The clear, high crowing of a cockerel, greeting the newly risen sun roused Athal from her slumber. She sighed, blinking in the dim early dawn light that filtered through the ill-fitting wooden boards of the slave barracks. After three months here, she was no longer surprised to wake up in a strange building, packed in with a score of other women and girls. Not too long ago, each morning had brought momentary confusion as the 18 year old wondered why she wasn’t in her own bed, alongside her sisters and mother in their quiet seaside village.

But the hut she had grown up in was no more. It had been burned by the pirates that raided the quiet fishing village, forcing Athal and her family to flee out, right into the waiting hands of the pirates to be captured. Her family had all been sold off to different buyers in the foreign slave market the pirates’ slave ship brought them to. Athal still didn’t know, would never know, what had become of her mother and sisters. She had been bought by a Lady Paucinia, a wealthy aristocratic woman, not that the teen had seen much of her new owner. She, along with the other slaves: men and women, boys and girls purchased that day, had been sent out to one of her country estate, to toil in the fields for their Mistress.

The heavy fist of the overseer rattled the door of the barracks, letting the women inside know it was time to rise and begin another days toil. Sullenly, Athal rose to her feet. As she did, the leg irons fitted around her ankles rattled noisily. She’d been fitted with them, and the heavy iron collar around her neck, as soon as they had arrived. If she was being punished, as happened frequently, a set of wrist shackles and a wooden bit between her teeth would be added.

Aside from the restraints, her only clothing was a short dress of rough brown homespun. It was little more than a simple tube of fabric, stitched at the shoulders to hand loosely over her, reaching about halfway down her thighs. Though she’s only had it three months, it was stained and torn in places by the wear and tear of hard labor. Unfortunate since, as she’d been told on receiving it, slaves were only given one such garment each year. Many of her fellow slave girls had to tie what rags remained of their clothes into crude loincloths. Others were forced to go naked, until the next issue of clothing.

Athal fell in line with the other slaves filing through the barracks doors. A cool morning breeze washed over her, making her shiver despite the thin dress. She brushed a hand over her scalp. A thin scruff of light blonde hair was starting to grow back. With all the new slaves, she’d been shaved bald at the same time she’d received her collar and shackles, on the assumption they’d doubtless picked up lice or fleas in the unsanitary conditions of the slave ships and the market.

The first stop of the day for the slaves was breakfast, one of two meals they received. Athal’s group fell in line with others coming from the other nearby barracks. Like hers, they were all groups of women and girls, shackled, collared and half-naked. Aside from the overseers, who were all men, Athal only saw women and girls around her. She knew there were male slaves on this estate, seen them toiling in distant fields from time to time, but the Mistress, or whichever of her trusted servants ran it for her, kept the male and female slaves strictly segregated. With the slave market so close at hand and prices so low, it was easier to simply buy new workers as needed than to deal with the hassle of pregnant or nursing slaves increasing the workforce through natural reproduction.

After a meager bowl of cold pottage, leftovers from the dinner the day before, Athal and her work crew were assigned the task of weeding out in the endless rows of grapevines which surrounded the estate. Those grapes would eventually be turned into a fine vintage which had made their owner’s fortune. Not that the slaves would ever taste the fruits of their labor.

A few of the girls in the work party sang as they worked, a strange lilting tune from the homeland they’d been snatched from. Athal didn’t understand the words, which was not uncommon. The slave market they had all come from sat at the center of a vast trade network, bringing human merchandise from all across the known world. Just in her small work party there were girls with dark hair and bronze skin snatched from the great archipelago, girls with fiery red hair and pale skin marked with strange blue tattoos, barbarians captured in the far north, girls with dark brown skin and curly hair brought in great slave caravans from the south and others from lands Athal had never even heard of.

Communication between the slaves, and with the overseers, was done in a sort of crude pidgin tongue, drawing words from the different tongues all the slaves spoke. Athal was still learning it herself, now she could hold short conversations with the girls toiling beside her. When she’d first started working in the fields, the only words she knew, drilled into her and the other new arrivals was “work” “hard” and “punish.”

The slaves worked all day, with two exceptions. The first happened in the late morning. Two of the younger slave girls had been caught stealing grapes off the vine, understandable given their meager rations, but one the overseers sharply discourages. With the rest of the work party assembled to watch, the unfortunate girls were bent over, dresses hiked to receive a half dozen strokes each from the overseer’s switch. Teary eyes, the girls were sent back to work, bits strapped between their teeth to discourage further snacking.

Then, a little after noon, when the heat of the day was at its worst, the overseers reluctantly allowed their charges a break, reasoning the labor lost there would be less than letting half the work gang fall over from heatstroke. Like most, Athal shuffled over to the small water barrel set out for the field slaves and took a long drink, then went to find a shady spot to wait out the heat.

The overseers, on the other hand, had other ideas of how to spend the downtime. As the women shuffled in from the field, the men eyes them, predatorily, picking out one of the slaves. Then, each man gestured to his chosen girl and barked a sharp order to come. Glumly, the slaves chosen shuffled over, following the overseers to a stand of trees none of the slaves had dared go near, despite the inviting shade. Those unlucky enough to be selected were made to lie down, dresses hiked and legs spread for the men to have their way with them. Listening to the sounds, Athal was silently grateful she hadn’t been picked, today at least.

When the overseers had had their fun, they shouted for the slaves to get back to work. With the rest, Athal trudged out into the fields. From time to time, she glanced at the sun, willing it to sink faster and bring the days work to an end faster, but as always it moved at its slow, unhurried pace.

Eventually though, the fields grew dim as twilight descended. The overseers, reluctantly, decided the slaves had done all the work they could that day. With the rest, Athal filed, exhausted, back to the slave quarters. The bowl of barley porridge she was given tasted divine, a couple pigs had been slaughtered for her Ladyship’s table that day and some of the fat and offal had made it into the slaves’ provisions. As always, before she knew it, Athal had licked the wooden bowl clean and wished for more.

Then it was back to the barracks. With the other women in her workgang, she shuffled in, finding a spot on the wooden boards to lie down. As soon as all were in, the overseers shut the door, sliding the bolt in place to lock the slaves in for the night.

Athal lay on her back, staring into the darkness, what thin slivers of moonlight that seeped in not enough to see by. Another day gone. Tomorrow would bring more of the same and the day after day and so on, until her owners found some other use for her or else old age or infirmity rendered her useless to them. Or…some small part of her still held out hope, some good fortune may yet cancel out the bad that had brought her to this state. She didn’t know what it might be, escape or emancipation, but she had to believe her present servitude was not permanent.

Athal was distracted from her grim thoughts by the faint rattling of chains as another slave crept through the dark barracks, as quietly as one could with shackles, to where she lay. A second later, she felt another body sliding up against hers, soft, warm flesh pressing against hers through the threadbare cloth of their tunics. A head came out of the shadows over hers. Lips met lips in a passionate embrace.

Before her enslavement, Athal had fancied many of the local boys and been courted by them in turn. She’d long wondered what man she would marry and hoped and dreamed of different candidates, all the while knowing the one she did would have been picked out for her by her parents and the village matchmaker, with her feelings counting for less then whether his family owned their own fishing boat and nets.

She’d never imagined a girl could love another girl. But here, where the only men she came into contact were the overseers, who cared only about slaking their lust and nothing for that of the slaves they took it from, what simple pleasures the slaves had had to be found among themselves. Athal wondered what her younger self would have thought if she knew one day she would find herself making love with a pale, tattooed barbarian with fiery hair from the north.

Her name was Ythrid. Her clan, she’d told Athal though real conversation between the two remained awkward and difficult, had lost a feud with a rival clan. She, along with the rest of the women and girls of the clan, had been enslaved and sold to traders who brought them southward to the market and hence to this estate where she had worked for the past year.

The two girls kissing became more and more passionate, their breaths quickening with excitement. When it reached its peak, Athal’s paramour rose to her knees and awkwardly turned around. As she did, Athal reached down and hiked her tunic up. As Ythrid lowered herself down, Athal raised her head, sliding between the other girl’s legs. Her mouth found Athal’s sex, tongue slipping between the lips, drawing a shiver of pleasure. Athal pressed her lips to Ythird’s, trying as best she could to mimic her lover’s actions. She was still learning, but the girl’s moans told Athal her efforts were not entirely in vain.

Pressed together, the two slaves sought the pleasure they were allowed, forgetting for a moment their slavery…