Theme of the chapter:
Sultans of Swing, by Dire Straits  play.spotify.com/track/0mZmDoU…

***
Dana stretched her aching body. Her feet hurt too, the boots were at bit to small after all. But she was too happy wearing them to take them off yet, although they would rest here during the day.
They had ridden the whole night, first to the north on the road, until they reached a small, shallow river. They hadnt crossed the wooden bridge, instead, Tashmal had led them into the river, which they followed for about an hour - to mask any possible trail, Tashmal had explained.
Then the two women riders had turned sharply west and travelled through the wilderness, even, open ground with some small groups of trees and bushes here and there.
As the sun rose, they had stopped, cared to the tired horses, and, after feeding them and checking their hooves, had eaten the bread , cheese and salted meat the Achaian had produced from her saddlebags, drinking water from their canteens filled in the river.
After meal, custom as well as convenience called in the Doranian empire for a smoke.
Dana shook back her blonde mane and nestled the Haguro pack out of her hipbag. She mouthed a stick, her lips playing a bit with the blond filter, and searched the hipbag for her matches - one of the slave hunters matches to be correct.
"Your face looks well adorned by a filmu."
"A what, mylady?"
"Sorry, an achaian slang word for cigarette. It means "filter". Its nearly universally used in my country, as the correct expression, "gift of the goddesses", is a VERY long phrase in our language."
Dana felt very brave as she dared to say:
"You too look beautiful with a filmu, mylady."
"Thank you, sweet maid. It would look even better on you if you had lipstick. A red? No, I know. Glossy black, right? You would like that, wont you?"
Dana tried to imagine black lipstick on herself. The image in her mind looked good, looked cool, very cool. She longed to be cool, as cool as Tashmal, her heroine.
Finding the matches, she lit the cigarette and indulged in smoking. Tashmal lit one of her Shalimos and they smoked in silence.
Finished, Tashmal said:
"Get some sleep. I will stand guard. I will wake you at noon. Then its your turn. We will continue our journey when the sun sets."
"Will we travel always at night till Lashayette?"
"No, but out here, the greatest danger is if the Donna Bondas had dragons nearby. In this terrain, we can be easily spotted from the sky. Thats why we rest in a small forest and will travel in darkness, until we reach the Dorbech river at Maulburg."
"Thats the city of the archduchess of Audenk. Outside of Moravan."
"Correct. I am impressed with your geographical knowledge. How come?"
"Many guests talk about their home cities at the inn. I used to listen in my free time, always dreaming to see these places."
"I see. Well, your dreams will become real now. I begin to understand why you take this whole adventure so well up to now."
"Is this... I mean, am I acting like a child? Lusting for adventure and foreign lands?"
"Yes and no. I am no philosopha. Just an evil achaian whore. Talk about sex and bondage with me, I know about these. But anyway, I think dreams are what keeps us going."
Dana nearly asked what Tashmals dreams were, but she restrained herself. That was the myladys business, not hers. She was not to question her.
"Sleep now. Or if you are too nervous, rest at least."
"Yes, mylady, you are right, as always."
Dana closed her eyes and lay back. So she didnt see the painful expression on Tashmals face at the phrase "you are right as always".
The blonde maid soon fell asleep...

***
It took the pair a full week to reach the Dorbech, the biggest river Dana had ever seen.
The journey was uneventful, they didnt encounter the Donna Bondas or even simple peasants, as Tashmal led them through the wilderness away from villages and towns and the fields and pastures surrounding them.
There werent wild animals attacking them too, a sub adventure Dana had looked forward to with anticipation, fear mostly unknown to her, a privilege of the unknowing, as Tashmal had said when Dana had complained about the lacking assaults of cruel beasts like giant spiders, wolves, bears or orks. The Achainan had explained to her that most children of the wild, as she called them, preferred to evade humans when possible.
The following question "Why?" had been answered with: "Because we are the most dangerous beast of all."
One thing of interest was there after all. During the days, when they rested, Tashmal had started to teach the blonde fencing with the sword.
It didnt start well, or so Dana thought in retrospective, when Tashmal had said:
"Draw your sword."
Dana did so, quite arkwardly.
"No, no, no!" Tashmal had exclaimed.
"Well, fine. Lesson Number One. How to draw a sword. Observe closely what I am doing."
"Yes, mylady."
After seven days of lessons, Dana had at least learned how to draw the weapon quickly and without cutting herself to boot. She doubted she had learned anything else, as Tashmal never had a good word for her in the lessons. Usually she called the blonde Doranian "pretty maid", but in the lessons she addressed her far too often as "silly one".
No anger rose in Dana at that. After all, she was silly, and slow, and clumsy, compared to the mylady.
It was fitting that Tashmal called her in this fashion.
She looked down on the great river and observed a huge ship with many sails approaching from the south. Its deck was crowded with people. They looked tiny from this distance, like ants.
"Please, sweet maid, when we are in Maulburg, try to suck your popping eyes in and close your mouth. Your expression shows everyone who comes upon you that you are a silly girl out of the remotest area of the whole continent, the Ork Realm maybe excluded, but only by a small margin."
The blonde knew Tashmal was mocking her again. It were only words, and they didnt hurt Dana, but she sensed in the beautiful mylady a trace of cruelness if only with words. That made her a bit sad. Sad for the mylady. She was, at least a bit, under the spell of Rakuzu, the dark goddess of cruelness, torture and the like.
Throwing back her long hair in an angry gesture, Dana dismissed that thought.
"This face I like much better. An arrogant knightress out of Bitchcity. Keep that expression."
"Bitchcity? I never heard of this place, mylady."
"Silly one, it doesnt exist, its just an express- wait... you little snake, your having your fun with me."
Dana managed not to smile and kept the expression Tashmal had called "arrogant".
"Very good, sweet maid. Your skills in fencing with the soft tongue, have improved just as well as the ones in fencing with hard steel."
The blonde lost her pretended coolness. The mylady  thought here skills with the sword were improving.  A broad smile appeared on her face.
"You are a hopeless case, sweet maid.  You will be my downfall in the end, heed my words."
"Will mylady consider leading us down to the river street?"
"Consider! Where did you hear THAT phrase? Anyway, the word we are looking for is anyway. You are right, lets ride."
***
They followed the river along the street beside it, a good street, with strong stones, not the mud of the north-west route back in Moravan. Dana soon saw many more ships, barges and boats.  She assumed the river was so crowded because they were near Maulburg, a quite large city and important river harbor, controlling both the river trade from north to south Dorania, as well as to Achaia in the West.
The city was located where the Dorbech was met from the west by the Finstror, a smaller, but still large river out of Achaia.
They soon saw it on several hills , half surrounded by the two rivers. It was huge, as expected. There must be thousands upons thousands of women living inside its walls.
Dont stare, keep in control. You are no dumb child, she thought full of determination. Yes, I am cool. I really am, look at me, the boots, the gloves, the sword, riding on a very good horse, my hair flying freely like a banner of an army. And, as an afterthought, I have big breasts. Everyone liked big breasts.
She felt Tashmals eyes on her and deliberately put her "arrogant" face on and threw her hair back. Tashmal muttered something in her soft, singing own language, then sighed and rode towards the city.
Maulburg, here I come, Dana thought full of delight and followed her small heroine...

***
"Do you like it?"
"Its wonderful. How much does it cost?"
"Why do you care, its my money, not yours."
"Yes, mylady, thank you again, mylady. But I am curious."
"Well, 40 Dublones."
"40? Thats an outrage! Thats my pay at the inn of four months. "
Tashmal chuckled.
"Its actually quite cheap for the quality. In Lashayette you would pay three times that much.  At the very least."
"You must be kidding, mylady."
"I am dead serious sweet maid. So better to buy them here and now. You want them, I see it clearly. Jalima, daughter goddess of lustful greed has you under a strong spell."
"Mylady, when the shopkeeper or another customer hears your words. You voiced the name of a dark aspect. Thats forbidden in the empire."
"Dont I know it, sweet maid. Dont worry, I have money, good achaian money, and the shopkeeper already knows that. I might even state on the top on my voice that the archduchess of Audenk is a worshipper of Filaxu, goddess of hell,  and she would still smile at me and offer me from her cigarette collection. "
"Please, mylady, not those names, I beg you."
The Achaian giggled like a little girl, but voiced no more unholy names.
"Anyway, arrogant blonde, they fit your legs and arms perfectly, they are magically impregnated with shiny cream and glisten wonderfully, they are relatively cheap, you already love them AND - and thats most important, the evil achaian whore would like to have you around her wearing them.
So I will buy them now. Dont open the boots, sweet maid, you can leave the set on and walk straight out of here in it."
"Mylady has already spent so much of her money for me. I am ashamed."
"Oh my, I am afraid you really are. I tell you a secret. Its not my money."
"Not your money, mylady? This time I really dont understand."
"I anticipated that, so I will explain myself."
While speaking, Tashmal met the shopkeeper with the false smile on her feisty face again and opened her purse. Not for the first time today.
She had already bought several sets of silken underwear, two leather knee trousers, four blouses, a linnen and a silken  street gown, a black cap with red feather, a rucksack, fine black slippers and several other items for Dana, producing from her purse a seemingly endless supply of gold and silver, achaian zarines, upon whose sight the smiles of the shopkeepers got even wider and their bows even deeper.
The Achaian had bought items for herself too, the most expensive just a few minutes ago in just this shop here, an elegant set of high boots and long gloves in shiny light green and a matching corsage.
Dana wore the same outfit in black, and Tashmal was right, she already loved it. It aroused her irritably to wear it. As Tashmal and the shopkeeper concentrated on the sale, Dana rose a gloved arm to her face, and pressed the shiny black leather against her lips, as if being gagged by it.
She managed to stifle a small scream of joy and lust. It felt wonderful at her soft lips. She imagined being gagged with a band of such material in black, than her own face in a mirror gagged with a band of it. Her sex was wet already from the fantasy alone.
Danas mind wandered further, she saw herself naked save for the boots and gloves, bound with white rope, wearing a tight broad black gag of shiny leather, wriggling, mewing, helpless, aroused - and beside her, mylady Tashmal, in the light green boots and gloves and nothing else, bound and gagged like Dana, she too helpless and aroused.
The fantasy nearly made the maid cum.
She heard the clack -clack of Tashmals boots approaching, and quickly removed her arm from her mouth and opened her eyes.
The Achaian smiled, and her eyes, her huge dark eyes seemed to know more than Dana wanted her to know.
"I still have to explain whose money has bought these love tube watering boots and gloves for you."
Love tube watering? The Achainan knew everything, Dana was suddenly sure of, and the blonde blushed.
Tashmal didnt seem to be aware of it. In her "teacher voice" she started to explain:
"The money I spent on the journey, including the one spent today for your outfits and so on, is money of my employer. She supplied me with an ample amount so that I might use it when applicable during my mission. Totally at my own discretion I might add."
Dana secretly loved it when mylady spoke in such a fine and complicated manner. It even aroused her a bit, she admitted to herself.
"Now I understand, mylady. Your employer must be a very powerful and rich woman."
"The two are like intimate lovers, sweet maid. Power and money. Always cuming together."
Somehow this seemed to be the most important lesson of the day to Dana, even if she didnt understand it in full...

***
Outside the shop, among the countless women going about their business and lives, Tashmal immediately mouthed a cigarette and lit it. Today, inside the city, the brunette had smoked much more cigarettes than during a day of her journey through the wilderness.
As much as Dana liked seeing the mylady lit up, she ignored her now. She was deep in thought, pondering the issue of Power and money. She understood the metapher of Tashmal quite well. Intimate lovers always cumming together, that was the doranian saying of things going hand in hand in scandalous, typical achaian way, or at least typical for Tashmal, the only Achaian Dana knew.
But was it true? The Kaisera of the empire was surely the most powerful woman in Dorania, but Dana had heard more than one guest back at the inn say that the Kaisera had no money. Her treasure chests were empty. She had to loan money from rich merchants to pay her army.
So was she really that powerful? If the merchants decided to give her no more money, her mighty army might simply dissolve, the soldiers going somewhere else where they got their pay.
So the merchants were the ones in power? But they had no say in the politics of the empire. They couldnt build up armies themselves, as they would immediately be attacked by the nobility and their soldiers.
Or  look at the Order of Kerke, the war aspect of deity. It was said to be the most powerful order of the church in the empire, it had even an own province in the East, the Kerkemark. Its warriors, the Deathknightresses, were the best fighters of the world, or so she had been told, and her biggest dream was to become one of them (among others things, because their uniform included long black boots and gloves).
But these powerful warriors were forbidden to accumulate earthly wealth. So, no money, yet they were clearly very powerful.
"What ails you, booted maid? You look as if you have severe teeth pain."
Tashmal was beside her, she seemed concerned.
"It is nothing, mylady. I had to think about something important. What do we do now?"
The small brunette eyed Dana closely for several more moments, than she shook her head slightly and sighed theatralically. With a very decadent gesture, she snipped the butt of her smoke into the passing crowd, breast high.
That was very bad behavior under any circumstances, but Dana was already used to it, as she had done it with every finished cigarette since they entered the city.
At one occasion she had actually hit one womans bossom with the still burning butt, and the big, blonde Dorana had angrily turned and made a step towards them. Tashmal had simply grinned into her face. The big woman had muttered "Achaian whore!" and had continued on her way.
So Dana had assumed such behavior was expected of Achaians in Maulburg. And Tashmal was clearly of that people, with her milk white skin, her slender build, and her jet black eyes and hair.
"We have still to visit one place. I have gathered information. There is an achaian beauty mistress in the city. Her shop is not far from here."
"A beauty mistress?"
"Exactly one of those. We have to do something about your hair and I will see your sweet face not a day longer without adorning make up, Majave, goddess of beauty and pleasure, is surely of the same opinion."
***
The beauty mistress had skin just as milk white as Tashmal as well as matching hair and eyes. But her hair was much longer und branded to curls, colored silkbands were interwoven with it.
She wore a red silken vest and a very short red silk skirt. Her arms and legs were sheated in gleaming, squeaking latexa  of shiny yellow, which seemed tight like a second skin. It was Danas second encounter with latexa after the experience of the gag in the inn.
When the blonde settled into a leather armchair and the treatment by the beauty mistress began, the learned that the latexa wear was, like the gags had been,  heavily impregnated with aphrodisiaka. How by Majave, the goddess of lust, could the Achaian concentrate and work with her limbs, and possibly other body parts under her clothing, were covered so tightly by this material?
It was even better than the shiny leather of the boots she and Tashmal were wearing.
Dana immediately wished to wear such an outfit herself. In black, naturally. And to take the thought further, how would it be to be helplessly tied while wearing such latexa? Not to be able to remove it from ones sensitive skin. What a sweet torture this must be.
She shifted uneasily in her chair while the mistress shampooed her hair. Tashmal sat in another armchair, again smoking, drinking a hot kaff from a cup, and reading in a newsjournal she had bought on the way to this establishment.
The blonde envied mylady for her skill of reading and writing. If it would be possible to learn that too? In this case, she would be able to read also the many books of wise women, priestresses and Magas and the like. She could much more quickly learn all about the world than it would take to visit all of it.
After Danas hair was taken care off, the two Achaias discussed her make up, speaking in their native language, a quick sing-sang Dana most naturally didnt understand a single word from.
Suddenly the conversation stopped and Tashmal turned to Dana.
"It must be glossy black lipstick, sweet maid, am I right?"
"That would be  wonderful, mylady."
Tashmal nodded and ignored her again, resuming the heated discussion with the other Achaia. Finally, Tashmal settled into her chair again, and reached for cigarette and the journal, while the beauty mistress turned her attention to Dana.
It didnt last as long as Dana had expected. Quite quickly, her makeup was applied.
She studied the result in a mirror, a very good, very clear one. Was that really Dana, the young inn maid? From the mirror, a beautiful young lady stared back at her. Light blue on her eyelids, glossy black on her lips, which seemed fuller as her eyes seemed bigger and more intense.
"You are a real mistress," Tashmal voiced in Doranian.
"You are worth every zarinelle you charge."
"Thank you, Lady Rakaros."
Dana heard the second name of Tashmal for the first time, but she was too fascinated by the stranger in the mirror she had become as to take more than superficial notice.
"Do you like your new look, booted maid?"
"Yes, mylady, very much so. I am so grateful you do this for me."
"Oh, stop it, will you. Not that again. Time for payback will come."
And a decidedly cruel smile appeared on Tashmals lips.
A shiver went along Danas spine, and she was not sure if one of unease or arousal. Maybe both...