by Susan Wright
Slowly, I released myself to descend into the rock, where everything moved on a different scale. The rock embraced my spirit and gave me some comfort. I had imagined there was nothing inside the rock but eternity, but spirits flowed through, moving so slowly that it took a very long time for me to connect with them. There was room in my mind for only one word, and I chose—peace. No need, no want, no desire . . . only rest.
I knew my inua would stay in the rock forever when my body died.
26
When I was at long last dragged out of the cell, I hardly knew my own name. A woman’s voice asked in slow, distinct words, "Will you obey?"
I nodded, my tongue too swollen to speak.
I was given water to drink, and I clutched the cup with both hands so I wouldn’t spill it. It was not nearly enough, but it revived me somewhat. They wrapped a short robe around me that tied at the waist. A young man was being pulled along behind me, while another was being carried.
I was so relieved to get out that I felt giddy and grateful, as if I were being rescued.
Going up several levels, we were taken to another iron grate, this one towering far over our heads. In the large, hollowed-out chamber beyond, people milled about. The masters thrust us inside, clanging the gate shut.
Some of the others rushed forward, and in the lantern light filtering through the iron bars, I realized they were slaves. There were nearly twoscore of them. Some were reclining on rugs and padded mats, while others crouched near the curved rear wall.
It took three of them to carry the well-built young man over to some bedding. They called his name uselessly. "Torr! Torr!"
I launched myself away from the grate, heading for the water bucket that my nose found before my bleary eyes could see it. The other boy who had also been pulled from the cells followed me. I wondered if it was their screams I had heard. It made me sick to think there might be other slaves still down in those cells.
We took turns drinking as much as we could. The slave-mates of the unconscious lad fetched water for him when they saw we were parched near to death.
I spotted some bedding and fell into it despite the protests of another slave. The words were staccato, with the full, rounded tones cut sharp, but I could understand her complaints. They were speaking my da’s tongue, the language of my homeland. "That’s my bed! You’ll have to make another for yourself. . . ."
Several slaves were removed the next morning and they didn’t return until our evening meal of dried fish and mashed roots arrived. I mostly slept, waking only to drink more water.
With their pale skin and long, yellow hair, these slaves looked much like my Noromenn kin. But they were from the cold north rather than my homeland. I could hardly understand their dialects, with the words so clipped and fast. They huddled close into groups, indicating the ship had picked up slaves from four different pleasure houses.
They were wary of me. Obviously I had not journeyed here with them. Each time I woke it was to the particularly shrill voice of Grete, the woman whom I had ousted from her makeshift bed. She was always asking me questions. I ignored her, refusing to answer until I could determine what to do. It had not been good fortune that sent me to Grete, for she was determined to unravel my mystery. Perhaps she would have hounded me regardless of where I had collapsed, for Grete was stridently intense about everything.
When the three slaves were returned, they were crying and trembling. Some of the others gathered round them, trying to help. One girl was inconsolable, crying so hard her face was swollen and red.
Finally Grete’s attention was focused elsewhere. "What did they do to you, Ileana?" Grete demanded. But the girl could hardly breathe, much less speak.
One of the older boys pushed Grete away. "Can’t you leave her alone?" His sneer reminded me of Sverker, my nemesis in Vidaris.
"I never . . ." Ileana cried hysterically in his arms. "I didn’t know . . . Why? Oh, why?"
The girl was bleeding from dozens of tiny sores on her thighs. The other slaves who returned were similarly overwrought and exhausted, their robes stained with blood where they had been cut. One of the boys had rope burns on his arms, while the other held his head in his hands and simply moaned.
I pulled the blanket over my head.
A few days later, the masters had evaluated all of the slaves in the pen. Grete had returned speaking faster than ever, recounting the awful details of what they had done to her. Tears flowed constantly, but except for an odd gasping sob with every breath, she couldn’t stop talking.
I put my hands over my ears, trying to block out her manic face and wide-open mouth. I wondered if Grete had always been like this or if she had snapped. Everyone was terrified or defensive or both. There had been a fight among the boys from different houses, with flailing arms and vicious scuffling as the others screamed and tried to get away. None of the masters came to investigate and eventually they tired themselves out, more bloodied and bruised than before.
Then the masters came to take me away along with Torr and Hans, the slaves who had been in the cells. The three of us hadn’t yet recovered from our ordeal. Torr could barely walk, but Hans tried to dislodge the hands of his captors. They held him tighter and their strength was such that Hans had no hope of breaking free.
They led us back down the rough-hewn tunnel, and I feared for a moment that we were going down to the cells again. But we were taken through a door in the rock. The thick wooden beams were heavy, and the door boomed as it swung shut. I’d heard that sound from the holding pen, but hadn’t known what it was.
Inside were doors spaced along the tunnel until it curved ahead and I could see no farther. My hands were shaking. These were the only doors I had seen in Saaladet.
But the first chamber held nothing more frightening than a bath. The tubs steamed with water, delivered through a cunning pipe that passed through a hole in the rock.
It was eerily familiar, reminding me of when Lexander had first brought me to Vidaris.
Torr and Hans definitely needed a wash after their long ocean voyage. I was little better after the filth of the cells. The master and mistress who tended to us seemed accustomed to the worst of grime. They watched us scrub down, pointing here and there to encourage a more thorough job. As they did, they drilled us on the names of each body part. Lexander had taught us the slippery-sounding words in Vidaris, and now I realized it was the Stanbulin tongue.
The master and mistress provided other words in the ancient language, which I drank up. It was difficult to communicate without the olfs’ help, and I wished I had learned more since arriving in Stanbulin. But the masters were primarily interested in concepts like "clean" and "dirty," and what to call the tub, soap, and brushes.
When I was finally glowing and my hair hung in long, damp waves, I was shown into another room.
I began to take deep breaths, preparing for the worst. Someone barked, "Vordna!" and I bent my knees, assuming the pose of deference.
"What is your name?" the master demanded in my da’s tongue.
"Marja."
"Your house?"
I felt a tremendous sense of dislocation. A year ago in Vidaris, I had been ready to board the winged ship to Stanbulin when Lexander had saved me. I thought I had escaped, but now my fate had caught up to me.
I gave the name of a northern house I had heard among the slaves. I was determined never to reveal that I was from Vidaris, not even under torture.
But that was the end of their questioning. I had been dreading an interrogation about how I had gotten loose in their harbor. But they must have assumed it was an oversight by one of the masters that I had been left behind on the ship.
Instead, a master and mistress ordered me through the poses at a fairly rapid pace. While one master rapidly marked on a scroll with a black quill, the elder one made continuous comments as he circled me—my height, the shape of my breasts, the size of my buttocks, my hair and face. My unusual eyes garnered a lot of attention. None of the northern slav
es had almond eyes like mine, but the masters did not question their own assumptions.
As they ordered me through another series of poses, they went slower, giving them time to run their hands over my waist and down my legs. As their fingers probed me, checking my mouth, ears, and nether parts, I was once again a slave. I could protest, rebel, and fight them, but they would win in the end. It would be easy for them. They could throw me in a cell and forget about me.
Whenever I tensed or stiffened, they became more insistent. They were going to do what they wanted regardless of my desires. The agony came from fighting them.
So I began to accept that I was a slave again. It was a terrible accident that I was here, but I couldn’t fight it. Not now.
I sank inside myself, finding that unchanging core that was unaffected by circumstance. Whether I felt ecstasy or pain, it was all the same if I yielded. Only my acquiescence mattered.
They brought back Torr and Hans, and ordered us to pleasure each other. I was warmed up and their stimulation ignited my body. But both were resistant. Torr was a well-developed young man with broad shoulders from working in the fields. His eyes were bloodshot when he managed to open them, and his skin had a grayish cast. He had fared the worst in the utter blackness of the cell. It had broken him. Watching him move about as if he were an animated corpse made my skin crawl.
Hans was shorter and stockier, younger than both of us. Hans worried me. He was enthusiastic at times, but then he lapsed into anger and actually shouted at the masters. When he was focused, he became very intent. He licked and sucked on Torr’s tarse for a long time, even though Torr clearly did not respond. When I tried, I got the same result.
The mistress brought out a stiletto. The point of the knife was sharp, with the light catching its beveled edge. She made me move from between Torr’s legs and took my place. The two masters stood behind him, holding his arms.
She placed the stiletto against his chest. In the Noromenn’s tongue, she ordered, "Obey."
As she flicked the knife, it left a short red line behind.
Torr was cut a dozen more times, but he refused to make a sound though his legs jerked each time. The shallow cuts filled with blood, and a few ruby beads dripped down.
Then they motioned for me to suck on his tarse. He didn’t want it, so I almost couldn’t. But if I refused, it would be worse for all of us. So I used every art I could to tease him into excitement.
Even when I managed to coax some firmness into them, neither Torr nor Hans could sustain themselves for penetration. Torr’s inua was already gone, while Hans had become unbalanced. He laughed when the mistress cut him the first time, a chilling sound. His outbursts garnered him a bloody set of wounds on his chest and back.
After much frustration and fruitless effort, Torr and Hans were removed from the room. I was sweating and trembling from what I had seen and done. I was also smeared with blood, though I had not been cut myself.
The young master and mistress took their place with me. I performed every rite of pleasure that Lexander had taught me, as well as some I had never encountered before. The mistress sucked each one of my fingers as if they were tiny tarses, and then she ordered me to do the same with her. I dived in with abandon.
The session with my buttocks was quite extended, and I was ordered to service theirs, licking and probing with my fingers. The master had a cold response, but the mistress was lovely. Her name was Numian. She wallowed in the pleasure, reminding me at times of Ukerald’s consort, Drucelli. I had never serviced Drucelli, but Numian had a similar sensuality in every glance of her sparkling copper eyes, half lidded with pleasure. She was short compared to the rest of her people, near my own height, a perfect miniature goddess. She herself likely believed that she was flawed.
Occasionally, the elder master ordered Numian or the master to do certain things. It was as if the masters were in truth slaves themselves. I tried to imagine Lexander rutting on command, but it was hard to conceive of him being subservient to anyone.
I quailed at nothing, but Numian began inflicting tiny cuts on me, to see if I would resist. In my heightened state, the sharp lacerations merely served to raise me higher into ecstasy, as I released everything else to the demands of pain. I accepted each cut without looking away or tensing when Numian raised the stiletto.
My sweat made the wounds sting till my breath came short. When they finally let me go, I stumbled and nearly fell as I collapsed to the ground, unable to hear what they were saying.
As I swam back, someone gave the order for gesig, utter surrender. I pulled myself into a kneeling position, my head bowed, feeling as if I were floating away.
They were testing me to find my limits. But they couldn’t reach beyond mine. I wondered if they would kill me in trying. . . .
But they were growing eager, discussing me. I couldn’t understand exactly what they said, but they had realized I was a true submissive. Lexander had been so eager when he discovered my nature that he had taken me right then and there. Perhaps he had thought of how pleased the masters of Saaladet would be when he sent me to them.
But I could not think about Lexander now. Only a slave could endure this.
The one word I heard repeated was "Tantalis." It was a place of great importance to them. I wondered if it was the island where Lexander’s people lived, that elusive place that had made him . . . the place that would destroy me.
When they finally carried me back to the pen, I was past all remembrance. When I awoke the next morning, Torr and Hans were gone.
Days later, Torr and Hans still had not returned. The slaves speculated that they had been deemed unsuitable and had been sold at the slave market in the city. I didn’t want to say anything, but I feared they had been sent back to the cells after they had failed their evaluations.
The masters and mistresses regularly took us from the pen for their practice sessions and to pleasure themselves. Perhaps it was part of the evaluation to see how we interacted with our patrons. The slaves had no thoughts of resistance.
I was taken from the holding pen quite often. It seemed that all the masters wanted to try a true submissive. So I joined them in their luxurious chambers, lolling on the softest blankets, stroking them. They clinked their silver-tined utensils as they ate, disdaining to use their fingers, while I sat at their feet accepting their scraps. There was always more pleasure to be given and accepted. I lost count of how many I rutted with under the light-spangled lanterns.
The masters seemed to be on holiday, enjoying the luxury of the master house while they were being trained or waiting for their next assignments. But we slaves were like water always pouring forth from a spring. We were evaluated, then sent off to our new masters in Tantalis, with another batch of slaves soon arriving to take our place. What they did to us mattered not.
Everyone watched me curiously, so I remained docile and meek. But whenever I was in the holding pen, I tried to rouse the other slaves, to talk to them about breaking free. Yet no one would listen. They thought I was mad. They were so beaten down that only a great shock would awaken them from their stupor. In spite of myself, I felt as if I were sinking along with them, with nothing ahead but more misery.
Hope of rescue had become a burden I could no longer bear. I had to force myself to stop imagining Lexander striding through the tunnel toward me.
Late one evening, I was removed from the pen by Numian, the mistress who had performed my evaluation. Numian decided to take her pleasure with me and a mistress who deferred to her. This mistress was even more beautiful than Numian, but she required constant affirmation. As I pleased her, I murmured compliments about her luminous skin, her fascinating eyes, and the sumptuous curve of her breasts. . . .
Numian laughed at us and directed the whole thing. On the whole it was pleasant. Since my evaluation, none of the masters had marked me, and the scabs from the cuts were almost completely healed. The slaves were actually grateful that they weren’t being beaten every day.
I
did not have to feign enjoyment with Numian. She was not even harsh when she pushed me back into the holding pen, unlike some of the other masters, who shoved us away as if we were unfit to be touched. Her hand was gentle as she guided me inside.
That gave me the opening I needed.
Numian was so lulled by my subservience that she didn’t expect it. I grabbed her arm and jerked her toward me. She stumbled into the pen, catching on to the bar to stop herself. I threw my body against the gate, slamming it back into her. There was a sickening crunch as her head was caught between the gate and the bar.
The weight of her falling pushed me away. Numian lay there with the whites of her eyes showing and a blood-stain slowly growing on the floor.
There was an outcry from the slaves, which I quickly stopped. "Hush, or they’ll hear you! Do you want to be punished?"
"They’re going to kill you!" Grete gasped.
"I’m getting out of here," I told them. "And you’re all coming with me."
Some of the slaves protested and backed up against the rough walls, as far away from Numian as they could go. Horror was etched in their faces. I couldn’t blame them.
"Come!" I ordered. "Help me hide her."
I picked up one of Numian’s arms and pulled. At my repeated orders, a few of the boys stepped forward to help. They feared what would happen if Numian was seen.
When she was laid at the back of the holding cell, I put my hand to her mouth. There was no breath.
She was dead.
Panic almost overcame me. I might as well have killed myself. I could feel the pressure of the evil spirits trying to seep inside through my transgression.
But the rising questions from the slaves brought me back to my senses. I couldn’t tell them that Numian was dead.
I covered the mistress with the rug, tucking it around her tenderly, murmuring, "I give this kill to you, evil spirits."