Life and Times of a Priestess: Ch.4: Prisoners Of Prancir (Part 3)

Chapter 4 : Prisoners Of Prancir (Part 3)

 After a few weeks Roger and some of his men were sent away, assigned to the new campaign in the South.  He left, pledging to return soon for Sreela.  Although he had regularly been with many of the Priestesses, including Danella on a couple of occasions, it had remained obvious that he reserved a special place for Sreela.  He had persuaded her to live with him part of the time in his own quarters up the road.  Most nights she spent with Roger in his bed and when he did not need to use her he wanted still to lie with her and be close to her, listening to her heart beating and enjoying the comfort her body gave. They talked slowly and falteringly in the Goddess’s tongue and they had in those few weeks become close to what the Prancirians called a married couple, or Partners, as the people of Pirion termed it.

 From his behaviour Danella would have expected that Roger would not approve of making money from the Priestesses.  The culture of Vanmar was now revealed.  Money came before everything else.  She now thought Roger had been using Sreela to make money for himself.  Now he had gone and Sreela would probably never see him again.  Now his ‘business’ was passed onto others and he had nothing to return for.  He had made his money for a while and now he would move on to another conquered city and do it again.  But his General Ravelleon was still here, so how could Roger acquire the authority to do elsewhere what he had already done here without his General, who gave him that authority.  Perhaps he would never be able to repeat what he had done here.

Danella decided to share what she now knew with Sreela.  She picked an evening after all the soldiers except the guards outside the door had gone.

The Priestesses were sitting around, relaxing after their ‘work’, talking in small groups, some were in the kitchen, working and eating the plentiful food they were now being supplied with.  Some were in the washroom, water had soon been installed, and they heated it twice daily for the Priestesses to wash themselves in turn.  A small few of them had already gone back to their beds, to rest and sleep this time, exhausted by their daily routine.  Others, only two couples, cuddled up with each other, under blankets at this time for warmth and continued to commune together in their own female way, as Danella had sometimes done in her now distant past in Shanla with young Carel.  This was a more gentle discovery of communion than was possible with the soldiers who could not understand what it was to be a woman and were naturally more concerned with their own pleasure when they had paid for it.  They believed that the Priestesses were here to serve them, not to be served.

Sreela lay on her own bed, sitting up against the wall at the back of her bed.  She had been sitting like that for quite some time, as no soldier had requested her towards the end of ‘opening hours.’

Danella approached slowly and met her eyes before she began to speak, inviting an indication from Sreela that it was alright to invade her privacy.  Sreela smiled and her eyes brightened, welcoming the contact.   “What are you thinking about, Sreela? You are quiet today” Danella asked.  “Come sit with me on my bed for a few minutes” offered the High Priestess, with something of the authority she might have displayed before the conquest, but it was meant as a free invitation to be accepted or refused at Danella’s will.  So Danella sat on the side of the bed and swung her legs up to lie next to the High Priestess.  Sreela placed her arm around her waist and drew her close.  Danella reciprocated.  They were closer now than they had ever been before the siege and the conquest, although Danella knew they had liked each other from the day of Danella’s arrival in Dalos.  The barrier of Sreela’s authority as a High Priestess had gone now, although all still recognised her as such.  Even in captivity they still recognised the old authorities, even though they no longer served the whole community, but only the Prancirian soldiers.

“I have been meditating, thinking and watching.  We can’t do much else here besides worship with the enemy, eating, sleeping, washing, talking.  We can’t go out unless its for a purpose” Sreela reported.

“You sound tired and dispirited”, commented Danella.

“I am, a little.  I am beginning to wonder what the purpose of our new existence is.  We are mainly supporting the enemy. I feel so unnecessary.  I am doing nothing to fight the Prancirians, not even to escape from them, nor to change and  improve our own situation, or that of the menfolk of the Empire,” Sreela  declared.  Danella thought she looked weary.  The months had left her tired looking.  Her face seemed more lined and her skin less smooth.  Her blonde hair had lost some of its shine and was less tidy somehow than before.  Sreela was at least ten years older than Danella, probably about 38 or 39 and she still looked good but it was not surprising that some of her youth should be fading.  But her face could still inspire both Priestesses and men.  She was generally well used by the soldiers who visited, if not as often as Danella and others.

  Roger had inspired her for a while and she had recovered form the ordeal of the conquest quickly, partly because of him, Danella guessed.  Sreela felt the duty of leadership strongly upon her and she had used her influence over Roger to demand the best treatment for the Priestesses.  She had confided to Danella on many occasions that she had taken much pleasure from her influence over Roger.  It had given her a stronger sense of her leadership after the disappointment and fear of defeat, but it had also given her self confidence because he had chosen her to be more than just a Priestess, or a prisoner.  They become virtual partners in those few weeks they were together and she had partially lived with him. After a week Roger asked Sreela to sleep only with him and exempted her from the duties of the other prisoners.  As a former High Priestess it was not what she wanted.  She had always been an active worshipping Priestess.  Her life was her own and sexual communion came naturally to her.  She could not envisage a time when she would ever wish to commit herself to one man.  The rape of the conquest had shocked and damaged all of them, but the natural inclination for communion had soon returned to all of them.

Sreela had rejected Roger’s offer to exempt her from her duties.  She took his request as the declaration of love it was intended but had explained that she had lived as a Priestess for too long to ever want to follow the Vanmarian practice  of monogamy and she could not refuse to share the life of her Priestesses.  She had a responsibility to share with them and to guide them.  Roger argued with her but had accepted her explanations when she agreed to spend some nights regularly with him.  They had grown closer and become, during those weeks, as close as partners in the Empire of the Goddess, who choose to live together.  Sreela had been strong while Roger was with her, and to Danella’s eyes had been raised from the despair of the conquest to the confidence and pleasure of being wanted by Roger. They had talked much and shared humour as well as the togetherness of the night. 

But now Roger was gone and Sreela knew not whether he would ever come back.  He was a soldier and could be sent anywhere.  He might even be killed.  Danella could understand Sreela’s attachment to the man. It must be good to have an attachment to a man which was more than the duty of a Priestess required, more than mere ceremonial or lustful excitement.  Danella had only experienced that kind of attachment perhaps with General Polad before.  That had been a mutual understanding which stretched into long conversations and the pleasure of being able to discuss her wildest and most unusual thoughts with a man.  But her relationship with Polad had never achieved the depth which Sreela and Roger appeared to have achieved in those few weeks.

The relationship between Sreela and Roger became cruel for Sreela when he disappeared.  She had not thought it would matter at first but in the months that followed she discovered that his departure had left another hole in her life, which she had not thought was there, to add to the injustices of the war and the conquest.