.”

E

Tain explained slowly and clearly what E

Neither the stew nor the cereal ended up as badly burned as Tain expected them to be, which proved that E

“And you’d be wise to do a better job with the washing than you did with the cooking,” Tandro added mildly around a mouthful of stew. “I’m going to check on how clean everything is, and if the pots and bowls aren’t clean enough you’ll find out almost at once.”

E

But with or without tears, the last of the washing was finally done. Tandro ordered her to kneel by the pots and bowls until he was ready to look at them, and then the native went back to his soft conversation with Killen. The two men pretended to see nothing of the way E