"Sir," she'd said, 'we leave this room together or not at all. I have never had an ordeal yet I could not get through with brandy, and the maid is in far worse a state than I. Let Mr. Dennett stay with her, and give her pills and potions until they pop out of her ears for all I care, and use her body in the way men do if that's his bent. You shall not, sir, or I swear I'll kill you. Just let him call us if she dies is all, so that he may pull her teeth then and seal them in my gums. If she recovers it shall be done tomorrow, I will not wait another day. And now, sir go to bed."
Deborah, who knew a strong woman when she met one, knew also that the justice could not win, be his power never so great in theory. He was a horrible man, who looked very cruel and evil, and she took some strange comfort from that fact. The fight would go on until it reached an end, and all the time it did she had her teeth. She might run, she had proved good at getting out of scrapes by grabbing chances in her time, or something else might happen. She had a thought, a fleeting thought, of a young man on a charger. Last time she had been in these parts William had come, the knight in shining armour. She did not think this time he'd come again.
In the end, with great bad grace, Chester Wimbarton bowed to the storm and took his canvas in. He threw a look back into the room, Deb noted through her lids, that told Dennett to keep her well and safe, and distinctly unmolested. The mountebank, who had always exercised great caution in that field with her, on the grounds that maids with child were little use to him after four months or so and precautions however keenly made could not be trusted, appeared to be in two minds whether to change his tack this time alone. Quite clearly she was bound to die in short order, or otherwise be concubine to the justice and therefore prone to falling pregnant, no blame attached to Marcus Dennett. He stood in front of her for some short while, then sprang his club out from his breeches' slit. So Deborah miraculously! came back to consciousness, and made it clear she'd scream the household and the master instantly back around his ears if he so much as put a hand on her. To Dennett, discretion had always been the better part of lust, he made his living at it, so he put his prick away for later. He smiled rather friendly, and sat down on the bedside for a conversation, but Deb would not respond, only groaned and wriggled in discomfort, and put her back to him. Two difficult and most stubborn women in one night, the mountebank considered darkly. Then took himself to his pallet in the corner with his dreams.
Next morning when she woke, Deborah felt herself all over and decided she would live. Her face all down one side was swollen, her right eye almost closed, and her whole head was tender to each probing finger. On her body, which Dennett must have covered with a blanket while she slept, there were areas of scrape and bruise, both hands were stiff and full of aches, while one knee would bend only by a gritting of the teeth. The teeth. She clicked them together, almost ground them, somehow to reassure herself. They are there, they are mine, please God I do not lose them. She thought of God a little while. Teeth were so important, the most basic of necessity especially for every woman, yet they were prone to rot, and damage, and disaster and He had willed it so. Why? She decided swiftly that she was bordering on blasphemy, so thought of her bowels and her bladder instead, both of which were full. She tried a groan or two she must keep up her one defensive line and Dennett was instantly awake. No use of privies in the outer world, as they were bolted in, so he showed her through a doorway to a cupboard-room, then made her use the leathern bucket after him, so he'd not have to bear her morning smells. She bore his own with stoicism, then washed with a pail of water that was there, unsurprised that Dennett had not bothered.
When she returned his club was out again, and the sly smile was back upon his face, the foxy grin she'd grown to know and hate in the months since she and Cecily had sadly lighted on him. It was a small and ugly one, to her, but when she'd used that line to deflate his drunken lust once in the past, she'd got a beating for it. This time she eyed it in an almost friendly way, as if it were sad she'd have to turn him down. She did not think it likely under any circumstance, but there just might come a time she'd need his aid.
"Oh Mr. Dennett, is there no end to men's desire? My face is like I'd fallen off a horse and then he'd kicked me!"
"But I won't be looking at your face. Quickly, girl, just pull your shift up and lie back. I will not be long."
A tired jest rose in her mind but she did not express it. Dennett with his pocky face and dirty hands and filthy lust revolted her. She wondered why she bothered, but she did. If not him now, Wimbarton soon, or possibly no teeth and welcome lepers for a short, unhappy life. But she saw him there and bothered, horribly.
"No sir," she said, incisively. Then tried to soften it. "Please, Mr. Dennett, think of your own safety. It is breakfast time and everyone is abroad. The master warned you, I saw his look to kill. And Milady is watching like a hawk. Put it away, sir, before somebody enters."
Dennett had it in his hand and it was very eager, but he appreciated sense. He squeezed it, hard, as if to teach it manners, letting out a small, regretful noise.
"Hah, Deb," he said. "You have a brain as well as beauty. I know you're right but I would love to have you, just the once for old times' sake. If you refuse me, and I take your teeth out, I might hurt you worse, you know."
His small eyes glittered, despite the amicality she'd engendered, and she knew he might, that he was capable. Then they heard a noise on the stair outside, and he cursed, and pushed it out of sight, and she breathed a little breath out, of relief. It was Fiske, with bread and milk and cheese, and he eyed them curiously, but said little except to comment on the weather and tell the mountebank the master wished a word with him when he had eaten.
While Dennett was away for half an hour, Deb explored her dungeon with increasing gloom. Three small airing windows high enough for bats and owls but too high for her, nothing in the privy cupboard, rough walls of enormous thickness, a robust wooden door. There was a table big enough to lie her and missus on side by side if need be, and if the thing was to be done here she could not imagine how she might escape. Her only chance had been the master's lust, when it came down to tacks. But the mistress, quite definitely, had worked that one out herself. And foreclosed on it.
Marcus Dennett, though, was very thoughtful on his return. Fiske closed the door on them and bolted it as usual, but the mountebank no longer looked on her with lustful eyes. He sat on a chair indifferently, so Deb, who had been standing, perched on the bed, it being comfortable at least. He did not speak for such a long time that it was she who felt the need to break the ice.
"Well? Is he set to dig them out yet? Or has Milady cut his cock off with a saw?"
For moments longer he did not reply. He hissed air out quietly through his nostrils at her humour, but he was still thinking. When he spoke his tone was tentative.
"You're sharp, our Deb, you're passing sharp," he said. "What he'd like to do is get you on your back, as any man with red blood would. If he did, and if you played your hand right, you could marry him, I reckon, with him a magistrate and that. It seems to me most like that's how he got the first Milady, who is young enough to be his daughter after all. His trouble is and yours -she fell in love with him, and he with her, he told her, so Fiske says. So any settlement of the hole and corner kind is definitely not possible, because she'd kill you like a bug. Which leaves ..."