Slave Raiders

Ragnor put down his empty cup with a thud. “I really don’t think he’s coming,” he said.

“He’ll be here”, Kalhune replied. “I know he will.”

“He was meant to be here yesterday!” Ragnor retorted. “How much longer do you want to wait?” Then he turned to a passing slave-waitress, “more beer please.”

“Yes Master,” she replied, hurriedly taking his glass, and taking it back to the bar.

Token looked around the room of the tavern. It was a nice, homely old tavern, said to be more than a hundred years old. He, Kalhune, Ragnor, and Durip were sitting around the table, discussing matters.

The slave-waitress returned, her bare breasts leaning over the table as she put down Ragnor’s cup. “Here Master, I hope it is satisfactory. May I do anything else to help you Masters?”

They waved her away, although Token couldn’t help but glance at her bare bottom, which her hair came down to the top of, as she walked over to some other patrons.

“Well how much longer do you want to wait for him?” Ragnor inquired.

“As long as it takes,” Kalhune answered, dismissing any possibility that his commander wouldn’t arrive. He inwardly regretted not staying with him. Why had he let Dalvid stay back to be the last to leave? He should have been there with him.

Durip was only half listening to the conversation. He was more interested in watching the waitresses. All of them were nude, having only a collar around their neck. He was deciding which one he liked the most.

“What do you think of that one?” He asked Token, pointing at a girl with long black hair, nice rounded breasts, and a small, compact, but pretty bottom.

“Not bad, not bad at all,” Token replied grinning, and surveying the room. It was a nice distraction to pass away the hours. “Oh that one is nice!” Durip remarked, pointing to a girl who was trying to balance five drinks, her breasts hanging just over them.

“We have more important things to do than sit around here all day,” Ragnor remarked, unimpressed with his companions. “This is so dull. Can’t we go back to Valua city soon?”

“It’s not that boring, let me demonstrate” said Durip, grinning. He stuck his foot out. The slave tripped, spilling all the drinks everywhere. He smirked at her broadly.

Two other slaves rushed to help her, and to clean up the spilt drinks.

An older slave arrived – she looked about forty years old; she was wearing a thin tunic along with her collar. She was obviously the supervisor. She diplomatically apologized to the guests, especially Ragnor who had had beer spilt on him.

Then she snapped at the slave who had tripped. “Go and fetch the cane this instant!”

Durip perked. A caning! He had asked Dalvid several times to allow him to use the cane, but the strap was the traditional implement with which men punished their slaves. It was considered common for a female to punish a female with a cane though. Some men were beginning to use canes as well, but it was still considered a feminine punishment implements, and Dalvid was a stickler for tradition.

Even Ragnor seemed most interested in seeing what would transpire. She would almost certainly be punished in front of them all. Any business that used slaves to serve its clients generally punished them in front of the same clients when the slaves faltered. It was a way of showing that the business cared about quality. It was also considered a degree of compensation that the clients have the pleasure of seeing the punishment administered.

Many taverns also had certain days on which the slaves serving were publically whipped. Such days invariably saw more patrons.

The female arrived carrying the cane. It was about three feet long, and nice and swishy. The supervisor took it in her hand, and made the miscreant slave stand before everyone and apologize.

Then she was ordered to bend over and touch her toes. Punishing slaves in this position was not traditional; it was a new position that was fast coming into fashion. All the men had their eyes glued on her, most were grinning broadly, fascinated by what was about to happen.

The supervisor could cane well. She landed each stroke hard, swishing the cane through the air before it cracked across the poor slave’s bottom. She had to be good at punishing; it was part of her job. If any of the patrons were unsatisfied with her handling of the situation, she could be reported to the tavern owner, and she too would be punished.

The slave girl squealed at each stroke, but somehow remained in position. She received nine strokes in all. By the end she was in tears.

“Go to the washroom, clean your face, straighten your hair, and then straight back to work” she was curtly ordered. The supervising slave then bowed slightly at the patrons, and apologized once again, remarking that she hoped they were satisfied with the punishment administered.

Durip nodded at her approvingly, although in truth, if he had thought her a more attractive woman, he might have tried to have her punished also.

The punished slave returned soon after. Durip made sure he told her he wanted another drink. He smiled at her tear-streaked face as she gave it to him, she blushed him. As she left, he looked at her welted-bottom, almost tempted to see that she got another dose.

“See, it’s not so bad here after all!” Durip responded. “There’s another tavern in town, maybe we should go and see if that has some nice waitresses too?”

—

Li’sar got into the routine of marching with the other slaves. The Valuans were certainly not as bad as those bandits, but they were not Dalvid. Her whipping had been painful of course, and she had almost gotten another one at their first stop, but fortunately – for her – another girl was punished instead.

They passed through several towns – Valuan towns, not the villages that she was used to. The people here all seemed so much more sophisticated; the men were mostly clean shaven, and the women were much, much cleaner. Most of the women she saw were naked, with just a leather or iron collar around their neck, or sometimes not even that.

She gleaned from the conversations of the Valuans that they were heading for a city called Ventruse. She knew a city was like a large village or town, but she had never been to one before. She was scared of course, very scared, like all the girls were.

It seemed that some of the girls were from lands farther off than she. She wasn’t sure if they all spoke the same language, although she dared not try to speak to any of them.

Day turned to night, and they stopped to camp for the night. The men selected four of the girls to be punished before them, apparently primarily for the men’s entertainment. Li’sar was thankful that she wasn’t one of them.

As the march continued the next day, she started to grow tired, as did the other girls. The marching was taking its toll on her; all the excitement she had had over the last few days. Her heart was still yearning for Dalvid, but she knew that she would never see him again. She started wondering what had happened to him. She wondered if those bandits had killed him. She dreaded to think about it.

As they came to the top of a hill, she saw the city. It was like nothing she had seen before: surrounded by walls, with huge buildings, and many houses, she could see that it was teeming with people. Genuinely huge, she wondered how she would survive in a place with so many people. Yet that’s exactly where she was being taken.

It was almost dusk; the men seemed to want to get into the city before nightfall, when the gates would be closed. The slaves were threatened with whippings if they didn’t hurry. They arrived at the gate, where a man was bringing wheat into the city. The guards were counting the wheat, and charged the man a tax according to how much wheat he had.

After they had finished dealing with him, they counted the slaves in a similiar fashion. The Valuans were given two options: they could pay three bronze pieces in taxes, or they could pay two bronze pieces and deliver three of the slaves to the city center square for a public whipping to entertain the citizens of the city. The men chose the latter option.

—

Dalvid galloped along, thinking that the men in the forest had taken him to the very furthest possible point from Valua, and not given him the straightest possible directions. Probably to delay him in case he did try to find soldiers to hunt them down, he considered.

Still, he would be back with his men soon. He knew he would be a whole day late, but he also was confident that they’d wait for him. Well, even if they didn’t, he’d make it back to Valua city on his own.