Cam had to take a moment to breathe deeply before stepping outside. He had let himself hope that his latest biggest problem would sort itself out, that a few weeks of instruction would somehow snap the sole male resident's cocky self-assuredness and pave a way for rehabilitation. That was a foolish dream. Othello's instructors had come to Cam to complain about having to work with him almost daily. Most instructors were women, and they weren't accustomed to having to be on guard against a man who could overpower them and who seemed to have the resilience of a piece of dried manure. Nothing affected him, they complained. The lessons they'd use for female residents were too easy, but the new plans they'd devised seemed to entertain the brute rather than challenging him. No one wanted to try taking a switch to him for fear that he'd snap like a bear taunted in a cage.


Having put off visiting the man himself for an extra few weeks, Cam had finally not been able to come up with a good excuse to not oversee the instruction himself. So here he was, steeling himself on his own property before he could walk out into his own yard to talk to the worst "guest" he'd ever had to host.

There were more guards than usual stationed outside, but they weren't obviously watching Othello. They milled around the area, lingering at the walls and standing close enough to come running without seeming to hover. Cam had only one guard at his side, and he sauntered out to the pole with his hands clasped behind his back as if he were simply out for a leisurely stroll in a garden.

Normally the pole was used to tie women for whippings. Cam was a little impressed at the ingenuity of the instructor, though he could see from her clenched jaw and red face that she was being tested by the man who balanced on top of the pole at least as much as he was. He wasn't noticeably thinner, though he seemed lean and hollowed out, skin taut over muscle and bone. But there was no sense of suffering to the man, no air of building desperation that Cam had hoped to see. He gritted his own teeth and forced himself closer.

"Good day, Sir Othello," Cam called up, stopping about ten feet away from the pole. "I trust your time at the Beldam has been a period of self-reflection and spiritual growth?"

Cam allowed himself a brief smirk, his confidence boosted by the fact that the man on the pole seemed very focused on staying up there, which meant he wasn't likely to jump down and try to kill Cam.

"Yes, we do live and die," he called up, still using the patronizing instructive tone. "And we have only ourselves to blame for how that life or death plays out. Are you perhaps reconsidering how you've used your life and how you might want the rest of it to go?"

He wasn't quite brave enough to keep talking about death with the killer on the pole.

Once again, Cam found himself flustered, unsure of how to respond. This man didn't act like anyone he knew how to deal with. Other nobles abided by a strict code of propriety and doublespeak, and women were always lying. He only ever issued commands to his guards or dealt with subservient men who worked for him. This strange magic-wielding monster had obediently submitted to the weeks of mistreatment and yet seemed to genuinely harbor no ill-will or resentment.

Unless he was actually a superior liar and hiding a vendetta? Could he actually mean to apologize? Or . . .

Had Cam finally done the impossible and rehabilitated a witch--even a male one? He imagined himself standing beside this frightening brute before the king, two servants of the crown valued and respected by all at court, the king's gratitude and the social acclaim of his achievement . . .

"You show unprecedented wisdom," Cam said, trying to sound wise and paternal. "Perhaps you have indeed learned your place and how best to interact with your betters. There is hope for you. Perhaps . . . yes, I will inquire with the court as to the terms of your release to society. After all, a servant who can act for the good of his keepers is better than one left broken on the shelf."

His mind whirled with possibilities for his own advancement. He looked at the woman running the instruction session, who was looking uncertainly between Cam and Othello. She'd been planning to keep him up there until he collapsed, Cam knew.

"Put him in his cell at sundown," he said, loud enough for Othello to hear the merciful end goal. "I think he'll be ready to break his fast tonight as well. Give him a full meal." That meant a child-sized portion of dry bread and gruel made with the memory of meat, but still.

Cam had still been daydreaming about the possibilities of fame and adulation that rehabilitating the Champion would bring, the royal dinners and admiring glances, maybe even supplicating nobles from other houses who saw him as a means to social advancement. Othello's voice pulled him back again, and his eyes narrowed with irritation and the first hint of uncertainty at his words. It wasn't that he'd never heard a proclamation like that from a resident, but to hear it from someone who had yet to try fighting back, who had yet to scream and snivel during instruction . . . could the Champion of Nevermere be so easily broken?

But, of course, it could come back to that fundamental difference between this brute and every other guest at the Beldam: he was a man, inclined to reason and integrity and intellectual fortitude. Perhaps this was the proof of why only women needed to be held here. A man could be told what was needed of him and adapt. Only women needed sense beaten into them.

Cam smiled, trying to hide his unease.

"Of course," he said. If Othello had been in reach, he might have offered the man a handshake. "Perhaps all you really needed was a vacation of sorts, time to reflect and ponder the course of your life."

The woman running Othello's instruction turned an incredulous stare from the man on the pole to the director, her gaze returning to Othello with anger. She would obey the director's instructions, but she was going to go out of her way to make sure this man still had an opportunity to suffer.

Cam didn't notice. His mother was hosting a dinner party in the next week, and he needed to make sure a certain military leader got an invitation. He started to leave, then stopped and turned back as another thought struck him.

"Tell me, in your duties as Champion, did you do much teaching of martial arts? Swordplay and the like?" Perhaps there was a better way to utilize the man's time than with womanly instructional activities.