The Songs of Loss, book one : Armanth

Chapter 5- The first name

The older of the two tattooed redheads had been dragged by Priscius himself into his personal gardens, her head covered by a sack and muzzled by a gag that only succeeded in muffling her stubborn attempts to call her oppressor every possible abusive name. The slaver had untied her ankles and was gripping the lace that was binding the barbarian's neck; but she persisted so much in struggling, rearing and kicking that he ended up pulling her, half by the lace, half by the hair, so that the roughness of the trip would calm her down a bit. The result was inconclusive, but at least the girl was too busy catching her breath and coughing to resist effectively.

There, Sonia waited, in the gentle shade of the flower-filled arbors of the small, secluded park that served as the heart of the Slave Garden at Priscius' villa. Not far behind her, a large fountain cascaded peacefully, its basin adorned with sensual nudes carved from white marble. Motionless, Sonia looked like another work of art added to the beauty of the place. Dressed only in a long loincloth, the black silk panels of which concealed only the bare minimum of her intimacy, her body was embellished with polished bronze and silver jewels, adorned with glittering gems.

Without making a move, she watched the two other slaves with their hands tied behind their backs, who had been waiting on their knees on the flagstones of the park for several minutes. Their collars were themselves attached to rings sealed to the ground for this purpose. The young tattooed redhead, who had not been asked her name, had not lifted her head or looked at anything but the ground since she had been brought to the square. Sonia had watched her for long moments during those three days of isolation and confirmed Priscius' opinion: the young woman was broken and reacted only to fear; she seemed to have lost all will to live.

Sonia never judged free men and women. She was a slave and, more than proud of it, she took arrogance from her condition, seeing herself as an ideal and magnificent representation of all feminine sensuality, more perfect than all men's dreams and women's despairs. But as far as she was concerned, the matter was settled: this young woman had been tortured and deliberately damaged to give Priscius a poisoned gift. It was therefore possible that she would never recover, and Sonia thought it a pity that she risked being finished off. She was pretty and had a rare and unique appearance. But Sonia was no more concerned about her fate than she was about saving a beautiful object. She was a slave without a name, a commodity without any value as yet. When an object is broken, if you can't fix it, you get rid of it; the educator would never have thought otherwise.

The other young woman kneeling beside the little redhead was about the same age, but that was where the resemblance ended. Her hair the color of pure gold, with the bewitching beauty of the women of the Plains of The Eteocle, her figure sumptuous, even at just sixteen springs, she had been born the daughter of a great noble family, the heiress of a great name. She bore the fate that had brought her to this point without relinquishing an ounce of her pride, despite the kneeling posture, thighs open, that had been imposed on the two young women. She was, of course, totally naked too, apart from her collar. An essential rule of the High Art, a first humiliation that captives would have to endure until nudity became natural to them.

This young blonde woman had been born on this world and knew all about its cruelties. She had been captured weeks before during a coastal raid. No one in her family had apparently been able to pay her ransom - if her captors had asked for one, of course. Either the men had had to flee, abandoning their treasures, captive women included, or they'd had to choose which ransom to pay and who to abandon to their fate; she'd been one of the sacrifices they'd been unable to save. It was a cruel and common practice among the great families and Eteoclian city-states. The young woman was paying for her family's weakness and defeat; she didn't even need to be told. Once captured, in the regions from which she came, a beautiful woman of her age rarely escaped this fate. For five weeks, she'd been tossed around in cages, traded and negotiated, until she was just another captive in a batch of quality goods sold at auction. Her people's loyalty to the precepts of the Church of the Divine Council permeated her very soul. Its Dogmas, unjust as they were, guided their morality and way of life, and justified in large part what was happening to her; she bore the shame of the defeat of the men who should have protected her, and would do so for the rest of her life. For her, it was simply an obvious fact that nothing could call into question.