The Fisherman's Daughter Read Online Free

Matron had her lashed three times and sent to the kitchens for late cleanup after everyone else had finished, to endure the cook’s watchful leer. Meiri tries to ignore him
    “Upset Master, you did,” the cook says knowingly. “I’ve never seen Matron that angry before. No one’s ever upset our lord like you did. What did you do? Refuse him? Did he want to press his cock inside your pretty little ass?”
    Meiri closes her eyes for a moment, refuses to answer, and keeps scrubbing. She needs fresh water, so she crawls out of the pot and stands, looking around for the wash pail. The cook’s moved it.
    She turns to face him. “Where is the water?” She backs up a step against the table and places her hands behind her, resting them upon the handle of an iron skillet in the clean stack. “I’m going to finish and go to bed.”
    “You think that, do you?” the cook asks. He grins, whiskered jowls sliding in a way that makes Meiri’s skin crawl. “I know there’s pretty under your broken face. Your scars can’t hide it, not completely, and I don’t mind a little ugly as long as what’s below is soft and wet. I knew it was only a matter of time before Master saw it too. Except somehow you got away from him.”
    Meiri’s hands clench around the skillet handle, and the cook doesn’t seem to notice.
    “You’re going to give me what you didn’t give him,” he says, “or I’m going to tell Matron you’re shirking your duties. She’s likely to release you from service.”
    Meiri’s eyes betray hope for a moment.
    The cook laughs. “Master doesn’t release his slaves to the street, girl. He kills the ones who no longer please him. Now come here, bitch, and lift your skirts. Just relax. You’ll find it’s not as unpleasant as all that, especially if you close your eyes.”
    Meiri drops her voice low. “If that’s what it takes to get me off to bed, then come and take what you want.”
    The cook’s grin twists deeper, and he relaxes as he approaches.
    Meiri grips the iron skillet hard and heaves it in a clumsy arc. The cook sees what she’s doing at the last moment, eyes shifting from lust to shock, but he’s too late. The heavy skillet connects satisfyingly with a thock to his temple, and he collapses in a lifeless heap.
    For a moment she stares down at him with righteous anger, but then her breath catches. She kneels. He’s not breathing, and his eyes stare unfocused towards the table legs. Blood pools from a gash on his head, dripping onto the floor.
    “Oh Meiri,” she whispers in panic to herself. “What have you done? You should have just let him have his way. You’re a slave girl. It had to happen at some point.” Lord Keeva kills his slaves. Surely she has just signed her own death warrant. I have to get out tonight.
    She sneaks out of the kitchen, making it two halls down before she realizes she’s still clutching the skillet. She panics and drops it, marking the rug with the smear of the cook’s blood. At least its thud is muffled by the rug’s wool threads.
    She hears voices approaching. She doesn’t know if they’re looking for her or not, but decides not to chance it. She ducks down another corridor, familiar now with the silent, out-of-the-way routes in the palace, since her job is to remain unseen as she serves.
    More voices, and they seem to be getting closer. She slips into a guest room through the servant’s entrance and hides behind the curtain, crouching in the shadows.
    The chamber’s main door opens just a second afterwards, and through the curtain slit she sees two people enter. Meiri holds her breath.
    “Are you sure, Tal?” Desdemona asks as she closes the door behind her. “This isn’t exactly the place I want Leera raised.”
    “We’ve been over this,” Tal Harun replies. “Adultery’s a capital offense. If my wife finds out about Leera, she’ll see we face it, the both of us, whether we sit on the Council of Thirteen or not.”
    I’m not supposed to be