Elizabeth Moon - Sheepfarmer's Dauther

Her breathing had just begun to ease again, when she thought she heard a sound. She froze. What now? The sound grew louder, but still so muffled by stone walls and thick door that she could not define it. Rhythmic—was it steps? Was the long night already over? She saw a gleam of light above the heavy door; it brightened. Something clinked against the door; it grated open, letting in a flood of yellow torchlight. Paks blinked against it, as the torchbearer set his light in a holder just inside the cell door. Then he pulled the door closed, and turned to face her, leaning on the wall under the torch. It was Stammel: but a Stammel so forbidding that Paks dared not say a word, but stared at him in silence. After a long pause, during which he looked her up and down, he sighed and shook his head.

“I thought you had more sense, Paks,” he said heavily. “Whatever he said, you shouldn’t have hit him. Surely you—”

“It wasn’t what he said, sir—it was what he did—”

“The story is that he asked you to bed him, and teased you when you wouldn’t. And then you jumped him, and—”

“No, sir! That’s not—”

“Paksenarrion, this is serious. You’ll be lucky if you aren’t turned out tinisi turin— you know what that is, sheepfarmer’s daughter—” Paks nodded, remembering the old term for a clean-shorn lamb, also used for running off undesirables shaved and naked. “Lies won’t help.”

“But, sir—”

“Let me finish. If what he says is true, the best you can hope for—the very best—is three months with the quarriers, and one more chance with a new recruit unit, since I haven’t taught you what you should know. If you say he’s lying, you’ll have to convince us that a veteran of five campaign seasons, a man with a good reputation in the Company, would be so stupid in the first place, and lie about it in the second. Why should we believe you? I’ve known you—what? Nine weeks? Ten? I’ve known him nearly six years. Now if your story is true, and if you can prove it some way, tell me. I’ll tell the captain tomorrow, and we’ll see. If not, just be quiet, and pray the captain will count your bruises into your punishment.”

“Yes, sir.” Paks glanced up at Stammel’s stern face. It was even worse than she’d thought, if Stammel thought she could be lying.

“Well? Which is it to be?”

Paks looked down at her bruised hands. “Sir, he asked me to come to the back of the room—he didn’t say why, but he was a corporal, so I went. And then he took my arm—” she faltered and her right arm quivered. “And tried to get me to bed him. And I said no, and he wouldn’t let go, but went on—” She glanced at Stammel again. His expression did not change; her eyes dropped. “He said he was sure I wasn’t a virgin, not with my looks, and that I must’ve bedded—someone—to be a file leader—”

“Say that again! He said what?”

“That I must have—earned that position—on my back, he said.”

“Did he say with whom?” asked Stammel, his voice grimmer than before.

“No, sir.”

Stammel grunted. “Go on, then.”

“I—I was angry—about that—”

“So you hit him.”

“No, sir.” Paks shook her head for emphasis, but the nausea took her again, and she heaved repeatedly into the bucket. Finally she looked up, trembling with the aftermath. “I didn’t hit him, but I did get angry because that’s not how I got it, and I started to—to say bad things—” She heaved again. “—that I learned from my cousin,” she finished.

“Drink this,” said Stammel, handing her a flask. “If you’re going to heave so much, you need something down, ban or no.”

Paks swallowed the cold water gratefully. “Then, sir, he was angry for what I said—”

“It couldn’t have been that bad—what did you say?”

“Pargsli spakin i tokko—”

“D’you know what that means, girl?”

“No—my cousin said it was bad.”

A flicker of amusement relaxed Stammel’s face for a moment. “It is. I suggest you learn what curses mean before you say them. Then what?”

“He clapped a hand over my mouth, and tried to push me down on the bunk.” She took another swallow of water.

“Yes?”

“So I bit his hand, to make him let go, and he did and I got free. But he was between me and the door, and he took off his belt—”

“Did he say anything?”

“Yes, sir. He threatened to beat me, to tame me, and then he swung the belt, and I ran at him, trying to get away. I thought I could push past him, maybe, the way I did with my father. But he grabbed my throat—” her hand rose, unconsciously, “—and hit my face, and—and I couldn’t breathe. I thought be would kill me, and I had to fight. I had to breathe—”

“Hmmph. That sounds more like the recruit I thought I had. Tell the rest of it.”

“I—it’s hard to remember. I broke the throat hold, but I couldn’t get away, he was so fast and strong. We were on the floor, mostly, and he was yelling at me—hitting—I remember feeling weaker, and then someone was holding my arms, and someone was hitting me. I suppose that was after you came, though wasn’t it?”

Stammel’s face wore a puzzled frown. “No one hit you after I got there. When I came in Korryn was hanging onto you, Stephi was lying on the floor, and Korryn said he’d just then been able to pull you off. Captain Sejek wanted to hit you, all right, but he didn’t.” Stammel sighed. “If you’re telling the truth, girl, I can see why you fought. But Korryn was there, or says he was, and his story is against yours, as well as Stephi.”

“He was there, at the beginning, but he just laughed. I—I am telling the truth, sir, really I am.” Paks swallowed noisily. “But I can see why you wouldn’t believe me, if you’ve known him—Stephi?—so long. Only, that’s what really happened, sir, no matter what Korryn says.”

“If it were only your word against Korryn’s—” Stammel paused and stretched, then shifted his weight to the other leg. “Paks have you bedded anyone here?”

“No, sir.”

“You’ve been asked, surely?”

“Yes, sir, but I haven’t. I don’t want to. And I asked Maia—”

“Maia?”

“The quartermaster’s assistant. I asked her if I had to, and she said no, but not to make a fuss about being asked, like I might at home.”

“Has Korryn bothered you about it?”

Paks began to tremble, remembering Korryn’s constant teasing, taunting attempts to force her into bed with him. “He’s asked me,” she whispered.

“Paks, look at me.” She looked up. “Has he done more than ask?”

“He—he has sometimes.”

“Why didn’t you say something to me or Bosk?”

Paks shook her head. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to—to make a fuss. I thought I was supposed to take care of it—”

“You aren’t supposed to act like a new wench in an alehouse, no. But no fighter should have to put up with that sort of thing from a companion. When you refuse, they’re supposed to drop it; there’s plenty enough that are willing. I wish I’d known; we’d have put a stop to that.” He paused briefly. “Are you a sisli?”

“I—I don’t know what that is. He—the corporal—asked me that too.”

“Like Barranyi and Natzlin in Kefer’s unit. A woman who beds women. Are you?”

“No, sir. Not that I know of. Does it matter?”

“Not really.” Stammel shifted his weight again and sighed. “Paks, I want to believe you. You’ve been a good recruit so far. But I just don’t know—and even if I believe you, there’s the captain. Sejek is—umph. You’re in more trouble than most people find in a whole enlistment.”