In the marketplace

[goldplanet2001]

The Peasant slaves, sisters, descriptively named Thick Ankles and Fat Buttocks, wandered about the market. The sand was hot beneath their bare feet as they looked with interest into the cages, commenting with delight at the exotic animals and birds they contained. There were tawny lions, dozing peacefully after their meal; screeching tree-leapers swinging about amongst dead tree stumps and branches, chasing each other and stealing food; birds of all colours and sizes making great play and noise; a pair of black bears grooming each other, and there was even a somnolent sargaur, coiled in a corner on a great pile of straw. It gazed at the girls in its hungry way, then flicked an ear at them and closed its eyes to sleep. They hurried on. They did not like the sargaur. It frightened them. Lying slave girls had been fed to sargaur in this town before, so it was said. They had no doubt their owner, Saros, would do this to them too if he caught them in a lie.

The girls were Peasant Slaves, and, in the manner of Peasant slave girls, were clothed perfectly adequately for life on the farm, that is to say, they wore nothing.

They were clothed only with broad leather collars, buckled to one side. Each collar was sewn with a large brass ring that dangled at the throat – useful for leashing or tethering.

Their skins were burnt deep brown, almost black, after long years of hard labour under the sun. They were indeed very different to the pale-skinned, pampered Earth girls they had once been.

They continued to look around the market compound. The sun was hotter even than usual today and no clouds flew in the deep blue sky.

There were rows of small metal slave cages barely a yard in height and a yard square. Most were empty, their vertical lockable gates opened ready to accept new occupants, but at least a dozen contained women of varying colours and sizes, a simple band of iron hammered about their ankles. These were transport cages, and the slaves within were waiting to be moved to another market or city. They seemed resigned to their fate, their faces miserable behind the bars, some clutching them with their fists, some resting their heads on their knees as they watched passersby.

Thick Ankles spoke to one of them but she just stared back, wordlessly.
They moved on.

They were near the edge of the compound, and they found themselves alone in a wide aisle between dull buildings with barred windows built up against the compound walls, obviously kennels for high-security slaves, and large holding cages opposite. The holding cages were quite roomy, some fifteen paces square and some seven feet in height. They had no doors, being structures of heavy bars simply pile-driven into the ground, and roofed by more bars. They were accessed by a walkway overhead reached by a ladder at one end of the aisle. Each cage had a locked trapdoor above. Slaves entered and left the cages via the walkways and rope ladders dropped down through the trapdoors. Roughly half the cages were occupied, one with a dozen or so women, the others with male slaves - heavy, strong men used as labour on farms, mines, or roadworks. Like the girls in the transport cages, all these slaves were quite naked, apart from bands of iron hammered about their necks. The men glared sullenly at the girls, but one or two blew a kiss or made a suggestive remark.

The girls moved along again, suddenly anxious to get away from this brooding place. A market guard walked by, swinging a whip. He winked at them, and they smiled back.

Thick Ankles scratched between her buttocks, shamelessly. She stretched.

“Sister, let us find the others and see if we can get something to eat, I am bored of this place,” she said.

Her sister agreed, and wondered aloud where everyone was. Her question was immediately answered.

Round the corner at one end of the wide, sandy aisle turned a group of people, conversing intently. The group was led by two men, free men, intent on some point which they argued animatedly. One of the men was their Master, the village headman, Saros. The other was a tall and powerful soldier, a red cloak falling from his shoulders over steel and leather armour, his legs protected by steel greaves and heavy sandals. Other men similarly attired followed, and various scribes and officials. Some of Saros's men walked behind the leaders, and also a handful of free women in colourful saris carrying green, yellow and pink umbrellas against the sun. Saros and the soldier were so deep in conversation they barely noticed the two slaves waiting on one side.

The girls waited until they had passed before falling in behind, hopeful for some food.

Most of the group had passed as the girls began to follow, but a cold voice behind them pulled them up.
"You! Slaves! Walk behind us, not in front! How dare you?"

They turned in surprise to regard the last two members of the group, a pair of tall but voluptuous female slaves. The speaker was blonde, the other dark. They were both exquisitely beautiful, although there was a hardness, a cruelty in the blonde's face.

"You miserable pair!" declared the blonde. "Walk behind us!"
Thick Ankles frowned. "Why?" she asked.

They had stopped, the rest of the group had moved on. The cages to the side were empty and no guards were near. The four girls were alone in their own world, their own time.

"Why?" repeated the blonde girl with a snort of disgust. "Look at you and look at us, we are better than you in every way. I was bought for twenty gold pieces in a high market in New Carpathia, and she," the blonde nodded at her companion, "fetched fifteen gold pieces in Freeport, the grandest city on this entire world. In Freeport! I wouldn't pay a copper piece for the pair of you, so get behind us. We will walk ahead."

Fat Buttocks gaped at the taller girls. They were the finest slaves she had ever seen. They were clad in pale blue cotton tunics edged with silver; they wore gold armlets and necklaces. The dark girl had silver anklets fashioned as snakes pursuing their own tails. Their hair was glossy and carefully brushed and was neatly held in swirling ponytails with gold clasps; they wore silver lock-collars snug about their throats. They wore just the right amount of cosmetic to enhance their already considerable beauty. The sweet scent of expensive perfume drifted about them and they carried themselves with a confidence and an air of elegance Fat Buttocks knew she lacked. They were pleasure slaves, dancers trained in the arts of love, music, and song, fantastically beautiful and proud of themselves and their status. They knew how desirable they were, and had nothing but contempt for slaves of lesser abilities and inferior beauty. From their position as the preferred slaves of a Warrior, they stared with contempt at the unkempt, sun-tanned peasant slaves before them.

Fat Buttocks could not meet the blonde girl's cold blue eyes. She looked to her sister, who stared, furious, at the others.

She thought the prices the beautiful slave had said were about right. She couldn't be sure how much the finer girls were really worth, not knowing their skills or abilities, but they certainly looked very expensive.

She was, however, aware that financially, she and her sister were virtually worthless.

She remembered an auction she had once seen here in the local town, Brythia. An untrained native teenage girl, literate and intelligent, kidnapped from a city to the south, slim and petite in size, and fair-skinned and blonde-haired had been sold for eight copper pieces.

What price for an older, heavier, dark-haired, well muscled, deeply sun-tanned Earth girl?
What price an illiterate Village Slave, a beast of burden for peasants?

If that native had fetched eight copper pieces, even with her beauty, she was sure she and her sister were worth no more than a middock each. (There being ten middocks to a copper piece.) A middock was not a day's wage even for a peasant, so it would simply not be worth over a day's effort to take them to Brythia to sell them for so little.

She rubbed her palms on her thighs, then picked at her fingernails, studying them carefully so as to avoid looking at the taller girls. She was ready to give way to them and to fall in behind, but her sister was annoyed and decided, foolishly, to take issue.

Thick Ankles planted her hands on her hips, and, her head high, regarded the newcomers defiantly.

From a distance, it would seem the slaves were gently chatting about their lives, supporting and sympathising with each other about their servitude, promising to love and care for each other if they had the chance to. Although the two pairs were wildly different in their appearances, the marks on their thighs were the same, they were all slaves, and shared a common bond. At close range it was clear this was not so.

"Our Master works hard, he is brave and strong," began Thick Ankles, but she was cut short.
"He's a peasant!" laughed the blonde scornfully. "He's as poor as a beggar and owns ugly slaves. What are your names?"

Thick Ankles tilted her head and pursed her lips before replying. The answer hurt to say to these proud girls but she could not avoid the question. "I am Salmana and this is Te-Chala," she said, giving their humiliating names in the native tongue.

The others laughed aloud. "Peasants at least name their slaves well," smirked the blonde. "I am Seleenya and this is Lara. Our Master is Marcus Porcellus, a Warrior of New Carpathia. He is rich and strong and doesn't treat his slaves like cattle. Your hair is terrible, both of you! Have you ever had it cut or combed?"

Their hair had not been combed since their arrival on this primitive world, and they accepted it never would be. Combs and brushes were seen as irrelevant vanities for Village Slaves. Such luxuries, reasoned the peasants, would make their girls soft, and lessen their ability to perform hard work. Haircuts were very irregular, and very quick. A peasant might think, as a girl passed, that she needed a haircut. He would simply gather her hair together in one fist, and shear off the excess with goat shears in one or two chops. This would shorten their hair to about the level of their shoulder blades, and happened roughly every six to eight months or so. Both girls were overdue a cut right now, their hair reaching down almost to their waists. Thick Ankles tried to smooth it a little and run her fingers through it but there were too many tangles.

Fat Buttocks put down her head. It was a slave's response to a threat, and she hated herself for it, but she could not help it. Her face burned under her tan. She moved a small stone about in the sand with her toe.

"Fat Buttocks! Look up at me!" Seleenya spat the name with contempt.
She did so, her jaw trembling just a little, tears forming in her eyes.

Seleenya continued. "Your skin tells me you haven't worn anything for a very long time. You labour in the fields all day and rut with peasants all night. Show me your hands."
She did so, turning her calloused palms upwards, trying not to show her broken and filthy fingernails.

"Look at us, we are trained to dance and sing. We wear cotton tunics and fine silks and serve the pleasure of Warriors. Our skins are smooth and pale, we don't look like peasants and we don't work like them. You stink like animals and walk with no skill. You have received no training. I bet you can't even read!"

Seleenya laughed as she saw Thick Ankles' face change. "Read that," she ordered, pointing to a sign hanging on an empty cage.

Thick Ankles looked up at the metal plate, but, of course, the writing was nonsense to her.

Fat Buttocks put down her head again. It was true, they could not read. On Earth they had held positions of authority and respect, but here they were nothing more than illiterate peasant slaves. Seleenya was right, they should walk ahead, they were infinitely finer and better than they were. Seleenya and her friend were trained, clothed, and more expensive many times over. They were everything she had been before she had come to this world, and for sweet pity's sake look at her now.

She stood nude under the broiling sun. Eight years of its relentless power had roasted her body deep mahogany. She had not worn a stitch of clothes in all that time and had forgotten what clothing felt like. She eased a finger under her battered leather collar, again trying to hide her filthy and broken fingernails. Her collar felt close and uncomfortable, it's broad brass ring hot where it touched her skin. Her hair tumbled behind her in a knotted and matted tangle, it had not been touched since she had been enslaved, apart from an occasional vain attempt to claw her fingers through the worst knots. This had been so tedious and painful she had given up and let it grow as it would. Thick Ankles' hair was the same, she had a natural wave to hers and now it was quite untreatable. A breeze lifted Fat Buttocks' wild hair up a little, and she, with difficulty, tore it apart at the centre and tried to smooth it back. It was hopeless. The breeze swirled it about, then died. She simply pushed the mass behind her shoulders and tried to look straight at Seleenya, who was laughing at her efforts. It was not all the dancing slaves were laughing at. Lara was pointing at the dense tufts of hair under her armpits. Too late, Fat Buttocks clamped her arms down to her sides, but Lara, peering also at the hair sprouting from the legs of both the village slaves was contemptuously amused.

"Seleenya, look at the state of them! I've seen less hairy tree-leapers than these two! Ugh! How revolting! Peasants really don't care at all, do they?"

Lara caught the air and leaned forward, sniffing suspiciously. "What is that appalling smell? Is it one of you?" She sniffed closer to Thick Ankles, wrinkling her nose. "Ugh! It is you indeed! That is quite disgusting, what have you been doing?"

Seleenya had scented it also. "You smell like a sewer, Thick Ankles, how do you live with it?"
Thick Ankles tightened her lips and glared at the dancing slaves. "It's not my fault, it's a game the boys make me play. If I don't go through with it I am whipped."
"What game?" Lara furrowed her brow. "What possible game can make you smell like that?"

It was an effort to speak, but she told them about the piglet catching that amused the peasant boys so much, to the amusement of her tormentors. The handsome slaves laughed at her fury and shame. No matter how thoroughly she washed herself under the pump, the smell of the filth she had been immersed in stuck fast. No matter how much she pulled at her hair, she could never get all the muck out of it. She only had cold water to wash in, she needed a hot soak, but such luxuries were not for village slaves. Only yesterday morning she had been forced to play that game, the boys roaring her on as she rolled in the reeking mud, and the filth was ground further into her skin. Clots of dried pig excrement were still lingering in her hair, she was sure, but there was no way she could wash them out.

They were unrecognisable from their former lives, their miserable fate was settled.
She wiped a tear from her eye.

The once beautiful and well presented Earth girls, so sleek and contented, so well dressed, so immaculately manicured, were now fit only for hard labour in the fields and to be sex toys for peasant boys, denied freedom and the simplest comforts of life. They had no education, no training, and absolutely no chance at all of being anything other than what they were. She knew that if they so much as asked for any relief of their condition they would be whipped.

They were struck with straps and switches almost daily, victims of hatred and contempt by clothed hut slaves, and by petulant free women, and that was painful enough, but the whip was reserved for serious transgressions and was awarded much less frequently.

They were no strangers to the whip, and feared it greatly. It had taught them to accept their condition and to not dare to ask for anything that may make their lives easier. Early in her slavery, Thick Ankles had begged for clothing - that simple plea had earned her ten lashes and a promise that her next request would earn her thirty.

Over a year later Thick Ankles had snapped. She had been taken on a fetching-and-carrying trip to Brythia and had been taunted by some of the city slaves over her appearance. She had been chained on her knees by the neck to a holding ring outside the corn market and had been accosted by three beautiful, blue-tunicked city slaves. They had cruelly insulted her deep suntan, her wild hair, and her buxom figure, especially her heavy legs. They had left her in tears and laughed at her embarrassment.

She had seen no other naked slaves in the streets during her whole time there, it had been just her.
Nude, exposed for the world to see, the fruits of her beauty available for the casual scrutiny of any that cared to stare at her. How self-conscious she had felt! How difficult it had been to keep her composure and to stop herself crying.

Then, noticing how she shambled along behind them, her Master for that day had, to her utter misery, ordered her to adopt slave posture and to walk as a slavegirl walks. Tears in her eyes, she had straightened her body, held her chin high and had thrust her breasts out before her. She had rolled her hips as she walked, insolently swinging her buttocks, making them twitch and wobble with each step. It was the walk of a girl who finds herself desirable, and who begs to be pursued, caught and ****d. This may be the case with a sleek, beautiful, well-trained pleasure slave, but for a raw, untrained, unkempt, farm-girl to walk in that manner was seen as presumptuous and boastful. Her body was not that of a pleasure slave - her buttocks were broad and powerful, her arms and legs were heavy and well muscled.

How dare a nude peasant slave such as she walk so provocatively? Who did she think she was?
As she walked, back straight, and shoulders pulled back, her chin held high, clothed slaves spat at her and cursed her for her arrogance.

Tears ran down Thick Ankles' face but she dared not alter her demeanour, for she was under discipline.
She had wept for most of the journey home, bent double and sweating under a heavy sack of corn.
Finally back at the village, she just couldn't take any more.

She had flung herself on her knees at Saros's feet, distraught, her head to his boots, clasping at one of his ankles with her hands, and had tearfully begged for a rag with which to cover herself. She had pleaded for the tiniest shred or string. Anything.
Saros had been furious, and had angrily informed the wretched girl that she would remain naked. He had then informed her she would be disciplined overnight and whipped the following morning.
He had then commanded her to run to the top field to hoe cabbages, and she had fled from him, naked, sobbing into her hands, to resume her duties as a Village Slave Girl.

In the afternoon, a dozen strong peasant lads had ****d Thick Ankles, using her from behind as she stood on all fours in the dirt. They had left her weeping on her belly, her hands twisting in her hair.

At dusk, Delina had collected Thick Ankles from the top field, and had led her to the Village Slaves' hut. She was given no supper. There she had been told to lie in the appropriate position for overnight punishment. Moaning, she had dropped to her belly in the dirt and had crossed her wrists behind her. She had then been chained by the neck on a short chain to the heavy iron ring cemented in the dirt outside the hut. Her wrists had been bound behind her, and her heavy ankles crossed and securely tied with leather thongs. Then she had been left, bound, her hair pooled about her on the beaten earth, with plenty of time to think about her whipping the following morning, and to reflect on the foolishness of asking for an improvement in her condition.

It had rained that night, leaving her shivering in a pool of mud by first light.
She had not been given any breakfast, and had been left until the sun shone on the village centre. She had then been released and had been given thirty lashes in front of the whole village.
Her shrieks were heard over all the land farmed by the villagers.

That beating had finally taught the wretched slave she would remain as naked as a baby for the rest of her life.
Another time, she and Fat Buttocks had each received fifteen lashes for begging for an extra blanket at night. They had been warned that any such further requests would earn them twenty-five strokes.
At various times, also, they had been whipped for excessive clumsiness and for not being responsive enough during sex. They had soon learned to be hungry for sex and to be enthusiastic during the act, they knew the whip waited for them if they were not.

They owned not a single thing.
At all.

They did not even own the collars they wore, or the mean blankets they rolled themselves up in each night in their hut. They were the ones that were owned. Everything they did, all the work they toiled through was for the enrichment of others.

They laboured in the fields from dawn to dusk without rest, every day.
They were ****d every day by the peasant boys, usually with a group of them taking turns at them, and without thought for their feelings. Often they served at parties and feasts given by the villagers, pouring drinks, serving foods, and such. These parties always ended with prolonged sessions of group sex, and they and the other Village Slaves were passed all around the revellers, one after the other. They were part of the entertainment, and it was expected of them.

It was the lot of a Village Slave in a peasant village. Hard labour and the whip if they dared to complain.
How different they looked now from that night when they had gone shopping in their Earthly city, so many years ago!
Fat Buttocks and Thick Ankles stared at the dancing girls, nude and unabashed, their bodies burnt deep brown by eight years of merciless, blistering sunshine. Their hair was dark and wild, tangled and matted, billowing out behind them almost to the waist. They were clad only in their battered leather collars, heavy brass rings glinting at their throats. Further, one of them reeked of pigs filth, lumps of it clotted in her ruined hair.
They had both been so prudish about their bodies, so self-conscious at being in even the bulky swimwear they had once squeezed into. Now they thought nothing of their public nudity, they had ceased to be even aware that they were naked. Rising and going about their duties, or tethered on choke leashes following donkeys to Brythia, their hands bound behind them with leather thongs, returning laden with sacks of goods, their nudity was something they did not even think about.

Brazenly they worked in the fields, hoeing weeds, pulling the plough, tending the verr, often together, both completely raw under the sun, and without batting an eyelid from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year.

Thick Ankles dropped her head, took her hands off her hips and folded them across her belly. She sweated in the hot sunshine, and the stink of pigs' excrement rose fresh and strong from every pore on her body.

"Thick Ankles and Fat Buttocks!" sneered Seleenya. "Stripped Village Slaves! Soon you will go back to your farms and catch more pigs and muck out stables. Think of us in our pleasure garden while you work, we will be thinking of you. Now walk behind us."

They stalked forward, their noses in the air, and the sisters stood aside to let them pass, but as they did so, sudden fury flared in Thick Ankles' heart and she kicked out at Seleenya's leg. The tall girl went down screaming, but as Lara leapt at her friend's assailant, a guard grasped them both by the arms and shook them.

He thrust Lara away and warned her not to interfere. Then, as Thick Ankles protested, her face suddenly pale despite her colour, the guard braceleted her hands behind her and threw her to the ground. She moaned as he crossed and tied her ankles securely, and, grasping a huge fistful of her tangled hair, cunningly entwined a long strip of leather in it. He then pulled her ankles up high and tied the other end of the leather to the bindings. Eyes wide, mouth working, Thick Ankles lay on her belly in the hot sand, helpless in a cruel hog-tie, her head pulled back so far her hair was almost touching her feet, the bright pink soles contrasting strangely with her brown legs. Saliva trailed from her mouth as she gasped in pain.

The guard examined Seleenya, who was making rather a fuss of her leg. He told her to be quiet, and she calmed down, although still holding her thigh.
Fat Buttocks had backed up to the cages, her hands before her mouth, what had her sister done? If she had kicked a free woman she would be killed, no question about that, but what would a warrior think of one of his expensive pleasure slaves being kicked so hard? It didn't look good for her poor sister.

Thick Ankles blinked and moaned. "Oh no! Oh no!"
The guard tut-tutted and left to find Saros, bidding no one move.

Seleenya hissed at Thick Ankles. "Look at this bruise! He will skin you alive! How can I dance with a bruise like this? You'll be shaved and given fifty lashes! You'll be fed to the sargaur, you filthy little peasant!" She carried on for quite a long time in the same sort of vein, but broke off and knelt to the guard as he returned.

He was smiling and addressed her politely.
"Both your Master, and this village slave's Master say you can choose the punishment, subject to my discretion if I think it too harsh. Remember, she just kicked you badly, nothing more, so choose carefully."
Lara clapped her hands and laughed. "Pick a good one, Seleenya," she cried.