The cook smiles at Tanidio, his very best friend in the whole world, whom he can trust with the secret of which of the grain stores have made their way into his stomach. (He had had meat this week. No camp follower had had meat in over a year. His friend would be so happy for him!)

Tanidio dismisses the Charm Person. 

The cook's face transitions from simple trust to a realization of exactly how fucked he is. 

No one can afford healing for the camp followers, and if you execute them you'd have to pay for new ones. 

Tanidio dismisses the Hold Person and dumps the porridge out on the dirt in front of the cook. 

The cook's face fills with the thoughtless horror at wasting food of a very hungry man. 

"Eat it."

The cook stares at him stupidly. 

Tanidio spreads the porridge flat on the dirt with the tip of his boot. 

"You're hungry, aren't you? I'm giving you food. Eat it."

The cook stands up to move towards the food--

Tanidio stops him with the wave of a hand. 

"Crawl."

The cook drops to hands and knees and crawls. He licks at the dirt-encrusted porridge like a dog. 

"Don't use your hands. I want to see you getting in there nice and good."

The cook nods frantically and licks. An ant crawls across his tongue; he swallows it. 

"I pissed in it."

The cook visibly hesitates.

"I didn't tell you to stop."

The cook licks with desperate zeal, although he can't stop himself from gagging, partially from the now-obvious taste of piss and partially because he had licked up enough that he was getting closer to the dirt. 

Tanidio walks over and puts the heel of his boot into the cook's back, pressing his stomach flat against the ground. He grinds it in. 

"You know what the worst part of this is?"

"No, sir."

"Don't stop licking. --I can forgive eating a little meat. We all want meat when we're not supposed to have it. But I am busy. There is a war. I take no pleasure from doing this." He presses his boot harder into the man's back. 

The man makes a pained noise.

"But if supplies are going missing, that might be something important. It might be Lastwall or Mendev or someone from the River Kingdoms, and what are they going to do with the hole in our security next time? They could poison us, or worse. And so when you steal food-- I didn't tell you to stop licking-- that means that I have to investigate. And that means that I have to take time away from dealing with actual real problems, not least the demons continually bursting through the Worldwound to kill us all, because you can't exercise some basic Abyss-damned self-control."

The man whimpers.

"You're pathetic and you disgust me. Stand up."

The man scrambles to his feet.

Tanidio takes a sign from his bag and ties it around the man's neck. The sign says FOOD THIEF.

"Wear this constantly for the next week."

"Yes, sir."

"If you don't have enough food, then I suppose we'll have to conserve our food more carefully, won't we. Save some for the future. Half-rations for all the camp followers tonight, and quarter-rations for you for the next month."

The cook's eyes widen in microscopic horror. "Yes, sir."

"You should thank me. You know what the penalties are in the cities for thieves? Thank me for sparing your miserable life."

The cook drops to his knees. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for your mercy, thank you for your generosity, I have done nothing to deserve it" and so on and so forth. He starts to kiss Tanidio's shoes. 

Tanidio kicks him. 

"Next time it's going to be a brand." 

The cook says a variety of incoherent apologies and reassurances that he will never do it again. 

Tanidio heads to the Security offices and makes a note of the cook's punishments. He'll have to be under more close Detect Thoughts surveillance, and of course confined to camp. After punishment is a likely time for defections.

Tanidio sighs. 

He has a lot of work to do. The cook's theft has thrown everything behind schedule. There are new Security wizards to train, watch shifts to take, spells to study, and of course he has his turn actually fighting at the Worldwound itself tomorrow. And paperwork. So much paperwork. Tanidio wishes he had broken the cook's finger, just to punish him for all the paperwork he had created, although of course breaking someone's finger itself leads to more paperwork. 

But he in fact has nothing else he has to do for the rest of today, and he has hung an extra Charm Person, and he really really wants a break. He will regret it tomorrow. Sometimes he wants to do things he will regret tomorrow.

He goes to his girlfriend's tent and casts Charm Person before he speaks. 

Ester was born a member of the yeoman class. In the first days of Infernal Cheliax, it was the lowest-ranking rural class permitted to wear silver buttons, and even today, when everyone can wear what they can afford, the silver buttons were a mark of their status. Her family had fallen on hard times and could no longer afford silver. For a while they had managed, skipping meals and taking in extra work, but even after her younger brother had died there was just never enough to go around, especially after her older sister was to be married and of course they had to have a more lavish party than the fucking Bartras. It wouldn't do to make people think they were poor.

Ester had not been sold. A yeoman was not sold. Her parents received an enlistment bonus for her, and she had to obey her superiors, and she was not permitted to write them letters; she was not a slave.

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes, sir."

Ester knew, of course, that she had never spent time with Tanidio when he hadn't cast a Charm Person on her. But she knew he cared for her. He was sweet and gentle and kind. He wasn't certain of her feelings, and thought they had to be reinforced with magic, but if she was tender and devoted to him then soon he would realize how much she loved him. 

He'd never said that they were going to be married, but she knew they would be as soon as she saw him, especially if she told him about the secret growing in her belly. 

He gestures at a random camp follower. Figuring out who served food was not his problem. "Two full meals."

(All meals were strictly accounted for, to prevent theft, and there was no slack to give a camp follower a full meal. That was also not his problem.)

Tanidio was so generous! He really loved her. 

They were silent on the way to his tent; Ester knew that Tanidio didn't like to tell people how they felt about each other. 

The food arrived quickly enough. Tanidio ate with one hand and did paperwork with the other hand. 

Ester stared at him with absolute adoration. He was so beautiful, and kind, and unlike anyone else in Cheliax...

She loved him enough that she almost forgot to eat her meat. Almost. 

When he is finished, he draws her to her feet and kisses her lips. "Let's go to bed."

Everyone has their own interest in exactly how they have power over those they fuck. Tanidio has never been one for simply commanding a woman into his bed, or holding her down and forcing her, and he tried using Hold Person for sexual purposes once and he couldn't keep it up looking at an unmoving woman. He liked Charm Person. He liked his girls sweet and affectionate and trusting and vulnerable, the kind that would beg for him to hurt them because they thought he only had their best interests at heart. He liked it when his girlfriends faked orgasms, because they thought he cared. 

When they have sex, Ester stares at the ceiling and tries to recite as many hymns as she can remember; she moans and whimpers and twists her face up in feigned pleasure. Her cunt hurts, not the tearing pain she gets with some other men, but a dull ache all the same. Before the sex part, she felt almost a ghost of pleasure. 

(When they are married and in bed together, she can chase that ghost, and it will be wonderful.)

Finally he finishes and begins to put on his clothes. He wants to spend more time with her-- she has a wicked sense of humor he quite likes-- but he can't justify it. Later. Next week. If everyone manages to keep from committing treason for one week he'll finally be caught up on his work and then he can spend an entire evening with Ester, if he likes. 

There isn't going to be a better time--

"I'm pregnant."

He continues to pull his shirt over his head. "I don't see what that has to do with me."

"It's yours."

"Then go to Inquisitor Chrisor and tell him and you'll get a bonus and a ticket home. You don't need me for that."

"I thought maybe you would want to--" That isn't the joy she was expecting. He isn't kissing her belly and smiling up at her and talking about the splendid life they'll have together. 

He dismisses the Charm Person. 

And it all comes in, all in a rush, everything that doesn't seem real when he's with her--

Ester should be grateful that he chose her. All the other female camp followers agree, the ones young enough that wizards like them. He's beautiful. He doesn't like hurting women. He doesn't care what she gets up to when he's not there. He wants it to be good for her, or why else would he do the Charm Person. He feeds her every time they're together; he feeds her meat.

They're jealous, the other camp followers. She knows they spit in her food. She knows that not all the times they trip her are accidental. 

She wouldn't have wanted him without the spell, but she doesn't get a choice anyway, and it is kind of him to give her the facsimile of being wanted. 

Even if it meant that that she-- she-- opened up to him-- she thought that he would-- and she said to him-- 

Her cheeks flush red with humiliation. 

"If you decide to keep it I'll give you the bonus I'll get. I'm a career Worldwound soldier, I don't need money. And it doesn't do any good for Asmodeus if you have a kid who might be a wizard and then they go hungry and can't concentrate in class."

It occurs to him that the kid might not be his. But it might be, he's fucked her enough, and if it's someone else's they'll keep the bonus, because as Chrisor says everyone is incompetent and no one serves Our Lord with their full heart and they are all going to be burned away in the purifying fires of Hell. 

(There is a thought about his dad that he's shut down before it emerges into full consciousness.) 

"Thank you, sir."

She should be grateful. She is grateful. She wants to vomit. 

"Is there anything else you want or can I get back to work?"

"No, sir." She doesn't want to bother him. 

"I'll tell the kitchens they should give you wizard rations until you leave. Pregnant women need food."

"Thank you, sir."

She doesn't know how she'd keep the food down. 

The sex did not improve his mood nearly as much as it should. 

He doesn't want to torture people. Torture is not magic, and he wants to spend his time doing magic. When Chrisor is this pissed off at the incompetence of the world, he punishes the nearest incompetent, but since the problem is that incompetent people keep making him torture them, this is not actually a viable solution. 

Instead he studies topology with unusual viciousness until it is time to go to bed.