The next day was hell. Suvdin ran me through every chore, task and skill in the entire camp, or so it felt like. Exhausted, thoroughly defeated, wanting to cry, I returned to the tent I shared with Batu just past sundown.
"What did you learn?" he asked from his position sharpening his arrowheads near the fire. He didn't look up, but this time, I knew he was laughing at me.
Biting back tears, I flung my over tunic down. I was drenched and still smelled of sheep urine, goat blood, leather tanning oil … and everything else I'd gone through this day. "I can't do anything," I said, voice quivering. "The animals hate me. I threw up when I tried to skin a rabbit and the wool spinning made me sneeze until I couldn't stand up. I can't shoot a bow or heft a sword or …" I started crying out of frustration. Swallowing the tears, I continued. "I can't carve wood to save my life or track prey or figure out how to carry those water buckets on my shoulder. Batu, I can't even put up a tent!"
He was laughing.
Struggling for my composure, I took a deep breath and wiped my face. I had reopened the wound on my bad hand and sat down to change the bandage. "I even messed up bandaging the injured warriors," I added.
Batu was laughing harder than I'd ever seen him.
"Would you stop?" I snapped and flung a wad of linen at him. "Someone told you I failed at everything, didn't they?"
He wiped tears from his eyes and settled, though his grin was huge. "Yes. The children were eager to share."
"The whole camp knows I'm useless!" I said miserably. I dropped onto my back and sighed. It felt good after my arduous day. "I could be a whore. That's the one thing I didn't try."
"That you cannot do," he agreed, still far too amused.
"If it's all I'm good for, then I can."
"A goddess does not whore."
"How do you know? Have you met any other goddesses?"
"No other goddess has a guardian who will put a sword through any man who gets too close." He laughed again.
I've seen him do that already. My eyes closed and I relaxed onto the ground. At least the day was over. If nothing else, I had made the people of the encampment laugh with my clumsy attempts to take on their everyday chores. If not for my language skills, I'd volunteer to let them trample me with horses, which was supposedly an honorable way to punish someone deserving of death.