Another dreadful thing was about to happen to my body, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to prevent it. No amount of reason would work; it was as pointless as talking to a tree stump, and physical resistance would just earn me some sort of punishment, followed by the same result. I followed Rohan and the matron into the back of the building. There, in a large chamber, were three young women undergoing the marking process.
With no pretense at privacy or modesty, all three were face down on a table, naked from the waist down, the legs drawn apart and held there with leather straps, their bare pink sexes completely exposed between widespread thighs. Bent over their offered bottoms stood a male artist, in each case intent on his work. One girl was being marked with a fantastical bird, another with a leaf which looked identical to the one I'd already seen on Raisa's behind, and the third girl was just beginning; with her, it was too early to tell what the mark would be. At the head of each table, the girl's mother sat, speaking comforting words. I was reassured by the fact that no one was screaming or fighting or crying; it could not be that bad.
Rohan walked over to a fourth table. A burly man who stood their looked shocked to see him, but quickly collected himself. Rohan spoke quietly to the man. "So you're understanding that this is to be kept quiet?"
The man nodded sharply in response. "Aye, Lord." He couldn't hide his own curiosity, though, and his glance flickered over me. "And a new picture… What's it to be then?"
Rohan turned to me. "Well, lass?"
My heart sank. I realized that his matter-of-fact request had been completely as it appeared. He had truly expected me to select something, and have it in my mind by the time we arrived there. "I couldn't… decide. Lord."
Rohan looked thoroughly exasperated with me, and I remembered being tossed over his knee and spanked soundly the last time I had frustrated him, in the cave. Hurriedly, I improvised. "I did think of something. Can I draw it?"
The man looked surprised at the request, and I realized that if everyone was simply marked with a tattoo that was passed down from father to child, over and over again, these artists were never called upon to create something different. The Matron hurried away and returned with a scrap of heavy paper, and a writing implement. I had been taught to write by hand, of course, as a child, but it was one of those skills that no one really understood why it was still taught, since everyone entered everything at a term. Some people still preferred to enter data via a keyboard, but most simply dictated everything. I hadn't written anything beyond my signature in years, and since I'd never gone in for drawing or painting as a hobby, I felt very clumsy with the implement. After only a few seconds, though, I managed to sketch out a credible imitation of a sun… a round ball with eight spokes coming out of it, like rays. It seemed appropriate.
The artist took it, and a skeptical expression washed over his face. "What be it?"
I licked my lips, aware of Rohan's gaze. "A… star. It's a way of drawing a star."
"Oh. Aye." The man looked unconvinced. "And the color, then?"
"Gold," I sighed. "Or yellow." During the conversation, I had been assessing my surroundings, and I noticed the instrument trays behind him. Although everything looked very clean, the sharp needles laid out on a folded green cloth, the reality of what was to come very shortly hit me. The artist shrugged, seemingly unfazed by his unusual assignment, and drew some bright gold dye out of a small glass container, pouring it onto a ceramic tray.
Next to me, the young woman who had been receiving the mark of a leaf, was finished with her procedure. Her new mark, very visible even though the surrounding skin was very red, was washed with a special liquid, and then she was helped off the table. I got my first look at her face. It was red, as if she'd been holding back tears for a while, but she was also smiling, holding her tunic up and craning her neck to look at her bottom. I shuddered.
And then… all too soon… it was time. The matron approached. "So, off with them, lass." She gestured to my loose trousers. Quietly, my hands shaking, I complied, and soon I was naked from the waist down, covered only by the flaps of the tunic. Wordlessly, Rohan boosted me up onto the table, and brusquely, the matron pushed me over a rolled pad of leather and reached to part my legs. It was exactly the same position I had been in just days earlier during my hideous examination at the hands of the physical. This was too much; in spite of myself, I began to struggle and wriggle.
"What's this?" the Matron cried. I heard the shock in her voice.
Rohan didn't bother to speak; without a word, he flipped up the back of my tunic, pinned me squarely to the rolled bolster with a hard hand in the small of my back, and brought her hard palm down against my left bottom cheek… once, twice, thrice, very hard and very fast. I floundered over the bolster, but could move nowhere against him, so tightly was I pinned. Before I could even screech, he was suddenly in front of me, grasping my chin, pulling my face up to his. "Mind your manners, lass," he hissed in a brutal undertone "I brought ye here myself, so you're one o' my household. I'll not have ye shaming me in front of these good folk. One more peep out o' ye, and I'll take ye out to the street and use my belt on you. And then you're back in here and can just take your marking on a hot bottom. Are ye understanding me?"
Meekly, I put my head back down. Everyone in the room was frozen and staring. I had no choice. Without speaking, I nodded. Hard, deft hands dragged my thighs apart and fastened them with thick straps. Just like before, I felt my body spradle open; now it was even worse, since I knew I was completely "clean," and nothing was hidden from anyone's gaze. An icy cold cream was rubbed against my right bottom cheek… and I braced myself for the worst.
Half an Earth hour later, I walked by Rohan's side, a little tenderly to be sure. The procedure had been far less painful than I had thought it would be; in fact, I still felt more pain in my left cheek where Rohan's three very hard spanks had fallen than I did in my right cheek which was now, and for all time, marked. I knew, though, that my right cheek had been numbed by the special cold wash, and I wondered if it would start hurting more later.
After the procedure, the beaming matron had tried to show me the mark in a hand glass; I had barely been able to glance at it, so sickened was I by what had happened. Rohan did not notice my silence; we had barely left the building, the three soldiers again trailing behind, when an irate shopkeeper had accosted him and was now proceeding to bend his ear with objections over some sort of trade restrictions. Rohan, I noticed with a sick sense of humor, was listening and murmuring noncommittally, just like politicians on Earth. Some things, it seemed never changed.
All of a sudden, another soldier ran up in front of us. Rohan immediately held up his hand to silence the shopkeeper and allowed the soldier to speak quietly in his ear. He stiffened, then glanced at me quickly.
The soldier left, and Rohan dismissed the shopkeeper politely. "Come along lass. Hurry on."
"What is it?"
"Your wee friend, Christy. She's awake."
Chapter 12
I sat at Christy's bedside, holding my sobbing friend. Rohan had accompanied me into the underground chamber, poked his head through the door only long enough to verify that Christy was indeed conscious, and then had disappeared with the physician and the matron who had been sitting with her. Given no instructions not to converse with her, I had told her everything. She now knew about the fake executions, the catastrophe that had accompanied the attempts to remove the implants from her, and the fact that the entire city of New Wales had been built to cover a crashed space cruiser. Of all of the facts, though, she seemed most appalled at the one that gave me a heart attack as well.
"So they really tried to kill us?" I nodded. "I can understand that they might feel the need to leave people here. But to kill us?" I just let her talk. There was nothing I could really say. "Why didn't the explosion happen when they were taking out your implants?"
"They don't know." I shrugged. It was the answer Rohan had given me and it was the only explanation
I could offer her. It was a complete mystery and probably always would be.
"What are we going to do?" Christy's voice was a hoarse whisper, husky after days of not being used, but her thoughts were clear enough.
"What can we do?" I retorted. "We're stuck here. The mission was supposed to last three weeks, so somewhere up there is our ship. But they think we're dead, and I can only assume they're already gone on, surveying another part of the planet. Even if we could signal them somehow, they're hardly going to come back and save us. They already tried to kill us once. We're alone abandoned and somehow we're going to have to survive."
Christy looked up at me. "But we're not alone."
I went rigid. "What do you mean?"
She blinked. "There's a station here. A permanent monitoring station. A colony really…"
"What?" I was so astonished I could barely speak. "Where?"
"I don't know exactly. This is a very big planet, over twice the circumference of Earth." She closed her eyes wearily. "I don't really remember. Maybe if I saw a map…" Her voice trailed off.
"But they are here?" Christy nodded. "On this continent?"
Christy's brow furrowed as she tried to remember. "I think so."
"How many?"
Under the trailing sheet, Christy's shoulder twitched. "I just heard it talked about in passing. Come to think of it, I overheard it. I probably wasn't supposed to know. Twenty, thirty families?" Her eyes closed again.
My mind raced. Twenty, thirty families? That was a fairly substantial station. And then I remembered that Rohan had mentioned that the man who had been killed in front of him six years ago had mentioned a "place where they watch from." At the time, so overwhelmed had I been by everything, that I hadn't taken much note of it. I had assumed it was some sort of monitoring center that had only been staffed when the monitoring mission was on site. But now I realized they were referring to an actual permanent colony. I wondered if Rohan understood that.
Such permanent installations were only assigned to planets that met certain parameters. The first might be that they had a resource that was still fairly rare on earth, uranium and plutonium, or very valuable like gold. Another reason is that the planet might have strategic significance, or where it was believed that the inhabitants were close to a major scientific breakthrough.
So why here? And if there was a monitoring station, why had Christy and I been abandoned? None of it made sense… but I went cold as I realized the possibilities. Outposts of that size had a transport; I was sure of it. The transport would be large enough to take everyone who lived there off the planet in an emergency. If we could get to the station—find it somehow—would we be saved? An image of Rohan's face flashed through my brain, his face and his warning about what would happen to me if I were uncooperative or dishonest. I couldn't even imagine what he would do if he found out that I'd concealed this.
Quickly I grabbed Christy's hand through the sheet, trying to assess how alert she really was. "Are you still awake?"
Christy nodded without speaking. I bit my lip nervously, realizing that Han or the matron could come back at any moment. I wasn't sure how much she was really able to take in or how much time we had left. "Listen, they might try to talk to you without me. Don't tell them about the station. You can tell them anything else, but not that. Do you understand?"
Before Christy could respond, the door whisked open behind her. I turned and Rohan regarded me slowly and suspiciously. "So what have ye told the lass?"
I tried to look nonchalant but I could feel myself blushing. "She's too weak for much. I told her a little. About the implants exploding." I paused. "You didn't tell me not to, Lord."
He favored me with a sour glance that said he was neither amused nor fooled, but thankfully let what I realized somewhat belatedly was probably a spanking offense go without further comment. Rohan sat next to me on the bed and tipped Christy's face up to his with one long finger. "You sleep lass. It's glad we are that you're back with us. The matrons'll be taking fine care of you." He reached for me and fairly yanked me off the bed. "Come along with ye, lass."
"Can't I stay…"
"No." Rohan pushed me, none too gently, towards the door. "We've a dinner to eat."
Rohan barely spoke to me as we rode the silent elevator to the main level—only a quickly snapped instruction for me to keep my eyes down and my mouth shut as we moved into a part of the castle where there were windows. He was not overly concerned about my being seen by a planet monitor and recognized, garbed as I was like every other young woman, but he was also not willing to take foolish chances. As always, his tone and demeanor irritated me immensely, but I did keep my mouth shut.
First, I did not want to be seen by a remote. I had no idea what they would try to do if they realized I was still alive and no desire to find out. And second, in spite of myself, I was already beginning to see just how effective (and quick) the system of subjugation was. I'd spent more than two decades of my life on Earth, doing as I pleased—and beyond my youngest childhood when of course I did obey my parents—subject really to no one. In one day on this barbaric planet, I'd had my backside bared and spanked—hard—twice by a large and determined man. And the experience was enough to compel me to keep my mouth shut when I was told to do it.
Glad enough for the chance to be alone with my thoughts and having no desire to run afoul of him for a third time in the day—fourth if you counted the hard swats I'd gotten at the marking clinic—I obeyed with no comment, yet seething inside at the arrogance of it all. When we reached his large and well-appointed apartment on the third floor of the castle, two older men—not soldiers—clad in long impressive robes sat in an outer-chamber waiting for him, plainly advisors of some sort. They barely glanced at me
Rohan escorted me brusquely into a back chamber, pushed me inside, and wordlessly shut the door. I glanced back at the slammed portal—my mouth working but no sound coming—not that it mattered, since there was no one to talk to. Still, the rudeness of the man was astonishing, when one compared it to the almost ritualistic politeness and rules of speech that governed interaction on Earth.
Totally frustrated, I turned away from the door and looked around. He had pushed me into his bedchamber, which contained little more than one massive bed, heavy with carved wood and covered with a spread that looked like many antique weavings I'd seen on Earth. There was also a large comfortable looking chair, and two upright cabinets. A door led off to the side and when I peeped inside I saw a chamber very much like the one off his mother's chamber.
I was drawn towards a large window but when I approached I saw that it was not in fact a window. It was a glass door leading out to a balcony. I stepped outside onto a broad, colorfully tiled patio.
The entire city that I had learned was called New Wales spread before me, gleaming and clean under the crystal blue sky and oddly reddish sun. The impression I had had earlier as Christy and I were walked towards the maidens' seminary was correct. This was no small town and the idea that we could have run away and found our own way back to where they ship had been seemed ludicrous from this vantage point. As I stood there, I tried to orient myself. Was that the ridge that we had landed on? Was that the gate we had come through? There was no way of knowing.
For one moment, as I looked at the high, forested ground outside the city walls, I allowed myself to fantasize that it had all been a terrible mistake, that up there somewhere was a ship full of my teammates all of whom were looking for us desperately and were devastated by our loss. The fantasy lasted only a few seconds. Whatever the faults of this hideously primitive society, I knew that Rohan had not lied to me about what the implants in Christy's brain exploding. My "teammates" would have killed both of us without hesitation.
I leaned forward and rested my chin on my folded arms. And so now I had learned yet another shocking secret: that there was a monitoring station on Gamma Rigel. Would this be our savior… or our death sentence? If Christy and I by some lucky chance manage to fi
gure out where the station was and how to get there, would we be welcomed and sheltered—or would we be conveniently disposed of? I didn't know. What I did know is that it would take a great deal more thought as well as intense discussion with Christy before we could decide if we should even try to reach the station. And considering that we did not even have a way to get out of the city, the chances of that seemed rather dim.
Lost in thought, I did not hear a movement behind me until my shoulder was grasped by hard fingers and I was whirled around. "Are ye daft, lass? Are we wanting them to see ye?" Rohan's piercing blue eyes bore into mine. "Get on in here," he snapped, nearly dragging me back through the door. With no warning, his large hand found my backside and delivered a hard full swat. I squeaked; the whole area was still terribly sore from the previous two punishments as well the "marking."
He plunked me down on his bed and turned away without a glance. "Yer not much fer quick learning, are ye?"
I sat, not responding. What could I say? If I said yes, I was in fact a quick learner, I was sure that somehow this would be interpreted as sassiness. If I said no, I was admitting I was an idiot. He wasn't willing to let it go, though. He stripped off his tunic, so he was standing clad in nothing but tight trousers above his boots. I found myself staring a bit at the bold colorful tattoo that decorated his shoulder blade. Suddenly, he turned. "Lass? I'm speaking to ye."
As a tart comment sprang to my lips, I realized my bottom was tender even sitting on a bed and I murmured only, "Yes Lord?"
"Are ye a quick learner?"
"I did well in school." I commented neutrally. It seemed safe enough.
"But not well enough, it seems, to hold your mind to the fact that you must keep out of the sight of those that might kill ye?"
I sighed. "I just forgot." Suddenly, I had an idea. "The city is so beautifully impressive. I wanted to see it."
Betrayed (Hidden Worlds Book 1) Page 18