Chapter VIII The King proves a girl most able

Rapidly approaching footsteps brought our discussion to a sudden end. Helen
quickly dropped forward a moment before Adam returned, breathing heavily and
shaking a little. For all her masculine bluster, I could see she was as cowed
by the valet's presence as I was.

"You've moved, Helen," Adam said simply. There was a high whistling sound,
and Helen cried out as the first of a round dozen crop strokes fell on her
buttocks and on the back of her thighs.

A slavegirl's hair is arranged, after all, not only for aesthetic effect, but
so it can be proved whether the girl has obediently maintained the position
she has been commanded to assume in the valet's absence. If the hair is
askew, then she has disobeyed.

The King arrived shortly after. He pushed me off the bed, commanding that I
crawl to the corner. I obeyed, a little hurt, and found myself staring at the
stonework of the chamber wall while the King made quick work of brutalizing
Helen. After a long period of screaming on her part, and many slaps and
cries, I heard a long moan come from the King. Then a loud thump and cry: the
King had thrown the wretch to the floor.

I was next. I was a little amazed that the King was ready so soon, but then
didn't have time to think, as he seemed to want to use my mouth, pushing back
into the corner, my head wedged between two stones, his cock ramming into me.
His juice flowed into my open mouth some time later, and he violently threw
me onto my side.

He composed himself, and then left for his council.

Though Helen was quite rattled by her rape, she seemed ready to move forward
with her plan.


Chapter IX Escape

I followed Helen silently down the stone spiral staircase, a little-used
entrance to the lower chambers of the castle. The dungeons were rarely used
for the punishment of slaves; Acteonese men preferred the administration of
punishment to occur in the normal course of daily life, rather than bring it
inconveniently below ground. The cells of most Acteonese castles were used
for prisoners of war.

Our wrists were still chained to our collars.

Helen led me toward a storeroom. She held a finger to her lips, warning me to
silence, as she lifted a keyring from a rack of rings. Slavegirls never
disobeyed, so there was no reason to guard or hide these keys to freedom.

She picked out a key and handed it to me. I reached up (she was much taller
than me) and unlocked her restraints. She removed the cuffs and collar. She
unlocked the lock binding my wrists to each other and to my collar, but shook
her head when I held my wrists out for her to unlock the mechanisms fastening
my cuffs around my wrists.

Instead she led me to the washer room. At this hour of the night it was
abandoned. She handed me the end of a bolt of white muslin and gestured to
me, indicating that I was to wrap her in it. I held the fabric aloft as she
wound her torso tightly into the muslin.

A few moments later the fabric was cinched tight with wooden pins, and
Helen's chest looked as flat as a young boy's.

She found breeches that fit, and a shirt and shoes. She had me cut her hair
short, in the style of an Acteonese squire. A cap and a little dirt on her
face, and a cape with a hood completed the ensemble.

My disguise consisted of washer's dye, to blacken my ostentatiously red hair.
My shorn pubic mound meant less to dye. Helen reattached my wrists behind my
back, and buckled a leash to my collar. She put slave's travelling slippers
on my feet, to facilitate our flight.

I was uncomfortable with the fact that she had decided that this was the role
that I must play in our charade, but I could see no way around it. My classic
slave's silhouette - the extremely narrow shoulders, tight waist and flared
hips - was impossible to conceal, with tightly wound muslin or loose-fitting
cloth, and since free women are periodically checked by King's men for
slave's marks, we couldn't risk me posing as anything but what I was.

We stole away, finally, late in the night, Helen in squire's garb, a sack of
foodstuffs over one shoulder, holding my leash in her delicate right hand as
I followed her down the secret hallway, naked, helpless even in the hands of
another slave.

The moon was high in the sky, and Helen seemed nervous about this, but we
continued on through the night deep into the woods, the sounds of Acteonese
night birds and insects in the air, and the smell of loamy soil underfoot.

Without my hands to steady me, I tired quickly, and begged Helen to at least
allow me use of them, but she refused, telling me I mustn't assume that I was
free yet: such behavior would give lie to us in the wrong circumstances - a
slave doesn't ask such things. She bent me over and gave me a quick ten swats
with the palm of her hand to emphasize the point. She then drove me on,
until, at dawn, we reached the hills and found a cave in which to hide.

Though I had pleaded to stop earlier, we were in fact both exhausted, and we
fell together in a heap on the dusty floor. Helen unchained my wrists. She
joined my ankle cuffs, brought my right wrist under my right thigh and
attached my left wrist to it, so that I could lie on my left side
comfortably, bent fetal, my left arm thrust between my thighs.

I was disappointed that Helen felt this necessary, but she laid down behind
me, still clothed, and draped her arm over my waist, her hand trembling on my
belly, her knees tucked into the backs of mine, her hips rocking slightly,
involuntarily, and I decided that her feelings about it were complex as well
- though her mental makeup was that of an Acteonese man, the drug still made
her feelings those of a slave's, no matter what she had been able to
accomplish this night by dint of sheer willpower. She pulled a small blanket
over us and I fell asleep almost immediately.

We had escaped New Hope.

Chapter X Withdrawal

Helen was gone when I awoke. I rolled forward onto my knees gingerly, my left
forearm still wedged against my pubic mound. I noted that she had wrapped my
leash around a large root protruding from the earth at the mouth of the cave.

The sun was high over the trees - it must be close to midday, I thought.

One thing I was glad of was Acteonese weather: the planet lacked seasons, and
the mean temperature was roughly four degrees hotter than earth. New Hope lay
in the subtropical belt; the noon temperature hovered around 93 degrees,
while at night it dipped to a balmy 78 degrees. Additionally, Acteon had no
flying insects - no mosquitoes or flies to pester a helpless slave.

In the northern reaches, slavegirls wore fur parkas which had no armholes
when they were transported from keep to keep. Indoors they tended to wear
shifts in the livery colors of the family they belonged to.

Here in the south, slaves spent their whole lives never knowing the comfort
and privacy clothing affords. They were as naked as animals.

I looked down at my now sun-dappled body. The bruises on my breasts and
buttocks had begun to turn purple, but in this light, I supposed, they would
look pretty to the disinterested eye of a knight or slave trader. My legs
were covered with little scratches from our midnight flight through the dense
wood. I smelled of sweat, no scent of perfume lingered, and my blackened hair
hung limp and tangled over my shoulders. My skin was covered in a light film
of dust. Hardly the primped, painted slavegirl of a King's harem, I thought
ruefully.

I had now been slave Alisha for a day and a half, and it looked like I would
remain so for at least another few days, but at least there was hope now that
I might be freed. This had so far been an overwhelming experience, and I was
beginning to feel like I was losing myself. The longest I had subjected
myself to such abuse was two hours in a holosuite with the governors turned
off. I had only done it once.


Presently Helen returned. She held a bundle of herbs in one hand, a crude
stone knife in the other, and had a small kreth, or tree rodent, slung over
her shoulder. She unloaded her materials on a flat rock at the edge of the
cage. She knelt before me, produced a key from a cord hanging between her
small breasts, and unlocked the catch joining my wrists. She unlatched the
leash as well.

"Where would I have gone?" I asked her, looking up at her. "I'm naked, and
lost, for that matter."

"It's the principle of the thing, slave. In three days, after we purge
ourselves of the slave's bane, we will be heading into the villages, and then
the towns, wherever our search for my body thief takes us. It will be hard
enough for me to act the part of squire in this form. I want one of us, at
least, to be incapable of arousing suspicion. Therefore, you will continue to
think, and act, the part of slave, and I will continue to restrict and punish
you, to reinforce your behavior." She pushed my head down roughly. "Case in
point, pretty one. I am weaning you from the slave's bane only because I need
a clear head working with me. Don't mistake it for empathy. I will hold to my
promise, but until then you will obey me in every respect."

She brought the kreth and the stone knife from the rocks and handed them to
me.

"Prepare our meal, slave. There is tinder and wood in the clearing. Start a
fire, skin the animal and wrap the meat in the herbs. The herb is called
Skrii, and helps to nullify slave's bane - a secret known among makers of the
drug, who occasionally poison themselves in the process of manufacturing the
substance. It grows wild everywhere."

I held the carcass in my hands, unsure if she was serious.

She pulled me upright by my hair and dragged me over to the clearing outside
the cave. "Heed me, slave! You are no longer in the pampered clutches of the
harem - a slavegirl in a travelling troupe has many chores to perform. You
will learn them all, starting with the cooking of meals." It seemed a odd
thing for her to say, since she had come from the harems herself, and was
most likely a scant Acteonese year older than me, and therefore more or less
a child. Yet I complied; I remembered the distinction she had made between us
the night before, that she was a warrior, no matter her form, and that I was
a slavegirl born. It certainly seemed accurate.

She gave me a quick lesson in the skinning of a kreth and the principles of a
spit roast. "Most properly this is taught by an experienced slave, but it
seems I'll have to train you as best I can," she said. "I must admit this
isn't through first hand experience; I've always had a camp slave attend to
such housekeeping. But you must learn this. If we must share camp with other
travellers, you will have to tend chores communally with the other
slavegirls, and must seem trained at least in the rudimentaries."

I slit the kreth with the stone knife. More accurately, I hacked. My hands
were slick with fat and blood by the time I had cut off the head, removed the
skin, and spitted the little creature. I started a fire, using the flint and
stone method Helen showed to me, and began to turn the carcass over the
flames.

"Master," I asked, mindful that Sir Begnir was sensitive to his current
gender, "The custom when sharing camp is to share slaves. Will you loan me
out?"

She chuckled as she whittled a yerk branch. She was fashioning a bow. "Of
course. And I will accept the offer of another's slave, although I will beg
off her services in private, claiming illness, and will blindfold her to hide
my lamentable condition. You have nothing to hide, however, and will only
improve with a little extra use."

I continued to turn the carcass, kneeling before the fire.

"Master," I asked, "you act very much like a man. Do you not feel the effects
of the slave's bane?"

She frowned. "Yes. I fight it. Such feelings are not honorable. But, yes, I
feel the same way you do - I wish nothing more than to be told by a man what
to do - given the deleterious effects of the slave's bane, I can feel but
little else; it is what I crave." She shuddered. "I fight it, because all
meaning in my life has been wrapped up in knighthood, not maidenhood. This
form, the feelings that it induces in me, are extremely difficult to subdue.
In some ways this is why I am glad I brought you with me - your abject
acceptance of your fate, your willingness, give me something to - well, to
renounce. Looking at you reminds me what I do not want to be.

"Yet I see in you how natural it is to submit, and how naturally you take to
it, whether or not it was your choice to be this way. You appear to have been
born in the wrong body, and have only now found your true calling. I know you
wish to return to your homeworld, regain your former manhood. But I tell you
this: I believe this is your proper and true purpose in this world, and
although I intend to keep my promise, in the meantime I intend to do my best
to convince you that you are already the slavegirl you were always meant to
be."

I considered this. Certainly I protested my fate very little, but I had
thought that mainly to be a product of being drugged. But now I considered
how quickly, how readily I had adapted to this strange body, with its curves
and softness, its weakness and urges, and how even now, as I leaned forward
on my haunches as I turned the spit, my breasts dangling under my delicate
frame, my pussy visible from behind, I felt at home. I was afraid, afraid of
myself, of Helen, of what might be done to me by her or by anyone, but I was
also thrilled by this fear. Nevertheless, I felt I must protest:

"It is true that I - I am well-suited to this form, Master," I began, slowly
turning the spit as I spoke, "But I came to this planet to fulfill a task,
not to satisfy my urges."

"We are, in essence, the sum of our actions," she replied. "There is a saying
in the Lower Reaches of New Hope: 'as one does, one shall be treated'. You
behave like a slave, and so you are treated like one. Were I not privy to
your circumstances I would not know the difference."

"I am thirty-five years old, Sir. I have a duty to perform for my land."

"You act as if you're fourteen, slave. Which is only proper, since that is
your age."

She finished her dressing of the bow shaft, and began spinning a bowstring
from lengths of her own hair, which she had packed after hacking it from her
head. I looked at her. She looked like nothing so much as a young boy,
perhaps sixteen, intent on his task. She was frowning; she was beginning to
feel withdrawal symptoms from lack of slave's bane, as was I.

It felt like a flu; my muscles were beginning to ache all over, and my head
hurt.

"We will eat, and then sleep," Helen said. "It is the best we can do. The
worst will be over by tomorrow; without the herb it would take weeks to
overcome it, but since we have ample supply to mix in with our meal, I think
we will be ready to travel by midday tomorrow.

"If I am correct, I will return more or less to my normal composure. You, I
think, will no longer feel compelled to obey, but if I'm right about you, and
I believe I am, you will still feel the desire to. That will prove useful."

In another ten minutes the kreth was ready, and after removing it from the
spit I knelt before Helen. She pulled my wrists behind me and locked them
together, and pulled me to her side. She then began to dine on the flesh of
the cooked meat, pulling the hot muscle from the bone.

In the manner of travelling warriors, she fed me, her slave, by hand. I was
dependent on her for food. I opened my mouth like a babe and she gave me
morsels to eat. It felt natural to me, even satisfying, to have my
helplessness demonstrated to me yet again, and though I knew that this woman,
if confronted by a true man now, would break and succumb to the needs of her
bodily passions, would show herself to be as responsive to direction as I;
even though I knew her domination of me was relative and forced, a coping
mechanism of hers, I responded with open thighs and open mouth as I would for
any true master.

She fed me only enough to curb my hunger; the proper care of a slavegirl
usually dictates the girl's wants are never quite satisfied - she never quite
gets enough to eat; kneeling for hours at a time, she is never comfortable;
certainly the methodical arousal of a slavegirl isn't so much to please her
as to frustrate her, for she is rarely permitted to bring her arousal to
fruition.


After allowing me to relieve myself at the edge of the clearing, Helen again
tethered me to my fastening place, the protruding root at the mouth of the
cave, and left to acquire more necessities. I spent the remainder of the
afternoon hitched to the root, kneeling in the dirt.

She returned at dusk riding a horse. Saddlebags bulged with gear, and behind
the saddle was a slent, a kind of saddle for the transport of a slave. One
threw the slavegirl over the horse's back, face down, and bound her wrists
with straps built into the leather apparatus. Her ankles were bound as well,
so that she straddled the horse's spine, bent double, arms and legs pulled
down over the sides of the horse's ribcage. The singular innovation of the
device, which was intended to inflict increasing discomfort on long journeys,
was that the slave's crotch was pressed up against a horn, keeping her from
sliding off one side, and that her hands were afforded some purchase, if not
freedom, by means of an iron bar. With these supports a slave girl could
prevent the roughness of the ride from transferring directly to her stomach,
and could cushion the ride with a little effort, but at great cost to her
tender crotch.

I had seen them in use before. Girls taken from the slent after a long ride
were shaky, their nether regions sore and pained, and needed help walking. It
was a convenient way to transport a slave girl, but fatigued the girl so much
that she often needed a full night's rest before one could make demands upon
her injured form. Since the girl's pain, however intense, was irrelevant to
her owner, this was no large matter, but usually it was worth the effort of
transporting the girl in a cage or wagon, and these were more common, as the
point of having a slave was to make use of her.

But it was tradition to pack a slent for a journey. The gear dated back to a
time, three or four centuries ago, before the current monarchial system, when
the Acteonese were nomadic, and slave's bane wasn't yet concocted. It was an
excellent means of subduing a rebellious slavegirl.

Now such traditional devices were used primarily because they satisfied the
aesthetic concerns or whim of a master. There was hardly such a thing as a
rebellious slave these days - slavegirls were entirely willing and eager to
perform their duties, and the thought of disobedience came to them only with
great difficulty. I knew it did for me, and I was unsure how I felt about
this, or how Helen was handling me.

As Helen tethered her steed to a tree, I thought about my how my own breeding
must be aggravating my passivity. The King's wife, his Queen, was a first
generation slave, and it had been clear that she was having a difficult time
of it. Helen must be first generation as well, I surmised - she certainly had
no trouble forcing herself to be assertive. My Princesses' body, as I had
noticed from the slave's mark on my breast, was fifth generation prime slave
stock, bred from a long line of much admired royal slaves, and her father had
sold her as soon as she turned fourteen.

I was, then, as much a domesticated animal as Helen's horse, bred as much for
my docility as my physical makeup, my loveliness and shapeliness. And,
judging how compliant I still felt, almost a day without the slave's bane, it
seemed clear to me that absence of the drug would make no difference. Between
my natural desires, my lifelong fantasies which seemed to be manifested
wholesale now, and the bred characteristics of my body, docile as a cow
(though much more feline in composure), no Acteonese man examining me would
be able to judge that I was free of the drug's influence. My nether regions
were as damp as ever.

And though I knew that the hardship I would suffer in the slent would be
overwhelming, and hardly necessary, I found I had no will to protest - I
simply accepted that Helen would choose this punishment for me. I had to
believe that, in other circumstances, I would have rejected this decision of
hers. But I was, after all, a slave. I was bred to obey.


That evening we slept little - the pain of withdrawal was too intense. Bound
as I was the previous night, my wrists chained under my right leg, I was bent
double, sweating and feverish, my brain buzzing. In my misery, I tried to
imagine two weeks of such pain, and understood why slaves never freed
themselves of their addiction. I thanked the Acteonese Gods (I was surprised
to find myself doing so) for providing the herbal remedy that eventually
pushed the pain away, so that by daylight we were well again, though
sleep-deprived.

Chapter XI The Hunt Begins

Helen was in much better spirits. She was momentarily frustrated by her
body's frailty when she had difficulty getting me onto the slent; finally she
had to command me to climb onto it under my own power.

She cinched my restraints tight, and I felt the leather-covered bone press
against my bare, hairless crotch. I moaned.

Her expression softened as she looked down at my upturned face. "It's
necessary. I want to make sure no one guesses you're not drug-enfeebled. By
the end of the day you'll be too beaten to give any indication that you're
anything but docile." She covered me with a sheet and tied it down loosely,
to protect my flesh from the sun. She mounted.

"By tonight, our King's men will be in Tormuth. It is the most likely town
Lord Baird would head for, since his henchmen make their base there. But I
think I know where he is bound; I overheard him speaking to a comrade before
he left me. The cretin thought I was delirious from the beating he'd given
me, but I am made of tougher stuff than that.

"I believe he has gone to New Tuscany. The monster plans to steal the Tuscan
King's body, and begin his conquest anew. We will get to him first." She
spurred her steed on, and we began to move.

"It's a shame I am cursed with this body and not yours," she said over the
steady hoofbeats of the horse. I barely paid attention; I was too alarmed by
the steady, rhythmic pounding of the slent's pubic horn against my clitoris
and pussy.

"It would be more fitting to imprison the criminal in a body like yours, to
maximize his subsequent torment. No, this form will have to do. It can be
quite fetching, when perfumed and cleaned, although the breasts aren't quite
so satisfying as yours to whip.

"Besides, I've grown attached to you." She patted my upturned rump through
the coarse white covering cloth.

The horse's muscular gait, back and forth, meant that my body weight was
thrown forward, or to the right, as the beast rocked its pelvis, then back to
the left, slamming my crotch against the horn. I could do nothing about this,
and silently cursed Helen, wishing she were in my place. But I knew that she
probably wouldn't fit; she was too tall and it would be too difficult to
strap her in. Helen was born a free woman, and the slent was designed for a
typical bred slave. The slent was built to have maximum effect on a slave
with exactly my proportions, and it was doing its job quite well.


Some interminable time later, Helen took a break in our journey to take me
down from my tortuous perch. I was still crying softly as she helped me gain
my footing. She gave me water and a few mouthfuls of meat, then led me to
relieve myself. I was half laughing in relief at the respite, but winced as I
squatted in the weeds to pee, my urine burning my sore crotch. By the sun it
appeared to be mid-afternoon.

As she strapped me back into the slent, I begged her to let me walk beside
her, chained. Anything, I thought, was better than this.

"A slave who begs has not yet been broken," she replied simply, and cinched
tight my restraints. She covered me and mounted.

I began to sob anew as the evil knob pounded against my clitoris again -
destroying me, destroying conscious thought.

The process of breaking a slave to your will, as the Acteonese knights
practice it, bears a strong resemblance to the torture and brainwashing
techniques of all primitive cultures: you begin by demonstrating to the slave
that she has no power over what happens to her, and you do this by putting
her through unthinkable pain. You then allow her respite, arranging her
reprieve in such a way that she feels gratitude towards you, her torturer,
for granting her temporary surcease.

You do this repeatedly, and without real pattern. It is important to inflict
punishment without any connection to her actual behavior, so that she
understands that it is random.

This is supposed to engender a sense of abandonment and despair in the slave.
This is important even in a slave addicted to slave's bane, as it accelerates
the slave's eventual acceptance of her predicament, and helps her live up to
her potential as an instrument of pleasure for her Master.

I understood that this is what Helen was doing to me, and while I was angry
at her for doing it, furious, in fact, for I thought it a breach of our
understanding that I was to be returned to my natural state at the end of
this journey, I also understood that from a trainer's point of view the kind
of thoughts I was having justified systematically breaking me.

In any case, the whole point of breaking a slave is to temporarily loosen her
grip on rationality, and I could feel this slipping away in my continuing
agony. My training as an Interceder prepared me for torture; it did not
prepare me for a body designed to respond to it erotically, submissively. For
even now, bruised and beaten, sobbing exhaustedly, I could feel my
over-sensitized clitoris was a rock-hard nub nestled in the slick juices of
my nether regions, and the continual pounding of the knob against it both
agonized me and kept me on the razor's edge of arousal.


At dusk Helen took me from the slent. I couldn't walk; she carried me into
the room she'd rented in the inn and threw me at the foot of the bed. She
chained my wrists under my thigh once more, wrapped my leash around the
footboard post, and sat down in a chair beside me. She began to interrogate
me as to the exact workings of the changer. I wearily explained to her how
the device worked.

First one places the device, which is the size of a coin, on the skin, then
one touches the red stud, which causes the slim mechanism to shift under the
skin, where it remains hidden.

Then, when one has been in contact with the host body one wishes to exchange
with for at least ten minutes, there remains only to 'think' oneself into the
other body.

The device is based on quantum mechanics, and travels with you to the host
body, abandoning the victim in the body you've discarded.

Satisfied, Helen blew out the lamp and left me to rest.

"I go now to pick up the trail. Rest, slave."

I fell asleep instantly.

Chapter XII The Prey is Found

I awoke to Helen's hissed command to rise. I opened my eyes and rolled
forward onto my knees, my wrists still pinioned under my leg.

"Quickly! You have to join my wrists," she hissed. I looked up and was
startled to find Helen kneeling in front of me, facing away from me, her face
pressed against the floor. She was completely naked, and her wrists were
encased in leather cuffs. Her right wrist was thrust between her thighs,
pointing directly at me. Her left wrist was resting on the outside of her
left thigh.

Slave restraints are quite easy to join and release, provided you're not the
one wearing them. For the wearer, they're quite difficult to join, and
impossible to release. I paused to admire the view she was offering me -
although Helen was much too tall to be truly attractive to an Acteonese man,
by my own society's standards she was quite beautiful, and the sight of her
little breasts dangling underneath her was quite fetching. I had almost
forgotten she was female, so cowed I had become by her.

"There's not much time, slave. Do as I say!" she hissed. I rolled onto my
side to better reach her wrists, and found that it was quite simple to latch
them together. Removing them, however would be just as impossible for me now
as it was for her: to unlatch them, one needs to operate the mechanism in way
that requires more flexibility than cuffed hands can muster.

"Now - back onto your side and pretend that you are sleeping." I obeyed, and
she fell to her side beside me on the floor. I noted that she had already
wrapped her leash in the same fashion as mine.

"What's going on - Sir?" I added belatedly, whispering.

"I found him. I found him, and what's more, I found the exchanger. It's
resting neatly under my flesh on the inside of my armpit.

"This is what I have done: I made acquaintance with one of Lord Baird's
henchmen, and let it be known that I had in my possession two slaves that the
Lord would take much pleasure in using. I explained that after the king
discovered the true nature of these two creatures, he sold them as soon as
possible, not wanting such abominations in his household. I had purchased
them, I explained, and had been planning to put them up for auction when I
had heard that Lord Baird was in this town. I therefore wished to offer the
two slaves for sale directly to the Lord, thinking he might derive some
further pleasure from slaves he had some responsibility in creating.

"Lord Baird was greatly pleased, and through the henchman paid me handsomely.
It has come to light that his interstellar craft was destroyed by your
people; I surmise that he has decided to settle in for good, and will take
any opportunity to eliminate threats, however slight, even from slaves.

"A slave wagon is due shortly to pick us up and deliver us to the Lord's
chambers."

As soon as she spoke these last words, I heard footsteps coming up the Inn
stairs. I closed my eyes just before the door flew open.

"On your knees, slaves!" the wagon tender barked, and we both rolled onto our
haunches, our leashes arcing toward the headboard.

"You've been bought. Your new Master is Lord Baird." One of the tenders
pushed my head to the right, exposing my left ear. He produced a tool from
his waist coat, which I immediately recognized as an ear piercing tool, used
to tag slaves.

I screamed as he punctured my left lobe and roughly inserted a long gold
earring, crimping the end to fasten it in place.

Helen received the same treatment, and responded as I did.

It's common practice on Acteon to mark a slave somehow, the better to prove
ownership in legal disputes. Slaves in the southern regions are simply
tattooed, since in hotter climes a slave wears nothing, and to attempt to
hide a tattooed breast in conventional southern female garb is more or less
impossible. But in the North, where furs are common in the winter, a long
golden hoop earring is used. Set into the face of an inset at the bottom of
the earring is the mark of the owner. The hoop is large enough to rest
against the slavegirl's left shoulder, and is crimped with a tool that fuses
the metal by sheer pressure, making the earring impossible to remove without
shears. Thus slaves in the North have no way of disguising their status.

Now newly marked, we were led, forcibly hunched over by our bound wrists, to
the awaiting slave wagon, which was a wooden cage on cartwheels. Blood
stained my left shoulder and breast. The cart began to move.

New Tuscany is one of the largest cities on the Acteonese mainland, and
though it has a King, much of the power lies in the hands of the traders,
especially spicers and slavers. It is a port city, and Acteonese of all
varieties congregate here.

I had always wanted to see this city, I remembered. After my mission I had
planned a little vacation, a trip to New Tuscany, where I would go to the
coffee huts, perhaps rent a slave, or see the Monument to Ludd.

I had not planned on seeing it through the hardwood bars of a slave wagon,
naked and chained, but still the journey was fascinating. And, in a way,
validating. As Laurence Joo, I had been a visitor to this world, a
sight-seer. As slave Alisha, however, I viewed this city from the perspective
of a full participant. I was Acteonese now; I had no choice. Though it meant
that I was occasionally fondled in my cage, when the wagon stopped; though it
meant I would never set foot in a coffee hut or Tuscan meeting house (slaves
were forbidden in both); though it meant I was on the absolute lowest rung in
the social hierarchy, with no rights - still, I was a part of it, part of the
majesty and wonder of Acteonese culture. I had my place on Acteon, I
realized. My place was dictated by custom: it was on my knees, but I happened
to have the mindset to find that strangely appealing, even ennobling. Perhaps
this was a curse, my curse. But why, then, as I was transported through the
city streets, chained, naked, captive, utterly debased, why did I find myself
so calm, so at peace with my predicament?


An hour later we reached the opposite end of the city, and were dragged out
onto the flagstone which tiled the sidewalk in front of the building.

We were separated almost immediately.

I was brought to a bathing pool, where a washerwoman tended to my wounded
earlobe, cleansed my body, washed the black inks from my hair to let my red
mane shine, and shaved my pubic mound bare of the stubble which had grown
there. She lightly perfumed my breasts, belly, neck and pussy with esclava,
the scent of which had finally dissipated over the past two days. The
pungent, flowery odor was unmistakably a slavegirl's. The Acteonese have a
keen sense of smell; were I swaddled in a freewoman's fur cape and dress,
covered head to toe, my earring prized free, any Acteonese man within a few
yards would immediately recognize my scent, know me a runaway slave and strip
me bare, claiming finder's rights. Well, I amended my previous thought as the
woman rouged my nipples, even without the telltale scent of slave's perfume,
my body was so clearly a bred slavegirl's that no clothing would hide the
fact - bred slaves were just physiologically so obvious. I looked my hands as
the woman massaged oil into my forearms - they were tiny, bred to be less
useful, the fingers delicate - appropriate for cradling a man's cock,
perhaps, but without any real gripping power. A free woman's hands come in
many shapes and sizes, but I was bred with this kind of hand in mind, and it
showed.

I was forced to dine with the other slaves, and found the slave's bane once
more coursing through my veins. It mattered little, I now realized - a was a
slavegirl through and through.

By now it was evening, and a valet led me to Lord Baird's harem. I lay down
on the straw pallet assigned to me, in a smallish hall with perhaps ten other
girls, my collar chained to the pallet's head. I noted that Helen was
conspicuously absent, and took it as a good sign. I slept deeply, having
gotten little real rest in the past few days.


I awoke to the prodding of a whip handle.

"Arise, slave Alisha. Your Master has need of you." I rolled forward easily,
smoothly, to my knees at the front of my sleeping pallet, my collar pulled
tight against the worn headboard. The valet threaded a delicate silver chain
through the ring set in the front of my collar. He took the free ends and
pulled them under my armpits, joining them to my wrists high on my back,
which he locked together as well, so that my hands rested just under my
shoulder blades.

Satisfied with the arrangement, the tall, muscular Northerner led me by my
leash up the staircase to the Master's chambers. I padded barefoot up the
marble steps behind him, aware of his bulk. I had spent the recent past in
the custody of a woman, and had almost forgotten just how large, how imposing
a man can be.

He led me down the carpeted hall to a large wooden door and knocked. I fell
in to his right. His hand, which was wrapped around the handle of my leash,
was meaty and thick; it could wrap just as easily around both my wrists, I
thought to myself. I didn't dare look up to see his face, to see if he were
handsome or ugly; I was getting used to the idea that so long as I remained
Alisha I would have to forgo the pleasure of gazing freely at others.

Muffled footsteps grew louder behind the chamber door. My heart began to
race; did Helen's plan work? I reminded myself that even if she succeeded, I
must continue to play the slave in the valet's presence, or arouse his
suspicion.

The door opened, and I studiously focused my gaze on a point somewhere on the
floor a yard in front of me, as a good slave does.

"Thank you. That'll be all," Begnir dismissed the valet, taking my leash in
his hand. He guided me in and shut the door behind him.

I noted immediately a slavegirl's limp form hanging by her wrists near the
bay window. She was Helen. She was clearly conscious, but exhausted, her body
streaked with whip marks. She was tightly blindfolded and gagged.

"Two things, slave," Begnir said, as he led me to the bed. "First, we have
succeeded. The vermin is safely imprisoned in Helen's body; and without her
exchanger she'll be trapped there for the remainder of her life.

"Second, we must move carefully. I don't know whether or not Lord Baird's
henchmen suspect anything, but I'm sure he briefed them to be on the watch
for errant behavior." He knelt me down beside the bed and sat down before me.

"I am ready to repay my debt to you now, and bring you to your ship. But I'm
afraid that I won't be able to go without my bodyguards, and I can't be seen
taking directions from you. You're going to have to be brought in a slave
cage, along with the rest of my entourage.

"I must confess that I am reluctant to free you," Begnir said. "I've said it
before, and I'll say it now: you are in your proper place. But I am a man of
my word, and I will keep my promise.

"Now, kneel and suck me. I wish to finally feel your mouth on me." I obeyed
without hesitation.