Chapter 1 - Chased

 

"Get those two dogs trussed up. I want to see their blood as well as their sweat!" Barked the Captain. Quickly, Meleta and the other galley slave were tied to the old, wooden oar that was slung broadside across the gunwales of the boat for their four and twenty lashes. Both had been marked for punishment detail, administered at the end of the day, after they had made the slave give them a good day's rowing first.

As the overseer tied the broad leather thongs around Meleta's wrists to the whipping bar, she grinned.

"We'll see what you're made of this time slave!" She growled. Meleta winced as the tight thongs were pulled taut and bit into her skin.

Meleta was just twenty years old, with a broad, full, firm body, almost made for the oar. Her dark skin, bright sky blue eyes and black hair marked her as very much the provincial girl and her large, heavy breasts and full, rounded figure had been much caressed and had been the delight of many an amorous boyfriend before Meleta's days of slavery, for she liked her men as much as they liked her. In fact, it was as much the fear of shame by her Father as penury that made him elect to sell Meleta, when he found he could not keep men from seeking out her favours, any more than he could keep his voluptuous daughter from giving her many amorous admirers all that they were seeking from her. Having made up his mind, he sold her to a caravan of slavers who were passing through the town and considered both his pocket and good family name saved. He knew it would just be a matter of time before his pretty daughter was caught in one of her sexual encounters and hauled up before the religious courts and served to a very public flogging, dragging both her and his name in the slime and the mud in the process.

So Meleta joined the coffle and was dragged from one rundown, desert town to the next for over four weeks, until they reached a large, provincial town and a very large, slave auction. Meleta had visions of being bought by some wealthy Pasha, or perhaps even for a Sultan's harem, but the reality fell far short of her dreams, for she was quickly bought by an evil, lecherous looking beast as a job lot and hauled off to a slave-galley, branded and put to work. That was three years ago and Meleta felt as though she had belonged to the galleys all her life. She had worked the land on her Father's small-holding from time to time and hard, sweaty labour it was indeed, but it paled into insignificance alongside the driving agony and servitude of the galley oar, where the food was disgusting, the work all but exhausting, the treatment brutal and the sweltering heat enough to melt a hardened desert Riff.

The true brutality of the regime, she and another of the pretty galley slaves were about to discover, lashed to an old oar reserved for the job, singled out for a good taste of the cat-o'-five tails. True to say, this was nothing new to Meleta, to any of the galley slaves. Being driven with the whip and singled out for individual punishment and lashed like an animal was familiar enough treatment, but it didn't make it any easier to bear. In fact, each flogging always seemed to be worse than the last.

The slave bound alongside Meleta was flogged first and Meleta blanched at how hard her flogging was. The overseer that was dispensing the punishment that day was a broad, powerful, almost statuesque blonde woman, herself a veteran of the oar as all overseers were. She had worked the bench for eight years and the labour and the lash had not cowed her spirit. The oar had made her strong and self-assured, she had worked her way to the front bench, the pace oars and she had ploughed the waters as she now drove the slaves, - with a will.

Having flogged the first slave, it was now Meleta's turn and it was not an ordeal Meleta was going to relish. She tossed the first, bloodied cat aside and selected a second and gave a cruel, half-grin as she eyed Meleta's broad, brown back. It carried the evidence of the day's hard driving, but was a clear enough field for her to plough on, she was sure of that. She looked her up and down the baggy, cream Zouave pants, stained and grimy, the dark hair sticking to her sweaty neck and shoulders. This slave was going to hurt.

The powerful blonde whip-mistress was dripping with sweat, having worked the first slave hard, her loose, low slung, dark blue pants were damp with her sweat, the long legs of her pants draped onto her bare feet; the waistband just above her hips was stained dark and wet. Now warmed to her task of flogging the slaves, she was going to make it hard for Meleta also.

She raised the cat and let the hard, knotted ends tap the middle of her back gently, allowing them to caress and kiss her tenderly, as her former lovers so often did. Then the powerful overseer stepped back. Her face took on an expression of grim determination, with her mouth set into a hard, straight line and remaining fixed on her broad, bare, sweating target, Meleta's shoulders, she let rip hard and fast. The cords hissed for a split second and then impacted with an ugly, flat smack that filled the galley deck of sullen, sweaty, bowed galley slaves with sound. Meleta's head shot back and she lurched forward momentarily, stunned by the force. She struggled to absorb the pain and was still doing battle with its ever-changing nuances, when the second struck, just as hard, but down low, just above her waist. Meleta felt the hard knots of the cords bite. She heard the cat fly again and then grunted in pain as it struck just below her shoulder blades, a little lower than the first had been. The next struck her right where the first had and with the stripes from that first, still dancing, Meleta could not keep from crying out briefly.

"Urgh, ow!" She winced. The cruel overseer could not help from grinning briefly, she was good at this and moreover, she enjoyed it. In the past she had stood where Meleta now stood many times and even now, overseers were not exempt from the lash, though more frequently, discipline was enforced on overseers with the cane on their feet or buttocks and it was usually done on the upper deck, out of the sight of the slaves, but to administer the pain that she herself knew and had felt so often, pleased her. She knew that by now, Meleta would be flooded with pain, from the top of her head to her toenails and she still had another twenty lashes to work into her. She would warm this slave's blood and then shed it before she had finished with her.

The driver worked Meleta with stern determination and by the tenth lash, where the flying cords and knots had crossed and intersected, Meleta's skin split and she began to bleed. That seemed to spur the whip-mistress to drive the slave girl even harder; so that by the time the last lash had been struck the blonde was dripping with sweat and was quite breathless. Meleta had remained silent for the most part, only letting the odd yelp out from time to time, though such utterances became more frequent towards the end, just as her squirming became more urgent as she struggled to ride out the appalling torture.

The overseer stepped back, admiring her handiwork. Two bloody backs, two girls dripping with sweat, their heads bowed.

"Perhaps that will spur the pair of you to work the oar a little harder next time," sneered the blonde as she turned and snapped to other overseer girls behind. "Cut the pair of them down and lock them in the hole for the night!"

Meleta and her equally suffering mate were cut free, both gasping and wincing with pain with every movement. They were taken to the upper deck; where at the front of the boat was a low, ironclad structure. It was well packed with insulated walls to gather heat through the day, being exposed to the burning Sun, so that by the time the Sun went down, it was reluctant to surrender its accumulated heat to the heavy, sultry night air. It was a low, dark, sweatbox, to further any miscreants suffering. Both girls were tightly gagged and shackled. They were then forced to crouch and sit one behind the other in the sweltering, low hut. A heavy iron bar ran through the top of the hut and the girls shackles were run through this, to keep their arms suspended and when the door was closed and sealed and the iron shackle bar secured, the girls would be left there to sweat the night out, unable to speak and only able to move slightly, it was a most uncomfortable end to an agonising ordeal. The only respite they would gain would be to be spared the oar the following day. Instead they would be runners, serving food and dispensing water and accolade to the labouring slaves. It was always considered that a day's rowing after a studied flogging was not good slave operating procedure and runners on board were always needed anyway.

Such floggings, though commonplace, were not a usual day for a galley slave. Normally, her day was hauling an oar at a pace set for her by the stentorian beat of two drums, positioned fore and aft. The slave laboured without talking, bathed in sweat and driven constantly by the slicing lash. It was hot, hard, tiring and mind numbingly boring work, coupled with the revolting, generally stale food that was the same, three times a day. The only break of routine was when they pulled into dock. Then the hard work of unloading and reloading the galley would commence and the galley slaves again, undertook this work.

One could not be blamed for imagining this would be easier perhaps than hauling an oar, but nothing could be further from the truth. Loading was traditionally backbreaking labour. Carrying heavy sacks and crates, even rocks and stones, carried communally, slung on great, rope nets and all the time, the slaves worked under the watchful eye of the slave-drivers, who would punish any perceived tardiness with sharp slices of the whip. The slaves were expected to work at a half run when not carrying and at a forced rush when they were. No delaying was tolerated.

It was another sweltering day at the oar; as Meleta had just begun to become accustomed to the increased rate from a half beat to a three quarter. They would be expected to maintain this rate now for the next six or seven hours, until the feed detail and rest period took place, done in rotation of half the crew on, half the crew off and they would be allowed a half hour of respite.

Suddenly, there was activity amongst the overseers and constantly, they were leaning over the rows of slaves peering over the gunwales, looking out to sea. Then, Meleta and the other slaves heard the word clearly enough.

"Pirates, Pirates! There are pirates behind us!" Immediately there was a call from above by the captain, as she shouted.

"Beat the full rate. We are on the run!" The drumbeat increased suddenly and there was the corresponding grunt and haul to meet it from the slaves. All around the whips slapped and cracked, urging the slaves on. The captain shouted down again. "Keep those dogs pulling, whip them harder!" She shouted. She didn't need to compel the slaves too heartily, the galley slaves were a luckless creed to be sure, but they didn't relish the idea of being taken by pirates. They could end up as oarswomen for Riffs or worse; they certainly didn't need any more encouragement than that, the thought was the best whip on the galley at that moment.

The oars were worked at an incredible rate and it went on and on. The usual respite the slaves would have had just after noon was withheld. There was no question of easing off and the pirate galley was not only maintaining the chase, it was inexorably closing the gap. The faster, lighter pirate galley was built for speed, streamlined and sleek; more than a match for a ponderous hauler like a slave-galley.

They had gained a good head start on the pirates, easily a mile or two, but inevitably, as Meleta and the others worked, it became clearer by the hour that they were not going to shake this infernal galley off. The overseers grew ever more desperate, lashing and driving the girls on, but it was of little use. Hauling at full rate like this was too much, even for the pace oars, and the drivers could see that the crew were spent. No amount of lashing could drive them on, four or five swipes would urge the slave on for few more minutes, before the ache and exhaustion returned with a vengeance, compelling the gasping girl to ease back. One of the overseers by Meleta leaned over her as she did battle with her oar, to peer outside.

"To the dogs with them. Who have they got rowing for them?" The overseer cried, before slashing her whip ever harder across Meleta's and her oar mates' back.

Pirates had not troubled the seas of the province for many years and any exceptions had been sporadic and short lived, as the Talasians had driven the offenders from the seas, but this seemed like a new breed. They rowed a sleek, streamlined galley and their rowing crew seemed tireless, their boat faster than a ponderous, overloaded galley. Lighter, faster, there could only ever be one outcome and although it had taken a long time, the fast, gleaming galley drew alongside them.

The boat drew along the same side of the galley as Meleta rowed from and looking out over her oar she could see the sleek, new looking vessel. She saw its shinning nameplate 'Brigand' and from within its dark interior, she could hear the whips and the pirate's shouts as they drove their galley crew on. Suddenly, Meleta was repelled back into her own dark world, as the whip bit across her shoulders, two, three swingeing swipes and then her oar mate gained her stripes.

"Damn those curs!" Shouted the slave driver. "There's no beating them," she groaned. The drums were driving at an alarming rate, but the pace was just not in the bodies of the whip-worn galley slaves and further flight seemed utterly futile. There was another shout from the captain above.

"Get more out of those dogs! Is there not anymore they can give? You all have whips, use the accursed things!" But the new command was not executed. The pirates had other ideas and they were not about to let their new, ponderous quarry escape them. Suddenly, large grappling hooks were hurled over their boat and they landed with thuds and bangs, as the pirate's boat seemed to grab their own with great tentacles of iron and rope. Meleta could feel the pace on their oars drop alarmingly, as the pirates stopped rowing, adding their own weight to the galley, slowing it further. Then, Meleta saw the oars on the Pirate galley her side being quickly stowed and in the next instant, she was flung from her bench and nearly crushed by her oar, as the pirate boat, thundered broadside into their own, smashing their oars like matchwood. The sideswipe of the actual boats was mitigated by the bulk of the impact being taken and absorbed by the slave-galley's shattering oars, so that no damage was done to either of the galleys and then, it was all over, as like a plague, pirates jumped onboard and took control. Pirates now, like the galley she rowed, owned Meleta, asset of the boat.