They rose with shoulders set in shame, carrying the canvas that served as the lord’s shelter.

At the edge of the clearing, the cloak paused and looked back. “Share meat with the prisoners. I’ll know if you don’t. Be generous. Sergeant, I’ll speak with you now.”

He went, and after a bit Yudit slunk out of the shelter and came over to Shai. He left her with the younger children and strode boldly up to the fire.

“Eh! I’m hungry!”

“What?” they laughed. “Going to eat your girlfriends?” But they dared not disobey the lord’s direct order. Each child got cut a strip, not so much to sicken them except for Jolas, who threw up afterward, but even Eska looked better for the day’s bounty of food.

At dusk, the sergeant returned and walked among the soldiers, speaking in such a low voice that Shai could not hear anything. Their voices buzzed afterward, like bees disturbed by smoke. They’ve had news, Shai thought.

Last of all, the sergeant beckoned to Shai. “You’re to come with me,” he said, and called over a pair of soldiers to accompany them. The stream they’d crossed earlier passed through one end of the clearing. With head bowed, Shai followed the sergeant upstream along the bank. On the far shore, water rippled through rocks below a dense growth of pipe-brush. The lord’s shelter had been set up near the water, canvas strung between two trees and staked down on either side. Dena sat on a log outside the shelter with hands folded in her lap and tears flowing down cheeks still rounded with baby fat. The sergeant flung out a hand, and they all stopped. The soldiers grimaced, turning away. The sergeant wiped his brow nervously. None could see what was going on under the shelter, but they could all hear it.

The sounds of a man in rut forced Shai’s mind back to that day in the desert when he had sold Cornflower’s services to the Qin soldiers. Ripe peaches, one man had said: That had been Chaji, and now that Shai thought of it, he realized he’d never liked Chaji, who was mean-spirited and vain. What men had gone for the first chance at Cornflower? The ones he had liked least, truly. The others had had more self-control, or perhaps they’d feared her too much to touch her. Perhaps a few had found the transaction distasteful.

Knowing it was Vali who suffered, Shai found the sounds unbearable. Yet even when he shut his eyes he could not hide from the puffing and panting, a groan of release, the wheezing sigh in the aftermath of pleasure. But truly, a pleasure taken, not shared.

Maybe Mai had been right. Maybe selling Cornflower’s sex to the Qin soldiers had not been an act of prudent economy but one of thoughtless cruelty. He wept silently.

“Open your eyes and look at me.”

Startled, Shai opened his eyes to find himself looking directly at the lord. The man bit his lips, as if he were nervous, or recalling the taste of something sweet.