Lady Ragenta: The Assessment Part 4

 

Lady Ragenta

In

The Assessment Part 4

 

Street of Brands Outside House of Chains

Victoria

 

          Ragenta or Enta as she had been addressed as prior to leaving the House of Chains. The slave house that she actually owned, yet had just been treated as and then escorted out of on a leash like she was a slave herself. To be sure that no one who might see her right now would guess that she was the Lady Ragenta, the Slaver of Victoria. They would only see a auburn haired slave as she was bare foot, wearing an skimpy and revealing slave tunic, a slave collar locked on her neck, her wrists securely held behind her back in slave bracelets, her lower face covered with the wide leather strap of a slave gag, and finally she was being led on a leash held by a free man bearing the green strips on the sleave of one of the caste of Physicians.

Upon leaving the house, Ragenta had start screaming into the gag for him to remove it so she could speak. Dantor had pulled her close by the leash and told her in a voice that only she could hear that if she had any hope of the collar coming off her pretty neck that she had best be the most well-behaved slave from this point on as his fingers tapped a slave whip that was clipped to the belt of his tunic.

          The plan had been she was to have gone to the House under the name Lady Andraus to be given a slave assessment and to have her body documented as a slaves would be for their ownership papers. That had gone badly when the hired man Norac decided that she had a body of a slave and should end up branded in the pens instead of released when all was done. Professionally speaking going off the reactions of those present when the slaver’s caress had been administered to her, Ragenta begrudgingly admitted that had she witnessed a woman react as she was recorded doing, then she would have seen the woman as potentially collar meat.

          She stumbled a little as she followed on the leash. This was something new to her, that walking barefoot on the smooth stones of the street that were warmed by the sun. Ragenta had tried several times with her muted moans and whimpers coming through the gag to get Dantor’s attention to stop and remove the gag so she could tell him of her suspicions. Her pleas were ignored as if she were a slave. Then seeing her own reflection in the glass of a shop as they passed. She saw only a well-controlled slave looking back at her. She was the slave on the leash following Dantor. Lady Ragenta was being led through the streets of Victoria as a slave. Was she really now a slave? She had not confessed herself as a slave. However, she had under a false name agreed to be assessed for her value as if she were a slave and to be treated as a slave while this was being done. She had also consented to have her body documented as a slaves would be. She had even addressed the woman Kiana as mistress when begging her to stop using the slave goad on her. Ragenta had used the device many times on slaves she felt needed it. Now having felt it, she had to wonder how freely she would use it on others if she was ever able to do so again.

          Another thing that gave her hope that she had not made a slave was that like Dantor who held her leash and put a collar on her, she was of Victoria. While it could still happen to be enslaved by another of her own city, there usually had to be either a self-declaration of the woman being a slave or a judicial order condemning her to slavery. Then the stringing bite of a switch across the back of her thighs brought her back to the reality of her situation. As a free woman had struck her seeing her as a slave.

          “Why aren’t you on your knees you shameful slut in the presence of free!” The woman in the robes with colors of a baker demanded then spit on her. Dantor had paused to talk with someone and Ragenta had without thinking just stopped and waited for him to move one. Quickly as Dantor turned to see what the commotion was about, she dropped to her knees on the stones of the street, kneeling as a tower slave with a free woman present. Again, another first for her, being on the receiving end of a free woman’s wrath towards a slave or one she saw as a slave. The woman turned and left.

          “I warned you, slave” Dantor laughed amused at her plight. Then to her horror after the woman had departed, with the toe of his sandal, he nudged her knees apart, so she was no longer in the tower slave position. “A slave with your responses is meant to be a pleasure slave for sure.” Then with a wicked smile, “or a kettle and mat slave.” That got a couple of indignant grunts from the kneeling girl. Dantor dismissed the girl at his feet on his leash and returned to speaking with the man who was taking great interest in the kneeling slave. The man in the leather of a metal worker had even made an offer to buy her for 75 copper tarsk which was all that he could afford. Ragenta didn’t breathe easy until the offer had been rejected. How much she was at the mercy of Dantor at the moment was not lost on her.

          The conversation ended, the slack in the leash was taken up as she quickly rose to her feet to follow him as he moved down the street once more. She was puzzled by the fact she had no clue where he was taking her. The way to his house and laboratory had been in the opposite direction they had taken leaving the House of Chains. Dantor had been parading her around the city as a leashed slave for almost an ahn. Finally, near one of the gates she saw a group of guardsmen in the tunics of Dantor’s house gathered about a slave wagon up a head of them. She knew that she had been brought to the city in a slave wagon, was this her way back to the villa?

          Ragenta didn’t have long to wonder as Dantor handed her leash to one of the guardsmen who led her to the back of the wagon. To them she was just another slave nothing more.

          “The gag will be removed, but you will remain gagged by Master’s will till you are told you can speak. Nod once for yes if you understand.” The guard holding her leash told her. She knew that she had no choice but to obey so she nodded once she understood. The guard behind her did remove unbuckle that gag as she was told, but he also releases the disrobing loop of her slave tunic at her left shoulder allowing the thin garment to fall away from her body and down to the stones at her feet. Ragenta now in public view wore nothing but the collar and chains of a slave. She did not know which to be more horrified by that she had been publicly stripped or that no one saw anything but another slave. The leash removed she was helped up the step at the back of the wagon and into the wagon.

          Inside she saw another naked slave with a rep-cloth sack over her head. The slave had her back to the left side of the wagon and her legs to the center where they had ankles chains looped about the central bar set in the floor of the wagon. Ragenta soon found herself seated with her back to the right side of the wagon. Her ankles were pulled to the central bar and locked in ankle chains the same as the other slave. Only then was she pushed forward towards the center and the slave bracelets removed from her wrists. She could find no fault in how they handled her. There was not a ihn that she was not secured in some way.

          “The other slave has been gagged by Master’s will same as you. You will be hooded like her. When the wagon is clear the gates, I will knock on the side of the wagon and both of you may remove the hoods and then speak.” The guard spoke to her. Nodding her head in understand just before her own sack was drawn over her head. She heard the guard move away from them and out of the wagon. The rear gate closed locking them inside. They sat there in silence feeling and heard the escorts and the wagon starting to move. She was starting to wonder despite Dantor’s assurances whether she was going to get out of this collar again.

 

Slave Wagon West of Victoria

¼ Pasang from the West Gate

 

          Ragenta had placed her hand on the floor of the wagon to each side of herself to keep her steady. This was her first ride, well first ride that she was conscious for anyway, in the back of a slave wagon. She was not sure that she cared for it as her and the other slave rode in silence. The silence was broken by a hard rapping at the head of the wagon behind where the driver was seated.

          “Leta, Sena, hoods off.” A male voice commanded. This puzzled Ragenta as she lifted her hand to the sack on her head. Who were Leta or Sena? One was the other girl with her. But did they think that she was the other slave named? Or had she been given a new name, a slave name. Then the voice called, “Sena, maybe you should dance for us in the barracks tonight if your Master says your up to it.”

          That last comment had brought a laugh from the other slave in the back with her. Then a voice she thought she knew called back.

          “I don’t think that she will be feeling up to dancing for you and the other Masters for a few days, Master.” Ragenta knew that voice and pulled the sack off of her head to look into the green eyes of the slave on the other side of the wagon. “Greetings my beautiful daughter.” Leta was smiling back at her.

          “Mother!” Ragenta gasped in disbelief. “I thought you were dead?”

          “No, Enta,” Leta smiled leaning across the wagon to take her daughter into her arms for the first time in many years, “I am very much alive and have much to tell you. Master was kind enough to give us this time alone to talk.”

          “Dantor, knew you were my mother and has kept you a slave all this time?” the fury building in her as she held her mother tight while tears ran down her face for the first time in many years.

          “Master,” she corrected her daughter. “He is our Master.” Tapping the slave collar locked on Ragenta’s neck. “And yes I have been a slave for a very long time. I have belonged to Master, since your father passed to the City of Dust. Before that I was your father’s slave since you were a very little girl and before you were born.”

          “You were father’s slave?” she drew back in shock and disbelief.

          “Yes, dear. I was a born and breed to be a pleasure slave who was bought as a girl, who was just about ready to be marked and start pleasure training by the House of Chains when your father was just starting to become his own man. I was a gift for your father as his first slave. He put me in a house collar and branded me himself when it was time. His father saw that he was growing too fond of his slave girl. So, I was sent to the pens and trained in the arts of dance and pleasure so that I might better please those who owned me. I was to be sent to the block when I completed my training. But it was decided that I was prime breeding stock and sent to the pleasure gardens of your grandfather. It was while I was sent to serve as the entertainment for a party he was given that your father saw and found me once more. I was sent to him from the gardens several times. One day I was given the releaser and told I was to be breed.”

          “I was a born a slave!” Ragenta exclaimed. This thought shook the foundation of her world. If her mother had been conceived to be a pleasure slave then some of those traits would have been passed on to her. Looking at her mother, a chained naked slave beside her. Then at herself, chained naked and feeling the weight of the slave collar locked on her, they were almost identical. While one was clearly older but close enough that the Slaver instincts in her screamed for them to be sold as a set. Years of working with her father had honed her instincts to look at the most marketable collar meat and the best way to get the highest price. Then the horror of the fact that she was thinking of her own sale as a slave struck her. Was she actually ever free? Was Kallis her father? Or was her father some kajirus selected for his looks and body? If the latter was the case then she was a slave her whole life. This cause color to drain from her face. Leta saw this and read her mind.

          “Yes Kallis was your father. I was not sent to the breeding racks but spend the following weeks chained to the couch of your father. This was after your father had taken over the House and desired me as his personal slave. When it was learned that I was with a child. So that our child was not born a slave. I was freed and became his companion.”

          While hugging and cuddling with her mother she felt the dina burnt into her mother’s left thigh press against her thigh. The clinking of chains that locked their ankles to the central bar as well as being naked except for the slave collars of Dantor locked upon them sent a chill down the spine of Ragenta. She looked like a younger version of her mother and the only real distinction was that tiny slave brand her mother wore. Dantor had told her that she would be remaining a slave till the next passing of hand. Was this so that she could feel and see the life of her mother and what might be coming for her as well?

          “If father freed you how are you a slave to Dantor, mother?” she asked.

          “I was his free companion for over a year after you were born.” Leta explained. “But there were those who knew my past and sought to use it against Kallis. I received smiles and pleasant talk to my face but knew that when my back was turned I was laughed at and once heard myself referred to as Kallis’ pleasure slut. And it wasn’t just the free that started to make me feel uncomfortable, but the slaves as well. I felt like I was getting looks from the slaves that knew what I was. The hidden insolence in glances that said that I was no better than them so why was I not on my knees scrubbing floor or serving in the hall. I finally had all that I could take and begged your father to put me back in a collar. He reluctantly agreed but we both knew that I was a liability even as a slave in the House. So with Master’s help, I came down with a serious illness that requires me to rest at his Villa while I tried to recover. At the Villa I was placed back in the slave collar of your father and served Master as a house slave.”

          “But if you were owned by father how did you become Dant…” her voice trailed off after a stern look from her mother, “Master’s slave?”

          “When before your father died, things were set in motion that should anything happened to him. Ownership of the slaves your father kept at the Villa was transferred to Master. Otherwise, when he passed, I would have been returned to the House of Chains slave pens for future sale with the other slave that was kept at the Villa. The transfer of three slaves probably would not have been brought to your attention. And even if it had been, the names and numbers would have likely meant nothing to you as you believed me long dead.”

          “So now that I know you are alive. Soon as I get out of this collar, I will bring you home with me. I swear, mother” looking to Leta dead serious.

          “First off, you had best start calling me Leta and not mother” smiling and kissing her daughter’s cheek. “Second, you may come to the villa, and I will tend to your needs there. But forget any notion of buying us from Master. Even before the death of your father, his visits became fewer and fewer. During that time, I grew closer to Master. I did more that clear his house. As a slave I served him in all ways. I always cared for Master as he is a good man and treated me well for being a slave. Now I love my Master as much as I loved your father. Please don’t hate me. But it is for your own protection as well. Master has told me about your partners Atilas and Spectus. Atilas sounds like the type who would overlook the truth about me. Spectus on the other hand would use me to put you in chains as well.” The more that Ragenta thought about it, the more that she knew her mother was right. Spectus would look for a way to make it appear that she was the product of two house slaves being bred and she was legally born a slave and thus a slave of the House of Chains. If done with the right people gathered, the kef or dina would be burned into my thigh before it was found that there was no real proof. But once the thigh was marked then it would be too late, and I would then be a slave of the House of Chains from that point till I was sold to my next owner.

“You said that there were others besides you that were owned by our family?” Ragenta asked then watched as Leta got quiet and slowly chose the words that she would be using.

“There were once three slaves of Kallis on the Villa of Master. Myself, who you now know about.” Leta paused, “Master had a girl called, Eta, and like me she loved her Master very much and didn’t want to be free. So, your father put her in his collar so Master could not free her.” Smiling at the memory of her friend. “And Master would have if he could. He hated seeing her as a slave. But she was a proud girl who would have died in childbirth had it not been for Master who saved her. So, she felt that she owed Master a life debt and would serve Him for the rest of her life. Which she did. One day not long before your father died, Eta was killed when fell into the river and was taken by a river shark.”

“You said there were three? That is only two of you.”

“Yes, there was a third slave that your father never knew about. And please forgive me for what I am about to tell you, Enta” Using the slave name that Master had used so that none heard her addressed by her true name. “I wanted to give your father the son that he wished for so badly. Master gave me the releaser a second time and during a visit while you slept. We conceived another child. Only I did not have the son I had hoped for but another daughter I called Sena. The two of you even played together once, not knowing who the other was. Then when you got to the age where you would ask too many questions that would be too hard to answer and being our daughter not satisfied with vague answers. So, when you came out I hid, and you were told I was dead. And I stayed hidden with your sister.”

“I have a sister?” Ragenta was shocked.

“Yes, but unlike you, I was a slave when she was born, and so she has been a slave since birth. When she became a woman, she was marked and collared like the rest of the slaves. This was something that your father never knew.” Before she could go on or Ragenta could press for more. They heard the driver saying that there was smoke coming from the area of the Villa. The wagon came to a halt and there was much commotion outside. “I must say this quick as I don’t know what is about to happen. Sena is at the Villa dressed in disguised as you for this foolish adventure of yours. Despite doing everything that I could to convince her otherwise, she believes that your father and you both not only knew about us but left us at the Villa as slaves. She resents you and wishes to make you suffer as a slave while she is able at the Villa. If anything happens to me, I beg you to find her and try and make peace with her.” Before Leta could say more the rear gate was opened and a guard leaned in to release their ankles from the chains. Then taking them both by the hair pulled them from the wagon where they were forced to their knees behind the wagon.

“We will precede by foot through the forest it will be quicker. Secure and coffle the slaves.” Dantor ordered. Instantly, both Leta and Enta’s hands were pulled behind them and bound with binding fiber. Yet another first for Enta that she was not sure that she cared for. She liked it even less when one end of a rope was knotted about her neck then tied about the neck of Leta while the end was held by one of the guardsmen. None noted the lack of the brand on her thigh, she was naked and collar thus she was a slave as far as they were concerned. Now she was a bound and coffled slave, helpless to defend herself or go anywhere other then where she was led by the man holding the other end of the rope.

“Up slaves.” They were ordered as the were led into the forest at the end of the small column of men. To what they did not know.