Kiera of Gor (16)

16: We learn of the existence of the Shadow Council

The simple latch mechanism splintered from the wooden door as Brinn kicked it in. As soon as he was through the doorway I saw my haughty mistress secured by her wrists to a heavy iron slave ring fixed into the far wall approximately seven feet above the floor.

Her arms were pulled up above her head and secured in place by slave bracelets on those slim, helpless wrists. She was half naked to her waist, her rich gowns and robes and even her slip-like under garment having been cut away from her upper body to hang loosely in useless strips from her belted midriff, and she was now gagged with the array of veils she wore, they having been cruelly forced into her mouth in thick wads. Binding fibre held the thick wadding in place, the ends tied tightly at the back of her head. In desperation she wriggled in her bonds, mumbling incoherently through the makeshift gag. I suppose if you happened to be a man it must have been quite an attractive sight. The Lady Ameena stood at Marissa's side with a long hair pin in her right hand. The tip of the pin was poised, resting on the soft flesh just below Marissa’s lower eyelid. It was obvious that it would only take a momentary pressure to drive the pin up through her eyeball and into her brain.

“Not one step closer,” hissed Lady Ameena, “if you want your woman to live.”

Marissa’s pleas were frantic over her gag, though she dared not move her head for fear of inadvertently driving the sharp point of the hair pin into her eyeball.

I saw Brinn lower his sword for the moment and carefully regard the scene. The windows were shuttered, and although the shutters were splintered and broken in places there was no easy access out for the Lady Ameena. The only door was the one he had come through, meaning the woman was essentially trapped. “Your men are all dead, Lady. You’re alone.”

“Not one step closer. I’m warning you! Or she dies!”

“Lady Ameena, isn’t it?” said Brinn as he placed his sword down onto the table to show that there was no immediate threat.

“Yes,” came the reply. The woman relaxed a little as soon as she saw Brinn had disarmed himself.

“We appear to be at an impasse, Lady. You understand that the only way to safety is through this door, but you also understand that if you kill the Lady Marissa, your bargaining position is gone and terrible things will then befall you.” Brinn paused for a moment, smiled and added, “very terrible things, Lady. That is if you kill Marissa, or indeed simply blind her in one eye due to your trembling hand.” He pointed to Ameena’s weapon hand that was indeed trembling. As Brinn narrowed his eyes meaningfully, Ameena relaxed the pressure of the needle point so as not to inflict a serious injury by accident.

“That’s better, Lady. Now, as I said, so long as you stand there with a hair pin in place, I cannot do anything. But at some point I presume you will wish to leave this hut, yes?” He watched as Ameena nodded. “To do that you will realistically have to take Marissa with you, yet you’ve chained her to a slave ring. That was very foolish of you, for how can you possibly open the locks on her slave bracelets while simultaneously holding the hair pin to her eyeball?”

“Perhaps I will order you to open the locks,” suggested Ameena.

“Oh, I would like that, Lady. By all means allow me to stand an inch or two from your body in order to do so.”

“Ah…” Ameena suddenly realised the dilemma.

“As I said, an impasse. You cannot leave with the Lady Marissa, you cannot stay here indefinitely, and I of course cannot allow you to kill her. What are we to do?” Brinn crossed his arms and regarded her. “In all seriousness, I have no idea how we’re going to resolve this, but then I’m just a simple warrior. You I presume are a highly intelligent free woman?”

“I am,” answered Ameena.

“Then please make a suggestion. I do not relish this situation any more than you do. And I am concerned that soon your arm will grow tired if you maintain it in that position. Soon it will tremble due to fatigue. The hair pin is not heavy, but even holding an open hand in a stable position takes considerable strength as the minutes tick by. I would not want you to hurt Marissa by accident.”

Ameena’s eyes flicked to the left and the right. She was obviously looking for some way out of the shack.

“As you can see, there is the open doorway and that is it. I can free up one of the windows for you if you would prefer to crawl through one, exposing yourself to me as you do so?”

“No, warrior. I do not want that.”

“So then.”

“Let me be clear,” said Ameena, “it is obvious to me that you are protective of this woman. You have feelings for her. You care for her.”

Brinn laughed and shook his head. “You misunderstand I think, Lady. The woman is under my protection. It is a matter of the codes. I am honour bound to protect her. But there is no personal relationship involved. I have only known her for a short period of time. But let me in turn be very clear on one thing. I will tell you what I will do if you so much as blind her in one eye. I will tie you to that slave ring and then after cutting away your clothes, I will with the aid of a sleen knife at my belt, slice open your skin ever so carefully and slowly peel it away in strips from your body. That is what I will do, until you hang from those wrist chains a skinless raw thing of red mottled flesh. I will leave the skin on your face and on your feet, but the rest I will peel away. Do you have any doubt I will do that if you harm the Lady Marissa?”

There was fear in Ameena’s eyes now. She shook her head.

“That is what I will do to you if you harm her in any way. So be very careful where your hand is. Your hand will grow tired. I strongly recommend that once you feel yourself losing control of it, you move it well away from the Lady Marissa. Do you understand me, Lady?”

“Yes…” said Ameena in a quiet voice. Already the muscles in her arm were beginning to grow tired.

“Good. Then let me now offer you an alternative. The alternative is far superior in many respects to being skinned alive. You are obviously an intelligent woman. You clearly understand the reality of your situation. I am sure you do not wish to be slowly skinned alive. The alternative is for you to place that hair pin on the table beside my sword, and to surrender yourself as my captive.”

“Captive?” said Ameena.

“Yes, captive. An honourable enough surrender. I will of course interrogate you, but if you co-operate and tell me what you know, I will not maliciously hurt you. Resist me in that and I will not spare you the whip. Do you understand, Lady?”

“Yes, I do.” She looked about the room once again but began to understand that her situation was hopeless. After a further moment’s thought she lifted the long hair pin away from Marissa’s face and, moving slowly and carefully so that Brinn might not interpret her movements as hostile, she placed it on the table and stepped back. “I accept your terms, Sir. I surrender myself to you in the modality of honourable captive.” As Brinn watched she crossed her wrists before her. “I am not foolish, and I will co-operate. I have no desire to feel the whip at your belt.” Her eyes regarded the coiled five bladed Gorean whip that Brinn tended to carry with him as standard.

“It is a pleasure to find myself in opposition to an intelligent and reasonable enemy,” said Brinn as he picked up his sword from the table and re-sheathed it. As Ameena stood there offering her wrists to him, Brinn picked up the pin and regarded it carefully. “Is it poisoned?” he asked.

“No. It is just a pin.”

Beside the wall, still bound, still helplessly secured and gagged, still naked from the waist up, the Lady Marissa moaned franticly through her gag. She shook her hands in the strict confinement of the steel slave bracelets. Brinn pretended not to notice for the time being.

“How did you overcome the Lady Marissa so quickly and so silently?”

“It was simple enough. You saw that she preceded me into the shack? Well, once inside I used a sponge soaked in capture scent that I swiftly placed against her nose and mouth. I took her by surprise and she breathed the capture scent in before she understood what was happening. It is very effective and renders a woman inert within seconds.”

“Indeed it does. You then chained her to the wall.”

“Yes. And then I thought to have you killed. It seemed a good enough plan at the time.”

“I suppose so. You had four swordsmen in your employ after all. The odds were in your favour.” Brinn took a few steps towards Ameena. “Remove your veils. I wish to look upon my captive.”

Ameena bristled at that, but understood that she was in no position to object. Brinn could easily enough unveil her himself by force if he chose to do so. She carefully unwound the veils from the lower half of her face and brushed the hood of her robes back. That Brinn was pleased with what he now saw was evident in his smile and nod of the head.

“Truly a pleasure to meet you, Lady Ameena. You are quite the precious beauty.”

“I am a captive, nothing more,” she reminded him.

“Of course.” Brinn produced some binding fibre from his belt pouch and as Marissa watched helpless from the iron slave ring, Brinn swiftly bound the wrists of Lady Ameena together, but to her surprise he did not bind them the way they had been presented, but rather he took them behind her back and bound them there.

“Is this necessary?” she asked, flexing her wrists to no avail.

“I prefer the added element of security, Lady.” He regarded her again and brushed a finger over her exposed lips. Ameena recoiled somewhat from that touch and glared at him.

“Please do not do that!”

“I am going to ask you some questions now, Lady Ameena. You are going to kneel demurely before me and you will answer them all to the best of your ability. This is why I have removed your veils. I need to know whether you are lying or telling the truth. I advise you in the strongest possible terms not to lie to me, not to be evasive, not to conceal information whether I ask specifically for it or not. To do so would be a serious matter and your questioning would become rather less comfortable. In that case I would strip you, tie you to a slave ring and interrogate you again with the whip. Will that be necessary?”

“No.” Ameena quickly knelt on the floor before Brinn with her hands tied behind her back. She looked up earnestly, meaning every word of what she said. “Your captive will not lie, conceal information or evade your questioning. There is no need to use the whip on me.”

“Excellent.” Brinn was of course aware of the ongoing wriggling in her bonds of the Lady Marissa and her further muffled entreaties through the wadding of her gag, but for the time being he put the woman from his mind. He was not pleased it seems with the way she had naively led him into an ambush that could have killed him. Certain trust issues between them were now very fragile indeed. Brinn was therefore in no hurry to free her from her current predicament. “This is a good beginning. You may even come out of this retaining your dignity, Lady Ameena. Would you like that?”

“Yes!” she said quickly. The thought had of course crossed her mind that Brinn could easily change her status from that of captive to slave.

“Then begin by telling me things I would like to know.”

“I am a member of a secret society that refers to itself in Port Kar as the Shadow Council. It was originally founded following the fall of Tharna over fifty years ago by women from the ruling classes of that city. They fled to the regions of Port Kar which were in those days anarchic and full of strangers. We now control considerable wealth and power and are slowly exerting our influence over certain greedy members of the Captain's Council of this city. I myself was only recruited five weeks ago, and I have only been to the great house that is the centre of our cabal the once. I was taken there from a desolate wharf late at night by gondola and sailed through a confusing array of waterways to reach the house that is situated on a small island.”

“There are many such small islands in the estuaries and lagoons around Port Kar.”

“Yes… it was dark and I was unsure of my surroundings. I would not be able to retrace my passage there, but I can tell you which wharf was used to pick me up.”

“How many of you are there?” asked Brinn.

“I do not truly know. There were maybe twenty five women of High Caste when I was initiated in the great hall of the house. We wear silver masks to conceal our true identities from one another. This is a security measure you understand in case we are captured. Our leader wears a golden mask. She came to us a few years ago and took control of the existing Shadow Council. We have grown and prospered during this time under her sway. Many of the women secretly fear her.”

“I see.” Brinn regarded the Lady Marissa again. As soon as she saw his attention she began squirming at the iron ring and she tried once again to speak. Brinn simply looked away. “What were your orders specifically?”

“Your woman was drawing a ridiculous amount of attention to herself. We assumed she was trying to attract our interest, and that she was doing so to lure us into the open and approach her. I think we were correct in that assumption.”

“You were,” conceded Brinn.

“I was tasked with contacting her on the pretext she hoped for and to suggest we meet here at this isolated island. I would bring armed men and capture her. I did so.” Ameena glanced at the bound, naked figure. “You would have been killed and then I would have set about questioning the woman under the lash. I had her stripped for exactly that purpose. She would have told me everything I wished to know. I would then have placed her in a body hood that my men carry, and taken her from this island. I assume you work for some aspect of the Council of Captains?”

“You may assume whatever you wish,” said Brinn. “I have many other questions for you, Lady Ameena, but first...” Brinn rose and stood before Marissa, making no move to either free her wrists or remove the makeshift gag. He regarded her for a time as she lowered her eyes, unwilling to meet his stern gaze while secured like that. Her few muffled protests soon dwindled to a nervous silence. Suddenly her body jerked in its shackles as she felt his firm hands on her hips where the shreds of her upper fabrics now hung. She stared at him wildly, her body flushed and excited by his touch, but daring not to show it.

“I am not very happy with you, Lady,” said Brinn. “Your conduct on this particular operation has fallen well below the standards I would expect. Your leadership qualities today were poor and your decision making even worse. In short, you nearly got me killed due to your misreading of the situation and your failure to take on board my advice. I have a mind to leave you here overnight.”

Marissa began to shake her head in dismay, muffled sounds desperately pleading with Brinn not to do so.

“But I will not do that. You are Samos’s agent after all.” Brinn removed his hands from Marissa’s hips and she slumped back against the wooden wall in relief. “I am going to remove your gag now, but you are not to say anything unless I ask you a question. Do you understand?”

Marissa nodded in fear. Brinn then reached behind her head and untied the leather bindings that held the makeshift gag in place. Carefully with the fingers of his left hand he pulled the sodden wadding of crumpled veils from her open mouth. He allowed Marissa some moments to breathe and compose herself again. Her wrists remained secured above her head.

Brinn produced a key to the slave bracelets and opened first the one about Marissa’s right wrist and then the one about her left wrist. “Make yourself as decent as possible.”

Marissa nodded as she rubbed feeling back into her wrists. Vivid red marks were left from the shackles where they had bitten into her skin. She pulled up the torn shreds of fabric of her gown to cover her upper body, or at least the front of it so long as she held it in place with her hands. She gazed up at Brinn in anguish, for her arms and back were still mostly bare.

“It will have to do,” said Brinn.

Brinn could see that Marissa wanted to speak and that she was alternately looking at the rich clothes that Lady Ameena still wore. It was obvious what Marisa was desperate to suggest, but Brinn was in no mood to make things easier for her. The Lady Ameena had been relatively cooperative after all. He would not strip her of her garments. At least, not yet.

“I am cooperating, am I not, warrior?” asked Lady Ameena from where she knelt.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” said Brinn.

“What is then to be my fate?” There was an element of fear in her voice as she said that.

“I have been considering that question. You understand I cannot simply set you free. You would alert our enemies and you would report what has happened.”

“Please let me serve your cause, warrior.”

“You would switch sides?” said Brinn.

“Yes! I fear the alternatives. Let me serve you in your work. I would make a better partner than the Lady you have just freed. She was easy to trick and seize.” Ameena laughed. “Her foolishness nearly killed you.”

“So it seems,” said Brinn as he considered the offer. “You would swear to serve me? You would not betray me?”

“I would serve you, and I would not betray you,” said Ameena as she shifted slightly on her knees. “May I stand?”

“No. Remain where you are. How would you serve me exactly?”

“In any way you wish. I am resourceful, intelligent and cunning. I can be ruthless too. Free me. Let me serve you.” She glanced at Marissa. “You could be rid of her. She would look good in a collar I think. Enslave her! Let me replace her!”

“it is an idea,” said Brinn with a smile. Marissa was beside herself with anguish as she heard this conversation, but she dared not speak. She simply stood there clutching her shreds of clothes about her breasts.

“You would betray the Shadow Council for me?” asked Brinn.

“Of course! I have no real loyalty to them. It was simply an opportunity for me to rise to power and influence”

“Then how do I know you would have any long term loyalty towards me?” said Brinn with a snarl. “I do not trust women who are so ready to switch sides and betray their former masters. I do not require the services of a turncoat mercenary.”

“I would not betray you, warrior!”

“I warned you not to lie to me, Lady. You are lying to me now.”

Lady Ameena flexed her wrists where they were bound behind her back, but of course knots tied by a warrior were capture knots and she would remain helplessly bound until he chose to free her. “What am I supposed to say? I wish to preserve my liberty.”

“Stand,” said Brinn.

“It is difficult for me to do so with my wrists bound like this.”

Brinn nodded and lifted the woman up with ease and then placed her feet first standing on the ground.

“I think it is time for us to leave this island. We are close to rencer territory and I do not wish to discover how far the sound of our fighting has carried into the vosk delta.”

Brinn referred to the indigenous peasant population of the vosk delta when he spoke of 'rencers'. The name is a colloquialism of sorts as it refers to the fact that the marsh plant rence is the mainstay of their living. Rencers live in remote and largely inaccessible village communities that are mobile due to the fact they build their dwellings on rence islands – artificial islands measuring perhaps two hundred feet square and nine feet deep, of which a third of the depth is exposed above the level of the water. The base of the village rots over time and so the rencers continually work to renew the structure of their island, adding fresh layers of rence to keep it structurally sound and floating. Villages tend to accommodate close knit groups of fifty to seventy men and women. There are few slaves and those that exist are commonly runaways who made the mistake of fleeing Port Kar by way of the delta. When they inevitably fall into the hands of a rencer they soon find that their slavery in the vosk delta is much harder than it might have been in Port Kar. By then of course it is much too late for them to have a change of heart.

“Why haven’t you stripped her?” said Marissa as she hurried to follow Brinn down the slope away from the shack. She was holding the shreds of her upper garments about her chest with both hands.

“Because I keep my word,” said Brinn. “She surrendered to me on the conditions and terms I offered.”

“Never mind that! Strip her! Put her to the collar! She is our enemy!” Marissa was furious, particularly since her back was bare and there was nothing she could do to cover it. She only had two hands.

“I gave her my word,” said Brinn again as she kept his eyes on Ameena. The Lady walked gracefully before him with the dignity of an honoured captive. From time to time she had to be careful since with her hands bound behind her back her sense of balance on the rough terrain wasn’t perfect. From time to time Brinn reached out to steady her as they descended the hillock to the waiting gondola.

“Thank you, warrior,” she said with a nod of her head. Brinn had not yet permitted her face veiling, but had assured her she might be veiled when they returned to the city docks.

“You are welcome, Lady,” said Brinn.

“This is ridiculous! I want her stripped naked! She may be concealing weapons!” said Marissa.

“Be quiet. I am in command here now,” said Brinn, reminding Marissa of their earlier exchange of words.

“Please do not hand me over to Samos,” said Lady Ameena as she turned round just before the gondola was reached. “I beg you, please, warrior.”

“It would be remiss of me not to hand you to Samos.”

“You know he will enslave me. He is First Slaver in Port Kar. It is what he does.”

“I promised not to enslave you. I made no promises regarding Samos’s conduct. Maybe you will be able to strike some sort of understanding with him. I do not know.”

There were tears in Ameena’s eyes as she suddenly dropped to her knees on the wet ground before Brinn. “I am begging you. Let me serve you. Let me work for you in any capacity. Do not give me to Samos.”

“I don’t want you,” said Brinn. “I don’t need assistants. I work alone.” He motioned for Ameena to get back on her feet, but when she didn’t he frowned and clicked his fingers. “Get moving, Lady. I don’t have time for this.”

“Please…” she pressed her face now to the ground and trembled before Brinn. “Keep me as a captive then. Even as a full captive if that is what it takes.”

“A full captive?” Brinn raised an eyebrow. “You are offering me your sexual use?”

“If it will save me from Samos, then yes. I am pretty, I think. I will serve you as a free woman, even in your bed if that is what you wish.”

Brinn laughed. “You have an over inflated opinion of your worth in the bedroom, Lady. When I want sex, I can have sex with a slave. A pleasure slave even. I have a superbly trained pleasure slave back at home called Emma. She can do things you can't even imagine. I do not need a frigid and untrained free woman lying on my couch.”

Ameena began to cry. She began to kiss Brinn’s feet, much to his surprise. “You should not do that, Lady, it is undignified for you.”

“Samos will enslave me! He will put me in his slave pens and sell me! Everyone fears him!”

“Rightly so. He has a fearsome reputation,” said Brinn.

“He will enslave me!”

“I think so, yes,” said Brinn. “In all likelihood. But that is not my concern. Get up. We can’t stay here.”

We could see the small wooden jetty by now, a couple of hundred yards away across open ground. Tethered to it was our gondola and also the gondola that had ferried the Lady Ameena and her guards to the island. Brinn's attention was fully engaged with the Ladies Ameena and Marissa so it was left to me to be the first to notice the three small skiffs paddling across the lagoon water directly towards our jetty. Three men were on board each jetty and by the looks of them they were rencers.

“Master!” I said in alarm as I pointed towards the water's edge.