Outcast of Gor Chapter Twenty Six

 

Sometime around the eleventh ahn I was back braceleted with my wrists in slave steel, and conducted by two men to a tent that had been set aside for my mistress, the Lady Savanna of Argentum, or Kelsee, as I still liked to think of her. 

 

I had gambled that I could march boldly into this slaver camp and save Kelsee from the brand, but I had lost everything in the process. Kulai, my so-called Free Companion, in my eyes at least, if not the law’s, was now a slave to the same woman as me. She would hate me now. I had lied to her and it was my fault she now wore a steel collar and had a brand seared indelibly into her thigh. How could she not hate me?

 

I was naked, and a steel collar was now locked about my neck. It was made of iron and far heavier than the decorative, enamelled, pretty collar I had worn in Argentum – the collar that had so clearly marked me as the personal silk slave to a Lady. 

 

The tent was large enough to stand in, with a central pole, and it measured perhaps eighteen feet in diameter. It was sparsely furnished, containing only a curule chair, a cot bed with the obligatory slave rings and shackles, and a trunk for storing possessions. I noticed a slave whip by the side of the trunk. As I was motioned through the entrance flap, I saw my mistress seated in the curule chair, with a beautiful, naked, Turian slave girl kneeling to the side of the space. The girl had a fresh brand that still looked raw and painful, and she was kneeling in the slave form of the tower position, with her knees drawn together, and her head down, for she was the property of a woman, and Free Women do not wish to see a slave girl in nadu. The Turian slave wore a collar of course.

 

I was surprised to see that Kelsee still wore the white slave tunic. And I was even more surprised that she still had a steel slave collar locked about her neck. Several ahn had gone by since I had been conducted from the branding tent and chained to a slave post. Why had Darian Athuk not seen fit to send a metal worker to free my mistress from her collar? It was most puzzling.

 

And surely there must be something in this camp she might wear instead of the slave tunic?

 

“Thank you,” said Kelsee to the men as she rose from her chair. “You may leave us.”

 

There was something very incongruous at the sight of an apparent slave girl acting as if she might be free. For that is what Kelsee still appeared to be – a slave girl.

 

I gazed at her and I did not see a Free Woman. To my mind, no matter that I had been reduced to slavery once more, Kelsee was a slave; a natural slave, and I suddenly understood how ridiculous it was to think of her in any other way. This was Gor. She wore a steel collar. Her airs and pretensions at being free were just that – airs and pretensions. She belonged in a collar, and I knew that men would want to keep her in a collar. How foolish I had been to think I might free her in Corcyrus. Those had been the thoughts of a confused Earth man. Kelsee belonged in a collar. I could plainly see that now. 

 

The thought crossed my mind that I would now keep her as my slave. And I would have her branded. 

 

Of course I would have her branded. Kulai had been right to insist that slave girls should be branded. Natural slaves, at least. And Kelsee was a natural slave. 

 

The men laughed as Kelsee spoke to them like that. They, too, thought it was funny. Kelsee, of course, tried to pretend she hadn’t noticed their lack of respect towards her. Men can be beasts, it seems. 

 

“Wait!” she said. “Leave the key to his slave bracelets on the lid of the trunk.”

 

The man with the keys shrugged and did as Kelsee asked. “You have pretty calves, girl,” he said, gazing at Kelsee’s daring state of undress.

 

“I have requested robes and gowns!” she said, fiercely. “This garment is not my choice. Darian will provide me with something more suitable to wear.”

 

“More suitable?” said the second man, laughing again. “I suppose the hem of your present garment is bit long. It could be shortened, perhaps.”

 

“It would be a shame to conceal those lovely thighs,” said the first man. He had presumably seen her naked in the camp  before. “Your ankles are appealing, girl.”

 

“Such ankles should be ornamented with rings of steel,” said the second man. 

 

“You may leave now,” snapped Kelsee. She looked surprisingly defiant, considering she was free only so long as the slavers agreed she was free. 

 

“I think we have been dismissed,” said the first man with another laugh. They offered Kelsee mock bows as they exited the tent. 

 

“Yes you have!” Kelsee was angry. It was not her choice to appear before them clad in the slave tunic. And why hadn’t the slave collar been removed yet! It was still locked on her throat! She stamped her foot in petulant frustration as the men left.

 

“Beasts,” she said, turning to me. “They are all beasts. I hate men.”

 

I regarded her again and didn’t deign to reply. I was still angry with her. 

 

“Roland are you all right? Have they hurt you?” She walked quickly towards me and laid a soft hand on my chest. “They have collared you?” she said, in surprise, touching my collar.

 

I said nothing.

 

“I didn’t order them to collar you,” she said as she gazed up into my eyes. “I didn’t tell them to strip you.”

 

Again, I said nothing, but I glanced to my side to where Kulai knelt, her head down, awaiting the commands of her mistress. She was a slave girl now. She was no longer free. She had been cruelly branded with the kef, which meant her life as a Free Woman was over. The woman I had known as Kulai was gone. In her place now knelt a slave girl. That is how it is on Gor. I might still think otherwise, but my opinion would be largely irrelevant. 

 

“She cannot speak,” said Kelsee, as she watched me gaze at Kulai. “She has been commanded to silence. The little slut knows she will be whipped if she utters so much as a word.”

 

I frowned and stared hard at Kelsee. 

 

“Roland, speak to me,” said Kelsee as she touched me again. “Please.”

 

“You are a stupid woman,” I said bitterly. “I would have bought you from Darian. You should have trusted me.”

 

“You are angry, bitter, I can understand that.” She tossed her head, defiantly. “But Darian was preparing to brand me. He might have put my thigh to the kef before selling me. He is a slaver. He only sells branded goods. I couldn’t take the risk.” She touched me again and was disappointed, perhaps, that my penis didn’t grow erect. I was too angry with her to feel aroused by the close proximity of her lovely tunic clad body. “I did what I had to do, to preserve my freedom. You couldn’t have saved me.”

 

“And now Kulai is a slave because of you.”

 

“So? Do you think I have any love for her? She whipped me. She was cruel to me.’ She pouted. “She would have been cruel to me in Corcyrus. The truth is, you weren’t going to free me, were you?”

 

“I gave you my word.”

“Your word,” she said, dismissively. Kelsee paced about me, touching my thighs and lower back, possessively. “I offered you myself in Free Companionship. But you took that slut, instead. How could I trust anything you said, after that?” 

 

“Because I am a man, and I have honour.”

 

“Honour!” she sneered. “What is honour?”

“You wouldn’t know, I suppose. You are just a slave girl.”

 

“I am NOT a slave!” Her eyes flashed, angrily. “I am presently your mistress. You should do well to remember that.”

 

“On Earth you were a rich, spoilt, manipulative bitch. On Gor, now, you are a collared, sexually awakened, needy, slave girl.”

“I am NOT a slave girl!” She stamped her foot angrily.

 

“You wear a collar. Can you remove it?”

 

“No” she said, angrily. “I can’t.” She touched the steel with her fingertips.

 

“Who can?”

 

“Men” She paced about me. She tossed her head again. “Only men can remove it.”

 

“And have they?”

 

“They will!” She said, quickly now. “Darian said he would come later with a metal worker to remove this broken collar. How I hate this thing about my neck.”

 

“A slave girl is still a slave girl, even if her neck is free from steel for a time.”

 

“I have not been branded. I have not been legally enslaved.”

 

“True,” I admitted. “These things are clearly an oversight. I myself was foolish on the matter. I recognise that now.”

 

She walked angrily away from me, turned on the ball of her foot and crossed her arms as she stood near then side of the tent. “Why are you like this? I am trying to help you. Why must you be so… Gorean.”

“Are you trying to help me?”

 

“Yes! Yes, I am!” She moved to the side of the trunk and picked up the key to the slave bracelets I wore. “I’m going to free your wrists,” she said. “Turnabout, and present your locked bracelets to me.”

 

I did as she said, and felt her hands fumble with the key in the small locks. Moments later my hands were free. I rubbed my wrists as I turned back to gaze down at her. She was my slave girl, whatever foolish notions she might have of being free again. She was barefoot, dressed in a slave tunic and collar. My slave. 

 

“Oh!” she said as she felt my hand on her hip, drawing her close to me. She placed the palms of her hands against my chest. “What are you doing? I’m your mistress! Your mistress!”

 

“You are an infuriating girl,” I said as I took hold of her wrists. “I am trying to hate you, but you are making it very difficult.” I was now growing erect. She was soft and lovely, but I was still angry with her. The thought crossed my mind that I should whip her for what she had done, and then whip her again because she dared to pretend now that she was free.

 

“I love you,” she said, as she felt her wrists seized and held at her sides. “That hasn’t changed. I just didn’t trust you. Oh!” She felt herself being kissed. She was not being kissed as a mistress might expect to be kissed. I kissed her the way I would kiss a slave girl. 

 

“You can’t do that!” she said, gasping for breath, coming up for air. She found she was still held. She wriggled. “Your hands! I am your mistress! Your… OH!”

 

“I am not going to submit to you again,” I said. “You know that, don’t you?”

 

She squirmed. She turned her head. She pulled at her wrists, futilely. “I’m your mistress!”

 

“No you’re not.”

 

“I am going to free you,” she said, suddenly. “When Darian returns, I shall have papers signed to free you. You will be a free man. I have arranged it.”

 

“Why?” I stroked her bottom through the thin, clinging fabric of her tunic. 

 

“I owe you.” She tossed her hair again. “I told you that, when you saved me from the brand in Argentum. You speak of honour, and, yes, on Earth I was a haughty bitch, and perhaps I still am, but I know when I owe a man a debt. I will repay that debt. I will give you back your freedom.”

 

I gazed down at her. She was making it difficult for me to hate her. “You enslaved Kulai.”

 

“No, Kulai enslaved herself. She was aware of the Couching Law of Ar. She just didn’t know you were a silk slave. And whose fault is that?”

 

“Mine.” I gazed round at Kulai. There were whip marks across her back and flanks. She didn’t dare break position. She had not been given permission to speak. 

 

“Yes, you.” Kelsee leaned forward – the subtle motion of a slave girl who begged to be kissed. “I never deceived her. You did. You are responsible for her enslavement. I doubt she will ever forgive you. I am glad she will hate you for the rest of her life!”

 

I felt an acute sadness. Of course Kulai would never forgive me. I really wasn’t worthy of her. 

 

“Free her,” I said.

 

“No.” Kelsee looked defiant. “I will never free her. That is my revenge on you both.” She tossed her hair again. “And you will never have her as a Free Woman or as a slave. She will belong to me, and she will be a Lady’s slave. She will rarely know the touch of a man. She will simmer with her slut responses and know that she will be whipped if she ever tries to beg the touch of a man. I owe you a debt, but I am also jealous and possessive. If I can’t have you, then that bitch won’t, either. Why did you have to take a companion?! Why?”

 

“I don’t answer to a slave.”

 

“I am NOT a slave!” She struggled in my grip.

 

“You are my slave. Enjoy your semblance of freedom while you have it, Kelsee. One day you will be in my collar, chained to my ankle ring at the foot of my couch.”

She was breathing heavily. “You would do that?”

 

“I WILL do that. I want you in my collar Kelsee, and so, in time, you will be in my collar. That is a promise.”

 

She said nothing for a while. And then she said, “I am still going to free you.”

 

“Of course. Because you know I am your natural master.”

 

“There is something you must know,” she began. “Darian is returning me to Argentum. I will not be travelling to Corcyrus. There is nothing for me in Corcyrus. Corcyrus is losing the war, and very soon the armies of Argentum will besiege its walls. Corcyrus is doomed. Come with me to Argentum.”

 

“I have an outlaw brand. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”

 

“There is a way,” said Kelsee. “I have given this much thought. I will free you because I owe you. But if you choose to submit to me again, as my silk slave, then the outlaw brand will be irrelevant. A slave is no longer an outlaw. You can pass through the gates in a collar – my collar - and live in Argentum, with me.”

 

“As a silk slave?” I sneered.

 

“Is that so bad? It won’t be like before. Your slavery will just be a legal pretence. In private you will be a free man. We will live together as free man and free woman. Obviously, when you are outside my apartment you will have to wear a collar and submit to me, but will that be so bad? You will have a good life. I will have a thriving business. It is the only way you can possibly re-enter the city – wearing my collar. The collar makes your outlaw brand irrelevant. You will want for nothing. What is there for you in Corcyrus? You can’t build a life there. Corcyrus is doomed. You will have nothing! You will die when the walls are breached and the warriors of Argentum storm the streets, killing, looting and raping. But in Argentum you will have me. I love you! I mean that! In private I will even permit you to take liberties with my person, and put me to use roughly, the way you seem to want.” She blushed as she said that. Kelsee of course meant the way she wanted. She wanted to be taken as a slave girl, because she was a natural slave girl. “You must want me? I know you do.”

 

“You would submit to me as the slave you are, in the privacy of your home?”

 

“Why do you have to put it like that,” she said, angrily, turning her face from me. “Why do you have to be so provocative? Why do you have to be so crudely offensive!”

 

“You are my slave, Kelsee. Wholly and fully my slave. I will accept nothing less from you. I will not pretend otherwise. You may go to Argentum, but know I will eventually come for you and I will claim you as my slave. There is nowhere you can hide from me in that city. I will take you in chains from your bolted and locked rooms. Enjoy your pretence of freedom until then.”

 

She trembled, and it seemed her lips parted in an invitation. “I will be safe in Argentum,” she said. “You are mad to think you can enter the city and abduct me. It will be impossible.”

 

I smiled. “Lovely, infuriating slave,” I said, touching her cheek with my hand. “Maddening, beguiling she-sleen. You have no idea how much I want you now in my collar, begging and kneeling at my feet, and how strict your slavery will be in my collar. And, yes, I can and will do it.”

 

“Oh!” she cried as I kissed her again. There was more wriggling. She seemed very heated, perhaps from what I had said.

 

“Darian will be here soon,” she said, looking round, nervously as I held her wrists again. “He is going to free me of this collar. He is going to arrange for me to travel with guards to Argentum.” She pulled at her wrists. “Oh! you are holding me…” she whimpered softly.

 

“Go to the couch,” I said. “Remove your tunic. Lie there on your back with your wrists crossed at the slave ring above your head.”

 

“What! Are you mad? I am your mistress!”

“Do so.” I released her, walked a few paces and picked up a slave whip that lay beside the trunk. I shook out the strands.

 

“You can’t whip me! As soon as I scream, men will come!”

 

“I don’t care. And how will that look for you? They will regard you as a slave who is about to be whipped by a man.”

 

“Oh!” she hadn’t thought of that. Her freedom was a delicate balancing act in this camp. If men grew angry with the way she acted, they might forget about the reward for escorting her back to Argentum. “But I am your mistress!”

 

“I will count to three, and if you aren’t standing by the couch cot, stripping yourself by then, I will whip you.”

 

“Oh!” She ran quickly, frightened, but also seemingly excited, to the couch cot. She hurriedly stripped herself of the tunic.

 

“On your back,” I said. She did so, lying down, crossing her wrists at the slave ring, looking up at me.

 

“I am your mistress!” There were wet tears in her eyes, but also, her body was now stimulated and excited. “You don’t understand! Darian will be here very soon!”

 

“I shall be quick then, slave girl.” I tied her wrists tightly to the slave ring with a loop of binding fibre. And so I took her, and, with no time to warm her body for our mutual pleasure, simply put her brutally to my use, thrusting quickly inside of her, bringing myself to orgasm, with little thought for her own needs. Even so, she writhed in her bonds, and, to spare her the shame of being found like this, I covered her mouth with my left hand, stifling her piteous cries,  as I took my pleasure from her lovely body. 

 

By the time I had finished with her, she was hot, frustrated, and desperate for climax. I simply untied her and thrust the slave tunic back into her hands.

 

“Dress yourself,” I said. “Darian will be here soon.”

 

She seemed furious as she pulled the tunic back over her body. “You did not give me time to climax,” she said. “I am…” she hesitated.

 

“You are what?” I asked. “Surely not needy?”

 

“No, obviously not.” She squirmed as she pulled the hem of her tunic down to just above her knees.

 

“Then what is the problem? Free Women rarely climax, or so I understand. Only slaves feel such things?”

 

She blushed. “Perhaps.” She looked at the couch bed. She had been put to use roughly and without respect for her feelings. I think it had excited her.  

 

“When you return to Argentum, you will go to the slave market and you will purchase an ankle ring,” I said. “You will wear that slave ankle ring from that moment on, until I eventually return to Argentum to claim and collar you. If I find your left ankle bare of such a ring, you will feel the whip after I have collared you. Do you understand?”

 

Kelsee was breathing deeply. 

 

“You expect me to wear an ankle ring under my gowns and robes?!”

 

“If you do not wear one when I come for you, you will feel my whip. You are my slave, Kelsee. I suggest you swiftly learn to obey me, beginning now.”

 

-------------------------

 

When Darian eventually arrived, he was accompanied by a bare-chested, broad shouldered man, who carried with him a small bag of tools, and a second man, clad in a long tunic, who carried with him a scroll and a small quill ink pot.

 

“You are well, Lady?” asked Darian Athuk as he closed the tent flap.

 

“I am, thank you,” said Kelsee. It seemed to me that her face was still lightly flushed from her brief and frustrating intercourse and her body seemed vital and desperate from her lack of a slave orgasm. I had used her swiftly and briefly, just long enough to satisfy myself, as I knew we might not have long before the slavers arrived. She was therefore left in an agitated and needful state of mind. I think she was determined not to reveal her current state of unease to Darian. 

 

“I am accompanied by Hastur, a metal worker, and Pyssus, a scribe. Hastur will work on your broken collar with his tools. Pyssus is here to assist me in validating your identity and will prepare the papers of freedom for your silk slave that you requested.” He regarded me still with distaste. “You are still committed to freeing him?”

 

“I am,” said Kelsee. 

 

“Very well. He is your property. It is your prerogative.” Pyssus displayed a scroll that had been drafted in advance. He showed it to Kelsee who took the time to read the text. She nodded, and then, taking the quill from the ink pot, signed her name at the bottom of the scroll. 

 

“It seems you are now a free man,” said Darian. He barely looked at me. “You are very lucky that your mistress is so foolish.”

 

Hastur approached me and, with a key, removed the iron collar that I had only worn for a few ahn. I was then given my tunic back. 

 

Kelsee then stood before me. “I have paid my debt,” she said. “You are a free man again. I am keeping your dowry, as it never technically belonged to you, but I will let you have a silver tarsk of it. I will not see you destitute.” She handed me a single coin. “It will buy you a life in Corcyrus, if that is what you want.”

 

It was hard to remain angry with her. 

 

“That brings us now to the matter of ascertaining your identity,” said Darian to Kelsee.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I happen to have the means by which I may verify you are indeed the girl I carried from the silver ship landing site to Argentum all those many months ago: the ankle ringed, unconscious girl who I strapped across my tarn saddle. I keep scrupulous records on all my acquisitions, and I have here a certified copy of your slave papers.” He indicated the scroll that Pyssus carried.

 

“My slave papers!”

 

“You were part of a chain coffle, Lady,” he reminded her. “There were papers for each girl in the coffle, irrespective of their eventual fates. My caste is not so careless that we rely simply on a locked ankle ring as a means of identifying a particular girl. We also record all the details of your body. I have here your slave measurements.”

 

“I am not a slave!”

 

“You were part of a girl coffle. The term is appropriate regardless of your legal status.” Darian watched as Pyssus unrolled the scroll that detailed the body measurements of all the girls who had been in Kelsee’s coffle. I supposed one of those girls might well have been Felicity Emery. 

 

“Remove your slave tunic,” said Darian.

 

“What!”

 

“I am going to examine and measure your body to ascertain that you are the woman who identified herself in Argentum as the Lady Savanna.”

 

“Who else could I possibly be!”

 

“I have no idea. I will ask that question at length if it turns out the measurements I have on the scroll do not match with what I find from your luscious body.”

 

“You can’t expect me to remove my tunic.” She gazed at the men standing beside Darian.

 

“You will do so, or Hastur will strip you himself.”

 

Kelsee angrily peeled her tunic from her body. She stood there now, naked, save for her collar. “Please be quick.” She looked nervous. I could see her nipples were enlarged still from my use of her earlier. She had not yet had a climax.

 

Darian was business like in his measurements. He took each measurement in turn and read it out to Pyssus who then made notes on the scroll, confirming the measurements were the same. I learned many of her body measurements, one after the other. My slave’s ankle size is apparently 7.5” circumference; her wrist size is 5.2” circumference; her collar size 12.5” circumference, and her bust circumference 32” with an under bust measurement of 27.3”. There were many other measurements, too, and of course I am translating them from Gorean ‘horts’ into Earth inches. 

 

It appears Kelsee was indeed the girl whose delicate details were recorded on the coffle slave register. Darian seemed satisfied in that regard, at least.

 

“There is no record of slave responses,” said Pyssus as he neared the end of the assessment.

 

“I suppose not,” said Darian. “She was unconscious when her details were taken. But no matter. We can take them now.”

 

“What?!” Kelsee was startled. She took a step back.

 

“This will not take long, Lady. I will administer the slaver’s caress and a record will be made of your responses. Your papers will then be complete.”

 

“You will do no such thing! I am a Free Woman!”

 

Darian seemed uninterested in her protests. “Stand with your hands clasped behind the back of your neck, and your feet set widely apart.”

 

“I will not!”

 

Darian unclipped the whip from his belt and shook out the strands.

 

“I will!” she said, quickly. “I will!”

 

We watched as she widened her feet and stood there with her hands clasped behind her neck. She could feel the steel collar with her fingertips.

 

“OH!” she suddenly cried out, flushed once more, as Darian’s hand moved carefully and professionally between her thighs. Darian didn’t know she was already in a semi-heated state from the frustration of not being permitted to climax on the couch. I suppose this examination wasn’t really fair on her.

 

“You are responding very quickly,” said Darian with surprise.

 

“Oh!” she cried again. Her knees were trembling. 

 

“You are already oiling,” said Darian. Of course she was. I had only released her from the couch nine ehn ago. 

 

“Please! No more!” she cried.

 

The slaver’s caress is difficult for any woman to ignore, least of all a natural slave who had been heated and aroused less than ten ehn ago. Kelsee whimpered softly, gasped, and cried out as her body shook. Darian had seen enough.

 

“Full slave responses,” he said. Pyssus made some swift notes, as Darian assigned a series of letter and number codes to clarify certain aspects of her responses. “And swiftly, too. You should not be free.”

 

“This is… a mistake,” she cried.

 

“You should not be free,” he said again. He did seem angry that he would have to send her back to apparent freedom. “Pyssus, make a notation that it is the recommendation of Darian Athuk of Talmont that this girl should be enslaved. Her responses are simply too vital for a Free Woman. What the House of Diamandis chooses to then do with my recommendation is their own business, but I want my professional opinion made very clear in her slave papers.”

 

“Please, no,” cried Kelsee as Pyssus scribbled some words that would now be a permanent part of her assessment records. She didn’t dare break position, of course. 

 

Then it was the turn of Hastur. Kelsee was ordered to kneel in tower, as she was technically a Free Woman, still. She was ordered to lift her long hair with her hands and hold it above her head as Hastur produced a series of tools, turned the collar to clearly view the lock, and then he began the delicate work of inserting a number of slim tools to try and pick it. It was delicate and careful work and took perhaps five ehn of trying different pins and implements, until a combination of four of them turned the delicate mechanism of the lock. Kelsee gasped as the collar was slid from her neck.

 

“Strange,” said Hastur as he examined the open collar. “I expected the lock to be more difficult. It didn’t feel like it was broken.” 

 

“Collaring position,” said Darian as he reached into the tool sack and produced a new collar.

 

“What! What are you doing?! That is a collar!”

 

“Of course it is a collar,” said Darian.

 

“What are you going to do with it?”

 

“I am going to lock it around your throat to replace the broken collar,” said Darian. 

 

“But I am a Free Woman! You are returning me to Argentum for a reward! You promised to return me to Argentum!”

 

“Yes I did. And that is what I am doing.”

 

Kelsee rose to her feet and tried to back away, but Hastur gripped her by her left arm and simply thrust her back down into a kneeling position.

 

Kelsee looked about the tent, wildly. “No!” she cried. “No! You are not going to collar me! No!” 

 

Hastur thrust her head down, held it there, and brushed back her hair as Darian placed the new hinged collar about Kelsee’s neck and closed it with the turn of a key. 

 

“Your new collar has an inscription,” explained Darian. “It reads, I am the property of the House of Diamandis.”

 

Kelsee had been released, and I watched as she knelt, desperately pulling at the new steel that had been locked upon her. 

 

“You will be transported to Argentum in a girl wagon,” explained Darian. 

 

“No! You can’t do that!”

 

“The girl wagon, as you may or may not know, is a flatbed wagon with a tarpaulin cover that can be fitted or removed. There is a central bar running along the floor. Girls are chained to this bar by their ankle rings.” He motioned for Hastur to select an ankle ring from the tool sack. “This ankle ring is number 84. You will be known in the coffle, then, as number 84.”

 

“I am the Lady Savanna of Argentum! I am not a coffle girl! You can’t do this to me!” she screamed, hysterically. Hastur took hold of her hair and thrust her onto her belly, making it easy enough for Darian to lock the identifying ankle ring on her left ankle. It had a smaller ring welded to the side, to which a chain could be attached with a padlock. 

 

“You are now number 84. I would advise you not to refer to yourself by your name in the girl wagon, or identify yourself as a Free Woman to the other slaves girls in your coffle. At first they may be scared of you, but as time goes by, and they realise you are afforded no special treatment, and that you are not accorded any special protection, any more than any other girl in a slave coffle might be protected from being scarred or killed, they may become bold and turn cruel and spiteful towards you, for slave girls relish having a captive Free Woman in their midst.”

 

“I don’t understand,” wept Kelsee. “Why are you doing this?”

 

“It is really quite simple. I am returning you to Argentum for the reward that will be forthcoming from the House of Diamandis. I am doing so only because you are worth far more to me in that respect than if I enslaved and sold you in a market. Otherwise I would have enslaved you by now. The easiest way for me to transport you to the House of Diamandis is in the next slave shipment that leaves this camp in less than an ahn. You will be one girl amongst ten. Your slave, number 79,” he motioned toward the kneeling Kulai, “will also be part of that coffle.”

 

“You can’t put me in a chain coffle with her!” cried Kelsee.

 

“Obviously, I can,” observed Darian, drily. “You will be ankle chained together in the girl wagon. I am sure you will have much to talk about during the journey.” 

 

“Please have me escorted to Argentum as a Free Woman! Give me guardsmen and let me ride with dignity to the city in a palanquin!”

 

“Why should I endure the expense? Besides, I need all my men for the slaving operation here at the frontline of the war. No, far simpler to ship you to Argentum amongst today’s coffle of slaves.”

 

“Your men will know who I am?” she said. “You will tell them that I am free? That I am to be accorded special treatment?”

 

“No. I see no point in telling them. They will simply think you a slave. The sealed papers that travel with you – the papers that will be given to the House of Diamandis - will clearly identify you as the Lady Savanna, once the seal is broken and they are read. I assume your friend, Kelapina, will then ensure your freedom, as she did the last time I delivered you to that House.”

 

“You have to tell your men who I am! They will treat me as a slave girl otherwise! As a slave girl!”

 

“I suppose they will,” said Darian with a smile. “A good point. You should be given slave wine before you depart, in case of any accidents.”

 

“Slave wine!” Kelsee tried to crawl away but was seized again by Hastur, who now flung her to her back. “No! No! There is no need! I have had the wine of the noble Free Woman! Please, no!”

 

“There is nothing in your slave papers to state that,” said Darian. “You will therefore be given slave wine.” 

 

And she was given slave wine. I watched as Kelsee was held by Hastur. I watched as Darian produced a vial of the bitter, foul liquid. He forced her mouth open, pinched closed her nose, and waited until she had exhaled a breath. He then poured the liquid into her mouth. Her eyes were wild as she tasted the bitter liquid. Eventually she was forced to swallow it. She was then thrown to her belly again, and her wrists were secured with binding fibre to prevent her from forcing fingers down her throat to regurgitate the liquid, not that I think she would have done so.

 

“Make a note, Pyssus. Number 84 has been given slave wine. Standard strength and dosage.”

 

It was so noted.   

 

“Slaves are transported naked,” observed Darian. With a motion of his hand, he signalled Hastur to strip Kelsee. She sobbed, knowing that she would now be indistinguishable from her sisters in bondage in the chain coffle. “The journey will take seventeen days.”

 

Kelsee would be treated as a slave girl in a slave coffle for seventeen days and seventeen nights. She was in a state of abject shock.

 

Kelsee and Kulai were marched out together, out into the warm afternoon sunshine. I followed and saw a flatbed wagon some twenty metres away. It had already been loaded with six new slave girls, and two others were waiting to be chained by their ankles to the central bar.

 

Kelsee would be among them for seventeen days. If they discovered she was a Free Woman, her life would be made a living hell after the first few days. She turned, her face frantic, staring back at me as two men beside the wagon took hold of her arms and lifted her up on to the wagon. Did she think I was going to step in and rescue her? 

 

“Roland!” she cried out, helplessly. Instantly, a man slapped her, sending her reeling to the side of the wagon. He didn’t know she was a Free Woman, of course.

 

“You call men, master,” he snarled. “Nadu! Now!”

 

Kelsee dropped to her knees and opened her thighs.

 

“Wider!” he snarled.

 

She parted her thighs even wider. 

 

“Call a man by his name again, slut, and I shall have you whipped.”

 

“Forgive me, Master,” sobbed Kelsee. She looked terrified. 

 

“Obeisance!” he commanded and as he did so, Kelsee dropped her forehead to the ground before his feet. “Kiss and lick my feet.” And then Kelsee did as she was commanded. When the man was satisfied, he placed Kelsee on the wagon, next to a brunette, and drew Kelsee’s left leg towards the central bar, where it was chained in place. Kulai was chained facing opposite her. I could tell that Kelsee was now scared to look directly at Kulai. 

 

I had tried to make eye contact with Kulai while she had been marched to the salve wagon, and then when she had been chained in place, opposite Kelsee, but at all times she looked away from me. She had said nothing, and she pointedly refused to meet my gaze. 

 

“Let me buy the Turian slave,” I said to Darian. “I have a silver tarsk.”

 

“She is not mine to sell. I am a slaver, not a thief.” Darian barely looked at me. And then, helpless to intervene – not even possessing a weapon - I watched as the slave wagon rolled quickly away with its escort of armed guards, bound for the slave markets of Argentum. 

 

“You will be permitted to leave my camp in half an ahn,” said Darian as he made to walk away. “And in the opposite direction to my wagon. If you remain here any longer than that, I will have you killed.” And with that he walked away.

 

Half an ahn later I was on the road once more. Darian’s men watched me from the perimeter of his camp until I disappeared over the horizon.

 

And then, five days later, I stood outside the great walls of Corcyrus.