She had thought she knew cruelty. From the moment Borkul had dragged himself from the wreckage of the Jaunty Spirit, she had undergone every torture she could imagine (along with several she would never have envisioned had she had all of eternity to think upon it). He had beaten her and raped her and ground her down until she was nothing but a mindless plaything. She had thought him cruel, then and after. But the truth was, he had not been.

Evil, certainly. It would not be possible to subject another to the tortures he had inflicted upon her and still be considered “good,” no matter how subjective the phrase might be considered. Heartless, absolutely. Selfish? To the core. His only thought had been his own survival and well-being.

But cruel? Not at all. He had beaten her, but only after he had warned her that her actions would lead to that result. He had raped her, but not out of malice or even power. He had simply felt lustful and had used her to sate his lust. He had, in short, been a remarkably honest and straight-forward master who never hurt his property without what he considered good cause. Looked at from the perspective of anyone but the actual slave, he had been a good and fair master who treated his slave as well as could be reasonably expected. Until the beating at the end, but even that had had a logic behind it. Had it not been for the extraordinarily violent turn her nights at the inns had become, she would have considered herself about as lucky a slave as existed.

This was a revelation determined in retrospect. She had not known how lucky she had been until it was gone. Now…now she knew.

Her new master was truly cruel. He soft eyes and voice hid a seething streak of malice that bubbled up and out without warning, at any time of day or night. Aithne got her first taste almost immediately after leaving the slave market.

He had said they would get her clothing, and so they did – if a full harness of chains that covered the body and linked wrists and ankles together, limiting the motion of both, could be considered clothing. The “crowning piece of the ensemble,” as he put it, was, ironically, placed at the opposite end of where crowns normally go.

They were shoes, but again with a caveat – they were high-heeled and made of iron. While heels had been around for nearly a decade, after being introduced at some Cyrodillan Duchess’ birthday, Aithne had never had cause to wear them. It would have been difficult to imagine a shoe style less suited to life on the ocean. But imagine it, someone had, because these particular heels locked around her ankles and the front of her foot, leaving most of her soles and every bit of both her heels suspended above needle-sharp spikes that jutted out from the bottom of the shoes. She could not take her weight off the balls of her feet for even a fraction of an instant without receiving a painful jab. It did not take long for her to start a trail of bloody drops.

His cruelty did not end at her outfit. He carried a small knife and delighted in pulling it out and cutting her with no apparent forethought or reason. Just a quick slice, on her arm, her face, her stomach. The first time she cried out, he grabbed her face, stared at her with crazed eyes, brought the knife up, and whispered, “No! You will not make a sound! Ever! Or I’ll start cutting pieces off of you. Starting with an eye. Only warning.”

It took everything she had not to inadvertently call his bluff (though she was certain it was not one) right there and then. She swallowed the encroaching whimper and nodded her understanding.

So it was, when the next morning dawned (after she slept on the stone floor of his inn room, not just a little surprised that he had shown no inclination for sex), she followed him out of the gates of Markarth to where several more people dressed just like him were gathered around a stern woman in shining silver plate armor. The warrior glanced up as they approached and rolled her eyes.

“Another one, Sutfu? You know we don’t have time for your games.”

“Don’t worry,” her master replied in his soft, kind-sounding voice. “This one is pre-trained. I’m sure she’ll last longer than the others. Look!” Then, to Aithne, “Turn around, show them your back.”

She turned as quickly as her new footwear would allow and heard gasps and murmurs.

“You did all that to her already?!” The armored woman’s voice again, this time clearly aghast.

Her master laughed. “No, of course not! Look, this is all old, healed stuff. Well, except the brand.” A sudden slap on her still-sore ass made Aithne jump and she just managed to bite her tongue before she could yelp. “That’s what I’m saying – someone already did the hard part for me. This one already knows what to do. Look!”

This time it was a sharp cut across her other ass, with his knife, she assumed. She ground her teeth together and made no other sound.

“Impressive. You had already removed an ear and three fingers before the last one managed that kind of restraint.”

“Exactly! I am so excited about this one!”

A sigh. “You are a sick man, Sutfu. Let’s get going. We’re already running behind.”

A tug on her harness was all the command Aithne received, but she understood. She turned and tiptoed after her master and the rest of the group down the sloping road, away from Markarth and toward the surrounding mountains.

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