The Priestess and the Brat Ch. 03

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. This story is set in the slightly historical, but primarily imagined world of Ancient Rome, 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.

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Chapter 3: The Wolf Queen

The following morning was a tense one in the house. The nocturnal antics of the three girls had kept not only Gaia, the head of the house, awake for half the night, but much of the rest of the staff as well. They were visibly irritable and their service was clearly forced. Ligeia and Athalia, themselves servants, noticed and felt the pangs of guilt. But not Cassia. She was used to being waited upon and she found the noticeable shortness of the staff to be contemptable. Cassia resented her imprisonment, comfortable and accommodating though it might appear on the surface, and making the servants suffer was her small rebellion.

They sat at a long wooden table just off the great hall eating a morning meal of fruits and artolaganus, a kind of bread made with milk and honey. Gaia and Cassia's father's manservant, who was serving as their bodyguard, sat with them, joining them in the morning meal. They ate in silence; Cassia sporting a petulant pout, and her two handmaidens ignoring Gaia's glare.

"Who is Sabine?" asked Cassia to Gaia.

Gaia raised one eyebrow. "Pardon me?"

"Sabine," repeated Cassia.

"Where did you hear that name," demanded Gaia.

Athalia and Ligeia shot each other nervous, guilty glances, but remained silent. "Yesterday, on the quay," Cassia lied nonchalantly. "I overheard a man cursing his servant for dropping a sack of goods. He said, 'May Sabine take you!'"

Gaia's eyebrow remained raised. "That," she said pausing, trying to gauge whether the girl was lying to her, "is just local superstitious nonsense," she finished flatly. "No concern of yours."

"It's no superstition," insisted the galley maid who had returned to freshen their cups. "My cousin was taken by Sabine. We've not seen him since. Dead we think, but..." She trailed off.

Gaia shot the woman a look of death and repeated, "It IS just local superstition. It is nonsense and you should just forget about it."

Cassia pleaded to Galley maid. "Please! Tell us about this Sabine. It is so boring here, even a little superstition would be entertaining!"

"Entertaining?" said the galley maid, looking aghast. "Entertaining??? You think human sacrifice and dark magic are entertaining? You think lying down with wild beasts is entertaining? You think eating the very children of..."

"ENOUGH!" demanded Gaia. But there was no stopping the galley maid, who had by now worked herself into a frenzy.

"Sabine is an evil witch! Her followers are all the dead, lifeless corpses of the poor souls lost in the sea. She gathers them in her cave, the cave of the grotta azzurra, every full moon and then sends them out over the island to capture the innocent and bring them back to her cave where they perform rituals and human sacrifices! You don't want to be out when the moon is up, deary, or Sabine will take you!"

The galley maid stopped and caught her breath. Gaia seized the opportunity to send her back to the galley. She recomposed herself and stated calmly, "As I said, superstition and foolishness. And in any event, it won't matter to YOU, because you will be in this house under curfew anyway." With that, she ended the conversation.

After the morning meal, Gaia sent the girls off with the manservant to the village. She didn't care what they did there, she just wanted all of them, and Cassia in particular, out of her hair, even if it would just be for a few hours. The house and its vineyards had been built by a successful shipping merchant, but he had died childless and the house had passed to his brother. His brother was a wastrel and a fool and openly criticized the emperor. When the emperor removed himself from Rome a few years before and set up residence on the Island of Capri, the brother wisely fled, abandoning the house. The Emperor, having been informed that its owner had been disloyal and was now a fugitive, seized the property for the empire. It was intended to be given as a reward to some loyal Senator or general, but none wanted a smallish estate on the remote island of little value and so it had been forgotten and relegated to the charge of one of the emperor's stewards. The steward, in turn, used the vineyard to keep the royal palace on Capri stocked with wine and offered the house for rent to visiting Senators and other dignitaries, allowing him to skim the rental payments for his own pocket.

The services of Gaia and her staff were included with the lease, and Gaia was generally left to manage the place on her own. She was a shrewd but effective manager and was well liked by her staff of servants. Technically, she and the household staff were slaves; property of the emperor. But beyond the title, they were generally left alone; slavery held no heavy yoke for her, and she had managed to amass enough coin to purchase her own freedom. She hadn't done so because that would mean being displaced from the house which, although small compared to the great mansions of Rome, was something of a grand dame here in remote Anacapri. The only way a free Gaia would have a house of her own would be to marry, and living with some fisherman or shop keeper in a cramped apartment down by the quay held zero appeal to Gaia.

Over the years, Gaia had seen her share of spoiled daughters of senators and wealthy merchants come and go. They were always the same: entitled and whiny and petulant. Cassia was no different and Gaia could not be rid of her soon enough. Gaia had to admit that the girl was pretty, and her handmaidens were each beautiful in their own way. That, Gaia thought, would be trouble. A trio like that was going to be attracting the wrong sort of attention from the men in town and she would no doubt have her hands full chasing off the tomcats who would soon be lurking around in the shadows, hoping for a chance to sneak off with one of the girls. Ugh. This was going to be a trying couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, in the village, Cassia was bored out of her mind. She had to admit that the island was breathtakingly beautiful, but there was nothing at all to do. The village was little more than a small collection of shops; shops which offered little variety. Wine and dried fish seemed to be the main staple of the food vendors and the rest of the shops seemed to be intended solely for trade between the wine merchants from the highlands and the fishing village below. There were few goods available from the mainland.

Even the public baths had been something of a disappointment; they were much smaller and nowhere near as ornate as the ones in the mainland cities. Fresh water was something of a precious commodity on the island, so there was only a single bathing pool and it was crowded with younger girls. Cassia's handmaidens barely had room to wash their domina, let alone attend to her properly. Ligeia attempted to stroke Cassia's pussy discretely under the water, but the splashing and crowding of the other bathers ruined Cassia's mood. They contented themselves by watching some of the younger girls play with each other's bodies while Athalia and Ligeia allowed Cassia to probe their anuses with her fingers.

The young girls were not yet adept at making love to one another. Their ministrations were more exploratory and experimental. One would touch the other and then pull away in a fit of bashful shame. They embraced, but didn't kiss. One sat on the edge of the pool and allowed her companion touch and stroke her pussy; a pussy that was barely covered with the first velvety hairs of adolescence. The girl gave her friend a tentative kiss on the tender spot below her friend's navel while casually running her fingers up and down the length of her young opening. But when she bent her head to kiss lower, the sitting girl became bashful again and snapped her legs shut. She slipped back into the water and her friend held her close, trying to reassure her. They were joined by several more young girls and a fit of squealing and giggling broke out as they each took turns trying out various touches and caresses on one another, sometimes teasing the ones who were overly shy, and sometimes egging them on to be more bold.

It reminded Cassia of her own younger days, playing and experimenting with Athalia. It was sweet to see these young girls just beginning to know their bodies. She wanted to watch them, awkward and clumsy, as they learned for themselves the art of pleasure, just as she herself had done. As they watched the scene, Cassia felt Athalia tighten and grip her finger with her rectal muscles. Cassia wondered if Athalia was thinking the same thoughts. She swirled her finger around inside the servant girl in a silent signal that her mood was becoming more receptive. But before it progressed any further, the group of young girls broke up their play. They'd had enough for one day and they all got up to leave the baths in unison. Once again, the mood was interrupted. Cassia withdrew her digits from her servants and kissed each of them on the back of the neck before she, too, withdrew from the bath.

By mid-afternoon, the girls found themselves in a dingy wine tavern. It had a solitary stone wall, likely the remnant of some earlier structure that had collapsed sometime in antiquity. It was covered with a garish painting of Bacchus being entertained by satyrs done in a crude, almost amateurish style. The rest of the tavern was made of wood and straw and looked as if a stiff breeze would erase all memory of the place in seconds. The ceiling was low and it reeked of oily smoke and the body odor of the many vineyard workers who gathered there in the middle part of the day to wait out the heat.

Cassia tore a chunk off of her loaf of panis rusticus, a kind of tough, cheap bread made from bran, and bit through the hard crust. She washed it down with a swig of new wine. "What we need," she began "Is to find out more about this Sabine legend. Surely, there must be someone in this village who will talk to us about it." Cassia had prodded Athalia to ask several other women at the baths and a shopkeeper or two about the legend of the evil sorceress, but the villagers were wary of the strangers and wouldn't give her more than a warning to beware the wolf witch and her demons. One shop keeper had even gone so far as to intimate that, if the wolf-witch had marked Athalia's master (he had nodded toward Cassia when he said it), there was nothing to be done -- her soul was as good as lost.

Ligeia, who had traveled for much of her life, had grown tired of the story. She had heard many such tales of monsters and witches and devils and they always seemed to come from backwards little villages with simple, uneducated villagers. The more remote and poor the village, the more fantastic the tales of monsters and witches were. She decided that people in such far-flung rural outposts merely needed some means of entertaining themselves, and scaring the crap out of the children was as amusing as anything else. "Oh, Domina," she said, biting into a wedge of pressato, a kind of hand-pressed cheese made from sheep's milk. "You should just forget about it. It's just some silly tale they tell their children to make them behave. There must be other diversions to be had here."

"Yes," Athalia agreed. She was tired of pestering the locals about a silly story and the reactions she was getting from some of them had unsettled her. She wanted to drop the subject. "We don't need stupid children's tales to have fun."

"Oh, it's no tale for children," came a woman's voice from behind Cassia. The voice was deep and rich and held a foreign accent unfamiliar to Cassia. Cassia turned around in a startle, and saw a lone figure in a hooded cape sitting at the next table with her back to Cassia and her entourage.

"What?" demanded Cassia. "What did you just say?"

The woman turned slowly around and lowered the hood of her cape. Her skin had a ruddy tone and her eyes were a bright, crystal blue. Her hair was as black as coals. The woman took a long draft from her cup of wine and repeated, "I said, it's no tale for children. You're not from here. You are wealthy enough to have servants and yet you are not at the palace. That tells me that you are in hiding." Cassia's manservant bodyguard suddenly took an interest in the conversation. His hand went automatically to the hilt of his truncheon. The woman saw this out of the corner of her eye, but she remained calm and perfectly still. She looked Cassia and her handmaidens over carefully, and then aid, "What would you like to know about Sabine, the wolf-queen of Capri?"

"Is it true that she captures children and eats them?" blurted Athalia.

"Is it true that her demons are made of the lifeless bodies of those drowned at sea?" inquired Ligeia?

The woman didn't answer either question. Instead, she locked eyes with Cassia. The corners of her mouth pulled ever so slightly into the merest trace of a smile. "What about you? What do you wish to know of the wolf-queen?"

"I want to know when I can see this witch for myself," said Cassia.

The woman regarded Cassia and took another drink of her wine, before leaning forward and saying, in barely more than a whisper, "Careful, dear, you might get your wish." The woman then said, more loudly and to the whole group of them, "Buy me another cup of wine and I will tell you what you wish to know."

When her wine had been served, the woman joined the girls and their bodyguard at their table. "It is true that the tales of Sabine are mostly over-blown. She does not eat captured children and her followers are not the soulless corpses of victims of the sea. Those ARE just tales to frighten children. But she is very real and so is her magic. She is a powerful priestess of the goddess Gondul."

"Goddess who?" asked Cassia, now suspecting that this stranger was having them on. "I have not heard of this 'Gondul.' She is not Roman or Greek or Egyptian." Cassia turned to Ligeia, her well-traveled handmaiden "Is this some Thracian goddess?"

"I've never heard of any Gondul, Domina," replied the handmaiden.

"Gondul is no Roman diety," interrupted the stranger. "Gundul is the Valkyrja, a great goddess from the North."

"Gaul?" asked Cassia.

The woman laughed. "No, child. Much further North than Gaul." She continued, "Gondul often takes the form of a wolf when she takes her vengeance on the enemies of her people. She has sent Sabine, her faithful servant and priestess here, to this land, to carry out her bidding. There is great magic here... and great danger, too. Gondul knows this and she has sent her servant to seek out those who may be saved and to gather them into her fold."

"Are YOU one of those who have been gathered?" asked Ligeia, suspiciously.

"No, my dear," answered the stranger, without breaking her gaze from Cassia. "I am but a simple peasant. I was freed by my master, but too poor to leave this island or to return to my home. So, I sit here each day and I listen to the tales of the locals and the strangers who pass through here alike. Wine loosens even the tightest lips. There is nothing that has escaped my notice. And I have seen Sabine with my own eyes. She often walks among these people who fear her so, and yet they fail to see her or to notice."

"Why do they fear her so much?" asked Athalia. "They say she eats their children."

The woman laughed and replied, "They say many things even worse than that. Her ways are strange to these people and they fear what they do not know. It doesn't help that the emperor has brought all of the troubles of Rome with him when he came and built his palace on top of the mountain. It has turned the lives of these simple people upside down and they live in constant fear. They look for someone to blame. Some witch who must have cursed them to bring such trouble to their peaceful island."

"And has Sabine cursed these people?" asked Cassia.

"No, child, although it is well within her power to do so. No, Sabine finds all of these prejudices and superstitions to be a very convenient thing. Because these people fear her, she is left alone to do her work in peace. But know this, child, a day is coming. Soon, your world will be plunged into chaos. You may find that you need a powerful protector... a protector like Gondul."

"Oh?" asked Cassia, enjoying this tale but not really believing any of it. "And how does one seek the protection of Gondul?"

The woman's face turned serious. "They say..." she began, "You must present yourself to the goddess at her alter. Seek out the priestess. Seek the grotta azzurra when the moon is full." With that, the woman stood, drawing her hood up over her head, turned and left.

The whole way back to the house, the girls were buzzing about the tale they had just heard. Athalia and Cassia grilled Ligeia about any knowledge she might have gained in her travels. They pondered what sort of rituals might be involved with presenting oneself to the goddess Gondul and what sort of powers this Gondul might have. The whole time, however, they made certain to be very clear that they must never go out at night. The manservant was hanging back as they walked but they were certain that he was eavesdropping.

That night, however, after everyone in the house had fallen asleep, the girls set their plan in motion. Cassia slipped silently into her handmaiden's chamber and they slipped, one by one, out the second story window and across the roof where a low hanging tree branch offered a way down to the alleyway leading to the street. They had no idea how to find the grotta azzurra, and so made their way toward the village, hoping to find some clue or direction. The moon shown brightly overhead, but it would still be at least two nights before it was full and the girls hoped that this would give them time to find what they were looking for.

As they approached the agora, or main market square, with its shops and stalls all darkened and closed up tight for the night, Ligeia spotted a dark figure leaning against a wall. She pointed at the figure and whispered to her companions. When they all turned to look, the figure slipped into the shadows. Ligeia followed after the shadow and the other two tailed close behind her. When they got to the alleyway where the figure had appeared, they found nothing. Turning, Athalia caught a glimpse of the figure retreating across the plaza toward the road leading out of the village. The girls shuffled after the figure, quickly but cautiously.

For the next hour, they pursued their quarry at a distance. It was clear now that the shadowy figure knew that he, she or it was being followed. It tried to lose the girls by ducking behind trees and darting here and there in a zig-zagging motion. The girls did their best to match the figure, following the figure as it wound its way, they soon realized, down toward the water. However, their quarry eventually eluded them. Exhausted and now several miles from the house, the girls decided to give up their pursuit for this evening and return before their absence was noted. They discovered, to their pleasant surprise that, by taking a direct route back to the village of Anacapri, rather than the circuitous route of their quarry, they were able to make the return journey in about 20 minutes.