Chapter 10

It was more than just a few minutes before they were ready to meet the world. They dressed quickly and splashed some water on their faces using a pitcher and basin provided. After taking care of their necessities in the cave provided, Nesho and Sosho fed Makro and Nilsen before changing them.

While suckling her baby Sosho winked at Shasta and said, "You want to help me out with these also? I'm warning you though: you might have to fight Nilsen for them. He's a greedy little bugger."

At first Shasta thought she couldn't be more embarrassed and Sosho giggled at her blush, but it didn't take Shasta more than a few seconds before she straightened up and looked Sosho in the eye.

"If he leaves any tonight, I wouldn't mind having a taste," she said. "I'd like to see if sugar-sweet milk is passed on from mother to daughter." Now it was Sosho's turn to blush. "And maybe we'll find out if other parts are as sweet also." Now Sosho was a fiery red and Clarise, who had been listening from a few feet away, was holding a hand over her mouth trying to keep from laughing out loud. Even Nesho, sitting across the room, was smiling.

Finally Sosho grinned and said, "I think that would be fun." Suddenly she laughed out loud. "Dent's going to love you!" Turning to Clarise she said, "I can see this one will be getting the Pole of Chastisement fairly often."

Shasta suddenly turned white as a ghost. "He beats you?" She whispered. That was one thing she had never imagined this particular man doing. Maybe he was just like all the others. Shasta started shaking.

Clarise was on her feet instantly and had her arms around the quivering girl. "No, Shasta, he never beats us," she said, and then she gave Sosho a dirty look. "Our rather vulgar sister is referring to his manhood. In fact only one of us has ever even been spanked." Sosho started blushing again and quickly averted her eyes down to her suckling baby. "I wasn't there to see that, but I understand it was richly deserved."

"Maybe I did deserve it," Sosho muttered, her eyes still downcast. Then she looked up with an almost evil gleam, "But afterwards... that was some of the best sex I ever had!"

"What?" Shasta gasped in amazement. She couldn't imagine enjoying anything after a punishment, let alone sex!

"When he spanked me, it made me horny," Sosho shrugged, quite unabashedly. "Really horny!"

"Yes, dear," Nesho commented dryly. "Everybody in The Cracked Cask knew all about it. Probably half of Harv'el did for that matter." Again Sosho just shrugged.

"What did you do?" Shasta asked, her curiosity overcoming her retreating fear.

"If I remember correctly," Nesho again interjected, "she threatened to stick a broom handle up another girl's ass."

"It was her cunt, mother," Sosho said sweetly, "and I would have if that snippy little bitch hadn't backed off." She looked up at Shasta. "The little trollop was trying to muscle in on our man. What else could I have done?"

"What else, indeed?" Nesho again added. "Shasta," she said and Shasta rolled within Clarise's arms, not even trying to free herself. "He never beats us. Sosho was acting like a child and was disciplined as a child would be. You have nothing to fear."

"She's right," Clarise said grinning. "The Pole of Chastisement, as Sosho so indelicately puts it, is his wonderful cock. With it he subdues us all right, into a quivering lump of exhausted jelly! Did you enjoy last night with Nesho?" Shasta blushed only a little as she nodded. "Good. She is something else, isn't she? I hope you will enjoy being with Sosho and me also. But I can tell you from experience, what you felt last night is pale in comparison to what you feel when you're with him. I could try to explain, but it just wouldn't be the same. We all know you are going to be frightened the first time. Yes, we've talked about it, and we'll talk about it with you too, in the near future.

"Now, Sosho and I were virgins when we came to him. Nesho -- the tramp, of course -- was not. We were nervous, although not for the same reasons I'm sure you are. But we are here to help you out any way we can. From what I heard, Nesho raped him, so I doubt she'd understand at all."

"You can't rape the willing," Nesho said pleasantly. "At least I didn't use tears to trap him..."

"They were good, honest, tears!" Clarise exclaimed, trying to sound indignant.

"They certainly should have been," Sosho chimed in. "We practiced them enough times before you did the deed."

"They are both trollops and sluts," Clarise sniffed and gave Shasta a squeeze. "We have to stick together or we will never get any of his attention."

"Right," Shasta ventured. "I noticed you were seriously deprived for the past few ten-day."

"What!" Clarise jumped back in mock horror. "I thought you were my friend, my confidante, my shield! I've been betrayed!"

"And a well-struck blow, I might add," Nesho said standing up and then stooping to pick up the baby.

"Too true," Sosho exclaimed. "She has certainly used up her allotment for this season."

"Don't you remember? I was sacrificing myself to help propagate his line!" Clarise huffed stomping her foot. "Those times didn't count!"

Suddenly all four women were silent. They just stood there and looked at each other. Sosho broke and started giggling, then Clarise, Nesho and finally Shasta. When they were all finally semi-coherent Clarise came over to Shasta and put one arm around her waist in a sisterly fashion.

"Do you feel better now?" she asked, genuinely concerned. Shasta nodded and Clarise continued, "I promise, it will be all right. We're here for you, no matter what."

"You'll be there with me?" Shasta asked. Clarise looked surprised.

"Well... If you want us too, sure we will. It's up to Dent really, but I can't imagine he would say no."

"We can... No, we will talk about this later," Nesho interrupted. "Right now we need to find out what's going on."

The simple answer was that very little was going on. The villagers were hidden in a number of caves dispersed throughout the side of the old volcano. Their escort from the previous night was quite correct: the maggots, as the villagers began calling the Malshallians, couldn't possibly comb through even a small fraction of the caves and had little or no chance of finding them. Without further provocation the villagers decided to remain hidden at least for the time being and leave the soldiers alone.

The remainder of the deSiso household were found and gathered together in the cave where Shasta and the rest were staying. Despite her protestations Shasta found it remarkable how everybody -- villagers and fellow household servants --deferred to Nesho just like she thought they would to a noble-born woman. To a somewhat lesser extent they did for Clarise and Sosho also. She even noticed they were doing it to her, to a lesser extent. They seemed to be more like demi-gods: reachable, touchable and someone they were able to talk to, while Nesho was the supreme goddess lording over her subjects.

It seemed to really bother Nesho, this being placed on a pedestal. She actually cried once when Shasta teased her about it. She really felt badly about that, promising never to do it again.

"This is ridiculous!" Nesho finally said one night as they all lay together under a heap of blankets. The second two nights in the cave had been with Sosho and Clarise individually and Shasta had thoroughly enjoyed herself. Sosho was exactly the way Shasta would have envisioned her: aggressive, predatory, and totally uninhibited. Clarise was gentle and loving, thinner and much less rounded that the other two, but she was still a wonderful lover. Sosho would steal your breath away with her sheer exuberance, Clarise with a butterfly kiss. After being separate for those three nights Shasta could sense their desire to be together and insisted that's what they should do. Of course they insisted she stay with them, and she had ever since.

The only exception was when one or two of them needed to stay with the girls Sosho called "The Forlorn". Two more of the hostage women had been refused by their families and Sosho insisted they come and stay with the deSiso household. Some nights they were heard sobbing quietly, sometime not so quietly, and one or more of "the wives" would stay with them, holding hands, caressing hair and generally soothing them as much as possible. Shasta insisted on helping with this duty, although she had to resist speaking out about any of her own experiences; the girls would come to her when they were ready.

That was another thing Shasta noticed: the memories of her past experiences, the rapes, tortures and humiliations, were just that: memories. Certainly they were still horrible to think about, but they no longer consumed her every thought. She could even think about them and not shudder with fear; it was as if it had been done to someone else and not to her. She knew they would never leave her completely, but they were fading and had become more than manageable.

"This is ridiculous!" she said again. "What's this bowing and nodding and the rest of this nonsense! What do they think they are doing?" She was fuming. "I can understand the household staff, maybe. I mean we were in charge of them. But these silly villagers! It gets worse every day!"

"Well," Clarise ventured, "you are Dent's representative, the only embodiment of his power that they can see, touch and feel."

"Nonsense!" Nesho snapped back. "They didn't do this to Dent when he was here, let alone one of his slaves."

"You're much more than just one of his slaves and you know it," Sosho added. "Besides I think it's that aura of calm, detached leadership you exude around them."

"That's ridiculous," Nesho said with somewhat less vehemence. "I exude no such thing."

"Well, not when you have your tongue in Shasta's pussy, your hands on my tits and Clarise's fingers in your cunt and butt-hole," Sosho agreed. "Then you're exuding something else — But after that... Yes you do."

"You are a crude little wench and I have failed miserably in raising you correctly," Nesho sighed, pretending to take a swipe at her.

"They need you as a symbol," Shasta said tentatively. "I've noticed that people usually defer to those they think are 'better' than themselves. They look to you for leadership and a leader must be better than those they lead. Mustn't they? If they weren't they wouldn't lead now would they? In some places the leader must induce fear in his followers and force this type of recognition; here they are forcing you to accept it."

"But..." Nesho started but then paused. "I'll have to think about that," she mused. "You know Shasta torSiso, you aren't just another pretty face."

"Nope," Sosho chimed in. "She's got nice boobs too."

"And a great ass," Clarise added.

Being underground it was difficult to think of days passing, it seemed to be little more than time awake divided by sleep periods. The villagers kept an eye on what was going on from a safe distance. All native villagers had been withdrawn, even the old people like Agata and Jozsef. The village wasn't completely abandoned though. The Guild was still there, locked behind their door and protected by their status. The O'Tech priests and their acolytes were still there and well as a number of merchants who had been trapped by the troubles. Many of the whores had returned after the first night or two and were doing a brisk business. For the time being the Malshallians were leaving these groups alone. The Malshall patrols, usually twenty to thirty strong, contented themselves with ransacking the villager's homes, stealing what wasn't nailed down and prying up what was. The village spies likened it to a kicked over ant-hill: a lot of movement with very little getting done.

After the first couple of days they started sending large patrols out into the foothills, although they didn't seem particularly interested in searching any of the cave systems that were clearly visible.

"Maybe they're just trying to show that they are doing something," one of the men said during a meeting after one of the spy missions. "Be a good time to hit the maggots."

"Could be," Nesho agreed. "Or they could be trying to goad us into attacking them. I think we're just fine where we are."

"They've been getting them little ships coming in almost every day," another observed.

"The messenger ships?" Nesho asked. "I wonder what information our dear general has been getting, and what they've been sending back."

"I don't know, mistress," the first one admitted. "Maybe we could talk to the whores. If anybody would know what is going on they would."

"I'm sure you'd like that!" a village woman who was sitting near him sniped.

"But, all I said was..." he tried to defend himself.

"It is an interesting idea," Nesho interrupted. "But not worth the risk right now..." There was a commotion coming from one of the tunnels stopping her short. A young man came running into the cavern yelling and waving a piece of paper.

"Settle down, please!" Nesho insisted as he ran up to her. He was breathless and talking far too fast: his words came out as babble. Finally they were able to calm him down well enough for him to be understood.

"They're burning the village!" he was finally able to get out.

"What? When?"

"The maggots are burning the village! Here," he continued. "They have these pasted up all over the village and outside of town."

Nesho took the paper from him, scanned it and then began to read it aloud.

"... All residents of the liberated village of Safehaven, of the Malshallian Protectorate of Safehaven... are hereby ordered to return immediately to their homes and places of businesses... Failure to comply will result in immediate declaration as being in rebellion to lawful authority, an offense punishable by death... Residences of those declared in rebellion shall be burned to the ground...

"... All law biding citizens of Malshall are hereby order to assist in the apprehension of certain property liberated from the previous unlawful despot... All slaves are to be immediately brought before the military administration for inclusion on the tax rolls and branding...

"... failure... death,... by order of... death...

Signed by His Excellency's Representative,

Andrisek, General of Malshall Expeditionary force, Safehaven; and Governor, Safehaven, Malshallian Protectorate of Safehaven.

"Well," Nesho said after a pause. "This is interesting."

"Do you think we should return, mistress?" one of the men asked, scratching his head. "What if they are here for a long time? We can't stay here forever."

"I can't make that decision for you," Nesho said with a shrug. "You have to ask yourself if you really think you would be safe if you returned. Do you really think he won't take more hostages? Make examples? Whose daughter will you condemn to that? Yours?"

"But what if Jeevel never comes back?" another asked. "What if this is what we have to deal with from now on? We can't leave; this is our home. You say the Governor will return, but what if he doesn't?"

"All I can say is I know he will return..." Suddenly Nesho fell silent.

At the same time Shasta felt something, something she hadn't felt for too long. It was her master, her man, and he was coming closer. She stood and was dimly aware of the other three doing the same. She could feel his presence, a force, still distant yes, but definitely heading their way. Determinedly coming their way.

Nesho smiled, it was a slow, sensuous smile with her eyes half lidded. Casually waving her hand at the ones talking about returning she said without looking at them, "I wouldn't be too quick in returning if I were you. I told you he would come, and he is. He's on his way back to us now."

"Who is coming?" one demanded. "The governor? How do you know? How do we know? You could be making this up to stay out of Andrisek's hands."