The English Rose
A standalone I had roughed out a while back, that I decided to drag out and finish.
Everyone engaged in sex is at least eighteen years old.
Prologue
For hundreds of years, southern England and southern Ireland coastal towns, in common with the coasts of most of southern Europe, were subjected to frequent lightning raids by bands of Barbary pirates, from Arabic north African city-states, principally Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli. Captives, especially women and children, were seized and spirited away to be sold in the slave markets of the Mediterranean north African coast. Except for a fortunate few lucky enough to know someone willing and able to ransom them, the tens of thousands of victims vanished forever from European history. My story is inspired by these actual historical facts, though the events described herein are my own invention. I hope you find the tale interesting.
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With mounting dread, the group of naked women huddled together for mutual warmth on the bare wooden planks of the dimly lit lower deck watched the approach of the two corsairs who were their guards. They brought no food, but one of them was carrying the black iron key to the manacles which entrapped their ankles. They all knew what that meant: one of them, or maybe more than one, was wanted to service some of the corsairs-Arab pirate sailors-who manned the ship in which they were held captive.
The guard with the key pointed to Liz, and to Anna, and they dutifully presented their ankles to have the manacles unlocked and removed. From recent painful experience, they had learned that any hesitation to obey would bring down upon them stinging blows from the truncheons the guards carried. The guards directed them, and they obediently plodded along the rolling deck and climbed the ladder to the open deck above.
One guard took Anna by the elbow and pulled her towards a door in the low forecastle of the ship, where the crew was berthed. Anna's fear blossomed instantly into abject terror. "No, please, not again, don't..." she pleaded, trying to pull away, but a quick wave of the guard's truncheon in her face silenced her protests. The guard shoved her impatiently forward, and she trudged resignedly across the deck and disappeared through the door. Before it closed, Liz heard briefly the welcoming jeers of the crew.
Liz had not yet been through that door herself, but from the reports of other captives who had, she knew what fate once more awaited Anna within. For the next several hours, until they grew weary and went to sleep, the men would take turns raping her, on her back or stomach on a rough wooden bench, bound in place if she would or could not stay on her own. The others cast lots to see who would go next, and cheered each of their shipmate's performance with gusto, offering criticism and suggestions. They would try to bribe her with food to willingly cooperate with them in various perverted barbaric sexual practices they favored. It was a tempting offer; the crew ate fresh meat, and plenty of it, from the villager's livestock they had taken during the raid, while the captives were fed a disgusting swill, and little enough even of that.
The raiders had swooped in well after dark to surprise and capture the whole little fishing village. The three ships had sailed into the little bay long after dark on the incoming tide, tied up to the crude dock, and the crews silently fanned out to surround the two dozen cottages where the fishermen and their families slept blissfully unaware of their impending fate. At a shouted order, the corsairs waving their scimitars had burst in and taken everyone captive with hardly any struggle at all.
With incredible efficiency, the corsairs had spent the rest of the night systematically looting the village of everything of any value or use to them. The captives had been securely tied together into gangs, and forced to labor carrying the loot to the ships. Every bucket in the village was employed to carry fresh water from the village well down to the dock, to refill huge barrels down in the holds. Firewood piled beside the cottage doors ready for the morning cookfire was likewise confiscated. The salted fish, the only thing of commercial value produced there, was collected and taken, along with every other kind of foodstuff. There was little enough in the way of money or other valuables to be had in the mean hovels that were their homes, but such as there was, it was easily extorted with swords to the children's throats.
The few cows the villagers possessed were led down to the dock and slaughtered, the joints of beef hauled on board to be eaten over the next couple of days before it could spoil. Goats and chickens were herded onto the ships to be confined on deck in makeshift pens. The corsairs showed no interest in the pigs in their pens, however.
Last of all, the villagers themselves were herded on board, except for a few very elderly women, apparently deemed not worth the trouble, who were left bereft on the dock tearfully watching their families depart forever. Families were separated, screaming, pleading, shouting despairing farewells to their spouses and children, whom most by now knew they were unlikely to ever see again. The corsairs were entirely indifferent to their entreaties, and enforced their orders brutally.
The women had been divided up among the ships, taken to the lower deck, forced to strip naked, chained up, and left to huddle together in fear. A crude wooden bucket was their only means of relieving themselves; a young captive boy from the village was brought round to carry it on deck to be emptied when it was full, but they were not permitted to talk to him. They were fed twice a day, half cooked porridge that turned Liz's stomach at first, but hunger soon cured her squeamishness. One bucket full of fresh water was brought to them each morning, but if they drank it too quickly, they had to wait until next morning for more, so the women agreed to ration it carefully and fairly among them.
Liz's guard directed her the opposite way from Anna, into another low door aft, down a narrow corridor and into a compact but lavishly appointed cabin, walls lined with elaborate tapestries, a beautiful carpet on the floor. A richly carved wooden desk, behind which sat a middle-aged man, suntanned but not nearly as dark complected as most of the crew, dressed in rich Arabic robes. The guard shoved her forward to stand in front of the desk, then stepped back to wait by the door.
The man spent a long moment impassively surveying her naked form. "Face the other way, so I may see your back," he commanded, in perfect unaccented English. She had heard his voice before, shouting orders at gangs of captives, during the looting of the village. Wordlessly, she obeyed. Presently, he said, "Very well, face me again," and again she obeyed.
"What are you called, my beautiful English rose?" he asked, somewhat indifferently.
"Elizabeth Williamson," she replied.
"Were you called...Liz?" he asked.
