Still

The galley rolled at anchor.

A day of no wind had meant the slaves had toiled for hours.

Now moored, the drivers had relaxed their use of the lash and the drums that beat for a fast passage through the sluggish waters of the channel were silent.

In the dark of the oar deck the slaves took what rest they could in the broiling heat of the tropical evening.

She had felt no pain like it since she'd been taken from the inquisitor's chamber and questioned with the pincers and the flail.

Her arms and legs ached from the labor of pulling and lifting the oar, while her back stung from her sweat on the criss-crossed pattern of cuts made  by the driver's lash.

In the dark, broiling heat of the oar deck at evening the galley slave rests from a day of pulling on the oars,


Now she like her fellow galley slaves seized the opportunity to gather strength for the morning light.

She had little chance to find out the stories of her companions like the dark skinned slave with rough iron rings piercing her nipples or the fragile pale red head with the raw red brand on her heavy breasts.

Her story was probably like there's. A runaway house slave who had been caught scavenging. Seized and questioned she had given up the name of her master and pleaded she knew nothing of other runaways. The press of the hot pincer teeth on her nipple had  led her to gabble out some nonsense that seemed to please her torturer as much as how she'd screamed and twisted on the upright rack.

Her master was pleased to get a price for her flesh from the galley masters when the inquisitor decreed she could be spared the cross.

She had been taken to the dock, branded on the thigh and chained to oar bench maybe two days ago.

Her first taste of the lash had been when she let the oar slip from her hands. They had beat her again when she failed to keep pace with her fellows.

The relentless motion of working the oars had torn at her body. Like the others she glistened with sweat from the exertion and the heat of the deck.

There was no rest for the slaves when daylight came and the wind fell.




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