Silvana's Quest

by Caroline Swift

  Not only those cited but all the Zahra slaves were relieved to be left together, and weak jokes were made to keep up spirits, for Mila could demoralize a stone.

  "We've got to stand together," Odile exhorted, "none of us can stand alone," at which Carmela retorted facetiously, pretending to have been floored by the incompetent beating and screw she had received a while before: "I can hardly stand up for laughing! That lad needs a lesson from you, Silvana!" It was the first word she had uttered since her arrival. When Carmela made a joke, it meant that life could be a lot worse. But Silvana felt worried, uneasy.

  Mila manoeuvred to have the trio's locks sheared and their skulls scraped bald very early the following morning. The chair to which in turn each female was tied reminded Silvana of that at home in Lower Saronis over which she used to be bent for the strap and where the handsome, bearded Thanon had discovered her. The thought of her owner and lover - if such terms still applied - encouraged her to believe her imprisonment could only be temporary, for he still carried weight in high places; moreover, Haroun would have raised hell by this time over the abduction. That would be enough to launch a rescue party or, failing that, a negotiation between the parties regarding ransom.

  But there, she was under a delusion.

  The Saronis authorities had no intention either of mounting such an operation or of trading their Mestrian prisoners merely to recuperate a few whores. True, the attack on Zahra and hence on palace property had been scurrilous but, under current circumstances, maintaining the uneasy peace was worth more than risking Bithynian blood. It was decided to leave matters where they stood. A handful of slaves - even if one did happen to be the property of Thanon - would not be unduly missed; there were plenty in the villages, weaving sheds and mines, and Hephaistos had only to ride out with his eunuchs, whips and chains.

  In any event, Vasca realized the brothel down at Zahra had been gutted, the inmates and slave mistress taken prisoner, thus putting an end to its usefulness and services. The residences had begun to deteriorate and there was no point in repairing what was fast becoming a backwater. Zahra was finally closed down and abandoned to the bats and jackals.

  The Aftermath

  Strangely Thanon made no effort to recuperate his concubine. Her disappearance, along with Mila's flight, became episodes of the past, the great man being more intent on refurbishing his reputation than on grieving over an abducted whore. On his recall to the palace, he was nevertheless surprised to find himself cold-shouldered, the loss of Zahra being, perhaps unfairly, laid at his door. Expecting to be reinstated at his previous rank, he was appointed to the subterranean domains where, contrary to his expectations, he was not to succeed the aging Sefket the Lame, about to be retired off, but ordered to work under the orders of none other than Damiana. Outraged, he bullied his way into the priestly sanctum, pleading with Vasca - and a handful of nobles he knew well - only to have the appointment endorsed and left at that. Disconcerted and furious, he found even Silvana beyond his reach.

  Had he but known it, Silvana was perilously close to being beyond anyone’s reach. Mila’s vengeance was wrought on the once-blonde slave almost daily. Only those of adequate seniority in Mestria to entitle them to the use of the slaves prevailed upon her to allow Silvana a chance to heal between sessions. Time and again she was flung limp and unconscious into the cell where the others waited nervously and they did what they could to ameliorate the effects of the appalling flagellations and piercings she was now subject to.

  It seemed that the slave’s glorious breasts which so often aroused uninhibited lust in the witnesses to her sufferings, ignited in Mila only unbridled spite.

  Silvana sank into a kind of trance where her life consisted of existing only at the most basic of levels and moving from torment to torment with a bovine but stubborn compliance. Mila’s favoured appliance at these times seemed to be the cross, made of wide enough beams for the wood to touch her breasts when she was put to it face first, Silvana learned to groan inwardly when a dungeon door opened to reveal it. The whips which tore her were trial enough but the wickedly sharp tines which scratched and lacerated her as she twisted and sighed under the lashes were the fuel which propelled her into extenuating orgasms. Her only respite came when the onlookers called a halt to facilitate their having her. Mila seemed to resent every second and always returned to the fray with renewed glee. When Silvana’s back was a raging furnace of pain, Mila would turn her and favour her lacerated breasts with the whip before piercing them again and again. The long, glittering needles were thrust in from all angles, each piercing being applauded by the groans and cries of orgasm from the onlookers as they took their pleasure with other slaves. Mila prolonged each insertion as much as she could and her malicious eyes glittering like the needles she was using was frequently the vision that Silvana took with her when at last darkness closed over

  It was Damiana who finally persuaded the authorities to take up arms and invest Mestria, not simply to free the few slaves but to finish once and for all with that thorn in the Bithynian flank. At small cost to the invaders, the province was duly descended upon with the sword and absorbed into the princedom, like a sprat swallowed by a whale. The onslaught was massive and what was left of the Zahra slaves recuperated and restored to the palace, where the Mestrian victims, particularly the three older women, spoke little of what they had undergone. They were only dismayed that the Bithynian troops failed to capture anyone resembling Mila, astute enough to disguise herself in rags and flee eastwards.

  Silvana then retrieved her position as overseer and her authority began to grow. Some of the brash young men she had known were by then senior officials and military officers and she used them and their influence unabashedly, as they used her body, still admiring her superb thighs and the long, muscular legs. The Countess of the Marches, who tortured Silvana's divine breasts - she had no other word for them - as much as ever, proved a notable help when it came to intrigue and advancement. It was the Countess and the dowager Alicia who finally, after a mercurial promotion, proposed Silvana as Palace Slave Mistress, a pre-eminence of rank that had formally been exclusively accorded to males.

  Appointed, she filled the office quite naturally; taking it for granted her iron will was precisely what was needed for the position. She felt she had been destined to wield power.

  Immediately she instituted changes, some with major implications - such as a revised list of corrections for idle, malingering slaves; the introduction of new postures and erotic tortures; replacing palace slaves by prisoners for the Moon Festival sacrifices and making them much more severe, and other measures she thought would improve the services available to the courtiers and, she hastened to point out, to the overseers. Other modifications dealt with the range of bondage positions allowed, number of lashes, type of flogging weapon, flesh areas and the severity imposed, Silvana believing such would avoid profitless flagellations as those inflicted in the past on incompetent subjects, such as Nisos, Britta, Kitana and several among more recent intakes. Training had to be intensified, she claimed, and, as Damiana used to remark when breaking in fresh arrivals, inculcated step by step. There was no point in whipping a screaming newcomer senseless in her or his first sessions; preparation and tuition were essential if slaves were to learn how to serve and give pleasure.

  Further, she had Saroya draw up a second list, specifying the instruments of excitement that could be used on a slave. The index, which Silvana found to be longer than she had imagined, excluded the spiked flesh-disk Mila was so fond of using where it hurt most. In short, it was easier for the staff to remember those items that were prohibited than those that were not and Silvana saw to it that the chambers, alcoves, precincts and private rooms abided by the inventory. Everyone seemed to agree things were clearer and fairer.

  Two additional measures the new Palace Mistress took on her appointment were humane, in different ways; she had to use all her cajolery, bla
ndishments and the volume of her breasts on Vasca to get approval. First, she managed to have Kitana and Britta released from the prisons to join a new cohort about to start training; she felt that would give them a fresh start and standing. The fact that both declared themselves to be pregnant, worried her but she decided to leave that to Damiana. Anyway, advanced pregnancy attracted some nobles.

  The other step she took also met with little resistance from the Council of Priests and the Court in agreeing to relocate the ghastly Simon to the Northern Crest lead mines to help with inventories and mule transport. From what her grim foster parents had mentioned one day at the hovel, she felt that would keep the bastard busy and, better still, under surveillance.

  Silvana found the lofty and prestigious post to which she had been promoted to be far from onerous; the overseers and assistants seemed to do all the work, with only certain decisions being referred to the summit. This gave ample time to ride out with Hephaistos to enjoy the winds and hills and stop in distant villages to vet and bring in flesh from districts that had never been ransacked before. She thoroughly enjoyed using the whip and buckling on the dildo to deflower trembling virgins and sodomize smooth-cheeked youths. It was so vivifying to get away from the formality of the palace and make a few terrified nudes shriek...

  Above all, she could now devote her energy to rebuilding her Zahra-by-the-sea, refortifying it and furnishing it with new villas and a luxurious, well-equipped brothel worthy of what she considered Bithynian nobility and guests should enjoy. She entrusted the bordello and the residences to Odile, no longer young as she had been in those earlier Zahra times but well-qualified to run a stew and whipping chamber of a couple of dozen carefully chosen slaves, whom Silvana had had pierced and ringed. The metal did help to keep them docile and so much easier for the slave handlers, servants and Numidians to deal with.

  Silvana had Carmela also transferred from her palace duties to Zahra to supervise the local staff, supplies and cooking, in addition to running a farm, goats being brought from Lower Saronis in memory of her Blossom. Recalling Thanon's selfishness and pusillanimity, she preferred goats to men - except her dear Haroun. He became the lock-keeper of her heart and never left her side.

  Despite her stamina and inventive faculties, Silvana found she could not be in two places at once; so, after a long period of power at the palace, where she took over Thanon's vacant quarters, as well as his role, she finally moved to Zahra. There, enjoying the sea air, she had Haroun read to her, leaving everything to Odile, inviting her now and then to the residence for a moment of pain and pleasure in bed. Never one for riches, preferring slaves to gold, she gave her increasing wealth to Haroun who used it to turn the settlement into a tropical paradise. And it was she who organized the first slave market ever to be held in Bithynia, Saronis becoming the centre of a brisk trade. Districts like Mestria were stripped of promising youngsters of both sexes who, after being trained and used by the palace, were sold back to the colony as brothel meat. In recognition, the High Priests duly ennobled her.

  She also discarded two of her own few possessions - the necklace and the whip Thanon had given her. But she kept safely what screeds Haroun penned so lovingly for her; despite her other accomplishments, she had never learned to write, though Odile finally, over time, did teach her to read. The screeds were her most valuable possession.

  So, sitting on the terrace, looking out across the sea, she would dictate more of her memoirs. "I do not want to become a victim of my own myth, Haroun, dear brother," she would say and, with a certain candour and charm, continued with her reminiscences. Scrupulously, the aging eunuch set down every word, from anecdotes of bathing in the stream with other village youngsters, to the meeting with Thanon, and more - details which Haroun himself did not know, some making him occasionally look up and raise an eyebrow.

  And thus time passed on the seashore, Silvana rummaging in her memory for details. Over the years, they produced a couple of narratives, the first called Silvana's Quest, the second, Silvana's Triumph, this latter recounting the ordeal of Mila's savage revenge, the deliverance and Silvana's subsequent rise to power in the perfumed palace of Bithynia.

  The above account, adapted from the original, is the one she entitled Silvana's Quest.

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