Tripoli Slaves.
The slave market is a great leveller.
Lady Catherine Fortescue, only daughter of Lord Rothwell, had spent the summer visiting the sights in Italy. She was accompanied by her chaperone, an elderly spinster who was distantly related, and her two maids. Lady Catherine was spoilt, some would call her a spoilt bitch, although never to her face. Perhaps this was why, at the age of twenty, she was still unmarried. This despite the dowry of £ 40,000 she carried in her purse and an income of more than £ 2,000 per annum. She was proud, arrogant, and worst of all, intelligent! She treated her maids, both girls obtained from an orphanage, as objects, possessions to be used and abused at will. The two maids were expected to be on call at all times, and to cater for her slightest whim. For this they were paid the princely salary of £ 30 per annum.
The pirates had struck the small town in Sicily on a Sunday morning. The majority of the population, conveniently, were gathered in one place, the church. Lady Catherine and her party had decided to attend the service, even though it was Catholic, in order to admire the building, originally founded by a Norman Baron, in the 11th Century, a very distant ancestor of her own family.
Curiosity can be fatal.
The pirates were efficient. The congregation were soon sorted into two groups; young, attractive women and girls, plus a few pretty boys in one group, the rest to be freed. Anyone who resisted, or even protested to volubly, were silenced by a sharp knife. Miss Plunkett, the chaperone, was one of the most voluble, and the first to have her throat slit!
The chosen, chosen to be slaves, were taken on board the pirate vessels, confined in the hold. Lady Catherine was in shock! This was 1844! Slavery had been outlawed! She was English, an aristocrat! Slaves were ignorant black savages, not wealthy English misses!
Time passed, night and day the same in the dark hold. Finally, there were different noises. Daylight and heat flooded in. The slaves were herded out onto the deck. Lady Catherine looked around her at white stone buildings, palm trees and desert. “Get your hands off me!” She screamed as one of the slavers took hold of the neck of her dress and jerked, hard! “What do you think you’re doing, you black savage?” She retched and bent over double as his fist slammed into her belly. Within minutes the slaves, all of them, were naked. Iron collars were locked around their throats, connected by short lengths of chain. A jerk on the chain, and more than 40 naked women and boys started their painful journey through the streets of Tripoli.
They were taken to a large shed, where they were washed, their body hair removed, and generally made to look as attractive as possible. A symbol was written on the breast of each slave. Lady Catherine found herself attached to her two maids by their collars. There was now little to distinguish aristocrat and servant. They were three naked, female slaves, soon to be sold. Lady Catherine had once been to a horse fair, this was much the same, with the difference that she was now one of the fillies on show. She and the maids were treated in the same way as those horses had been; appraised, prodded, stroked, examined and discussed, as if they were dumb animals, and not an aristocratic lady and her two servants!
A well-dressed man, in spotless robes, examined them closely, weighing breasts, testing the firmness of buttocks, forcing them to open their mouths so that he could examine their teeth. He beckoned one of the dealers, engaging in a long discussion. The dealer pointed out various assets of the wares he was selling, clearly making some kind of proposal. The buyer, addressed the three slaves, in halting, but understandable English. “Which of you is the Milady?”
Lady Catherine bridled, could this savage not see the difference? Could he be so ignorant? Her temper got the better of her. “I cannot understand the need for that question, you savage? Are you so ignorant that you cannot identify a lady?”
Surprisingly, the man smiled, his teeth gleaming white against his dark skin and black beard. “I see before me three slaves, no better than animals. Three bodies, each with a pair of tits, a mouth, a cunt and thighs that beg to be spread for their master. I see no lady, no servant, merely three slaves. One of which, I might add, has just earned itself a whipping!”
“How dare you speak to me like that?” Lady Caroline was furious! How dare he?
“I take it you are the Milady? And I assume that you are a virgin?” Lady Catherine ignored him.
“If you please, sir.” Polly, one of the maids spoke up. “If you please, sir. She is Lady Catherine, and she is a virgin, sir. After all, her hymen carries with it a £ 40,000 dowry. It is only the likes of us as are casually fucked, sir.” Her eyes met his, “Mostly, like Molly and me, by His Lordship and his friends, sir. His Lordship believing that servants are there to serve, sir. Not much difference between us and slaves, sir. Our cunts is open for their use, sir, and our mouths, and our arses, for that matter, sir! A great one for buggery, is His Lordship! There isn’t a maid, or a stable boy or junior footman as hasn’t had their arses reamed by His Lordship, sir. Why even Mrs McCarthy, sir, the housekeeper, who must be fifty or more years old, was bent over the kitchen table and buggered by His Lordship and his friends, her screaming and hollering like a banshee, sir!”
There was an unintelligible conversation between the man and the dealer. A purse changed hands, a small one. The buyer was given the end of the chain attached to Lady Catherine. “Come! Let me take you to your new home. Mustafa’s Palace of Earthly Delights. You will provide those delights! But first, Polly and Molly, you will entertain my guests by whipping this arrogant whore. You will apply two dozen lashes each to her body. I am sure that she will sing lustily for us, and dance in a most unladylike fashion.”
Lady Catherine found herself in an open square outside an establishment bearing the sign “Mustafa’s Palace of Earthly Delights.” Her wrists were tied to an overhanging branch of a tree, allowing her plenty of room to move, although not to bring her elbows below chin level. A crowd had gathered, relishing the chance of free entertainment. Polly and Molly stood to one side, each examining the long, heavy, braided leather whip she had been given.
Catherine was whimpering. “Please? Don’t hurt me? Remember all the kindnesses you have had from me and my family. Please?”
“Oh, we will, My Lady, we will. We will remember very well. Won’t we, Polly?”
Polly cracked her whip, eliciting a scream from Catherine, who was as yet untouched.
“Remember when his Lordship was kind enough to allow us to be bitches to his entire hunt pack?” Polly cracked the whip again. “I remember that very well!”
She braced her feet and measured the distance to the helpless woman. “Dance nicely, for us, My Lady!”
The whip hissed as it cut the air!
Picture by Kamerijk.
https://www.deviantart.com/kamerijk/art/
