Ah, now that’s Servitor. Nasty perverted little piece of work, but
he’s a trustee now so he’s allowed outside.
You see, we had this competition among
inmates for ideas on how life here could become less pleasant. And Servitor came up with the daily branding.
Of course, we already knew that the inmates hate the branding iron, more than
anything else. But you can’t burn them
every day, they wouldn’t last their sentences.
So this clever little weasel came up with
the idea of strapping each inmate down every day. The guard stands behind the prisoner, and
grabs a red-hot iron, but she also grabs one that’s just slightly warm. Then another guard rolls two dice. If she
rolls two sixes, he gets the glowing brand, if she rolls anything else he gets
the cold one. But the movement is just
the same each time, so he won’t know until he feels it.
We do them in rows of 10 or so. According to this little worm, there’s a 25%
chance of at least one of them being burnt in each row. Every single day, back
they come, for their branding time.
Quite the clever little worm! But not a very lucky one are you,
prisoner? Show Sergeant Woods your arse!
See? Got three already. He probably goes around all day dreading
it. They all do. More than two years of his sentence to go… how many more double sixes, eh Servitor?
Every one of them richly, richly deserved.
The parts of the lovely (but firm!) guards in this short tale were played by Mistress Eleise de Lacey and Miss Woods. The part of the clever servitor was played with some difficulty by the real, stupid, Servitor.
