A Tale of Ties and Binds - Chapter 29

Chapter 29. A Snatching of Scouts

That night would be one to remember. There was a great celebration in the city of Athens to mark the start of the war. Dancers skipped and pranced through the crowds while bards sang of noble heroines and their great deeds. Rope merchants flung their wares from their balconies and whores opened their legs to anyone with a patriotic spirit. The streets were soon overrun with women, citizens and slaves alike, minds and bodies locked in heated orgy.

But Penelope was not among them. After co-signing the declaration of war, she took up Peitho's offer and spent the night in the High Mistress' bed. Peitho's lips tasted as sweet as Penelope had remembered, and her prowess was as skilled as Penelope had imagined. They gave everything to each other than night, fearing it could be the last time they'd ever have together.

The taste still lingered and the memory still left a warm feeling in her loins by the morning. The sun had risen on a city of women donning their white boiled leather armour and matching plumed helms, slinging their nets across their backs, shouldering their shields, and clipping long oiled whips to their belts.

A fleet of one-hundred proud Athenian triremes set sail from the port. At the head was Ellisia, Matriarch of the Thunderbolt, and her band of Hera's Daughters on their ship, The Mermaid's Revenge. Their destination was the coast of Thessaly; their mission to blockade and intercept Trojan vessels. The fastest ships would make due course for the Hellespont on the opposite side of the Aegean Sea to cut off the Trojans' land bridge into Greece.

The army would march north into the Thessalian heartland to engage and defeat the Trojan forces, to rout their Thracian allies back across the mountains, to liberate Thessalian countrywomen from their bondage, and to tear Queen Titania the Celt from her ill-gotten throne by whatever means necessary.

---

"Penelope, wake up!"

The captain rose from her sleep. They'd been marching almost non-stop for seven hot days and crossed into Thessalian territory only the morning before. It had been eerily quiet since then. Townships were deserted, farms were left to ruin and livestock ran freely across the fields. "Serena? It's the middle of the night. What is it?"

The smile on the golden-haired barbarian's face stretched from ear to ear. "Daphne's returned with the outriders. They've captured some scouts!"

The soldiers had gathered to cheer and taunt as the Trojan captives were dragged through the camp behind a horse. The Greek outriders had stripped them of their scaled leather armour, bound all their hands together into one giant knot and tightly gagged each of them with their confiscated whips.

The loyal red-headed companion skipped happily alongside them, prodding them with her finger and laughing as they struggled to keep up with the procession. Daphne's green eyes lit up when she saw her captain standing outside the tent. "Captain! We caught some Trojans! They were sitting by their campfire and we sneaked up on them in the dark! We had two of them squirming in hogties before the rest figured out what was happening! The fidgety one is mine."

"I'm very proud of you," Penelope smiled as the captives were dragged past. "So what will you do with your prisoner?"

That made Daphne pout. "She won't be mine for a while. The General gave orders that all prisoners would be taken to her for a personal interrogation. I'll hopefully get her afterwards."

General Xena and Penelope did not get along amicably. The captain was quiet, thoughtful and calculating. The General was loud, impulsive and unnervingly spiteful towards non-Athenians and especially non-Greeks. She sneered every time she saw Serena just because of her barbarian heritage. The only reason she'd offered herself to lead the cause was to get the Celt off the Thessalian throne.

Penelope didn't agree with Xena's methods either. Where the captain would use her wits to get information from untalkative captives, the General had a fondness for using certain toys and techniques that would inspire loose lips and willing tongues.

"Perhaps you could share her with me?" Serena asked optimistically.

"Naturally," Daphne said with a wink. "But you have to watch the first round. She's all mine the first time. I have to break her in."

Penelope combed her fingers through her matted bronze hair. "I wasn't counting when they passed - how many captives did you take?"

"Five!" Daphne shouted enthusiastically.

"Five?" That's a good haul. "I should probably be there when the General interrogates them. They might know something about what my younger sister has done with my Household."

Penelope left her two companions behind to share war stories while she went hunting after the Trojan captives. If not for the raucous sound of hooting following the prisoners, it would have been easy to get lost in the camp. The Athenians had set their tents out neatly in a grid formation with fires and supply wagons dispersed evenly between - typical of their proclivity towards all things orderly and mathematical. Their tents were plain and bore no sigils or distinctive colouring to declare which Households had taken up residence where, and gave no clue as to which families were in bed with whom. Of course, the Athenians had given up on such systems when they adopted their strange ideals in governance. Penelope thought the Athenian idea of equality was all quite lacklustre.

Unfortunately, the procession had passed the patch of trampled grass where the Spartan youths had been sleeping under the stars. It seemed the hooting and cheering from the Athenians had woken them up. Worse, one Athenian had taken to gloating.

"Did you see the one with the biggest tits? I snagged her from behind, I did. Slapped me hand across her mouth to stop her waking the others and dragged her off behind a tree to fuck her right there and then. Moaned like a whore, she did, nice and loud into me palm. Now she's me slave so I can fuck her any time I like. How you Spartans like that, huh? I can't see any of your slaves anywhere."

As the Athenian surely knew, Spartans only took slaves in battle. But if the young Spartan girls were fazed in any way, none of them showed it. That's for the best, Penelope decided. An angry Spartan is someone best let loose on the battlefield, not a camp. Every one of them was taller and stronger than every Athenian laughing at them. They all watched in silence as the Trojan captives were marched past, bound and gagged and naked.

Penelope gave the Athenian a vicious glare that warned her to leave while she still had use of her limbs and caught up to the captives just as they reached the General's tent.

The Trojans were unbound from their leash and roughly pushed through the flaps, their whip gags still in place between their lips. Penelope followed them inside where the Athenian soldiers began binding them standing against thick wooden poles with their hands high above their heads. Their ankles were tied to those of the prisoner next to them so that each girl had her legs spread open. One of them was struggling much more vigorously than the others, though that just made the soldiers tie her bonds tight that she squealed.

Leaning back in a chair and absent-mindedly feeding herself from a cluster of purple grapes was General Xena. She was ever so slightly taller than Penelope, with slightly larger endowments, deeper eyes and fuller lips. Her hair was rich brown which fell in thick locks just past her cleavage. The General's armour was a boiled leather bodice of pristine white and she wore a matching long cape from the snake-shaped clasps at her shoulders.

Her personality was not nearly as beautiful, and she rolled her eyes with annoyance when she noticed Penelope enter. "Have you come to give me more advice on how to win this war, Thessalian, or have you come to see how a real commander deals with her enemies?"

Penelope ignored the insult. "I'm here to listen to what our guests have to say."

"Oh joy," Xena replied before spitting out a stem. "You hear that, Trojans? Penelope here thinks you have something interesting to say. Try not to disappoint her. A disappointed Thessalian is an annoying Thessalian."

The captain noticed herself wince. I wish Peitho was here, she thought.

"Now, which of you Trojan bitches is the leader?" Xena asked as she approached the prisoners. Still gagged, none of them could reply even if they wanted to. The General paced up and down along the line of captives, inspecting each of them with a squint or an inquisitive fondle. "Is it you? Or maybe you? You're too young, you're too scrawny, and you look so stupid you couldn't teach a fish how to swim."

When Xena came face-to-face and hand-to-breast with the struggler, she grinned. The woman had a toned physique with eyes and hair the colour of chestnuts swirling down to the tips of her pink nipples. "Ahh, yes," gleamed the General. "Your chest is firm enough that you're no stranger to battle, yet not so firm that you're just mere infantry. Rough hands, but not too rough. Tanned skin, but not too dark. Do you have a pronounceable name, Trojan?" Xena asked as she unknotted the whip from between the captive's lips.

The Trojan sneered with her nostrils flaring. "Let us g-mmmph!"

"Uh-uh-uh," Xena tutted as she kept her hand firmly over the Trojan's lips. "I asked you a question and I expect an answer. My name is Xena, First Class General and Strategos of the Athenian Army. Remember, if you're not going to answer me then I might have to ask the stupid one, and who knows what kind of secrets she might let slip." She waited a few moments for a reluctant nod before taking her hand away.

"I am Dardania," the Trojan captive said reluctantly. "Captain Dardania. Now let us go!"

Xena smiled. It was not the happy kind. "We're going to play a little game, Dardania. It starts with your fellow Trojans receiving proper gags and it ends with you telling me everything I want to know. We could save each other a lot of bother by skipping the bit in the middle."

"You could save yourselves a lot of trouble by turning around and marching back to your sorry excuse for a city."

A hint of anger flashed across the General's face. Fiercely proud of her city-state, she turned to one of her officers. "Let's begin."

The soldiers in attendance untied the whips from the Trojans' mouths and instantly replaced them with white linen cloths to silence their emphatic mmphing, Dardania included. The soldiers then knelt down before the captives, gripping the whips handle-side-up.

Penelope sighed again. This is completely unnecessary, she thought.

The General noticed Penelope's mood. "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking you should be the one to lead this army to liberate your people. It's not enough for you that this Thunderbolt woman is leading our navy - you think all of our forces should be under Thessalian command. You think we Athenians are too philosophical and political to be warlike. Bah! Preposterous! Someone told me this Thunderbolt woman got lost sailing from the Isle of Lesbos to Greece and somehow ended up in Sicily. Sicily! I don't even know how bad a sailor you'd have to be for that to be remotely possible! And this is the woman in charge of the pride of Athens' fleet. I don't trust her and I don't trust you either. I'm in charge here and that's how it will stay. You don't like it, you can go find another city and stick your tongue down their queen's throat. You can command that army and interrogate their prisoners however you see fit. But by the goddesses, Thessalian, I will have the truth from my captives."

The captain shrugged. "Alright, fine. Get on with it." There was no use arguing with her - most certainly not before the captives.

"My methods always work," Xena gloated. "It's very hard to tell a lie when you're balanced on the edge of climax," she told the prisoners. "I learned this method from the owner of a brothel I used to frequent. She would use it on her clientele if she suspected their promises of paying their tab were false. And just like she worked the truth out of their tight lips, so too shall I work the truth from yours."

Dardania no doubt tried to curse the General or offer her a scornful remark, but the cloth between her lips rendered her strangely pronounced words inaudible to the Greek ears.

Another Athenian entered the tent carrying a large amphora filled with olive oil. She attended each of the soldiers in turn, pouring a brief splash of the lubricant over the whip handles. Those holding them massaged the oil into the leather, making sure the stiffness was covered in a slippery coat.

Tied up as they were, the Trojan captives could only watch in anticipation. Some looked markedly more worried than the rest and tried (and failed) to close their knees together, while a few began breathing heavier and faster, biting down on their white linen gags and nervously shuffling their bound feet. Regardless, it would be the same treatment for all of them.

"You will resist at first," Xena told them. "You will struggle as far as your bonds will allow and picture strange things in your mind in an attempt to distract yourselves. This will merely delay the inevitable. Soon, you shall all be moaning for release - not from your bonds, for you know they are to stay - but from the warm pressure building up deep inside you. I will not release you. You shall teeter on that edge for as long as I deem necessary, and then you will tell me everything I want to know. Then, and only then, will you be granted an end to your urges." The General had a very smug look about her. "Soldiers, insert."

The tent was filled with a symphony of squeaks and grunts as the whip handles were slid up inside the Trojans. Each of the soldiers paid careful attention to the captive before them, slowing down or speeding up, churning or pumping the handle, rotating, jiggling, or doing nothing at all and simply letting the Trojans feel the girth between their legs depending on their responses.

It became a delicate game, like spinning highly sensitive plates on the end of a long hard stick. Coax too far, and it would risk the prisoners tipping past that point of no return. Don't coax far enough, and they could give false information. Some got there quicker than others. The stupid-looking one was there almost instantly.

In no time at all, every Trojan was brought to the heights of carnal ecstasy. They were ripe for a heated interrogation, gasping softly with every twitch and covered in a sparkling glaze of lust-induced sweat. Xena curled a finger around Dardania's gag and slipped it from her mouth.

"How large is the Trojan army?"

"P-please... just a little more! It's all I need. All I n-mmph!"

"Let's try again. How large is the Trojan army?"

"Five-thousand. Give or take. Now please give me my clim-mmph!"

Penelope was surprised. "Five-thousand? That's not too many more than us."

The General nodded. "No. We should be able to defeat that number with a bit of careful strategy and good fortune." She peeled her hand from the Trojan's mouth. "Where are they garrisoned?"

"South of the city! A half-day's ride!"

"And who is their commander?"

"Princess Andromache!"

Xena shot a quizzical look to Penelope. "Who?"

"I've heard stories of her," Penelope replied. "It's said she's the most beautiful woman east of the Aegean, with eyes that could melt mountains and tits to raise ships from the depths of the sea. She's also the greatest warrioress Troy has to offer." Now it's my turn to ask a question. "Dardania, what do you know about Matriarch Lydia of the Household of the Scylla?"

The Trojan captain looked confused. "Who?"

"Ha, leave it to the professionals, Thessalian," Xena smirked. "Trojan! What kind of allies does this barbarian queen have?"

"Thracians!" Dardania yelled as she wriggled her hips in a vain attempt at relieving the pressure. "And Scythians! Two-thousand!"

"Two-thousand?!" Penelope exclaimed. That's not good. We can't defeat seven-thousand soldiers - not all at once.

But Dardania had more to say. "They're not in Thessaly yet. We sent our Scythian mercenaries to gather them from the tribes and march them all south."

"When will they return?" Penelope asked.

And how the captive laughed. "A few days from now! You can't stop them. Soon, all of Greece will be bound in Trojan knots! We've already won - you just don't know it y-mmph!"

Xena marked the end of the interrogation by stuffing the juice-coated whip handle back into the captive's mouth. She gave no order to push their awaiting climaxes over the edge, much to the Trojans' anger and disappointment. "Two-thousand," she repeated to herself in disbelief.

"Maybe if we move quickly we can beat them to the Trojan garrison."

The General shook her head. "We can't move quick enough. We're delayed by the drought enough as it is."

"There has to be something we can do."

There was a silence between the two of them, broken only by the desperate moans of captives begging for release. Then Xena whispered, "We can't outpace them. At least... not all together." She shared a look with Penelope. For the first time, it seemed they were thinking the same thing. Neither of them wanted to say it, but they both knew what had to be done.

Penelope bowed her head and left the General's tent.

She knew an army moves slower the larger it is. There are too many supplies to drag with them, too many reasons to stop and hunt for food or sleep. A small force can outpace a larger one without a problem. It's a terrible decision to have to make, and a worse question to have to ask. Penelope returned to the Spartan camp.

Adara was sitting alone on a log before a campfire picking the last morsels of chicken off a bone. Her vigilant eyes were keeping watch over her young countrywomen as they arm-wrestled and ate and slept amongst the campfires. "Penelope," she said by way of greeting. "Are you hungry?"

"No, thank you." She felt a horrible sensation in her chest. "Can I sit?"

The Spartan princess gestured to the spot beside her and returned her attention to the bone.

"This is a harsh summer," Penelope said. "It hasn't rained for a long time. The dirt is turning to dust and the grass is so dry that it crunches and snaps underfoot."

"The rain will come eventually," Adara assured.

I wish Peitho was here, instead of me. "Did you hear we caught some Trojan scouts?"

"Yes. The Athenians made a lot of noise. It woke me up."

"I'm sorry about that."

"It's not your fault," the Spartan shrugged.

"No, I suppose not." Penelope dared not take a deep breath. "The General finished interrogating them just now. We found some interesting things."

Adara looked up. "Your sister?"

"No... no. The Trojans are camped south of Larissa. Roughly five-thousand."

"That makes no matter to us." There was only the smallest hint of pride in her voice. "A Spartan does not ask how many, only where they are."

"I know. You Spartans are..." too young "... brave."

Adara shrugged. "Everyone has it in them to be brave, Penelope. All you need is something to fight for. I fight for my realm and for my countrywomen; for the life of freedom and privilege we enjoy. You fight for revenge and for those you love."

It hurt. "Revenge, yes. Love? That too, I suppose." She looks so young. "I... don't think I've ever asked your age."

"Twenty-one. I had my birthday on the day of the battle between the Picentes and the Histri. That was a glorious day. My height makes me look older."

"Yes, it does." But you're still so young.

"I'm also not as foolish as I may seem," Adara said. "Just because I don't talk much, it doesn't mean I don't think. You didn't come here to talk about the weather. What else did the captives have to say?"

The captain took a deep breath. The pain in her chest was what she deserved. "Another two-thousand soldiers from Thrace are descending south. We won't be able to beat them once they combine forces with the Trojans."

The Spartan princess didn't say anything for a while. She stared off into the flames of the campfire and they both sat in silence for a few moments. It hurt so much.

Eventually, Adara flicked her bone into the fire. "They shall not reach the capital before you do."

"Please understand, I'm not ordering you to do this."

She rose from the log. Her face was stone. "Our defeat is certain if their reinforcements arrive. I'll take my Spartans north to intercept them. We'll hold them back."

It was unrivalled pain. "Promise me we'll see each other again?"

The Spartan princess looked Penelope in the eye. "Like my mother said: return victorious, or not at all."

Continued in Chapter 30

---

Chapter 29b. A Crown for Celts

(Chapter 29 from the Celts perspective)

The Usurper Queen

 If it’s war you want, it’s war you’ll get. These were the Celt’s thoughts as the messenger brought the news of Athens’ declaration.

A lesser woman might be afraid. News of Athens’ declaration would have been worrisome if it weren’t so inconveniently timed. The Celt was still dealing with the dissenters in her own queendom who had not yet become accustomed to their new monarch. Another war so soon after the last would be a strain on her patience. Unfortunately for the messenger, the Celt had had enough patience for one lifetime.

Exactly why Athens had sent the young daughter of a noblewoman as their messenger was unknown. Perhaps those proud girl-lovers and pacifists had thought the Celt wouldn’t dare harm such a messenger. They were mere carriers of words, after all. Don’t blame the messenger for the words she carries. That was the Greek way.

And yet, that young girl with the pretty eyes, button nose and fine gown had made it perfectly clear that Queen Titania of Thessaly was illegitimate. The throne of Thessaly belonged to a Greek – not the golden-haired spawn of an Illyrian barbarian.

“Do you think it wise to anger a queen?” the Celt asked, folding a coil of rope in her hands.

The Athenian was too proud to realise her dire peril. She stood foolishly in the middle of the throne room where it would be only too easy to pounce on her from all sides. If their breed were half as clever as they were meant to be, she would have made for the door (or the window) without ever uttering such a threat. “Your Grace, I came to deliver the terms and I have done just that.”

The Celt couldn’t help but laugh on the inside. “I’ve never made the journey myself, but I imagine the trek from Athens to Larissa is ample time for you to have given careful consideration to your words. Yet you arrived here and offered me war… or surrender. I’ll ask again: was that the wisest thing you could have done?”

By the look on her face, it seemed the young girl with the pretty eyes and the button nose became aware of her mistake. Her pretty eyes darted across the room, hoping to find an ally. Nobody would help her. Sworn sisters to the Household of the Celtic Knot stood along the walls, whips in hands. They would offer the Athenian no assistance. The only other women were bound to the pillars along the central aisle, corded tightly to the cold stone in the artwork of Celtic binding. They were the hostages the Celt had taken from each of the Thessalian Households. They could offer the Athenian no assistance. “I… I’m just a messenger!”

The Queen of Thessaly rose from her throne and stepped down off the dais, fiddling with the coil of rope in her hand. “That you are.” She seized the girl’s wrist. “And I’m just a barbarian.”

If the Athenian put up a fight, the Celt didn’t notice. She was young and weak as a kitten. Her wrists were wrenched together without a struggle and corded tightly with no more than a brief tug. The rope wound its serpentine way across her chest and over her arms as easily as a snake might slither across a tree branch. But the girl’s mouth was running wild. How she begged for release. She pleaded for the queen to obey custom and not harm a messenger, though her pleas were soon silenced by the torn shreds of her fine gown.

A soldier stepped forth when the Celt was finished to ask if she’d like the prisoner to be taken to the dungeons with the rest of the captives. The queen refused. “No,” she said. “Send her to my bedchambers. Perhaps her tongue is more suited to licking than negotiation. If not, she will learn.”

-

The Athenian was not the best the Celt had ever had, but she was far from the worst and showed potential for improvement. The girl struggled well – which was always entertaining – and could do a kind of cork-screw thing with her tongue. Titania decided to keep her for at least another night. After that, she would probably send the girl bound and blindfolded into the royal barracks. The lust-filled laughter of her sworn sisters always made her happy.

The Celt woke amongst a scattering of soft cushions and silk sheets. The morning sun’s rays had lit up her bedchamber in a rainbow of bright reds and vivid purples. There was a knock on the door. “Enter.”

An armoured woman bearing the sigil of the Celtic Knot at her breast slipped through the threshold. She bowed in her queen’s presence. “Your Grace, our spies have uncovered the location of the rebels’ hideout. What are Your orders?”

The Celt rose naked from her bed, not caring if the soldier saw her nudity. She was proud of her body – a goddess’ body. Her hair was shimmering golden silk, her skin was soft as the day she was born, her breasts left phallic slaves drooling in their gags and her arse was so toned to perfection that an amateur astronomer might mistake it for a celestial body. It seemed a shame to have to wear clothes to hide such beauty, but the Celt needed to play her role as a queen.

“Have my horse saddled and ready,” the Celt said with a good stretch. “I shall lead the raid.”

She donned the armour she wore as the Matriarch of the Celtic Knot – a tight leather bodice ornamented in polished iron trim which wrapped around her torso in the Celtic art style, bronze bracers without a scratch and matching greaves without a scuff. She’d had her crown reforged almost immediately after gaining it. The Greek style was too plain. Her new crown was made of interwoven bronze and gold with a small ruby to sit atop her forehead.

The Athenian struggled herself awake under the silk sheets. She sighed into her cleave gag to see the goddess standing before her. It seemed to make her want more of what she had last night. The Celt made a mental note to leave her armour on for next time.

-

The banner flying above the brothel bore the sigil of a wild Thessalian mare bucking about on a field of green. The Household of the Bridle, the Celt recognised. They had been the most vocal of all the households about their disliking for their new queen. It began with some snide remarks. It evolved into outright rebellion. Whether it was a mark of audacity or stupidity that she flew her banner so high, the Celt didn’t know.

Matriarch Erika of the Bridle was a long-faced brunette with long legs – traits remarkably similar to those of a horse, the Celt didn’t fail to note. The mare had refused to surrender her sister as a hostage when the Celt seized the throne. The girl would have been bound to a pillar in the throne room, to be shipped off to some far-away pleasurehouse in Mesopotamia if Erika raised her hand against the Celt. Perhaps she thought it was wiser to take her entire household into hiding just to keep her sister safe. The Celt would disagree with that sentiment. Erika’s sister would likely betray her given the opportunity.

The Celt knew all too well about treacherous sisters.

From her hidey-hole whorehouse, Erika had proven to be an effective thorn in the Celt’s side. Food stores were being raided and Trojan soldiers were being seized from their barracks, never to be seen or heard from again. Most likely, they’d been thrown into sexual slavery. That’s what the Celt would have done.

She dismounted her horse, not finding it necessary to do so silently. The hideout had been surrounded by over one-hundred of her finest soldiers, all clad in bronze armour stamped with the sigil of the Celtic Knot. Their whips and nets were in their hands, ready to be used at a moment’s notice. She gave the signal.

The Celt was the first through the door, as always. A few of the Bridles were too stunned by her presence to move and simply looked at her wide-eyed as they were tackled to the floor, squirming in the grips of superior soldiers. Each of them had their arms pinned into the small of their back, corded together with the coarsest of ropes befitting of rebels and knotted inescapably. Their legs were frog-tied, ankle to corresponding thigh. The Celt found that tie left their fun bits more easily accessed. All were cleave gagged with cloth, but the more important-looking ones had their underclothes torn from under their skirts and stuffed inside first.

The first floor of the brothel was its own private battlefield – a delightful little brawl. The Celtic Knots came in through the windows and doors, surrounding the Bridles in the centre of the room. Chairs and tables were overturned and used as barricades to funnel soldiers through. The Celt took special note of which of her own were taken prisoner. Demotions for them – the disgraceful excuses for warrioresses.

The Celt didn’t fear a few horses, however, and threw herself into the fray. It was hottest there. The smells were the finest. The cowards even seemed frightened to attack her. That was to be expected. She’d worn her armour into every battle since she was sixteen years of age and not once had she needed to buff the scratches out of it, for there were none. She was untouchable on the battlefield.

Lashes flew at her face. She dodged them. Shields charged at her chest. She side-stepped them. A net was hurled towards her and she rolled beneath it. Her own whip went left. She brought down one. To the right and she brought down another. She’d taken five down just herself before the rest of them yielded their weapons.

The Celt scanned their faces as they were being bound and frog-tied by her soldiers. Erika was not among them. “Where is your matriarch?” she demanded of the rebels before they were gagged. They said nothing so they were gagged anyway.

“Titania!” yelled a voice from the second story balcony overlooking the first floor.

The warrioress queen looked up. There stood Erika, Matriarch of the Household of the Bridle, flanked by half a dozen of her slave handmaidens. Each of the handmaidens was naked, save a flimsy leather bridle fastened around their heads with a thick bit gag locked between their teeth. Erica wasn’t wearing armour and was dressed only in a loose-fitting linen slip which stopped halfway between her thighs and knees. If the Celt squinted, she could imagine a horse wearing a shawl.

“You stand accused of plotting against the crown, Erika,” the Celt called. “Surrender yourself and I may yet spare your household from the slave auction galleries.” Of course, she had no intention of doing so.

“Which crown?” Erika sneered insolently. “Yours or the one You stole?”

She had to stifle a laugh. Mine, fool. It’s the only one that matters. Then she noticed all of Erika’s handmaidens were blonde, just like her. She felt a hint of anger stir in veins. Then she had an amusing idea.

“Handmaidens, by the power vested in me by this crown, consider yourselves freed from bondage.” Oddly, she meant it. It was such a strange feeling being a liberator for once. “You are now freewomen of Thessaly, capable of owning property and slaves and of deciding your own fates. This is my gift to you.”

Erika spat at her. It missed, though it was a very horse-like behaviour. “You can’t do that! I’m their mistress and You’re not a legitimate queen!”

The Celt ignored her. “Your former mistress, Erika, will soon loose her lands and her titles. It seems there is a vacancy as Matriarch of the Bridle. Whoever brings her to me, bound and bridled, shall be granted the matriarchy.”

There were many emotions in the eyes of those bridled slave girls. Humiliation for having to wear such contraptions about their heads, anger for the indignity of slavery, and lust. Everyone wants power, and who more than the powerless?

It was a delicious sight as Erika was dragged down the steps and laid at her feet. The former handmaidens must have planned something similar ages ago, the Celt reasoned. Almost with military precision, they each grabbed a handful of Erika’s linen slip and tore it from her body in one clean pull, leaving her naked as the day was born. The next moment had her arms forced together behind her back as her wrists and elbows were being bound with the shreds of her garb. The Celt wasn’t sure how horse-like it was, but the way Erika’s tongue protested to the bridle’s bit gag being forced between her teeth certainly reminded her of some animal.

The Celt pointed to the nearest former handmaiden, a blonde of roughly thirty years, and decreed her as the new matriarch. She then asked her to select an heiress. That girl, perhaps a daughter in her late teens, was immediately seized and bound in Celtic knots. “A hostage,” the Celt said, matter-of-factly. “Serve me loyally, and I promise she won’t be sent to some backwater Persian harem.”

The new matriarch seemed worried, but thought it best not to argue with the queen. “Of course… Your Grace.”

With a grin and a nod, the Celt left the new matriarch to clean up the mess. She’d destroyed the rebel threat and secured a new ally, and all before breakfast. 

Continued in Chapter 30

---