by Sharon Green
I'd seen the three attackers a few seconds before Ralnor had, but Fallan's lecture had convinced me that I had no business interfering. After all, those were men, and I was nothing but a little girl who needed to be protected from them. I watched the fight for about five seconds, then decided that my duty was done and turned away and headed for those vair.
I had to stop for two brief encounters before I reached the vair, and by that time I'd decided against them. The guards were taking a lot of losses, but not one of them had tried for a vair to take him out of the slaughter and away for help. There was also a dim light burning inside the tent the vair stood in front of, but no one had come out even after the battle had gotten into full swing.
The whole set-up screamed trap, and I'd rather be afoot and safely clear than mounted and in trouble. I was more than willing to skirt the entire area, but pausing to help out one of the mercenaries who faced two opponents put me right near the tent, and when I stepped away from the now equalized fight, I suddenly found myself in an unequal fight of my own.
Two golden-shirts jumped out of the tent with swords in their hands, their bulk blocking my path around it.
"See the silly little slave," said one to the other, gesturing toward me with his blade. "She takes the trappings of one slain in battle, and foolishly thinks herself free - and a warrior queen. Did I not say we would be best off avoiding the battle, so that we might recapture the object of this attack?"
"You did indeed say that very thing," agreed the second, showing a grin. "And now that we have her, we must return her."
The last words spoken must have been a signal; the two came at me together, swords swinging in the sort of silliness that most people consider swashbuckling swordplay. If there had been only one of them he would have been dead before he finished the swash, but with two swinging away like that I needed more room; it's downright demeaning to get killed by that sort of attack.
I jumped back to give myself counterattack room, not realizing the vair were that close - and crashed right into one of the mounts. My back and shoulder hit the stirrup and pad and I staggered, but even the sharp stab I felt in my shoulder didn't make me go down. I tightened my grip on my hilt and started my counterattack, silently thanking the Lord of Luck, but he'd left for another lunch break and I hadn't even noticed. A leadenness flared into being in my shoulder and spread like an oil fire all through me, and the last thing I knew I was dropping my sword and falling toward my two erstwhile opponents.
Chapter Seven
It took a long time to figure out I'd been drugged; understanding how was completely beyond me. They never let me come all the way out of it, so all I got was bits and snatches of reality all wrapped around with floating gray unconsciousness.
The first bit after my almost-fight with the golden-shirts was lying in the darkness, chained again and wearing one of those slave shifts. I stirred as my body began to fight off the effects of the drug, and then there was an arm around my shoulders. I was raised up, and a metal cup was put to my lips. I had enough time to realize that the darkness came from the cloth around my eyes, and then I was swallowing the sweet liquid being poured in my mouth. Two swallows, three - and then nothing.
The next time I was aware of motion, and three or four times after that as well, and then came a time when the motion stopped. I was given no more than a single swallow of the sweet liquid, and though my head whirled I didn't fall back into a world of gray. I felt myself being lifted down from something and carried, and then transferred to another pair of arms.
"She is now the property of your master," came a voice I didn't know, and hands fumbled at the cloth over my eyes then pulled it away. "As you see, she is the one contracted for."
The small stone room we stood in was dim compared to the bright day-glow coming in through the still-open door. I tried to turn my head away from the glow, but a big hand came to my face and turned it back again.
"She is indeed the one," said a voice I might have heard once or twice before. "Why does she seem so strange?"
"It is merely the travel potion given her," said the first voice. "She is aware of that which occurs about her, yet is she beyond being upset by it. The potion also raises her receptivity, therefore are there few of our clients who object to its use."
"Indeed?" said the second voice, and the hand left my face to move under the slave shift. Waves of fire flashed through my body at the brief probing touch, and I moaned and writhed in the arms that held me. "Excellent!" the voice laughed. "Truly excellent! I must have some of that potion."
"What is here is yours, Lord," said the first voice, oily with satisfaction. "She must be given it each time she appears to be rallying from the previous dose, else it will lose its effectiveness."
"Your instructions will be followed," the second voice said. "You may now take your leave."
I heard a rattle and a very pleased, "Thank you, Lord!" but I was already being carried away.
The stone room had winding stone steps, and I was carried up and up in a circle until we reached the top and a door. The door was opened and I was carried inside, then through room after room of beautiful furnishings and a vast display of wealth. A small, distant voice inside my head was beginning to cry hysterically, but nothing meant anything to me, nothing mattered. The only thing that seemed to matter was the way the second voice had touched me; I wanted more, a lot more, but whimpering and squirming weren't getting it for me.
"Is this she, master?" a female voice asked, and I realized that we'd come to a stop.
"Yes, this is she," said the second voice, still with us even though I'd thought we'd left him behind somewhere. "The master means to visit with her as soon as he may, therefore is she to be prepared against his arrival."
"It appears her preparation has already been begun," said the female voice. "See how she moves."
"She has been given a potion," said the second voice. "Should she do well under this potion, the master may give it to any slave who does not please him as she is. Are there slaves about who require such a potion?"
"No, master!" came a chorus of female answers, all sounding eager to please.
"Very well, then," said the second voice. "See to this slave."
I was put down on something very soft, and it seemed as though a number of presences left. I couldn't seem to focus on the faces of anyone around me, and even the walls and furniture turned wavery when I tried to concentrate on them. None of that bothered me, of course, only my need to be seen to. My body moved of its own accord on whatever I lay on, and I whimpered again.
"The slave child asks to be touched," came a sleek, superior-sounding female voice. "I believe I will be the one to touch her."
"Now?" asked another, sounding a good deal younger. "The master may not arrive for some time, and the child is already in need."
"When the master arrives, she will be screaming to please him," the sleek voice answered. "The master will be pleased, and it will have been I who assured his pleasure. Take yourself elsewhere, slaves, and seek in vain to please the master as much as I will have done."
Sleek-voice laughed then, and after a minute I knew she had moved nearer to me. I had no idea what would happen until she touched me, and then I gasped and nearly choked.
"All slaves know that the master's touch is ever most welcome," sleek-voice purred in my ear. "And yet it needs a woman to know best the weaknesses of another woman. To be touched in this manner is more than I am able to bear, slave child. How do you find it?"
If I'd been able to speak, I wouldn't have been able to speak; the woman's logic was faultless. I spent a timeless time writhing and trying to escape, helpless to help myself, and then a new voice interrupted.
"What do you do here, slave?" the male voice demanded, a voice I seemed to know. "For what reason do you concern yourself with the new slave?"
"Master, I am merely engaged in preparing her for you," sleek-voice answered, sounding a good deal less self-satisfied. "She will beg for the l
east attention from you, the smallest glance, the briefest touch."
"This was not the reason for her purchase," the male voice answered, sounding annoyed. "Those fools at the slave market tell me they are unable to train her as I wish her trained, and have sent her sooner than she was to have come. They gave no reason for such hasty delivery, yet the reason is clear enough: they fear to face what for them would be failure. I, myself, will not allow such failure." The voice paused for a second and then said, "She seems unaware of my presence. What has been done to her?"
"Master, she has been given a potion," sleek-voice quavered, for some reason more frightened than she had been. "We are to continue with the potion, so that she will be - "
"Unaware of her true fate!" the male voice snapped, wild with rage. "My enemies seek to take my victory from me, to turn its sweetness bitter! How is she to be properly trained if she is unaware of my existence? The potion is not to be given to her again, and I am to be informed when its hold begins to loosen upon her. See to it, slave."
"Yes, master," sleek-voice whispered, and then I was alone in my wavery, need-filled world. It seemed to take a very long while, but slowly I began to be aware of the fur I lay on, the furniture and decorations around me, the occasionally passing people, a lessening in the need forced on me. I lay still with my eyes unfocused, resisting the urge to take a deep breath, coaxing my mind into working again.
The thought that I'd been drugged came through for the second time, but now I thought I knew how it had been done. That sticking pain I'd felt in my shoulder when I'd struck the vair's saddle; a needle set into the stirrup pad could have done the work, and would have been in the perfect position to down anyone foolish enough to climb into the saddle. In order to put your foot into the stirrup you'd have to set your leg against the pad, and that would be it as far as staying conscious went. I'd been right in thinking there was a trap and in deciding against the vair; I just should have stayed farther away from them.
My mind wandered for the next couple of minutes, and then it came back to something the male voice had said. Those slavers hadn't told anyone about what I'd done to their people, and they hadn't kept me for further training. I had a funny feeling that it was the golden-shirt I hadn't killed who had gotten me out of that training program. The dead guard could have been killed by accident as far as anyone knew, but there was no doubt about what had happened to the golden-shirt.
The slavers wanted nothing more to do with me, but they didn't have the stomach to tell my present owner what I was really like. As paranoid as he was, he'd be sure they were lying in some sort of attempt to trick him out of what was his - and then he'd take steps to get even. No, the slavers couldn't tell their good patron Prince Clero the unlikely truth, and if I had any luck at all, that omission would be my ticket out of here.
Good old Prince Clero. My memory told me that it was his voice I'd tagged as the male voice; I'd just been in no shape to identify it sooner. He'd stopped his sleek-voiced female slave from continuing to torture me, but I knew damned well that he hadn't done it out of the goodness of his heart. He had something special in mind for me - or for the Princess Bellna - and knowing approximately where the slavers' training program had been going gave me some idea as to his bottom-line expectations. It wasn't a pleasant thought, especially when you added in the hinting Dameron had done. The room I lay in was somewhat on the warm side, but I still felt a shiver touch me.
"So you have come back to yourself at last," a female voice said from behind me, the woman I thought of as sleek-voice. I'd been aware of someone sitting behind me, and there was no sense in trying to pretend I was still under. I still felt sluggish, but hoped the feeling would pass quickly enough to keep from being a problem. I pushed myself into sitting with a small amount of difficulty, then turned to look at the woman.
"I am indeed recovered," I answered, making sure I sounded frightened and uncertain, then spent a minute or two staring at the woman. She was a very beautiful blonde with gray eyes - and she wore the clothing of a woman of the upper classes. No chains, no skimpy little slave shift; a real, dark red dress and shoes, with plain jewelry and her hair put up. I let my expression show the confusion I felt and added, "What is this place? What is to be done with me?"
"You will learn that in due time," the woman answered, rising gracefully to her feet. "For the moment you will do no more than obey without question… She is prepared to depart, master."
The last was directed to the man who was approaching us, a man dressed in thigh-length red tunic, heavy, lace-up sandals, thick leather wrist bracers and a sheathed sword. I might have considered his get-up laughable if he hadn't also worn the casually uncaring look of a paid sword and bully. It seemed highly probable that he was a guard, and when he reached down and hauled me to my feet by one arm, the probability became a certainty.
"The prince awaits this one with impatience," the man growled, looking me over with what seemed to be a practiced eye. "There are guests, therefore are you to follow as well."
"Yes, master," the woman responded in a low, unhappy voice as the guard began to haul me along. The room we were in was relatively small, but it was also paneled in dark wood with touches of silver decoration and silk-seated items of furniture. The carpeting on the floor was thick and soft, and it led through a doorway to another room of about the same size which was decorated just as richly.
We passed through three or four rooms of that sort, but I didn't have the time for sightseeing; the guard was in a hurry, and if he hadn't been holding my arm I would have been flat on my face any number of times. We finally reached a room smaller and barer than the rest, with two beautifully carved wooden doors standing closed in front of us, another armed, tunic-dressed guard standing in front of the doors. The guard gripping my arm pulled me to a halt, then nodded to the other guard.
"The prince awaits this one, Ryskor," he said, raising my arm a couple of inches. "The other has been summoned for the guests."
"Then she must be prepared," the guard called Ryskor answered, showing a faint grin as he looked at the blonde behind us. "Come to me quickly, little one. The prince's guests must not be kept waiting."
"Master, I am already prepared," the blonde quavered, fingers tugging nervously at each other as her eyes pleaded with the guard. "Rarely is a latecomer chosen to tend a guest, yet should I be chosen despite this, I will give such pleasure as has never - "
"Ah, ah, ah," Ryskor interrupted with a wider grin, waving a finger at her as he walked toward a heavy wooden chair. "The prince has decreed that no slave shall pass those doors without first having been prepared. You will then strive that much harder for the privilege of giving pleasure. Come here!"
The snap in the last two words made the woman jump then started her toward the guard, who was sitting himself in the chair. When she reached him he took her by the waist and sat her down on his left knee, then put his left arm around her waist. One of her hands went to his shoulder and the other to the arm around her, but bracing herself did no good at all. As soon as his free hand began to rise under her long skirts, she shut her eyes and threw her head back.
"Master, I beg pity!" she whimpered, moving slightly against the restraining arm around her. "I have not been used since last I was prepared, and I cannot resist your touch! Please do not - Oh! Oh, no!"
I turned my head away so as not to have to watch the woman being "prepared," but I couldn't keep from hearing her pleading, gasping, and struggling. They wanted her hot for the prince's guests and hot she was made, none of them giving a damn how much she would suffer until she was taken care of - if she was taken care of.
The guard holding my arm watched the proceedings with a faintly amused look on his face, which was a damned good thing for me; my hands had curled into fists below the wrist cuffs, and if he hadn't been watching the show he would have seen it. I just stood there staring at the beautifully carved doors, fighting to calm down enough to open my hands, aware of the trembling silence coming from
the Bellna presence. She knew where we were as well as I did and the thought frightened her, but she could feel the fury inside me and was somehow comforted by it.
If she'd had any sense, comfort would have been the last thing she felt; losing your temper in a dangerous situation is a good way of getting yourself killed, but I wasn't far from doing exactly that. I was out of patience with these big, strong manly men, and was waiting for nothing more than a couple of minutes alone to dump those chains. After that we'd see how big and strong they were.
It didn't take long to get the blond woman properly primed; the harder part was getting her calmed down enough to pretend that nothing had been done to her. It seemed to be part of the twisted game that she show nothing of the need forced on her, but it took both of the guard males to hold her until she stopped trying to reach herself.
The thing that really bothered me was the fact that she hadn't once screamed or raised her voice to a shout during the entire incident, even though she had panted, mewled, struggled and sobbed without tears. Quiet hysterics were fine, but noise was out. That high a degree of conditioning made me sick, but it also began to disturb me. If that was what Clero did to female slaves as a matter of course, what did he have in mind for me?
I was willing to consider the question academically on a cold winter's night some place far from here, but that sort of willingness didn't help me much. I tried to fade past the guards while they were involved with the blonde, but they weren't involved enough to have forgotten about me. I was just beginning to believe I might be clear when a sandaled foot hooked the chain between my ankles and pulled hard, sending me down to the floor with a crash and a clank of chain.
I broke the fall with my hands to keep anything else from breaking, but it still hurt to land on the wrist chains with my body. My guard came over and hauled me to my feet again, pushed me back toward the doors with a shove, then laughed when I tripped and went down again. I was pulled to my feet and then shoved two more times, finally being allowed to just lie there while the blonde straightened her clothing and hair so that she would be presentable.