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Inquisadora
With rings on her nipples that shake to and fro,
She shall have music wherever she goes.
A smile, a wink, a lick of the lips,
Start the ordeal all face in her grip.
She'll pierce your flesh, burn off your short hairs,
Rings, brands, and whipmarks she'll help you to wear.
Candlewax, clamps, needle and thread,
Enemas, dogstick, her hand past the wrist,
Plugs, studded shafts, and, if you've earned it,
She'll make your pink flesh hum with electrical current.
Sweat, shudder, shake – scream if you want,
Her only response'll be to tighten the knot.
In no time at all you'll start answering questions,
Obey commands, follow suggestions.
All fare the same, be they lady or whore,
When it's over and done with
They each yearn for more.
Popular tavern song from the reign of Queen Caprice
Author unknown
Minok climbed the stairs slowly, age long ago having stolen most of the spring from her step. The marble stairs were covered with a wide runner, handmade and exquisitely beautiful. It had been made and cut specifically for these stairs, and there wasn't a gap or a wrinkle as the wide stairway curved down to the hall below. There were guards there, one on each side of the stairs, as there were above her where the covered steps ended. They were the largest, strongest, fiercest, finest trained guards the kingdom could produce, and they watched over the entire palace environs, not just this one bedroom.
Minok reached the upper landing and paused a second, slightly out of breath. Then she made sure her robes were in order and strode into the royal bedchamber.
This area of the palace was constructed mainly of marble of the finest grade, peach in color but with many veins of different colors running through it. In the spacious bedroom most of the veins were brown or dark red in color. They ran through the towering columns to the arched ceiling some thirty feet above.
The Queen was on her huge bed, apparently just awake. Minok stopped near the doorway and kept her own counsel as the form on the bed stretched and yawned. An afternoon nap, perhaps? The Queen, unfortunately, took no one's counsel, at least not seriously. In fact, she took little seriously, a fact her advisors, of which Minok was one, were well aware. Some of that was of course due to her age, but there were other considerations as well. She could hardly be expected to have the worldliness required of a queen knowing nothing but a life of unlimited privilege. Her advisors had made the queen's bed and now had to lie in it, so to speak.
The sheets were gold silk and in disarray, half on the floor. The Queen sat up amidst the folds and scooted forward to put her bare feet on the floor, which was covered by another magnificent hand-woven rug. The Queen's thick auburn hair was cut short to just below her ears and tousled from her nap. It framed a heart-shaped, boyish face that matched well her slender body. The Queen glanced sideways at her advisor waiting patiently by the doorway but pretended not to see her. Minok was used to that.
The young woman stood and walked casually toward the wide open doors leading onto the sun-drenched balcony. She wore but loose drawstring pants riding low on her hips, made of a fine white linen that was revealed to be sheer as she strode into the warm sunlight. Minok moved to the balcony, stopping in the shade of the doors. Guards were stationed out here on the balcony as well but both women ignored them. Female guards, as was the rule when the monarch was an uncrowned queen. Not that she couldn't order a pretty slave boy to her chambers at any time, but the ladies of the court secretly felt the queen would be better off (and perhaps easier to control) if she favored females, and they did all in their power to make it so. The queen was known to have dallied with a few palace boys but seemed to prefer her many maids, much to the delight of the shadow court. Minok wasn't sure if the queen even registered the presence of the guards anymore, or had ever noticed the subtle signs of the real security systems guarding the balcony from both air and ground attack.
Queen Verveginnia raised her arms above her head and stretched once more, feeling the warmth of the sun and the gentle breeze across her skin, then set her hands on her hips and stared out at her realm. The palace was atop a large hill and many stories high, with her bedroom on the top floor; she could see nearly the entire city laid out before her, all the way to the sea. Huge butterflies drifted up from the garden far below, butterflies and the smell of hundreds of flowers. A small army of laborers tended the palace's many gardens, feeding, watering, weeding, and fertilizing every day of the year. Beyond the garden, with its butterflies, flowers, and statuary (which provided most of the manure used to fertilize the flowers – the flagella gave them the opportunity to relieve themselves going to or returning from their display station) was the first ring wall. A field of roofs, some trimmed in copper blazing in the sun, separated by courtyards large and small, filled the spaces between the next few ringwalls. Past the fourth ringwall the city proper began, and stretched all the way down to the hazy blue sea in the distance. The sights and smells of ten thousand people, the lifeblood that made the city what it was, drifted up to her, the same as it did every day.
"I'm bored," she said petulantly as if to herself, kicking a toe against the waist-high wall encircling the balcony.
"Milady?" Minok had heard her quite well, but it was obvious the young ruler was in one of her many moods. From behind the young royal looked even more the picture of a young boy, with hips barely wide enough to keep the pantalones from sliding off.
The queen spun around and crossed her arms across her chest. "Bored," she said again, a mite churlishly, giving her closest advisor an annoyed look.
Minok raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps I can arrange for some entertainment for your highness," she offered. "Special pony races, perhaps, or some games in the garden—"
The queen frowned and waved a hand in dismissal. "I've seen everything this city has to show me," she stated flatly.
Minok ignored the absurdity of the statement and tried to placate her queen. "Maybe we—"
"Do you realize I've been Queen almost ten years and I've never been west of the River?" she demanded of her advisor.
"Well, Milady, your mother died when you were quite young, I don't think ten years—"
The queen rolled her eyes and stomped back into the dark bedroom. She threw herself sideways onto one of the divans in a huff, eyes following Minok as the aged woman came back into the bedroom, her face set in an unreadable mask.
"Don't make that face at me," the queen warned her. "You know very well it's true."
"Your highness, while it is true, I don't think it's wise to take the occasion of some simple boredom to consider traipsing into the wilds of the realm." Ignorance of the realm and all its doings has been perfectly satisfactory for you up until now, the advisor could have added, had she wanted a personal appointment with the royal inquisadora . Had she ever been that young? Just looking at the queen's body made her feel old. Her small breasts didn't fold over even when she was slouching insolently on the divan.
"How am I supposed to rule, knowing nothing of the majority of my country?" the queen demanded, brows knit together. "I will be of age in less than two years, as you well know." She stabbed a finger at a bodymaid standing hobbled in a corner and the maid immediately shuffled forward, chains tinkling. She was one of three standing still as stones in the dark corners, waiting to be called into service.
The slave girls who served the queen and court as bodymaids wore naught during the warm season but their toeboots and metals. They – as were all the handmaids and attendants in the palace, collectively known as thrallflesh – were handpicked from the city's nurseries. The exacting royal dominii raised them in their secret school, training and conditioning them from the earliest age possible. They were only placed in the palace, and released into the care of the flagella , the palace flesh tenders, when the dominii were satisfied. It was said nothing short of perfection pleased the dominii, but truth be told, most of their charges entered service by the first bloom of womanhood.
Not just from their bodies but every hair from the bodymaids' heads had been removed as well, their skulls kept oiled and glistening. The custom dated back to the black years and no one was wont to change such a longstanding tradition even though lice were no longer a problem. Two light silver chains depended from the center of their collars, each chain running down and through a nipple ring before reaching their pure silver wrist bracelets. The chains were long enough for a maid to touch her own face with outstretched fingers and no longer. Thus they were prevented from touching themselves. Even though they were forbidden from doing so without permission most were still suffering the blooming surges of maturity, not to mention the fact that the air of their sleeping quarters was a constant haze from chukka root incense. The maid's boots were connected at the ankle by a hobble chain just four small links long.
"The people expect me to know their wishes, their desires, their day to day strife. I have seen enough to know that most of my realm is not like this." She lifted one bare foot onto the divan and reclined slightly as she waved her hand at the city past the balcony, nearly striking the bodymaid as she knelt before her. "Am I to become psychic?
"Milady, might I suggest that that is why you have your royal advisors, to help you make those difficult decisions. Collectively we have a vast knowledge of the land-"
"Yes," the queen interrupted sharply, "and how did you get that knowledge? By staying locked up in the palace all your life, being chauffeured around in guarded coach, never setting foot on ground that hasn't been surveilled and sterilized thrice over? I think not!"
"Milady, this is perhaps not the best time to contemplate leaving the city. There are many important issues coming before the court."
The queen waved her hand almost in disgust. "Bring them to the attention of the court harpies, the aristocratic Ladies ," the word was dirty in her mouth, "that make the real decisions. No, don't try to deny it. They make a show of consulting me, but we both know it is but a show. I know you are my ally, perhaps the only one I have in the royal court, and you know as well as I that I am not yet the ruler of this land, even though my time draws near." Queen by birth or not, she could not officially take the throne for another nineteen months. She glanced down briefly at the gleaming skull working between her thighs. The faint tinkling of chains could be heard. Her baggy pantalones, as well as most of her lounging pants, were split-crotch, the two pantlegs connected not at all except at the drawstring front and back. They provided the bodymaid complete and easy access. "That will change, and soon, don't you worry, but before I dig my teeth into this back-stabbing poisonous life I want to see the realm my mother has left me." She smacked the maid sharply on the top of her head. "More tongue!" she commanded.
"Milady, a simple trip just to the nearest of the territories would take weeks. Ponies can only travel so far in a day. The logistics . . . . we'd need a second coach just for food and supplies, and a third for the guard, not to mention—"
"No no no," the queen cut her off. "I do not want to ride a mile-long circus train into the desert. One coach, with a handful of trusted guards, you, a maid, and myself. I want to be inconspicuous. We will bring money and jewels and buy what we need along the way. We will travel north first, then west, and see what we shall see. Among other things I wish to visit an inseminarium. You will arrange the details, you know better than I what will be required."
Minok was horrified, not the least by the thought of traveling hundreds of miles of rough road in a bumpy carriage. She desperately tried another tack, even though she knew how pointless it was to try to change the young queen's mind once it was made up. "Milady, perhaps if you knew . . . now is not the best time to be leaving the safety of the city. There are rumors – nothing substantial, mind you, but rumors nonetheless – that factions here or abroad are unhappy with the thought of you assuming the throne. They—"
"So what else is new? The old women downstairs have been grumbling at my very existence since the day my mother died. I've grown a thick skin. Give me no more arguments! I've not sent anyone to the Inquisadora for weeks and she grows restless. You'll not stand up to her idle hands as well as the drunken commoner wenches they tell me she lures from taverns. Leave me be."
"As your Highness wishes." Minok began backing out of the bedroom.
"I do. I want to leave the morning after next. I expect you to have all the arrangements made by then."
Having said all she wished to say the queen turned to look out the open balcony doors and Minok took her cue to depart. The queen sighed and cupped her chin in a palm. Two golden butterflies flapped in silent figure eights above the balcony's marble, swimming in a haze of pollen particles lit up in the sun. From the divan she could just see the haze that marked the edge of the sea, and faint specks that had to be gulls circling over the beach. From the garden far below the sounds of a gardening crew drifted up to her, singing a work song in unison softly. The queen glanced down again at the maid kneeling before her. Even her experienced tongue, split as it was and with its many studs, wasn't enough to bring her out of her funk.
"Bored," she said again, listlessly.
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