" I mellowed when he looked at me with those big eyes. Maybe he was just enjoying the new scent I was wearing and hadn't meant to startle me after all..."All right, I forgive you," I told him, smiling to show I wasn't mad.Brute looked at me and took a step in my direction with his tongue sliding out of the side of his mouth in the doggy version of a smile. Then he stopped and looked back at the bowls of fresh food and water."Come on," I said, "Make up your mind. Eat or play."Brute looked back and. He dropped hisdagger and screamed, listening to his voice raising higher and higher inpitch. His tight thief's garb was suddenly painfully tight around hischest and hips and baggy elsewhere. He heard it tearing as he felt atickling about his ears. He face suddenly felt like someone had laidtheir hand on it and was squeezing hard.Then suddenly it stopped and there was silence. Corvan blinked and sawTorom smiling down at him. His eyes plain. His arm was extended to helpCorvan up.Corvan grabbed. " You did not fight fair," the man said, spraying my face with his spittle."Call her," I yelled to the girl, ignoring the fop in front of me.He had me unchained and led to the young blonde. "Go on," he sneered at me, "horse her. She's all yours."Her lips trembled as she looked up at me. "Did you call her?" I asked, reaching out to brush back her thread-fine hair. She nodded, and a mature woman in a purple dress appeared at my elbow. She glanced at me, flinched, and said," She's one of my. Three members of the kitchen crew hard at work preparing breakfast were the only other people up and about in the hour before sunrise. We owned the empty showers and had them to ourselves.We dried each other after our morning scrub, and Sheila suggested, “Let’s head down to the kitchen and score some hot coffee.”The custom of indoor nudity might make more sense if we were born kangaroos with built-in pockets. I stopped by my room to make up for my genetic deficiency, put an unbuttoned flannel.