She finally got her breath back. Fitch hunched forward and landed three blows. Quick. Hard. Angry.

"Are you listening?" he growled.

"You little Haken bastard-"

Fitch let go with all his strength. The wallop hurt his fist. It staggered even Morley back a step. She hung forward in Morley's grip as she vomited in dry heaves. Fitch had wanted to hit her face-punch her in the mouth-but Dalton Campbell had given them clear instructions to only hit her where it wouldn't show.

"I'd not call him that again, were I you." Morley grabbed a fistful of her hair and savagely yanked her up straight.

Arching her up so forcefully made her breasts pop out the top of her dress. Fitch froze. He wondered if he should pull the front of her dress back up for her. His jaw hung as he stared at her. Morley leaned over her shoulder for a look. He grinned at Fitch.

She glanced down to see herself spilled out of her dress. Seeing it, she put her head back and closed her eyes hi resignation.

"Please," she said, panting for breath toward the sky, "don't hurt me anymore?"

"Are you ready to listen?"

She nodded. "Yes, sir."

That surprised Fitch even more than seeing her naked breasts. No one in his whole life had ever called him "sir."

Those two meek words felt so strange to his ears that he just stood there staring at her. For a moment, he wondered if she was mocking him. As she looked him in the eye, her expression told him she wasn't.

The music was filling him with such feelings as he'd never had before. He'd never been important before, never been called «sir» before. That morning he'd been called "Fetch." Now, an Ander women called him "sir." All thanks to Dalton Campbell.

Fitch punched her in the gut again. Just because he felt like it.

"Please, sir!" she cried. "Please, no more! Tell me what you want. I'll do it. If you wish to have me, I'll submit-just don't hurt me anymore. Please, sir?"

Although Fitch's stomach still felt heavy with queasy disgust at what he was doing, he also felt more important than he'd ever felt before. Her, an Ander woman with her breasts exposed to him like that, and her calling him "sir."

"Now, you listen to me you filthy little bitch."

His own words surprised him as much as they surprised her. Fitch hadn't planned them. They just came out. He liked • the sound of it, though.

"Yes sir," she wept, "I will. I'll listen. Whatever you say."

She looked so pitiful, so helpless. Not ah hour ago, if an Ander woman, even this Claudine Winthrop, would have told him to get down on his knees and clean the floor with his tongue, he'd have done it and been trembling at the same time. He'd never imagined how easy this would be. A few punches, and she was begging to do as he said. He never imagined how easy it would be to be important, to have people do as he said.

Fitch remembered what it was Dalton Campbell told him to say.

"You were strutting yourself before the Minister, weren't you? You were offering yourself to him, weren't you?"

He'd made it clear it wasn't really a question. "Yes, sir."

"If you ever again think of telling anyone the Minister raped you, you'll be sorry. Saying such a lie is treason. Got that? Treason. The penalty for treason is death. When they find your body, no one will even be able to recognize you. Do you understand, bitch? They'll find your tongue nailed to a tree.

"It's a lie that the Minister raped you. A filthy treasonous lie. You ever say such a thing again, and you'll be made to suffer before you die."

"Yes sir," she sobbed. "I'll never lie again. I'm sorry. Please, forgive me? I'll never lie again, I swear."

"You were putting it out there for the Minister, offering yourself. But the Minister is a better man than to have an affair with you-or anyone. He turned you down. He refused you."

"Yes, sir."

"Nothing improper happened. Got that? The Minister never did nothing improper with you, or anyone."

"Yes, sir." She whined in a long sob, her head hanging.

Fitch pulled her handkerchief from her sleeve. He dabbed it at her eyes. He could tell in the dim light that her face paint, what with the throwing up and crying, was a shambles.

"Stop crying, now. You're making a mess of your face. You better go back to your room and fix yourself up before you go back to the feast."

She sniffled, trying to stop the tears. "I can't go back to the feast, now. My dress is spoiled. I can't go back."

"You can, and you will. Fix your face and put on another dress. You're going to go back. There will be someone watching, to see if you go back, to see if you got the message. If you ever slip again, you'll be swallowing the steel of his sword."

Her eyes widened with fright. "Who-"

"That's not important. It don't matter none to you. The only thing that matters is that you got the message and understand what will happen if you ever again tell your filthy lies."

She nodded. "I understand."

"Sir," Fitch said. Her brow twitched. "I understand, sir!"

She pressed back against Morley. "I understand, sir. Yes, sir, I truly understand."

"Good," Fitch said.

She glanced down at herself. Her lower lip trembled. Tears ran down her cheeks.

"Please, sir, may I fix my dress?"

"When I'm done talking."

"Yes, sir."

"You've been out for a walk. You didn't talk to no one. Do you understand? No one. From now on, you just keep your mouth shut about the Minister, or when you open it the next time, you'll find a sword going down your throat. Got all that?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right, then." Fitch gestured. "Go ahead and pull up your dress."

Morley leered over her shoulder as she stuffed herself back in the dress. Fitch didn't think covering herself with the dress, as low as it was, showed much less, but he surely enjoyed standing there watching her do it. He never thought he'd see such a thing. Especially an Ander woman doing such a thing.

The way she straightened with a gasp, Morley must have done something behind her, up under her dress. Fitch surely wanted to do something, too, but remembered Dalton Campbell.

Fitch grabbed Claudine Winthrop's arm and pulled her ahead a couple of steps. "You be on your way, now."

She snatched a quick glance at Morley, then looked back at Fitch. "Yes, sir. Thank you." She dipped a hasty curtsy. "Thank you, sir."

Without further word, she clutched her skirts in her fists, rushed down the steps, and ran off across the lawn into the night.

"Why'd you send her off?" Morley asked. He put a hand on his hip. "We could have had a time with her. She'd of had to do anything we wanted. And after a look at what she had, I wanted."

Fitch leaned toward his disgruntled friend. "Because Master Campbell never told us we could do anything like that, that's why. We was helping Master Campbell, that's all. No more."

Morley made a sour face. "I guess." He looked off toward the woodpile. "We still got a lot of drinking to do."

Fitch thought about the look of fear on Claudine Winthrop's face. He thought about her crying and sobbing. He knew Haken women cried, of course, but Fitch had never before even imagined an Ander woman crying. He didn't know why not, but he never had.

The Minister was Ander, so Fitch guessed he couldn't really do wrong. She must have asked for it with her low-cut dress and the way she acted toward him. Fitch had seen the way a lot of women acted toward him. Like they would rejoice if he had them.

He remembered Beata sitting on the floor crying. He thought about the look of misery on Beata's face, up there, when the Minister threw her out after he'd finished with her.

Fitch thought about the way she'd clouted him.

It was all too much for him to figure out. Fitch wanted nothing more right then than to drink himself into a stupor.