Mastered By Love (11 page)

“
As your master,” he said
in a reproving tone, “I don’t need to explain myself.”

Tariza hung her head. They
couldn’t have anything like a normal conversation with him
constantly reminding her of her position. Then again, she’d never
had this sort of conversation with a male. In Concordia, they were
spoken to, ordered about, not asked for their opinions.

“
I want to get to know you
better, Tariza. That’s all.”

“
Get to know me?” she said,
surprised.

“
Yes. Didn’t you get to
know your slaves back in Concordia?”

“
No. Yes! I don’t know.”
And that, she discovered with a creeping sense of shame, was the
truth. It had never occurred to her there was anything about them
worth knowing, except what sexual skills they possessed.

“
I like to know something
about my women.”

She bit her lip. Just how big a stable
of women did he possess?

“
Tell me,
Tariza.”

Oh, fine.
“I – I sing.” Sort of. “And play the
guitar.”

“
Really? Sing something for
me.”

Ugh. She’d never liked her
voice. It was pure soprano, not the treasured alto of the best
Concordian singers, and no matter how much she’d practiced as a
girl, she could never really get it to drop low enough. But she’d
received an order from her master and she couldn’t refuse without
feeling the sting of his crop. “Yes, milord,” she said, resigned to
embarrassment.

She sang an old Concordian
ballad about a woman whose favorite slave has died. It was sad, and
suited her voice well, or at least as well as could be expected,
given her limitations. It wasn’t until she’d finished the first
verse that she realized how inappropriate the subject matter was.
Oh, well. He’d asked for it.

When she finished and her
voice died away, Saturnios sat silent for so long she quailed
inside. He’d hated it. She heard her mother’s voice telling her to
for Goddess’s sake stop her caterwauling.

Then his arms tightened
around her. “That was lovely.” His voice sounded all husky, as if
she’d moved him.

Tariza snorted. “You don’t
have to be kind.”

“
Fishing for compliments?”
He sounded amused again.

“
No. I know my voice is no
good.”

“
That’s not true. You have
a beautiful voice. You sounded like an angel.”

Tariza shook her head.
“It’s too high and squeaky.”

“
There’s nothing squeaky
about it. Who told you that you couldn’t sing?”

“
Everyone.”

“
Well, they were idiots.
You’re gifted, Tariza.”

She laughed a little.
“Thank you, I think.”

“
I would like to hear you
play the guitar. I’ll find you an instrument when we get
home.”

Home. Saturnios would never be her
home.

The prince seemed to expect
an answer, so she manufactured one. “I would like that,
Master.”

“
Good. Very good.” He
paused. “I enjoy music.”

“
Do you play an
instrument?” she said, mostly to be polite. Because she truly
didn’t care whether he did or not. She didn’t even like
him.

“
The flute.”

Tariza began to twist
again, wanting to see him. But it wasn’t allowed. She straightened
out. “The flute?”

“
Yes. I don’t sing,
though.”

“
Perhaps we could play a
duet.” She flushed. “If it would please you,” she added, to avoid
the crop.

“
It would please me a great
deal.”

We have something in
common. How odd.

The more she learned about him, the
more her image of him as an alien, barbarian beast dissolved, to be
replaced by she knew not what. It piqued her curiosity, and made
her cringe with the unwanted intimacy. Did he feel the same way
about her? The sense of discovery, of a strange new country just
beginning to reveal itself?

She could hardly ask him. It
wasn’t allowed, after all. Besides, she wasn’t sure she wanted to
know the answer.

***

Tariza was never so glad
for woolens, even if they involved skirts that rucked up to expose
her calves when she straddled a horse. The weather was cold in the
mountains at this time of year. Snow began to fall by afternoon. A
few sporadic flakes swirled lazily out of a pewter sky, only to
melt the instant they touched the ground. Half an hour later, the
snow had stopped but the wind had picked up, blowing the horses’
manes wildly. Dario – er, Saturnios – called the company to halt
and make camp.

The spot he’d chosen was
flat enough, with a rocky outcropping on the north side to shield
them from the wind. He dismounted, while Paolo dashed over to
unfasten Tariza’s ankles so she could also dismount.

The handful of soldiers
accompanying them bustled around the site, laying out tents and
hobbling horses. Dario – er, Saturnios – reached up and pulled her
from the horses’ back.

“
I know how to dismount a
horse,” she snapped.

“
You’re wearing a
skirt.”

“
How observant of you to
notice.”

“
Perhaps a spanking would
teach you to keep a more civil tone when speaking to your
master.”

Tariza rolled her eyes. He
kept threatening to spank her, but so far he hadn’t done it. “You
don’t have the nerve.”

His gaze turned to granite.
“I’ve been too easy on you. That’s going to change, starting
now.”

Paolo led Blaze away to
join the other horses. Saturnios took Tariza by the arm and pointed
toward a small huddle of female figures in the lee of the
outcropping. Their thick winter cloaks and scarves, and the layers
of clothing beneath, obliterated any sense of the women’s
individuality. She couldn’t tell one from the other.

“
Help the other women set
up the kitchen,” Saturnios ordered.

“
Kitchen? I don’t know
anything about cooking.”

He gave her such a stern
glare that she took an involuntary step backward. “I gave you an
order, Tariza. Don’t make me repeat it.”

She found herself
swallowing hard. “All right. I’ll do it.”

“
The correct response is
yes, Master or yes, milord.”

Tariza stared at him.

“
Say it.” His voice was as
hard as his eyes.

“
Don’t –”

“
Say it now.”

She swallowed again. “Yes,
Master.”

“
That’s better. Now go over
there and see what they need you to do.”

All she could manage was a
nod. She turned toward the other women and walked numbly through
the falling dusk, not looking back at Saturnios or at anyone else.
The way he’d spoken to her ... it hurt. It felt like a slap in the
face.

She’d begun to relax around
him, and that was a huge mistake. He was her enemy. Not an ally and
certainly not a friend. An enemy. She mustn’t forget that fact ever
again.

Maybe she could find an ally among the
women. Surely they would be inspired by the presence of a
Concordian in their midst. The idea of a free woman would be a
revelation to them.

Then she remembered Lola’s
toxic glare the day before and wasn’t so sure.

One of the women glanced
her way as she approached. The female reached out to tug at one of
her companion’s sleeves. She whispered in the other woman’s ear.
Both of them turned toward her, their expressions sour above the
knit wrappings that protected their faces from the cold.

“
What do you want?” said
the first one. She lifted her eyes and looked straight at Tariza.
Blue eyes. Lola. Wonderful.

Tariza cleared her throat.
“Saturnios ordered me to help you.”

Lola snorted. “Did he? You
didn’t just make that up?”

“
Why would I do
that?”

The blonde shrugged. “How
would I know why a Concordian bitch would do anything? You’re all
crazy.”

“
If you don’t believe me,
go and ask him. I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t told me to
come.”

Lola and the other woman exchanged a
glance.

“
Go ahead.” Tariza gestured
toward Saturnios. “Ask him.”

“
That won’t be
necessary.”

She couldn’t see the other
woman’s lips because a magenta woolen scarf covered half her face,
but Lola’s voice was tight with resentment. Tariza pulled her own
scarf over her nose and mouth. If the others concealed their faces,
she would too. This way she could be just as inscrutable as they
were. Ha.

Lola pointed at the ground.
“Clear an area for a fire. I’ll gather some wood to
burn.”

Tariza held her gaze for a
moment before nodding. “All right.”

She located the fire close
to the rock wall, using her foot to scrape away the snow that still
clung to the ground. There wasn’t much plant life growing here –
the ground was mostly loose rock littering hard-packed earth.
Glancing up, she found that Lola was already walking away toward a
line of scrub bordering the road.

Tariza looked up at the
other woman, who bent over a canvas pack. “I haven’t got anything
to dig with.”

“
So don’t dig.”

She sighed. They seemed
determined to hate her and be as unhelpful as possible. “Fine. I
won’t dig.”

Instead, she cleared a
round space of larger rocks, which she used to rim the circle.
There wasn’t anything here that could burn, so it should be fine.
The job only took a few minutes, and afterward she stood up and
tried to brush the clumps of dirt and snow off her
mittens.

The second woman pulled a
large pot and a smaller bag from the sack. She crooked her finger
at Tariza. “Come here and help me cut these carrots for the
stew.”

Surely she could manage to
cut up a few carrots. She came over and sat on the rocky ground
next to the other woman. It was miserable out here, with the wind
blowing around the rocks and into their faces, swirling their
skirts and freezing their legs. Shouldn’t they be eating trail food
so they didn’t have to sit in this mess and cook?

She glanced at the other
woman sidelong. “Why do we have to cook? Can’t we eat dry bread and
meat tonight?”

“
Saturnians aren’t lazy
like you Concordians. We cook real food.”

“
It has nothing to do with
laziness,” she said sharply. “I’d like to avoid frostbite. Wouldn’t
you?”

“
It’s not my place to make
these decisions. The men say they want cooked food and we provide
it.”

“
Do they want us to lose
our fingers and toes?”

The woman glared at her.
“Shut up and do as you’re told.”

She handed Tariza a knife
and a carrot. Tariza looked at the vegetable, then the blade. The
idiot woman had just given her a weapon. Had Saturnios given any
thought to what she might do with kitchen tools when he’d ordered
her to help? Not that she could realistically do anything with a
knife this small, outnumbered as she was.

Sighing, she turned the blade to an
acute angle and scraped at the skin. Her grip felt awkward and the
job seemed to take forever, with tiny bits of carrot skin
accumulating on the blade and getting in her way. But she kept at
it, as her hands gradually grew numb with cold.

The gravel crunched. Tariza glanced up
to see Lola returning with an armful of sticks and branches for the
fire. The blonde paused next to her and looked ostentatiously
around the site, as if confused.

“
Where’s the firepit I told
you to dig?” she said loudly.

“
Over there.” Tariza
pointed at the spot.

“
There’s nothing
there.”

“
It’s shallow, but it’s
there. Just go a little closer and you’ll see it.”

Lola snorted. She seemed to
have a habit of doing that, and it wasn’t attractive. She hauled
her sticks over to Tariza’s firepit, poking at it with her toe.
“This isn’t a firepit. It’s a circle of rocks.”

“
It should be good enough.
There’s nothing to burn right here anyway.”

“
I told you to build a
firepit, not make a circle of rocks. Do it over.”

“
No. You can build a fire
there just fine.”

“
You did it wrong. Now you
need to fix your mistake.”

Tariza sighed again. “I
can’t dig in frozen ground. Besides, I don’t have any digging
tools.”

“
You have your
fingers.”

She squinted up through the
darkness at the blonde. “Are you serious? You want me to dig a hole
in frozen ground with my bare hands?”

“
If that’s what it
takes.”

“
Well, I won’t do it. You
don’t need a firepit anyway. There’s nothing but rocks right here,
and besides, you told me not to dig. Remember?”

Lola dropped the wood at
her feet and put her hands on her hips. “Are you backtalking
me?”