The Priestess and the Brat Bk. 02 Ch. 01

The Priestess and the Brat - Book II

Ligeia's Tale

Chapter 1.

Note: This is a work of fiction and any resemblance of any characters to any persons, real or fictitious, is purely coincidental and unintentional.

Note 2: This work includes themes of a graphic sexual nature and involves person who, although entirely fictional, are all above the legal age of consent.

Note 3: This story is set in the slightly historical, but primarily imagined world of Ancient Classical cultures, including the Roman and Persian Empires, however, no offense is intended to any persons or cultures if I have mis-portrayed any historical, factual, or cultural aspects of the setting; the setting is used solely for its exotic and romantic attributes. If you find anything in this work objectionable or offensive, please move on to other content.

Note 3: This work is my own personal intellectual property. Copyright © 2017 Audrey07. All rights reserved.

Note 4: This work is dedicated to A.M., who has been an absolute life-saver as my editor, promoter and partner in crime.

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Background:

Ligeia, the beautiful Greek slave girl with her pale skin and dark features, her black flowing locks and her lusty figure, had been a handmaiden to Cassia di Romulus, the daughter of a powerful Roman Senator. She, along with Cassia and her other handmaiden, Athalia, had been sent to the beautiful island of Capri, and hidden away in a private household while the Senator went off to engage in political intrigue with the Emperor. The emperor was murdered by his nephew, who then ordered the death of all those who had been loyal to the emperor, including their families. Cassia and her handmaidens had been rescued by a secret sect of women who worshiped the Nordic goddess, Gondul, and their priestess, a powerful sorceress.

After their rescue, the three women, Cassia, Athalia, and Ligeia, were each sent by the goddess in different directions, each with her own mission. This is Ligeia's story.

1. The Sea of Sand

Ligeia awoke from a troubled sleep. Her body ached. She tried to stretch out, but it was crowded in the carriage. The bodies of her fellow travelers, all of them dressed in identical blue gowns, were tumbled about her in various uncomfortable contortions, each vying for space. Ligiea felt the lunging and jolting of the carriage as their procession plodded along well-worn tracks that receded to the very edge of the Earth before them and which fell to the very opposite edge of the Earth behind them. All around them was an unbroken and never-ending sea of white sand that stretched to the horizon in every direction.

It was not yet sunrise. A crescent moon hung low above the horizon; silver, tinged with ruddy gold; a subtle herald of the dawn that had not yet broken. The pale moonlight barely illuminated the world, giving the white sand a faint glow. Above, the black-purple heavens were painted with a million jewels. Onward their train of horses and camels trundled in a silent but ceaseless progress along a set of tracks in the sand that appeared lead to nowhere and to have come from nowhere. There was nowhere. There was only here. Sand and sky and distance. The rest of the universe had ceased to exist. Time marched on. Every dawn broke the night and every dusk faded the world from view, over and over in a ceaseless cycle and yet, still the tracks stretched out before them as if they made no progress on their journey.

It had been months since Ligeia had been whisked away from Capri on a small sailing vessel with a small cadre of acolytes, of which she was now counted among their number. They were led by their own priestess. She was a head taller than any of them, and slender. She was ever silent and so economical with her movements, that she barely seemed to move at all. Rather, she seemed to appear and disappear at a whim. The priestess wore an immaculate white cloak with an oversized hood within which her face was almost always obscured by shadow. Ligeia had only seen her face once; a briefest glimpse of her, yet the vision had been burned into her mind. The face was beautiful but unlike any she had ever seen - She had dainty features and large, deep-set almond shaped eyes with dark, high arching eyebrows. Her skin had an olive complexion and was as smooth and silky as a child's, yet something about her imparted an impression of ancient wisdom. Her hair was as black as night and impossibly straight. It practically radiated with blackness and was held back with a narrow band of gold that she wore across the crown of her head.

They had crossed the Mediterranean Sea. Ligeia had traveled by sea many times in her youth, having been taken as a prize from her native village near Sparta by a Roman Legion after a fierce battle with Persian forces. The two mighty empires had come together in a great clash of bronze, iron and death, with Ligeia's quiet community of farmers playing host to the worst of mankind's collective evil. Her parents had tried to hide her in the village well with some other children, but, once the Persian forces had been driven from the field, she and the others had become part of the spoils claimed by the victors. She was barely 5 years old at the time and had been sold into slavery at a market in Cairo. A wealthy Roman centurion purchased her as a playmate and companion for his daughter. But a few years later, the daughter fell to a plague and Ligeia was back on the auction market.

It was then that Cassia's father, the senator, had purchased her to care for his own daughter. Cassia already had a nursemaid and a handmaiden. But at that time, her father was a favorite of the Emperor, Tiberius. He was young and ambitious and climbing the elite social ranks of Roman society. With his influence grew his wealth and, as was the custom among the elites, the main use to which wealth was put was to spend it lavishly as a conspicuous show for all to see. That his child daughter would have two companion slaves was simply another ostentatious display intended to impress the neighbors.

As the girls grew into adolescence and their bodies developed, so, too, did their natural carnal desires. It became clear that Ligeia's duties extended beyond dressing and cleaning up after Cassia; it fell upon her and her fellow handmaiden, Athalia, to keep Cassia's lustful intents satisfied, lest she give into the temptation offered by the young men who had begun to take notice of her. As the daughter of a wealthy and popular Senator, Cassia's virtue was far too valuable a commodity to be squandered on some pesky boy with raging hormones. Her hand in marriage would fetch her powerful father even more wealth, power and lands. But only if she were still a delicate, untouched flower.

Not that Ligeia minded this extra duty. Her own body had developed into a robust and striking figure; full and beaming with sexual energy. Unlike Cassia, there was no need for her own virtue to be protected and once the fruits of lust had been discovered, Ligeia quickly learned to relish all of the many pleasures of the flesh in all of its many forms. Skills learned from the men, women, boys and girls of the household were carefully and methodically taught to her master and Domina with an enthusiasm that only exists in the young.

Even for the well-traveled former slave-girl, however, this new journey across the seas had been difficult. The circumstances under which they had fled Capri were stressful enough. To make matters worse the weather had been fickle; sometimes stranding their boat on a flat, lifeless plain for days at a time; sometimes tossing it in a raging tempest that might only last a few hours, but that would fill them all with fear and despair. The whole time, their priestess, a mysterious figure whose name Ligeia still didn't know, captained their vessel with a steady hand and a steely, unflappable resolve.

They finally made landfall one night in a strange port along a dry and dusty coast. They had been taken under the cover of darkness to a safehouse in the port city and were fed strange and exotic foods, including meats and breads spiced with flavors she had never before tasted, as well as dates, citrus fruits and olives. They were attended to by women only; women who smelled sharply of incense and fragrant perfumes. These strange women were covered from head to toe in brightly covered vestments, and they wore veils of silk such that, of their faces, only their dark, mysterious eyes could be seen. The women did not speak. They went about their business, coming and going according to some direction that was obscure to the acolytes.

After two days, the Priestess had come to them and they performed the ritual to the goddess Gondul. Later that night, after feasting, the priestess led them to a caravan of merchants and travelers who were bound for the city of Baghdad, in the heart of the Persian empire. The men leading the caravan had been told that Ligeia and the other acolytes were promised as a gift of wives to Darius, son of the Great King Arsaces the 28th, and so the women were left alone, not to be so much as looked at, let alone spoken to.

For many weeks, they traveled the desert. At first, the going was easy and the land alternated between grasses and rocky outcroppings. The falconers would ride off every morning and return with fresh game for the troupe. But as the days wore on, there was less and less vegetation and few living creatures of any kind. The fresh game became a thing of memory. They land grew dry and hot and before long, they had switched to traveling at night. Their meals became more basic as the journey continued onward - mostly hard-tack bread and crusty cheeses. Water was a precious commodity and was carefully rationed, such that Ligeia's tongue constantly felt dry and swollen in her mouth.

By this time, Ligeia was forlorn. She just wanted the journey to end. She was weary and sore and hot and miserable. She had not bathed in weeks, and neither had her fellow acolytes. The priestess rode a camel just ahead of their carriage and almost never spoke to them. Ligeia had no idea where they were headed or why.

Early in their journey, the acolytes had taken the opportunity of their isolation to amuse themselves with games and stories and song. It was during this time that Ligeia began to get to know her fellow travelers. One of them, a younger woman from Gaul named Ameli, with light, pinkish skin, freckles on her nose and wavy, sand-colored hair, had brought a lyre with her and was quite proficient. Decima, a girl from a small village at the base of the mountain of Pompeii, possessed a lilting singing voice. Another woman, Flavia, who was older than the others, had come from the port city of Neapolis, and was skilled at games of chance, which she taught to the others.

And when songs and games failed to fill their days and nights, the Acolytes sought comfort with one another. Sometimes, a pair of them would set apart from the others and their soft coos and moans would provide the soothing sounds to help the others sleep. Other times, they would play together, all in a group. Ligeia, with her large, full breasts, was a favorite plaything for several of the acolytes who couldn't seem to leave her body alone for very long. She grew to enjoy being caressed and suckled at random times. She might be throwing dice with Flavia, when she'd feel a warm body snuggle up to her from behind and to have a soft pair of hands enter her gown and feel their way to her nipples, which they would roll and pinch between unseen fingers. Or, she might be sleeping and awaken to feel hot, wet lips close around her breast, followed by a gentle, but urgent suckling.

When they would play as a group, she often found her breasts assaulted by two fellow acolytes at once, each one taking one of her mounds while their delicate hands worked together to minister to her sopping cunt. She had but to lie back on her pillows and allow herself to be worshiped, and her orgasms would flow like water over her. It was easy, playful and casual sex. There were no jealousies or possessiveness. They all loved one another and, on one level, each relished the opportunity to share her body with her sisters. But on another level, their deepest love was reserved for the goddess.

When Ligeia took one of the acolytes into her arms and felt her own breasts press against those of her lover, she felt as though she were pressing her breasts to the goddess. When her lips met the lips of a lover or closed over a nipple or a warm, wet pussy, it was the goddess whom she made love to. When she spread her legs and allowed herself to be tasted and entered by the probing fingers of her sacred sisters, she felt as though she were offering herself to the goddess. When the wetness flowed from her and burst forth during her orgasms, it was a manifestation of her love for the goddess that could not be contained; bursting forth into the physical world. There was a knowing wisdom that overcame her during these escapades; that her body and the bodies of her corporeal lovers were mere earthly vessels that served only as conduits for a universal love that flowed through, around and among them all and that, in offering their bodies to the goddess, they brought the blessings of that universal love into the real and physical world. And so, these earthly women reveled in each other's sexual delights, over and over again.

But, now, after so many weeks of relentless travel, even the sex had ceased. They were all sore and unclean and the thought of worshiping the goddess with their devotions to each other's bodies was the furthest thing from their minds. They had grown irritable and sullen, barely speaking to each other.

Ligeia propped herself up by the window of the carriage and pushed her head out into the night air. It was still warm, but far cooler than the brutal heat of the day. Ahead to the East, she could see a pink-orange line across the horizon; the first rays of the coming dawn. The sky above, still sparkling with the stars of the night, was turning ever-so-slightly from inky black to violet. And then she saw it - a single feature on the horizon. She could not make out what it was - just a shape, a tiny blob of black with fuzzy edges set against the sky that was beginning to lighten. Curious, she continued to watch. Soon more blackened features began to appear on the distant horizon. As the caravan plodded forward, the shapes began to grow from tiny specs to long, tall spines topped with bushy forms - almost like skinny giants with moppy, unkempt hairdos, but still, from this far off, she could not make them out.

Next, she sensed a new smell, a scent wafting on the barest of breezes. A trace of saffron and advieh, both of which were new and exotic to her untrained nose. Still, though, there was only silence - no murmuring of the men leading the caravan, no change in their beasts of burden, as if she alone could sense these things.

Ligeia had been warned about mirages when crossing the desert - that the brutal heat and endless wasteland of unchanging terrain would cause hallucinations of pools of refreshing water and of towns and respite from the desert; hallucinations that were visions sent by evil spirits to lure wayward travelers off their path and to their deaths.

Her dreams had been troubling enough of late to deal with new demons. She often dreamed of a wolf circling a three. The tree appeared to be dying; it's leaves were turning black and its branches were drooping. The wolf appeared to be worried, but there was nothing it could do, so it padded around and around the base of the tree. As was becoming the norm, Ligeia had awoken feeling unrested. She didn't know what the dream meant, but it had left her feeling uneasy. Now, she wondered if this mirage were part of the same dream... or some new fantasy. But it felt so real. She tried to wake herself, but she was already awake.

After what seemed like a long time, but was in fact only a few minutes, the sky began to lighten even more and the first streaks of gold from the coming day shot up and across the sky, turning it a light pinkish hue that faded to a pale blue. The stars faded away, too, with only the brightest ones still barely twinkling like tiny pinpricks of white against the vast, blank azure sky. Ligeia could now see that the tall shapes were date palms, and they formed two rows along either side of the rutted road leading to a low mud and earth wall with a timber gate set into the middle of an otherwise unbroken edifice.

Still, the caravan plodded forward toward the walled village in silence until they came within a few hundred meters of the gate. Ligeia watched as a small man with a dark brown face and white woolen cloak appeared on the wall above the gate. He wore a short white hat with no brim on his head and he had a thick mustache. He called out to the leaders of the caravan in a language Ligeia couldn't understand. The leader of the caravan called back in the same language. A discussion ensued that sounded like an argument. Then, abruptly, the man on the wall disappeared. For a few minutes, nothing happened. Then, the gate began to swing outward, pushed by four men similar in appearance to the man who had been on the wall. Once it was open, the caravan began to move forward.

Ligeia nudged the girl lying next to her, a Thracian that they all called Laina because they couldn't pronounce her Thracian name. "We've arrived, I think," said Ligeia, still staring out the window of the carriage.

"Arrived where?" asked the Thracian, yawning and rubbing at her eyes.

"I don't know," replied Ligeia. "Some sort of village." Once past the gate, Ligeia could see that the wall formed an enclosure that looked much smaller on the inside. The inner side of the wall was lined with mud and earthen huts with thatched palm frond roofs. Some had colored awnings. The rest of the structures consisted of large tented enclosures. Each was supported by a simple structure of poles, with colored fabrics stretched over them, with high pitched tented roofs. They appeared at once to be both flimsy and temporary, yet aged as if they had been there for quite some time.

The caravan was led to set of stalls built into the inside of the enclosure wall. The animals were dismounted and unhooked from the carriages and unburdened of their packs in turn and led to the stalls to be fed and watered. Suddenly, the priestess' face appeared at the window where Ligeia was scoping out the village. "Come with me," was all she said before opening the door to the carriage. The acolytes, now all awake, began to gather their things, but the priestess held up her hand and said, "Leave them. You will have no need of them here." Instead, she handed in a bundle of black robes with matching black veils and headscarves. She showed the acolytes how to put them on so that only their eyes shown.

Once they were dressed, the priestess led them out into the village streets, which were by now filled with people and children and animals of all kinds; goats, dogs, sheep, chickens... The smell was strong with the scents of people and animals and cooking and spices unknown to the acolytes. The air itself was thick and still and getting hot as the sun rose up into the sky. The sounds of the village market swirled around them in a cacophony of noise. People spoke and argued and called out to one another in the strange language that Ligeia had heard from the man on the Wall.

Near the center of the town in a square clearing paved with square stones, there was a well and a fountain surrounded by a stand of palms that provided some measure or shade and respite from the blaring sun. Here, the women of the village came to fetch water in large jugs to take back to their huts. On the far side of the square was a low, black tent. It was to this place that the priestess led the acolytes. As she approached, a short, fat man wearing a tasseled hat and wide sash across his middle came out of the tent. The priestess spoke some words to the man and handed him a small purse of coins.