“It was… wonderful, milord,” she heard herself say.
“That is, in fact, a lie,” Paul said, neutrally. “But I appreciate the effort.” He patted her on her rump. “Get up. Clean yourself. It will help you feel better. And it will get easier with time. What you do here is of great importance. You are a fine group of potential mothers. Good genes should be perpetuated and here you are protected from harm to you and your children. Understand your importance and it makes the life much more pleasurable.”
“Of course, milord,” Megan bit out. I’m supposed to be thankful for being a well-kept broodmare. Gee.
Paul rolled to his feet and pulled on his clothes than tapped her on the rump again.
“Get up,” he said, not unkindly. “I will give you a few moments to yourself but then you will come out of this room.”
When he had left Megan grabbed one of the pillows and hugged it to her stomach, fighting against tears. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream. She wanted, oh, how she wanted to escape. But neither tears nor screams would do anything. As she lay there, feeling fluids trickling down the inside of her thigh, she had a clear vision of her hands pushing Paul’s head into a bucket. And she realized that the bucket was not filled with water, for all that the liquid was clear.
With that thought, she rolled to her feet, her face hard and her eyes like agate. She walked to the silver basin and carefully washed herself, then, recomposing her features, she donned her “outfit” and walked out the door.
“Marlene, thank you for meeting with me,” Megan said, sweetly.
She was sitting in the dining room by the door to the kitchen when the head cook came in. The cook was a slightly overweight, older woman with piggy eyes buried in her flesh.
“What do you want?” the cook asked, brusquely. “I’ve got work to do.”
“I know, I know; it must be terrible slaving over a hot stove all day,” Megan said. There were enough cooks on the payroll, if they all existed, to do the work three times over. She doubted that the fat old bitch had been near a stove in a year.
“I work for my keep,” the cook snarled. “I don’t make it on my back.”
“Well, we all do what we can.” Megan sighed. “Speaking of doing what we can, I just had a couple of teensy questions. Nothing really.”
“Oh?” Marlene said, suddenly wary.
“I was just looking at this item for meat last week,” Megan said, her brow furrowing in clear perplexity. “You see, based upon what we’ve worked out in the individual diets, there should have been seven kilos of beef used in last Friday’s meal. And it appears that we paid for ten kilos…”
“Well, there’s wastage,” the cook said, huffily. “I mean, we order it on the bone. Bones, gristle cut out, you ladies have to have everything perfect…”
“And I know you make your own noodles, aren’t they delicious? But there’s another ten kilos of flour listed as used. And, by golly, the servings should have only worked out to five kilos. I’m just so perplexed!”
“You had better get unperplexed, missy,” the cook said, nastily. “You have no idea what can end up in your plate.”
“Oh, I rather think I do,” Megan said. “I rather think I do. And anything… untoward would be easy enough for Paul to detect if one of his concubines turned up dead. And he would wonder, wouldn’t he? Let’s just drop the bullshit, okay? I’ve been over the books for the last several months. You’re not just skimming, you’re stealing a council member blind. What do you think his response would be?”
The cook just looked at her, her jaw working in anger.
“Now, let’s be friends, shall we?” Megan said, after a moment to let the cook consider her position. “I see no reason to cut in on your little… peccadilloes.”
“What?” Marlene replied, suspiciously.
“I don’t, frankly, care if you steal that bastard’s shorts,” Megan said, making the point clear. “On the other hand, there are a few things I need. And I see no reason that you can’t get them for me.”
“Oh.”
“If you’re stealing and I catch you out, I’m a hero,” Megan said, smiling sweetly. “On the other hand, if you’re stealing and at the same time slipping me things I need, while I’m covering you up in the books, that makes us… partners.”
“What do you need?” Marlene said, after a moment. “And is this…”
“It’s not going to cut in on your take at all,” Megan assured her. “But you really need to be a bit more discreet. I can point out some areas that are easier, and more profitable, to cover up than others.”
“Okay,” Marlene replied. “What do you need? And how are you going to get it past the Gorgon?”
“I’ll handle Christel,” Megan replied, handing the cook a sheet of paper. “Here’s a list. I’ll also handle the books on those items. We’ll just list most of them as… spice.”
“Christel,” Megan said as she was carefully walking the older woman though the last week’s receipts, “you know what this harem needs that it doesn’t have?”
“Dildos?” Christel said snippily. She had been spending less and less time on the books and liked that state of affairs. But she wasn’t going to entirely trust “the new girl” either.
“No, easier to just get cucumbers from the kitchens,” Megan replied with a chuckle. “No, it needs perfume.”
“Perfume?” Christel said, then smiled. “Yes, as a matter of fact it does. I think Paul would like that.”
“Perfume and cosmetics. I know all the girls are gorgeous, but there’s nothing that a little cosmetics can’t improve upon. The problem is, I talked to Marlene and there aren’t any suppliers available.”
“Paul could probably find one,” Christel said, thoughtfully. “Or just ken it.”
“He probably could,” Megan admitted. “But wouldn’t it be better as a surprise?”
“Yes,” the older woman replied. “But you said there aren’t any suppliers.”
“There aren’t. But the raw materials are available.” Megan pointed out. “In fact, there’s some indication that most early perfumes were invented in harems. Still-rooms used to be common in them.”
“Stills?” Christel said, cautiously. “One of the reasons we only serve a little wine is that I could easily see us all getting to be drunks…”
“A still can be used for much more than making alcohol,” Megan said, shaking her head. “What you do is you get raw materials for the perfume and you distill them down, concentrate them. That’s how you get the concentrated scent. By the time of the Fall they were mostly based on nannites, but this is the old way of doing it.”
“How do you know that?”
“I said I was studying numbers,” Megan replied. “That wasn’t… entirely accurate. What I was studying was chemistry. Early perfume production was part of the history I audited. I can make some simple cologne just from stuff available in the kitchen. But with a few other items, nothing expensive or complicated, I can make some really nice perfume. I think. I know the theory, anyway.”
She looked up and saw the older woman eyeing her warily.
“Look, I’m talking about some rose hips to start, okay?” Megan said, shrugging. “I promise I won’t be making brandy in my spare time. If I do anything out of line you can always zap me, right? There are two spare rooms. All I need is a table, some glassware, a catchment for runoff and some spices. Perfume, scented candles. I can’t sew, but this I can do.”