RED

BY CHRISTOPHER TOILKIEN

A Demon wind howled around the great red brick structure blocking its free path up into the valley above Geneva. It sent hammer blows of wind, great sheets of rain and even lightning bolts to crush this upstart.

But even in all its might, knew this barrier had been built to withstand its every weapon. The wind would not give up, for had not the mighty ziggurats of UR, the palaces of Rome and even the great wall of China eventually fall under its onslaught. OK, he was still working on the Pyramids.

But not tonight, not this week, not this year, nor this millennia.

But down in the valley below, he had enjoyed flattened that new metal box someone had thrown up beside the old museum. Its lighting had found it unprotected by its foolish builder and smitten it hard in a vulnerable corner. Allowing him in to send in tendrils of wind to shatter it, lift its roof off, scattering and bringing its upstart walls down. One victory in a night would have to do for now.

For had not his mistress summoned him from the middle of the great water to announce her arrival?

Sister A was sitting at her great desk in her office on the main floor of her school. This morning she had sent off Isis with her pack of wild Arabic girls to entertain at the opening of a new Egyptian exhibit at the teaching Museum at the far end of Lake Geneva in the valley below.

It had not really been fair to send Isis alone, but she had been given the right to both control them by ordering them around and given Sister B's favorite human hair whip to punish them while they got out of line. Something no student of hers had ever been given before in the thousands of years she had run schools for girls. It was now midnight and hearing the great store wear itself out on her schools impenetrable walls, Sister a hopped Isis and her fellow students were unharmed.

The schools main doorbell rang, and continued to do so.

Sister A stood up, walked out of her office beside the main doors, towards the large iron bound pair of main doors and reached for the door handle. It had been on such a night little Malibu Barbie had returned after walking over the mountains from Bern after her master of two years was murdered in a Concorde crash.

She pulled open the door and the storm sent tendrils of exploring wind and sleet in, sweeping down the hallways. One found the great Chandelier three stories above with its hundreds of gold sovereigns, one for each graduate. And delighted itself with setting them musically tingling.

Outside leaning against the doorbell was a tiny sodden figure barefoot in a soiled dress sticking to her thin body. Her long bright red hair wrapped all around her by the storm

"Poor dear." Sister A exclaimed as she bent down and lifted the little girl up. The girl weighed no more than Pet thought Sister A as she carried her in and locked the door behind her. Sister A walked across the main front hallway and down the center axis of her school towards the newly renovated infirmary, leaving a trail of wet footprints.

The current twined ones, their athletic bodies tanned from head to foot, scooting out of their little cubicle by the door on their three legs, dry clothes in their three hands, knelt and spent the next hour eradicating any sign from the outside that had marred the entranceway. Fastened together with wide leather cuffs and were necessary chrome chains at neck, just below the elbow, wrist, waist, upper thigh, calf and ankle.

This was Sister A’s solution for a pair of girls who constantly fought each other. The bound pair eventually became fast friends for life. The schools headmistress was constantly amused by the foibles of her young charges and knew this method always produced the desired results eventually. Her master had given her forever to amuse herself by training little girls as sex slaves anyway.

"This little bedraggled sodden one just rang the front doorbell in the middle of that great storm outside" Sister A informed white leather uniformed nurse on night duty.

"Check her out, clean her up and have her brought to me in my office." She instructed.

"Yes Mistress." She replied.

Little girls showing up at all hours bedraggled, starving and in need of tender loving care, was not anything new here. She would get all the attention a little girl could ever want and more, plenty of good food, nice clothes and a good education. As long as you obeyed the rules and did not mind being auctioned off as a concubine to some rich male or female at the end of your three years here, that is.

It was near dawn when the little girl was escorted by two of the schools guards, a male and a female as all the pairs of guards were. The female often being a graduate who had either outlived or been paid off by her master.

She was wrapped in a bathrobe and appeared no worst for wear. Long deep red hair now dry and falling freely down her back to her rear.

"Why did you ring my doorbell?" Sister A inquired of the red head.

"My mother told me to get myself to her alma mater if anything ever happened to her" She began. "And when she did not come home from her last trip. I knew she would not be ever coming home. So I made my way here as she instructed, even though you have moved the school thrice since she attended."

"Your mothers name?" Sister A inquired.

"Sioned" The girl replied.

"Sioned" Sister A replied, her eyes growing distant.

A longboat full of mailed warriors to the beach near her school in Constantinople, had delivered a Red headed girl, sometime during the Dark Ages that had swept away the Western Roman Empire. She was the daughter of the post Roman warrior who claimed far of Britain as his since the Roman garrisons had been withdrawn to fight in yet another civil war. And his wife had been accused of consorting with his second in command. The daughter had been sent to Sister A's school to keep her out of either warrior's hands. She had come with a dowry contained in a great iron bound chest that only she knew how to open. What became of her, Sister A simply could not remember. But the chest was under lock and key in the great pile of golden objects in the vault under the schools main entrance hall, still unopened.

"You wish to become a student here as she did long ago" Sister inquired. Her long arduous trip and the storm must have confused the child. Sister a surmised.

"Yes" The tiny red head replied.

"You know the next three years will be hard and possibly painful as we instruct you in the arts of pleasing a master or mistress if you so choose?" Sister A instructed.

"I know you turn out the finest mistresses in the world" The little girl replied. "And I have walked all the way here to ask you to let me be so instructed"

"Done and Done" Sister A replied.

"Take her back to the infirmary for full processing into a newly arrived student and have her given the introductory lecture we give to every new girl" Sister A ordered the two guards.

"But they just stood there with a puzzled look on their faces.

"Did you not understand me?" Sister A angrily inquired.

"If you are directing your words to us mistress" The male guard politely replied. "You are speaking in a language we do not understand"

Sister A then realized the she had been talking to the girl in Latin, or rather the latinized Gaelic spoken by the Late Romans in Britain about the end of the fourth century AD. When Magnus Maximus withdrew troops from Britain in an attempt to become emperor, leaving only a skeleton force holding the Legionary fortresses and manning Hadrians Wall with just the mobile reserve of the Commander of Horse as backup.

"Arthurius" had been his name, or actually the late Roman title of Commander of Horse.

A thousand Asiatic bow and lance armed professional soldiers' chain mail armored and riding scale mail armored horses make a formidable fighting force.