There was a clang behind her; the owner of the voice was banging something on the bars of the cage. “Hey! Princess! Wake up!”
Leola supposed there was no hope in pretending she wasn’t there. She rolled over, tentatively, and looked up at the figure standing over her cage.
It was a woman, a little older than Leola herself. She had a hand on one hip, and was dressed in a costume that was feminine but clearly the same as the barbarian tribes. Her coloring, like most of them, was dark. She had long black hair and eyes the color of the wheat drink her uncle’s men partook of at feasts.
Though her tone was one of exasperation, her face was not entirely unfriendly.
“You sleep like the dead,” she told Leola. Then she gave two light bangs on the cage with a stick before unlocking it. “I’m to take you to eat and bathe.”
She reached for the leash when Leola climbed out of the cage, struggling to gather a fur to take with her. The tent was warm inside, but she could feel the sharply cold morning air drifting through the flap. And she had no clothing, still.
She had never been completely naked in the presence of anyone but Datharia, and even then, that was only the briefest of glimpses as she changed from one garment to the next.
Her cheeks turned red and she clutched at the fur.
The woman gave her a look up and down, and then a smile that almost seemed friendly.
“I’ve heard of your Southern ways,” she said in a heavy Northern accent. “I am Dorva. Come.” She waved her hand in a strange gesture that in Leola’s part of the world would have been used to shoo away a fly.
Leola stepped from side to side uncertainly. “C-come? You want me to follow?” she asked, hesitant.
Dorva made the gesture again. “Come! Eat! Water! Bathing!”
Leola followed, and this seemed to satisfy the woman, who turned, and without pulling, led her by a leash out into the camp.
There were few people awake in the camp, and most were women tending to fires or children. They glanced up at Leola, but seemed disinterested in her, and continued with their business.
She followed the woman through the camp and down an embankment, where a large pot boiled over a fire. There was a strange, large vessel on the ground, made of the hide of some enormous animal, and hollowed out like a bathtub, but the strangest Leola had ever seen. It was half-filled with water.
“Enter,” Dorva told her.
The interior of the vessel was dark brown and ominous. It looked like the mouth of a giant beast, as though it might digest her rather than bathe her. “In there?” she asked.
Dorva smiled, and laughed a little. “In. Into the… pot. I am going to cook you for stew.”
Leola could not stop herself from looking shocked, but Dorva was smiling in such a friendly way that she quickly realized it was a joke. Still… she looked at the ‘pot’ with troubled eyes.
Dorva gestured to it again. “In, in!”
Leola hesitated, and then dipped a toe into the water. It was deliciously warm, so she stepped into the vessel.
Dorva snatched the fur from her. “You wear these in the bathing in your land?” she laughed. She shook her head. “Not here.”
Leola covered her chest with her arms and sat in the vessel. It was odd, but sturdy, and the water enveloped her as she sank into it.
Dorva scooped water from the boiling pot into a bucket, and then dipped her scoop into the tub to mix it. She walked to where Leola’s head was, and pressed on her forehead to tip her head back, without comment.
She poured warm water over Leola’s head, so that it fell through her tresses. She massaged her scalp gently, sending tingles through Leola’s body that were not entirely unlike the feelings that Sedrak sometimes imparted upon her.
Dorva began combing out the thick tresses with her fingers. “So you are my lord’s new pet?” she said. While the description made Leola furrow her brow, Dorva’s tone was still pleasant.
“I suppose I am,” she replied.
“Do you have a name?” Dorva asked.
“Leola. Leola Grace,” she whispered.
“Pretty,” Dorva said, starting to work her way around Leola’s scalp with a brush. “I saw you that first night. At the keep. That was a very brave thing you did, knowing not what would be asked of you.”
