The Tattooed Princess

The Tyrant's Revenge

        All that night the palace was in chaos over the brutal emasculation of Sharvur. The former Slavic servants  were sent in to tend to the kings critical injury and clean up the gruesome scene of Aella's mayhem with the dagger. The two dead guards were carried out of the chamber and the room was scoured of the blood which had covered the floor and bed.

            Not of little interest to Sharvur, as the many people entered his room from his shouts of agony, was his wanting his excised male appendage collected and placed in ice--yet all knew there was no hope of reattaching it. This placement of the amputation into an ice-filled bowl was obediently done for him by one of the older slave women—perhaps one who had even known that very part of Sharvur earlier in her life when she and the others had served him too as a sex slaves.         

        Nevertheless the king insisted that his manhood, though now eternally separated from him, must be preserved and grotesquely kept near him. For now this could be could be done, though it was assummed when the winter months passed and there would no longer be any ice in the kingdom, his prized appendage would wither and go the path of all lifeless flesh by early spring.

            Throughout the whole next day the Pazyryk people passed along the sad yet entertaining demise of Sharvur and the Amazon's decisive victory over him. While many felt empathy for their king, and others were furtively amused by the incident, most were in a state of somber fear. Fear of what their brutal and unpredictable king would do in the wake of his bitter shame, excruciating pain and humiliation. And for this reason the entire community were quiet and remained unseen.

            It did not take long following the shocking event for people in the palace to testify under Krido's mortal threats that it was Zaria, in fact, who had orchestrated the Amazon Aella's escape. And this resulted in her immediately being put on house arrest in her lush quarters of the palace with armed guards posted outside the door. Many in the citadel who had come to honor Zaria for her good nature and princess-like beauty, seriously worried for her wellbeing—knowing as they did of their kings penchant for cruelty and revenge. Most thought is would mean her certain death proceeded by unmentionable sadistic ordeal. Others wagered on Sharvur's belief in the young slave's worth to the kingdom, specifically through not being violated in any way. For this was the actual belief system Sharvur himself had supported. On many occasions he had been quite convinced that his avoidance of lust with this chosen Slavic girl was somehow divinely rewarding to his people and his entire kingdom.

        It was rumored that the people far to the south, who were known as Greeks and called themselves the Achaeans since fighting at the Trojan War, were now working under a new form of power sharing in which their own king would defer to the majority of the populous. It was understood that he would obey the will of the people  in maters of state and policy. This democracy, as they called it, was seen as a radical idea and potentially subversive, not only to Sharvur but to all the nomadic peoples who feared and distrusted anyone--particularly their own masses who had no knowledge of the inner workings of state of affairs with military issues. Although Sharvur had ruled for almost a decade and with an iron fist, he was still somewhat open for discussion with those whom advised him with  final decision making. But the decision, in the end, was always his. True and final.

            Though this king of the Pazyryk people was often the first to torture and put to death anyone who caused him or his territories any humiliation or vulnerability, he was always willing to at least listen to those whose opinion he trusted before acting. And it was for this reason that he did not move in haste to torture or punish Zaria, as she presently awaited her fate locked in her chamber down the hall. Sharvur that next night amassed a small committee of honored and trusted men he had in other times turned to for guidance before acting.