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With a sense of helplessness Amy and Steiner
were escorted toward the stone village.
As they got closer they saw that distance had distorted their
view. It was not a stone village,
but a walled town. It was built
into a cleft at the base of steep cliffs, and resembled a medieval fortress,
complete with guard towers and a portcullis that could be dropped to close
the gate in an emergency. It
was also much larger than it appeared, stretching back from the wall for
quite some distance and then climbing up the back of the
canyon. It would not be an easy
place to get into.
“Or,” Amy thought, “out
of.”
The question was who had built such a place in the middle of
It was a real mystery, as was the skin color of their
escort. Amy noticed that the
complexions of the warriors who guarded them varied
somewhat. The warrior in charge
had quite light skin, almost white.
Most of the lower ranking soldiers had darker skins and features that
were much closer to the people of central
“So,” thought Amy, “they appear to be mixed
blood. Some
African and some European, with the higher ranking members of society having
lighter skins. Strange,
I wonder what we will find in the town.”
By now they were approaching the main
gate. Several guards lounged
about in front, but came to attention as the party
approached. One of the guards
shouted something at them and the man who seemed to be in charge
answered. Amy
realized
with a shock of surprise that with a little effort she could
understand what they were saying.
“Steiner,” she said to her lover, “they are speaking
English.”
“English?” the German replied.
“I can’t understand
it.”
“It’s quite archaic,” whispered Amy, “the way English
was spoken about eight hundred years ago.”
The warrior in charge turned to the two
prisoners. “Speak not,”
he commanded. Despite his strong
accent, Amy and Steiner had no trouble understanding what he
meant.
They passed through the gates and into the
town. A curious crowd of people
gathered about them. Their escort
ignored the townsfolk and marched them through the town to a large fortress-like
building. The guards at the door
of the building saluted and stepped aside to let them
pass. The doorway was large enough
to allow the men on horseback to ride through without bending their
heads. Inside they found themselves
in a large courtyard. Their escorts
dismounted and took them up a flight of stairs and inside the
building.
They entered a large room. In
its center, sitting behind a large table was a large man clad in a heavy
leather jerkin and leather breeches.
He wore no armor, but was flanked by four men who
did. He stood up as they
entered. Amy sensed an air of
authority about him. The others
seemed to treat him with deference.
She noticed also that his skin was much lighter than that of any other
man she had yet seen. He was
almost white in fact.
“My Lord,” said the leader of their escort, “I bring you strangers
who have encroached on our lands.
White
strangers.”
“So I see,” said the leather-clad
man. “You have done well,
Sir Randall. An
important addition to our breeding
stock.”
Amy did not like what she was hearing.
Breeding
stock. She had some idea
of what that might mean.
“You have no right to hold us,” she protested, addressing the
leather-clad man.
The man looked surprised. “She speaks,” he
said. “This is a rare find
indeed.
Prisoners who speak our
language. We have not
had that for quite some time."
Amy continued: “My companion and I came here quite by chance, and with
no hostile intent. Yet you treat
us like enemies.”
The leather-clad man approached.
“Her turn of speech is strange,” he said, addressing his
companions. “I can barely
make it out. This proves to be
quite interesting. Take them
to the holding cells.”
“Wait,” shouted Amy. “You cannot do
this. We are
strangers. You have no right
to hold us.”
Her pleas were ignored. She and
Steiner were herded down a long corridor and then up several flights of
stairs. They finally reached
one of the upper floors of the building.
There they the were separated, Amy being
taken one direction down the corridor and Steiner down the
other. Again Amy protested, but
as before she was ignored.
Amy was taken to the very end of the
corridor. At its end was a heavily
barred door guarded by two sentries.
Upon their approach the bar was removed and the door
opened. Amy was pushed into the
room and the door was closed behind her.
To Amy’s surprise the room she found herself in was quite large, and
occupied by several other young women.
As she entered they closed about
her. Amy noticed that they were
all in their middle and late teens, and quite
attractive. Two of them were
dark-haired and one was blonde.
They were dressed in a style that resembled that of the
Middle Ages.
Their language, however, was not
medieval.
The one who reached Amy first began to untie her, speaking as she did
so. Although not a master of
languages, as was Larra, Amy had enough high school French to make out what
she was saying.
“Who are you?” asked the woman.
“Were you captured by slavers
too? Were there any others in
your party?”
“Whoa,” replied Amy in halting
French.
“One question at a
time. I am Amy Price and
I know nothing about slavers. I
was captured along with my fiancé by these strange
people. Now, I have some questions
of my own.”
She rubbed her wrists as she was guided over to one of the beds in the
room. As she had observed on
entering, the room was quite large.
There were six beds in the room and a table big enough to seat six
people. There were also several
cupboards that might serve for storage.
On the far side of the room was a large window, heavily barred to
present escape.
“Tell me about yourselves,” Amy
said
The one who had untied her, a dark-haired girl, did most of the
talking. “My name is Danielle
Barbeau, and these are my school friends, Adrienne, and
Monique. Six months ago we were
on a school excursion in the French colony of Equatorial
Africa. Our parents are members
of the French administration there.
Arab slavers attacked our party, and took us
prisoner. We expected to be taken
to some Arab state in the
Danielle paused for breath and Blonde-haired Monique continued for
her. “We soon found why
we were brought here. The Arab
slavers were paid our weight in gold –
literally. We were actually put
on a scale and gold was piled up until it matched our
weight.”
Danielle picked the story again.
“Yes, anyone with white skin fetches a good
price. Male
or female, but especially
female. This kingdom was
founded centuries ago by Crusaders who strayed from their intended goal and
somehow found their way here. They
conquered the local African population and set up a European state in the
middle of
“You mean we, are to be bred like animals just so the rulers of this
strange place can lighten the skins of their children?” asked
Amy.
The other brunette, Adrienne, now spoke for the first
time. “There is some debate
about that among the ruling class of New
Wessex. They used to arrange
marriages between the girls they captured and the sons of the
knights. But recently there has
been a change. The new king,
Hugo III, wants to speed up the whitening
process. Instead of marriage,
he wants to use captured women as breeding stock and impregnate them as often
as possible. Captured males are
to be used as studs to impregnate members of the lower
classes.”
“Does that mean you…” Amy said,
horrified.
“Yes,” said Danielle.
“We are all pregnant.”
She hung her head. Amy
noticed a little tear beginning to trickle down her
cheek.
The other two girls were also downcast at the end of the
story. Monique actually put her
head in her hands and sat on the bed
crying.
“Before we were brought here,” said Adrienne, “none of us
had ever known a man. Now in
a few months we will all be
mothers.”
“That’s horrible,” said
Amy. “No woman should be
treated that way.”
“You are right,” said Adrienne, “but unless you can think
of a way out of here, you will share our fate in a few days
time. And it is not a pleasant
experience.”
“No,” said Monique, recovering
somewhat. “Each of us was
bred several dozen times over a couple of weeks, until they were sure we
were pregnant. I think they did
it that way as much for their pleasure as anything
else. You can expect the same
treatment.”
“Oh my God,” thought Amy. “not
again. What will Albrecht
think? I’ve got to find
a way out of here, and fast. And
I’ve got to help these girls escape
too. The question is; how am
I going to do that?”
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