"Well, girl," she asked, "what can you do to make yourself useful?"
Vaneen gave her back stare for stare, saying nothing. Jayn tapped a small foot impatiently. Then she said something to make the men behind her grin.
"Come, come!" she snapped. "Where would you earn your keep—in my kitchen, or in one of the buildings housing our young men?"
Right there, Yorgh decided, was where he would have reached up and struck her, had she been a man and speaking to him. Women, it seemed, were wiser, especially in judging each other.
"Your kitchen," said Vaneen evenly, but Yorgh knew that the day might come when Jayn would regret the affair.
So did the Raydower woman, apparently, for there was a hard look in her eye as she watched the girl led away. Then it softened as she turned to Yorgh.
"Untie him and clean him up, Ueln," she directed. "And get him something to wear in place of that awful rag. You had no need to be so rough with him."
Ueln bit his lip, glaring at the remnants of Yorgh's crimson tunic. He turned on his heel and stalked toward the stairs flanking the entrance.
One of the riders touched Yorgh's elbow, and he followed, seething undecidedly between the twin stings of being called ragged and of having it implied that a man the size of Ueln could have been rough with him.
He was led up one of the two flights of stone stairs which to him were a wonder, and to a small room with a straw-covered wooden bed. Ueln drew his knife and cut the cord on Yorgh's wrist.