"Bring her up into the wind!" I snapped to the man at the Squala's wheel, watching the wooded shoreline spin around as he spun the wheel, the sails flapping as men scurried to obey my nervous commands. Lady Tirana smiling as she stood there at my side watching everything. "Drop the anchor!" I cried to the men there at the forecastle, a sudden splash making me jump a bit as they followed my orders. The peaceful tree shaded shoreline now enclosing us on three sides. The sun glittering off the rippling waters of the cove, a slave girl standing there on the dock, blonde, beautiful, a gleaming collar locked around her neck, watching us. A dark haired girl of perhaps five or so there at her side, clinging to the woman's right hand. The blonde slave's white cotton shift leaving no doubt that she was indeed truly a delight, her face and figure through the telescope even reminding me something of those of her Imperial Royal Highness, Darlanis Marden of California! And that was dear little Mara standing there at her side in a red cotton dress just as cute as could be! Ready to greet her new foster mother, Lorraine Duval, a woman of the 20th Century. A woman of an era now mostly myth and legend!!
Turning, I watched the Seahawk dip her flag in salute before going on, saw Lara standing there waving at me next to her husband. Her neck chain glittering in the bright sunlight. Marking her for all to see as being "his woman". I like the 26th Century custom of "neck-chaining" women. It is very lovely on a woman, and tends to accent her beauty and her womanhood. Leaving no doubt that she is indeed a desirable female who some man found attractive enough to place a "claim" on. I suppose a 20th Century feminist would object furiously to such a practice as being "degrading" to the woman, but as I am myself now "neck-chained", I can assure you that I find it quite delightful, especially since it is also securely riveted on so that I cannot remove it!
The night before I had made my good-byes to Sharon and the others. I felt it best to do it then. I was entering a new life, a new world of my own. Sharon was now the Imperial Princess. She would always have a place in my heart, but she was no longer mine, but Darlanis'. I felt it best to make a clean break of things. No last teary farewells with Darlanis standing there smirking to herself. I had told her to be a "good girl" and do what Darlanis told her to. Telling her as I affectionately tousled her golden hair for the last time that if she didn't behave herself Darlanis would put her over her knee and give her another spanking! Now Sarnian Lady waited further out to take off the dozen or so men that had sailed the Squala to my estates, the ship now mine to do with as I saw fit. Darlanis having suggested that I establish a coastal trade with the vessel, offering more rapid and safer transport as the three masted Squala had the speed to outrun almost anything! Pirates being a serious danger due to the practice of both sides in this stupid war to commission anyone with a ship as a privateer. A number of which quickly turned to a life of piracy as they found it more "profitable"!
"By the command of her Imperial Majesty Darlanis Marden, I, the Lady Lorraine of Trelandar, do take possession of these estates deeded to me by the decree of the Imperial Senate as of August 8th, in the year 518 A.W." I lowered the decree, regarding the men and women gathered before me. Many were gazing at me curiously. Lady Tirana at my side, clad in the black of the Warrioress, a sword at her hip. Her attractive features were now veiled as proper. My own tossed back so that they could see me. We were both brunettes, tall, slim, dark eyed. Like "sisters". My extra clothing fitted her well, I noticed thoughtfully then. I had given orders that the rest of the free women aboard the Squala be given clothing and shelter until they could set out on their long journeys to their homes. Hopefully all of them would make it back to their homes, although some planned to travel to Trella and take passage on ships rather than now travel overland.
"You served Lady Lana well. I will ask no more for myself." I added, regarding them. The men and women at arms who guarded my lands, the dozens of peasants who tilled it. The slaves, both male and female now down on their knees before me. The sun shining down upon us, the great manor towering up behind them all. I felt the breeze on my cheek, warmed from the sun, heard the soft rustle of the leaves in the surrounding trees that gave us shade. Thought how nice it would be to have a nice cool bath. I had, however, another task to do first as I looked down at those soft dark eyes beside me, looked into that cute little face of Mara's as she held the hand of the kneeling slave she called "Maris Marn". The woman obviously a "pampered pet" allowed freedoms not usually allowed to slaves. Maris having been allowed to shave her pubes, and wear nipple clips and a crotch strap just like a free woman! This having been all told me by Mrs. Sanda Talen, my major domo, whose attitude was that "things had gone `too far'"!*
* Sanda and I had a good laugh recently when I reminded her of my first impressions here, as Maris Marn has ended up as the Queen of Dularn after the sucide-death of Queen Tulis just recently!
"Mara," I said, squatting down, opening my arms to Mara, seeing the fear there in Maris' emerald eyes as they looked into mine, Maris obviously well aware that her new "mistress" might not allow her all the freedoms and privileges that Lana had done. She was also of the Warrioresses, which I didn't too much care for, as such a woman can be quite dangerous if "provoked" enough!
"You not pretty as Mommy, but I like you anyway," Mara said to me in her little girl voice, coming then into my open arms. I had lost my "golden girl" to Darlanis, but this one was "MINE"!
"Your mother was a beautiful and brave woman," I told Mara. She was dark haired like me, not a natural blonde like Sharon or Maris Marn, whose light eyebrows left no doubt as to her "color".
"Would'you like me to show you 'everyting'?" Mara asked in her soft little voice. I found the idea pleasing, telling Lady Tirana to watch Mara's beautiful slave girl, who had immediately attempted to follow us like Mara was her own private possession!
The former Daris estates covered quite a considerable area, Mara's hand warm in mine as we walked together in the sun, my heart filled with love for the little dark haired girl now there at my side. Yvette following us at a discrete distance, Lady Tirana close behind. I had gladly welcomed her help, her offer of assistance in getting "settled in". Her husband had been brutally killed in the attack on her estate. Her children now grown and gone to live lives of their own, she had no one left to welcome her when she returned back to her own estates but those still left who yet still faithfully served despite her absence.
"Do you like Maris Marn?" Mara asked me as the woman knelt there before us, the sun glinting off her golden hair. She was from Dularn, from a place called Sana which is on the south-western tip of the island about sixty miles or so north of the capital city of Arsana. Sana is a small village of perhaps six or seven hundred souls who make their living cutting lumber and making various handicrafts to sell to the people of places like Arsana. She was, I understood, the oldest daughter of the mayor of the place and said to be very good with a sword, having been almost a match for Lana herself, who had allowed the woman privileges that are not normally given to slaves. Maris for example being allowed to refuse the advances of free men and wear something beneath her brief cotton shift, which was rather unusual. Now that Lana was dead, my major domo was just "itching" to "lay the lash" on the beauty and teach her what slavery was all about!
"She is very beautiful," I observed, Maris being the sort of a woman who could have been Darlanis' own sister from her looks! She was not the sort of a woman I would have picked to be the constant companion of a five year girl, I supposed, but no doubt Lana had her own reasons for having used Maris as her daughter's "personal companion". The woman was, I noted, very "protective" of Mara, which may have been why Lana made the choice she did.
"She is my own slave girl," Mara said, adding, "Mrs. Talen (the major domo) wanted to whip her today, but I told her that I didn't want'ta to," Mara informed me with a trusting smile as if she was now sharing some great secret with me! I watched an ant several inches long crawl along the ground and thought of another, now far away on another world millions of miles from Earth.
"I am yours to command, mistress," the wench said to me, her knees demurely closed beneath the hem of her brief cotton shift. I sensed the hostility, the suppressed anger in the Dularnian. I guessed her at 5'8", perhaps a hundred and thirty five pounds. I noticed the muscles in her arms, her legs. She was a Warrioress.
"Why does Mrs. Talen wish to punish you?" I asked her, standing there before her, Yvette and the Lady Tirana looking on. We were standing out in the fields among the rows of vegetables. The sun was hot, the sky nearly cloudless, a typical August day.
"Her husband put his hand underneath my dress and she says that I provoked him into doing it," Maris Marn breathed back in low tones. She was a "provocative" woman, one who might well be the sort that would make any wife worry about her husband's own marital faithfulness, although I suspected that there was more than that to the matter. Especially since Maris was very lovely.
"Are you given to free men?" I asked, wishing Mara was somewhere else just then. Maris nodded in the negative. No doubt she would have been extremely "popular" among the warriors. Hot and sweaty, arching helplessly beneath the body of a strong man!
"You have needs, desires?" I ventured, Lady Tirana having taken the hint to take Mara a few steps away while I questioned the slave girl. Maris nodded, blushing a bit. She was Dularnian. They are more sexually repressed than those of California.
"What is the fate of a slave girl who refuses the touch of a free man?" I asked the golden haired beauty kneeling before me. A fly buzzing around my face annoying me, making me swat at it. Maris' eyes, much like those of Darlanis', glowed up into mine.
"She is punished," Maris answered softly. I wondered if Maris had ever been "raped" out here in these very same fields we were now in. She was lovely enough that any man might want to!
"In the 20th Century we would call that a 'Catch-22' situation," I smiled, seeing her head suddenly lift up at my words!
"That is a situation where there is no escape," Maris answered with a soft smile. I wondered where she had learned that. How much she actually knew about the 20th Century. I recalled meeting others who had known a considerable deal about my time.
"There will be no whipping of slave girls without my own authorization," I informed her, looking down into those green eyes. I would speak with Mrs. Sanda Talen. And explain things to her.
"Why did your mother give you Maris?" I asked Mara as we sat later on there on her bed and talked. Her room bringing back memories far in my own past. The setting was much like that of southern France except for the differences in technology. Lace curtains on the windows, flowered wallpaper, the sounds of nature, of the soft breeze rustling the leaves in the trees. Even the bed much like mine with its brass posts. Only the slave chains there set in the floor speaking of the realities of 2565.
"Because she was too pretty for my dad," Mara smiled back. "And because she's real nice and good and wouldn't ever hurt me." I wondered how much Mara understood of life. Lana had been the sort of a mother who tried to "protect" her children from "life". Obviously Mara's father had bought Maris and Lana had then later on taken the slave girl away from him and given her to Mara instead. The action speaking volumes about things Lana never told! Obviously there had been serious troubles in their marriage that Lana had never spoken of. I could understand why. She had been a proud woman. One not given to seeking the sympathy of others.
"Wouldn't you like a girl more your own age to share things with?" I asked. There were sometimes older children for sale. A girl of about fifteen or sixteen might be better for little Mara.
"You don't like Maris, don't you?" Mara replied, looking up into my eyes. "She's too beautiful for you," she added in her little girl voice, perhaps understanding more than I did just then. I don't say that she actually talked that way, but I have translated her words into terms that will be easier for the reader to understand. Perhaps she "understood" what I did not then.
"I have nothing against her, but I think you'd be happier with a girl more your own age that you could play with," I answered, trying to take her into my arms and knowing I was already losing this "battle" even before it started. Good old Lorraine Duval making a "fool" out of herself once again, I thought to myself furiously! Her own tongue worse than any sword she's faced!
"I don't want another slave girl!" Mara cried, pulling away and throwing herself on the bed sobbing bitterly to herself as my own eyes filled with tears at the thought of how I had hurt her! I certainly wasn't doing very well as a "substitute mother" for little Mara. Maybe Lady Tirana could give me some hints on what to do, I mused to myself, standing up, creeping silently from the room where little Mara sobbed bitterly to herself on her own bed!
"What should I do?" I asked Lady Tirana as she sat there on the shaded cool porch that overlooked the sunbaked fields of my estate. A slave girl kneeling beside her, ready to be commanded.
"Give it time," Lady Tirana smiled, sipping at her cool drink, her veil lifted to one side as she sat there at her ease. The setting reminded me much of the pre-Civil War South of the Nineteenth Century. The slaves working in the fields, the aristocrats sitting there sipping cool drinks and watching them work.
"Lana shouldn't have given her a woman like that," I said, taking a glass from the slave girl, sitting down, my sword in its metal scabbard jutting out in front of me. The blade a gift from Darlanis. The drink I noticed being some sort of a mixed drink that I found delicious. Fruity, but yet tart, and mixed with something like rum. Maris Marn was no fitting slave girl for a little girl like Mara. She needed a younger girl, one perhaps just entering puberty. Not a Warrioress like Maris Marn, I explained to Lady Tirana as we sat there side by side and sipped our drinks, a pair of 26th Century aristocrats now at their ease.
"Perhaps Lana had her reasons," Lady Tirana smiled back.
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