Chapter 5: The Price of a Slap

Nobody moved in the officers' room.

The Commander stood with one hand against his cheek.

A red mark rose on his face, though no one had touched it.

Then I realized it was my cheek he was holding.

The slap had landed on me, and he had felt it.

"Aldric?" Sabine said.

She had gone white.

"What is it?"

"You struck her."

"She's a hauler. She's a thief with a knife."

"You struck her," he said again.

His voice had dropped so low that the fire seemed to quiet.

Marshal Crane put down his fork with care.

"Commander. Sit."

"No."

The Marshal looked at him for a long moment.

In that look I saw something that frightened me far more than the slap.

It was not anger.

It was calculation, the way a farmer looks at a horse that has suddenly shied.

"As you wish," said the Marshal. "Sabine, apologize."

"Uncle!"

"Apologize to the hauler."

Sabine's lips pressed into a line so thin it vanished.

"I am sorry," she said, to the air above my head.

"Not good enough," I said.

I stood.

My cheek throbbed, and so, I realized, did his.

"I'd like it said to my face, in front of everyone."

"I'd also like my forty crowns a wagon."

"And I'd like my mules let out of the stable where somebody locked them."

"Someone locked your mules?" said the Commander.

"Biscuit's been kicking the door for four hours."

A short silence followed.

Then, from the far end of the table, a young lieutenant laughed.

He caught himself, went red, and coughed into his sleeve.

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