Silvana's Quest

by Caroline Swift

  Once Damiana had suctioned herself off her companion's body and bowed to him, she had the acumen, sensing the man's attraction to Silvana, to admit the girl's prowess.

  "This woman, with the body and gifts she has, could go far in our midst, Master."

  Thanon nodded. "Of that I am convinced, Damiana, despite her lack of control." He stroked his beard down to the point and added: "That is if she weathers her coming session with the Lord Menthif and his two savage whores. It'll be harsh beyond words, as you know."

  "Indeed, Master, for I too have suffered that. How, if I may ask, did you agree to it?"

  "Palace politics are not your affair, woman. Keep to your own domain." The exchange startled Silvana but she remained silent as he rose from his throne. "You may both retire to savour your advancement and your orgasms which pleased me. And Damiana dear, see to it that our Silvana, after what awaits her five days hence, chills out under your care. Help her to recuperate before she assumes her duties with me. I shall miss you and your magnificent body. You have helped me over a difficult period. Let's hope this one will equal you and Greta under the lash and in bed. Give Sefket my warm greetings. May he treat you kindly."

  Taking the bewildered girl with her, she bowed and the two left by the curtained arch through which she had entered for her farewell moment with the Bithynian Master of Slaves.

  Although discipline in the entrails of the palace was far more stringent for slaves than that governing the movements of staff, Damiana was checked by a sentinel as she and Silvana approached the portal leading to the Overseers' Quarters. The guard had rarely set eyes on a distinguished slave mistress totally naked, but did notice the golden hip chain she had hurriedly replaced over her saturated loins. As to the ringed slut, he allowed her to pass; such trash was frequently brought to the privileged room for various reasons.

  Thrusting Silvana before her, she shrugged the man off and the pair entered the luxurious retreat where senior staff relaxed when not engaged in meeting the courtiers' requirements. Damiana's colleagues greeted her without rising from their divans, though some came forward to congratulate her on her promotion. Smiling, she recuperated her belongings, slid into her long boots, rearranged her hair before a long mirror and had Silvana swab Thanon's sperm off her lower back and buttocks. Then she introduced the tousled, sweating girl who felt alien, not because she was naked, ringed and wearing bondage straps but on account of her leaking crotch that also needed swabbing, for her discharges had been lavish. But Damiana put her at ease with a smile, muttering that a wet vulva was quite normal.

  "This delicious thing is to take the place of Greta and me, as our noble Master's mistress." A hush fell upon the room at the announcement, all eyes staring at the dishevelled object, including those of Mila and Yannis and several others Silvana had never encountered, although they were similarly attired, slave scourges dangling from their belts. Not a word was said until a leather-strapped youth, fondling what Silvana considered an attractive, circumcised cock scabbarded in studded leather, poured out a beverage into crystal flutes. To her astonishment and wondering if it was poisoned, a glass was offered to her by Mila, of all people. The minx was unmasked for once which allowed her enemy to notice the disconcerting strabismus in the debauched eyes, a trait that rendered the viperous bitch even more menacing than Silvana had ever seen her. True, as Damiana had claimed when first introducing the slag, prior to the piercing and ringing session, she was attractive in a way but had proved an abhorrence any slave would gladly forgo without regret. And the manner which she had adopted during the flogging of Britta and Kitana festered in Silvana's memory.

  A toast to Damiana was proposed, Silvana taking merely a sip to slake her throat after what she had ingurgitated in the great hall. Again feeling ill-at-ease, she wished she had been able to avoid following her slave mistress so naively to a place far beyond her standing, even if now she was the property of the Master of Slaves. Awed and cunt-naked, she stood aside.

  But she saw she was the subject of a discussion between Mila and a young stud in leather, whose cock had begun to stiffen menacingly. Abruptly, the fellow took her by the arm, swung her round to heft a buttock. "Clearly, by Locrana, these hunks of slave meat have been neglected," he remarked. "The welts are as dim as old Sefket's cellar." He turned her again so that she confronted the company. "These huge breasts have not been quirted, it would seem, since the last full moon. Even if she appears to be under our Damiana's wing and destined for privileges, she's still a slave, no?"

  The slave mistress cursed herself for bringing the girl in. "Leave her alone, Simon. She's bespoke, I tell you. To the Master."

  "Bespoke! To the Master! If she were, she'd be up there in his tower, eating quail and persimmons. No, here we have a naked slave, promoted or not, who clearly needs the whip," came the brash retort. "What do you think, colleagues? We haven't had a body like this to thrash for days. Just look at those languishing breasts! Hardly a trace of the quirt on them. They need leather and that'll give me the cock stand our Mila's waiting for. Right, Mila?"

  Ignoring the banter, Damiana tried again weakly, for the youth was of her own rank and enjoyed private privileges, some said with entry to the mighty Elders - just as they had access to his shapely butt. "I tell you, Simon, she's Thanon's slave-whore. It's just been announced. And what's more, she's due for a session with the Equerry Menthif and..."

  "Menthif, that half-balled bonehead!" the youth retorted. "Let that dead fish use his two Aphrodites - or gorgons. No, Damiana, the fat slug needs a taste of the camel-hide crop."

  "Simon's right, Damiana," Mila chimed in. "Let's have some fun with her. Everyone agree?" The others around, even those dozing or sucking did not seem to differ.

  Silvana stared desperately at her slave mistress for help, only to receive a shrug. Having just been elevated to a rank she had sought for years, Damiana was not prepared to imperil her advancement on account of a mere novice, even if she was Thanon's property.

  It was Mila who led the pathetic goose-fleshed victim to the far end of the ornate room where she was made to kneel on a table that Simon cleared of the remains of a meal with a sweep of a hand. There Silvana had her wrist straps clipped to a couple of widely spaced chains descending from the rafters - why they were there in a lounge of leisure defeated her - after which the table was removed. Those engaged in sex left off; they could always resume later after the pleasure of watching an unexpected flogging, for the day had been uneventful.

  With an unusual pang of conscience, Damiana watched the prodigiously erotic body swing free, well clear of the carpets - gifts, she remembered, recently offered by dealers from Bukhara in exchange for a couple of pale-fleshed females the palace Elders had decided to discard, exhaustion being what it was after residing a lunar month in Sefket's torture precinct.

  The slave's tresses of sun-bright hair trailed behind the throat strap and down the back, the ringed nipples tilting upwards as the breasts tightened above the rib cage. The dangling length of nude flesh, exhibiting those fabulous buttocks, exceeded anything the overseer had ever had entrusted to her. Relegated to the role of a spectator and realizing her entreaties were of no avail, she kept well away, sinking into a vacant divan, to allow herself and her rapidly reviving clit prong a further sweet moment of lascivious enjoyment. Justified or not, a naked thrashing never failed to stimulate her entrails. Indeed, she reminded herself, that such was one of the very reasons why she had attained the position of power she now commanded.

  Silvana was whipped as rarely before. The brute Simon, with evident pleasure, thrashed the rich buttocks with the promised crop, Mila laying into the belly and thighs with her personal service whip. The breasts then flattened under a couple of dozen lashes delivered with the broad-flanged quirt that Mila only too readily handed to the youth; the blows seemed to give the writhing slave both pain and pleasure, effects Damiana knew from direct experience with
Silvana, the quirt never failed to produce in that exquisite body. Although the moaning victim seemed to orgasm, for once her former overseer could not be certain. But, slumped on the divan and involved with the state of her own clitoris, she was too far gone to care, leave alone intervene. Then, quite suddenly, the breathtakingly erotic nude did climax.

  Her frantic shriek drowned the whip's hiss and the groans from the divans.

  The flogging over, the gorgeous body was left to sway while the group slurped, sipped other liquids and started to chat, as before. Recovering her senses, Damiana it was who finally lowered the welted flesh to the kilims, some onlookers of both sexes approaching to examine the result of the flaying, amazed at the carnal beauty Damiana had taken into her arms.

  The overseer seemed overjoyed by the blonde's stamina, much of which she herself had built up in the initial slave-training sessions; she was proud of the girl and of herself. In fact, she wondered if her own hardened body could have weathered a thrashing as sudden, spiteful and uncalled-for as that, particularly Mila's part, just administered; she was sure she would have yelled her head off. True, she screeched when Thanon beat her but then that was because both she and Thanon were partial to noise, whether from leather or from the lungs...

  As the two odious imbeciles fell upon the couch she had just left, to fuck frantically, she smoothed Silvana's golden tresses and wondered, now that each was to go her separate way, what the future held in store for the enchantress. In any event, the staunch beauty was truly worthy to take her - and Greta's - place in Thanon's heart. If he still had one.

  The Flagellation

  Damiana attempted once again, a couple of days later on the battlements, to reason with the Master of Slaves regarding the compromise he had come to with Menthif. She was more than disturbed and mystified by Thanon catering to the inordinate lust, not of a high-ranking noble so much but to that of his two venomous Eumenides, mere strumpets who had the whip hand over their owner, at least when given a victim for themselves to flog or torture.

  She reminded Thanon of the state in which the trio had left the freckled Rouxel several moons back, necessitating several days of care to permit the woman to recover for further use. Of course, Damiana realized that probably there were political reasons for ceding Silvana to the influential Menthif, yet she was determined to make her point all the same.

  "You'll recall, Master, what they did to Rouxel and earlier to Ortalana. Why not give them one of my young sluts - such as that useless ginger-haired Kitana, since the bitch's making no progress and, in my opinion, can be dispensed with..."

  "No, my dear. I have agreed, albeit I assure you with some reluctance, and it is only for one night. Leave these matters to me. In any event, the one you mention - Kita or Kitana - would never survive the session, and anyway I've decided to sell that one to the next caravanserai that comes by from the north. As far as I'm concerned, they can do what they like with her in Samarkand, Smyrna or wherever. Apparently she even passed out when given the jagging-wheel over the breasts the other night. No, I've delegated the blonde and that stands. Anyway, to judge from what I've seen of her during her period of tutelage with you over the past weeks, she'll probably enjoy it. She's a hardy specimen and orgasms smoothly."

  "But, dear Master," the woman reminded him, "those were only training sessions. Yet, I must admit her stamina was admirable enough when Simon and my Mila thrashed her the other night in the staff quarters and..."

  Thanon stared at his former mistress, whose clean-limbed, svelte body had served him so well. "Thrashed her? Simon and Mila? I know nothing of this. When did this happen?"

  The declining beams of the sun disclosed the anger smouldering in the man's eyes, as he halted halfway along the terrace stretching from his quarters. Damiana realized, aghast, that he was unaware of the event. She froze numb, cursing herself for her crass stupidity.

  "Oh, it was just a pleasantry, Master, a sort of revelry over my and her promotions."

  "But since you seem to have been present, who gave them and particularly that trollop Mila the right when off duty to beat a slave? And my female at that! Surely, you with your rank, you should have..."

  "I tried, Master." Sweat trickled down her spine, her mouth dry. "I really did, but, you see, Simon was there. It was he who suggested it." She sensed she was in deep water.

  "I see." To Damiana's relief, the promenade recommenced. "I can understand your problem and I shall discuss the matter of Simon with the Elders." She saw that the arrogant youth's relationships were no mystery to him and would form the subject of consultation with the sacred authorities! That, she guessed, would be interesting indeed, and wondered how an interview of such delicacy would unfold and close; it would be a joust between formidable potentates. Even she, with all her experience of palace intrigue, could not predict the outcome.

  "As to your Mila," the man went on, "I'll have to decide how best to punish her. This violation of rules is sheer disobedience which cannot be tolerated. Since you are, or at least were, responsible for her conduct, and about to take up your position down there below, I shall let Sefket and you know what I want done with her." Damiana nodded, with mixed feelings, for Mila had been trustworthy, if overly eager, in dealing with chained slave flesh.

  She felt she knew what Thanon was about to add. And she was right.

  "It would, in fact, be appropriate that her correction be assigned to Silvana, under your supervision. Then, the slut - Mila, I mean - will naturally be reduced again to slave level."

  The sun had sunk behind the western hills, the first shrouds of darkness trailing over the deserted plain and the fetid roofs of Lower Saronis. Peering down at the distant cluster of hovels, Thanon wondered when next he would need to ride out again to seek out fresh bodies, none of which would possibly compare with this blonde enchantress now under his wing. At the same time, Damiana wondered who was to take her own place over Cohort One and who would replace Mila. As was his habit, the man read her thoughts. "Saroya will serve as overseer to the first cohort, and Marysa will take over Mila's duties and later the blonde will take charge of the Zahra outpost and brothel."

  In the gathering dusk, Damiana glanced at the man's profile outlined against the clouds but said nothing. The Marysa in question, she recalled, was a taciturn, dark-skinned woman of thirty, entrusted with preparing the precincts and punishment cells for use; her attention to cleanliness and the meticulous condition of the appliances and instruments of flagellation and sexual torture had, for many moons, met with general approval. Damiana knew Zahra on the coast. Reserved exclusively for the Bithynian nobility, it housed less than a dozen inmates under the fat slave mistress, Rasetha, and in no way matched the facilities at the palace. As to the blonde being assigned there, Damiana, though surprised, could only approve. In any case, she was not asked for her opinion on the subject.

  Again as Thanon's confidante, she felt she knew what was coming; she could have wagered her silver-hafted scourge on it. Thanon laid a hand on her bare shoulder.

  "I count on you to educate her, particularly in dealing with breasts and sex organs. Feel free to make use of those two starry-eyed sleepwalkers who are chained somewhere below. Sefket can make nothing of them. And you can use that timid male - I forget his name..."

  "Nisos, you mean? How," she dared asking, "did you come to choose him, Master?"

  "Indeed! For once, the choice was limited. Anyway, employ them to give our Silvana some practice. Use Sefket's place, since that's where you're assigned. There you have every appurtenance you could possibly need. And, above all, Damiana, teach the girl to distinguish which whip and instrument does what. I want her fully proficient. Meanwhile, she will serve me, as you have done, in my chambers. Stark-nude, of course, in chains."

  "Of course, Master." She almost regretted her own advancement. She adored chains.

  A long pause ensued as the two watched the s
un's last sliver sink over the horizon. His cock rising, the man suddenly asked: "Where is that dream of a blonde now?"

  "She's probably spread-eagled in Sefket's place, Master." Taunting him pleased her. "But she has two days and night to go before being formally summoned to Precinct Nine. They've a lot to do, you see. Diminish her whip welts," - there Thanon frowned, reviling Mila again - "check her pubis and armpits for growth, scour out her entries, burnish her rings, choose an appropriate head hood for her, and oil her... After all, Master," she smiled, "you set up the procedures."

  Thanon turned slowly to face the woman. Again, instinctively, she knew what she was about to hear. It came as expected. "Well, it's been a useful evening, dear Damiana. Now, go to my chambers, strip and lay out my six-thong on the bed for your flogging. I intend to use all three of your entries, and to exhaustion. You wish that, for the last time, no?"

  "Oh, yes, great Master. Nothing would delight me more. Whip and fuck me hard."

  Silvana was surprised not be allowed to take her place again in the Slave Quarters, finding herself instead on her knees and chained by the neck strap to the wall of a spacious alcove to await her cleansing. The next two days dragged by slowly, broken only domestics bringing her scanty meals and applying lotions to her welts which subsided remarkably fast. Finally, three servants she had not previously encountered and wearing only sandals arrived; they appeared to be maids charged with massaging courtiers in the palace hammams and clearly served in other ways as well. They were certainly efficient, Silvana found, in the way they went about preparing her body. After being washed down superficially and having her leather bondage straps greased, the slave was detached and led to a steaming pool nearby. It provided her with her first encounter with a hamman and she luxuriated in the bubbling water until she was ready to be scoured. For that she was ordered out of the bath, her wrist rings being secured to hooks in the mosaic-tiled ceiling. The heat resembled that of a kiln.