Leah's Punishment

by Aran Ashe

  She opened it silently: the corridor was empty, so she crept further, to Merek's cabin. She would speak with him – spill forth her heart and all her turmoil concerning her feelings for Ean. Her master would surely see her crisis of emotion and some arrangement would be devised; she had love and compassion enough in her heart for both men, though Merek would always be her foremost master. The door was 128 agape. Merek lay abed, snoring softly, oblivious of her tormented world.

  Deflated, thwarted, disconsolate, Leah hung on the edge of tears. Then she turned to go back to her bed – and found Ean standing, quietly waiting, at the door to her cabin. He took the candle from her and put it on the little table. Then his arms enfolded her, sheet and all. Her face was wet with tears as he nuzzled her and kissed her. 'Salty hot,' he murmured.

  'I love you,' Leah whispered.

  'I know it,' he replied. She put her finger to his lips; her sheet slid to the floor. Their love was consummated, standing, just inside the threshold of her cabin but deep inside her belly, hard against her womb. She was forced on to tiptoes by his height. Her climax was all-enveloping, all warming and liquefying; her thighs would not stop trembling. Still locked to her, he carried her to her bed, laid her down, stretched out upon her and, rolling on to his side, lay still locked inside her. She fell asleep. When she awoke she wriggled off his penis, which was still erect. He seemed not to have slept. She wiped him gently with the sheet then kissed his lips and, in a concerned whisper, told him he must go before they were discovered. He did not protest but softly gripped her hand in a parting gesture before quietly closing the door behind him. Leah felt warm and beautifully sated. She pulled the sheet around her, closed her eyes and slept.

  She awoke in the greyness before true dawn. She lay on her side, her knees drawn up, and felt warm stickiness on the back of her thighs. She felt good about last night but now there were practicalities to consider. She wiped herself then got out of bed with the sheet draped round her. In the galley she filled the clyster, then felt its coolness and girth and the steady, reassuring pressure of the salve going up inside her. She balanced with one foot on the stool. Gently she withdrew the instrument and the pulling reminded her of the way Ean's erection had so reluctantly withdrawn from her body as she had wriggled free. Carefully she put the instrument on the table.

  'What are you doing?' The voice came like a freezing rapier pushed between her legs, on and up inside her, through her vitals.

  'Master?'

  'Where is he?' Merek screamed.

  'No!'

  Breast-naked, the sheet wrapped round her thighs, Leah ran after him, up the stairway, tripping headlong across the deck, gathering herself up, half-falling down the aft stairway, then running for the steersman's quarters and the grunts and cries of that dreadful fight.

  Merek was on his knees and bleeding from the lip and nose with Ean, still naked, standing over him, threatening another punch. Leah wrenched the sheet off herself, fell to her knees between the two men and began ministering to Merek. Shaken, crestfallen, he tried to push her hands away. 'Move back, Ean, give me room,' Leah shouted, trying to hold back her own tears even as she tried to clean the blood from her stubborn master's face.

  'I want him off my boat – now!' Merek growled.

  'No,' Leah begged weakly, but the situation was hopeless.

  She felt Ean's firm hand on her shoulder. 'Come with me, Leah?' he whispered.

  'No – how can I? How can I, Ean?' But when she tried to look at him she found she could not.

  'You told me you loved me,' he muttered mournfully.

  'I do love you – very deeply . . .' She turned to Merek. 'And I love my master even more.' She put her arms round Merek and kissed his bloodstained face and this time he did not try to push her away. When she turned back again, Ean had already gone to get his things. When she caught up with him, he was poised at the foot of the stairway, ready to leave.

  'Where will you go?'

  'Why would you care?'

  'I told you – because I love you, Ean.'

  'Like you loved your previous steersman, Asgal? Merek told me.'

  'Told you what? There was nothing to tell. I hated Asgal – truly; as truly as I love you. I never wanted it to come to this.' Then her tears flooded as he took her in his arms one last time and kissed her with tenderness and warmth. Leah clung to him, not wanting this precious moment to pass.

  'Shall you go back to your mistress's house?' She felt a gnawing in her belly as she waited for his answer.

  'I cannot – I stole her husband's horse and sold it at the wharf.'

  'And you took the horse to get to me? – Oh, Ean . . .' She held him closer as her tears flowed freer than ever.

  'I'll get work here – at the foundries or the diggings – somewhere I can work with horses.'

  'Then one day you can steal another one and ride back to me?' Leah tried to smile through her tears.

  'That would be nice,' Ean whispered, 'so nice.' And that was how they said goodbye.

  All the love and emotion that dwelt inside her Leah now bequeathed to her master. She never denied her love for Ean; rather she wore it like a badge of pride, and the desire it stirred within her she assuaged on Merek. She now craved penetration more than any other form of love – locked about her master's body, locked with him inside her. She would remain like that for as long as he could sustain. Sometimes, even while he was at the tiller, she would ride him in daylight and in public: the added arousal would keep him hard and make the seal tighter and the penetration more protracted. In the dusk she would watch the smoky, raucous furnaces drifting by, but she would be thinking of Ean, out there somewhere. In the day she would look out upon the scarred, reddened hillsides and hope that she might see him.

  After three days, the wounded landscape was left behind. Leah was on deck, looking back. Turning, she saw ahead that the waterway was emerging from a valley that seemed to hang over a precipice. Suddenly the channel swung round to the right into a notch cut into the rock face. Leah ran to the outside edge of the boat, near where Merek was at the tiller, and stared out in awe. The ground plummeted down and down; the boat was moving like a bead on a thread, round the front of a mountain. On the inner edge the horse moved quietly forward on the narrow towpath, oblivious of the dread drop across the way. Leah peered over the edge. Far below and ahead, the dry landscape suddenly halted against a vastness of blue. This must be the ocean that Merek had promised. There were tiny dots upon it that must be ships and, at the edge, a great cluster of tiny buildings. Leah could not see how the boat could ever get down there.

  Suddenly, she was grasped round her waist and lifted high against the side. 'No, Merek. No!' she screamed. He had locked the tiller and crept up behind her. He turned her around and sat her on the side. 'No, master, please,' she whispered as he slowly pulled her shirt off.

  'Give me your hands.' They were clinging to the side. 'Both hands.' Only when they were round his neck and her legs were round his waist did Leah stop shivering. 'I want to feel these lovely breasts against me,' Merek whispered. The moment he touched her, all the unfinished feelings of utter dependence came flooding back as if they had never left her. She clung to him, naked, balanced on the edge while he reached between her legs and masturbated her clitoris very gently and expertly through the skin of her hood. And while he was between her legs and in her arms, her lips were softly kissing his neck.

  A long way ahead, at the end of the crag, was a portal buttressed against the rock. The boat in front disappeared through it and Leah watched with increasing curiosity as their boat neared the dark entrance.

  Merek had stopped playing with her to take control of the tiller again and seemed strangely uneasy.

  'Go and get some trousers,' he said. 'And put your shirt on.'

  'Why?'

  'Just do it – quickly.'

  Anxiously she obeyed, then ran back to him. He put one arm around her. She reached up and kissed his neck.

  'Is it a tunnel?' she whi
spered, hoping that her clothes were simply needed against the cold.

  'It's a toll-house.'

  Something very grave about his manner made her cling closer to him. But he feigned attention to the steering and stared ahead at the looming entrance. Leah took his hand but he did not hold hers properly. She tightened her grip and looked up at him with mounting concern. He called to the horse, which slowed its pace. The boat drifted forwards through the entrance.

  'I'm cold, master,' Leah whispered, her voice echoing from the cavernous ceiling.

  On the left, daylight spilled through a row of arches. On each side, the waterway split into a series of parallel wharves, each wide enough to take a single vessel. Overhead, a heavy rope moved slowly on an endless loop, drawing boats in each direction along the centre section of waterway, where no towpath existed. But the first bay on the right was empty, so when the horse halted, Merek simply steered the boat slowly past him then jumped off and brought it to dock.

  There were two other boats nearby. Men from the wharf were boarding them and going below deck, as if checking their cargoes. Some barrels had been taken from one of them. She saw a girl being taken off the nearer boat. Now she was frightened. Two men were approaching along the wharf. Merek was busy watering the horse. Leah clambered over the side of the boat, quickly lowered herself and ran in panic to Merek's side.

  'Shh . . .,' he murmured, lifting her. He sat her on the side of the cold stone trough and stroked her hair and cheek.

  'What do they want?' she whispered.

  He stroked her body through her clothes. 'All the boats passing through must pay a tariff – a portion of their cargo.'

  'You must give them some of the hides?'

  He bit his lip. 'This cargo is bonded to the leather merchant; he remains the owner. The hides are not mine to give.'

  'Then what shall you give them for passage?'

  Then she saw all in his pained expression; she twisted round and saw the girl from the next boat being led away. Suddenly the cavernous ceiling closed in upon Leah, threatening to crush her; she could not breathe. Merek's hands closed about her waist, gripping her belt, holding her in place as the men came nearer.

  'It is only for a little while, Leah – a few days at most, until I get back from the port . . .' His other words were lost in her rising panic as he ceded his place to the strangers, who took her by the arms. They put a token on a chain about her neck and gave a matching token to Merek. Then they began leading her away.

  'Wait!' Merek cried. The men stopped. Leah tried to break free; she wanted to run to him. 'Carry her . . . and treat her gently,' Merek said. As they lifted her up and took her away, she looked back despairingly at her master who had abandoned her and now stood simply watching her, his face paler than when Ean had knocked him to the floor.

  10

  Into the Fire

  Leah's mind raced. Merek's boat would soon be under way again; she had to get back on board without his knowing, but she knew she could never escape from her captors while she was being carried. She had been taken up a ramp inside the cavernous building, then down a series of intersecting stone-lined corridors. This place was very busy. There were porters arguing with merchants, barrows and alcoves heaped with cargo, and several small pens of slaves, mostly girls. The guard carrying Leah was tall and agile; his companion was old and portly and his breathing was laboured. Leah had to act swiftly.

  'I'm going to be sick!' she cried and started choking.

  The guard immediately put her down. She fell to her knees, coughing, spilling long gobbets of saliva on to the paving. People were starting to gather. 'Get the nurse,' the older guard said, and the tall one hurried off. By the time he was out of sight Leah had been sick. The remaining guard crouched beside her. 'We're getting help.' As he reached to stroke her head, Leah suddenly sprang up and ran deliberately in the direction the other guard had taken. Once round the next corner she slowed her pace and kept turning randomly to left or right. As she had guessed, the place was laid out as a series of corridors that intersected at right angles. It was like a busy underground warehouse, with porters constantly moving in and out of the many portals and separate stores. Leah picked up a porter's hat from a pile of boxes and put it on, tucking her hair under it.

  One area opened out into a kind of market. As she drifted past the stalls she watched out for something to carry, to distract attention, but there was nothing unattended and she was afraid of being spotted as a thief. She pulled down the visor of her cap and kept moving purposefully forward, even though she was now unsure of the direction. She decided to try to circle round in a wide sweep and keep moving downhill wherever possible, reckoning that that would take her back to the level of the waterway. Eventually she found herself in a narrow corridor sloping downwards, with water dripping from the ceiling, and she hurried on, hopeful that this was a tunnel and the waterway was above her. Sure enough the floor began to slope upwards. She took the next corner and after a few seconds she was back on the wharf – but on the wrong side. Once she got her bearings she saw that the berth was now empty – Merek's boat had gone.

  Her heart was thudding. What now? She could not give up; she would never go back to those guards. She looked around. There were other boats – every minute or so, another would come through the portal whilst others would be leaving at the far side. She could stow away on one and follow Merek, all the way down the port if needs be.

  Her plan gave her courage. She studied her surroundings. The side she was on was set out like the other side, with individual berths cut into the wharf at an angle; but this side was for traffic returning from the port, while the other was for outbound traffic. There were two footbridges. As she watched, a boat drifted in, heading the same way as Merek's, in fact docking in the same berth. Leah quietly sat on some packing cases and observed it. A crewman unfastened the horse, led him to a trough and gave him some feed. Then two porters appeared and started to unload the tariff, which seemed to be planks of wood. The two crewmen talked with the porters, then all four wandered off in the direction that the guards had taken with Leah. This was her chance: she moved swiftly on to the nearer bridge. There were people on the wharf but, sure enough, this boat was now deserted. Two hatches were open, one at the back and a larger one in the middle. She reckoned that the middle one would give her more options for concealment below deck. She moved swiftly across the bridge and, almost without stopping, shouldered one of the shorter planks off the pile then ran up the gangway and down the main hatch.

  Once below deck, she stowed the plank under the stairway and looked around. She was in a medium sized hold, nearly empty but for some sacks and barrels; it had corridors leading fore and aft. She crept forward. In a cabin she found a loaf and a flagon of beer. She tore off a chunk of bread and took a large quaff from the flagon. Then she quickly moved on, past two more rooms. Suddenly, ahead, she heard snoring. Very quietly and cautiously she crept all the way back to the rear of the boat, where she hid in a small storeroom, pulling some canvas over a gap between packing cases and waiting warily for departure.

  After a few minutes she heard rapid footfalls and shouts followed by banging noises that made her retreat further under the canvas, fearful that the guards were searching the boats. But no one approached the storeroom. The banging sounds continued and she decided that the crew must be loading goods. The activity went on for a long while, then abruptly stopped, and she heard footsteps and muffled shouts coming from the deck above. The boat started backing out of its mooring, began rocking, then banged against the side and stopped. Leah guessed it was being attached to the moving rope, to be hauled to the far side of the toll-house before the tow-horse took over again. Soon the forward movement began and, after a short pause, she felt the familiar slow, gentle surging as the horse settled into its steady rhythm. Her plan was to wait until dusk before creeping on deck. Now, for the first time, she could relax a little. She settled back against some sacking and kept slipping into slumber. In between she
thought of Merek – the hurt of separation, the feeling of rejection when he left her. She needed to confront him with the defiance of her love and dare him ever to put her aside again.

  She finally woke in total darkness, thinking she had heard shouting from outside the boat but fairly sure that it was still moving. She groped her way to the grey light of the doorway and started creeping up the rear stairway but was forced to retreat: the dark shape of a man was at the tiller. She retraced her steps, past the storeroom to the hold, now full of sacks and barrels. As she crept up the central stairway, she saw reflected from the casks and boxes on the deck a flickering orange glow as if from a bonfire. But when she emerged, her belly sank as if into a pit – a dread pit of despair.

  Strung out along the foot of the dark hillside, belching flames of orange and showers of white, were furnaces, the very furnaces she had passed the day before, on her journey with Merek. The boat on which she had stowed away had not gone onwards. It must have loaded at the toll-house then turned back. And now it was docking in this awful place. She was further than ever away from her master. She now had to make her way back through the toll-house and past the guards and find an outbound boat; and then she had to try and find Merek at the port. Leah sank to the decking. She felt sick inside, truly sick this time, sick to her belly and sick to her soul.

  Then, in the coldness of the night air, she thought of Ean. He had mentioned this place and had spoken of seeking work with horses. He might be here, or near here. Once off this boat she could ask; someone might know. She would try to find Ean and ask for his help.

  She was apprehended on the wharf, after less than twenty paces. Her hopes of finding succour here plummeted.

  'We don't see many girls here on their own, Gangmaster. Creeping off that boat like that, I took her straightaway for a "runner".'

  'You did well, boatman,' the Gangmaster answered, examining the metal token round Leah's neck whilst keeping a firm grip on her belt. Then a more dread prospect opened when he added: 'The men will be over the moon at this one. They get little enough amusement. Here.' He pressed a silver coin into the boatman's hand and the gratified man thanked him profusely then retreated.