It was Hephaistos who tipped the body off the table and let it lie sprawled on the ferns, the beautiful breasts, virtually unscathed, drooping sideways. Only vaguely she heard the handsome Thanon deliver the verdict, directed at the toothless ones, still on their knees.
"The body passes. As for you, the palace discharges you from labour for a lunar year. Further dispensation will depend on the slave's progress as whipping flesh and sex meat. Much will depend on her performance in the torture precincts, but I feel she will measure up."
Before Silvana could react to the concluding words, the Chief Master of Slaves turned to her prostrate form and, to his colleague's astonishment, actually addressed her, a totally unprecedented privilege. "You have done well for a novice. With a body and resilience like yours, you could go far in our midst. So, serve our courtiers and guests diligently. Should you seek counsel, ask for me and I shall advise you. But your overseer, Slave Mistress Damiana" - so that was what she was, her overseer - "will probably give you all the guidance you need. As well as the whip."
It was Silvana's turn to surprise Hephaistos. She raised a smile and spoke, an unheard of license, or rather insolence, on the part of a slave. "Thank you, noble master. I shall serve obediently now that I am...a woman and have had the whip from you."
The bearded face also smiled. Equally incredible! Never had Hephaistos seen the great man pay the slightest attention to a slave, whether during a selection or when lashing flesh at the palace. Yet there he was, offering advice and compliments and even permitting a common slag to open her spunk-soused maw! A slave only did that to scream or ingest more sperm.
"Now to the palace with the lot, Hephaistos," the beard ordered. "Chain them well and start out. Night is upon us and the Elders await. See to it the eunuchs use their scourges freely on the coffle. But," he gestured towards Silvana, already attached by a throat lead to his assistant's hand, "not on this one. She's had sufficient for her first evening."
The nude found herself in the darkened lane outside. After a painful walk, she emerged into the dusty square where the eunuchs' torches revealed a sight that made her halt. Five other naked bodies stood in coffled order of march and clearly they had been there for some time. There were three females, linked by the neck, and a couple of males - one rather good-looking, she had the energy to note - both chained by the genitals, the throbbing erections flinching as the lead tightened. In the vacillating light of the flambeaux, she observed that all five had been rump whipped, like herself, but not, it seemed, down the cleft.
Outlined against the moonlit sky, Thanon sat astride a richly caparisoned roan stallion. After checking the cohort's bondage, he cantered off, bidding Hephaistos a good journey.
In its turn, the line started its trek to the ethereal palace. Silvana blessed the auspicious stars and her newfound idol, the Lord Thanon, Master of Slaves, that she was out of that hovel and was spared the eunuchs' leather scourges - at least for the moment. All would be well once the palace was reached and, if not silk raiments, there would be food and drink and care for the mess the men had made of her buttocks.
The patient stars that had no part in all this, glittered above, dispassionate and serene, as, with a mixture of foreboding and excitement, the coffle staggered up the slope, leaving behind the sordid hamlet that was only too delighted to be rid of the two visitors and their prey. The inhabitants could rest in peace - at least until the next descent in search of flesh.
The Induction
Under Hephaistos's vigilant eye, the frightened line of naked bodies mounted laboriously to the crest of the hill beyond the reeking township. The eunuchs plied their whips lavishly, adding to the slaves' bloated welts, sparing only the blonde bringing up the rear of the coffle - why she was absolved lay beyond the guards' comprehension, for slaves had to be thrashed and, if the going was hard, thrashed to the blood. Such was the law of rank.
The slightest stumble caused the coffle to halt with a horrific tightening of the chains. Silvana found herself colliding with the huge bulk of a peasant girl called Carmela and both cursed the ineptitude of the two other sluts, Kitana and Britta, still suffering grievously from the selection ordeal. The pair continued to wail, unable to keep up with the progress despite the lashings from the guards. Their stumbling forced the couple of males ahead of them to slow down, the chains, trailing back between their thighs, tightening on their cinched genitals. Contrary to the youth named Nisos, a milksop if ever there was one in Silvana's view, the well-hung Pervez ahead seemed impervious to the sudden tugs. He even turned occasionally to encourage his colleagues as the cohort continued to climb, thankful at least for the milky suffusion shed by the celestial planet above, now in its first quarter towards plenitude.
On reaching the plain, the going became easier and the moonbeams clearer still, allowing her to observe the bodies ahead of her. Pervez was certainly handsome if Nisos lacked appeal. But that was his problem. Carmela was the typical farming wench, loaded with blubber but not unattractive in a bucolic way. She carried herself well, her prodigious breasts tipped with teats like thumbs, swinging heavily. They were almost twice the volume of Silvana's own, which were by no means insignificant, matching the wealth of her hindquarters. The peasant had been dealt with thoroughly by the slave masters, weals extending round the rump to reach the front of the fat thighs; on account of their breadth, each cheek had been beaten separately. The tell-tale smirch of blood lining her thighs showed that she too had been relieved of her virtue. Wondering where the girl could possibly fit into palace service - probably in the cowsheds, latrines or sculleries - Silvana drew courage from the stalwart body. Even when the eunuchs laid into her, Carmela barely flinched, the cumbersome dugs slapping together and yawing up into the hirsute armpits. Evidently, like Silvana, she was no stranger to the whip and that, at least, was reassuring.
As to the pair of snivelling chits ahead, they were already a source of trouble. They were clearly demoralized, suffering from the trauma of the selection. But who could tell? Maybe, despite their immature breasts and scanty buttocks, they had other qualities. But fortitude was notably not one. Silvana had no desire to be associated with their show of fright and reluctance; it might well jeopardize her chance of securing a pleasant set of duties at the palace. She decided to keep well away from them and from Nisos. It would be each for one's self from now on.
It was perhaps just as well, at that point in time, she was unable to question Hephaistos escorting them through the hot night, for it would have taken the fight out of her.
At long last the flambeaux flickering on the towers of Saronis became visible. The enormous crenelated walls loomed ominously against the night sky. The slaves' hearts quickened, rivulets of sweat pouring down the weary bodies caked with dust and grime. Each would have gladly taken as many lashes as necessary from the guards for a sip of water. A hot wind had risen on the plain during the final approach as the coffle was halted to the side of a majestic flight of marble steps. Above stretched the ranks of flowering terraces and hanging gardens veiled in shadow. A myriad stars seemed to shepherd in a flock of sheep for shearing.
The square below was thronged, despite the hour, with townsfolk eager to catch sight of the new arrivals. The leads were slackened off, the wrists still bound to the nape, for each body to be tethered like a beast of burden among the mules and horses, only the guards' whips keeping the rabble at bay. The ribaldry, gibes and obscenities astonished Silvana. And, alas, Kitana began to weep again. It was more Carmela, Silvana and the two males who interested the populace, for it was rare to see cocks and breasts as ripe as theirs.
A voice rose above the clamour. "Just look at that there bunch of hovel rats! Ever seen anything as filthy?" Other cries filled the area round the foot of the steps. "They need drowning in the river." The noise increased. "By the holy Locrana, I'll bet you've never sucked a cock like that one's over there, Messila. Could your maw fit over that?" - "And that blonde slatt
ern with the big tits," another shouted, "she's not even had 'em flogged, even if her butt's had it proper." The words became lost in the tumult. "Let's 'ave a feel of them saddle-bags, whore. They ain't bin milked yet tonight, eh?"
Hephaistos had the crowd whipped back and addressed his weary nudes. "You'll now be presented to the High Priest at the head of the steps and you'll kiss the marble on which he stands. You'll be inspected and if you pass, you'll be led in through the Arch of Salutation. Mind you keep those heads of yours down, mouths shut. Make one mistake and I'll have the skin slashed off your bellies later. And you," he shook his whip at the two youths, "let's have those mainmasts of cocks up nice and erect. If there's a problem, use one of those maws over there," the four cowering females got a glance, "to give your dicks a quick lick. They've all had mine down their gullets already. Get the blonde slag to do it. She fellates quite nicely."
Strangely, Silvana took the tribute well. It was just unfortunate that Pervez was consistently stiff and needed no assistance. But later, she hoped, he would need a mouth...
After an anxious wait, the prisoners were freed from the ringbolts, as well as from the vulgar japes, to be led up the vast cerulean stairway. Abruptly the hubbub ceased as a majestic figure appeared at the summit. Silvana gasped at the resplendence of the robed dignitary, the apparition scintillating in the resinous blaze of the torches. The six newcomers halted before the figure, gazing nervously at the silver wand of office flashing in the Elder's hand.
As she knelt, her heart suddenly missed a beat, for there behind the priest stood Thanon, booted and clothed from head to foot in dark velvet. There was no sign of the superb phallus that had taken her - and how many others? - to womanhood. Her innards clenching, she could have sworn his gaze was fixed on her rather than on the others, a vague smile flitting over the elegantly bearded face. Cautiously she smiled back as silence fell over the steps, disturbed only by a hoarse whisper from Britta next to her. "Silvana, help me, I can't take any more of this. Nor can Kitana. You've got to help us. Please, Silvana! We're not strong like you. We're not used to the whip..."
Taken aback by the girl's temerity to murmur such futilities at such a moment, she glared at her. "What can I do, you numskulls, tied up like this? You look like curdled milk, both of you. Just stick out what you've got for tits and try not to panic." Clearly the two wimps were at the end of their tether, Carmela and the others resigned to their fate. Had they been back in the village, Silvana would have given the youngsters a bit of lip; if they wanted to survive, why, they just had to accept things as they were, especially as they were now women and no longer petrified virgins. But evidently they were in no state to combat destiny.
Glancing along the line of her yokemates, she saw Pervez's erection throbbing, as ordered, and wondered how he kept a cock-stand for so long. At least he was all there. Maybe, once at peace in the palace, she could get him into some secluded corner or in the gardens. After how Thanon had fucked her, anyone would do, pending a possible re-encounter with her god. To find oneself in love with a god was not just given to anyone.
The Elder spoke. The voice was hollow, plangent.
"You are about to enter the sacrosanct walls of Bithynia's regal palace, an honour not accorded to many of your sort, being unworthy of such privileges. But you have been selected with painstaking care," - there, inwardly, Silvana had to agree, recalling the pain rather then the care - "to serve your betters as sex slaves in all the meanings of that term." If the others had not understood what was being said, Silvana's courage sank. So that was what Vreni had hinted at that evening at the pool. Sex slaves! Her body tensed as the holy presence went on lugubriously. She felt the creature needed a good fuck to enliven him. "Should you meet our requirements as slave flesh, you will be allowed to enter the shrines and will be entrusted to your designated overseer, in this case, our sister, Slave Mistress Damiana." A slim, veiled figure came forward, bowing to the Elder. "She will prepare you for your entry into full service and I counsel you to labour with fortitude and in joy, not merely during your period of induction and training, but thereafter." A long pause ensued. "I shall now, noble Thanon and Hephaistos, induct formally what you have brought to our august threshold."
The gleaming wand sought Pervez's rigid penis and bent it down, Damiana coming forward to slick back the foreskin. Ostensibly satisfied, the priest let the cock spring back against the candidate's belly. "Indeed, a well-membered fellow, Thanon. He may enter."
Immediately, two Nubian blacks in netted loincloths seized the cock-chain and hauled the youth into the perfumed darkness beyond the archway. One by one, the others were vetted not only by the High Priest but by the woman who had stepped up a moment before; she studied each female meticulously, hefting the breasts - or, in the case of the two weeping brats, what there was of them - and splaying the sex labia, then the buttocks. Carmela and Silvana qualified without more than a subdued comment on their respective loads of flesh and on the blonde's dangling cunt fronds. After, however, expressing doubts over the youngsters, the Elder let all four pass. Nisos received hardly a look but also got by.
"The hefty sluts have admirable udders and sex prongs, Thanon, but the other two will require attention if they are to satisfy our more exigent nobles. See to it, gracious Damiana, that their salient parts are enlarged before being presented for use."
The company bowed low as the sacred figure made its way back in a susurrus of silks to the palace through a throng of genuflecting nobles, courtiers, consorts and concubines, leaving Hephaistos to drive his flock through the Arch of Salutation into a dark hall beyond.
Silvana was almost overcome by the fumes of incense and perfume of freshly cut magnolia blossom. Elated by the adjudication, she marvelled at the enormity of the Vestibule of Welcome where not only visitors were greeted but, strangely, all incoming slaves due for induction. As if it were the heartbeat of the palace itself, a dull throb of drums mingled with the strains of lyres, filling the sombre volumes of malachite. A pleasant fountain played above a porphyry basin, lending an atmosphere of tranquil peace to the surroundings. Rectangular in construction, the chamber was dominated by marble columns, long curtains of silk billowing gently in the night breeze wafting in from the plains. Beyond lattice screens stretched a moonlit terrace also ennobled with what seemed to be a circular array of pillars.
Hephaistos advanced his cohort to the opening and halted them. Silvana gasped with stupor when she saw what they were meant to see. Each pilaster under the full moon had chained to it, like a caryatid, a stark-naked body. The array of slaves - for what else could they be? - hung in extravagant postures. Each nude's wrists were manacled to an iron hook buried high in the blue granite, a broad, ringed strap round the neck wrenching the head aloft. The ankles seemed, in some cases, to be locked behind the column, others splayed out to floor bolts. The onlookers held their breath as they took in the scene, gazing spellbound at the females' tensioned breasts and the rod-like phalluses of the two males, one of whom Silvana recognized as the shapely Andreas. Only when the fires in the terrace's iron sconces flared in the gusts of wind coming off the highlands did the flash of the slave rings catch Silvana's eye. Not only was each pair of nipples, male and female, pierced with a circle of metal but further rings dangled from the shaved genitals. A shudder of fright invaded the awed onlookers.
But something further beset Silvana. A quiver of excitement supplanted her shock as she noticed each body bore marks of what must have been a rigorous and recent flagellation.
"These are some of your senior and more versatile companions," Hephaistos casually informed them. "They work under the supervision of my colleague, Overseer Saletha, the palace's highest ranking slave mistress, and her assistants, Karita and Rainer. You can see them over there by the balustrade talking with some of the courtiers." The newcomers stared dumbfounded. Contrary to those they had glimpsed clothed in sumptuous robes a moment ago on the steps, these
courtiers were practically naked, apart from high boots and jewelled girdles. And in their hands they held strange implements. Silvana could recognize a whip when she saw one.
"You, however," the man went on, "will be trained by Mistress Damiana and her associates, Mila and Yannis, who await you below." He then reverted to the display of naked bodies. "These slaves, with whom you will live, will later tonight be selected by the courtiers for further use, either in their bedchambers or in the various precincts below that are set aside for whipping, sex and torture. Now, having been inducted, you will proceed to where you will be prepared."
Both Britta and Kitana dissolved again into tears that merely earned them a taste of the man's service thongs, without more effect than to increase the wailing.
The so-called Feasting Hall lay beyond a sumptuous, roofless courtyard, lit by burning torches and again cooled by a fountain rising out of a lapis lazuli pond. Recovering from her shock, Silvana would have given anything - except that she possessed nothing other than a sweating body and three orifices - to quench her thirst and rinse the astringent taste of semen, still rife in her throat. But the man would have no dawdling and made it clear with his whip.
Suddenly, to general consternation, Kitana's mop of ginger hair was seen leaning over the pool's verge in an attempt to drink. The slave master grabbed the sweat-sodden tresses and hurled the wretch against the wall. Stunned, the pathetic waif flattened under the lash, screaming. Silvana winced at the sheer force of the strokes but found no sympathy in her heart for the victim; again she was endangering the others, the slut. Half-a-dozen stripes sent the thin body to the paving where the flesh lay jerking like a mare ridding itself of flies. It was piteous to behold. The cohort silently cursed the hare-brained slag as her piercing shrieks rose, like linnets fleeing a kestrel, into the night.
"One more show of insubordination from you lot," the man cried, continuing to thrash the curled-up body, "and I'll send you all down to Sefket and his dungeon." Wondering who that might be, Silvana felt a dark thrill run through her, as Kitana was dragged back into line. That was the first time Silvana had actually seen a real whipping.
Silvana's Quest Page 3