XIII.
After her prideful refusal to submit to Balbinus' will Taleena found
herself re-chained to the rowing bench for the next stage of her onerous
odyssey. From Alexandria, the Thetis travelled westward, following the outline
of the North African coast, with Carthage designated as its next port-of-call.
Even at this time of the year, the sun on the south coast of the Roman
Sea was far more intense than it had been in more northern waters, and as the
incandescent orb made its diurnal circuit through the heavens, its scorching
light began to take a more serious toll on Taleena's fair skin. Was this, she
wondered, what Balbinus had meant when he had suggested that her ordeal would
soon become even worse?
By mid-afternoon of the first day out of Alexandria, Taleena's
light-hued skin had quickly become more and more rosy as the sun beat down
mercilessly on her nakedness. The tasker had spent the first hour after dawn
giving the weathered bodies of the galley slaves a cursory sponging with rancid
olive oil in order to protect their skin from the bright rays of the sun. But
while the oily covering kept the skin from blistering and peeling, it did
nothing to prevent the harsh sting of sunburn itself.
Inspired by the fairness of Taleena's complexion, on the following
morning, Balbinus initiated a variation of that daily ritual, one that would not
only keep his precious slave girl from becoming seriously burned, but which
would also humiliate his comely rowing apprentice in front of the crew and the
other slaves.
And so it was with evident glee that the corpulent merchant singled out
the Avernian beauty for special attention. He directed the imposing tasker to
rub the gleaming oil over Taleena's luscious body with his bare hands rather
than with the filthy skewered sponge that he had used to oil the other rowers.
Balbinus watched from his vantage point on the poop deck with ill-concealed
delight while Taleena squirmed helplessly on her wooden bench. For he had given
the tall Aethiopian leave to spend as much time oiling Taleena's rounded
shoulders, her pliable, tapering back, her long supple thighs, and particularly
her majestic breasts, as he spent oiling all of the other rowers together.
Standing behind her, the tasker gripped Taleena's breasts from the
sides, and, after kneading them until they were slippery-slick, he cupped the
gleaming globes from beneath with the heels of his hands, ignoring the gasping
noises which came from the girl's throat - sounds which grew gradually louder
and fuller as the pressure of his grip increased. His ebony fingers dug deeply
into the yielding, pinkish flesh while he relished his power over the blonde
beauty, marvelling at the soft warmth of her sun-kissed skin, and revelling in
the resilience of her flesh
He pressed her oil-slick mounds together, and Taleena's face became
contorted with pain as his thumbs and forefingers attacked her turgid nipples,
twisting and tweaking them roughly. While he tried to keep his hold on her
oil-slick breast buds, he teasingly rubbed his huge erection against her back,
and Taleena's gasps turned into whimpers, as the stiffening tips of her breasts
bulged up between the merciless fingers as if trying desperately to escape the
inexorable pressure.
Balbinus, like every member of his crew, and particularly Vinculus, his
malevolent deck officer, envied the tasker his daily ritual of anointing the
Gaul's sensuous body. But performing such a menial, albeit immensely pleasurable
task in full view of the entire crew would have been an action beneath the
dignity of a captain of a Roman merchant ship. However, he consoled himself
with the thought that soon enough the unending toil and humiliation of the
rowing bench would break Taleena to his will. One day soon, he was confident,
the headstrong maiden would be kneeling before him begging him to handle her
lush treasures in any way he wished to spare her a return to the oars. And he
had tastes, nurtured in the licentious fleshpots of Rome, the likes of which
this natural beauty from the Gallic provinces had probably never imagined...
* * *
Taleena's ever-worsening sunburn soon stretched her skin to such a
tautness that the mere rippling of her muscles became painful. Each lash that
fell on her inflamed back now carried a sting equal to that of three lashes from
the time when her sensitive skin had been unravaged by the sun. And lashed she
was, with what seemed to be ever-increasing frequency, once the muscular
Aethiopian discerned that laying the nine tails of his whip across her scorched
shoulders drew such cries of anguish from her that her bench mates were spurred
to greater efforts as well. Fear, the African slave-master knew, was a most
effective instructor.
On the afternoon of the third day out of Alexandria the blinding sun
bore down on the sweat-laved, oil-glistening bodies of the rowing slaves with
unequalled intensity. When the mid-afternoon break came, Taleena waited
longingly for the water skin to be passed to her. The tasker began by handing
the shapeless water-bags to the master oarsmen who manned the frontal seats in
each of the two ranks of rowers. Each man took a long deep pull at his bag
before passing it backward to the man behind, while the chains that hampered the
handing-over rattled violently with the eager movements of the thirsty men.
Watching the water-skin coming closer to her seat, Taleena licked her salty lips
with a tongue as swollen and dry as the sisal sole of a sandal, but just when
the man in front of her passed it over his shoulder, the tasker stepped
forward, seized it, and handed it to the man behind her.
"No! You can't ... no!" Taleena cried out in anguish when she saw that
she had been passed over, and turned toward the aisle in a desperate attempt to
wrest the precious water skin from the man behind her. But the heavy chains at
her wrists pulled her up short.
"Captain's orders!" bellowed an angry Kananga, as he punished her
rebelliousness by lashing out with his whip, aiming for her shoulders. But
Taleena's ill-omened half-turn toward the aisle put her glistening breasts
squarely in the path of the dreadful lash.
"Aaaiaaaghhh!!" Taleena screamed in agony, as the tasker's stinging
rope-cords grazed her shoulder and then bit into the outer curve of her
sun-tender left breast. But her thirst was such that she swallowed her pain and
her pride. "Please ... water ... please ..."
The Aethiopian stared silently at his agonized rower, and for a fleeting
moment Taleena thought that she saw a spark of empathy in his dark eyes. But
the African, she knew, wouldn't dare to offer clemency without his captain's
approval. Kananga turned toward the stern as he stuffed the whip-stock back
into his leather belt, as if he expected the obese merchant to show some mercy
to his bare-breasted galley wench.
Balbinus was sitting under a canopy that Symmachus had erected on the
poop deck to shield his captain from the blazing African sun, balancing a goblet
of wine lazily in one hand. Taleena gazed at the vindictive merchant
imploringly, but he was more interested in the lurid marks on her breast than
her forlorn entreaties. He lifted the glass of wine to his lips and took first a
small sip, and then a longer draught, while Taleena watched in abject misery.
His stony silence spoke louder than the most emphatic denial, and Taleena fell
back in her chains in despair. Back in Alexandria the merciless merchant had
warned her that her ordeal would become worse, and he was clearly intent on
keeping his vow.
* * *
And from that moment until the Thetis reached its next port of call,
Taleena was given water only at mid-morning and dusk, while her comrades were
given a third portion, in mid-afternoon, when the heat of the day was at its
most unbearable.
Only the coolness of the evenings brought any comfort to Taleena's
sun-ravaged body, but she remained troubled and restless even after the sun
went down, as the pale orb of the moon followed its nightly arc across the dark
sky, its slow progression bringing her ever closer to another fourteen-hour
stint under the cruel sun.
As a result of her constant thirst and her uncomfortable position
chained to the bench, Taleena never once slept through the night. On the fourth
night out of Alexandria she woke and stretched in her chains and looked
heavenward, dazzled by the awesome sight of the great hemisphere of stars
sweeping across the horizon - glittering masses of bright dots sharp against the
dark sky. Tomorrow night the moon would be full, she judged, as she sought and
found the sparkling horns of Taurus, and the belt and sword of Orion the Hunter.
It seemed half a lifetime since that moonlit night in the fragrant grassy meadow
near the river, when Stertius, her lover, had pointed out the constellations and
told her how they had come by their names. For a moment Taleena reminisced
about those long-ago nights of whispered words and loving embraces.
But her pleasant romantic reverie was coarsely interrupted by muffled
moans of pleasure coming from Balbinus' cabin in the stern of the ship. Or were
they cries of pain? Or both? Regardless, the bestial rutting sounds and the
faint, girlish cries left little doubt that the corpulent merchant had brought
his Flower of the Nile with him from Alexandria. The disgusting thought of a
sweating Balbinus crushing the fragile body of the Egyptian nymphet under his
massive weight, soon swept Taleena's sweet memories of her romance with Stertius
into the Stygian blackness of the night.
* * *
After three days of reduced water rations Taleena's senses were blurred
by the insidious effects the broiling heat and incessant thirst had had on her
mind. In her few lucid moments, after her flaxen-haired head had been tossed
back by yet another flesh-searing lash, she glared angrily at the celestial orb,
in hopes that Helios, the sun god, would repay her disrespect by striking her
down with heatstroke.
But, though her fervent prayer remained unanswered, Taleena refused to
capitulate to her torment. She never knew what power lent her the strength to
withstand her brutal ordeal, but somehow her parched throat and sun-broiled body
held out until the Thetis drew within sight of its destination, the once-mighty
city of Carthage. Perhaps she was inspired by the thought that Carthage itself
had suffered so greatly at the hands of Rome. Or perhaps it was merely the
knowledge that in Carthage, she had overheard Symmachus say, the crew could
expect several days of shore leave - meaning that the rowers would be granted a
reprieve from the relentless rays of the sweltering sun.
When the vessel docked, the great volume of cargo that the Thetis had
taken on in Alexandria had to be unloaded, and Balbinus used the next few days
to comb the teeming North African marketplace for a type of cargo that had
become an increasingly important part of his business. For in recent months,
the demand for fabrics and spices had levelled off and profits had declined.
But the opportunistic merchant had more than made up for that shortfall by
trading in a new commodity - human flesh.
Balbinus had taken much to heart the ancient maxim, "Caveat Emptor" - let
the buyer beware - and he had made himself a nuisance to every flesh peddler in
North Africa. It was not uncommon for him to spend hours poking and prodding
the bodies of the young women who were destined to satisfy the jaded tastes of
the voluptuaries of Rome, or the men who would meet the demanding physical
requirements of one Flavius Autronius whose interests included a school for
gladiators on the outskirts of the eternal city.
* * *
Early in the evening of the second day of their sojourn in Carthage,
Taleena was once again dragged away from a wretched, airless waterfront
warehouse to face the cruel Massilian merchant. She and her fellow-rowers had
slept almost continuously after having been deposited in their filthy quarters,
as they let their exhausted bodies recover from their arduous journey.
Taleena felt icy fingers of fear at her throat when she opened her eyes
to find beetle-browed Vinculus bending over her, unshackling her from a mildewed
wall. But evidently Balbinus had cautioned his deck officer to lose no time in
retrieving her, because Vinculus and Symmachus had groped her only briefly
before chaining her wrists behind her, pulling her to her feet and leading her
forcibly out of the dingy warehouse.
Once they were in the open air, the two sailors kept their hands to
themselves as they led the blonde beauty up the steep steps that had been cut
into the hill overlooking the scenic harbour. Symmachus had thrown a blanket
over her shoulders for the sake of appearances, but her long, shapely legs were
bare below her ragged loin-cloth, and Taleena blushed to think that every
workman and slave that they passed during their difficult climb probably
pictured her in the arms of their repulsive master. As they marched her up the
hill, the two cut-throats amused themselves by describing in the coarsest terms
how a pair of red-blooded sailors like themselves would satisfy a ripe-bodied
wench like her, once their effete and aging master tired of playing cat and
mouse with his young slave girl.
* * *
The villa Balbinus had chosen as his residence had been constructed in a
style and design that bespoke the splendour of the bygone Punic empire, while
offering numerous concessions to the Roman sense of functionality. The lavish
domicile was centred among extensive gardens within arrow-flight above the
harbour, situated at the very outskirts of the upper city of Carthage, and
boasted one of the few aquaeduct connections in the ancient city.
Balbinus was already waiting for them, pompously ensconced in a huge
throne-like chair, as his trusty minions ushered their flaxen-haired prisoner
into his presence. The grim sound of her rattling chains emphasized Taleena's
feeling of helplessness as they dragged her forward to face their master. Her
downcast eyes took in the magnificent flooring of red and white chequered marble
that surrounded an elaborate central mosaic, depicting scenes from the Odyssey.
How apt, Taleena thought bitterly, just before Vinculus stripped away
the blanket and gave her a shove that sent her sprawling onto the tessellated
floor. She lay there for a moment, breathing heavily, until she found the
strength to pull herself up onto one knee. The fatigue and stress of the last
stage of her own odyssey had left their mark on her beautiful face, but the look
of undiluted hatred she flashed at Balbinus attested to her unbroken spirit.
The complacent merchant cast an appraising eye over the blonde
slave-girl before him, splendid in her exhaustion, the gruelling effects of her
back-breaking toil fresh upon her. "Well, you seem to have gotten a little sun
since our last meeting," Balbinus commented mockingly, as if suggesting that she
had taken a leisurely sun bath. He walked around her slowly, lifting an
interested eyebrow as he studied the impressions Kanaga's rope-whip had left on
her sun-burned back. He extended a hand and raked the nail of his forefinger
across her sun-inflamed shoulder, watching the skin turn white in his finger's
wake before turning red again.
Taleena flinched under his touch and started to lunge at her tormentor,
but the chains on her wrists and ankles held her tightly in check. "Ah, so my
fierce little feline is ready to pounce, is she?" Balbinus sneered mockingly,
confident of her confinement, as his fingers explored the welt the tasker's whip
had left on her breast. Despite the weight of her shackles, Taleena tried to
pull away from his exploring hands, but Balbinus planted a ponderous foot on her
wrist-chains and watched her futile struggles with amusement. When a frustrated
Taleena at last conceded defeat, he grabbed a handful of blonde hair and yanked
her head back violently. "You would do well to remember that here, it is I who
am the lion and you who are the mouse."
After releasing her hair, Balbinus completed his brief circuit of his
eye-catching prisoner. "You have acquired a beautiful tan since our last
meeting," he continued. Then he turned up his nose in an ostentatious fashion
and crouched down on a thick knee and extended his hands and proceeded to wipe
the residue of rancid olive oil onto Taleena's ragged loincloth. "But the
scent you have chosen is less than pleasing," he added as he gave her hips a
firm squeeze while his two henchmen greeted his insulting comment with cackles
of derision. Taleena blushed furiously; had it not been for her shackles, she
would have turned and sprung at the gloating pig and torn the jeers from his
throat by the roots.
"Vinculus, release our guest from her chains, if you please," Balbinus
directed as he rose, the corners of his fleshy lips turned upward in a
condescending smirk.
The scowling Cretan deck officer raised an eyebrow in disbelief, but
obeyed and undid the manacles that held Taleena's wrists. Then he slid the
shackles off her ankles, leaving her unbound for the first time in a fortnight.
As Taleena rubbed her chafed wrists and eyed the distance between them,
Balbinus glared at her warily. "I may have had you released from your chains,
my pretty wench," he spoke in a warning voice, "but if you dare to raise a hand
against me, I'll have these two tie you between two pillars of the portico and
Vinculus will give you a flogging that will make you think Kananga a gentle
taskmaster! Eh, Vinculus?"
"Aye, Captain," the Cretan growled maliciously, as he gave Taleena's
nude body a squinting once-over that left her petrified with fear. "I'll tame
her; you just give the word."
"But for the moment, you may leave us," Balbinus ordered his two
henchmen. The pair of sailors gazed at him in disbelief, but when their master
gave them a frosty stare, they turned rather sulkily toward the door and exited,
leaving Taleena to wonder what the depraved merchant had in mind.
When they were alone, Balbinus walked around his kneeling prisoner,
eyeing her from all sides. "You are fortunate that I am a forgiving man, my
dear," Balbinus began in his most patronizing manner. "As I have stated before,
the duration of your stint at the oars in entirely in your hands. Look around
you, foolish wench! Can you see tile like this from your seat on the galley
bench?" he said, as he gestured toward the marble floor. "Or silks of this
quality?" he asked as he gestured toward the draperies festooned around the
windows of the entry hall. "Or precious stones like these?" he demanded as he
waved his pudgy, be-ringed fingers in front of her face.
"There are women from the Peloponnesus to the Pillars of Hercules who
would grovel at my feet to live in this fashion," he went on in the same
boastful tone, cupping Taleena's chin in his hand and forcing her to look at
him. "And yet you would deny me!" he concluded in exasperation.
Straightening up, the pompous plutocrat clapped his hands, and Nilea,
his submissive Flower of the Nile, shyly entered the room from an adjoining
chamber. Her youthful body was shrouded in a diaphanous two-piece robe, a
shamelessly low-cut azure top that displayed the enticingly wide valley between
her golden-brown breasts, and a high-slit skirt of the same shade of blue that
exposed her slim, bronzed legs. As she approached them, the gold bracelets that
encircled her wrists and ankles jangled gently with her every graceful stride.
"Take this stubborn, bedraggled wench to the baths, my sweet," Balbinus
gestured to his youthful concubine. "And see to it that you make a woman of her
again. She will be joining us for dinner tonight."
Then he turned to Taleena and continued in a menacing voice: "In case
you have any thought of attempting another escape, let me remind you that I let
you off lightly in Ostia. Do you know what punishment Roman Law provides for a
fugitive slave? Crucifixion! And believe me, I've got more than a few men who
wouldn't mind nailing you to the mast of the Thetis!"
Taleena flinched in horror, not sure if the furious merchant meant the
words literally or figuratively, but his hard stare and the protruding veins in
his ruddy neck made it clear that the he was deadly serious.
"And if by some chance you were to manage to slip through my fingers,"
he said, as he pulled Nilea roughly toward him, "this one will take your place
at the mast!"
Nilea looked at her master in shocked disbelief, but Balbinus never so
much as glanced in her direction.
"Now go!" he said, before plodding away portentously.
* * *
Taleena was still trembling when the young Egyptian slave-girl conducted
her to the baths, a small, low building flanking the backyard of the villa.
The bath was a single spacious room, dominated by a massive, chest-high
marble dais. Steps led up to the marble platform atop the dais, and countless
oil lamps bathed the room in a warm, glowing light. An elaborate mosaic that
represented Dionysus and his maenads dancing in a setting of leaves and flowers
was set into the ground, while a coloured frieze decorating the walls depicted
more explicit scenes of satyrs and wood nymphs engaged in various couplings,
which only served to attest to the lewd tastes of the master of the house.
"Go ahead," Nilea encouraged Taleena, "I'll join you right away."
Taleena did not wait to be told twice. She quickly mounted the steps of
the marble platform, eager to quench her thirst and happy to have a chance to
wash the sweat and grime from her body. But when she had reached the top of the
marble dais, she looked down into the basin in astonishment.
A basin of some ten feet square was embedded into the large square stone
block, forming a small pool that wasn't quite large enough for swimming, but was
spacious enough to accommodate two or three bathers. Rose petals swam on the
milky white surface of the liquid that filled the basin, and it was the colour
of the water that made Taleena hesitate.
"Isn't it wonderful? Yes, it's milk!" Nilea enthused from beneath when
she saw Taleena's bemused look. "Milk mixed with fresh water." The girl's eyes
sparkled with child-like excitement. "It's said that queen Cleopatra used to
bathe her body in the milk of a thousand mares to keep her divine skin soft and
smooth. It will serve you well to soothe your dreadful sunburn."
Taleena quickly undid her ragged loin-cloth and descended the steps of
the pool until she stood on its bottom, issuing a long, sensuous sigh when her
heated body was welcomed by the weightless ease of the water. The water was
pleasantly cool, and its pale surface offered an enticing contrast to the
pinkish-brown skin of Taleena's sun-kissed breasts which were only partly
submerged in the milky bath. She let her callused fingers slide under her tender
breasts, stroking their rounded contours as she had been longing to do for days,
to soothe the dull ache caused by the countless pulls at her heavy oar.
Although the touch of the water against a back well-marked by the
tasker's stern diligence made her shiver, Taleena took a deep breath and slid
below the surface for a long moment. When her dripping head and shoulders
emerged from the water again, she stroked her blonde hair away from her closed
eyes, gathering it behind her with both hands, issuing another sigh of pleasure.
Nilea stood at the edge of the pool holding a large silver goblet,
staring wide-eyed at the statuesque blonde from a distant land. Taleena's
hair-grasping motion had lifted her breasts entirely out of the rose-petaled
bath and Nilea watched in awe-struck admiration as meandering, milky-white
rivulets trickled slowly and sensually over the curves of Taleena's sumptuous
breasts. Even her inexperienced eye was enchanted by the way the clean,
well-defined lines of the blonde slave-girl's oar-toned arms provided a striking
aesthetic contrast to the smooth, feminine softness of her luscious mounds.
"I have brought you something to drink," Nilea said softly, rousing
Taleena from her pleasurable reverie. Taleena opened her blue eyes, and for the
first time sensed the younger girl's frankly admiring gaze. The Egyptian girl
had made it up to the top of the platform, and was kneeling alongside the rim of
the pool. "Here. You must be thirsty." Nilea held out the goblet, and Taleena
took it gratefully with both hands, and drank from it eagerly, emptying the
beaker in one go.
The drink was a blend of exotic juices flavoured with coconut and mint,
but even if it had only been fresh spring water Taleena would have welcomed it
as if it had been served by Ganymede, the cup bearer of the gods. For far too
long her senses had brought her only pain, unleavened by even the simplest of
human pleasures. "That was good," she sighed as she handed the goblet back to
the Egyptian, smiling faintly. "Thank you."
The dark-eyed nymphet smiled benignly in return as she refilled the
beaker. Then she straightened up and undid the knot that held her blue bodice
together. The two panels fell neatly apart, allowing her beautiful, plum-shaped
breasts to spill forth. Nilea shrugged out of the top and then undid a clasp at
the waistband of her skirt, letting it fall to the tiled floor, revealing her
nut-brown legs and the few dark wisps of girlish pubic hair at the juncture of
her thighs.
Taleena watched the now-naked girl stepping down into the pool, struck
by the way that the faint, flickering light given off by the oil lamps seemed to
throw a dark shadow across the upper slopes of Nilea's breasts. It was only
when the Egyptian girl had stepped into the water and drawn within arm's length,
that Taleena realized that the shadow was actually a pair of livid welts, one on
each girlish breast. But what struck Taleena even more were the small, golden
rings that adorned the tips of Nilea's breasts, sparkling brightly in the
glimmering lamp-light. The gluttonous merchant had apparently seen fit to
emulate Midas since his Flower of the Nile had presented her honey-tipped
nipples to him in Alexandria...
Taleena tried not to stare, but it was hard to tear her eyes away from
the tiny golden rings which had been forced so cleanly through Nilea's enticing
nipples. It was impossible not to picture the struggling girl, held fast, no
doubt, by a pair of Balbinus' servitors, while a goldsmith or the wicked
merchant himself pierced a heated pin, or some similar implement, through the
sensitive buds of her quivering breasts. Taleena shuddered in feminine empathy
and then looked up to see that Nilea had answered her horrified expression with
a patient smile. .
"I know what you are thinking, Taleena," Nilea said. "But do not concern
yourself. Master Balbinus gave me these," she said, indicating the dark marks on
her still-growing breasts, "because I distrusted him, even though he has been so
kind to me," she said sweetly, gesturing toward their luxurious surroundings.
"The pain is almost gone now."
"And... the rings," she continued, bringing a finger to touch one of the
golden hoops, "I... I asked for them."
"You asked for them?!" Taleena repeated in shocked disbelief.
"Why, of course! After the master told me that only the priestesses of
Isis may wear such jewellery. Are they not beautiful?" Nilea asked as she lifted
a breast so that its golden ring reflected the shimmering light given off by a
nearby lamp. With a serene face, she looked at her bewildered, golden-haired
companion, who could not bring herself to ask this sultry, credulous beauty how
she could possibly believe such nonsense. "But when I saw how the rings would
be inserted," the young Egyptian continued, "I panicked and tried to break
free." She gingerly touched the marks on her young breasts and added. "Our
master was forced to strike me with his cane to instill in me the courage and
fortitude that a priestess of Isis must display."
Taleena could hardly believe the naivete of the girl, which was almost
as difficult to credit as Balbinus' cruelty. She was just about to reply, but
then she closed her eyes and leaned back against the edge of the pool, willing
herself to refrain from making a disparaging remark to her charming, but
ingenuous young friend.
The two young women continued to luxuriate in the soothing, scented bath
until Nilea broke the silence. "Let me comb your hair," she said, reaching for
the large ivory comb she had brought to the bath along with a pair of sea
sponges. "When your hair is done, I'll wash your back, if you like."
Taleena returned the dark-eyed beauty's soft smile. The girl might be
naively submissive to her cruel master, but she clearly had a good heart. She
turned obediently, offering her back to the Egyptian girl, and placed her hands
on the rim of the pool while Nilea combed her hair. It took the dark-skinned
daughter of the Nile a while to run the comb through the wet, tangled tresses,
but when she had finished, Taleena's hair cascaded once again over her shoulders
like a smooth, gold-glistening stola.
"And now for your back, if you don't mind," Nilea whispered softly. At
Nilea's direction Taleena hoisted herself halfway out of the basin, so that the
front of her torso came to rest on the marble platform, while her exposed rear
rested against the rim of the pool, just above the shimmering surface of the
milk bath.
"I... I saw how they treated you on board ship," Nilea whispered as she
swept Taleenas hair aside to bare her back. "And I cried too, when I heard you
cry out under the lash." Nilea had climbed out of the pool and was now kneeling
alongside Taleena, dipping the sponge into the cool water, and squeezing it out
over first one shoulder and then the other. Then she touched the sponge to the
Gaul's welt-streaked back softly, being very careful not to stretch the welts
and thus to rekindle the burning pain.
"You must not let them do this to you," the sad-eyed Egyptian said
softly as she stared at the cruel marks on Taleena's sunburned back. "Please do
as Master Balbinus wishes. It is senseless for a woman like yourself to toil at
the oars of a galley, chained to the bench among murderers and thieves!"
"I will never give in," Taleena replied vehemently, unconscious of how
her hips ground sensuously against the edge of the basin in response to Nilea's
caressing touch. "Never! Not after what that filthy swine has done to me!"
Taleena's voice almost broke at the memory of her dreadful ordeal. "Did
Balbinus put you up to telling me this?" she snapped angrily.
"N-no," replied Nilea in a hurt voice. "I tell you this because ..." she
stopped herself suddenly and began to work the sponge into the soft crease
between Taleena's buttocks, wiping the curved flesh with a series of firm,
circular caresses until the pale skin gleamed. Taleena gritted her teeth as she
felt the unfamiliar touch of a woman between her legs, but slowly she began to
relax when Nilea's sponge slid further down to the backs of her thighs.
"Please, Taleena," the girl added imploringly, "submit yourself to our
master's will. It will be so much easier for you if you do. He can be very
generous - look around you! How can you deny yourself these luxuries - the
baths, the perfumes, the fine clothes, the exquisite food...?"
Annoyed by her insistence, Taleena spun around to face the Egyptian
sylph. She was about to blurt out angrily that she would never play the whore
to the perverse whims of Balbinus, when she realized that such an outburst would
only hurt the feelings of this young girl who, in her own way, had come to terms
with her fate. Instead she forced herself to simply murmur, "I do not care for
luxuries that come at such a price," in soft, measured tones.
"But what choice do you have, Taleena?" Nilea replied with a winning
smile. "What choice do I have? Master Balbinus knows that we like such things,
and he is willing to provide them to us." Nilea held the sopping sponge out and
then squeezed it, causing the milky fluid to drip lazily down onto Taleena's
pink-tipped breasts.
"He is not that bad, you know. I have had worse. The master from whom
Balbinus bought me used to ..." Nilea's voice trailed off, leaving the sentence
unfinished. "It is true that my master enjoys forcing his will upon us," she
then continued in a lower voice. "But I think he truly believes, deep inside
himself, that this is what we want, too. That it is a woman's place and her duty
to submit to a man, especially a man as rich and powerful as he." Nilea sighed
plaintively. "You and me, we could become friends," she went on, in the voice
of a lost child who had never had a friend. "It would be nice to have you for
company." But then her eyes saddened suddenly as she stared at the fullness of
Taleena's milk-drenched breasts. "But maybe Balbinus would not want me anymore
once you were his... concubine," she added glumly. "You are such a beautiful
woman. And I am only a girl." The hand with the sponge fell sadly to her side.
"But you are a beautiful girl," Taleena replied consolingly, not
bothering to add that it was very likely Nilea's youthful naivete which most
appealed to her depraved master. "Have no fear on that score. And have no fear
that I will come between you and Balbinus, because I have no intention of
becoming his ... concubine." Touched by the girl's attempts at kindness, she
added warmly. "And you are a very nice girl, as well. Balbinus does not deserve
you."
Nilea smiled gratefully. "Please, Taleena," the Egyptian said,
regarding her with sad eyes, "You must comply with his wishes ... and soon.
When you asked me if Balbinus had ordered me to speak to you as I have - well,
he did not... at least not in so many words. But I have heard them talking ..."
"Them?" Taleena repeated, questioningly.
"Oh yes!" The panicky expression on Taleena's face gave Nilea all the
encouragement she needed to continue. "If Balbinus were to lose patience with
you, the little man, the one with the evil eyes ..."
"Vinculus!" Taleena breathed softly. "He would not dare!"
"But what if you were no longer under Balbinus' 'protection'? Think
about it, Taleena. I could not stand to see them hurt you."
"Hurt me even more?" answered Taleena, trying to control her voice.
"Not Master Balbinus, I don't think," Nilea replied. "But the little
man... I saw him speaking to the master earlier. I could not make out what they
were saying, but when the man with the evil eyes spoke, I saw a dark shadow
cross my master's face. And then he answered with a cruel laugh." Nilea looked
around to make sure that they were still alone and then leaned forward. "He is
a serpent, that sailor," she whispered in an agitated voice. "I am sure of it.
Please, Taleena. Only Balbinus can protect you from him."
Nilea's heartfelt warning banished all thoughts of relaxation from
Taleena's mind. With a haunted look she surveyed her opulent surroundings more
purposefully, considering several possible avenues of escape, before rejecting
them all. She did not doubt for a moment that Balbinus would keep his venomous
promise to exact a cruel revenge on Nilea, if his prized galley-slave were
somehow to escape his clutches. Given his vow, there was little point in
plotting a flight, no matter how favourable the opportunity.
Finally Nilea rose, indicating that it was the hour of the day when she
was supposed to attend Balbinus. She left Taleena alone, telling the
flaxen-haired Gaul to feel free to luxuriate in the pool for as long as she
wished. Grateful for the peaceful respite, and the creamy-white sea of milk
that soothed skin that had been ravaged by weather and whip, Taleena lay back in
the bath. After a few minutes, the strength-draining weeks at the oar took
hold, and Taleena's fears relaxed their steely grip on her taut nerves, and she
succumbed to sleep's welcoming arms and dreamt of the fragrant pastures of her
homeland.
* * *
Taleena spent almost an hour in the soothing waters until Nilea
reappeared to prepare her for dinner. The Egyptian rubbed precious cream and
perfume all over her skin, trimmed, parted and polished her nails, and plucked
hairs with silver tweezers from her armpits so skilfully that Taleena hardly
felt a pang.
While she did Taleena's hair, the friendly girl mentioned in passing
that her former master had run a barber's shop in Alexandria. Taleena could
tell that the girl had learned her trade well when she piled her blonde tresses
up, holding them in place with golden pins and small ivory combs. Finally Nilea
helped her don a long, flowing stola, the elegant full-length gown worn by Roman
women. The stola was a virginal white in colour, but fringed with a blue that
matched the colour of Taleena's eyes. The Daughter of the Nile then slipped a
golden necklace with a lapis lazuli pendant of that same azure hue around
Taleena's bare neck, and then offered her glittering golden bangles for her
wrists and ankles. When Nilea had completed her preparations, nobody who had
not seen Taleena on the Thetis with his own eyes, could have imagined that the
elegant beauty Nilea had dressed had been bent naked over the oar of a galley
not two days before.
* * *
Darkness had descended over the estate as Nilea led Taleena onto the
large terrace of the villa, which overlooked the harbour of Carthage. The
terrace had been illuminated by a pleasing combination of torches, candelabrae
and scented oil lamps, which together, with the moonlight, gave the terrace a
certain aura of nocturnal enchantment. Far below them, from the waterline, came
the occasional splash of oars from a couple of fishing boats that rowed between
the moored vessels, setting out for a catch. From a greater distance yellow
lights winked across the Bay of Tunis, and the chirping of countless crickets
from the gardens provided natural background music.
Three couches were arranged in horseshoe fashion around a table that had
been sumptuously laid out with dishes trimmed with gold. Balbinus had ordered a
dinner such as Taleena had never seen before, not even at the wealthy senatorial
estate of the Camilli - and Camillus Verus had been a well-known host at
Lugdunum, famous for his exquisite dinner parties all over the Gallic provinces.
Those Lucullan repasts had been as luxurious as they had been expensive, but
they had always managed to display a taste, an understatement, that was utterly
foreign to the crass nature of Balbinus. The gluttonous merchant would never
understand that sometimes less could be more, and that the line between
lavishness and vulgarity was finer than a silken thread.
Once the threesome had reclined, four slaves appeared, bearing on their
shoulders a model ship, almost as long as a man, surfing on a sea of shimmering
mussel shells. The slaves approached the table, sank to their knees and with
difficulty slid the miniature vessel, prow first, across the table. It was
entirely decked out with an array of seafood that would have impressed Neptune
himself. Succulent oysters, flame-coloured lobsters, three varieties of
long-legged crabs, juicy scallops baked in their elegant shells, slippery sea
urchins, and others whose names Taleena did not know. In the center of the long
boat was a bowl of quails' eggs seasoned with chopped anchovies, all served
along with a light, honey-sweetened wine.
Balbinus presided at the head of the table, and for once he behaved
himself quite well as he helped himself to the vast variety of delicacies. The
host did his best to impress Taleena by describing the contents of the various
exotic dishes, never failing, in the manner of the vulgar rich, to attach a
price to everything.
But to a young woman who had tasted nothing but stale gruel in weeks,
Balbinus' ostentatious posturings were of little concern. She was so hungry that
she had to force herself not to bolt the food down like an animal, if only to
withhold that satisfaction from Balbinus. In between bites, the merchant cast
an amused eye toward his ravenous guest, gesturing now and then for a servant to
refill her glass. Taleena had been well-fed at the home of Camillus Verus, but
never had she dined like this. Thanks in part, to the wine, the very first sip
of which had sent a delightful tingle through her body, for the first time in
many days she began to feel relaxed and almost at ease.
The second course consisted of procession of poultry - roasted quails
and grilled thrushes, pheasants stuffed with a stew of nightingales' livers,
together with vintage Alban flavoured with herbs grown only on the North African
coast near Cyrene, which Taleena knew from her days at the Camilli household to
be rare and extremely expensive.
For dessert, the slaves served figs and pastries covered in wine jelly,
and a giggling Nilea teased the lounging Lucullus at the head of the table by
popping one sweet after another into his capacious gullet. The girl obviously
liked being the center of attention, and Taleena almost envied her the naive
ability to enjoy herself in spite of Balbinus' coarseness and vulgarity. A
strange pairing - the disgusting middle-aged reprobate seemed to be genuinely
fond of his frisky young pet, and in return, the petite sylph seemed anxious to
please her pompous master.
Balbinus slid over onto Taleena's couch and held one of the figs out to
her, luring her as Nilea had lured him. Her head light from the wine, and her
body almost floating on the luxurious couch, Taleena leaned her head back and
allowed Balbinus to lower the fruit to her lips. She took a bite and closed
her eyes, enjoying the sweetness of its taste.
Growing more confident with each passing moment, Balbinus edged closer
to Taleena and slid one fleshy arm around her, and for once she did not back
away from him. Balbinus was pleased with himself: the appeal of nectar and
ambrosia, aided by the seductive powers of Bacchus, had succeeded where weeks of
brutal treatment on the rowing bench had failed. Tonight, at last, he would
possess this golden-haired daughter of Diana. And soon even his peers in Rome
would envy his possession of this latter-day Helen of Troy.
His passion fully roused, Balbinus pulled Taleena's wine-weakened body
closer still, until he could feel the warmth of her thigh against his own. "Now,
my sweet," he said in a caressing voice, "are you not pleased that I got rid of
that churlish peasant back in Lugdunum? Could a man like him have offered you
an evening such as this?"
Until the very moment that Balbinus dismissed Stertius in this insulting
fashion, Taleena had been on the verge of succumbing to the pleasant temptations
of food, drink and luxury. But the mention of her lover caused her to sit up and
glare at Balbinus with eyes that made the sparkling lapis lazuli at her throat
seem dull indeed. Once again the complacent merchant had overplayed his hand.
"Then it was you!" she raged. "I always guessed that it was you who
caused him to flee!"
Balbinus instantly realized that he had made a grievous error when
Taleena tore herself free from his grip. "What have you done to Stertius," she
spat out. "I knew that he would never have abandoned me. Did you hurt him? Did
you..." She left the terrible alternative unspoken.
"I... my men ... simply persuaded the fool that you would be far better
off with me," Balbinus adopted the role of one who had been unfairly maligned.
"He was only too reasonable," Balbinus added slyly, "it only took a few
sesterces to convince him ..."
"Liar!!" Taleena stormed, the pain of scores of lashes in her voice. "He
would never have betrayed me. Never! Especially to one such as you!"
"Every man can be bought, Taleena. And every woman," Balbinus added,
tilting a provocative eyebrow in Nilea's direction, before adding smugly to
Taleena. "It is only a question of price. But the fool knew nothing of
business," Balbinus added with a licentious leer, as his eyes dropped to
Taleena's heaving breasts. "He didn't even know the value of his own
merchandise."
"Bastard!!" Taleena flew at him, and caught the heavy-set merchant off
balance and landed on top of him, clawing at him, anxious to repay him for every
indignity, every insult, every lash. But she only got one or two blows in,
before a sobbing Nilea grabbed her arms from behind. "Please ... Taleena ...
please. You are only making things worse."
Aided by Nilea's intervention, Balbinus used his massive bulk to throw
Taleena to the floor, and then he reached for the knife one of the slaves had
used to carve the pheasant and brandished it menacingly.
But Taleena was unafraid. "Go ahead! Kill me, you pig! You have taken
everything else from me. Take my life, too!" She made a movement to throw
herself on the long blade but Balbinus pulled it back and instead swung the back
of his knife-holding hand, and struck Taleena heavily across the face, sending
her sprawling backward onto the banquet table, sending shells, and bones and
wine-glasses flying into the air.
"Summon the guards, Nilea," Balbinus hissed. "Hurry!"
Nilea, still sobbing, glanced at her master, who towered over the fallen
slave-girl, his ruddy face apoplectic with rage. And then at the half-stunned
blonde, whose head had hit the table squarely when she had fallen backward. The
woman she had wanted for a friend.
"I said, 'Summon the guards', Nilea! What are you waiting for?!"
Nilea, frozen with indecision, hesitated, and then, seeing the wrathful
expression on her master's face, gave Taleena a sorrowful glance and rushed for
the door, sobbing convulsively
By the time Taleena had woozily regained her feet, Vinculus and
Symmachus had burst onto the terrace, a distraught Nilea in their wake.
"Well," Balbinus wheezed as he struggled to catch his breath. "Once
again I have offered you the easy path, and you have chosen the hard one," he
gloated, after the sailors had pinioned Taleena's arms behind her. "You are
stubborn, Taleena,, but you will see that Balbinus does not give up easily
either. I mean to break you, and break you, I will. You will pay for this
little outburst, at a time of my choosing. And in the end, I assure you, you
shall give yourself as willingly to me as she does."
Taleena glanced at the teary-eyed Egyptian. Nilea could not bear to
face her, and turned her soft brown eyes away in shame.
"Do not reproach yourself, Nilea," she said gently. "You have made your
choice." Then she turned back to Balbinus and threw him a glance that a gorgon
would have envied. "And I have made mine. Do your worst, merchant, but when
you wake in the middle of the night, when you are alone with your soul, remember
these words: For all of your riches, Stertius was worth a dozen of you! And
for all you can force me to endure, you will never win my heart like Stertius
did!"
Balbinus, his face contorted with rage, made a movement with the knife,
but stopped himself. Then the faint beginnings of a hideous smile began to curl
across his thick lips. He leaned forward and undid the pendant around Taleena's
throat as he whispered in her ear. "Very well, then. Let our struggle for
mastery continue. Besides," he winked to the sailors, as he raised his voice so
that his henchmen could hear him, "Our journey back to Massilia would not be
half so enjoyable without the sight of your lovely body!" Balbinus leered at
Taleena evilly as his grease-stained hand lifted her chin up too make sure that
she did not ignore him. "And the sound of your screams!"
"Take her away!" he concluded with an imperious wave of his hand.
* * *
And so Taleena found herself back on the bench once more. The elegant
stola she had been allowed to wear for that one evening was gone, and the iron
manacles which shackled her to the bench replaced the golden bangles she had
worn around wrists and ankles on that disastrous dinner. All that reminded her
on the fleeting life of luxury was the perfume that coated her naked body,
wafting its way toward her nostrils. But even this lovely fragrance became
whitewashed by the stench of rancid olive oil when the tasker applied the
disgusting sunscreen with undiminished gusto.
Taleena's frightful odyssey took her to Caesarea, and on to Tingis, then
over the Herculean Straits to the Iberian Peninsula, up to Gades. At each stop
Balbinus once again posed the fateful question, "Will you submit?" and on each
occasion his sun- and whip-ravaged galley slave denied him, only to be rewarded
with more back-breaking hours at the oars.
Surprisingly, toiling in naked drudgery under the amused eye of a
disgusting brute who took delight in watching her well-oiled body labouring at
the enslaving oar was no longer the worst of Taleena's ordeals. Even more
dispiriting was the knowledge that the cruel monotony of the rowing, along with
the mind-searing sun, had begun to exert a blunting effect on her mind. Even at
night, when she tried to nurse the wounds she had sustained during the day, she
had caught herself going through the eternal cycle of dip, pull and lift. While
her body had been able to withstand the tortures involved in her dreadful toil,
she sensed that the endless, mindless routine would slowly, but inevitably
hollow out her will, depriving her of her determination to endure her ordeal,
and rendering her into another one of those dull creatures who propelled the
Thetis through the Roman Sea.
Gradually, the galley made its way up the Spanish coast, on its way back
to Balbinus' base at Massilia. With each passing day Balbinus seemed to become
more and more disenchanted by his cruel, yet unsatisfying game. Taleena could
only guess that his Flower of the Nile, hoping to avoid the dreadful fate of her
fair-skinned counterpart, had done her best to satisfy the perverse appetites of
master. For indeed, the exploitation of Nilea's girlish body seemed to
restrain, for a time, the fat merchant's depraved desires to subject the proud
Avernian to his cruel will.
However, once the circuitous Mediterranean journey had been completed,
and the Thetis was safely moored in the Massilian harbour, Balbinus decided to
play the final card in his vicious quest to break the indomitable spirit of his
Gallic galley slave.
XIV.
Lying on the plank bed in her cell at the Ludus Flavianus, Taleena had
sunk partway into a troubled slumber, nearly overcome by the horror of her
memories. It had been weeks since her stay in Massilia, but she was still
plagued by nightmarish visions of those dreadful days, visions which crept out
of the deepest recesses of her soul where she had hoped to lock them away
forever.
* * *
She had been brought before Balbinus once again, this time at his
Massilian residence, freshly bathed and clad by the helpful Nilea. When she had
rejected the evil merchant for that final time, he had spoken to her in a voice
seemingly indifferent, but with undertones of ruthlessness that had left even
the brave Avernian maiden trembling with fear. "Since our noble rower seems so
reluctant to leave the company of her fellow oarsmen," he had growled, winking
wickedly at Vinculus and Symmachus who, as always, had brought her before him,
"I have decided that we should let her have her wish! Take her back to that
fine villa in which I house them, so that our gallant galley slaves can become
better acquainted with their beautiful benchmate!"
His salacious tone left little doubt as to his meaning, and Taleena felt
her blood run cold. The 'fine villa' from which she had been dragged hours
earlier was a mildewed, murky prison and asylum for men who had been turned into
animals by years of slavery and abuse. She had not thought that even Balbinus,
who, for his other crimes, deserved to spend eternity in the darkest corner in
Tartarus, could be capable of throwing her to those ravenous creatures. From
the first moment she had been dragged half-nude through their ranks to her place
on the bench they had seemed to her more like earth-bound vultures than the
human souls to whom their mothers had given birth. Taleena had always relied on
the fact that Balbinus' perverse pride of possession would never allow his most
prized belonging to be desecrated and abused by the lowliest of his chattel.
But his anger at her defiance seemed finally to have tipped the scales in the
direction of vengeance rather than pride.
Taleena fought tooth and nail as the unsavoury pair of sailors seized
her arms to drag her away, but Balbinus was not quite done with her yet. "And
Vinculus," he said, as he turned toward his crewmen, "because of your loyal
service in this matter, I shall give you both leave to amuse yourself with her
before you give her to the ... hands of her bench-mates. But see to it that she
suffers no serious injury. After all," he chuckled with Caligulan glee, "we will
need her to brighten our rowing bench on our next journey!"
* * *
After Balbinus' henchmen had dragged Taleena outside, and safely out of
view of the villa, Vinculus and Symmachus exchanged a few words in Greek,
obviously in an attempt to exclude the possibility of her overhearing their
plans. Taleena strained unsuccessfully to understand the two plotters, but could
only make out brief snatches of their conversation. But she could see that
Symmachus had listened intently to his vindictive partner, and when the
dark-eyed deck officer had finished, an evil smile crossed the carpenter's face
As the threesome continued their descent back down the hill toward the
bleak, ugly building where the galley slaves were housed, Taleena's felt her
heart pounding as each stride drew her a step closer to a frightful encounter
with her bestial benchmates. But much to her surprise, the two sailors led her
past that sinister building, and further down the hill toward the town, while
Taleena wondered at this sudden change of plan.
The oarsmen to whom Balbinus had consigned her were never to know of
their ill fortune, because Vinculus and Symmachus quickly marched their
beautiful prisoner toward a den of their own in a harbour district known for its
lawlessness and vice. Only a pair of fools, Vinculus had snarled to his comrade,
would offer such priceless booty to worthless galley slaves, when the
opportunity of plundering the luscious blonde slave-girl to their heart's
content was at hand. Had not every member of the crew dreamt of such a moment
since that memorable morning when the long-legged Gaul had been ushered to her
seat on the bench? Had not every sailor on the Thetis looked on with eager eyes
while those first gusts of wind had disturbed the flimsy bit of white fabric
which fought to conceal her magnificent body. Now that Balbinus had declared her
fair game, they could throw self-restraint to those same winds, free to realize
the depraved dreams which had so long inhabited their fantasies...
* * *
As they proceeded down the hill into the gloomy harbour district toward
whatever fearful destination the Fates had chosen for her, Taleena was reminded
of the stories Eudoclus had told of the visits of Odysseus and Aeneas to the
underworld. In the murky twilight, even the most innocuous of passers-by seemed
to turn into shades of the night. The friendliest of homes would have seemed
somehow sinister, but the part of the city toward which they descended seemed to
look upon her not as a guest, but as prey to satisfy its darker desires.
The sailors' den was a small, ramshackle barrack, almost at the base of
the sloping hillside that led downward to the sea, much closer to the wharves of
Massilia than to Balbinus' villa in the inland heights. As soon as the threesome
turned off the main road, the settling darkness greeted their passing through a
series of curved streets that seemed to narrow at every turn. The houses became
meaner as the pair of grim-faced pedestrians paraded their unfortunate prisoner
through foul-smelling streets that were littered with refuse and filth. The
windows of that disreputable quarter of the city were closely latched with thick
wooden shutters which seemed shabby in the fading daylight, and a faint, fishy
gust of wind from the waterline added to the unpleasant sights and smells of the
decaying neighbourhood.
As they passed, hard-eyed men and a few older boys standing in dingy
doorways peered at them through the twilight, ogling the shapely captive and
casting envious glances at the determined men who held her tightly by the arms.
Even if Vinculus had not warned her to remain silent, Taleena knew that crying
out for help would be to no avail. None of these hostile, leering denizens of
the doorways would have dreamed of lifting a hand to assist a helpless
slave-girl against her rightful master or his agents.
It was still early in the evening, but the taverns, wine shops and
brothels in the harbour district had already begun to fill with customers,
attracting sailors and pleasure-seeking citizens alike. Vinculus and Symmachus,
their struggling young captive in tow, turned into a dismal dead-end street and
slowed their pace, giving their flaxen-haired prisoner a chance to take in her
surroundings. As they proceeded down the seedy street, Taleena's eye was caught
by a sinister-looking establishment, and a faint, reddish gleam given off by
unseen lamps filtered through the openings in the shutters. A crudely drawn sign
which depicted an erect phallus and a pair of bullish testicles dangled above
its door, leaving no doubt as to the nature of the commerce practiced within.
"N-no," she pleaded, as the nature of her fate became more and more
clear. But the burly Cilician carpenter ignored her, shouldering his way past a
group of loitering men whose ruddy faces were flushed by heat and wine.
Symmachus led the threesome through the door of a small, ramshackle building
opposite the sinister-looking bar, and into a dingy vestibule. From upstairs
came the sound of a sailor's song played on pan-pipes, punctuated by thumps on
the floorboards and occasional outbursts of coarse, male laughter.
The single-minded sailors exchanged annoyed glances, plainly irritated
by the idea that they would have company, but dragged Taleena up a decrepit,
debris-strewn staircase. When they entered the first room at the top of the
landing, they were welcomed by a group of wine-drinking sailors who sat around a
huge table. Some of them were crewmen of the Thetis, but there were others, as
well, whom Taleena did not recognize. Taleena glanced imploringly at each one in
turn, grateful for their presence, and hoping to appeal to their sympathy. She
was certain that were it not for these men, her two captors would have thrown
themselves upon her immediately. But as she watched a sly smile steal across
Vinculus' dark-browed face, she grew more and more fearful that the cunning
little man would find a way to turn this unexpected situation to his advantage.
Within moments, the cruel Cretan was going from man to man, collecting
money from his unexpected guests. He sent one of the sailors off to buy more
wine, and then he ordered Taleena to serve the sailors, admonishing her to
refill their crude goblets as soon as a cup was half-drained, and promising dire
punishments should a sailor's glass ever be empty.
The impatient mariners kept her moving every second, as they laughed and
drank and exchanged ribald tales of depraved adventures in other ports of call.
With so many bodies in a small room Taleena was soon perspiring profusely as she
circled the table with pitcher after pitcher of wine, enduring stoically the
weathered hands that reached under her brief tunic to grope her bare thighs with
ever-increasing boldness.
Her stint as tavern-wench ended unexpectedly when a newcomer appeared in
the doorway. The room erupted with shouts of "Bikira!" for it was indeed the
portly pace-drummer of the Thetis who now entered, carrying a tambour under his
arm. "Beat a tune on your drum, Bikira," Vinculus exclaimed. "So that our
serving-wench can dance for us!" Taleena backed away shaking her head 'no', but
Vinculus merely stared at her contemptuously. "Or would you rather dance for
the scum you row with," he sneered, knowing that she had no real choice.
The unknown sailor with the pan-pipes resumed the tune he had played
earlier, but this time at a livelier pace, which was given added life by the
rhythm the big-bellied African pounded out on his tightly-stretched drum. "On
the table, wench, so everyone can see," Vinculus added with a salacious leer as
the sailors cheered excitedly.
Blushing furiously, but having no real choice, Taleena allowed several
groping hands to push her on to the low table, and she began to dance
half-heartedly to the sensuous tune. "Faster, woman, unless you wish to dance to
a different tune!" Taleena glanced at the impatient speaker, recognizing the
resonant voice of Kananga, the tasker, who stood at the far end of the table,
fingering his own instrument, the whip that hung from his heavy belt.
Taleena swallowed with difficulty and tried to keep pace with the agile
flautist, dancing and spinning from man to man as Bikira quickened the tempo
until the rhythm of his drum took on the primitive driving impulse of a pagan
ritual. In such a frenzied atmosphere it was no wonder that the once-broad
circle of figures around the table drew closer, until none of the seven or eight
men were more than an arm's length away from the long-legged beauty on the
table. When the dance had begun, Taleena had still been wearing the filmy tunic
Nilea had given her to wear for Balbinus, but with each sensual pirouette,
eager, grasping, insistent hands tugged and tore at the fabric, gradually
revealing more and more of her splendid body, until at last one wild-eyed
drunken sailor clambered unsteadily atop the table and stripped the remnants of
Taleena's gown from her nude body while his comrades cheered his enterprise with
raucous cries of approval
Even though Bikira's drum still pounded, what had begun as a dance soon
degenerated into a desperate, hopeless flight from one pair of groping hands to
another. For an hour the sailors passed her nude body back and forth, as they
emptied their glasses time and again, and with every amphora of wine they
emptied they grew bolder, more licentious. Some of them took particular
pleasure in anointing Taleena's lovely breasts with rubicund puddles of wine
which they proceeded to lick from her flesh with greedy mouths, nuzzling her
wine-red nipples as if they were the most luscious of berries. She had struggled
desperately to escape the lewd caresses, and with some success, since she was
both sober and slippery. Once or twice she came close to breaking free from
their drunken grasp, like a fish from a fisherman's clutching hands, but in the
end she stood no chance, and soon the hands were everywhere, around her, on her,
under her, inside her.
* * *
But while their comrades' greedy hands explored Taleena's slippery,
wine-soaked body, Vinculus and Symmachus slipped away into an adjoining room
to prepare the way for even darker pleasures. Using their combined
craftsmanship, the roper and the carpenter had constructed an elaborate
contraption, a sinister means of restraint that Vinculus had dubbed the Sicilian
Sling, boasting about the good time he and his crony Symmachus had had using it
in a brothel in the sultry city of Syracuse.
The intimidating device featured a sturdy wooden bar that was slightly
narrower than a doorway, suspended from a sturdy ceiling beam by means of ropes
and pulleys. A length of coarse, heavy ship's hawser dangled from either end of
the bar, and once Taleena had been brought to the room, they quickly lashed her
joined wrists to the centre of the overhead bar which was just with reach if she
stood on her toes.
Once Taleena was securely bound to the bar the evil Cretan deftly passed
the loose end of the hawser between her legs, slipping it around her left thigh
and forming a tight-fitting sling. Then he clambered onto a footstool and tied
the tail end of the thigh-sling to the left side of the overhead bar. His
skilful hands were a blur as he put his countless hours of rope-work to good
use, repeating the process on her right leg. When he was done with the sling,
he signalled to Symmachus to hoist the bar a little higher, thus lifting
Taleena's sweat-soaked naked body a hand's width off the ground.
The naked young blonde groaned as her tautly-stretched arms and
shoulders were forced to bear some of her weight, but her weeks of pulling the
heavy oar had prepared her body well for this ordeal. Her fingers clenched the
bar in reflex, as her pendant posture caused the slings to tighten around her
shapely legs, cutting into the soft flesh of her inner thighs and spreading them
at the same time.
At this point Vinculus turned and began to outline the possibilities of
the diabolical contraption to the sailors who had followed him after he had come
to retrieve his voluptuous prisoner. After proudly extolling the finer points
of his device he stepped behind the girl in the sling and ran his greedy fingers
up and down her nude body while he announced, "There you have her, my friends:
the Messalina of Massilia, ready to take on all comers!"
Taleena had glared over her shoulder at him in furious resentment and
humiliation, since even in far-off Avernia, she had heard tales of the depraved
wife of the Emperor Claudius whose nymphomania had eventually led to her
undoing. But just as she turned she was greeted by a cascade of cold water
pouring down her body.
"That's it, Symmachus," Bikira's voice roared from the back of the room.
"Clean her up! The careless slut kept spilling wine on herself while she
danced!"
The sailors greeted the pacemaker's cruel jest with raucous laughter,
but none could deny that the sudden shower had left the helpless blonde fresh
and clean and dripping with desirability.
But Taleena was given little time to dwell on these taunts. No sooner
had Symmachus cast the empty water-bucket away, than the tall Aethiopian tasker
brusquely pushed him aside. Kananga stepped behind her suspended body in a
manner that manifested his certainty that, notwithstanding the hierarchy of rank
that prevailed onboard the Thetis, he, the tallest and strongest, was the
natural leader of the pack. The muscular African stripped off his garments and
placed himself a tergo, grabbing Taleena's thighs just above her knees and
lifting her dangling legs upward and back toward him until her knees were bent
at a forty-five degree angle and her toes were pointing toward the ceiling.
Then, with a bestial growl, he tightened his grip on her thighs, tilted her body
to the desired angle, and pulled her body roughly toward him, impaling her on
his thick, throbbing manhood.
Taleena's body surged against her bonds as the mighty tasker bored his
blood-engorged organ into her, while she tried to kick free as if there were the
slightest chance of escaping the dark, marauding phallus. No good. She twisted
and groaned in pain, a pain which was caused both by the unfamiliar place of the
intrusion and the unfamiliar size of the intruder.
But the tasker kept her firmly lodged on his punishing rod, and
continued pounding into her helpless body while his huge hands slid up her
rounded hips to caress her flanks before sliding up to her luscious breasts. But
now there was no pretence of rubbing olive oil into smooth and resilient flesh.
Now there were only ruthless, plundering hands which squeezed her breasts and
crushed her tender nipples in time with every savage thrust of his powerful
hips, while the other sailors unleashed hoarse shouts of approval. Finally
Kananga's coal-black body shuddered violently as the one-sided sexual combat
came to an end. Wordlessly the imposing African slipped his tunic back on,
adjusted the position of the whip that hung from his belt and, after receiving a
resentful glare from Vinculus, he turned toward the door and left.
But Taleena was given little time to recover from Kananga's brutal
assault. Bikira the drummer was next, taking a position in front of the dangling
Avernian and lifting her widespread legs upwards toward his shoulders. He
signalled to Symmachus to lower the pulley until Taleena's body was parallel to
the ground and her ankles rested on Bikira's shoulders while her long blonde
hair hung downward toward the floor like a golden waterfall. Then, as the
round-bellied drummer began pounding into her, Symmachus positioned himself at
the other end of her helpless body and offered his ardent erection to her mouth.
Taleena had turned away in disgust, for she had never even pleased her former
lover Stertius in that way. But the strapping Cilician had merely uttered a low
chuckle, seized her hair in his hands and jerked on it so brutally that the
beautiful galley-slave had no choice but to part her soft lips, allowing
Symmachus to insert his swollen manhood.
Her two tormentors had lacked the stamina of the mighty tasker, so their
vicious dual assault was mercifully brief, but when they were done there were
others to replace them. Worse, the artful slings had been so contrived that
while her arms remained tautly stretched upward toward the bar to which she had
been bound, her legs could be bent forward or backward in whatever manner
pleased her assailants.
* * *
The sailors' drunkenness had been both a blessing and a curse - a curse
in that their state of inebriation had stripped them of their inhibitions, a
blessing in that it sapped them of their strength, reduced their stamina, and,
eventually, lulled them into a stupor. When the last of the visitors had
satisfied himself and staggered out into the darkness, Taleena still hung from
the vicious Sicilian Sling, her hands bound overhead, her beleaguered body
balanced awkwardly on her toes, utterly exhausted and degraded, her blonde head
drooping onto her heaving chest.
Hearing a sound behind her, she twisted around to see that she was alone
with Vinculus, who had remained in the background throughout the evening, being
the only one of all the sailors who had not partaken liberally of the wine.
During her hours-long ordeal she had noticed the beetle-browed Cretan hovering
in the shadows, nodding in approval as his comrades performed indignity after
indignity upon her lovely body, occasionally barking out a word of encouragement
to her attackers. She wondered why the sadistic satyr had confined himself to
watching his lust-crazed companions, but as she felt his menacing eyes roving
over her exploited body, everything became clear.
He had waited because he had wanted to have her to himself.
"Did I not tell you in Alexandria that you would rue the day you
threatened me?" he asked, as he moved toward the suspended beauty slowly, his
face contorted into a malignant scowl. He stepped in front of her so that
Taleena could see the hatred in his eyes. Then he reached toward her jutting
breasts and seized her tender nipples between thumb and forefinger and squeezed
the pink buds until tears brimmed in her bright blue eyes. "Can it be that you
have forgotten telling me that Balbinus would have my head, wench?" he sneered.
"Well, I have not!" He rasped in a harsh, gravelly voice as he gave her nipples
a final vicious twist before giving each of her full breasts a stinging slap.
Then he planted himself squarely in front of Taleena. "The Fates have
cheated me of my pleasure twice before, wench," he snarled. "But now I shall
have my turn! This time there will be no Balbinus, no tasker, to stop me!"
The evil-eyed Cretan, his dark brow creased with malice, reached for one
of the small oil lamps which stood on a sill along one wall, and brought it
closely to Taleena's hanging form as if to illuminate the curves of her body.
Taleena stared at the lamp in horror, and then into the half-crazed eyes
of her tormentor. "You bastard!"
At this insult, Vinculus' face became contorted into a hideous rictus of
rage. "You'll pay for that, too, wench," he growled and blew out the flame,
carefully poising the bronze cruet over her chest. And with his dark eyes
blazing with long-suppressed rage, he tipped the cruet ever so slightly,
releasing a single drop of the heated oil onto the upper slope of Taleena's
quivering left breast.
"Aaahhh!" she gasped in pain. The oil, while hot, was not at the point
of boiling, and by the time it had splashed against her sensitive skin, it had
cooled just enough so that its effects, though painful, would not cause lasting
damage. A second drop followed, accompanied by a louder, longer "Aaaaaahhhhh!!"
as the Roper dripped the steaming oil onto a once-pinkish nipple now reddened by
the friction of clutching fingers and gnawing teeth.
Taleena tried desperately to twist her upper body away from her fiendish
tormentor, but the grinning Cretan was too quick for her, grasping her by her
long blonde mane to hold her in place. "Each morning I've had to watch while
that ignorant African attended to these beauties," he snarled. "But now I shall
have my turn!" he added, before upturning the lamp again, pouring the hot oil
onto both of her breasts, first in tiny droplets, and then in a thin, sizzling
trickle, coating the quivering orbs with a delicious, transparent sheen while
Taleena shook her upper body enticingly from side to side in a vain attempt to
throw off the searing liquid.
The wiry deck officer stepped behind her, just as the tasker had done
every other day onboard the Thetis, and began to massage her gleaming globes
vigorously, rubbing the hot oil into every pore of her firm, but yielding flesh.
His dry, sea-weathered fingers lingered longest on her nipples, first gently
prodding the oily buds to stiffness and then pinching and crushing them with
steadily increasing pressure, to the accompaniment of Taleena's muted gasps of
pain.
When he had manhandled her alluring breasts to his heart's desire,
Vinculus took the oil lamp and dripped the remaining, barely warm oil onto
Taleena's behind, letting the liquid trickle into the soft crease between her
buttocks. Then he gripped Taleena firmly by the hips and forced the aggressive
tip of his erect phallus against the muscular ring that guarded her last
unexploited orifice. He bucked forward against her, and spurred on by her
screams he continued with a succession of virile thrusts that stretched
Taleena's sparsely-oiled rosette, as if he could assuage his venomous anger with
each violent thrust. He held her firmly lodged on his punishing rod, even as his
hands slid up her flanks and then latched back on to her oil-slick breasts,
kneading them with the same thoroughness she had once used to work the clods of
dough in the house of Camillus Verus.
* * *
Weeks later, the dreadful images persisted in Taleena's mind, even
through closed eyelids. She saw her own body hanging, naked and quivering, in
the soldiers' lair, and she heard herself crying out in unison with Vinculus'
grinding thrusts. Remembering the ghastly images all too well, Taleena woke up
with a start to hear herself screaming, screaming her lungs out, as if the
volume of her anguish could somehow dispel the frightful images of the past as
her cries of pain had once scattered the seagulls on the Thetis. .
She was drenched with clammy sweat, her racing pulse slowly calming down
to more normal levels as she regained her senses. As her mind limped slowly back
to alertness, the horrifying image of her body wriggling under the virile
thrusts of the lust-crazed sailors, which had been so vivid in her dreams,
seemed to fade, as if her conscious mind had driven it back to the vile,
subconscious dungeon from which it had escaped.
She rose from her bed, feeling so light-headed and ill that she retched
weakly in a futile attempt to relieve her overpowering nausea. With shivering
hands she reached for the spouted amphora on her table and poured some water
from it into a beaker. As she lifted the beaker toward her quivering lips, the
shape of the slender amphora reminded her of the copies of Grecian urns that
some of the potters of her native Lugdunum had been fond of making. Some had
even gone so far as to copy the erotic couplings so common on Grecian pottery.
The Greeks had depicted all manner of couplings, but none was more common than
the a tergo position, the male behind the female - the one which the Aethiopian
had used to initiate her degradation, and which Vinculus had re-enacted in the
most bestial fashion.
Taleena downed the beaker of water hurriedly and then picked up the
innocent, but evocative amphora and threw it violently against the wall of her
cell, splashing water everywhere and sending shards of pottery flying across the
room. Somehow that burst of physical activity served to calm her, and she was
able to think of her ordeal at Massilia with more detachment, as if it had been
a vision or a nightmare, and not a brutal and degrading reality.
Had it only been three weeks since her orgy of suffering in the sailors'
lair? Perhaps in a way it was a gift from the gods that the strenuous demands
of the fighting school were so all-consuming. Her rape seemed to be a thing of
the distant past, and she thanked Mnemosyne, the merciful goddess of memory and
oblivion, for that.
* * *
For three days she had been at the sailors' mercy, three days of
unspeakable terror and degradation. It had been a Dionysian debauchery, and the
sailors, aside from Vinculus, had emptied countless flagons of wine. The
mariners had come and gone freely during the three days, leaving after they had
sated their lust to sleep off the effects of their intoxication, but returning
hours later for another bout of wine and wenching.
The virile sailors, their lust keen from sea-driven abstinence, had
taken her in every way imaginable, and in ways she could not have imagined,
plundering every part of her body with equal ruthlessness. They had been
insatiable and inventive, playful and cruel. They had taken her while she hung
from the swing, from which they suspended her again on the second day despite
her pathetic pleas; they had taken her while the curves of her body were crushed
against a rough stone wall; they had taken her standing up, they had mounted her
while she squirmed atop a creaky wooden cot, and they had ravished her on the
floor caked with mud from their boots. They had raped her while bending her
over the table on which she had danced so erotically, and when they became
winded, fat ones like Bikira and old ones like the white-whiskered helmsman of
the Triton, had forced her to her knees and pressed pointed sticks against her
firm young breasts until she pleasured them with her lips and tongue and throat.
Having been warned not to injure her, they had bathed her several times
each day, their many hands keeping her body fresh and clean for their pleasure,
and they fed her, albeit teasingly, making her crawl across the floor from one
to the other to earn her next bit of bread or her next sip of water
And when at last the sailors had gone, Vinculus always remained,
sleepless, it seemed, and tireless, now that the prey he had stalked so long was
in his clutches. During her nightmarish days and nights in Massilia, Taleena
came to know with painful certainty, why his comrades had dubbed him the Roper.
To be sure, while she had laboured at her oar, she had seen the beetle-browed
deck officer, his back to the starboard rail, fiddling endlessly with various
lengths of rope, fashioning knots of every description.
During those long hours at sea, his dark and vengeful eyes had rarely
left her naked body, while his skilful fingers flew along the rope, seemingly
inspired by her presence. But she had never imagined that the time would come
when those intricate knots would bite into her soft flesh. In Massilia,
whenever the prodigious lust of his fellow mariners waned, the evil-eyed Roper
had made the most of his opportunity. He demonstrated his rope-mastery on
Taleena's nude body again and again, enmeshing her in cocoons of bondage that
most men could not have imagined, much less contrived, all of them
uncomfortable, many of them painful, a few of them agonizing beyond words.
* * *
On the morning of the fourth day Taleena was brought back on board the
Thetis as it made ready to depart for Ostia. It was a rough, squally day, and at
first Balbinus watched with amusement as the tall blonde, her naked body
scratched and bruised and bearing rope-marks from her neck to her ankles, but
otherwise undamaged, was paraded down the aisle toward her place on the bench.
As Symmachus chained her to her oar, it was clear from her bearing that, while
her degrading ordeal might have temporarily stripped her of her dignity, it had
still not broken her spirit. She had been coerced, but not conquered, and
knowing that his men would report back to their master, despite her three days
of seemingly endless horror, Taleena had never once betrayed herself by begging
for mercy.
Balbinus, who had been supremely confident that this final degradation
would crush Taleena's rebelliousness, erupted in a tempestuous rage. His visage
was as dark as the low-lying clouds as he stormed around the deck, heaping
verbal abuse on Taleena, and questioning the manhood of crewmen and slaves
alike, still believing that Taleena had spent the days just past in their
company.
Taleena, her defiance having transformed itself into a resigned
indifference, stared for a moment at the oar that had taxed her body to its
limits and beyond, and then took it up, calmly looking out to sea while the
corpulent merchant continued to rail at heaven and earth.
But there remained one final indignity. After a few hours of manning
the oar with her bottom bare against the bench, Taleena, in a halting voice,
asked the Tasker if she might be given a bit of cloth to wear around her loins,
like the other rowers. The Thetis, after all, had taken on bales of textiles at
each stop on their journey. Kananga had listened to her request and then relayed
it to Balbinus, who sat under his canopy, out of the light rainfall that his
rage seemed to have drawn from the heavens. Balbinus glared at her, thought for
a moment and then pointed to some scraps of coarse burlap that had fallen from a
crate they had loaded earlier that morning.
The tasker had proceeded to fashion a makeshift loin-cloth from those
scraps and, disregarding Taleena's frantic attempt to withdraw her request,
Symmachus had released her from her chains just long enough to wrap the sacking
around her body. The strapping carpenter then pushed her roughly back down on
her bench, grinning at Taleena's obvious discomfort. After three days of sexual
abuse the prickly burlap fibres felt like bristles chafing and cutting at the
sensitive flesh of her sore loins. Her bare breasts heaving with righteous
anger at the never-ending degredations, Taleena looked around in growing
despair. Had she seen a chance of ending her miserable life by throwing herself
overboard, she would gladly have seized it, but once Symmachus had clicked the
iron fetters around her ankles shut once again, all chance of deliverance was
gone. The Fates, it seemed, were not disposed to let Taleena escape her ordeal
in that fashion; they had other plans for her.
It was the second time Taleena had made this leg of the journey, from
Massilia to Ostia, but whereas on the first she had been something of a pampered
guest, this time she was shackled naked to an oar. But for reasons she was
never to know, the tasker spared her the most punishing lashes on this journey.
Her water ration was restored to normal and in the evenings she sometimes found
morsels of meat or fruit in her porridge bowl. Had her stoic endurance earned
his respect, or did he, as a practical mariner, merely wish to keep one of his
rowers in good physical shape for the balance of the journey? Or was there a
darker purpose? Was his unexpected solicitousness merely a tactic that would
allow her to recover her fitness, so that she could endure the rigors of an even
more demanding orgy at the next port-of-call?
Although she did not know it at the time, the trip down the coast to
Ostia was to be Taleena's last voyage as a galley slave. For part of the
precious cargo of the Thetis, as it proceeded southward through the Mare
Tyrrhenium toward the Italian coast, was comprised of seven slaves, six male and
one female, who were destined for the school of Flavius Autronius...
* * *
Taleena stared at the ceiling of her Spartan quarters at the Flavian
compound as she retraced her final days on the galley. Despite the horrors of
her ordeal and her earlier outburst, a certain semblance of calm had come over
her now. Her stint at the galley was part of her history now, not her current
reality, now that the appearance of Flavius at the wharf at Ostia had spared her
from that dismal existence.
Each morning of her frightful tour of duty on the rowing bench she had
resolved to die on the bench rather than submit to the will of Balbinus. And
during the violent, three-day debauch at Massilia there had been many moments of
suffering and despair when she would gladly have embraced death. But her
deliverance from the galley, from the foul embrace of Balbinus and his bestial
crewmen, had given her new hope. She remembered Eudocles' patient acceptance
of life's cruelties, when he had recounted the difficult times in his own life,
which had seen much of both good and bad. What had he said? "Dum spiro,
spero." - "While I breathe, I hope." Surely it was a fine motto for anyone
living on the brink of despair, but especially for one, like herself, who had
plumbed the deepest depths of degradation, only to reappear like a phoenix from
the ashes to be confronted with new, even more daunting challenges.
Taleena sighed wistfully as she pictured her aged mentor's craggy face.
What advice would he give her now? she wondered. The more she thought, the more
certain she became that the Grecian sage would admonish her to do her best to
forget the vile events in her past from which no lesson of value could be
learned, and to focus on the present. For the present, as he had often reminded
her, was the father of tomorrow.
For now, unlike her dark, depressing days at the galley, Taleena could
see some light, however faint, at the end of her journey. If she fought with
courage and skill, survival and perhaps even freedom itself were possible. And
surely, after the cruel blows the Fates had rained on her, those implacable
deities owed her a certain debt. In the long run, did not the gods always side
with those who bore the hardship of life with imperturbable tenacity? Had she
not stood up well to the gruelling demands of her first week at the Ludus
Flavianus? And wasn't it the gods who had put the Thracian lanista in her place,
when Byrria had tried to take her to task? Imbued by a sense of righteousness,
Taleena took a deep breath as she fell back on her cot and rested her soft cheek
against a comforting shoulder, and a few moments later she fell into a gentle,
and this time dreamless sleep.
