The next morning I woke from a massive muscle aching.

I sat up. “Aaawwh, my butt!”

“I’m not sure I survive another day like yesterday!” Tilly looked pained while trying to turn around.

“My bum!” Caroline carefully climbed down the ladder.

Milly carefully left the bed. “Let’s get up, and face that monster again!”

Tilly got up and limped to the locker- “At least we should to be able to improve over time.”

“Go ahead when you’re ready!” I proposed. “We follow when we’re done dressing.”

Milly and Tilly nodded.

After they finished dressing, Caroline and I started to get ready for the day as well. Silently we helped each other dressing.

Then we went to the kitchen. Milly and Tilly were already busy preparing the breakfast, their faces looking strained. We joined they fray and tried to get everything ready in time. Since we had some more time than yesterday we managed the preparations nearly unscathed.

We tried to serve the breakfast faster than yesterday. First all went well, but Milly lost the balance of her tray.

Miss Osara dashed out of the kitchen, pulled Milly to her feet by her ear and dragged her into the kitchen.

“Clean up!”

“Yes, Miss Osara!”

We quickly removed the mess on the floor, while we heard loud smacks and cries from the kitchen. Then we continued to serve breakfast. Milly joined us with a teary face. She limped more than before. We each got a beating for not finishing in time after breakfast.

The rest of the morning was mostly harmless, since we had enough times for our chores. We had to fetch a delivery at the door outside with new food. A merchant was there with a cart. Under Miss Osara’s stern gaze we put it partially to the storage and the rest went directly to the kitchen for lunch, mostly.

There was one thing I noticed over the day. Caroline got less beatings than the rest of us. She wasn’t a slave, though. Maybe Miss Osara was more generous with her punishment with us. Bitch!

We tried speed up our tasks. While cutting veggies for the stew, I managed to cut my thumb. I was sent to Miss Tessa, who bandaged the hand and scolded me to be careful with sharp tools.

Well, the accident did cost more time than we got working faster I suppose.

Miss Osara added a few smacks to my butt for being careless.

During dinner Caroline managed to topple a jug while serving which resulted in an extra beating for her.

Finally dinner and the chores afterward were done.

After dinner Miss Tessa finished us off with her training schedule, but we got some time for a bath in the end. Miss Tessa left us alone after a while.

“I come back to tuck you in when it’s time.”

“Yes, Miss Tessa!”

After a while Milly started crying. “She’s cruel! A monster! I want to beat her up really bad! But it would be bad with our plans, right?”

Caroline looked curiously while hugging Milly. “What plans?”

We looked at each other and nodded.

“Well, you know we’re slaves.” I looked at Caroline.

“It’s obvious.”

“We want to be free some day.”

“You want to run away?”

“Even if we would, these marks in conjunction with the ring with three gems Miss Tessa wears, will enable them to track us down easily.” Tilly pointed at her mark.

“On the other hand the could not remove these marks. We were told it would kill us to try it.” Milly rubbed her slave mark,

“That’s awful! How can I help you ?”

“It’s not much a plan. At the moment we will try to learn more about everything and try to keep out of harms way.” I hugged Caroline.

“Would you like to learn to swim?” I looked at Caroline.

“Ah, yes let’s change topic. Walls with ears!” Milly grimaced.

“I never had the chance to learn to swim. But yes. It might be useful.”

“We should wait, until we’re in a better condition at this point though.” I groaned while stretching.

“Tomorrow morning will be worse!” Tilly bit her lower lip.

We nodded.

I swam over to Milly, cautiously pulling her in a hug. “We’re going to tackle this somehow. I don’t have a good idea at the moment. Let’s see what tomorrow will bring.”

“When we’re done learning kitchen stuff we will go elsewhere.” Tilly scowled.

“This could mean everything starts over again. We could only hope our next instructor is a kinder one.” I looked at the others.

After a while Miss Tessa came back. “Bed time!”

“Yes, Miss Tessa!”

We left the pool, and got ready for the night.

The next morning started like the last, and continued just like that after breakfast.

Osara was generously distributing further smacks, obviously enjoying it.

A few minutes after she hit Tilly for walking with a wrong posture, I noticed at the edge of my field of vision that Osara was approaching me from behind.

I slightly turned my head to keep track of her. She pulled her spoon out of her apron’s pocket. While she was swinging the spoon in my direction, I dropped the tray I was carrying while stepping close up to let the spoon swing past me. When I was close enough I turned around, lifting my elbow right on the level of her jaw. There was a cracking sound and the she went down, knocked out cold.

“Lilly! What did you do?”

“I knocked her out.”

I squatted and checked her pulse. I was steady so far. Her face looked not that nice, the jaw looked wrong and there was a tooth on the floor.

Mill ran out of the kitchen.“I get Miss Tessa!”

“What did you do!” Miss Tessa glared at me as she arrived in the kitchen.

“Well, she startled me and then she was on the ground.”

Miss Tessa squatted down beside Osara and checked her.

“Well, she will survive, but she will be out of commission for a while.”

I got another furious glare.

“Continue your tasks! Milly! You’re responsible for the kitchen for the moment!”

“Yes, Miss Tessa! Continue your work!”

Miss Tessa stepped to me, and pulled me up by my ear until I stood on my tiptoes. “You! You’re coming with me!”

“Yes, Miss Tessaaahh!” She pulled me out of the kitchen across the refectory and the small hall into her office.

“You did this on purpose!” Miss Tessa gave me a piercing glare.

“I-I did.” There was no point in lying here. It would just make the punishment harder.

“Do you know, that we have not replacement for Osara in the kitchen at the moment?”

“No, Miss Tessa!”

“I should have expected that this would happen sooner or later!” Miss Tessa shot me another glare.

I blushed.

“Well, for assaulting your superior I’ll have to give you a hard beating.”

“Yes. Miss Tessa.”

“Strip!”

I did as she told me.

“Now put your hands on your knees and put you feet a bit apart”

She corrected my stance a bit and fetched a crop from her pocket.

She hit me mostly on my back, but my butt got some nasty hits as well.

I cried my lungs out. Eventually the beating stopped.

Miss Tessa fixed the corset tightly to my chest. It stung like hell.

It took some time to put the rest of my attire in place. There seemed be no blood as far as I could see.

“Now, go working again!”

“Yes, Miss Tessa.” I limped out of her office and back into the kitchen.

“Lilly! Are you mad?” Milly gave me a furious glare.

“Maybe. Where can I help?”

“We talk later! Maybe I should add a few slaps!” Milly shot me a furious glare.

I did my best to help with the chores, but I was quite slow with every movement hurting. My whole back and butt burned, especially under the corset. Somehow I was still alive at the end of the day.

The day ended, as usual with training. Miss Tessa showed a bit mercy, but she made my life hell nonetheless.

While we were at the pool, Miss Tessa was in a very bad mood.

I got quite a few piercing glares.

“You four will take over the kitchen for now, since the other maids are occupied with their usual tasks. Milly is in charge and will report to me in the evening. Training in the evening will continue, since I think Osara would complain about you if she could.””

“Yes, Miss Tessa.”

“I will wake you in the morning until I sure you wake up on your own. Kitchen needs preparation time, thus you have to get up earlier. We will see how long you need to get everything done. Curfew for today. We see us tomorrow at 4:00.”

We looked at each other. “Yes, Miss Tessa!”

“Explain” Milly gave me piecing glare.

I laid on my stomach on the bed, like the other, too.

“I was just pissed, that she beat us for everything, even the slightest thing..”

“Now your backside is a complete mess! Like I said, I would like to add some smacks, but I can’t!” Milly looked at me frowning.

“I’m still alive. And without that bitch the next days will improve, alt least for you.”

“You’re an idiot! Do you know that?”

“I love you, too. Milly.”

She blushed a bit.

“You! You!” she buried her face in her pillow.

“Let’s wait what tomorrow will bring.” Caroline chimed in from above.

“We should manage without Osara.” Tilly propped her head on her elbow.

“She did not really do anything the last two days.” Milly came out of her hiding.

“I remember everything she told us.” Tilly smiled.

“Let’s get some sleep, tomorrow will tough! Good night!” Milly got herself comfortable.

“Good night!” all replied.

“Lilly.”

“Yes, Milly?”

“Even it this works out. Your still an idiot!”

“Of course I am.”

“Hmmff!”

I tried to get some sleep. It proved to be quite difficult. The next days would be hard.

I was awake as Miss Tessa entered our room through the backdoor.

“Rise and shine!” she exclaimed.

Caroline turned on the lantern and we got ready for the day. Milly started to organize the kitchen duties. We were ready to serve quite a bit ahead of schedule. We were not really faster with the actual serving, but it helped that at least the other three were able to walk without pain.

My day was really bad. I was tired, the beating from yesterday was still hurting me constantly. We survived the day without mayor incidence. Training was still tough, especially with my stinging back and behind.

The next three days were rather boring. Tilly had a good grip on what we had to do and Milly improved the work schedule in general. My back was just itching a bit as we finally laid in bed.

Osara we heard was recovering.

Milly shook her head. “You did it again! And you’re still an idiot.”

“Thank you! My wounds are nearly gone. Without further beatings, they had time to heal. I like that. Even if the run in with Miss Tessa was ... painful.”

“That’s unfair! I still feel my beatings.” Caroline interjected.

“We still have to improve for everything to run smoothly.” Milly looked at the ceiling.

“We do.” I looked Milly in the eyes. “But now we have you to bring structure to our work. We have event a bit time to practice the things we’re bad at.”

We continued to manage the kitchen for the next twenty days. We improved vastly and we had problems anymore to finish everything in time.

While we were laying in the pool Miss Tessa gave us a smug look.

“Tomorrow morning you will move on learning something new.”

“You will be in the kitchen with Osara part of the afternoon.”

“And there will be no more incidents! Is that clear?” Miss Tessa shot me a piercing glare.

“Yes, Miss Tessa!”