Chapter Twenty-Three

 

 

Fermin walked beside Marta as they followed the bloody-nosed man through the woods, doing his best to appear confident and calm, to appear mean as Marta had told him. It was no easy task considering he’d spent his entire life serving others and had been glad to do so. But not just glad, comforted. Few people understood that about servants, couldn’t see past the dirty clothes they washed—not their own—or the dirty dishes they cleaned—also not their own. All that they saw was a person who spent his life tending to the needs of others, saying “yes, sir,” and “no, ma’am,” and smiling as he did it.

But what they didn’t understand, what, perhaps, they couldn’t understand was that, for the right type of person, serving someone else wasn’t a chore—it was a blessing. After all, when someone else was making the decisions, when someone else was choosing what was important and what wasn’t, there was no need for a man to worry about it himself. That ability to let it all go, to live in the moment and not concern yourself with great matters, was part of why Fermin loved living a life of service. Part of it—but not the greatest part.

The greatest part was that, quite simply, he enjoyed it. He enjoyed knowing that the clothes he set out for Lord Tirinian to wear were as clean and as pressed as he could make them, enjoyed watching the lord and lady eat a meal he had prepared. When a man put someone else’s problems, someone else’s desires and needs, before his own, how, then, could his own not seem weaker, smaller by comparison?

For Fermin, service to a good master and mistress was a blessing few others could match. And not just a blessing—a shield. A shield that protected him from life’s difficult questions, protected him from pitfalls like ambition and greed, for he was too busy seeing to the welfare of his master and mistress to worry much about his own. It was a shield that had served him well, one that had protected him from many of life’s troubles. But it would not protect him now.

As he followed the bloody-nosed man—who was busy grousing, muttering words too low to hear—Fermin realized that, for the first time, he was not standing behind the shield. He was the shield. Not just for himself but, more importantly, for the young girl walking beside him. Perhaps she would not have seen it that way. Perhaps it was even arrogant, foolish of him to think so, but he did. Certainly, Marta had many gifts Fermin did not. She was the Chosen of a god, Alcer, but that was only the smallest part of her gifts.

More than that, her life had taught her many things that Fermin’s sheltered existence had not shown him, and it was those lessons which had served her so well. Yet, for all her street-smarts, for all her cunning and guile, she was still a child and children should be protected. So Fermin had been taught, and so he believed.

So, when the man led them into a large clearing covered in tents and fires where thousands of men and women ate or laughed or shouted, Fermin felt a moment’s panic, not for himself, but for the girl beside him.

Their guide, perhaps mistaking his hesitation for awe, smirked. “A sight, ain’t it?”

It was that much, Fermin decided. The people in the camp were all filthy, it seemed, and those closest looked on him, Marta, and their escort with suspicious, appraising glances. Fermin wanted to avoid those gazes, those questing looks, but doing so, he knew, would be all the answer they needed, so he stared back, doing his best to mimic the expression he’d seen on Alesh and Darl’s faces from time to time—and perhaps not doing too poor a job of it, as those who met his gaze turned away readily enough.

When he didn’t answer, the man grunted. “This way—the captain’ll want to see you, tell you where you’re to be assigned.”

Fermin glanced at Marta who inclined her head the slightest bit. “Show me,” Fermin said, trying to sound tough but just glad his voice didn’t squeak.

The sentry nodded, gingerly touching his bloody nose in a seemingly unconscious gesture. “It’s that tent over there,” he said, motioning.

“Fine,” Fermin growled, staring at the man until he finally got the hint and walked off, grumbling something under his breath.

Once he was out of ear shot, Fermin took a slow, deep breath, glancing at Marta who was staring at him strangely as if seeing him for the first time. “Well,” he said after a moment, fidgeting uncomfortably under her stare, “we’re here.”

Marta blinked and gave her head a slight shake. “Right,” she said, her gaze sweeping across the field and thousands of tents spread out before them. “Lotta good it’ll do us. It could take us months to search through so many people. Even then we might never find her, not if they’re movin’ her around.”

“So what do we do, then?”

Marta grunted, gesturing to the tent their erstwhile escort had indicated. “I guess we ought to go and get us a job, what do ya say?”

Fermin frowned. “I don’t follow, Lady Marta. Why—”

“Because,” Marta interrupted in a tone that seemed to say it should be obvious, “having a task’ll give us an excuse, help us move around the camp freely without someone takin’ it in mind that we’re, I dunno…” She leaned closer and spoke in a whisper, “spies from Valeria. Wouldn’t want that, would we?”

Fermin had never been tortured before, had never seen another be tortured either, but he’d read about it in books, and that was just about as much experience with it as he was interested in, so he shook his head. “No,” he said, his mouth going suddenly, terribly dry as once again he was forced to confront the danger of what they were doing and the likelihood that it would end in both of them being killed horribly. Quite a change for a man whose greatest worry was normally that his master’s tea was sweet enough or his bath warm enough. “No, we don’t,” he repeated. “But, Lady Marta, if we are busy working for the army, how will we find Lady Sonya?”

Marta shook her head, clearly frustrated. “One thing at a time, Fermin, alright? For now, let’s focus on not having someone play jumping rope with our guts for the next few hours.”

Fermin thought the analogy needlessly vulgar—and quite terrible, actually—but he was forced to admit that it got the girl’s point across well enough. “Lady Marta,” he said quietly, “I’m afraid.”

Marta snorted. “Can’t imagine why.” She must have seen some of his worry writ plain on his face, for she sighed, shaking her head. “Look, Fermin, I get it, that you’re scared, I mean. You’d be crazy not to be. But you’ll be okay, alright? We just have to hold it together a bit longer.”

Fermin frowned. “It’s not me I’m worried about, Lady Marta,” he said. “It’s you, and Lady Sonya. I’m not scared that I’ll die…well, I am scared but that’s not the main reason. I’m scared that…that I’ll fail.”

Marta blinked at him, then slowly shook her head in apparent wonder. “I believe you mean that, Fermin. Well. We all do the best we can and, you ask me, you’ve done a damn fine job so far. You had that sentry fella lookin’ like he was about to piss himself.”

Fermin opened his mouth to scold her about her language but then closed it again deciding that, under the circumstances, a lesson in proper decorum could wait until they were a bit less likely to be murdered. “We go to the tent then?” he asked.

“Yes,” Marta said. “And remember, Fermin—be mean.”

He sighed heavily. “Very well.” With that, he turned and started toward the large tent the man had indicated, Marta trailing a step or two behind him the way a slave would be expected to.

As they walked past campfire after campfire, it seemed that every man and woman marked their progress, that they somehow knew he and Marta were frauds and were only waiting for them to stumble too far into the trap to have any chance of escape.

In time, they made it to the tent, which looked bigger than some houses Fermin had seen. When they followed the line of at least thirty people through its open flaps, he immediately saw why. A small platform stood at the back of the tent. On the platform stood three men in uniforms marking them as soldiers. Two stood with their hands on their swords, eyeing those entering the tent suspiciously, while the third looked them over with a sneer of disdain. This one had a haughty, self-important manner and this, coupled with his uniform, marked him as an officer in the army, likely the captain the sentry had told them about.

But it wasn’t the captain who drew his attention. Instead, it was the mass of humanity packing the tent. At least a hundred men and women, perhaps more, were crammed together, so close they could barely move. The heat of so many bodies packed so tightly together was nearly unbearable. To distract himself, Fermin glanced around at the crowd. There seemed to be no uniformity to them. Here, a gray-haired woman who looked to be in her seventies, and there, a youth who might have passed for eighteen or nineteen years. The only thing they all shared in common was the raggedness of their clothing and the desperate gazes with which they studied the captain standing on the stage.

Fermin was so engrossed in studying the crowd, so distracted by the unbearable heat, that he didn’t hear anyone come up behind him until he felt a hand on his shoulder. He let out a squeak that he hoped was inaudible over the din of conversation between those waiting and spun to see a man standing before him, one hand on the hilt of his sword. He, like the other two guards on the stage, held a sword, and Fermin didn’t need to be told that he was another guardsman. He felt his heart quicken in his chest, threatening to beat right out of his rib cage.

His fears had been right, after all. Somehow—he didn’t know how, and it didn’t matter, in any case—the army knew they didn’t belong, were only waiting for them to come here, to this place where they were surrounded and had no chance of escape, before they sprung the trap. Fermin thought it all too likely that it was his fault, somehow, something he had done or not done, had said or not said, for Marta seemed to know well enough what she was about. They were both going to die, then, and it was his fault. I’m sorry, Marta, he thought. I’m sorry, Sonya.

“Just come to the army then?” the guard asked.

Like a cat playing with his food, Fermin thought. But the guard hid his own malicious amusement well, appearing to study Fermin with genuine curiosity and nothing more.

“Y-yes,” Fermin managed, his voice husky with fear.

The guard nodded. “Captain’ll be askin’ around soon, figurin’ out who’s skilled at what.” He grunted. “Fact is, we need about everythin’.”

“Th-that’s why I came,” Fermin said. “Y-you know. Th-the work.”

“Sure, sure,” the man said. “And this here,” he went on, glancing at Marta appraisingly, the way a farmer might inspect a cow he was considering purchasing, looking for any hidden flaws or weaknesses. “This your slave?”

Fermin felt offended for Marta for a moment before he remembered—just in the nick of time—that, in the fiction Marta had created, she was his slave. “That’s right,” he said, doing his best to sound casual, the way he thought a man who owned a slave probably would be, though the gods alone knew what that might sound like.

The guard grunted. “Well. Can’t have her in here. She’ll have to go with the rest of the slaves.”

Mean, he thought, be mean. He met the guard’s eyes in what he hoped was a challenging way. “My slave stays with me,” he said.

It was the guard’s turn to frown then. “Then you and your slave can get the fuck out of our army, eh? Commander’s orders, everybody’s got a job to do, and those as bring slaves donate them to the cause, at least temporarily. Don’t worry, though,” he went on, giving Fermin a wink, “you can get her back nights, once she’s done her shifts in the cook tents or wherever else they place her.”

The thought that this man believed Fermin the type of person capable of taking advantage of such a young girl was sickening to him, but he didn’t dare correct him. Better to be thought a pervert, he supposed, than to be discovered for what he was and get both himself and Marta killed. “Well,” he said gruffly. “Guess that’ll have to do.”

“Figured it might,” the guard smirked. “Alright, girl,” he said, gesturing toward the tent flap with a thumb, “come with me—I’ll show you the way.”

Marta complied, putting on such a good act of the beaten-down slave that Fermin felt his heart go out to her as she shuffled toward the tent flap, her head down, her shoulders hunched as if expecting a blow at any moment. A thought struck him, and as the guard started to turn to follow after her, Fermin caught his arm. “She’s my property,” he growled at the guard, “bought and paid for. Anything happens to ‘er, I’ll kill the man responsible and make sure to do it slow. Understand?”

The guard’s eyes went wide in surprise, then they narrowed, and Fermin could see his mind working, considering whether or not the man before him was bluffing or the type of man to be taken seriously, considering, maybe, jerking his sword out of its scabbard. Perhaps, what kept him from it in the end was the thought that Fermin might just be as hard and as dangerous of a man as he was pretending to be—but the manservant thought it more likely that the guard didn’t want to go through the hassle that would be in store for him if he cut down a man showing up to serve the army.

Either way, the guard finally grunted. “As you say, she’s yours. I wouldn’t dream of touchin’ her.” A lie, of course, for it had been obvious what the man had been thinking by the way he’d looked at her, but Fermin thought he’d done what he could. Besides, Marta had shown on numerous occasions that she could more than take care of herself, and if the guardsman did try to bother her in any way, he didn’t envy the man the misery that would inevitably follow.

Fermin watched the two of them head toward the tent flap, doing his best to remain calm as they disappeared through it. Then a horn blew within the tent, cutting over the din of conversation, and everyone present grew silent as the captain stepped forward on the stage, eyeing the crowd with undisguised disgust.

“My name,” the man said, somehow managing to retain the sneer on his face even as he spoke, “is Captain Filder. And you,” he continued, gesturing at the press of bodies packing the tent, “are all worthless pieces of shit. But, there is hope for you, all of you. You see, the Goddess of the Wilds, Shira, is not without compassion and she rewards those who would serve her. If you stay, you will have a chance to achieve glory and power in the coming struggle, a chance to serve our goddess and be among her favored people, protected when those fools in Valeria and the rest of the world who follow the deceitful teachings of Amedan are destroyed.”

There was a discontented murmur from the crowd at the insult, but no one moved to leave, and the captain smirked as if he had known such would be the case before going on. “Now, though our army is blessed by Shira herself, like any army, we need men and women with certain skills.” He reached a hand out to the side and one of the guards stepped forward, placing a rolled scroll in it, while the other retrieved a metal pail, coming to stand slightly behind the captain.

“If you have any knowledge or experience in the areas I list,” the captain said, “raise your hands, and you will be given a chit.” He gestured to the guard with the bucket who held up a small wooden circle with something etched into it. “Keep this chit with you at all times. It is proof that you belong here. I cannot stress the importance of not losing this. The life of any man or woman caught without their chit is forfeit.”

And with that sobering pronouncement, the murmuring among the crowd grew silent, the captain nodding contentedly. “Now then, raise your hand if you have expertise in the areas as I list them.”

As he listed profession after profession, all of which Fermin had no aptitude in whatsoever, the manservant realized that while a life of service might have been rewarding, it had not prepared him for this. Then again, considering that he was standing in the middle of an army of evil men and women whose lust for power had driven them to worship the Goddess of the Wilds, he didn’t suppose that much would have prepared him short of being evil or insane.

 

***

 

Marta silently followed the guardsman past row after row of tents and campfires, doing her best impression of a cowed servant terrified for her life—not much of a lie to tell, really—avoiding people’s eyes while trying to scan the tents for Sonya. She had known the enemy army was massive, several times larger than Valeria’s, but it was one thing to read about such numbers on a sheet of parchment while safely inside of a castle. It was quite another, she was discovering, to see them for yourself, to be surrounded by them.

Some small consolation was that the guardsman did not attack her once they got out of sight of the captain’s tent as she had feared; instead he plodded along silently and only glanced behind him from time to time to make sure Marta was still there. It seemed Fermin’s threat had been enough to stay the man’s hand, and Marta had to admit she was impressed with the manservant herself. Given time enough, she imagined she could turn the man into a damned fine liar, maybe one of the best. Not that they were likely to have that much time. The longer she and Fermin spent with the army, the greater chance there was of them being discovered for who they really were. And if that should happen, their chances of finding Sonya—or making it out alive, come to that—were pretty much non-existent. A terrifying truth that, if she let it, would overwhelm her and cause her to make a mistake, bringing it about that much sooner.

Lies could cover the truth for a time, but she knew enough to know that they could not hide it forever, the truth as stubborn as a wolverine with its teeth sunk into flesh, refusing to be moved no matter what weapons—or lies—one wielded against it.

Focus, she told herself. One thing at a time. She couldn’t think about how she was going to survive the next week, or even the next day. It was too big, the problem too large, her arms and her mind far too small to get around it. She told herself to focus only on how to survive the next few minutes; she’d worry about the rest when she got there. A thing easier said than done, of course, and she was still worrying over what was to come, worrying over Fermin, too, when the guard stopped in front of a large tent.

“Home sweet home,” he said with a smirk. “Go on in. Someone’ll be along directly to put you to work.”

Marta did as she was told—it wasn’t as if she had much choice. The first thing that struck her was the smell. The sour, thick scent of body odor filled the large tent. What looked like at least a hundred cots were laid out in several rows. Women in filthy clothes, little better than rags, in truth, stood around or sat. None spoke, and though the tent was largely full with people, they each seemed alone, separated from the rest with their own thoughts, their own miseries.

They did not look up when Marta entered, most seemingly content to exist only in their own little worlds, and Marta felt a pang of sadness as she looked around at them. She saw an empty cot near one corner of the tent and made for it, trying not to notice how those she passed winced and cringed away as if expecting a blow. Slaves, then, that was sure, ones who had been treated poorly, had long since had any of their hopes and dreams beaten or tortured out of them by cruel or callous masters. Now, they only stood like puppets, waiting for someone to pick up their strings and direct them.

Gods help us, Marta thought as she moved among that cringing, unwashed crowd. If there had ever been any doubt as to the moral rightness of the servants of the Darkness, it was made clear in the example of these poor specimens. Most were showing the signs of obvious malnourishment with stick-thin arms and legs, the skin of their faces stretched across skulls that looked like they belonged in tombs. But the worst of it was not the smell or the state of the women’s torn and ragged garments, not even the state of them. It was the look in their eyes; a dead, cold look that held no hope for the future.

Marta had seen such a look before, of course. It was common enough among the streets in which she’d grown up. The look of men and women who were only waiting for the next of the world’s cruelties to fall on them, who even came to believe that, in some way, they deserved it. She’d seen it in several of the children around her own age while surviving in the streets, and usually, that look presaged their disappearance. After all, what point in hiding from the shadows that reached out to take the unwary—as they so often did in the crime-riddled streets of the poor district—when you had already given up any hope of a better life?

Feeling depressed, she moved to the empty cot and sat down to think. She wished she could help these people somehow, could take that look from their eyes, but that problem, like the rest of it, was just too big. She could not save so many—maybe no one could—and she had not come to do so. She had come to save Sonya, and that she would do. Or—and this seemed far too likely—she would die trying.

She’d only just sat when a hand fell on her shoulder, fingers digging in like little spears, and she hissed in surprise and pain, trying to recoil but held fast by a powerful grip.

The woman staring down at her appeared to be in her late thirties, early forties. Her long, unwashed hair hung in tangles about a thin, pale face that might once have been pretty but no longer, set as it was in a cruel, hard expression, and her blue eyes—eyes that, on another, would have seemed beautiful, gleamed with malevolent purpose. “That’s my cot, that is. I’ll thank you to get off it.”

Marta glanced around the room, saw that the woman accosting her had two others standing behind her, and although none of the other servants in the tent had moved, they were sneaking furtive glances at the spectacle from the corners of their eyes. Perhaps angry at her hesitation, the woman tightened her grip on Marta’s shoulder.

It hurt. Badly, in fact, but Marta had been hurt before. Some of the priests of Valeria, when they’d had occasion to come into the poor district—usually looking for donations—would preach that what didn’t kill a person made her stronger. Absolutely ridiculous, of course. A broken leg wouldn’t kill you but good luck running a race with it. Still, the saying could be made correct, if shown a bit of attention. Not “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” but “what doesn’t kill you doesn’t kill you.” Pain was just that—pain. The gods knew she’d felt enough of it in her life, and sharp fingertips or not, what discomfort the woman could inflict on her paled in comparison to the hunger pangs that had so often clenched and twisted her guts until it felt as if she was going to die, wrung out from the inside.

So Marta sat there, meeting the woman’s eyes, reflecting none of the pain and fear she felt, telling herself the lie as she had many times before that she was impervious to pain or fear. Uncertainty flashed in the woman’s gaze, and she glanced around as if only just becoming aware of her audience. Then, as Marta had known it would, the woman’s face twisted in anger, and she gritted her teeth,tightening her grip further as if Marta’s shoulder were a fruit she meant to squash.

Still Marta made no sound, freezing her face in a blank expression, her jaw clenched against the pain. The woman was hunched over now like some vicious troll, putting her whole body into it. Marta could have apologized or slapped the woman, but she did neither. A point needed to be made, and this was the way—the only way—she could make it. So she sat there, holding back her cry of pain with an effort. The woman began to shake from the strain, beads of sweat erupting on her brow. Just when Marta thought she could take no more, the woman’s grip fell away. She stood there working her hand, her chest heaving, as she stared at Marta with undisguised hatred.

Marta’s shoulder throbbed abominably, and she knew it would be bruised tomorrow, but she did her best to hide her discomfort, raising her eyebrow at the woman. “You could have just asked me to move, you know.”

The woman’s upper lip tucked back into a snarl, and she seemed on the verge of saying something—no doubt another demand for Marta to move. Before she could, though, Marta preempted her, standing up of her own accord. “That’s alright, then,” she said, stretching her back in an exaggerated manner. “You ask me, you ought to try to find another bed, though. That’s the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever sat on.”

There was a snicker from one of the two standing behind the woman, and Marta’s persecutor spun, glancing angrily at the laugher who cut off abruptly. Marta used the opportunity to breeze past the woman as if she didn’t have a care in the world, looking around until her eyes alighted on another empty bed. She started toward it but came up short as bony fingers clamped around her arm.

“Ah, ah,” the woman said, grinning cruelly.

Marta sighed heavily. There were a thousand concerns she needed to think over, and the last thing she had time for was worrying about power struggles between a bunch of slaves who’d cowered like beaten animals when the guard had shown her inside. “Let me guess,” she said wearily. “This one’s yours too?”

“That’s right,” the woman said. “You see, girly, they’re all mine.”

Marta rubbed at her chin thoughtfully. “Like, do you push them together?” She glanced around at the hundred or so cots. “Gods, but you must have a serious weight problem.”

There was some more quiet laughter from the room at that. The woman let out a growl that belonged more on a wolf than someone who couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and fifteen pounds soaking wet. Marta knew the slap was coming probably before the woman herself did. She could have dodged to the side, struck the woman first, maybe, but she did neither of those things. One of the hard lessons—and one of the most important ones—the streets had taught her was that if you didn’t want to be prey, you had to show the predators you weren’t. Sometimes, that meant laughing and talking back despite your fear and sometimes, like today, that meant taking a slap in the face.

And take it she did, not crying out or stumbling as the woman might have hoped, only standing there in the silence that followed it. The woman was panting from anger, her expression twisted with rage that represented a loss of control. And a loss of control, Marta knew, was a sign of weakness.

Showing bullies that you weren’t afraid was an important thing, but it wasn’t the only thing. Another was showing them that, if they tested you, you would be prepared to fight back. It didn’t stop all of them, but it did stop some. So, with that in mind, Marta did the only reasonable thing she could do. She punched the woman in the face. Hard.

Not expecting it—in Marta’s experience, bullies never expected to be the ones getting hit—the woman let out a squawk of surprise and stumbled backward, a hand cupping her busted, bloody lip. Marta didn’t press the attack, for she knew doing so would bring those other two who stood behind the woman into it, perhaps the whole tent. Right now, the only thing keeping them from attacking her was a shock as complete as the bloody-lipped woman’s, but that shock would wear off quickly enough if Marta started raining blows on their leader.

So instead, she stood there, waiting for the woman to regain her composure, focusing on looking as calm and collected as she was able.

“You little bitch,” the woman snarled, taking her hand away from her mouth and staring at her bloody fingers as if unable to believe it. “You hit me.”

“Well,” Marta said calmly, “to be fair, you hit me first.” Another snicker from someone, who Marta wished would have remained silent. The woman’s face turned a livid, blotchy crimson, her breath rasping from her now in rage.

Perhaps it would have gone the same way regardless. Likely, it would have. Maybe it was the snicker that did it, that quiet laughter that sounded so loud in the stillness. Either way, Marta saw the woman’s face twist, saw her eyes grow cold and hard as she understood the moment for what it was. A challenge to her authority, a threat to her rule of this shitty little tent and its filthy occupants. Maybe that rule amounted to a few more crumbs to gum on when the food was brought; likely it amounted to nothing at all except a way to vent her anger at her own helplessness. Either way, the challenge had been made.

Marta saw it coming before it happened. Saw it, but could not stop it.

“Grab the little bitch!” the woman growled. Marta was gratified to see the two women behind her hesitate for a moment, obviously reluctant to do as they were told, but Marta was a stranger, the woman not, and they did not hesitate for long before doing as they were ordered, rushing Marta and grabbing both of her arms.

This time, Marta’s composure broke, for she knew that what was coming wouldn’t be a simple slap but a beating. After all, an example had to be made, to show the others what happened to any who dared stand up to the woman and her petty cruelties. It was all part of it, part Marta had expected, but expecting it didn’t stop her from fearing it, for even fools and animals avoid pain when they can.

So, she fought the two women grasping at her, struggled against their grips despite the logical part of her mind which understood that she was a young girl, her two antagonists grown women, and she had no chance of breaking loose. That logical part was drowned out, as it often was, by the screams of the panicked, fearful part which remained no matter how much experience and knowledge a person had.

It only took the women seconds to get firm grips on Marta’s arms and stretch them out to either side of her, painfully tight. Satisfied Marta was well and truly grabbed, the woman stalked close, her eyes shining with malevolent glee. “Oh, you’ll pay for hitting me, girlie. Seems you need a lesson, and it’s one I’m happy to show you. You see,” she said, gesturing grandly, “this is my kingdom, here. And here, I rule. Here, I am queen.”

Marta told herself to be quiet, to take what was coming and not antagonize the woman any further. But then, the woman was already planning on beating her, so what, then, did she have to lose? “Pretty shitty kingdom,” Marta said, glancing around at the cots. “You’d think a queen ought to at least get clean sheets.”

She saw the punch coming. Saw it, but could do nothing, held as she was by the other two. She jerked her head down as best she could though, and the blow that had been meant for her face landed on her forehead instead. It still hurt, but not as much as it might have. Marta’s head was throbbing, but she raised her gaze, studying the woman up and down. “Or clean clothes as far as that goes,” she went on as if she’d never been hit.

With a snarl, the woman buried her fist in Marta’s stomach, and the air exploded from her lungs. Marta gasped, sucking in desperate, wheezing breaths. “You’d also think a queen… would have…someone…to hit…people. For her.”

With a hiss of rage, the woman reared back, preparing to hit Marta again, but just as she was leaning forward, bringing all her momentum into the blow, Marta raised both feet—an easy enough thing considering how tightly the two women were holding her arms—and kicked out, catching Queen Bloody-Lip in the stomach.

The woman folded over the unexpected blow and her knees buckled. She collapsed to the ground and began dry-heaving, her whole body shuddering with the pain.

“Hurts, don’t it?” Marta managed.

It wasn’t the right thing to say. Of course, Marta consoled herself with the knowledge that, after you kick someone in the stomach with both feet and bloody their lip, there really isn’t a right thing to say. Still, there’s the wrong thing and then there’s the wrong thing and judging by the venomous look of pure hatred the woman shot even as her empty stomach heaved, this was most definitely the latter. “Make…that…bitch pay!” the woman screamed.

The two women didn’t hesitate this time, and in a moment fists began to rain on Marta, striking her in her side, her jaw. There were others, plenty of them, but soon she was in too much pain to keep up, even if she’d had a mind to, and soon after that, she fell—or was knocked, if a person wanted to be technical—into blessed unconsciousness.