Epilogue

In the morning she was the last to be collected. Still hooded she was she was leashed and led away. The tavern master & the smithy exchanging pleasantries as they parted. She was led through the streets to a busy harbour. Although he was in no hurry he whipped her along with a thin springy whip. Lashing the backs of her legs, with thin stingy stripes. Deliberately keeping his timing random as to tease & fluster her. He also deliberately avoided lashing her brand, thereby making her even more self conscious about the now healed & pretty pink scar.
She was hobbled by a short belled chain between her collar & fetters, keeping her bent over as if at his belt. Idly he held her leash & the whip in one hand whilst smoking with the other.
After several stops to exchange pleasantries. One of which involved a master fingering her to feel her responsiveness, in the street!. He stopped & left her kneeling cramped in a small cage outside a quayside café as the tavern master enjoyed an outdoor breakfast of grilled fish & freshly baked bread. The smell of the food tormenting the hungry slave.
When he had eaten he idled another half an hour enjoying the sea breeze coffee & cigarettes, chatting to the proprietor & some soon to be departing sailors. She waited hot in the curtained cage.
After being lashed back to the tavern. She was left still gagged with the horrible branding gag & put to work scrubbing the floors with the other slaves. They greeted her with sympathetic glances before hurrying with the chores.
Midway through the morning she heard Master Marcus’s voice. As he readied to leave the tavern. Despite her fear she looked round in desperation & forlornly. The whip & an angry voice prompted her swiftly & painfully back to her menial chores.
Master Marcus had left a note with the tavern keeper to be delivered to his old friend the slave importer & shipper from the north. Her original owner, if only as a chattel dealer. He may even pay full price for the girl herself, if it amuses his agent. It wasn’t really important she was only another slave. Or he might sell her further south to the harems deep in the desert, as a blonde novelty if nothing else. Sometimes the slaves in these harems enjoyed a certain low hierarchy. Sometimes being permitted to amuse themselves sexually with the lower slaves. As a blonde barbarian she would always be the lowest. Or she might be kept in the tavern to amuse his guests until they bored of her and she was sold to another establishment.
At about noon. Master Marcus reached the lonely dusty coastal road. He took a refreshing swim in the surf before setting off once more, happy & fulfilled, enjoying his itinerant life.
In the tavern the nameless blonde was instructed to fetch the punishment whip. & wait with it held in her trembling lips, by the punishment rack.
How merited & splendidly different the freedom of his life, was to the contraints of hers
The end