Thrones of Desire

Author:Mitzi Szereto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 2012-08-03T16:00:00+00:00

FLESH AND STONE

Sacchi Green

A scarlet-crested helmet shadowed the face above me. I cast my eyes downward, willing my body to the stillness of any inanimate work of art.

“What price for this one?” The voice was low, husky—and female. Hope rippled across my skin. Even shackled in the slave market, I had heard of the woman champion. The capital hummed with tales of her that could not possibly be true.

The trader stumbled over his recitation of my virtues. “A…a rare pearl, Lady, from the house of the late epicure Mendelas. Young, beautiful, trained in all the arts of pleasure, skilled enough to satisfy any…any desires, adaptable to any taste.”

I dared a quick glance and saw her amusement. His desperate attempt to avoid saying “any man’s desires” had not been lost on her.

“Girl.”

I raised my eyes again, looking into hers deeply enough to sense some hint of her mood.

“Can you cook?”

“Only simply, Lady.”

“Can you mend cloth and leather?”

“I was taught as a child, Lady, before…” The slaver’s grip tightened. I hoped he would recall that bruises lowered my value. “Yes, Lady. I was raised in the horse tribes.”

“Then you know something of handling horses, as well.”

The trader sidled in front of me. “If your eminence wishes a mere maidservant, I have others less costly.”

“Than this ‘rare pearl’?” Impatience edged her voice. “What price for her?”

Rattled, he named a sum scarcely larger than he expected. She disdained to haggle. I let myself breathe again. This was a mistress I would follow anywhere, do anything, be anything, she desired. I did not read in her eyes the sort of interest he assumed, but in time…who could tell? The trader had not overstated my skills.

“Have you belongings?” A slave could not possess anything, but a craftsman’s tools might be assumed to be included in the bargain. My “tools” were bits of exotic clothing and jars of herbs and unguents and, tucked beneath them, a few more arcane objects rolled in a length of embroidered silk.

I hid my joy and followed my new mistress meekly. The woman champion! A princess, some said, from a mountain kingdom to the north. A sorceress who could turn men to stone. I neither believed nor cared. All that mattered was that she was strong and skilled and brave, nothing like those coarse women brought into the Emperor’s games as titillation for a jaded court.

She swung me up easily onto her horse and mounted behind me. I clutched my bag and concentrated on balancing, since my narrow skirt kept me from riding astride. I longed to lean against her bound breasts, to tune myself by touch to the resonance of her thoughts and desires, but tried instead to show that I had not lied about my ability to sit a horse.

“Have you a name, girl?” The cool voice made me tremble.

“My master called me Gazelle.”

“What did your mother call you?”

“Shebbah, Mistress.” Mistress. The word was full and sweet in my mouth.

“Well, Shebbah, I will be in disgrace when we get home. You are not quite what I had in mind, but no doubt something can be arranged.

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