Chapter 5 - Arrival
Wherever they were, it was dark. Pitch dark. The three were still holding hands, but Rhys felt Jade let go. He heard her take a couple of footsteps and then heard a thud followed by her uttering an expletive. "What's that I've kicked?" she asked rhetorically. "Master, please ask your ring to give us a little light?"
Rhys held his arm up in the air and then directed the thought at the ring on his finger. A light suddenly appeared and lit the room. However, it wasn't his ring generating the light; rather, a small glowing orb was hovering in his open palm, his fingers casting shadows around the room. Surprised, he stared at it for a while before turning his head to look at his surroundings.
The friends were in a slightly dusty bedroom with a wardrobe, a single bed, a couple of cabinets with drawers and a small table with a chair. Heavy curtains covered the windows, and a dozen baskets and boxes were placed on the floor, one of which Jade had apparently kicked.
The door burst open while the three friends were getting their bearings, and three men charged into the room. The lead man had a poker held above his head, ready to attack, and the other two men were also armed, one with a small dagger and the other with what looked like a ceremonial sword that people would display on their walls.
Caught by surprise, Rhys closed his hand and dropped into a fighting posture. The orb disappeared, and the light level in the room dropped markedly. Jade spun around to face the men and yelled, "Richard!"
The first man skidded to a stop, and the other two ran into the back of him, knocking him forward. He looked at Jade in amazement. "Cha..." he started to say before stopping mid-word as Jade shook her head, eyes wide. The man recovered and asked, "Jade? What are you doing here? We thought there were burglars! Who are these people with you?"
Jade was now a picture of composure and clearly felt comfortable here. "Hello, Richard," she said, "I'm sorry for dropping in on you like this. This is Katarina. She's a good friend of mine. And this is Rhys Atherton. He's also a good friend.
"Rhys, Kat, this is Richard Spencer. He helped me get away from my slavery." She looked at Richard. "Technically, he is, or was, my owner." Rhys and Kat stared at Jade briefly before turning back to look at Richard.
"Can I also introduce you to his two compatriots? This," she indicated the man with the dagger, "is Ragnar, Richard's right-hand man and this," she indicated the man with the antique sword, "is Kaspar. He's Richard's valet."
"Rhys Atherton?" Richard asked. "After all these years. It's good to meet you again. Nice trick with the light, by the way!" He smiled and held his hand out to Rhys, who grasped it. The two shook hands. Rhys stepped forward and shook hands with Ragnar and Kaspar too.
Richard looked at Kat, who curtseyed at him. "I don't mean to be indelicate," he asked Jade, "but she is wearing a slave collar?"
"It is a long story," said Jade, "even though it's only a few days in the making. Can we go somewhere where we can all sit down, and I'll tell you what happened to us and why we are all here now?"
Richard led the party out of the bedroom, down a set of stairs and into a drawing room with six armchairs arranged around the room and a fireplace containing a warming fire. Ragnar and Kaspar pulled two of the chairs away and formed the remaining four into a semi-circle in front of the fire. Both men bowed and made their way out of the room, leaving Richard and the three friends alone.
Jade told Richard their story, from meeting Rhys in the house in Roligvan to the point where the three of them had jumped into the sea from the sinking Skotur. She then told how they'd managed to swim and stumble ashore and had met a wizard called Cadellin who'd healed them (including removing their slave tattoos) and looked after them. He'd then magicked them into the bedroom in Richard's house after Jade had shown him mentally where she wanted them to go. She omitted any mention of their journey to, and experience in, the magical plane.
Richard listened attentively and seemed to accept Jade's telling of what had happened over the past few days. Jade finished up by asking his help to get replacement papers for Rhys and her and a new identity as a free woman for Kat.
Richard nodded. "I should be able to get that in motion. We have contacts in the Seibjerg embassy who can issue papers for Rhys. And..." he thought for a moment, "...and for you too." Rhys noticed the hesitation and made a mental note to ask Jade about it.
"Katarina will be more difficult," Richard continued. "You say that she only speaks Reijik, so she cannot realistically be given any identity other than a Reilander. We will have to get one of our friends in the Reiland government to work on this. Kat, what's your surname?"
"Slaves don't have surnames, sir," she said, "but my family name from several generations ago is Wildwood."
"Katarina Wildwood, then," Richard said. He then stopped for a moment as though half-remembering something. "Wildwood?" he continued, speaking to himself. He shook his head and continued, "I'll make provision for that." He rose, pulled a bell cord by the door, and then returned to the fire. "We also need to remove that collar," he said to Kat, who nodded emphatically.
Kaspar came into the room, and Richard asked him for writing material and to bring tools to remove the collar. Kaspar bowed and exited the room.
"I promised to tell you both my story," Jade said, addressing Rhys and Kat, "and I've been dragging my feet about that. I'll tell you the end of my life as a slave so you will understand how I know Richard and why I asked Cadellin," she looked a bit embarrassed, "to send us here.
"When I passed my final tests to be a pleasure slave, I was put up for sale. My asking price was the highest of all the women who trained with me, so much so that most people couldn't afford me. I was kept naked in a cell in the showroom, chained to the back wall by my collar. The other three walls were bars so people could see me. The chain was long enough so I could move around, but not reach the door.
"Over the whole time I was in the cell, many people came to look at me. When the salesmen brought someone to me, I had to stand in the 'present' position. That's my hands behind my head, legs at shoulder width apart, and my body arching slightly forward. I had to stand by the bars at the front of the cell so that the prospective customers could see me in closeup and even feel my breasts or," she blushed and looked at Richard, "my private parts.
"It was difficult to judge how long I was in there, but I would guess it was about three weeks before a woman came to my cell. She checked me over, nodded to the salesperson, and left without saying anything. Shortly afterwards, I was taken out of my cell, given a bath and dressed in a tight-fitting long dress that showed a lot of cleavage. Guards removed my steel collar and fitted a smaller leather one with a D-ring at the front, fastened with a lock at the back. They fitted me with some lightweight manacles that held my hands behind my back and some more manacles for my ankles that meant I could only take small steps. They clipped a leash to my collar and led me away.
"They led me outside - I'd been indoors for months - and helped me into a grand carriage. The woman who'd come to see me was there. The carriage started, and we sat there, neither of us saying a word. The carriage took us through the outskirts of Chatamor and, after about two hours, brought us to a grand estate. We went through the guarded gates and up to a fine house.
"The woman who'd accompanied me helped me down from the carriage and took me into the house. There, I met my new owner. He was an older man called Lord Aspell. It turned out that he loved socialising and especially dancing. He's paid a small fortune to buy me so that he could take me to dances. I'd been given top marks for dancing by the slave dealers. I spent the next few months practising new dances in his ballroom, eating with him at the table and sleeping in a small bed in his bedroom. Every week, he'd take me to a social occasion, dress me up as a lady, clip a silver leash to my collar, and we'd dance until late. He never touched me sexually.
"After around six months, he died in his sleep from a seizure. The woman who'd chosen me from the slave traders was his only child and heir, and she didn't want me around after his death, so she sent me back to the slave traders.
"Fortunately, Richard here," she gestured to him, "came and rescued me. When we got back here, to this house, he removed my slave collar and let me stay here."
Kat and Rhys were listening with rapt attention and nodded to her.
Richard then picked up the story. "I've been a member of the Minshull Foundation for years. Jade was on our wanted list as someone who was missing, suspected captured by a slaver raiding party." He stopped and looked at Jade. "I hope I'm not saying too much, but we had a very lifelike painting of her from her previous life, and one of the Foundation's other members recognised her at one of the events that Lord Aspell took her to. We try to keep an eye on slave markets and dealers, but we didn't spot her when she was initially sold. When we heard Lord Aspell had died, we stepped up surveillance in case his heirs put her up for sale. When she went to the public slave traders, they bought her and registered her with me as her new owner.
