Bit of a hiatus. Thanks for your patience everyone. I will likely try to finish some of my series soon.
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I was patently aware that I was now the only one on the ship not wearing clothes.
The villagers had all been given cloaks, enough to keep them warm and, perhaps, cover their nakedness without giving them the dignity of proper clothing. That had been this afternoon, and still my pale, tightly muscled frame was bared for all to see.
I was also still tied to the mast, three days after my capture, and my arms were starting to ache. She liked to taunt me, play with me. Yet at night she brushed her hands upon my skin in lust, sometimes using my perpetually hard cock in the dark.
She was fiery, and challenged me regularly, enjoying my frustration. Tonight, like most nights, she was apart from the men. They were suspicious of her. She was colourful, vivacious in the daylight. Dangling earrings of blue opal, a fine tunic and trim cloak. At night she wore her wolf pelt as if she were some sort of lycanthrope. She had donned it when the sun set about an hour ago.
"What does your god say about women?"
She squeezed my cock, smiling slightly as I grimaced. Then she started rubbing it. I began to moan. She stopped.
"Tell me, peasant."
"Timothy says that, that..."
She rubbed a little more, and then stopped. Seated with my arms bound as they were, I had no control over what she did to me. I determined to put the fear of god in her.
"A woman must NEVER have authourity over a man. She is to remain quiet. THAT is what your lord has declared, heathen!"
I expected her to get angry about my outburst, I think, but she did not. Instead, she sat straddling my legs, holding herself inches from my cock. I thus was seated, back to the mast, with her in front of me. Her long blonde hair hung down alluringly, half covering her large breasts. She lowered herself tantalizingly close to my erect cock.
"Oh yes? And how are we to govern the old, the insane, the servants?" -- She touched my face possessively, stroking my cheek - "The slaves?"
"That... That is men's work. They are the master of the household."
She frowned, and started grinding on me slowly, which I was entirely unable to resist, tied as I was. The irony of what I was saying was not lost on me. Then, seating herself on my cock, Edda leaned down and bit my neck lightly, as if marking something that was hers. I gasped for a moment, but then she started thrusting onto me.
I got ever closer to climax, and then suddenly she lifted herself off of me and stood. I groaned, having lost the ability to touch myself. I struggled and, I confess, almost begged her to finish making use of me, but she headed off to sleep on the other side of the ship, leaving me sitting frustrated in the cold. That night, I slept alone.
The longship was greeted with horn blasts when it arrived at port, and men with yellow beards, some of them dyed with ochre, crowded on the wharf to receive us.
Above soared mighty fjords, perhaps as intimidating and beautiful as the people that lived in them. Upon reaching the shore, most of the captives were deboarded and locked to the two long, intimidating coffle chains by the housecarls. Other housecarls loaded the spoils, including some valuables I recognized from our monastery, into trunks. The riff -- raff eyed them suspiciously.
Edda held my short chain leash tight as one of the Jarl's men approached. He wore a royally trimmed cloak with a silver broach and a shield on his back. He was young, blonde haired and blue eyed like most of them, with cheekbones almost as sharp as Edda's.
"That one comes with us as well. You'll get your share of the spoils once they're sold, she - berserker, and a fine share too. I hear that you killed three men, one with your bare hands."
"No."
Edda gripped my chain in her right hand, and my tied hands in her left. She had untied me from the mast, but we had not yet stepped onto the dock. She held my wrist sharply with her other hand, as if afraid I might get away.
"You know the rules. You can buy him at auction if that is what you desire, she -- berserker, but he is property of the Jarl."
I stood, humiliated but somewhat more docile knowing that escape was hopeless. The demons had me. But also... She had worked on me during the weeks long crossing. Tested my boundaries, discovered that, no matter how I tried, I was almost always aroused in her presence. She seemed to like that.
Reluctantly, she pushed me to the Housecarl, who swiftly took my chain and pulled me with him overboard to the wharf, leading me to the coffle. Most of the slaves on the coffle wore rough cotton cloaks, but I remained nude. I held my neck to the chain as the housecarl locked me to it. No point in getting a reputation now, if I was to escape, it would have to be later. He untied my hands.
Someone behind us cracked a whip, and the coffle chain hastened to obey, our chain jangling as we marched towards the open market in the middle of town. Barefoot, the dirt road felt rough. We passed the Jarl caressing his wife and a few slavers who followed along with the line, sometimes prodding or poking one of the captives. The Housecarl leading the line stopped us at the marketplace. It was open air, a wooden slaver's hut behind an old stone platform from which merchandise could be sold.
We filed into the musty old hut anxiously, one after the other. It had a few large rooms. As we entered the first, our collars were unlocked from the chain. The woman in front of me, dirty, able only to conceal her nudity with a roughspun cloak, had it unceremoniously ripped from her and tossed into a pile. She protested quietly, "no, please sir no..." but two hard faced men grabbed her and brought her into the next room. Her brown eyes teared up slightly, but she kept a brave face. They came back and one smirked at my nakedness. "Already prepped for market I see."
I started hearing screams from elsewhere in the market house. In this room, two women were scrubbing down the captive in front of me. Another approached me aggressively.
"Sit on the stool."
I did so, and without warning she began shearing away at my hair with a knife. I tried to move away and instantly two men were upon me, locking my wrists together behind my back with manacles and then holding me still. Then she finished the job with a finer razor so that I was bald. I kept a straight face, but the woman whom I had come in with teared up as she was cleaned intimately by the two women. They kept her long hair, but shaved her in her intimate area. When they were done, they stood her, slapping her ass, then gave her to two men who brought her to the next room.
The women approached me, and one of them, noticing I was hard, grinned. I confess, god forgive me, that for women who must have been middle aged they looked amazing. They had fine bodies, muscular, jutting breasts revealed by quite generously revealing dresses. No Christian, Saxon woman dressed like that. I felt shame from losing my hair, but when they cleaned me, I gasped slightly. I had no way to conceal my cock, which they spent an inordinate amount of time on. The men looked on impassively. They then brought me to the next room.
The woman in front of me, a beautiful, brown haired woman with perky breasts and a thin physique, was placed in a standing wooden rack with her head and neck in the holes. Next, her feet were manacled to pegs in the floor and a large ceramic bowl was placed underneath her. She was crying audibly now, aware as I was of what was coming.
The brazier burned hot, and the iron was removed by a muscular, shirtless smith with long blonde hair held back by a circlet. He lifted the iron and thrust it on the back of her left shoulder, holding it for three seconds. She screamed and struggled in the rack, urinating into the bowl. After a few seconds it stopped, and, shaking she was released. A few women helped her to dress.
I was next, and the blacksmith exchanged some words with the men, which I did not overhear. He laughed and addressed me, naked and cowering with one of the men clutching my wrists so that I didn't try to run.
"Apparently we have a special plan for you, peasant. A certain woman wants you.... Intimately branded.. As you appear to be destined for..." -- he leered at my cock -- "a more intimate thralldom, I am more than happy to oblige."
The guard unshackled my wrists. "Try anything, and you'll be sorry."
Part of me wondered what branding would feel like. I saw no use resisting.
"Yes, sir."
I placed my neck and wrists in the rack, and he turned me so that I was facing him, then swung it closed. Next, he manacled my ankles to pegs on the floor. The restriction on my movement, the feeling of metal on my ankles made me nervous. I had no idea, or choice on where I would be branded. I braced for the iron and he approached me with it, towering over my already tall frame. He thrust the iron into my upper left thigh, on my side just below my ass. I screamed in agony.
He held the iron for three seconds, and I gasped as he removed it. My vision swam, and I struggled violently in the restraints. Just as quickly as it had come, however, the pain began to dull, and I wept quietly as he removed the manacles and unlocked the rack. I expected to be clothed then, but was instead pulled by two large, burly men through the back door of the hut.
Two lines had formed at the back, one coffle clothed, and one nude. The clothed coffle was mostly women in roughspun tunics. They all sat balefully in the dirt. Some of the women in the nude line, apparently recently stripped, were crying.
The two men locked me to the unclothed coffle, whereas the woman who had been in front of me had apparently been given clothes and locked to the other coffle. One of them spoke to a large, bearded man who stood idly with his back against the hut.
"These naked prisoners are to be sold today. The others are to be sent east, and then south, along the trade routes to the land where the sun blazes. Proceeds from both sales will go to the Jarl, to divide amongst his men as he sees fit."
The ring at the end of the clothed line was hung on a ring hammered into the wall beside the back of the hut. The lead at the end of my coffle, however, was grabbed by the large, bearded man and yanked roughly so that we all stumbled. I was third in line, and hastened to obey his command to hurry as we headed for the front of the hut. The grass at least, was soft, and the air clear.
The market was busy, with smaller traders giving good coin for the treasure that the Jarl has brought back, to be resold later in the smaller towns. Eventually, it seemed, the spoils would be divided amongst all and the raiding party would disperse. The most expensive goods, however, had yet to be sold -- us.
The large, bearded man led us onto the wide stone platform. There were about eleven in total, men and women, all completely nude. Several of us shivered -- even summer in this place was chilly. Almost immediately, some wealthier townspeople started grabbing us, feeling us. They were bright, in blue tunics and fur trimmed cloaks. We were as dirty as they were clean and lavish.
A man strode up to me and grabbed my leg, squeezing, feeling the muscle. He nodded appreciatively, his blue eyes pensive under his fur lined cap. I had had enough, this was undignified.
"Unhand me, heathen!"
Enraged, the slaver marched up to me from behind the platform and then hopped up onto the platform. I felt all the more naked. He then turned me around and grabbed my cock, squeezing.
"Quiet, slave."
