Paying the Price

by Julia P. Lynde

She shifted uncomfortably. "Only you know that, and I suspect you may not have been honest with yourself about it. How angry were you? How much were you willing to lash out after you saw what you saw? How willing were you to let die anyone who got between you and the target of your anger?"

  "You may criticize my actions after you have been presented with a similar situation and done remarkably better."

  I stood slowly. Dareena stood up and was immediately at my side to steady me. I shook her off, almost falling over in the process. She stepped away. "I'm trying to help."

  "Feeling guilty?"

  "Yes."

  "Good."

  Then I walked unsteadily outside and made my way to the railing. It was late afternoon and warm, but comfortably warm, not hot. The sea breeze felt good.

  I stayed at the railing for an hour, trying to imagine what I could possibly say to my sister to make her feel as badly as she should feel for betraying me. I came to the conclusion I was never going to formulate a speech that I felt was remotely adequate to the job. I could never hurt her as badly as she had hurt me.

  She was my older sister. It had been her responsibility to look out for me, to protect me, and she did this instead. I hoped she felt guilt and that it rotted at her soul. She deserved it.

  My head felt marginally better from being upright, and I slowly became more steady.

  Dareena stepped up next to me. "It will be dinner shortly," she said in her accented Norinian. "You should try to eat."

  "Will you make it an order?"

  "Not tonight, but if you try to go on some foolish fast, I will. There isn't enough time for a fast to kill you, anyway."

  "I'll need my strength to face the execution, I'm sure."

  She didn't respond to my barb. I had been over using it. I was going to need to find new ones.

  I wondered if I could convince the collar to kill me. It didn't punish me for the thought. It was worth thinking about.

  A bell rang three times. "Dinner," Dareena said. "Come to the cabin."

  She turned on her heel, and docilely, I followed her. Damned collar.

  The collar didn't release me from the command until I had arrived in Dareena's cabin. I immediately turned around and left again. She'd ordered me to the cabin, but she hadn't ordered me to stay.

  "Get back here."

  I swore as my body turned around and I returned to the cabin. Then I immediately turned around and headed out the door again.

  "Sit!"

  I sat down right where I was in the middle of the passage.

  "Not out there! Get in here and sit down."

  I climbed slowly to my feet, using the passageway wall for balance, and then walked into the cabin and sat in the chair.

  "And stay!"

  I looked at her and smiled. "I see your honor has fled you again. I was given to believe you wouldn't use the collar so capriciously. So much for your promises."

  She stared at me for a moment then said coldly, "Why are you working so hard to annoy me?"

  The collar instantly began to punish me. The pain wrapped around my head and I moaned, then hissed. Squirming to escape the pain at the same time the ship took an unexpected lurch, I slid from the chair.

  The collar redoubled its punishment. I wasn't in a proper sit and stay any longer. I screamed, which I imagine annoyed her, and the punishment increased further. I imagined my additional screams annoyed her. I imagined when I kicked out from the pain, my leg striking hers, that really annoyed her, plus it was an attack on her body, and the collar ramped the pain even higher.

  At that point I couldn't think any longer, I could only thrash on the floor of the cabin, screaming.

  I had no idea what Dareena was doing while watching me accept the collar's torture.

  It seems like forever, but then she was kneeling next to me saying over and over, "You are forgiven, you are forgiven." Her hands were on me, and the collar shut down, instead sending waves of pleasure through me from her touch.

  I stopped screaming and found myself curling around her legs, hugging her while she stroked my head. She felt so good. So good.

  "You have to stop," I managed to say eventually. "Please don't stop."

  She pulled herself away from me.

  "I'm sorry," she said.

  I lied on the cabin floor for a while, panting heavily. I was able to calm myself and opened my eyes to look up at her.

  "That torture session was entirely intentional," I told her. "And my main crime was trying to leave the cabin. When did you say your trial was?"

  She looked away. "No it wasn't."

  "You knew what would happen when you said what you said."

  "I didn't think it would be like that."

  "Amazing how things can get out of hand."

  She didn't say anything.

  "Does it excite you to have me your puppet?" I asked.

  She didn't answer that, either.

  I sat up then slowly climbed back into the chair. "May I leave?"

  "No."

  I glared at her.

  "Will you please try to eat something?"

  I looked at the food on the table.

  "If I eat something, may I leave?"

  She didn't answer me right away. "I'm sorry," she said.

  "Yeah, right."

  I sat there and didn't say another word. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dareena sit down and pull her chair up to the table. She slid one of the plates closer to me. It was filled with some sort of stew and there was a small loaf of bread on the table. Dareena used a knife to cut a slice of bread and set it on the edge of my plate. She took a second slice for herself.

  My stomach was empty, and as the scent of the food wafted towards me, I began to salivate. My stomach growled. I looked away.

  "Eat something," she said.

  I reached out, tore a piece from the bread, and stuffed it into my mouth. Then I glared at her as I choked it down.

  "Can't help yourself, can you?"

  She returned my look. "If you are sufficiently recovered from last night to roam about on deck, you are sufficiently recovered to fulfill your duties as cabin girl. You may attend to them after dinner." She paused. "Meorie, please eat something. I know you're hungry."

  I turned away again, ignoring the food.

  "Why are you being like this?" she asked me.

  "Do you really think I'm going to keep it down the next time the collar goes into action? I wonder how much it would annoy you to see me throw up the dinner, perhaps all over your shiny boots. I wonder what the collar's reaction to that will be."

  I paused for a moment, thinking.

  "I wonder if it will annoy you if I belch. Or pass wind. Or get up in the middle of the night to relieve myself. Perhaps it will annoy you if I don't eat in a sufficiently ladylike fashion. Of course, it may be annoying you I'm not eating at all. Perhaps it annoys you I am not naturally docile, although I choose to believe you are having fun breaking my spirit."

  She stared at me. "I didn't intend the collar to punish you for any of those things."

  "Funny how things we don't intend happen anyway. When I belch, and the collar punishes me for it, is that when we schedule your trial for torturing a prisoner of war?"

  I thought about it. "And when is your trial for violating a white flag of truce? Or perhaps that's not illegal. I am pretty sure I can argue that kidnapping a princess of Norinia would be considered a violation of truce. But all is fair in love and war, perhaps? Except, of course, pursuing the soldiers who attacked a village with no cause at all."

  I looked into her eyes. "The reality is simple. There will not be justice. You will not see a trial for any of these things. Tendaria isn't remotely interested in justice, or it would be applied evenly and honorably. Tendaria is interested in revenge."

  I turned to the food and began eating. I had intended to only eat some, but it was well prepared and I was exceedingly hungry. I finished my plate and washed it down with the water in my mug.

  I looke
d over at Dareena. I couldn't stand being in the same room with her. I nearly retched, knowing what the collar was doing to me regarding her. "Your highness," I said. "May your slave attend to her duties?"

  Her expression actually carried some pain. "Yes," she said.

  I got up and straightened the room, starting with the bed. I had sweated it in earlier. I stared at it, not at all sure how to go about doing laundry. I walked over to my clothing that I had washed last night. They were still damp. I couldn't even imagine how long the bedding might take to dry.

  "I was mistaken, your highness," I told her. "I do not properly understand my duties. I don't know what to do about the bedding. It should be changed."

  She stared at me. "You don't know how to change a bed?"

  "I have never done laundry, especially aboard a ship. I have only been on a few voyages, and it always included the privileges of my position." I nodded to my clothes hanging up. "They are still damp, and I wrung them out as well as I could before I hung them up."

  "When the cabin boys come to clear the meal, I will ask one of them to show you what you need to know."

  She shook her head.

  "Yes, your highness, I admit it. There are things even a cabin boy knows that I don't. Does that really surprise you?"

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I was shaking my head at myself. I shouldn't have assumed you would know."

  I straightened the rest of the room. Then I realized her sextant was starting to tarnish as was some of the brass in the cabin. "I presume there are supplies for polishing the brass in the wash room?"

  "Yes."

  "Do I have permission to retrieve them?"

  "Yes."

  I stepped from the room, walked down the passageway, and stepped into the wash room. It took me a while to find what I needed. When I got back, I showed them to Dareena. "Is this right?" She nodded.

  I looked at the sextant dubiously. It was hanging from a hook on the wall. "That looks like delicate equipment, and I have never touched one." I paused. "I don't even want to think what will happen if I damage it. I could scratch a mirror or put something out of adjustment. If you aren't in the room to forgive me, it will be another torture session."

  "Your duties do not include the sextant," she said. "Nor do they include my own laundry."

  "Thank you."

  I walked over to the bed. It was secured to the wall. The brass around the windows needed polishing. I crawled across the bed and, kneeling, I began polishing the brass.

  I was still working on the windows when the cabin boys returned to collect the remnants of our meal. "Francis," she said to one of them. She spoke in Tendaria to the boys. I heard my name but didn't understand any of the rest. One of the boys responded, then the two collected the plates and left.

  "I don't know enough Tendarian to understand them," I told her, still polishing the brass.

  "Francis will show you all the duties. If you have questions, I can translate or answer them."

  One of the boys returned several minutes later. Dareena talked to him for a moment. He responded. Then he crawled across the bed and knelt next to me. I looked down at him, kneeling to my left. He was so young. I wondered if he knew who I was, and whether he was afraid of me. I wondered what he understood.

  He watched me polishing for a minute. He said a word.

  "That means 'good'," Dareena said.

  Francis had his own cloth. He nudged me further to the right, and the two of us working together to finish polishing the brass around the window. He was much faster than I was. I watched, and it didn't look like he did anything dramatically differently than I did. When we were done, both sides of the window shone properly. He nodded and said "Good" again.

  Then the two of us went over the remaining brass in the room. Francis polished the sextant. He was extremely careful while he did it.

  He exchanged words with Dareena then pulled me by the hand back to the wash room. He made sure I knew where to put the polish away. He looked at both rags and decided they didn't need washing. They went back where I had gotten mine. Then he led me to a storage cabinet and opened it. There was fresh bedding. He pulled out fresh sheets and handed them to me. I followed him back to the captain's cabin.

  He pointed to the bed. I stripped it, separating out the sheets from the blankets, then used the sheets we had brought with us to make the bed. Francis frowned when I was done and said something to Dareena. She responded.

  "He asked why you don't know how to make a bed. I told him to teach you."

  Francis pulled apart the bed I had made, then remade it. It looked a lot better when he was done. Then he pulled it apart again and pointed at me, and then to the bed.

  "I'm not going to do any better the second time," I told Dareena.

  "He'll correct you as you go," she said.

  I stepped up to the bed and tried to make it. Francis corrected me in several places. When we were done, it was adequate. I started at it woefully. He shrugged at me.

  He was kind of cute, the way eleven year old boys can be.

  We collected the used sheets and returned to the wash room. Francis showed me how to wash them. He almost had a cow when he saw how much soap I was going to use. He made me put most of it back. We washed the sheets together. He showed me how to use the wringer, which I had already figured out, then he bundled all the sheets, still wet, in my arms, and led the way out of the cabin. We turned left and exited the poop cabin. He did a U-turn to another door and opened it. It led down below decks. He started down.

  "Francis!"

  I couldn't go down there. He turned around. I pointed and shook my head. "I can't go down there."

  He kept gesturing for me to follow. I kept shaking my head. Finally he came back up the stairs, grabbed the sheets, and took them from me. He disappeared below decks.

  I closed the door behind him and returned to Dareena's cabin.

  "We just had a communications difficulty. He tried to take me below deck."

  Dareena smiled. "To dry the clothes. We keep a stove going."

  "Did you set me up?"

  "No. I'm sorry, I didn't think of it."

  "Funny how often things like that can happen. I wonder what the torture session would have been like if I'd tried to follow him."

  "You've made your point."

  "And yet you haven't offered to turn this ship around and return me to my home so I can tell my former sister exactly what I think of her."

  "Fair or not, you will stand trial."

  "I'm sure you'll excuse me if I continue to remind you what a hypocrite you are."

  She stood up, glaring at me. "Am I a hypocrite for wanting peace? Or you the hypocrite for offering to die if it meant peace, but then acting like this when you find yourself facing the prospect?"

  "I am not afraid to die," I told her. "It is the treachery involved that I am angry about."

  She was silent for a while. "That is a fair complaint. I am sorry, but I do not believe anyone will be paying for the treachery acted against you. I know that isn't fair. Life isn't fair."

  "Don't offer me platitudes. You are the engineer of the treachery, even if you aren't the worst of the offenders involved."

  We glared at each other. Francis walked in and stopped dead, staring at us. Then he said one word. It sounded like a question.

  Dareena stepped back from me and talked to him for a moment. Francis nodded to her. He walked over to me and took my hand, pulling me back to the wash room. He showed me a supply of black boot polish, then handed me the polish, a brush, and a cloth. He took a brush and cloth for himself then led the way back to Dareena's cabin.

  Dareena was sitting down again. Francis gestured at her boots. Dareena smiled sweetly and held a foot out. I looked back and forth between them. Francis was talking, but I didn't understand a word.

  "More petty revenge, your highness?"

  "Yes."

  "Hypocrite."

  I knelt down in front of her and began polishing her boot. When I looke
d over, Francis was working on her others from the storage locker. I finished the first boot and asked, "Is this adequate, your highness?"

  She examined her boot critically, agreed it was, and gave me the other foot. I began polishing. When I was done, I joined Francis and helped him with the remaining boots. When we were done he pointed at my own. They were scuffed and needed polishing. I sat on the floor of the cabin and removed both boots and began polishing one. Francis grabbed the other.

  "No," I said. "You don't serve me."

  He didn't understand me, although "no" is the same in both languages. He looked over to Dareena. She said something, which I presume was a translation. He said something back and took my boot anyway. I looked at her.

  "He is happy to share the work," she said. "I think he has a crush on you."

  "Very funny," I told her. I finished my boot about the same time Francis finished the other. I pulled them both back on.

  There were a few other minor duties, which Francis showed me, and then we were done. I thanked him for his help, which Dareena translated. He smiled and disappeared.

  "It wasn't petty revenge, Meorie," she said.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Asking you to polish my boots. It wasn't petty revenge."

  I didn't respond.

  "Do you think it is beneath you to serve as a cabin girl?"

  "I am a princess."

  "So am I. I served as a cabin girl for a year."

  "How old were you?"

  "Twelve."

  "I am not twelve. I am your prisoner of war and a princess of Norinia. It is not proper to treat me like a servant. But, as you say, life isn't fair, and I am sure watching me kneel in front of you amuses everyone aboard ship."

  She watched me for a minute. I stared back at her. "Did it bother you making the bed?"

  "No. We're both using it, and while it wasn't entirely my fault, I was the one that caused the bed to require changing."

  "Did it bother you to polish the brass?"

  "Somewhat, but only because I wasn't responsible for the brass needing polishing. That was more than a day or two of tarnish."

  "So when you polish it again, it isn't going to irk you?"

  "Not enough to complain. I don't have much else to do on this voyage beyond getting under your skin and attempting to escape. A change of pace doesn't bother me."