This was the captain's first instruction to the leather-shirted men. His eyes had smouldered when he said it. They smouldered now, with the special fire, as he stood on the deck outstaring the setting sun, listening to the sounds of raucous laughter from below. And the girl - the Princess - would be unshackled at the wrists, then re-secured with the chain about a hook in the low rafters, high enough to keep her on her toes, small toes, he had seen that afternoon, slim feet, still shackled at the ankles, slender thighs - good muscles - a bright, open bush of red curls, which would be slicked back now, by her own moisture, from the black lips sealed for him within a warm skin pouch, for the sailors to nip and squeeze to their hearts' content, yet to go no further, but within that constraint, to do as they would, approaching from the front, or from the back to touch the soft shaved fur beneath the small mouth, kept very tight from fear, no doubt, while the double thong stretched across its tightness, sensitised with the unction, while the shackled legs were drawn apart, while the attendants stood back, until the slow roar came coursing through her sweet young veins until she could not breathe. The captain closed his eyes; the vision was there still, drawn in perfect detail upon the back of his resting, heavy eyelids. He opened his mouth and breathed the cool late day air. Soon now, they would bathe her and she would be ready. And he would be the first man to taste her body once her flesh had known the special intimacy of the pouch.
Anya stood once more before the large, panelled door, but on the side away from the skull. Its hollow sockets stared at her from behind the wooden bars of its small cage. Her hands hung limply in front of her, touching at the fingertips, fastened at the wrists, which lay against the bareness of her belly. Her ankle chains had been removed. Her skin felt soft and warm. It tingled from the bathing; the hot salt water had left it feeling moist. She had been embarrassed - she still felt embarrassed at the recollection - to be bathed by two men, the leather-shirted guards, while Ratchitt stood by, averting his eyes and holding the towels. When they had untied the pouch, it had clung to her, from the pressure, from the moistness - from the touching she had been made to suffer, chained to the hook in the thick oak ceiling beam while the two men sat back upon the table and drank their mugs of beer. Once the pouch had been removed, her flesh, cool yet swelling still, had felt peculiarly naked before their scrutiny. And as if to make her feel more naked yet, they had made her use the bucket. In a very matter-of-fact way, they had made her kneel up, then had tried to place the bucket between her knees but, discovering that this was not possible with her ankles fastened by the short chain, they had removed this and tried again. Their methods would admit of no refusal. They had sponged her lower back unhurriedly, recharging the cloth in fresh cold water, until the thin trickles, running down the groove and between her legs, had provoked her beyond the point of urgent need, to the sweet release of a warm wet pulsing pressure that, once started, would not stop. But they had continued trickling the water down her until the last hot shivering drops had dripped from her person. And though she had thought that she might die then from shame, the men had continued their preparations for her ablutions as if nothing had befallen that was in any way untoward.
The pouch was carefully wrapped in a soft cloth and put to one side. Again she felt a wave of shame. But once she was lifted into the giant shallow copper bowl and she felt the soothing warmth of the water on her skin, it was as if an unbearable weight was gradually lifted from her mind. The men had sponged her breasts, her belly and her back and had made her kneel. Then with her eyes tight shut but her knees apart and the warm salt water lapping heavily against her, dripping from her curls, her chained wrists were lifted and she was opened, back and front. Warm ocean flooded inside. Her leaves of flesh were held apart and the inner surfaces stroked; two fingers pushed inside; a third finger, oiled, was slipped into her bottom. 'No - keep your arms up,' one of the men had said. 'Fold your hands across your breasts.' The weight of her forearms, pressed against them, made them push out to the sides. The fingers, moving round inside her, pressed against each other through the inner skin. Warm oil was massaged into her nubbin until it came up very hard. The men made her lean back against the shallow side of the bowl, her hands still across her breasts and the fine golden hairs upon her forearms touching the enhanced tightness of those breasts, which to Anya now felt overfull and heavy, while the men looked at her nubbin, while each of them touched it.
In time, they had lifted her out and made her sit astride a simple padded stool on which the towels had now been placed. Throughout the drying, her nubbin had remained erect. They had checked it at intervals, not touching it directly, but expressing approval each time the hood was slipped back and the nubbin was seen to be poking out hard. They had pushed her belly forward until it touched the padding and then had examined her bottom, touching the soft, sensitised skin very lightly, debating whether it should be fully oiled, then at last deciding against it, but fingering that skin repeatedly, while beneath, her rigid nubbin was pressed into the soft damp of the towels. They had brushed her hair until it hung straight and heavy and shining, then had refitted the leather pouch - dark golden with her moisture - about her sex lips. They had simply made her kneel and rubbed those lips very gently with the backs of their fingers. As the flesh lips swelled, they were captured in the pouch and sealed skin to skin against the leather. Finally, her legs were fitted into thick, bright yellow woollen stockings which, even with their tops turned over, extended nearly to the tops of her thighs. But at no point in these preparations had they unlocked the chains that held her wrists.
And now, Anya stood at the captain's door, afraid of what might befall her at his hands, yet unable to dispel the memory of the gentle stimulation she had experienced with the two young men. It had been so different from the cruel kind of stimulation she had been forced to suffer; it had made the pouch soften again, swell warm; it had left her feeling very aroused.
Ratchitt knocked. He waited, his head bowed, his eyes looking up at Anya then, as he listened, ticking slowly from side to side. On the third tick, a muffled sound was heard. Ratchitt lifted the latch; the heavy door opened smoothly. Anya was ushered in and Ratchitt retreated, quietly closing the door.
The first thing she noticed was the heavy sweet scent of ripened fruit; the second was the evening sky, deep red and capped with purple clouds, framed within the great bow window above the low divan bed. That second vision vanished as the furled, deep orange curtains were drawn together, secured with a sash and the stooped form of an ancient steward lumbered round, lighting extra lamps and drawing them up towards the ceiling, until the room swelled with a light which swept the darkest recesses clean. The walls were dressed with trophies in gold and silver; in the alcoves, jewel-encrusted treasures caught the light. At first, as her eyes had nervously danced about the room, Anya hadn't seen that there were two figures, because one had remained still. She had seen the ornate oak carvings, pillars and fretwork and the inlaid painted panels showing blue seas, ships in full-bellied sail and sunlit shores bedecked with naked bronze-skinned dark-eyed women. And below these panels, to her right, she had seen the table - a great black oak table, laden with mouth-watering roasts and sweetmeats, fruits on golden platters and clear crystal jugs of wine. Behind the table, in the centre, was an enormous chair, so large it would have taken four men to lift it. Like the table, it was made of oak, but it was thickly upholstered in deep orange, so little of the wood was visible. The armrests were as wide as Anya's waist.
Then the second figure moved. She stood. She was nude; her form was sylphlike. Around her waist was a plaited flat green twine. Anya's eyes followed her as she walked over to the great chair and sat upon the armrest casually, as if to assert a claim, then lifted her delicately furrowed chin and looked sidelong at Anya. Finally, to make her position quite clear, she picked up a small green fruit from one of the platters before her, nipped the skin open with her small teeth, spread it and sipped. She did not look at Anya again, but seemed to be engrossed in the detail, or the display, of eating this fruit. Her eyes would close; the lashes would flutter - they were perfectly curved and black, like her eyebrows, dense black - yet her skin was pale and her hair blonde. Anya did not understand this dissonance. And her lips were red, as if they had been painted, yet they had not. As her head tilted and her hair fell back, finely twined as if repeatedly twisted round the finger and combed by the wind, her lips pouted and her tongue emerged to collect the heavy green droplets squeezed out from the fruit. Anya looked to the steward, who had almost finished moving round, but he too ignored her and began adjusting the deep orange cushions on the soft cream sheets of the bed.
The door opened again behind Anya. From the corner of her left eye, she saw the deep red coat, the dark hair, then the blue-grey glint of steel. Every muscle in her limbs locked; her eyes turned forwards, very slowly. The captain passed, turned, looked down at her. She averted her gaze by turning her eyes very gradually to the right. She could feel the power of those green strong eyes still, though she stared at the table. In that first glance, Anya had noticed that under his good arm he carried a rolled-up chart. And now all she could hear was the parchment creaking. The girl on the chair moved. She put the half-eaten fruit carefully aside and got up slowly. The steward stopped what he was doing and stood by the end of the table; for the first time he looked in Anya's direction, but now that extra pair of eyes upon her only added to her plight.
Having hesitated, as though he might have been surprised at Anya's presence, but without acknowledging this fact - indeed, without acknowledging anybody's presence - the captain then walked round the table and the steward to the chair, cleared a space in front of it, placed the chart on the table, unbuckled his sword with one hand, hung it over the back of the chair and sat down.
He unrolled the chart and pinned it open with the back of the double hook. The fingers of his right hand drummed upon the surface of the parchment. It was now the only sound in the room. The steward, his arms folded across his breast, waited. The girl stood to the captain's left and a little behind him. Her hand stretched across the back of the chair, stroking the dense orange cloth. She looked at Anya. The steward looked at Anya. But the captain still pored over his parchment. To Anya, the air in the room felt very warm. The girl's hand gradually advanced; it dangled forwards from the back of the chair; it touched and stroked the thick black hair, then moved round. The fingertips settled around the long soft earlobe and began to play with it, gently pulling, lightly squeezing. The chart was now propped open between a jug of wine and a bowl. The captain sat back, resting his head against one of the soft heavy wings of the chair. His right hand came round and touched the girl's belly. Encouraged, she sat sideways on the armrest, with the captain's hand upon her belly, above the plaited twine, testing the well of her navel and touching the soft pale hair below it. Behind the girl was the captain's left arm and curving round now and fitted to the underside of her breast was the double hook of steel.
Anya could feel the moisture forming under her arms. The yellow woollen stockings tickled her where they clung against her thighs. The pouch was biting; the drawstrings nipped her flesh lips. The drawstrings were unyielding; the passage of blood into her flesh was one way and the more her flesh swelled, the more the pouch bit, the more it made her flesh lips fill with blood until, standing as she was now, with her thighs together, she could feel it like a soft leather creature pressed against the ticklish skin at the tops of her inner thighs. It made her think of the way Travix had touched her between the legs and the way the two men who had bathed her had wanted to prolong that bathing, keeping her in the water, recharging it when it turned cold, opening her flesh repeatedly to the flood of warmth and playing gently with her nubbin.
And now, the girl's leg was slowly lifted astride the dense round armrest. Her bottom eased forwards and her head moved back. Her blonde hair, with its thin strands, lay beside the captain's dense black mane. Her soft complexion pressed against the bushy eyebrows, lay skin to skin against the wrinkled cheek. Between her thighs, the pale blonde curls had separated and the lips had opened to a bright red eye. The bottom edged forwards again; below the bright eye was a smaller tight one, its eyelids squeezed shut, brown. And now it was the brown eye that the captain's fingertips sought to taste, while the girl's own hands descended over her belly and slipped beneath the plaited green twine. With the twine appearing as a bond about her wrists, her fingers held her body open, touched the lips, then squeezed the upper corner of the open eye, to develop the small red swelling bud while lower down, the captain's finger and thumb continued to stroke towards each other across the small, raised, wrinkled, tight-shut, swelling brownness. And all the time, the girl - red-lipped, open-sexed, nipples pink and belly round - stared blue-eyed at Anya.
The captain lifted his hand, snapped his fingers, pointed and the girl's expression suddenly changed to one of pique. She slipped off the armrest and strode sullenly across the room to a thickly cushioned low square stool next to which was a small stand with multicoloured lengths of twine attached to its top. She turned half away from Anya and began rapidly plaiting this twine with exaggerated movements clearly designed to draw the captain's attention and to indicate her annoyance. But seemingly the captain did not care to have his attention diverted by a sulky girl. He leaned forward in the chair, placed his left elbow on the table, so the hook was raised - poised, it seemed to Anya, as if about to fall. The distilled light of every lamp was somehow captured between the twin cusps of that glinting double claw. She could not take her eyes away from it. It was as if there were no one else in the room but she and the captain and no other item but the hook. Beyond it, she could see his craggy face, the jutting, deeply lined forehead, the strong curved nose and above all, the eyes, which glittered like the jewels embedded in the burnished trophies all around the room. The right hand lifted; the finger crooked and Anya began to shake. She did not move; if she were to have tried to move she would never have been able to lift her legs and she would have collapsed in a heap on the floor. She glanced across to the attendant, who stared incuriously straight ahead; then she looked towards the girl, who now seemed interested. She was still plaiting, but more slowly and looking at Anya instead of at her work.