Jake lay down on his own pallet without turning to look at Tandro, trying to give his friend as much privacy as the cramped quarters allowed. He also suddenly found himself in a brooding mood, and there was no time like the present to indulge.
Tain had followed the other women back to the cooking alcove, and by the time Ennie showed up Tain had gotten a fresh cup of coffee. Ennie returned the belt from where she’d gotten it, poured a cup of coffee of her own, then came to sit down near Tain.
“Why are some of the women looking like they just inherited a fortune while a couple of the others look like they were written out of the will?” Ennie asked softly with her back to the others once she was seated. “Char, especially, looks like she’s floating on air, but Risdin seems to want to cry.”
“Seeing a man being treated the way you treated Tandro has apparently made Char’s day,” Tain answered just as softly. “The utter delight she got chased away enough of her fear to let her relax a little, so it looks like I’ll be able to let her stay. Risdin, on the other hand, isn’t happy with what you did, because she said the men were hurt by the slaver for being against slavery. Taking advantage of their helplessness strikes Risdin as being wrong, but possibly that’s because she wasn’t Tandro’s slave before he became a slave himself.”
“What do you mean, they were hurt by the slaver?” Ennie asked, the look in her eyes suddenly sharpening. “No one told me anything had been done to them, and I assumed they were just locked up until you broke them loose. How were they hurt?”
“The slaver did to both of them what you did to Tandro, but his men weren’t quite as gentle as you were,” Tain said, now watching the girl’s reactions carefully. “By the time I got them out they were having a lot of trouble walking, and not just from the switchings they were given. But I
have to tell you… One of the first things Tandro said when he was allowed to speak again was to ask if you were all right. He kept saying during the trip that he didn’t want to be blamed by our people if anything really horrible happened to you, so maybe that’s why he asked.“
“After going through all that himself he took the trouble to ask about me?” Ennie said, staring into space instead of meeting Tain’s gaze.
“After talking to the women I went with, it suddenly came to me that they were in a worse position than I ever was. I might not have had anyone who really cared about me, but I still wasn’t enslaved and beaten and raped and hurt all the way down to my soul. I felt like an ungrateful idiot for complaining about my life when theirs were so much worse, and now you tell me that Tandro asked about me? But what I did to him…”
Ennie put her coffee cup down before closing her eyes for a moment, then she scrambled to her feet and hurried out of the alcove. Since the girl turned right, Tain didn’t have to wonder where Ennie was going. The only thing left to wonder about was whether Tandro would be able to forgive
Ennie for doing to him what he’d done to her. If he couldn’t, then Ennie would be much better off without him.
After a while Risdin made lunch for everyone with Areen helping her, and
Tain ate slowly to fill in as much of the waiting time as possible. After lunch she spoke to the women and told them most of her plan, and then they wasted a bit more time discussing what they’d heard. Most of the women liked Tain’s idea, but they were also more than a little afraid. The fear didn’t cause them to refuse to help out, though; it just made them wish they could refuse.
Once the meeting was over, Tain took a walk to see how Ennie, Tandro, and
Killen were doing. Peeking inside the men’s alcove showed Ennie and Tandro asleep in each other’s arms on Tandro’s pallet, and even Killen had managed to fall asleep. Getting some rest seemed like a really good idea, so Tain went to her own pallet and forced herself to sleep. The automatic alarm clock in her head would help to wake her up, she knew, and if the trick somehow missed then it would be Risdin who woke her. Before leaving the cooking alcove Tain had spoken to Risdin, who now knew that Tain wanted to leave right after she and the men had something to eat.
Sleeping in the middle of the day did manage to throw off Tain’s inner clock. She opened her eyes to Risdin’s hand on her shoulder, then had to get back into the costume before following the other woman to the cooking alcove. And the mood Tain woke with wasn’t even as good as the one she’d gone to sleep with; she’d been dreaming about taking a long, delicious bath, and waking up to reality hadn’t been pleasant.
Risdin had made a plain vegetable stew for everyone, and after the food had been put into bowls with wooden spoons added she helped Tain carry the four bowls to the men’s alcove. Areen and the woman whose name Tain didn’t know followed with two cups of coffee each, and once all the food and drink had been distributed the three native women left the alcove. Since Killen, Tandro, and Ennie were awake and sitting up on their respective pallets, Areen and the other coffee carrier left a good deal faster than Risdin.
“We’ll be leaving here as soon as we finish eating, so if you have any questions on what I’m about to tell you don’t hold back,” Tain said to the two men after sitting down on the stone floor. “Ennie already knows she won’t be going with us, so the outing will just be a threesome.”
“Where will we be going?” Killen asked at once while Tandro looked deeply relieved. “Since Ennie will be staying behind, it’s fairly obvious we aren’t going to be heading home.”
“Tonight we’ll be going out to do some kidnapping,” Tain said, noticing that Killen wasn’t diving into the food any faster than she herself.
“We’re going to start with Gordi, and once we have him we’ll move on to the names he gives us. I intend to get Gordi himself, the two next most powerful leaders who support him, and his most powerful … opponent tonight. Once we have them we’ll get them to understand just how bad slavery is, and once that’s done we’ll then head home.”
“You expect us to convince Gordi and the others just like that in one night?” Killen said, the words not quite mocking. “I consider myself a fairly good talker, Tain, but unless you’re better than fairly good you might want to try another plan.”
“I said we’ll be getting the men tonight, not that we’ll convince them that quickly,” Tain corrected mildly. “It will probably take the entire following day or even a bit longer before they really get the message, but this is important work. Heading home will have to wait until the work is done, so I need to ask: are you two in good enough shape to help, or will it be smarter to leave you behind along with Ennie?”
Tain had actually addressed her question to Tandro, and the native smiled in that calm way he had.
“I’m perfectly fine, so staying behind won’t be necessary,” Tandro stated, speaking just as mildly as Tain had. “Killen, I think, is doing even better than I am.”
“Yeah, I’m definitely doing better than fine,” Killen agreed, but not with anything like enthusiasm. “And is that all we’ll be doing tonight?
Kidnapping men and then sitting down to talk to them?“
“Actually, the talking won’t take place until those women in the next alcove show the men just what it’s like to be a slave,” Tain answered, ignoring the urge to tell Killen that the rest of the plan was none of his business. “We happen to have some doses of the slave drug at our disposal, which make my plan more than just wishful thinking. Risdin found a package with a dozen doses that some slaver lost, and I mean to double up on each of the men.”
“To compensate for their greater size and body weight,” Killen said with a startled nod, his distant stare saying he was thinking about what he’d been told. “That’s probably what was done with us… And you believe that Gordi and the others will be convinced by being enslaved themselves? What if they react the other way after being treated badly by women and decide to hold their slaves even tighter than before?”