Lord of Raven's Peak - Catherine Coulter [20]
“Not in Kiev and to the south,” he said.
“Then I was lucky not to be in the south,” she said, and her voice was cool and he wondered if she were lying. He couldn’t tell.
He said, “If ever I intend to humiliate you, it will not be in that fashion. I gave you what privacy I could. I could do no more for you.”
“I know.”
“How do you feel?”
She looked surprised, then said, “Much better.”
She squared her skinny shoulders, winced, and let them relax again. “Perhaps not all that ready to kill your enemies,” he said.
“No, not quite.”
She was different, from her red hair and white flesh to the natural arrogance in her that should have been beaten out of her a long time ago. “How old are you?”
“I am eighteen.”
“How old is Taby?”
“He is nearly six now.”
“How long were both of you slaves?”
“Nearly two years—nay, I forget. It isn’t important. There is no reason for you to know, no reason for you to be interested.”
“It matters not that you told me. Had it been longer than two years, you would probably be dead, at least Taby would. It is amazing that you managed to keep him alive for two years. He was naught but a baby. Where do you come from?”
She shook her head and said, “I am from a place much like the place you come from. It is a place I will return to, in my own time, when I am ready to return. And I meant it, Viking, I want to buy the three of us from you.” She drew a deep breath. “I will pay you for the clothes, I will pay you for what you paid for Taby, for—”
He wanted to cuff her. Instead he grabbed her arm and jerked her around to face him. “My name is Merrik. You will use it. You will also learn to mind that tongue of yours. No wonder Thrasco beat you. How many other masters have flayed the hide off you for your insolence?”
She shook her head, looking at him straight in his eyes. “Only one, the first one. I kept quiet after that. But I did win, for she bought Taby as well.”
“And why has your learning failed you now? Do you believe me too soft to beat you?”
Her eyes shifted and she looked over his left shoulder, toward Cleve, who was holding Taby’s hand, looking down at him and listening to him speak. “You aren’t like the others,” she said. “You are not soft, but you are different. I don’t fear you, at least I don’t fear that you will beat me or Taby.”
“You should fear me only if you find obedience to me difficult.”
She shook away his words. “You are different, aren’t you? You won’t sell us or hurt us or give us to your friends? When I asked you before, you mocked me.”
“I will think about it. Perhaps one of those choices you named will suit me. I will eventually determine some gain the three of you will bring me, but I will have to think about it, perhaps discuss it with Oleg, whose hand you nearly chewed off. In any case, I must fatten you up first, for now no man would want to grind his body against a woman with more bones than soft flesh.”
She said matter-of-factly, “I have learned that men will grind themselves against any female who is not dead. I became a boy after I saw a man rape a girl. He cuffed her until there was blood streaming from her nose and mouth and then he tore off her clothes and raped her. I don’t know if she lived. When he was finished with her, she was bloody everywhere. If I’d had a knife I would have killed him. If you decide to sell me to a man who would do that, I would kill him.”
“Then perhaps you should consider more gentleness of word and manner toward me.” He supposed it pleased him that she didn’t consider the possibility that he would rape her. But he could if he wished to, surely she knew that. Surely she knew he could do whatever he wished to her. On past trading voyages, he’d been given slave girls to pleasure him, thus making him more apt to spend his silver and trade his goods with the men providing the girls. Would she believe he had raped the girls? They’d never fought him or cried out. He’d never raised his fist to any one of them. He’d never hurt any of them. Or had he? And hadn’t he