Leola stole a glance at Dorva. “But… b-b-b…” she stammered. She was left speechless. She looked straight ahead. “It is not so where I am from,” she said coolly.
Dorva wove a few more strands of Leola’s hair before speaking again. “You are no longer where you are from,” she said quietly. Leola could hear the smile in her voice as she leaned close to Leola’s ear again. “You might as well enjoy your fortune.”
Leola felt oddly touched by Dorva’s frank explanation. “May I ask you something?” she asked, after hesitating a moment.
“Of course,” Dorva replied.
“What will become of me?”
Dorva paused, tying off the end of her braid, before circling around to look at Leola as she took a brush to her hands. “You needn’t worry. He might be a brute in battle, but he would never let a woman suffer.”
Leola became indignant. “I suppose our definitions of suffering are very different,” she remarked.
Dorva tipped her head to the side with genuine confusion, so Leola added, “He has spanked me until my bottom is sore and red.”
She was infuriated momentarily when Dorva smiled. “I suspect he wouldn’t do it if he didn’t think you like it. Hm?” She leaned closer. “Does your cunny wet under his hand?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Let me give you some advice, Leola.”
Leola had nothing to say to this. Dorva cheerfully brushed dirt from under her nails, and then dropped her right hand into the liquid. She rounded the vessel and fished her left hand from the water.
“Forget your troubles. What will be, will be. You have our king’s attention, and by the way he’s acted this day, he is very pleased with you. Here, it is not like your land. Men take pleasure in their women, and women take pleasure in their sexual servitude to their men. It is a great honor among our clan to service a king, as I have told you.”
Leola’s chest swelled with some emotion she couldn’t yet name.
“Enjoy it for what it is,” Dorva continued. “He hasn’t much time left.”
“I beg your pardon?” she asked.
“My lord must marry before too long. A lady from the Eastern lands, I’m told. They, like the Southerners, are not tolerant of our ways, and our king has agreed that he shall abide by the rules of their Eastern marriages.” Dorva smiled, and winked at Leola. “But everyone knows that he shall do this only a short time, until she is with child and cannot… what is the word? Annul? The marriage.” Dorva considered this, holding a cup of water in her hand as she thought. Then she smiled and shrugged. “Perhaps the king shall retake you as his plaything at that time?”
Leola’s heart sank so low she felt it in her gut. She couldn’t place the source of the feeling, exactly. Surely she was not disappointed that the king would no longer keep her as a plaything?
“Dorva?” she asked timidly. “What—what will happen to me? At that time?”
Dorva looked at her questioningly. “What do you mean?”
Leola hesitated to speak her fears aloud, but she closed her eyes and tried to be brave anyway. “After… the king tires of me, or must… be married. What will become of me, then?”
Dorva did not immediately answer. Leola opened her eyes, unsure if she was even still there. “Dorva?” she repeated.
Dorva shrugged. The question did not seem to make any sense to her. She dipped the cup into the water again and poured it over Leola’s back. “What do you mean, what will happen to you?” She laughed lightly. “You will miss him, you are saying? There are other men… perhaps in your native land, surely.”
“I could never return to my native land!” Leola cried, horrified. “I am… I could not be wed!”
“Why not?” Dorva asked casually. She patted the braided hair and stepped back to look at her handiwork. “You have been the plaything of a great warrior. Other men will be honored to have you.”
Leola stared at Dorva in disbelief. She slowly shook her head. “It is not… it does not… happen as such, where I am from.”
Dorva paused. “Really?” she asked. She poured more water over Leola’s hair, and dismissively shrugged again. “Then… you shall stay here? Since you have been the plaything of the king, any man would be honored to keep you. You will have your pick of all the greatest warriors.”
Leola was dumbstruck, but to Dorva, the conversation seemed as normal as a discussion of the dinner menu. When she finally looked at Leola, she must have noted the bright red that stained her cheeks.
“Leola?” she inquired. “Have my words… affected you?”
Leola could not think of a single thing to say. In her chest, an unfamiliar feeling burned, though she could not place it. She did not want another man—another of these gruff, oversized, violent, shameless men. And yet, she could not want Sedrak, either, could she?
Surely her uncle would take her back, and keep her, after she saved his life? But she would never marry… she would grow old and die a spinster, and her uncle would have no true heir…
Leola shook her head, for Dorva was still looking at her, expectant for an answer. “I see,” she said carelessly.
Dorva began to rub a scented oil into Leola’s hair. “You are lucky,” she assured her. “For now, you will enjoy the king’s favor.”
Leola wanted to ask Dorva how she could call the king’s use of her body ‘his favor,’ but again, the words failed her. Her mind was consumed by her worries about the future, her future, now that she knew she would be tossed away by the king, and have nowhere to go but to return home to live the life of a spinster—and hope that Ryken would take her in—or to live here, among barbarians, in service to another man.
Chapter 4
Her stomach still twisted in knots and her chest was tight as she was led by the guard to Sedrak’s tent. It was
