The book opens with a man planning to rape one of his enslaved women. Slaves who are raped must, by law, be executed immediately or soon after to prevent pregnancy. A male character reveals he was forced to have sex with an enslaved woman when he was a child, the woman was then executed. Rape is mentioned in passing as a frequent act that happens to lower class women by noblemen, and as a fear that the main character expresses she had growing up as a poor woman.