“You had no right to tell me to keep quiet until we were in this camp!” she snapped at Tandro, her small hands closed into fists. “Being forced to sit like that not only hurt, it also made me hot again. If you’d let me say so, we could have stopped to let you do something about it again.”

“That’s one of the reasons you weren’t allowed to speak,” Tandro responded mildly, looking down at the much smaller girl. “You seem to think that I’m the slave, bound to cater to you in all ways, but you’re about to learn better. Go to the other slave now and ask her politely to show you where the provisions are. You’ll make some food for both of us, we’ll eat, and then we’ll see about easing you again.”

“Absolutely not!” Ennie stated, glaring up at the big man. “If you want something to eat you can get it for yourself the way you did earlier, and at the same time you can make something for me. It was really awful of you to refuse to share earlier, and I won’t put up with that kind of behavior again. But before you get involved with making food, you’ll come into one of those tents with me. And once I’m feeling better you’ll find some clothes for me to wear. I refuse to stand this humiliation even a minute longer—What are you doing?”

Just about as soon as Ennie started her tirade, Tain saw Tandro turn away from the girl and go back to his horse. There were saddlebags behind the saddle, and Tandro looked through one of the bags for a minute before he found what he was after. The thing wasn’t very big or thick, but it was about six or seven inches long and it was made of wood. Tandro held it by its handle, and above the handle the wooden thing spread out to be about three inches wide.

And as soon as Tandro had the thing in his hand, he took Ennie by the arm and began to move her away from the horse. His actions had interrupted what Ennie had been saying, but he didn’t answer her final question in words. Instead he sat down near where Killen had been sitting, pulled Ennie across his folded legs, then showed her what he was doing.

Which, of course, turned out to be giving the girl the punishment she’d been begging for. Tain flinched just a little when that narrow paddle came down on Ennie’s bottom, making the girl shriek with outrage, humiliation, and the pain being added to her earlier switching, not to mention probably also adding to her arousal from the insertion. It took about three or four swats on that bare, squirming seat before the ache began to build really high, something it was easy to tell when Ennie’s cries suddenly changed.

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving girl, Tain thought as Ennie’s kicking and yelling developed definite overtones of desperation. The girl’s backside was starting to get red from the smack of that paddle, a device that seemed to be made of hard but flexible wood. And Tandro was very methodical in the way he spanked her. Each swat was delivered with what looked like a good deal of strength to Tain, but there was a small hesitation before he gave her the next swat. He appeared to be letting the ache build before he added to it, making the time even worse for the mindless little fool.

The paddling lasted a good number of minutes before Tandro decided he’d punished his slave enough. Ennie, who hadn’t been allowed to protect herself with her hands, of course, had long since been reduced to tears and howling. When Tandro pulled her from his lap and put her to her knees beside him, he had to order her to silence before the howling stopped.

“That’s better,” Tandro said in the same mild way while Ennie cried hard but silently. “I told you that whether or not you obeyed me would often be your choice, and now you know what a wrong choice brings. Unless you want more of the same, go to the other slave without any further nonsense and do as you were told.”

It was perfectly clear to Tain that Ennie would have preferred to refuse, but she wasn’t that much of a fool. The girl swiped at her eyes with one hand before climbing slowly to her feet, then she limped and squirmed her way over to where Tain sat.

“I—I need to be shown where the provisions are,” Ennie gulped out, obviously having trouble controlling herself and the crying. “And I also don’t know what to do with the provisions, so if you would—”

“What you want is over here,” Tain said at once as she rose to her feet, not about to let the girl reach the point of asking her to do the cooking. “I’ll also tell you what has to be done, but you’re the one who’ll be doing it.”

“Please, don’t make me do something I have no idea how to do right!” Ennie whispered as she followed Tain to the sacks of provisions. “If that beast isn’t happy with what he’s given he might beat me again, and if he does I’ll die!”

“No, you’ll just want to die,” Tain corrected, turning to look at the girl. “Being paddled is rarely fatal, but I have no interest in finding that out first hand. You were the one who was told to do the cooking, so if I do it for you I’ll be helping you to disobey. If you’d rather not have your seat made even more tender than it is right now, you’d better learn fast.”

Ennie’s expression said she really disliked the answer she’d gotten, but there wasn’t time for the girl to pester more than another time or two. Tandro had gone to take care of his horse, but he wasn’t likely to be all that long in coming back. Once Ennie was forced to understand that Tain would not be changing her mind, the girl had no choice but to do what she’d been ordered to.

Tain explained slowly and clearly what Ennie had to do in order to make the stew for Tandro and the cereal for herself, then she went back to the blanket and lay down again. She’d built up the fire before making her getaway, knowing damned well that if she stayed to supervise, the girl would try again and again to get her to take over. If the one on the spot was someone other than Ennie, Tain’s answer probably would have been different. But Ennie hadn’t even tried to apologize for getting them taken captive, so the girl was definitely on her own.

Neither the stew nor the cereal ended up as badly burned as Tain expected them to be, which proved that Ennie was capable of learning when her ass was on the line, so to speak. The girl hobbled over to give Tandro his bowl of stew where he sat with Killen, then she returned to the fire to kneel and eat her own meal. The last of the firelight let Tain see the girl’s grimace at the first taste of the tasteless cereal, but apparently Ennie was hungry enough that she couldn’t afford to refuse what she had. Instead of refusing she emptied the bowl fast, then was given orders to wash the bowl along with the pots that had been used.

“And you’d be wise to do a better job with the washing than you did with the cooking,” Tandro added mildly around a mouthful of stew. “I’m going to check on how clean everything is, and if the pots and bowls aren’t clean enough you’ll find out almost at once.”

Ennie swallowed hard before turning to the bucket she’d been told to wash the dishes in, but she hadn’t soaked the pots the way Tain had. Both the burned-on remnants of the stew and the cereal had to be scrubbed off, and all she had to do the scrubbing with were her fingernails. It took quite some time before Ennie was done, and that was when she learned she wasn’t quite as done as she’d thought. Tandro called her over to take his bowl, and when the girl discovered that the last traces of the food had dried on the bowl she looked like she was about to cry.

But with or without tears, the last of the washing was finally done. Tandro ordered her to kneel by the pots and bowls until he was ready to look at them, and then the native went back to his soft conversation with Killen. The two men pretended to see nothing of the way Ennie squirmed where she knelt, so Tain did the same. If it had been anyone but Ennie who was being made to suffer even longer…