The Bridle Path

  THE BRIDLE PATH

  by

  JENNIFER JANE POPE

  (writing as FAITH EDEN)

  The Bridle Path first published in 2000 by Chimera Publishing. Published as an eBook in 2012 by Chimera eBooks.

  ISBN 9781780801032

  www.chimerabooks.co.uk

  Chimera (ki-mir'a, ki-) a creation of the imagination, a wild fantasy.

  New authors are always welcome, or if you're already a published author and have existing work, the eBook rights of which remain with or have reverted to you, we would love to hear from you.

  This work is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The author asserts that all characters depicted in this work of fiction are eighteen years of age or older, and that all characters and situations are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  Copyright Jennifer Jane Pope. The right of Jennifer Jane Pope to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This novel is fiction - in real life practice safe sex.

  Chapter 1

  The caravan was small: three wagons, ten pack horses and four outriders, all of whom seemed disinterested in either road or surrounding hillsides, their world confined by the cloud of thick dust that accompanied the short procession's laboured progress. To the two watchers, hidden amidst the rare outcrop of trees atop the ridge, their lack of alertness could mean only one thing.

  'Probably salt,' said Jorkan of Karli, a sparse framed, heavily bearded fellow, whose rough breeches and thick leather tabard betrayed all the signs of many weeks upon the road. His companion, younger and fairer of skin, nodded.

  'They have come from the right direction,' he agreed. He turned to face west and raised one hand, shading his eyes from the steadily dipping sun. 'They will only just make the river crossing by nightfall,' he calculated, 'so they will have to camp again this night.' The older man grunted and wiped the back of his hand across his dry mouth.

  'As they have camped these many nights, Paulis,' he said. 'Such caravanners have no spare silver for lodgings, believe me.'

  'Then perhaps—'

  'Perhaps nothing, my young friend,' Jorkan snapped. 'Look closer down there and tell me what it is you see. Three wagons, each with two wagoneers, four horsemen also, as many men as you have toes and we are but two thumbs to oppose them. Do you seriously think it is worth such odds in order to steal a few sacks of salt?'

  'But they must have other goods in those wagons,' Paulis protested. 'Some silks, maybe, or perhaps still a few slave women.' Jorkan snorted again and wheeled his mount around.

  'Slave women?' he echoed. 'I somehow think not. The day is late and the horses will be tired. If they had slaves in those wagons, by now they would be walking, saving the strength of the horses until they make camp. Besides,' he added, spurring his horse into a walk, 'what would you do with slave women, beyond the obvious?

  'The laws of Illeum, even here near the borders, are strict on such matters. Without the correct bills of sale and pedigree, anyone found attempting to sell slaves is liable to arrest on the spot. The punishment for such an offence is also harsh beyond the possible rewards for the risks involved, unless, that is, you fancy yourself as a lifetime slave, perhaps even as a eunuch in the house of some fat merchant?'

  Captain Niti Ingrim surveyed the thirty or so blue and gold clad bodies that his men had lined up alongside the trail and allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction. The ambush had been perfectly timed and staged, the small detachment of Illeum soldiers not expecting any trouble this far from the border. Ingrim's force had fallen upon them and slain more than half their number with arrows before they had time to react, and the outcome had never been in any doubt.

  Even more pleasing, from Ingrim's point of view, was that there had been no casualties among his men, a better result than he could have dared forecast. He looked across to where his second-in-command, Sergeant Orfal, was supervising the clearing up operation, and raised his arm. Orfal, seeing the summons, left what he was doing and came dutifully trotting at the double.

  'How many uniforms?' Ingrim demanded. Orfal hesitated, tallying on his fingers.

  'Fourteen unmarked, sir,' he said, at last, 'plus six or seven more that can be sewn or patched. The remaining half dozen are too badly bloodstained, I'm afraid.'

  'That will do,' Ingrim said. 'There are the four counterfeit tabards that the decoys wore and another six in our wagon. Have you checked their carts yet? I expect you will find spare clothing there, too.'

  'I'll see to it immediately, sir,' Orfal barked. 'And the bodies?'

  'Have a detail take them deep into the woods and bury them well,' Ingrim ordered. 'Tell them to use all the lime. We don't want some hunter's dog scrabbling about until we are well away from here.'

  'No sir,' Orfal agreed. 'I'll see to it personally. And do we start changing into the uniforms now?' Orfal, like Ingrim and the rest of their party, was dressed in the clothing of a civilian traveller, only his bearing and language betraying his military status.

  Ingrim shook his head. 'Not yet, sergeant,' he replied. 'We are still too far west and could easily come across one of the local garrison squadrons. This relief detachment, especially the officers, could well be known to the local troops, so it would be safer to wait. When you have seen to the burial party, come back and bring your map with you.

  'My plan is for us to split up into several smaller parties and rendezvous a few miles from the castle itself. Varragol is so far removed from the rest of Illeum that they won't know whom to expect. The uniforms will be all they worry about and even some of your lads' accents won't trouble them. So many of the outlying garrisons are recruited from outside Illeum itself - why should one more small detachment be any different?'

  'Aye, captain,' Orfal grinned. 'We'll be in among 'em before they have time to realise their mistake.'

  Ingrim smiled back. 'All in good time, sergeant,' he replied. 'But make sure that none of these cut-throats moves before I give the word. We may have to bide our time there for a day or two, just until we have the lie of the land. If our man turns out not to be there, that this is some kind of hoax after all, then bloodshed would be pointless. All we should do then is to alert the area to our presence.'

  'Aye, sir,' Orfal said. 'I'll make sure they all know the situation.'

  'They'd better,' Ingrim snapped. 'I'll personally disembowel the first man who fucks up and castrate you into the bargain, understood?' Orfal, his weathered features inscrutable, raised his right arm to his shoulder in salute.

  'Understood, sir.'

  The girl was barely out of her teens, though her body was developed to a ripe maturity, shoulders and thighs nicely muscled and with a slender, flat waist. The ropes that bound her wrists and held them upstretched to the two iron rings near the ceiling forced her onto tiptoe, further enhancing the length of her lower limbs, though the continued discomfort of her position did little to improve the shape of her features, which remained twisted in pain, eyes hollow with fear.

  Silently, she stared back at her captors, knowing that any pleas for clemency would be wasted and that any sounds that demonstrated either her fear or her agony would serve only to add to their evident enjoyment of her helplessness and their power over her.

  The two men were as chalk and cheese: the older silver-haired, fat, swathed in voluminous silken robes that seemed to mirror the rolls of fat about his jowls and eyes,
whilst the younger fellow was black-haired, muscular, fit and, if the circumstances had been different, even handsome, with the swarthy looks of a native of Colrasia, that southern continent that remained largely the source of myth and mystery, save for those few travellers and traders that periodically appeared in the northern, civilised world.

  His garb was that of either a hunter or, in his particular case, that of the typical overseer: leather breeches and jerkin, woollen shirt, high boots with heavy soles and with heavy, studded bands about wrists and neck, such that offered protection against teeth, thorns, horns, or even knives. His dark eyes were expressionless, but ever alert, and the girl could see that he missed nothing, as he had not missed her hiding place among the riverside bushes the previous evening.

  The third member of the trio was female, not quite as tall as the younger man, but tall nonetheless for a woman, and made even taller by the elevated heels of her long boots. In age she was somewhere between the two men - perhaps forty, the girl guessed - but no less fit looking than the hunter fellow and possibly as strong, for her shoulders, upper arms and thighs were the equal in girth of his and, but for the burgeoning breasts and flaring hips, could have leant her a masculine look that her cropped red hair did little to ameliorate.

  Her name, as the girl had discovered upon her original arrival in this house, was Bextra, and she was the penultimate arbiter regarding the fate of the slaves of Daskot Mennim, the fat, pig-eyed obscenity who now viewed Demila's - for that was the hanging girl's name - predicament. The same Daskot who had taken her to his bed upon her arrival here and performed such obscenities upon her young and innocent body.

  'You have done well, Master Pecon,' Daskot smirked. The bounty hunter nodded, saying nothing, a man of few words. 'As ever, you have wasted little time in earning your fee. Five silver telts, I believe?'

  'Ten,' Pecon said, unblinking. Daskot's liquid features oozed into an obsequious smile.

  'Ten for the slave's return,' he said, 'less five for the enjoyment of such delicious woman flesh, unless you would have me believe that you made no use of her last night?'

  'Ten,' Pecon repeated. He half turned, regarding the merchant out of the corner of one eye. 'Whether she was used, or not, is of no weight in this matter. She is, and was, no virgin.'

  'And if you've left the slut with child?' Daskot snapped. 'What then, my friend, eh? Who will bear that cost?'

  Pecon raised one eyebrow slightly. 'I venture not you, milord,' he retorted. 'Not unless it is possible to rear a child from infancy to adulthood for less than the five telts you seek to charge me as insurance against such an event. More likely you would have the brat drowned at birth, if I am any judge.'

  'You go too far, Pecon!' Daskot shrilled. 'Have a care with that pagan tongue—'

  The younger man whirled upon him and, before the fat merchant could move, seized him about the throat, callused fingers embedding themselves amidst the folds of fat and cutting off Daskot's air supply with brutal efficiency. The older man squealed, his mouth flapping open, as his feet were all but lifted clear of the stone floor.

  'I would rather have a pagan tongue in my head than no tongue at all,' Pecon growled. His free hand now held a wickedly curved knife, that had appeared in its grasp as if by sorcery. Daskot's eyes rolled, his tongue lolling between his lips. 'Pay me my ten telts, you wobbling heap of thievery, else I'll give you the chance to test the accuracy of my judgement!'

  He relaxed his grip and let the merchant drop back, staggering until Daskot came up against a side wall, where he stood, gasping to restore air to lungs that struggled at the best of times. The blade in Pecon's hand twirled, glinting in the lantern light, and slid back into the scabbard at his belt, but the point had been well made.

  'Here,' Daskot panted, reaching within the skirt of draperies within which he perpetually dwelled, pulling out a small leather purse. He held it out at arm's length, his other hand exploring his neck, as if unable to believe that the bones and blood vessels there were still intact. 'Here,' he repeated, 'take your money and be gone.'

  A hand shot out and the purse was snatched away, but the bounty hunter made no move to leave. Instead, as he tucked the purse within the larger pouch that hung from the opposite side of his belt to that from which he had drawn the knife, he simply turned back to look once more at Demila.

  'I shall count this before I do go,' he said, 'but meantime, I have a fancy to study Mistress Bextra at work. I presume the girl is to be treated in the usual fashion reserved for runaways in these parts?'

  Bextra, who had made no move to interfere and protect her employer, now looked towards him for guidance. Daskot hesitated, the fear in his eyes now given way to anger, but it was clear he had no wish for another demonstration of Pecon's power. Sullenly, he nodded and turned towards the door that led up into the main house above.

  The dust of the summer evening smelled sweet-sour on the gentle breeze, reaching into the innermost nasal passages with a touch that lulled the senses and spoke of promises of balmy mornings and weeks of dry weather to come. Lady Corinna of Illeum, seated behind the gauze curtain that screened her from potentially prying eyes in the market arena below the small private gallery, sniffed gently, wiped her top lip discreetly with the back of one slender hand, and turned to her tanned male companion.

  'Barbaric,' she said, softly, nodding downwards in the direction of the coffle of female slaves who currently occupied the centre of the sand-strewn oval. 'The entire process is simply barbaric.'

  The Lord Savatch half turned, eyes narrowing, the ghost of a smile playing across his thin lips. 'Do I sense just the slightest tinge of something in those words, my pet?' he ventured. Corinna stiffened, flicking back her blonde tresses, and exhaled a tempered snort.

  'No,' she said, simply, 'not in the least. And only a male could possibly not understand the difference of feelings in this that I say. Look at the poor creatures down there, for the sake of all that is sacred.' She jabbed a finger in the direction of the tableau below their vantage point.

  'Who are they?' she demanded. 'What are they? Where have they come from and what have they done in this life to deserve that? Unless you have been where they are now, how could you possibly hope to understand?' She drew in a deep breath and the sigh that followed was pregnant with exasperation.

  'The difference to which I refer, my beloved master,' she continued, at length, 'is that as between rock and water. To play-act a ritual, even a ritual based upon reality, is something far removed from the reality itself.' She pursed her lips, considering her next words with care.

  'There is,' she said, 'a chasm between the wish to surrender and the demand to surrender, a gulf between what one desires and can achieve and that which is totally beyond one's ability to control, as there is a lifetime of difference between the lash applied lovingly, knowingly, and the whip brandished simply as a means of control by one barbarian over an alleged other.'

  Savatch turned back, affecting an interest in the proceedings beneath them, considering his young wife's remarks. For a full minute there was a silence between them and, when he finally spoke, it was with carefully weighed words.

  'I think,' he said, 'that my beloved princess has perhaps lost sight of certain elements. This world is far from perfect, as I, of all people, know only too well, yet 'tis the only world we have. Castes, classes - we make them not, for the bounds were set long before we first walked this earth, but they are there and each has its rules, its boundaries, its benefits and its pitfalls.'

  'So, the rules were not made by us,' Corinna snapped, 'but should that mean we ought not to seek to rewrite them?'

  'Should we seek to rewrite history, then?'

  'History is that which is already written.' Corinna shook her head, the trace of a smile flitting across her taut lips. 'It is the future to which we should look, my beloved lord.' She stood, turning away from the scene, sweeping her flowing robe about her long legs, her fingers clutching at the silky fabric. 'The past,' she said, her
voice little more than a whisper, 'cannot be changed, but it should be remembered and put to good use, for the present is but the history of the future.

  'The chains, the whips, the slave hoods, all those will I remember until my dying breath, as also I shall remember those moments when I gladly surrendered to the instincts that they - and you - unearthed. But also shall I never forget those other, those most awful hours, those hours when...' Her voice tailed off and she stood silent, staring at the blank wall that formed the back of the small observation box. Savatch took two paces towards her, reaching out a hand that caressed her bare shoulder.

  'I know,' he said, sombrely. 'And I think I understand.'

  'Maybe,' Corinna said. 'And then again, maybe not.' She took his hand and drew it around in front of her, placing the wide palm beneath her full breast. 'Maybe if you had but a single week bearing such as these,' she said quietly, 'then might you just begin a voyage of comprehension.

  'Were it not for my own birthright, I might even now be as those poor creatures are below,' she continued. 'Whilst men rule, and rule as their forefathers have done before them, little will change. A few women may still tear themselves a fragmented corner of humanity and a few more, such as myself, may be spared man's worst excesses in the name of nobility, but for most of my sisters there is little in this world for which to be grateful.'

  'Then we should, perhaps, be grateful for what there is,' Savatch suggested. His free hand had inched about Corinna's hip, the fingers now pressing against the inside of her thigh through the flimsy fabric of her gown. Automatically, Corinna pressed backwards, feeling the swelling of his groin as it pressed against her soft buttocks.