Dunes of Gor Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen: Al-Quada-a-Dhum

For three days now Tupa, the lowest of kettle girls, had been toiling away with Vika, Kala and Ella in coffle number three, scrubbing and cleaning the vast halls, chambers and rooms of Al-Quada-a-Dhum. They worked inside the great keep that dominated the town, an impressive fortification that was built on a raised area of solid bedrock in amongst the shifting desert sands. Its high walls dominated the landscape and the humble (in contrast) township itself grew out from beyond those walls, having its own lower walls as a secondary defence, facing out into the desert. 

Ella was the first girl within the coffle and as such she supervised the work of the other three kettle slaves. She watched as they knelt in a line on the floor scrubbing the flagstones of a long corridor with stiff two-handed bristle brushes. The girls were naked except for the red veils of gossamer silk that they wore mockingly over the bridges of their noses. Dirty menial work of this nature would soil or tear their slave garments, and so it was easier to keep them naked while they worked, as free women had yet to take up residence in the fortress town deep within the desert. 

Tupa had never been worked so hard in her life. Her muscles were sore from the intense labour that began at dawn after being woken to a rudimentary but healthy breakfast of gruel. She ate this for fear of being lashed and because she was constantly hungry. The hard work on the estate burned a lot of calories and there was no question of turning her nose up at a meal. By the time the evening meal would be served, she would gladly wolf it down with the other girls on her hands and knees, licking and swallowing the gruel from her bowl on the floor, for kettle girls were not permitted to use their hands. The evening meal would see some vegetables and bits of meat added to the gruel, though the gruel itself was perfectly nutritious on its own. 

Everything had to be scrubbed clean before the Khuda of House Shahzad arrived. At first Serafina had been shocked to discover that her family was taking up residence in this place. She knew nothing of the offer of governorship that had been made to her father and the edict from the Emir that Daan Shahzad would rule over the province, but she had been told that the Shahzads were moving here within a few days. Soon, very soon, her sister, her mother, and her father would be resident in these vast stone halls, deep within the tribal lands. Why were they coming here? Tupa had asked for details but Ella had simply told her to mind her own business. “Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira.”

She didn’t know whether to feel hope or fear that her family might find her here. What would they think if they saw her? She wore a collar of steel. She had a kef brand burned into her thigh. Her nose and ears were pierced. She was no longer the mischievous girl of high caste who ran through the meadow grounds of her home, daring to hitch up her skirts, ankles flashing as she sped, laughing, to her tree house. 

Now she was a kettle slave, and she resembled one. No longer did she wear subtle makeup. Her hands were rough and calloused from the constant scrubbing. Her hair was wet with sweat from the toil and hung limp around her face in tangled, unkempt strands. It was no longer brushed like silk fifty times to either side of her face by personal slaves. She no longer stood out amongst the other kettle girls. In fact, now that Tupa was as grubby and dirty as the other girls, Kala seemed actually more beautiful than her. Kala was the girl the guards seemed to watch with the most interest as her pert little bottom jiggled as she scrubbed away on her knees.

Tupa wiped some sweat from the bridge of her nose with her left forearm and stared miserably at the long expanse of flagstones leading off still into the distance. All had to be sparkling and clean enough to eat food off, before they would be permitted water and rest. Her mouth felt dry. Her belly felt hungry. She had not known it might be like this. 

“Keep scrubbing, lazy Tupa,” said Ella as she tapped Tupa’s ass with her switch. “You will have your break when you have earned it. Soft little girl.”

During the day, the kettle slaves all wore Harl rings locked around their left ankles. These were popular ankle restraints for working coffles. A Harl ring was a lockable ankle restraint that had a welded and closed ring set to both the front and back of the cuff. Chains could be run through either ring, allowing, for example, a number of girls to be chained in coffle, where their ankle rings might be permitted to move along the length of the coffle chain. Or the chains could be secured to the welded rings at set lengths if the girl wasn’t permitted movement beyond a certain point of her chain sisters. The girls obeying Ella were permitted free movement within their coffle chain. Tupa’s Harl ring could therefore glide from one end of the chain to the other, subject of course to girls moving along with her. The work chain slithered along the floor with them, allowing them the freedom to move as they wished, but ultimately securing them all together as a work gang. 

Tupa had been working for five hours before Ella permitted the kettle girls to rest. She brought them water in a bucket and watched each girl in turn crawl to the bucket and cup handfuls of water to her mouth. 

The corridor in which the girls worked had wide open windows that let in broad waves of light. From where they crouched close to the windows, the girls could hear a commotion outside, with work coffles chattering amongst themselves. Tupa heard the sound of excited girls being gathered in the courtyard. Something was happening.

It wasn’t until the slave master, Saijid Akbar, arrived to speak to Ella, that Tupa learnt what was happening.

“Obeisance, girls!” shouted Ella as she saw the master of slaves approaching. Swiftly then, Tupa, Vika and Kala each knelt, pressing their foreheads to the floor, placing their palms on the floor and raising their asses as they crouched. Saijid had arrived yesterday with a small escort, in advance of the Shahzad household. He wanted to oversee the preparations ahead of the main caravan. Tupa had nearly fainted in shock when Saijid had first looked at her, but to her surprise the man had not recognised her. And why should he? He had never seen her unveiled face before, and even if he had, the dirty, sweaty, unkempt girl with dirt under her finger nails, and sweat tangled hair did not resemble his mistress in the slightest. She was just another kettle girl, perhaps not quite as pretty as the curvaceous Kala. 

Saijid had spoken to her the way she had heard him speak to kajirae many times in Tor – with authority, brooking no disobedience from a girl. Tupa knew it would be a mistake to identify herself to Saijid. Then her shame would be common knowledge. She clung instead to the hope of finding her sister, Jaleesa, and turning to her for help in private. Jaleesa would be here soon, and Tupa would try to locate her in the vast fortress. Jaleesa would free her and then they could find some way to conceal what had happened. There would still be the matter of the brand of course. That would be part of her forever, but the important thing would be to find Jaleesa and first escape this cruel bondage.

Tupa rightly feared what might happen if she revealed herself to either her father or mother. Imagine their shock and despair at seeing a kettle slave on her knees before them, identifying herself as their daughter?! How could they even look at her in such a state! And what could they then even do? She was, she believed, now the legal property of Javad Mohsen. He had bought her at a reputable auction. True, she had not been a legal slave, and so the sale itself was somewhat illegal, but even to argue such a case in the courts would bring scandal and shame to her family. She could not imagine her father would challenge the legal ownership. No, rather he would want the matter done away with quietly enough. The public shame would be too great. Her mother would be reduced to an inconsolable shadow of herself. She would grieve for her daughter, but also she would be angry that her daughter could shame them all so. To wear a collar! To be branded! To have been sold! And Javad would no doubt assure the Shahzads that Tupa was a slave. He would demonstrate with his whip, making her crawl, beg, display herself, even to her parents! Tupa would do all of that and more if Javad raised his whip in warning. And then her father and mother would know that their daughter was truly a slave.

They would leave her with Javad. Of course they would. They would not offer to buy her. What would be the point? They could never free her and retain any family dignity, so they would have to keep her as a slave in their household, a constant reminder of her shame, and that in time would be unbearable. Better then, that their daughter remained in the collar of the man who had bought her. There she could live her life away from their gaze and scrutiny. He would feed her, clothe her, tend to her, and in return she would obey him absolutely. Better for all. There could be no freeing Tupa and returning her to her robes and gowns. It would be a mockery of the exalted position of the free women of Gor. Everyone would know she was branded beneath her robes, and assume she had slave fire burning inside of her. It would perhaps be cruel to make her act as a free woman again, when in truth freedom was ruined in her. That is what her parents would think. If they knew.

“The Shahzads are approaching,” said Saijid as he regarded Ella. “Assemble your girls in the courtyard below. Dress them in chalwar and vests, Brush their hair. They look a mess. All house slaves are to line up as the Shahzads arrive. Heads down. No girl is to look directly at their Masters and Mistresses.”

“Yes, Master,” said Ella.

Ella led her coffle of girls into the pens at the side of the courtyard. Here were the multi-compartment kennels where kettle girls were bedded down for the night. The floors were hard concrete but bales of straw and blankets would be supplied for coffles that had worked hard. The thought of sleeping on hard concrete worried Tupa immensely, and so she had been overjoyed when each night blankets had been laid down and she had been permitted to lie on one. “You’re a lucky girl, Tupa,” Ella had told her. “The Shahzads are far too kind to their girls. But don’t take your blanket for granted. If I catch you slacking one day, you will sleep without it.”

A steady stream of girls were being hurried into the pens by their first girls and, inside, provided with the typical garments worn after hard labour was completed. Each girl dressed in the chalwar – the diaphanous and baggy pants, gathered in closely at the ankles, which sat very low on the hips of a girl, several inches below the belly button. With it the girls wore the vest which was high on the hips, open, and very revealing, exposing her midriff and the valley between her breasts. Tupa was given her own such garments which she quickly dressed in, glad to be wearing something at least when she would be lined up in the courtyard with the other slaves.

“Are they really coming?” she asked Ella anxiously. Her breath fluttered the thin triangle of silk that covered her lower face.

“Yes. All of them. The Shahzads and their men.”

Tupa was both scared and excited as she was lined up with Kala and Vika to her left. Another coffle of girls was placed in line to her right. She knelt in tower, knees together, head bowed, and palms resting on her thighs as the gates to Al-Quada-a-Dhum swung open. Even from here she could hear the jingling of thousands of bells on the approaching caravan, for caravans tended to string their kaiila with melodic bells in case one of them broke loose and ran into the desert. A belled kaiila would be easier to track and locate. 

Tupa held her breath as the first kaiilas rode through the wide open gates. It was an advance troop of thirty riders with lances crested with colourful pennants. They swept through the gates and assembled in a crescent arc to secure the courtyard in case of treachery or an ambush. Dismounting, five of the riders controlled the troop of kaiila, while the other twenty five greeted the assembled lines of Sardaukar commanded by Tupa’s master, Javad Mohsen.

Tupa had barely seen Javad Mohsen since arriving at the fortress town. He had seemed to lose interest in her, leaving her to the work coffle and her labours. From time to time as she scrubbed flagstones on her knees, sweating, caked in grime, her pretty shaped fingernails chipped and broken, she saw him in the distance, often walking with his men, inspecting fortifications and defences along the walks. He always seemed busy. 

Why had he abandoned her? Tupa couldn’t understand it. She was his personal slave! In the desert that night he had made her adorn her body with bangles and bells and make her face up with slave cosmetics. And then he had taken a kettle slave to his bed. Tupa didn’t want to be a work slave. She wanted…

She froze those thoughts. She feared what she was beginning to want. Did she really want to swap the hard labour that kept her white silk, for an easier life, warming the couch of her Master? Better surely to maintain her virtue than to be the soft, perfumed pleasure slave of a Sardaukar commander?

She shifted slightly in her kneeling position, feeling a sense of rejection as Javad greeted the Captain of the newly arrived lancers. Together they inspected the courtyard and the battlements surrounding it. Men spread through the keep, moving in pairs to check for any sign of trouble, while their commanders conversed in the courtyard. 

Tupa felt nervous. Soon her father and mother would arrive, along with Jaleesa. She risked a furtive glance towards the gates but was quickly switched by the sharp eyed Ella. “Eyes down, little slut!” she hissed.

Tupa quickly looked down again at the courtyard floor. 

Another fifty lancers mounted on kaiilas rode through the gates once the advance guard signalled that the keep was secure. Tupa heard the hoof beats but didn’t dare to raise her eyes. Ella was watching her in particular as she knelt in the coffle line. “Missing your Master?” she whispered as she knelt behind Tupa. The girl obviously thought Tupa’s furtive gaze was trying to find Javad Mohsen. 

“Why does he not speak to me, Mistress?” asked Tupa. “He has forgotten me!”

“He has not forgotten you, girl. But he is a busy man. He has had much to do since we arrived here. Work comes first, and only when it is finished, can he turn himself to pleasure.”

Tupa trembled as she heard that. Pleasure! Did that refer to her? 

“He will send for you some day. You wear his collar, Tupa. He paid to buy you. In the meantime, you are learning your slavery. You are not so high and mighty now, are you?”

“No Mistress,” whispered Tupa. “I am not.”

“What are you?”

“Just a kettle girl, Mistress.”

And then a series of brass trumpets sounded and Tupa desperately wanted to look up, for she knew those trumpets meant the Shahzad family themselves were riding through the open gates. If she dared to look up she might see her father astride his war kaiila. Behind him would be a richly decorated kurdah containing Tupa’s mother. And behind that, another silk lined Kurdah in which Jaleesa would travel. There would not be a third such kurdah of course, for the eldest daughter, Serafina, would be absent from the caravan. 

Had they left men to search for her still in Tor, wondered Tupa? Presumably so, for they could not possibly know she was here in Al-Quada-a-Dhum. 

She heard the snorting of kaiila and the sound of boots dismounting. The lines of armed men already dismounted and standing on the dusty sand raised their lances high and saluted as the Khuda walked the stony ground of Al-Quada-a-Dhum. Then came the jingling of pack kaiila harnesses as Tupa knew the kurdahs approached close by. Now steps were dragged to the beasts as they were made to lower themselves onto the ground. Ladies would descend those short steps, their soft slippers also touching the raked gravel of the courtyard. Even with her eyes lowered, Tupa could just make out those slippered feet, and the hem of the gallabiyahs of the women. It would be her mother and Jaleesa, walking now to join Daan Shahzad. They would glance briefly in disgust at the long line of kneeling kajirae, looking at them with contempt, little knowing or recognising who Tupa might be. Her once beautiful hair was now matted, tangled and dirty, her face erotically veiled with the merest wisp of silk, her slave body dusty, and dressed in the garmenture of the kettle slaves. Not even her mother would pick her out amongst the line. 

“May I present the kajirae,” said Saijid Akhbar as he greeted his mistresses. Tupa’s heart was pounding in her rib cage as the soft slippered feet reluctantly passed along the line of the kneeling slaves. One of the women touched some of the girls, including Tupa, with the tip of a switch, as if to acknowledge them. 

A pair of slippers passed Tupa’s eyes, and she knew they belonged to her mother. Then came a smaller pair of slippers, and these would of course belong to Jaleesa. But then came a third set of slippers! Who could this be? The only other woman in the Shahzad household was Tupa, herself, and yet this third pair of feet followed closely beside Jaleesa’s feet, as if they were siblings. Forgetting herself for a moment, Tupa raised her eyes and in shock saw herself walking alongside her sister, hand in hand! Impossible as it seemed, Serafina held the hand of her sister, Jaleesa. Tupa recognised her own slippers, her own clothes. But how could she be there when she was here, kneeling in the dust, a mere kettle girl!

“Are you looking at me!” came a sharp voice. The girl dressed in Serafina’s garments span on the ball of her left foot and glared over her veils at Tupa. 

“What is it?” asked Reyhan as she too turned to face the line of slaves.

“This kettle girl!” The girl pointed with her switch. “She raised her eyes and looked at us.”

“Did she now.” Reyhan walked briskly towards Tupa who now had her head down once more. With just a word she might reveal herself, but not now, not like this, not in front of everyone. “Go on, girls. Get inside the keep where the sun won’t touch you. I’ll deal with this arrogant slut.”

“Eyes down, slut,” hissed Reyhan as she flicked with her own switch and lashed Tupa across the shoulders with two stinging blows. “Keep these sluts under control in future, Saijid,” she said as she turned back again, hardly bothering to look at Tupa. 

“Foolish girl!” said Ella, angrily, after the women of House Shahzad had entered the welcome shade of the keep. “Be thankful that it was the Lady who whipped you! She is merciful. Had it been her daughters…”

“Daughters?” said Tupa in alarm and disbelief, accentuating the plural.

“Why, yes. You are new to your collar so you don’t know them. That is Serafina and Jaleesa Shahzad! The Lady you dared to look at was Serafina, and she has been known to put girls like you in the Box, for the slightest of insults. I will have to report this, today, to your Master, Tupa.”

But… but… I am Serafina… thought Tupa to herself.

I know I am…

Aren’t I?