The moonlight sent rippling silvery reflections through the multi-paned stern windows of the Janis, the warm glow of the oil lamps revealing the richness of the furnishings. "This would have been our Princess'," captain Jon Richards of the Janis said to me as he ushered me inside. The pain showing in his voice as he closed the door behind us. The warrioress on guard outside keeping her thoughts to herself. She was tall, dark haired. It should be mentioned here that most Dularnians are dark haired.
"She was my friend too," I answered, touching his arm. Remembering how she had died. The furnishings of the cabin more masculine than feminine. Much like the Princess herself, Janis being a woman who like me, paid little attention to the fact of her sex. I knew that I would miss her. That a part of my life was now gone. In a way I was responsible for her death. I had told Darlanis how she could capture the pirate schooner, thus putting into motion the chain of events that had led to Janis' death on its decks. Lana too had died, thanks to my suggestion!
"You are so much like her in many ways," he answered then. Holding me by the arms, looking down into my dark eyes, his touch making me very much aware of my own womanhood. It had been a long time since I had been with a man who wanted me for myself. I knew by some feminine instinct that before the night was over that I would give myself to him to "do" with as he saw fit.
"You have an interesting accent," captain Richards commented as he got out the glasses and a bottle of wine from a dark oaken cabinet, "One that I have never heard before." Then asking me with a smile, "Just where are you from anyway?" His dark eyes holding mine, seeming to see into the very depths of my soul.
Returning his smile with one of my own, I said, "Not that you're going to believe me, but I was born in France near the city of Lyons in the middle of the 20th Century, my father was an American businessman and my mother a lovely French countess." I ran a finger over a lovely inlaid handcarved pattern there on the surface of the wine cabinet and added, "My stepdaughter Sharon and I are time travelers from before The War." Telling him of how we had entered this era through one of the mysterious "GATEWAYS" caused by the use of anti-matter weapons that produced warps in time. There being other incidents over the centuries where helpless aircraft had been carried from their time to this, although usually without anyone surviving the passage! Only a small plane like mine, more manually controllable, could do it.
He suddenly reached out and cupped my face, holding me so that he could look directly straight into my eyes, and said in a level voice, "Count from one to ten in your own native tongue."
Smiling, I replied in French, "Un, duex, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix." A smile now curving his lips.
"Very interesting," he answered, setting down the bottle of wine and the glasses and going to the door. Giving orders to the warrioress on guard for "Yvette Senchal" to be brought to him. The name sending a thrill through me, for it was a name that only a French girl would have! Darlanis had told me that there was no other civilization left on the Earth besides that of the Empire! Of course her definition of "civilization" is similar to that of the Greeks of the Classical Era, who thought that everyone else were "barbarians" because they didn't happen to speak Greek!
Then turning to me, Jon said, "During a storm we were driven far to the south, near what is now the Straits of Panama. And there, on a deserted rock, we found a woman, a woman near death from thirst and exposure, who speaks a language now only legend, a language that none of us can understand well enough to make heads or tails of. A woman, I believe, who from the drawings she has made comes from the same country that you were once from." I wondered if she too might be a time traveler like Sharon and me!
"How?" I protested, knowing that the Lorr EDICT against transoceanic travel bound men to their own hemisphere, although the type of ships now in use were considered incapable of such voyages in any case. Jon merely shrugged in reply. Or was she a woman who like Sharon and me had been caught in a GATEWAY and sent into the 26th Century! I knew from what Darlanis had told me that there might very well be one in operation there in the infamous "Bermuda Triangle" from the crash of a Lorr battle-disc, its entire stock of anti-matter bombs having exploded in the crash, causing death and destruction over an area of many thousands of square miles! The tidal waves alone having caused death and destruction over the entire coastlines of the continents that faced out towards the Atlantic! The Earth itself having been shaken by the awesome blast of some three hundred kilomegatons!
"That is something I hope you can find out for me," he answered, giving me a smile as I stood there and regarded him. Jon then adding with another smile, "You French women do seem to have a certain aura about yourselves that I find of considerable interest." I wondered if we did. This "frenchwoman", in any case, found HIM to be of "considerable interest"! I thought it would not be difficult for me to kneel at his feet and beg his collar.
"Besides," he added with a smile, holding me once again in his strong arms, seeing my smile in reply, "You're just too pretty to be anything else but what you are." No man had called me "pretty" for a long time. I promised myself that I'd show him a night that he'd never forget! I may not be "beautiful", but I do know how to show a man what a woman can "do" with him in bed!
"Thank you," I whispered in reply, my eyes moist with emotion as I pressed myself up against him, my arms slipping around his neck as my lips sought his, my chain mail clad body crushed against his powerful form as his strong arms clasped me and his lips tasted the sweetness of my mouth, my booted feet barely touching the thickly carpeted planks of the deck beneath!
Darlanis, who is a bit of a philosopher among other things, claims that for every woman there is a man to whom she can only relate to as a total complete female. A man to which she will be unable to be anything but a woman. To be true to one's own biology and to belong to such a man is not to be, as the feminists of the pre-War era believed, an evil thing, but to be part of something greater than oneself. It is more than sex, it is more than being a companion, it is, I believe with all my heart, something that must be experienced to be understood. I have experienced it. I understand even if others will not what it means.
Jon Richards released me as the soft knock on the door was repeated, and barked, "Enter!" The warrioress there on guard then letting in a slim feminine figure that swiftly knelt before us, her head down, her knees widespread in the position of the slave girl before men. A gleaming collar locked around her slender neck telling of her status. Could this be "Yvette Senchal"?
"I felt it best to collar her as she is obviously a slave girl judging from the brand you can see there on her thigh," Jon answered as I glanced at him, the slave before us a feminine delight provocatively clad. On her left thigh just below the hip there was a mark, a brand, one I recognized as being the universal "Venus" symbol for a woman. Her attire consisting of a strip of green silk a foot wide and five feet long through which her head had been passed by means of a slit in the clinging material. The garment, if one could call it that, fastening at her waist by means of a matching silken cord looped around her slim form and tied in place. The silken strip barely covering, and in a way that very much revealed the slim feminine perfection beneath!
"Yvette!" he suddenly snapped, the wench raising her head, her hair a lovely dark mass falling to below her shoulder blades. Her eyes beautiful dark liquid pools, while her lips were full and red with rouge, just made for kisses and the pleasing of masters. With a motion of his hand she stood before us, her body totally female beneath its scanty covering. Yvette was a small girl, about 5'3", but flawless in her beauty. I agreed with the captain. Such as she belonged locked in a slave girl's collar!
Once again the slave girl knelt before us, her very motions as she resumed the position telling that somewhere someone had trained this curvy little delight thoroughly! "Yvette Senchal!" I whispered, seeing the girl's head come up and her eyes meet mine at the sound of her name, then saying in French to her, "Parlez-vous francais?" (Do you speak French?)
"Oui! Oui!" (Yes! Yes!) she sobbed, seizing my hand and covering it with wet kisses as she knelt before me, sobbing out her pleasure at finding someone who could speak her own language, her English being very poor and broken and almost useless for serious conversation, Jon had told me earlier. I let pass her neglect of using my proper title of "mistress", which is how a slave girl supposedly is to address all free women, although of course there usually is but one actual "mistress" before whom she kneels and serves as so desired.
"I can speak with her," I smiled at the surprised tall Dularnian captain beside me as Yvette Senchal clung sobbing to my hand, a swift order from me returning her to her former position. "You can actually speak her jabber!" Jon breathed, looking first at me, and then at the slave girl kneeling before us. Yvette being, I suspected, one that Queen Darlanis herself would be very interested in questioning! I wondered how Yvette had gotten to where she had, and how she had escaped the Lorr's EDICT! It being now quite obvious to me that she was of this era and not someone from another time as I had first thought.
"French is a very beautiful language," I answered him, a bit annoyed that he had referred to it as "jabber", although I suppose it did sound like that to him. The memory once again going through my mind about the Classical Greeks having considered everyone else "simple barbarians" because they didn't speak Greek!
Keeping Yvette on her knees as was proper, I soon learned the story of how she had come to be where she was, and more importantly, where she came from! The wench having been the personal slave girl of the Prince of France who had set out against his mother's wishes to try to defy THE EDICT by secretly sailing far north and then crossing the ocean near Greenland. Yvette telling us of the great icebergs that had threatened their little ship, only swift work with the oars saving them from death. The ship having been much like the Ronda with both sails and oars, a bit of disappointment going through me as Yvette described the vessel as I had been hoping against hope for something more modern in design. Imperial France obviously no more advanced in its technology than was the Empire of California half the world away!
Finally after weeks at sea they had reached the coast of North America, their food and water nearly gone. The little band of courageous adventurers encountering skin-clad savages that had killed several of their number. The Prince then sailing south along the coast until disaster struck somewhere in the Florida Keys, where a hurricane drove their vessel on to a reef and left only a handful of survivors, the French Prince unfortunately not one of them, leaving poor little Yvette now masterless and alone.
Permitting the wench a sip of wine, we urged her to continue her story, Yvette telling us of how the survivors built a raft and set out to seek land. A tale of horror as thirst claimed lives under the burning sun. She told of how they had caught a seagull and drank its blood, of the horror as one of the surviving sailors drew his knife and sought to cut her throat to drink her life-blood. Of the fight over her that left two men dead. Her tale holding us spell-bound as she told of how the strange ship had come. The vessel filled with swarthy men who killed her companions and took her captive, raping her and forcing her to do the most degraded acts. Captain Richards telling me that she had no doubt been found by pirates on the east coast of Mexico. Such having been known to prey on even Californian vessels by traveling through the Straits of Panama and daring the rocks and reefs there. The current being such that only oared vessels could pass through the straits, and then only the most fool-hardy of captains ever dared the rock-filled passage between the two oceans!
Letting Yvette have another sip of wine as she knelt before us, I translated for her as she told us of how the pirate ship sank in a storm in the Straits of Panama. The wind and the current that flows from the Atlantic into the Pacific smashing it against the rocks, forcing them into the leaping waves, many drowning instantly while others struggled helplessly against their fate. Then clinging helplessly to a yardarm, she found herself swept through the Straits and out into the Pacific. There she found herself cast upon a waterless rock, where she was later found by the Janis. I might note here that the present Straits of Panama are the result of The War, being formed by the terrific blasts of several large anti-matter bombs during the Lorr's bombing of the Earth in 2047 A.D.
What was more interesting to me was the information that there was now another "Empire" nearly halfway around the world, the FRENCH EMPIRE! I wondered what Darlanis would have to say about that! As a Frenchwoman I found it quite satisfying to know that there was a French speaking Empress who ruled over even more of the world than Darlanis now did! A tall dark haired woman who muchly resembled me in some respects! The Empress Jacqueline!
Our conversation was interrupted at this point by the lovely blonde physician of the Janis. The woman having volunteered her services to assist her counterpart on Sarnian Lady with the wounded from the battle with the pirate. She informed me much to my pleasure and delight that the young Prince was now out of danger and that the woman Shirl was tending to him. I knew he would be in good hands then. She then took her leave of us.
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