Chapter One

The Ottoman Empire: Province of Naples: Italy. 2025

The woman struggled as she was dragged towards the post by two burly soldiers but in only a few moments she was pinioned, her arms raised and her wrists securely shackled to the chain that hung down from the arm of the post.

The executioner, who knew his job, strolled across the stage towards his next victim, allowing the crowd to savour what was to follow. As he went, he drew a long knife from his belt and let the sun flash off its polished blade. The crowd hooted and brayed its approval. Above him the LED noticeboard was showing that the current occupant of the post was due to receive a punishment for slovenliness in dress and housekeeping, reported by her husband. It was not a lethal sentence. Those came later in the afternoon when punishments for crimes like theft and arson, and then beheadings for questioning the regime would slake the crowd's bloodlust which the empire took care to keep bubbling along through public punishments and staging spectacles involving slaves in bloody competitions.

But for now....

The executioner approached his trembling victim and took hold of her shirt while holding aloft his knife. He looked round at the Bey who sat in the box reserved for empire staff. He nodded and the crowd cheered again as the knife sliced down and cut the woman's shirt in two down her back and sliced down her sleeves. Her bra straps were easily slashed through, and he was able to rip off the front of her shirt, leaving the victim semi-naked and moaning. The crowd roared as her heavy breasts swung free. It was the first nudity of the afternoon and they were ready for it after several minor floggings. Now the executioner stepped back and looked at the Bey again - again the slight nod - and the woman's belt was sliced off. Two or three more quick slices and the long skirt and her knickers were heaps of useless cloth at her feet and she hung naked before the crowd, who could see her breasts quivering with fear as she panted. The executioner strolled back across the stage and made another show of choosing his whip. He had ones that could kill, ones that would cut and scar and ones that would merely hurt and leave long lasting welts. He knew which one had been decreed, the woman was to be thrashed but not harmed permanently for this, a first offence. Next up however was a man who was a fraud, for him the long rattans would be deployed and after him a woman who was a notorious pickpocket, she would suffer quite a prolonged and bloody beating. For these and those who followed the more severe whips would come into play and the crowd would bay and cheer as the punishments were relentlessly handed out.

He went to stand in the centre of the raised platform in the town square, his legs planted well astride, the whip held across the fronts of his thighs and faced the Bey. The crowd settled until the victim's sobs could be heard across the square. The Bey sat forwards and tapped something into his keyboard, instantly the noticeboard flashed up 'Two Hundred.'

The executioner nodded and held up the whip as the crowd hooted its approval, drowning out the few squeals of dismay from close relatives. The Bey sat back and waved to the crowd. An Italian crowd always appreciated a good show - always had done since Roman times - he reflected. And the authorities back in Constantinople, where the business of empire was conducted along interminable corridors of bureaucracy would receive a record of the punishments meted out to criminals and would conclude that the business of empire was being properly attended to by him in this province which stretched from Naples south for some two hundred miles. All would be well and he settled down to enjoy the flogging, one hand reaching for the bowl of olives on his left while his right hand caressed the satin-soft thigh of the Nubian slavegirl standing beside him. Obediently she twitched aside the sheer voile of the skirt she wore, to allow his hand access to her.

He thought he might leave before the actual executions, they held no pleasure for him, although he knew quite well that the cafes and bars would be filled with people happily discussing them later that night. Besides the delightful girl next to him needed flogging. And there the pleasant train of his thoughts was derailed.

She was a slave who had undergone the empire's rigorous conditioning as soon as she had been taken. She could no more refuse him anything than she could choose to stop breathing. He wasn't clear on exactly how it all worked, although he had been shown round the labs where the work was done. He had seen the chrome helmets lowered onto the struggling prisoners and watched on the monitors as technicians had scanned the brain activity, shutting down this bit, inhibiting that bit, encouraging other areas entirely and the struggles had ceased, the prisoner simply accepting where and what they were. In addition they would, after a few minutes of careful manipulation, be given a massively powerful aphrodisiac which left them desiring nothing other than to serve whoever owned them in any way whatever and receive intense sexual gratification from so doing. The results were slaves whose whole lives revolved around serving and pleasing, because only by pleasing would they be granted the sexual release they craved.

In short they were addicted to sexual pleasure at the hands of their owner, however that owner chose to enjoy them. An owner could order them to feel pain or pleasure while undergoing any use and even as they experienced pain they could still orgasm, if they were allowed to. It was recommended however that regular orgasms be granted to keep them in top form.

Of course it was only pleasure slaves who received the full dose of conditioning. Slaves who were required simply for work would be rendered obedient and hard working

The empire relied on having modernised its traditional reliance on slaves to control its vast empire which stretched from Persia west as far as the Atlantic, south as far as the north African coast and north to the Baltic sea.

But the truth was - and it had been rumoured through communications from here and there within government departments - the supply of slaves was drying up.

Below him the woman, who was now screaming and writhing her way to her first hundred lashes, wasn't being punished for her own slovenliness. She was being punished for not having been fully in control of her household slaves, probably she had been bedding the slaves of either or both sexes while her husband was at work. She would be shamed but go home and learn to run her household better. She would no doubt administer some discipline to assuage her shame and everything would be alright. The only thing was that if she damaged a slave too much it might be hard to replace them now. Time was when a damaged slave could be traded in for a new one quite easily, the damaged one sold on for field or mining or industrial work.

And if people couldn't rely on having slaves to serve them and punish in any way they wanted and as much as they wanted, then trade them in and get a new one from a dealer, then the economy and in fact the whole edifice of empire was in trouble.

The north Africans had finally got themselves organised and stopped raiding each other to sell on to the empire. Instead they had formed a federation and united to stop all raiding and trading. The last empire expedition had been massacred, something unheard of previously. The Scandinavians had stopped trading a long time ago under pressure from Britain and the United States. That only left Russia. They would happily sell anyone to anyone else but the quality was not what it had been. The Indian sub-continent drew its slaves from its own population and didn't often sell any to outsiders. Farther south in Africa there were some lawless states still willing to trade. Thank Allah for the Suleiman canal! Since the beginning of the last century shipping had not had to go by way of the Cape of Good Hope and risk capture and confiscation by the abolitionist nations. The Mediterranean had been the empire's domain for over two hundred years now and so that was safe at least.

He looked at the girl beside him. She was a beauty. Well she ought to be, he had spent a small fortune having her tailored to his tastes. Big breasts, soft bee-sting lips, wide eyes. It was all available with minimal surgical intrusion nowadays, if you could pay. And he could. He had had the thighs he was currently stroking enhanced by those clever chaps at the university doing something or other to her musculature so that she could run in harness all day. Her shoulders had been quite wide when he bought her and her back also, so they had needed no alteration. She was gazing at him with her usual adoration. He moved his hand up from her thigh and she immediately sat forwards, straightening her back to offer the massive tits to him. He loved how they bounced as she ran and how they swung under the whip. She would need them tightening up in a year or two but again that was no problem now. While his fingers dug into the naked flesh of the breasts, he closed his eyes to better sample the cries of the woman being flogged. She had twisted so dementedly during the first hundred lashes that her breasts and belly were liberally welted. The Bey smiled as he heard her give out a specially shrill screech. The executioner knew his job and had landed a slash right across the nipples. The crowd laughed and applauded.

He glanced down at his notepad, the next victim was male - a fraudster. He would be stretched out face down on a table and four men wielding long lengths of rattan would administer - he looked across to the other side of the schedule - three hundred and twenty lashes. He might survive, he might not, bets would be placed no doubt. He had seen the prisoner down in the cells under the police station and he didn't think survival was likely. He thought he might put a - strictly unofficial - wager on with a bookie who was a personal friend, depending on what the odds were. The empire frowned on wagering but like so many other things it had learned to be tolerant and so had survived and grown.

He spoke into a microphone that connected directly to ear pieces the executioner was wearing, telling him to carry on and abide by the official sentences which had been set by the Kadi, the Bey could alter them if he felt the crowd needed it, but by and large they should stand. The executioner obviously heard him and glanced up from where his final lashes were drawing blood from the moaning victim and nodded.

Satisfied, the Bey stood and the slavegirl rose with him, he took hold of the leash which ran from her collar and led her down the steps at the rear of his box and across the street. The girl padded after him her light dress flowing open almost to the groin as she walked, the wide belt holding it closed there, her breasts were barely hidden where they pressed against the voile. It didn't matter, the only rule was that a pleasure slave's attire must hide his or her sex.

As a consequence, free women - even Christian ones - now ensured they were modestly dressed in public to underline their superiority. Free men just wore whatever suited them. The Bey wore a light suit, he was Italian by birth and had risen to his rank through careful navigation of the empire's labyrinthine bureaucratic procedures. His car was waiting on the far side of the road and the chauffeur started it as soon as he saw him coming. The Bey took his seat in the back and the girl knelt on the floor beside him.

"I took delivery of a new whip the other day. It is one from southern Africa I'm told," he said to her as the car moved off.

"Yes, Master?" she girl looked up as she was addressed, her expressive eyes wide. The Bey felt himself begin to harden.

"It's made from some kind of antelope hide and is reputed to cause very great pain."

The girl smiled.

This was what had kept the empire together for so many centuries. Life was so much better within it than on the outside. Why fight against something that could make your wildest fantasies become daily realities?

But now that the supply of slaves was in peril, such a simple recipe for success could no longer be relied on. Mehmet IV who had ruled from 1703 to 1754 and who had studied Roman history had seen how the empire had to be run in order to survive. Make the people grateful for being part of the empire, make them materially better off and make sure they always had someone to look down on and ensure that the resentment and violence that underlay all civilisation had some way of expressing itself. But if slaves were not available to fulfil those last two functions, what then?

The carphone rang. It was Luigi Erdul from Naples University.

"Ciao, Luigi. What can I do for you?"

"You can get over here as soon as possible. Something's come up."

Luigi was renowned for his direct approach and complete lack of any respect for government officials. It came from his research into the fundamental particles of reality. Everything else, he said, was just getting by, day to day.

The Bey looked at the gorgeous girl kneeling beside him. He had been looking forward to doing some deliciously painful things to those huge mammaries. "I'm a bit busy just at the moment."

"No you're not. If you're not here in the next hour or so, I'll be going up the ladder, right to the top if need be. I'm not kidding signor Bey."

The use of his title by someone who normally used his name, convinced the Bey that he needed to find out what had come up. If it was something big and Luigi really did go higher up and he, Salvatore Benedetti was found to have been remiss? No he really had no choice.

"The University," he snapped to the driver. Damn Luigi. He could have made this gorgeous creature scream and then orgasm for him even as he pushed the needles...No! He thrust the thoughts to the back of his mind. But there was just time...

He slid down in his seat and unzipped his flies then reached for her head. She came to him.