by Shannon Peel
“They’d kill you Aleesa.” I say.
“They wouldn’t dare.”
“I’m afraid they might.” Her father says.
Aleesa’s face goes white, then she straightens up and looks her father in the eye.
“Why would you do this to me? If it’s so dangerous? Why daddy? I don’t want to marry him. I’m not going to marry him.”
The man stood up and without one word he walked over to her. She leaned towards me, grasping at me. I know what’s coming and I can do nothing to stop it. The older man grabs her by the arm, pulls her out of her chair and throws her to the floor.
“You question me? Do I not give you all the money you want? Do I not spoil you?”
“Yes daddy. I’m sorry.”
The man kicks her in the stomach, over and over and over again.
“Sir.” I can’t believe I’m speaking. “Sir I have a plan.” The man turns to me nods his head to indicate I should continue. “The best lies are the ones with truth. Aleesa could tell the woman at court that she’s getting married and going to live with her husband, a minor noble in the north.”
“Go on.” He moves back towards his chair while I talk.
“It’s where you’re from. It makes sense that you’d want her to marry someone from there. She’s getting too old to be a single woman at court. So it is believable that you’d send her away to be married.”
“Who do we say it is?”
“I’m sure Aleesa could make someone up. Not too impressive, she can say she doesn’t know that much about him, just that he’s handsome, young and a baron.”
“That could work. The Della Terra Estate is on the way to the northern part of the realm so it would make sense that you are travelling that way.”
“Considering everything that she is planning on taking, it would make sense to commission a King’s Royal Patrol to go with us. You could hire them to escort us to the north.”
“Yes. Some proof that she is going there. Logan I think you are wasted as a sell sword my boy.”
During dinner we discuss the details and a quiet, subdued Aleesa sits nodding in agreement with everything her father says.
Drela
I am telling my Josiah a story, a story about his father while rocking Dre to sleep. I am telling him about when his father rode to the Senari tribe because he’d heard the most beautiful woman lived there and he wanted her.
“The woman’s father, the Chieftain, had promised her to the Senari warrior, Centa. Centa was the strongest warrior in the village and the woman was happy when she found out she was going to be his wife. She sewed a beautiful marriage dress and prepared to be married to the brave, handsome warrior.
One day when the spring moon was full in the sky your father brought his warriors to the Senari village. The Senari Chieftain met with your father to trade and try to save the village. Your father demanded the beautiful woman he had heard about, but the Senari Chieftain refused to give up his daughter because he wanted to keep her close to him in the village. Your father threatened to burn the village down and take everyone as slaves if he didn’t get the woman. The Senari Chieftain had heard stories about your father and his warriors. The Chieftain believed that your father would destroy and enslave the whole village.
What he could he do? He ordered his daughter be brought to his tent.
When Centa found out that his Chieftain was meeting with your father to barter for his woman, he was furious. He barged into the tent with his warriors and saw his woman being inspected by your father. They were determining her bride price.
Centa demanded that he be given the woman because she’d been promised to him. Centa told your father he would go to war, kill him and all his warriors if he took the woman. Your father did not want to go to war with the Chieftain because it would make the woman sad and suggested the two of them could fight to the death for her. Centa agreed.
They fought. Your father killed Centa after only a few strokes of their swords. Centa had no chance because your father was a great swordsman. Fast. Skilled. It was not a fair fight. It did not matter though because now Centa was dead and the Senari Chieftain had no choice but to give his prized possession away to the man standing before him covered in Centa’s blood.
Your father gave the Senari Chieftain hides, horses, weapons, women and slaves from his tribe in exchange for me. I was worth a fortune. I was worth a death. I left my father, my mother, and my village that night to go with Brathoid and marry him. I was happy to be his wife. I was proud. I was glad when he killed Centa because I loved your father from the minute I saw him. –“
"You get cooking." A man kicks my leg.
I ignore the raider and keep telling Josia about how his father loved me and I loved him. A hand wraps around my neck, dragging me up. The kids fell off my lap.
"I said cook"
"Ya idiot, how dar ya touch me. Ya knocked my kids over."
The raider slaps me hard. I kick him, spit at him and scratch his face.
He drops me and grabs my baby, "get cookin or I'll beat yar baby to death in front of yer face." I scream at him reached for Dre.
"Do ya know who I am?" I yell.
"Some High Flatland bitch who is gonna make my dinner."
"I am Brathoid's wife, I da Chiefta."
"Ain't he dead?" He takes a knife out of his belt and brings it towards Dre. "Get cooking or I'll kill it."
I stir the pot of stew hanging over the fire and the smell is making me hungry. Stirring the pot is relaxing. I watch the methodical motion of the spoon going round and round, the food swimming in the liquid. I enjoy cooking. It feels normal. The smells remind me of our home. It feels like I am making dinner for Brathoid.
I close my eyes to picture his rough face. His crooked smashed up nose. His lop sided smile due to a large scar running from his chin up his left cheek from the slash of a sword. I loved tracing that scar with my fingers and kissing his misshapen lips. His body, the colour of deer hide, was covered in the scars of battle. He was a warrior, a great Warrior. Each scar was a reminder of a battle, a skirmish, a fight. He was not beautiful, but he was mine and he loved me fiercely.
People followed him because he was strong. He could protect them. He led men to victory returning from battles with horses, food and wives for the younger men. He made sure everyone did their fair share. Everyone had a job to do.
Hunting parties killed animals for meat and hides to make clothes. Gatherers found food, which the mother of the earth provides to those who look, and tended the crops in our small fields. Herders took care of the animals we kept to provide milk, food, and transportation. Traders travelled long distances to trade in markets for goods we could not get from the land.
Our warriors were the most feared warriors in the High Flatlands. Brathoid was the most feared of them all. He managed the whole village, protected all of us, provided for all of us. He was a dark, mean, and dangerous man, a man to be feared, a man who challenged everyone with the look of his eyes.
When he looked at me though, I felt safe. When I walked into the tent and saw him sitting beside my father’s fire I was scared, terrified, and then he looked at me with a possessiveness I’d never seen before. I was his and no one would hurt me because I was his. With one look I knew I would be safe. Protected. His eyes told me I was special, valuable, and his.
He kept me safe. With him I was safe. In bed at night when he held me close, he would gently kiss the top of my head and tell me why he loved me. He made me feel safe, happy, loved. He was my world.
The familiar smells of the stew bring him back to me. A hot flush moves up my neck as a hollow pain rises from my core. The world around me ceases to exist. The sounds are a quiet whisper, the people a shadow and the surroundings a green blur.
The heat rises up from my gut and out of the top of my head, burning my throat. The hot burning pain catches my breath and I can't breath. My eyes burn and tears well up, breaching my lower lids and cascading down my cheeks. I scream. There
is no sound as my knees give out and I crumpled into a ball by the fire. My arms hug my centre trying to fill the painful emptiness, which is trying to get out all at once through my mouth. It is stuck in my throat, chocking me.
I gasped for breath. Finally, some air slips through the burning barrier in a loud eerie howl. Each breath I fight for is returned to the world full of my grief, until they became weak sobs.
Raif
We’ve been camped in Analeesia for a day when a sound so chilling rips through my tent. It sounds like an animal in pain and it’s close, too close. I grab my sword and emerge from the tent, looking for the source of the sounds. No, it isn't an animal. I cautiously walk towards the sound. What I find isn’t dangerous in the physical sense, still it scares me more then any wild animal could.
It is a woman crying rolled into a tight ball on the ground beside the cook fire. Shit, I never know what to do when they cry. I want to ignore her. I can’t, her cries touch something deep inside me, compelling me to see if I can fix it. A woman’s pain, her tears, I am not prepared to fight off this type of attack, I never am.
"What happened? Did she burn herself?" I try to keep my voice calm and cold.
"No sir, she not hurt at all, one minute she stirring the pot, the next she on the ground making no sound, then this awful noise came out of her, until, she, well, that."
The guard points at her, obviously effected by this woman's pain and like me, not sure what to do about it. I grab a rag from my pocket and hand it to her. She is a mess, all tears, dirt and snot. Her hair is a tangle of twigs, dirt and some of it is plastered to her wet face.
"Do you know her name?" I ask.
"She's Brathoid's wife and a real bitch she is."
Brathoid's wife?
That catches me off guard. Well say one thing for the man, he had good taste in women. She will have influence and power over the villagers. I can use that. I help her up and lead her to my tent. I stroked her hair and guide her to a stool and watch her settle herself. I know her grief is my fault. I am the monster mothers warn their children about, the stuff of horror stories. I am bound for the gates of hell and until then, I am hell on earth.
I shrug off the guilt I carry with me. It is both a burden and a friend. Well, what’s done is done, I can't change the past and I need product. I am going to give her a better life. The question is will she take it?
"Are you done?"
I sit back in my chair watching her. There is a fire in her eyes. An intense passion and I want it. I shake my head. No.
"Done wha?"
"Making a mess of your face and hurting my ears."
"Ya.” She spits out.
"You are Brathoid's wife correct?" She nods. "You are a fierce one, just like your husband, don't let it send you into the ground, as it sent him, make better choices.” She glares at me. “Do you know what you are?”
“I am Drela, Chiefta.”
“Not anymore. You are a slave. What kind of slave you are is the question.”
I have to get through to her, get her to understand that there is something better out there for her. I couldn’t give Brathoid an honourable death, however, I can ensure the best circumstance for his woman.
"Rosa, come her girl!" I yell.
A beautiful young woman comes in from the back room, she is tall, thin and wears a shear wrap tied in such a way it enhances every curve. It leaves little to the imagination and I like that. Her hair is blonde, with waves of sunshine mixed in. I can smell her flowery scent, so intoxicating it drives me nuts and she knows it.
"Yes master, I am here to serve."
"Come stand here and let this slave see your beauty.” Rosa stands beside me. "All your beauty." My hand slaps her bottom hard. Mmmm I feel a familiar, pleasant, stirring deep inside me. Her hands slowly, shyly go to the knot on her wrap and she pulls the end, letting her wrap slowly drift down to the ground. I slide my hand along the curve of her ass, signalling her to turn around.
"Slave look at Rosa."
I hit the table hard with my fist. Her eyes fly open in fear. She looks at the woman beside me.
"Rosa is a bed slave. Sit."
Rosa stops rotating and sits on my lap. She kisses my neck while caressing my body with her fingers. Every part of her seems to stroke some part of me, exciting me, building my desire. My cock is hard, painfully so. She is driving me to distraction and I love it.
"Know what that is?" The woman shakes her head. “A bed slave is taught in special schools called Pleasure Houses. They learn how to sexually please their master. They are taught the secrets of the body, so they can give pleasure in every way imaginable. Their beauty and skill make them very valuable and they live a pleasurable life. Don't you Rosa?"
"Yes, a very pleasurable life master.”
" Now you" I point at the slave woman "are too old to be a bed slave, they need to be young, beautiful, and above all a virgin, which clearly, you are not. I think you would make a good house slave, serving, cleaning, cooking that type of thing. A good house slave is valuable and will make me a good profit, I am sure by the time we get to market you will have learned how to behave like a house slave."
I give Rosa a long kiss and she tastes sweet. Desire twists inside my lower abdomen. I need this woman. I crave her. My pleasure will have to wait though.
"Go lie down and wait for me to finish here.”
She gets up and I spank her ass, the sound of it and the sting of my fingers fuels my lust. It is all I can do not to grab her and take her. She turns, smiles and lies down on the pallet in the corner of the front room. I love looking at her naked body waiting for me. Knowing that I am going to enjoy her in a few moments raises my blood pressure making my cock rock hard. It is difficult to keep my mind focused on the business at hand. My cock is screaming for attention.
"See how she listens and obeys me? That is what you need to learn." The slave shoots me a rebellious glare that says not bloody likely asshole and then she spits in my face. I slowly wipe the spittle, keeping all emotion in check. I punch her in the face. I sigh. She is going to fight me every step of the way.
"You are a stupid woman, you will learn though. How much do you think Rosa is worth?"
The Woman shrugs.
"Rosa is worth close to 500 dollars. Some exotic bed slaves who are trained for specific fetishes, so very rare, are worth closer to 1000. When a slave costs as much as that they are well cared for. How much do you think a house slave is worth?"
"How should I know?" Her voice is hot with anger.
"A good obedient house servant is valued at over 200 dollars. Not as much as bed slaves, but a good sum and if they have any real skill at keeping a house, cleaning or cooking we can ask another 50 on top of that. House slaves live and work inside they eat well and are not abused, much, because to replace one is costly. Do you understand?" Her big dark eyes are full of hate. I want to take her to my bed. She would not come willing though and I am not that much of a monster, yet.
"There are other types of slaves with various qualities of life. We may talk of these other roles later. For now, there is one role I want you to be very aware of because it is the only position I could secure for you at the moment and that's if I don't disfigure you too much between here and market.
Slave to a poor man, valued at a dollar, one whole dollar.
A poor man cannot afford many slaves, sometimes, just one. One to do all the work, cook, clean, fieldwork, bed work, and whatever else they need. Poor men don’t have much money, so slaves are fed little, are poorly clothed and go barefoot all year round. Since they don't cost much, even to a poor man, they are easily replaced, so they are abused regularly. All the misfortune of the poor mans life, all his frustration and anger, is relieved by abusing his slave. It is a miserable life, one for the ugly, the unskilled, the weakest, the worthless. Do you want that life?"
She slowly shakes her head and looks down. Good she's smart.
"You are a slave now girl, stop fighting the inevitable.
We will make it to market one day soon and what life you have, is your choice - house slave to a noble or poor mans punching bag? You choose.” I turn and look at Rosa's body laid out waiting for me. My cock is stiff with pulsing desire. I can’t wait a moment longer to touch her, to feel her touch on my body. "Now either stay and watch me fuck Rosa or go, your choice."
The woman jumps up, nearly runs out of the tent, good she's scared.
"Raif, come here and let me suck your cock." Rosa says.
How can I ignore a request like that?
I unlaced my pants freeing my hard cock from the confines of my pants. I watch as Rosa crawls towards me licking her lips. The anticipation of feeling myself in her mouth is killing me. I need her. She licks at the tip gently. I can't wait for her. I grab her hair forcing my cock deep inside her mouth. Her mouth is hot and wet. As she sucks, my passion flares. I close my eyes and see the slave woman’s eyes, her anger, her hate, her love for her people, I pretend it’s for me.
I pound her mouth hard, seeing the slave woman’s eyes full of want for me. I can no longer think, only feel. She sucks, licks, and strokes my sac with her fingers. She digs her fingers into my buttocks to bring me in deeper. Her hands send electric shocks through me into her mouth. I grip her head bringing her firmly to me, quickening my pace. I am deep in her mouth, her tongue wrapped up against my cock. She sucks hard pulling my seamen out of me. She is hungry and I want to fill her, my body goes ridged as waves of pure pleasure ride through my abs, my thighs, and my cock. I fill her mouth with my seed and my whole body relaxes. Every. Muscle. Spent.
Rosa looks up at me very satisfied with herself. I move to the pallet to lie down and she crawls behind me. I hold her close. I stroke her back lightly with my fingers, feeling every soft curve until I fall asleep.
Logan.
It feels good to be travelling again.
We ended up with 6 wagons in the end, which is too big a target for thieves and bandits. The Lord Magistrate commissioned one of the King’s Royal Patrols to travel to the with us, proof that Aleesa was going to the north. Even with the extra eyes, I am constantly moving my horse from the front of our lines to the back and to the front again. I sit high in my saddle, my eyes scanning the roadside brush. Not sure if I’m doing it because I think there is a real threat or just to avoid Aleesa’s constant jabber. The roads of the realm are safe due to the regular Patrols doing such a great job of policing them. Still, 6 wagons is a big target of temptation.