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She had been instructed to rise early, bathe and dress, and meet Lord Marcus in the dining room for breakfast. Apparently it was unheard of in the household for a slave to take a meal with the Master, and Julia hardly knew what to make of it. When she entered the room her heart was pounding hard and her hands were cold with nervousness.

Marcus looked up from his meal, and upon seeing her, rose to his feet. It was not lost on Julia that this was an instinctive act and not appropriate for the circumstance. “Come, sit,” said Marcus, indicating the seat across from him and reseating himself quickly. Julia did as she was told. There was a place set for her, and the table was loaded with plates of food: cheeses, prettily cut fruit, honey cakes and tea. She hadn’t seen such food in weeks. Marcus spoke again, “Eat your fill, Julia, the morning will be long.”

Good manners made her wish she could say thank you. It was difficult to feel like a slave in these circumstances. As she helped herself to a cake, her master’s eye was upon her. Finally he said, “The dress suits you. And please, speak as you wish.”

She raised her eyes to him. “Thank you, my Lord. And if I may, thank you for the gown, it’s lovely.”

“It isn’t appropriate that you speak of it so, as a gift. You must be dressed, that is all.”

She lowered her eyes again. “Yes, my Lord.”

He poured himself more tea, and filled her cup as well. “I have called you here to teach you the customs you will need to know for the day ahead. Your behavior today is very important to me, so listen well.”

Julia ate a morsel of cake and looked him steadily in the eye, nodding.

“Today you may speak to me freely, but humbly. You may look upon my face as you choose. But your eyes are not to meet those of any other, no storekeeper or stranger, not even those with whom I speak. Nor are you to talk to them. If I am with a friend, and such person addresses you, look first to me for permission to reply. Then answer, but with your eyes lowered. Is this clear?”

“Yes, my Lord,” said Julia.

“These customs are based upon clear principles. As my pleasure slave you are my companion but also my sole property. Carry yourself with elegance but do not show pride. Remember who you are at all times. No doubt you will receive compliments but understand these are directed actually to me.” The Master’s tone was firm, but he seemed slightly uncomfortable conveying these instructions. “Take some fruit,” he urged her then. “These berries are in the prime season.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” said Julia, and spooned some onto her plate. It was then that she noticed a small wooden box with brass hinges, placed near Marcus’s cup.

He went on, “We will take our noon meal alone, but chances are good we will be invited later to drink with some associate of mine or another. If I wish you to take wine, I will pour it for you. Sit like a lady, but again, leave your eyes downcast except when you choose to regard your master.”

Julia swallowed a bite of berries, nodding again.

“Lastly,” said Marcus, with a tone of great seriousness. “Only well-trained slaves go unharnessed in the marketplace. You are, I realize, too freshly bought to be trusted not to attempt escape. However, I have no taste for harnessing you.” He took up the box and opened the lid. “You will see the wisdom in staying by my side. Extend your hand to me.”

Dumbfounded, Julia held out her hand. From the box, her master drew a slender silver wrist cuff, completely studded in garnets. The gems were blood red in color and so dark they barely sparkled. Marcus opened the hinge and placed her wrist within the bracelet, snapping it shut carefully. It fit very close to the skin. Then from the box he drew a key on a silver chain, and with this he locked the bracelet. Ducking his head into the loop of chain, he spoke. “The law in my country is clear. There is a penalty of death for any who removes a scarlet cuff from a slave, and a rich reward for any who returns her to her master. If you run from me, you will not get far. Do you understand?”

Julia stared at the bracelet, which in any other circumstance would be considered a fabulous gift. “I will not leave you, my Lord,” she said.

“I wear the key and will not remove it,” he said, slipping the chain under his shirt. “That shackle is small and pretty, but be assured its power is even stronger than the harness.”

The sun had risen over the rooftops of the town, and they set off on foot down the lane towards the heart of the shopping district. But Julia soon learned her master came not to shop or even much consider the wares on display, but rather to speak with his many business associates. He made inquiries about trades, gave reminders to those who owed him debts, sounded out the latest news in commerce. Julia watched mostly in silence, content to observe how Marcus comported himself. He could be stern, but likewise cheerful and amusing. He seemed well liked and extremely well respected.

And everywhere they went, Marcus was praised for his “scarlet,” sometimes with an open compliment, sometimes just an appreciative grunt. Julia’s emotions were completely torn by this. She bristled to be treated as mere chattel, an attitude which made Marcus seem amazingly respectful by contrast. But at the same time, she truly drew pleasure from the sense that she earned approval for her master.

Regardless of this ambiguity, Julia enjoyed herself. Of course it was good to be out and about, feeling the air and sunlight, exploring the sights, sounds and smells of the town. But even better was the privilege of watching her master freely. She found she loved watching his face as he spoke to others, seeing how his mouth formed the words that he pronounced so delightfully, watching his brows change from emotion to emotion, observing the little gestures he made habitually. He was intelligent and witty, and had he not been, it still would have been a pleasure listening to his voice, redolent as it was with warm tone, like music to the ear.

They stopped for a meal at noon at a quiet inn set back a few streets from the main square. After a period of silence, Marcus spoke up. “You are too quiet, Julia. Surely the morning’s activities have given you much to contemplate. Share your thoughts with me.”

Without doubt her mind was awhirl with thoughts, so she swallowed her bite of food and chose one. “That man who sells fabric, do you think he means to cheat you, my Lord?”

Marcus’s arm froze mid-reach, and he gave her a bemused look. “Do you think Lord Flavius means to cheat me?”

“I heard what he sells his broadcloth for, there were some speaking of it at the tailor’s.”

At this her master looked down in his lap, unable to stifle a chuckle. When he again lifted his eyes to Julia the mirth was still plain on his face. “Yes, as did I. And Lord Flavius will not know why I’ve called off our transaction, only that I have.”

“That sounds most wise to me, my Lord,” said Julia, immediately sorry for the words. She quickly added in an apologetic tone, “I was a businesswoman, quite actively so, in my town.”

Marcus watched her with a smile. He seemed to be considering carefully what response to make. Finally he said, “The slate of your mind is engraved with much valuable knowledge, and could I erase it even if I wished to? A slave’s will must be bent, but the rest—” He drifted off, then went back to picking up the chunk of bread he had been reaching for.

The course of the day was slightly altered by this exchange, and Julia spoke more freely the rest of the afternoon, even asking questions about the activities around them. It became more and more difficult to think of herself as Marcus’s property rather than his peer. She tried to clear her head by considering the silver and garnet shackle at her wrist, and the key on its chain that hung upon her master’s chest, but in her confusion these props only seemed to symbolize the growing bond she felt with him.

I am in for a rude awakening soon, she thought.

As Marcus had predicted, they were invited to take wine in the late afternoon with one of his associates, a moneylender named Lord Nestor. Julia was careful to do as instructed, and it wasn’t easy, for Nestor was a bold character.

“She’s a flower, my dear Marcus,” he said, taking Julia’s chin in his hand and admiring her. It was so difficult to keep her eyes lowered.

“Thank you,” Marcus replied.

“And how long ago was it you spoke before the Council against the practice?” teased Nestor. “I thought I’d never see the day you owned a scarlet.”

“It was quite long ago,” said Marcus noncommittally, taking a sip of wine.

“I imagine, Julia, that your master is very gentle, is he not?”

Julia turned her eyes to Marcus, who gave her a small nod. She lowered her gaze and said, “He is fair, and firm, Lord Nestor.”

“And you, not a week with him, and unharnessed. Have you proven yourself so faithful?”

Again Marcus nodded, and Julia answered, “I fear his displeasure greatly, and that is my harness.” It was not a lie.

Nestor laughed. “Oh, she is a wonder! I dare say her heart will take awhile to catch up to her tongue, but the words are pretty nonetheless.”

Julia looked to her master but his face was unreadable. After a pause he changed the subject to commerce, and there it stayed until the wine was all consumed. The two businessmen bid each other well, and Marcus and Julia set off for home.

They had gone but a street or two when a great commotion approached from the east. Everything happened very quickly. The crowds around them began running in every direction, and then from down the street there came a team of runaway horses pulling a large cart of wooden crates.

Unfortunately, the cart was just beginning to tip as it approached them. Marcus ducked one way and Julia the other, the latter darting into a side road just at the accident transpired. Horses and people alike screamed, crates tumbled and burst in the street, and the side road was immediately blocked by debris and panicking people. Julia was forced by the press further down the side road, and utterly lost track of her master.

Her first emotion was the customary dismay at being separated from a companion and protector. She struggled in vain against the crowd, trying desperately to spot Marcus. Then all at once she realized the dire nature of her circumstance:

She was an unattended slave.

The urgency of finding Marcus doubled. In her panic, Julia decided to run away from the main street in the hopes of finding another way back to it. She turned the first corner, which was a mostly deserted alleyway. Deserted except for an old woman who caught her by the wrist as she passed.

“What’s happened?” the crone asked, agitated.

“An accident, runaway horses...please, I’m in a hurry!”

But the old woman’s grip was in a most unfortunate place: the garnet-studded cuff. She saw it and her eyes lit up. “Runaway horses...and you, a runaway scarlet!”

“Please, I’m trying to find my master!” cried Julia, fighting back hysterical tears.

The woman was old, but she was much larger than Julia and had a grip of iron. “And he might be fool enough to believe that, coming from such a pretty face. Not so much if he waits and searches a bit...”

To Julia’s horror, the woman dragged her inside her house. Her husband was inside and was quickly recruited to the scheme, and so Julia was locked in an inner room, to pace and weep for what seemed like hours.

Long after nightfall the couple unlocked the door, harnessed her and told her to lead them to the house of her master. She was delivered to the house steward, who fetched the Master at once.

Marcus burst into the hall, and she could see he kept his composure only by great effort. His shirt was open as if he had dressed quickly, his hair was loose and disheveled. For all her fear, her heart leapt at the sight of him. He turned to the steward and said in a steady, tight voice, “Take her to the stable and lock her in. Leave her there for me.”

The steward dragged her roughly outside, across the lawn to the stable. He said nothing, just left her standing inside the door, and locked the great iron bolt.

Some moonlight coming in the skylight illuminated the place dimly. Julia heard the horses shifting in their stalls, their quiet snorts. She saw the whip on its hook. She contemplated what was about to happen and her greatest horror was that she would never be able to dissuade Marcus from believing she had run away.

Tears streaming down her hot cheeks, she took off the blue dress. She took off her slippers and even her underclothing, till she was utterly naked. Then she went to face the wall where her master had whipped her, and leaned against it, her palms pressed to the splintery wood, and waited.

There was noise at the bolt and lantern light poured into the stable. She did not turn to look at him, but listened to his approaching footsteps. Before she could take a breath he had come to her side and seized her face roughly in both hands.

“Do you mock me?” he cried.

“My Lord—” she began, but was cut off by his hand slapping her face.

“Do you mock me with your supplication?” he shouted, his voice nearly breaking with rage.

“No, no my Lord!” Her cheek was flaming from the blow and her tears flowed anew.

Marcus’s eyes burned, searching hers. She wanted to drop to her knees but was afraid to move. Then he cried, “Back against the wall!”

She resumed her position and waited for the whip to strike. To her surprise the blow fell not on her back but her buttocks, and it was so hard that the very first stripe made her flinch violently. But she bit her lip and tried to be silent, far preferring the pain to the look of betrayal on her master’s face.

Three more blows came, and then his voice, tight with anguish, “So quickly, so quickly you forgot you are a slave. Deceiver!” The next blow was vicious, and Julia cried out in spite of her best efforts.

Then Marcus grabbed her and pulled her away from the wall, turning her in his hands to face him. It was surreal to her, standing there naked in his grip, her buttocks throbbing. She dropped her gaze to the floor in shame. Marcus let out an incoherent grunt, then dragged her across the straw-strewn floor. To her disbelief, he sat down on the stableboy’s bench and threw her, face down, over his lap.

It was the closest she had ever been to him, lying naked over his thighs, and she longed to wrap her arms around his calves and kiss them and beg for mercy. But she knew she didn’t dare speak. And in the next moment she felt his bare hand slap the welted skin of her left buttock. The fact that it was his hand and not a weapon moved her strangely in spite of the pain. He spanked her again, harder so she would flinch, and then a third time with all his might so that she cried out. Then he did likewise on the right buttock, till the pain shot down her thighs white hot. She began to sob, overwhelmed by pain and despair.

But what Marcus did next was the strangest of all.

Julia braced for the next blow but it did not come. Instead she felt his hot hand smooth lightly over her buttock, as if he caressed the welts. It stung, but his hand was smooth.

She felt her womb dissolve. Soft heat blossomed inside her. Her master’s hand smoothed across and over to the other cheek, stroking it gently. Julia’s sobs fell silent. Her inner walls burned for him. She felt she was losing her mind.

Then Marcus struck her again, not so hard this time, and Julia couldn’t tell if it was pain or pleasure she felt. He followed the blow immediately with another feather-light caress, and she moaned, arching her back. Marcus struck again, then stroked her. She watched her arms wrap around his calves and felt her hips thrust. She had lost all self-control.

Then she felt his fingers slide between her legs, and she knew he found her swollen and wet. The single stroke of his finger over her clitoris made her whimper.

“So,” he said, in a dark, cold, beautiful voice, “you claim to desire me.”

“My Lord—” she began, but he cut her off with a hard slap that made her welts cry out. She fell into inarticulate sobbing.

Then his hand slid down her bare back, and the feel of it on relatively uninjured flesh was like pure heaven. He stroked her with his palm, then with the tips of his fingers alongside her spine. Arousal filled her womb in a wet flood, her sobs became gasps of pleasure. He struck her hard against across the buttock, but before she could take a breath, his fingers dipped between her legs again. And this time they remained.

Julia let out a long, almost inhuman moan. The lasciviousness in the sound amazed her. Then Marcus seized hold of her hair and with his other hand lifted her up. He worked her body around so she sat on his lap, her back against his chest.

He put one hand over her mouth. “Speak not to me,” he said in her ear. Then his other arm crossed down over her breasts and his fingers probed again between her legs.

It was ecstasy. Julia was so aroused in heart and body that his caress was already nearly more than she could bear. The bruised flesh of her bottom ached against her master’s breeches but even that felt delicious. She spread her thighs to give his fingers free access to her dripping folds, her hips thrusted forward then dropped, thrusted and dropped, and as the sweetness mounted she tipped her head back against his shoulder.

Then all at once he stopped. She turned her eyes to him, feeling the blessed tension in her body dissolving away horribly, leaving a yearning ache behind.

The black eyes stared back at her. “I should leave you in this agony of dissatisfaction, should I not?” he said, with a haughty lift of one eyebrow. His hand rested still over the swollen mound of her sex, and she felt her blood pound under it. Marcus lifted his other hand from her mouth and said, “Plead to me.”

She was glad to cry out to him, “Master, my beloved Lord, please touch me again, please, I can’t bear it!”

“Shall I caress you?”

“Yes!”

“Shall I beat you?”

“Yes, yes...just your touch, as you will, my Lord, just your hand upon me...”

She saw his eyes soften, then seem to harden again by sheer force of will. He spoke again, his voice cold. “Say you love me.”

She felt she was pouring out her soul to him. “I love you, I love you, my Lord Marcus.”

His fingers stirred. The arousal rushed back through her like a potent drug. He stroked her until her thighs began to shudder and a flush came over all her skin. “Do you love me, slave?” Marcus murmured in her ear, his voice sweet and liquid like honey.

The orgasm seized her as she said the words, over and over, “I love you, oh I love you, oh my Lord, I love you I love you...” And Julia dissolved in sobs of sorrow and bliss.

When she had recovered herself enough to control her limbs, she tried to turn and take him in her arms. But at once he rose to his feet, pulling him with her. He held her shaking body by the shoulders and looked down into her face. His aspect was utterly cold. He released her.

“Hold out your hand,” he instructed, meanwhile reaching under his shirt for the chain.

Julia obeyed, extending the arm that bore the garnet cuff.

Marcus fumbled roughly as he unlocked it, then tore it off. He snapped the bracelet shut in his hand and stuffed it into a pocket.

Julia could only assume the worst possibly meaning for this gesture. Then her master spoke again: “I’m going. Get dressed now, I will send the steward for you in five minutes. Not another word.”

He spun on his heel and went to the door, swiftly unbolting it and locking it behind him. Julia stood alone, her body humming with the aftermath of his blows and caresses, new tears welling in her eyes.

Later Julia would decide she had truly lost her mind. The first few minutes after the encounter were a blur: she had scrambled, sobbing, into her clothes...the steward had come for her...she had run up the stairs to the slaves’ quarters, barely able to see through the blur of her tears. The room was empty save for Penelope, who looked up at her with shock and maternal concern. Julia could do nothing but fall on her bed and weep into the pillow.

She felt Penelope’s hand on her back. “Child, what’s happened? Did the Master beat you so hard?”

Julia shook her head and was unable to reply. She felt the bed shift as the older woman’s weight settled on the edge of it. Her shame made her want to be alone, but her confusion was worse. In a moment of madness she rolled onto her back and wailed, “I’m in love with the Master, Penelope!”

The kitchen slave put her hand to her mouth. She stared down at Julia a moment or too, then seemed to compose herself. “So it seems to you,” she said. “He is a kind and handsome man. And he has not used his position to take advantage of you, which comes as no surprise to me.”

“What do you mean?” asked Julia, lifting a corner of the blanket to wipe her nose.

“He has always been a man of great principles. I never seen him strike a slave in anger, nor been unfair. I never thought he’d take a scarlet, either. But if he did, to my mind it would be for the company, not so much the rest.”

Julia sniffled. “He hates me. He thinks I ran away, but honestly, Penelope, I would never—”

“But I don’t suppose he gave you a chance to say so. The man has his pride.”

“I don’t even understand why I wouldn’t run away. I must be in love with him.”

Penelope put a hand on Julia’s arm. “It must be confusing, being the property of a man in such a way, especially if you find him good-looking, and kind.”

“Is he kind? I think rather than he is horribly cruel.” Julia forced herself to sit up.

“What did he do that was so cruel?”

Julia found she could not answer this. She remembered the feel of his gentle touch on her abused buttocks, and she shuddered. Why did he try to confuse her so? Did he know there was no way he might have been crueler? His fingertips stroking her...

“I think he hates me,” she said again.

“If he hated you, why would he be in such a rage at losing you?” asked Penelope. “Perhaps the man is just as confused as you. Ask me, I think it should drive a man mad to own another human. It goes against nature. Perhaps that’s why this war goes on and on, the buying and selling of folk has made them all mad.”

Surely it’s driven me mad, thought Julia. She shook her head. “I love him,” she said again. “May the gods save me.”

* * *

 

©2008 Romance at Heart Magazine.

Book ©2004 by Diana Laurence.

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