A Tale of Ties and Binds - Chapter 27

Chapter 27. A Boule of Betrayal

It felt good to be a part of a professional army again. So much time had passed since the battle on Mytilene - one year, one moon and twenty-two days. And here I am, Penelope thought, marching towards Athens with an army of Spartans at my back.

Despite their many talents, the young Spartan girls did not count sociability among their strengths. They didn't sing or dance, and barely spoke unless spoken to. Even then, it was no more than a few words. Trained from birth to fight, no part of their education involved anything else. It was a shame, Penelope reflected, that all those massive pairs of tits would go unfondled in the tents come nightfall. Were Ellisia here, she'd likely call it an affront to the goddesses.

Every soldier carried her own gear: a bronze hoplon shield emblazoned with a red lambda, a bronze helm, a leather skirt and a long red chlamys cape. Spartans did not cover their breasts during a fight as a way of heralding their presence on the battlefield. And Adara's armour was even more impressive. Her bronze helm was adorned with a tall horsehair crest and she wore a chainmail mantle over her shoulders. In her hand she carried the phallic-tipped spear.

It had been just over a year since Penelope was carried out of Greece, bound naked in a wagon. Just over a year since she'd been accused of and enslaved for the Celt's treason. Just over a year since her sister Lydia had usurped the matriarchy for herself. Despite it all, Penelope couldn't help but smile. Every waking moment she'd dreamt of her revenge, and now she had an army.

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The walled city-state of Athens was everything Sparta refused to be.

Tall painted columns penetrated the sky, each magnificently sculpted to depict a famous battle. The Athenians were portrayed as nubile young maidens with long flowing hair and soft curves, and the enemies were sharp and monstrous and many. The gorgeous Athenians were always victorious in the end, and the enemies were always magically transformed into beauties once locked in the confines of rope. Bustling temples were brimming with devotees to the many goddesses, bringing food and wine and daughters to please the priestesses. It was a time of many religious festivals and the holy women were in need of new disciples and bedwarmers.

There were plenty of slaves too. Athens was a major trading port and filtered nearly half of all the slaves this side of the Aegean. There were Phoenician slaves with their dusky skin and hazel eyes, Iberian slaves from the other side of the Mediterranean with black hair and tanned skin, and even a few redhead Galls with deep green eyes. Chained or roped (or both) to their places in the auction galleries, the slavers were selling them off one after the other.

Above it all stood the Acropolis - the birthplace of the proud Athenians' experiment in governance they called democracy. The slaves would be fortunate to stay in the city. Though their chances of being freed where no greater here than anywhere else, they could at least revel in the experience of democracy. Every season, the names of citizens would be drawn from lot. Some would become rulers in the Boule of High Mistresses. Others would become the slaves of those mistresses, but only until the season changed. A slave in Athens may have the good fortune of finding their mistress' name picked out to become a slave, which may even make their relationship less polarised. After all, a former slave is very rarely cruel to her erstwhile peers.

The Spartans made camp outside the walls, refusing to sleep anywhere a wall was protecting them. Penelope didn't argue (not that she could) and left Princess Adara in charge of her countrywomen while she went to meet with Ellisia and her crew at the steps of the Parthenon. They should have sailed into port several days earlier with the task of petitioning the Boule for military assistance.

Once inside the city, it was a busy climb up the steps to the Acropolis. The pedestrians on their way up were excited and those on their way down had happy smiles on their faces. The reason for this became apparent when the Parthenon came into view.

At the base of every pillar stood four phallic slaves with their hands interwoven in chains. A single stretch of white linen was wrapped around their heads and through each of their mouths, gagging them all. Their meats stood tall and as hard as the columns to which they were tied, though many were obscured from view between the thighs of dozens of women. Most were freewomen come for a good time, a few were merchants looking for new phallic stock, and some were slaves themselves who were being forced to fuck (not that they were complaining, not that they could with gags of their own).

But neither Ellisia nor her crew were anywhere to be seen. It was just naked slaves and randy freewomen around the Parthenon.

"They should be here," Penelope said.

"Maybe they left to find a whorehouse," offered Daphne.

"Or maybe they're trapped in a whorehouse because the mistress tied them to the bed to use as practice for their new slaves." Serena gazed off into the distance with a nostalgic smile. "That happened to me once. Good times. We should check the whorehouses."

"Thoroughly," added Daphne.

"It's probably more likely she's tied up in some bureaucratic knots," Penelope replied. "Even so, it wouldn't hurt to check everywhere. The pleasurehouses should be near the port so be sure to check the ship on your way. We'll meet back on The Mermaid's Revenge come sunset."

Arriving alone in the busy agora, Penelope found it occupied by the largest slave market she had ever seen. Entire boatloads of teenage girls and phallics were on sale, chained neck-wrist-neck-wrist, discounted for the lot under the hot sun. Some were dark-skinned, some were pale, and some were as bronze as the Athenian freewomen frantically thrusting their gold purses towards the merchants. But Penelope had no time for barters and slave trains.

The air was stuffy inside the council chambers of the Boule of High Mistresses. It was once a temple to Athena, the matron goddess of battle captives, Penelope recognised. All around the room, bronze rings hung from the walls where battle captives from many generations ago would have been held against their will, from a time before the discovery of ironworking. Some of those captives would have been from Thessaly in the times when the city-states of Larissa and Athens wrestled for control of the peninsula. Penelope wondered if they were still used.

There were ten seats curved around the raised dais in the centre of the room, though only six of those were occupied by a High Mistress. A slave attended each, chosen by lot from the citizenry of freewomen and enslaved for a season. Those slaves sitting on the left of the dais were serving their Mistresses wine, feeding them combs of honey, or filing their nails with a coarse shell. Each was clothed with a thin tunic of near transparent white linen, wore soft curls in their hair and had shiny bronze bracelets at their wrists with small rings in them in case they needed to be bound particularly effectively. But the slaves on the right of the dais did not seem to be as fortunate in their jewel-covered charges.

The slave third-most on the right had an easy yet demeaning task. Her thin-faced and pinched-nosed Mistress must have recently given birth because her breasts were enormous. The slave was kneeling between the Mistress' legs with her hands bound behind her back and her lips puckered around the lactating teats. She dribbled milk from time to time as the High Mistress shifted in her seat.

The slave second-most on the right did not have the luxury of the desk, for she was the desk. On her hands and knees, the young girl supported her Mistress' sandalled feet, her arms and legs shaking intensely. She was gagged with a rolled up ball of white linen, perhaps as a reminder of the clothing she was not permitted to wear to hide her nudity. It filled her mouth and bulged out her cheeks. In contrast, the High Mistress with a helm of short brown hair was as relaxed as a cat in her comfortable throne.

The slave on the furthest right was entirely naked save a thin iron collar at her neck. She was lying face-up on the Mistress' desk with her mouth wide open to accommodate for the platform of the cup forced between her teeth. There were a few drops of red wine on the desk beside her head and some tell-tale marks of twisting around her hardened nipples. The High Mistress leaning over her had long hair and expressive brown eyes.

The lactating High Mistress beckoned the next petitioner with a curl of her long-nailed finger. "Step forward. State your name, township and desire of the Boule." Penelope stepped forward and cleared her throat.

But before she could open her mouth, the High Mistress using a slave as a desk protested. "I do not recall any Athenians having hair as bronze as yours. Are you foreign?"

Penelope nodded, slightly offended. "I am Thessalian, and a Greek like you."

"Only Athenians may petition the Boule," said the High Mistress with the goblet-gagged slave and the expressive brown eyes.

"Now, Thalia," said one of the High Mistresses seated on the left with her hair in a beehive, "perhaps this traveller from Thessaly wishes to experience the prosperity that is our beloved democracy. What is your name, stranger?"

"Thank you, Your Honour. My name is Penelope and I suspect I am not the first Thessalian to seek audience with the Boule recently." Ellisia should have been here within days earlier.

"This is true, Penelope of Thessaly," said another High Mistress on the left with a frilly white lace chiton. "Why, not ten days ago we had a messenger from the Queen of Thessaly." She squinted suspiciously. "Are you another come to annoy us with more of your monarch's promises of slaves and as much weight in gold and silver for military alliance? If so, the answer is still a resounding no."

"Suffice to say, I am not," Penelope said proudly. But why didn't the High Mistress mention Ellisia? "As I told Empress Sappho of Sparta and Queen Adrianne of Crete, Titania cannot be trusted. She betrayed her state and then usurped the former monarch. An alliance with her would be fragile and short-lived."

The lactating High Mistress scoffed, spilling half a mouth-full of milk from the slave suckling her teat. "You call your own queen a traitor, yet you actively denounce her rule. Surely the traitor is you?"

That brought back painful memories of the dungeon, the stale bread, the disgusting milk and that annoying stone in the floor between her legs. "I am loyal to Thessaly, Your Honour. Titania has legitimised her rule with foreign powers from barbarian lands and she will bring the same savagery to all of civilised Greece." And now the rub. "A war is coming to Athens. This is my reason for coming."

The High Mistresses on the right scoffed dismissively but those on the left began muttering between themselves. One spoke up to say, "War should be the last resort - diplomacy should be the first port of call for any responsible state. Indeed, diplomacy is free, yet war is costly."

"How is gold an issue when Athens is the richest city-state in all of Greece?" Penelope asked.

Another High Mistress on the left raised her head to speak. She had her slave curled up in her lap with the slave's head nestled between her breasts as though nursing a small child, except the slave's wrists were chained into that position at her bracelets.

She replied, "The price of war is not measured in gold, but in noble Athenians lost to slavery. You may recall the history of our two states, when the free hands of Athens were hopelessly overpowered and bound by mighty Thessalian knots. How many more of our women would have been lost to the ropes and chains of your whorehouses and slave auctions if not for our naval prowess, I wonder? What riches can you possibly offer that could outweigh the freedoms lost to thousands of our women?"

Penelope didn't expect it to be simple. A tight-lipped whore with a headache was easier than politicians. "I offer my word. If you join us in this fight, we may lose. But defeat is certain if you cower behind your walls. The Trojans will enslave all those who stood in their path and then they will turn on whoever remains standing. Athens will be bound in Trojan knots. That is my offer."

"Bah!" Thalia spat. The sudden outburst shook the goblet-gagged slave and a small drop of wine flew out onto the desk. Thalia ignored the groaning of her slave as she twisted one of the girl's nipples between thumb and forefinger. "Who is this woman before us? What right does this Thessalian traitor have to make threats? We would be fools to value the poisonous words of this exile over the trusted tidings of a noble queen."

Exile? thought Penelope. I never mentioned I was exiled. A terrible thought crossed her mind.

"Why, we cannot vouch for the nobility of this Thessalian queen," said the High Mistress with the frilly chiton. "She is descended from barbarians, after all."

"Indeed," agreed the High Mistress with the beehive hair, "but I can see there is still much that needs to be discussed on this matter. Is there anything else you desire of the Boule, Penelope?"

Just an answer. "If I may ask, why are there ten seats for only six High Mistresses?"

The High Mistress with the frilly chiton gave answer. "By law, only ten of us are selected per season. Our seat is not refilled should we go missing before our term is completed."

The terrible thought grew worse. "And these four High Mistresses who have gone missing... would you say they were more like you or your peers across the dais?"

The High Mistress gave a quizzical look at Penelope. "Why, I suppose we tended to agree on many political matters more often than not. What is the meaning of this enquiry?"

Before Penelope could reply, the High Mistress with the huge tits cleared her throat with obnoxious volume. "Speaking of enquiries, the day grows dark and we had better retire. We are done with you for now, Thessalian. Make your way to the door. We shall reconvene on the morrow when we have recovered our wits."

A pair of guards appeared to escort Penelope outside to the fresh air, though she barely noticed the change. Her thoughts were elsewhere. Why had Ellisia not met with the Boule earlier? Why were there so many missing High Mistresses? Why were half of them so opposed to what she had to say? And how did the one named Thalia know Penelope was exiled from Thessaly? She feared the answers were all connected somehow. "I have to find Daphne... and Serena."

She started back towards the port. Though the day was still a while from sunset, the tall buildings cast long shadows through the busy Athenian streets. There was too much commotion, too much noise, too much heat, and not enough air to breath or space to think. Penelope ducked into an isolated side street to escape.

She left the political district behind her as she traversed her way through the alleys of the slave market district and then into the military wharf where the Athenian navy was docked. The alleys were thinner here, and darker too.

Penelope had only just figured out the truth of what was happening when her path was barred by a pair of shadowed figures wearing dark blue cloaks. They said nothing as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Penelope heard footsteps behind her as two more cloaked figures blocked her escape back the way she came.

She unclipped the whip from her belt. It would be near useless in the confines of the alley, but it would hopefully suffice as a threat to her would-be thieves. "I don't want any trouble," she announced, "but if it's a fight you're looking for, you've picked the right person."

Then a fifth woman appeared, uncloaked. She had expressive brown eyes and long hair. "Not to worry," said Thalia. "I plan on avoiding the fight altogether, though the trouble will be all yours, Thessalian."

Ah, so this is how it is? "Come to kidnap me like you kidnapped Ellisia? Where is she!?"

Thalia was impressed and squealed a high-pitched coo, her eyes flashing in the dark alleyway. "Oh, you are a clever one - a bit too clever for my liking. It's fortunate my peers in the Boule are so thick-skulled or else you'd have given the game away."

"Tell me where my friend is, and maybe I won't have to humiliate you in front of your goons." Penelope cracked her whip. "And after that, you can tell me what you've done with the High Mistresses who opposed your schemes."

The sly politician tut-tutted. "You'll find out all in due time, I'm sure. But for now, you need to be silenced. Guards, seize the exile."

All four goons were on Penelope at once. She managed to close the lash of her whip around one of their ankles, though it did little good with the guard advancing towards her. They caught Penelope's fists mid-punch and forced her down to her knees. Though she knew she was stronger than each of them, she wasn't stronger than all of them together. For all her struggling, she achieved nothing save a sudden flash of sweat. She found herself uncharacteristically calling for help. "Help! I'm being attacked! Someone!"

Thalia didn't seem to mind and calmly approached the helpless Penelope. She reached into a pouch at her belt and produced a small fist-sized pot and a silk handkerchief. "It never ceases to amaze me the wonders science has to offer," she said, twisting out the cork as a cloud of fog burst from its mouth. Thalia upturned the liquid contents into the silk, staining the white fabric a pale grey.

The smell was undesirably familiar. It brought back memories of barbarian longboats and peculiar witches. Too late, Penelope remembered not to breathe it in just moments after Thalia had firmly clamped the handkerchief down across her mouth and nose.

The effect was instantaneous. Penelope fought back with all the strength she had. But her senses throbbed and spasmed such that she could no longer make sense of her surroundings. The sounds of the ocean filled her mind. Shadows danced and spun around her. There was a sudden respite from the heat as her skin flushed cold, then hot, then cold again. And the strange scent was quickly sapping her strength. She could feel the goons relaxing their grip on her wrists. It seemed they didn't consider her a threat anymore. Annoyingly, they were right.

"Hmmph!" Penelope pleaded. "Dmphn... Srrnm... hmmph..."

"Shhh," Thalia whispered, still pressing the potion-laced rag across Penelope's mouth. "Just relax and breathe deep. Nobody's coming to help you."

Then it happened. Penelope's arms went limp, her legs were all but useless, and her head felt like a foggy white cloud had taken residence inside. She felt uncontrollably dizzy and for a moment feared falling, but then the ground came up to catch her first.

Continued in Chapter 28

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