Chapter 16

"Demure," the woman who had once been Glade's mistress replied hesitantly in the Knights' language. "Not Lady Demure. I no longer have a title, just as I no longer have an estate or a husband."

Glade crouched down beside Demure under the shade of a palm tree. The appearance of both women had changed in the intervening years. Their hair was much longer and fell over their faces. Although Demure was as elegant as ever, there were small scars on her knees and ankles that hadn't been there before. The face that peered out between the hanging curtains of black hair exhibited a hint of humility that had been totally absent before.

Demure studied Glade carefully. Perhaps she wasn't certain whether she did recognise the strange woman who'd approached her so boldly after the initial welcome party dispersed. The fact that Glade addressed her by name in her own language must have disconcerted her.

"Have you lived in this village for long?" she asked Glade cautiously and still in her own language.

"For more than two years," said Glade, careful not to use the honorary titles that had once been mandatory. "And you? How long have you lived with the Ocean People?"

"For about the same length of time," said Demure who appeared to still be puzzling as to who Glade might be. "The village where I lived is towards the North."

"Do you know what happened to Quagga?"

"Quagga? Why should I be interested in the fate of a wild horse?"

"You ran away with Quagga on the night of the rebellion," said Glade. "She was your slave..."

Demure's face suddenly shone with the light of recognition and understanding. She placed the long delicate fingers of one hand on the inside of her companion's thigh. Despite Glade's resentment at her one-time mistress' ill-treatment, this excited in her a spasm of excitement she'd not felt for years. Demure traced her hand up the thigh towards Glade's crotch which opened instinctively as did her mouth.

"As you were also my slave..." she said with a wicked smile. "And now you are known as... ?"

Glade was reminded with a jolt that Demure had never known her name. Nor was it likely she'd known that of Quagga or even Mimosa, who was now a more powerful woman in the savannah than Demure had ever been. The name she gave in reply was the one by which she was known by the Ocean People. It actually meant 'beach' as their language lacked the vocabulary to describe woodland.

"You were always a very pretty girl," said Demure, whose smile steadily deepened as her fingers delved deeper between Glade's inner thighs.

Glade placed a steadying hand on Demure's. "Tell me about Quagga. What happened to her?"

"The slave who accompanied me when I fled the village... ?"

Glade nodded. "She was my friend..."

Demure pressed her other hand over Glade's and gazed into her eyes with a sympathetic earnestness that seemed almost genuine. "Then I'm sorry to have to tell you this..." Demure began, pushing her face close enough to Glade's for her breath to brush against her cheeks, " ... but your friend is..." She paused again for affect and held her gaze long enough to gauge Glade's reaction. "She is dead."

"Dead?" One of Glade's few pleasures during the time she was in Demure's service was the love she shared with Quagga. "Was she savaged by a lion? Was she attacked by wolves?"

"She was hit by a spear while we were fleeing from a troop of barbaric warriors," said Demure. She squeezed Glade's hand and brushed aside the hair over her face. She pressed her lips to Glade's forehead, nose, chin, and then her slightly parted lips. Glade felt ashamed to acknowledge that she was already sexually aroused by the attentions of her former mistress even while she was being told this dreadful news. "Your friend had been my faithful servant for many moons. Every night I relished the pleasure of her body against mine as we sheltered from the animals of the night and fled the cruel barbarians who massacred my tribe. One day our luck deserted us and we unexpectedly encountered a hunting party. Your friend was struck by a spear as we fled. Unfortunately I wasn't able to rescue her, but she is now surely dead. The mountain barbarians are truly pitiless."

"Mimosa is now their queen," said Glade.

"A queen?" wondered Demure, with genuine interest inscribed on her face. "The barbarians have a queen? Who is this Mimosa?"

"She was your other slave," Glade reminded her. "The dark skinned one."

"And now she is a queen!" said Demure with evident admiration. "Who'd have thought that one of my slaves would rise to such a height. She was a feisty girl, but not an enthusiastic fuck. Not like you, my darling." She cupped a hand behind Glade's neck to pull her towards her and delicately placed a finger on the very tip of her former slave's clitoris. "You were always my favourite fuck. No one I have known, either male or female, has ever given me as much passion and love as you. No one has given me such powerful orgasms."

Reluctantly Glade eased Demure off her, but was as aware as her former mistress how extraordinarily excited she was at their unexpected reunion. Her breath was short. Her heart was beating ferociously. Her brow had exploded in perspiration.

"Why have you come to live in this village?" asked Glade. "Was it because you'd heard that I was living here?"

"No, not at all," said Demure, who was not so easily distracted and made sure that her hand still rested on Glade's thigh. "I am a woman in pursuit of a husband and this village has many men in pursuit of a wife." She returned her lips to Glade's and kissed her again. "But had I known you were here I would have come much sooner."

"Get off me!" cried Glade who at last expressed her indignation. "I'm not your slave any more. In this village we are all equal. You have no hold on me."

"Of course not, sweetheart," said Demure in a chastened tone. "There is a new world order and amongst the Ocean People there are no mistresses and there are no slaves. Please forgive me the error of my old unreconstructed ways. The shock of losing everything has been hard on me and I was so pleased to meet a former lover."

"I'm not your lover now."

"That may be so," said Demure regretfully. "But could you at least help me build a shelter for the night?"

Glade thought at first she would say no. Never! But instead she nodded. "Yes," she said meekly. "I'll help you."

Ivory was shocked by Glade's show of forgiveness. "After all that the disgusting woman had made you suffer..." she said to the shaman as they trudged in the crisp snowy footprints of those ahead of them. "You should have shunned her. She should have been expelled from the village. She had mistreated you for many years."

"That had been in the past," said Glade. "I was sure she was a reformed woman. I was ready to forgive her."

The truth was that Glade didn't believe that Demure had changed at all, but she still extended her forgiveness. The fascination her mistress had exercised on her during her years in captivity and the memories of the love they shared were as strong as ever. Glade helped Demure construct a hut and, indeed, put rather more effort into it than her former mistress. And then, when they'd finished and there was at last a place of privacy for them in the village, she and her former mistress fell together onto the sandy floor and abandoned themselves to urgent, passionate and exhausting love-making.

It was much more like the physical carnality of full-on fucking with a man such as Dolphin than the relaxed and gentle lovemaking she normally enjoyed with Macaque or Dignity. Demure assured her that she'd not made love to anyone with as much enthusiasm or with as many orgasms in all the time since the rebellion; and Glade believed her. Just as she was certain that Demure had not led a life of celibacy—it was unlikely that she had only recent chosen to pursue marriage and equally unlikely that she had remained chaste—Glade had enjoyed enough sexual encounters to recognise real passion. Just as Glade was drawn to Demure by the woman's sexual charisma, she could see that her former mistress' need for her body was genuine.

The biggest difference from the years when she and Glade were tied by the institution of slavery was that Demure now had to ask for Glade's love rather than simply demand it and expect it to be given. She now had to reciprocate the love she was given by some of her own. Glade was gratified to see that this was one lesson of sexual etiquette that Demure had mastered and expressed with genuine affection.

"If only I had treated you with the love you deserved, my sweetest," said Demure sweetly as she held Glade tightly to her bosom.

If only she had, thought Glade. All that unearned chastisement ... There was the occasion when her nose bled for hours after a particularly savage punch but she was still expected to make love to the woman who'd just hit her. There were the vicious and unrelenting slaps her mistress unleashed on her when Glade was little more than a useful punchbag.

"Why have you chosen to live amongst the Ocean People?" Glade asked her lover.

"I was lost and lonely," said Demure, "They welcomed me. I'd been wandering alone for many moons and was hungry from eating only raw fruit and vegetables. When my slave..." She corrected herself. "When Quagga died, I no longer had the skill to make fire. My knowledge of life on the savannah was only useful to escape wolves, jackals and lions and to find the most basic food. When I strayed beyond the savannah I could no longer fend for myself. The Ocean People saw that I was in a sorry state and they took pity on me."

Glade wasn't quite sure that Demure's account was wholly true. "Other Knights were also roaming the savannah," said Glade. "You weren't the only one. You could easily have sought them out and gained safety in numbers. And why did you come as far as the coast. It's a very long way from the savannah. I don't believe you stumbled across the Ocean People merely by chance."

"That's what happened to you," Demure reminded Glade, who had told her of her own travels. "You and your troop followed the river aimlessly until it took you within sight of the ocean."

"I don't believe you ever do anything by accident," said Glade, revealing a degree of insight that Demure might not have suspected. "You must have chosen to avoid the other Knights. You knew that they would be hunted down like mad dogs after the rebellion. I heard your husband talk to you about an unsuccessful hunt for slaves by the sea. You knew there was a tribe that lived on the coast. And a tribe, moreover, that had never been conquered by the Knights."

Demure nodded good-humouredly, although her eyes also narrowed. "Yes, you're right," she said. "I was fascinated by what I'd heard about the Ocean People. Any tribe able to fend off the Knights must surely be worth getting to know."

"What do you think of the Ocean People now?"

Demure was diplomatic. "They are generous and hospitable. They are peaceful, ingenious and inventive. They are a noble tribe. And I hope by dint of marriage to become a full member of the tribe."

Although nothing was ever said between them, Demure and Glade both accepted that they were lovers who would now share the same hut. Their bodies could hardly bear to be apart for even a moment before their reciprocal desire pulled them together. Nothing was more natural than to exchange kisses, to cuddle and for their fingers to roam within each other. When Glade regarded Demure's face, her bosom, her crotch, the contours of her body, even her slender fingers and narrow wrists, she knew for sure that this was what she'd yearned for in all the intervening years and what she never wanted to lose again.