Episode 11 One plus one is more fun but more to lose
Paskai shivered, she was not sure how she managed to feel the cold, there was a hot bony little slave girl to the left of her, a slightly less bony and rather more sweaty slave girl to the right of her and the food...well the food had been hot about an hour ago, now the mash retained merely the memory of warmth. Still and all she could not understand this bone deep coldness, Paskai refused to consider even the notion of what it truly was.
So she focused on her anger. Li’hi was someone she had grown up trusting as an aunt yet the woman had tricked her into stripping on the docks and then clapped her in irons before throwing her in among the cargo of slave girls where Paskai was part of a select group who had a v painted on their foreheads. V meant virgin, v meant aboard this ship don’t rape, v meant that the group Paskai was in had a better time of it than some of the other slave girls who had been visited by the crew of a night watch.
Yet Paskai had had to listen to what went on across the hold or on the deck just above where the sailors bedded. She had had to listen and it had turned her blood cold, it had laid its icy fingers upon her heart and chilled her blood.
“A fierce one hey?” Said a friendly voice and Paskai looked up to see a smiling dark haired woman with a round face, dark black hair and dark eyes that shone nevertheless like coals in the fire.
“Fierce?” Asked Paskai more in the hope of having someone who could speak something other than Greek to talk to, she had rather expected more of the slave girls to understand Venetian it being the language of trade in these parts and she had become excited when some had spoken distinctly French words only to be disappointed when the rest of their tongue proved to incomprehensible gibberish.
“The witch, whoever she is, she had better not let you near any pins if she wants to keep her eyes,” The other seemed unconcerned either by her nudity or her chains she swayed easily with the motion of the ship and her words bubbled with an undercurrent of laughter.
“Oh I did not realise I had spoken out loud,” Paskai flushed.
“Does not matter, I am Doretja, well at least until my next master gives me a new name, shift yer bum,” Doretja gave a rueful smile and then shoved the skinny slave girl aside with a flick of her hip as she sat down next to Paskai.
“Oh I am Paskai,” Admitted Paskai Lin, “Your name does not sound very Venetian.”
“’Course not,” Scoffed Doreja, “I am Slovene, from Trieste, though I might be a bit Venetian, my mother conceived me about the time your lot were occupying us, by the sounds of things the middling sort of soldiers spent a lot of time occupied in my mother’s bed but she wore them out after four years…anyway who are you to talk Paskai hardly sounds very Venetian and you look kind of fu…kind of interesting.”
“I am Paskai Lin also of House Polo and my mother has Royal Blood from the Song Dynasty of China,” Paskai tried to look haughty but it proved a bit difficult in chains. The slave girl making use of the hole in one corner of the slave pen which gave out into the very bottom of the ship where the water that had leaked in collected until it was pumped out every so often was mixed with the less than pleasant wastes of a collection of nervous young woman did not help either.
“Very posh, a right little princess, so I bet they are expecting a pretty penny for you,” Grinned Doretja.
“I am not a Princess,” Said Paskai hurriedly, though she was not sure herself if she was in disguise or not?
“Oh okay then merely a duchess, your eminentness,” Doretja smiled, she smiled a lot and when she did her face lit up.
“A duchess is not an eminence that title is reserved for cardi…”
“…cardinals…yes I know that, so you don’t mind my sitting here, next to you and in with the other virgins, only now it is after supper the men start coming round and my normal friend Marguerite, I think she is sort of bit Flemish and bit French not like all those Occitan lasses the new boss loaded up with,” Doretja nodded at the largest group of doe eyed slave girls, “Anyway Marguerite she sort of encourages them, bad enough being rape bait, just down right humiliating being the sloppy seconds after rape bait.”
“Oh okay, you seem brave,” Paskai had not meant to say that and she felt herself blush again.
“Mostly I don’t care, still keep my head down though, you know what they say, there are old slaves and bold slaves but no old bold slaves,” Doretja stuck her tongue out at a girl across the pen, possibly Marguerite.
Later that night Paskai sucked on one of Doretja’s large ripe nipples, purely to distract herself from the sounds around her.
“Like that do you,” Doretja had laughed in the darkness, distantly illuminated by a single oil lamp kept aflame during the dog watch. She had started stroking Paskai’s back and then her hair. Then at some point Paskai was on her back and Doretja was kissing along her ribs and under and up over her breasts and then her lips. Then the Slovene woman’s hands were between Paskai’s legs playing ever so gently with her lips down there until they moistened and then her bud under that touch grew hard and throbbed urgently and Paskai heaved her hips trying to thrust herself onto her lover’s hand.
“Careful there sweetling, we must keep you intact, now you just lie back, I’ll sooth you,” Promised Doretja and crawled down Paskai’s body until her mouth found the source of the flood between Paskai’s lips and then Paskai’s world exploded in light and sound and something else of which she could not speak but only sigh with pleasure.
The next day dawned brighter than it had in a while. At least in part because the ship had finally made land and the slave girls were brought ashore before being fed a late breakfast or possibly early lunch which was a lot warmer than the ship slops and even had bits of what might have been meat in the normal grain mash.
Paskai was just savouring the last mouthful or two when a girl with a well-endowed figure and ratty red blonde hair came barrelling into her knocking her and rather to her dismay what was left of her mash, sideways. The girl screamed a torrent of outlandish words the only one of which Paskai remotely caught was ‘Doretja’. So she guessed it was an affronted Marguerite who had emerged from the hold in the company of a couple of ship’s mates with a big grin on her face and then fallen into a huddled conversation with several confederates who had clearly ratted Paskai out.
Not that she cared at the moment about that. This Marguerite was a clear enemy after days and nights of unspecified fear and Paskai had been longing for one of those. The girls came at her teeth bared and spitting, her finger nails raised like claws. She was quite unready for Paskai to kick her in the belly and then club her across the face with her wrist chains. Then Paskai got those chains around Marguerite’s neck and strangled her till she pissed herself. About then Paskai began to let go of the pressure but she was roughly grabbed back by several of the ninja women disguised as Turkish warriors and more hands took hold of Marguerite
“A lover’s quarrel? Really and you chose that slut?” Sighed the Lord Chai Tai who was actually the Lady Li’hi in disguise, “Well you must be punished, really you cannot go risking your virginity, don’t forget you are a Princess of Jin and Song, a woman fit to rule all China,” Li’hi leaned in and whispered in her rough Northern Dialect Chinese that had made Messaline smile and Mingyu all but laugh.
“Am I?” Hissed Paskai back, “You treat me like a slave and a trash slave at that.” Her Chinese was more florid, taken from the high tones of her mother and grandmother.
“Yes, now prepare to meet the whip, we cannot risk anyone asking who you really are and you must learn discipline,” LI’hi admonished Paskai.
“And Marguerite will she be whipped?” Asked Paskai.
“No and don’t think I am doing that out of mercy for you, I aim to sell the girl today, here at Cherson and I will lose a pretty penny in silver as it is without her back being all marked up, still you won’t be so tempted by her if she is far behind.”
Paskai said nothing and did not even dare look in Doretja’s direction lest she be revealed. She went silent to the whipping post, bit down angrily on the leather bit that was offered her. She was told it was a light whip as they wanted to avoid permanent injury but the whistling serpent and of twisted hide did not feel light as it scorched fire across Paskai’s shoulder blades, then where her neck joined her shoulders and then the small of her back and then across her hips and then higher so it drove the air from her lungs and then again and again until Paskai lost count and fought not to faint her cries only muffled by the folded bit of animal clenched between hard biting teeth.
Later Paskai lay half sobbing on her front in a covered wagon that also served to carry the little caravan of Lord Chai Tai’s medicines. The curtain at the back entrance swirled open and the pain of Paskai’s back cooled a little. It cooled even more when Doretja whispered, “Hey posh girl, don’t tell anyone but I blagged my way in here by claiming I was once an apothecary’s assistant.”
“Were you?” Asked Paskai wondering at the skilled hands and smooth paste that was easing her pain away.
“No but I was buggered by a master alchemist for a while so I know which are poisons and which are not, he used to explain the differences between felchings,” Doretja laughed.
The curtains swirled again and familiar face once again without moustaches leaned down and glanced briefly into Paskai’s eyes before she straightened and spoke to Doretja.
“I am Jade Shadow a mysterious mercenary warrior from the East, I have been hired by the Lord Chai Tai from far Mongolia to guard his virgin wares on this expedition.”
“Okay,” Doretja sounded like she did not mind either way.
“You are very pretty,” Jade Shadow told Doretja.
“Um thanks,” Doretja answered with an all too familiar shy yet laughing tone and Paskai wanted to punch Jade Shadow save she was sure the other woman would kick her arse even when her back muscles stopped hurting where the salve had not got to. She had a feeling this was going to be a long journey.
To Be Continued
