Page 20 of Rise of a Fallen Man

She stepped around me, assessing me with her stare.

I was wearing long linen pants and knee-high boots made from a soft, thin leader held up by a rope zigzagging up my calves. Instead of a shirt, a pair of wide leather belts crisscrossed my chest, with two metal buckles on my shoulders that were used to hold the bearskin.

Lerrel splayed her fingers on my right bicep.

“Flex,” she ordered.

I raised my forearm, straining the muscles. She added the second hand but barely made it half-way around my upper arm with both hands.

“Well, shit.” She gaped at me. “Huge like a mountain and hard like a rock.”

Taking a step back, she stared at my chest for a few seconds, then slid her gaze down to my abdomen. Without a warning, she poked her finger in my belly. I jerked, my muscles flexing instinctively.

She traced a square of an abdominal muscle, muttering, “A bit too lean, but that’s to be expected, considering what you did before. No worries, we’ll put some bulk on you yet.” She walked around me. “What exactly did you do as a slave?” I turned to face her again, but she twirled a finger in the air, signaling me to spin around. “I need to see your back.”

As requested, I presented her with the view of my back again.

“Is that from the flogging you got for that fight Lady Gem mentioned?” She traced a scar on my back.

“Yes.”

“It’s healed well,” she commented matter-of-factly. “So, what else did you do, other than fight?”

“I helped fix the castle walls with the others,” I said over my shoulder. “And before that, I helped lay the garden paths. And before that—”

“How exactly did you help, Raeb?”

“I carried rocks and bricks, brought gravel in a wheelbarrow. That kind of things.”

“I see.”

I felt the press of her fingers on either side of my spine.

“What did they feed you to keep you working?” she asked.

“Mostly, a potato stew or boiled barley, with other grains sometimes.”

“Really? How long were you a slave?”

“Long enough,” I replied evasively, afraid to give her the exact number, lest she dig deeper into my past.

“How long?” she insisted. “Months? Years?”

“Years. Many years. Almost three contracts’ worth.”

“Hmm. And all those years, you ate mostly barley and potato stew?”

“Pretty much.”

She poked and prodded down my spine then around my lower back, sliding the tips of her fingers under the waistband of my pants.

I tensed my shoulders but didn’t stop her. Lerrel’s attention, though uncomfortable, didn’t feel sexual or suggestive. She inspected me the way a farmer would inspect a horse that she considered buying. Some men might still find it offensive, but I’d been through similar assessments a few times already, when signing the slave contracts.

“Have you ever had any back pain?” she asked.

“No. Not yet.”

“You’re lucky.” She completed her walk-around and stopped in front of me again, tapping her chin with her finger. “Maybe I should cut down on meat for my boys here too? Switch to barley and potatoes instead?”

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