The next visitor day didn't go quite as smoothly for Audrey. One of the people there seemed to instantly take a dislike to her, for some reason. Audrey stopped her from picking up a chicken via its legs and showed her how to do it properly. The woman simply scoffed and moved away, not bothering to hold the chicken Audrey now held out to her. She didn't think anything more about it, until it was nighttime, and the visitors could choose a theow to have in their bedchamber. Audrey always dreaded this part and had hoped she would never have to do it. Last time, few of the visitors had wanted it, and none of them had wanted her, who now constantly smelled like animals. There was only so much she could do about that, with only cold water to clean herself. But then she saw the woman from earlier in the day staring daggers at her. She was going to choose her and make her pay for whatever she thought Audrey had done to her. Audrey was led up to the bedroom the woman had been given and chained to the wall, though she was still able to reach the whole room. Audrey thought that she would be in for a rough night, and she was correct.
The woman seemed to thoroughly enjoy ordering Audrey to do a myriad of smaller things she could have easily done herself, like helping her out of her dress, stoking the fire, washing her with the small cloth provided, or making the bed. The only time she removed the chain was when she sent Audrey to fetch a warm bedpan. Why she wanted that, Audrey didn't know, as it was not a cold night, and the fire was already blazing. Maybe she did it just because she could. When she returned, she was at once sent back to the kitchen for more water. After three trips up and down the stairs to the room, the woman was out of things she could conceivably need but made sure to reattach her to the chain on the wall, before asking her to clean her back. When the woman was finally satisfied, and got to bed, she made Audrey stay in the cage under her bed, yet she kept the chain to the wall. That wasn't necessary, as she had already made sure to lock the cage under the bed, but it seemed the woman enjoyed the sight of it. She hung the key to the cage on the same peg as the chain, just to enjoy the sight of her power over another person. Audrey didn't protest. She was used to sleeping in a cage, the chain was long enough that it wasn't tight, and she suspected the woman wanted to hear her protest or beg to be let out. She didn't know that this was quite normal for Audrey. And she never would find out, as the Lady hadn't selected her as the loser in the stretch-neck game.
In the morning, the woman "forgot" to release Audrey from her cage. But for Audrey, that just meant that she didn't have to start working until after another theow came and opened the cage for her. Confining spaces didn't bother her anymore. The woman claimed Audrey had done a poor job, but luckily, the Lady didn't punish her for it. She said the extra time confined was punishment enough. Audrey suspected that they had heard most of what had happened in the room, as they claimed to know if any of the visitors did something forbidden.
When Audrey was finally released, she hurried over to the animal pens. She was relieved to see that someone else had taken care of feeding them in her absence.
The wall was already up, but she didn't get a chance to see who was behind it until the visitors had left. As she had suspected, it was not the woman she had served the night before. But it was two people. A man and a woman. Were they together, or had one of them done something wrong? The man was the one who had lost the stretch-neck game the night before. Both had already been drenched in wash-water. The Lady was delighted when she saw both of them, though she hid it with feigned confusion at first.
"What is this? I thought it was only him that had been singled out for service?"
"She didn't want to leave without him," Morcefres explained. He was barely able to hold back a smirk as well.
"I see. Well, we will always have room for more people. Let her stay then."
Their gags had been removed as the Lady spoke. The woman seemed close to tears; the man was angry.
"What do you think you are doing? You have no right to keep us restrained like this, let us out this instant."
"Please, let us out. We haven't done anything wrong," the woman pleaded. The Lady smiled her wicked smile as she looked at both of them. She addressed the woman first.
"You chose to remain behind with your boyfriend, that is what you will do. I am sure we can find some use for you as well." Then she turned to the man.
"I told you; you were the unfortunate one. I can often tell, from a glance, if a person will be useful for me. Your application intrigued me, you have many skills we could use in our group. You will be our newest theow and later be allowed to help us with the making of cloth and vellum. That is something we desperately need. You are lucky, most of the others had no one else here they knew, but you get to keep your girl with you. I suggest you teach her your skills well."
"NO! You let her go! Do whatever you must to me but let her go!" the man shouted with despair. "I'll do whatever you want, but please, let her go!"
"I'm afraid it is too late for that. She has made her choice," the Lady said with her sadistic smile as two churls came with their collars. The woman cried as the heavy metal collar was placed around her neck. The man barely noticed his, he was too busy apologizing to the woman for getting them into this. He was gagged again before they were both placed in kneeling positions before the Lady.
"That's better! Now you will both get to see what life was like for people in this time period. For the ones on the bottom, those whom the history books have forgotten. Here there are no kings or warriors. We are a community, a class society that works together for all of our survival."
"You are insane! Why are you doing this to us?" the woman asked.
"Would you have remained behind voluntarily?"
"No. We just wanted to try something different for a weekend. We both have jobs we need to get back to."
"He doesn't. He hasn't had a job in over 6 months," the Lady said in a superior tone. "I suppose he forgot to tell you that."
"Wh-what? Eddy, is that true? How would she know that?" the man, Eddy, still couldn't speak, but he tried to formulate sounds anyway. He seemed to try to deny it and apologize for lying at the same time.
"Take her to the jougs," the Lady said. "He can probably do with some more time in the stretch-neck."
The rest of the day, most of them could hear the one-sided conversation between the woman, whom the Lady had named Hild, shouting angry at her boyfriend, who had the very English name Edward. Most of the women couldn't help but chuckle, but only when they were certain the Lady was not within earshot.