The New Nobility Ch. 05

"I've brought a warm towel to clean you, my Lord," she informed him.

"Good," he replied curtly.

Evelyn had wet the towel in hot water and now she began to clean his groin with it. Long, soft strokes gradually removed what mingled fluids remained on his flesh after her oral cleansing and then she began to pat him dry with a second towel. When she was finished, she carefully tucked him back into his pants and returned the towels to the bathroom. Though Evelyn had asked for household staff to accompany them on the train, none had been forthcoming. She had doubted they would, but she had made the request nonetheless; it would look good to Jahan and, who knew, might even have worked. Cleaning staff from the train, for an extra fee, would take care of the laundry and other custodial duties.

She went once more to the living room. Jahan was reading something on his pad and she hesitated to disturb him, but she was very tired. "I beg your pardon, my Lord. Have you any further need of me at the moment?" she asked.

After a long moment, Jahan raised his head and gestured for her to sit down in the high back chair across from him. She sat, carefully crossing her legs and feeling the soft pile of the fabric against her smooth skin.

"Uncross your legs, Evelyn," Jahan instructed. "I like to see your cunt."

Evelyn dutifully uncrossed her legs and spread them as wide as the chair would allow, affording Jahan an unimpeded view of her crotch. Silently she wondered at his resort to crudity. Did he consider it masculine? A way of demeaning her? Perhaps just a further demonstration of his power? It was a puzzle she needed to solve.

"What do you know of the Count?" he asked.

Evelyn considered her answer carefully. She'd been provided with a rather thorough briefing on the young Count, but it had been prepared by Sir Arun's intelligence service. There had been no opportunity in the time available to read a public access briefing. The only answer she could give was simple.

"Nothing, my Lord."

He frowned. "Unacceptable. The Count is to be my patron and you should understand his importance. Look him up this evening. In the meantime... The Count of Swans is a good friend. He was two years ahead of me at school and I was fortunate enough to be counted amongst his inner circle. I was able to perform a great favor for him in the recent past and he is a man that remembers his friends. Now that he has acceded to his rightful position within the nobility I imagine there will some great changes afoot and I expect to be placed in a position to assist him in these changes."

"What sort of changes, my Lord?" Evelyn prompted without thinking.

Jahan frowned at her presumption but something, perhaps her genuine interest, prevented him becoming truly annoyed. "The pace of change on this mudball, for one," he replied. "Are you familiar with the terms of the Imperial Crusade?"

"I only know what I was taught in school, my Lord," she said. It wasn't, strictly speaking, entirely the truth, but it was the truth so far as he was supposed to know.

"The Imperial Crusade, the Great Task, is the re-unification of mankind, of course. When Imperial scouts locate a new population cluster, it is targeted for incorporation into the Empire. This is done by means of a grand fleet carrying sufficient military force to subdue the population cluster and install the military and settlers as the new ruling class. The task of the ruling class is to raise the technical level of the population cluster to at least the Imperial minimums and then to build a new grand fleet to incorporate the next population cluster. This is, of course, both right and natural. Mankind must be under a single rule or we are likely to wipe ourselves out. But the policy is frequently unfair. There is an entire universe out there. Thousands of inhabited worlds comprise the Empire and more are added with increasing frequency as the older systems build still more grand fleets and the pace of scouting and incorporation grows. Yet I will never see them!

For the sin of being born I must spend my entire life shackled to this mudball raising your people to an acceptable technological level whilst others are free to see the wonders of the Empire. All because of policy. Policies that dictate the speed at which your pathetic culture may be advanced. The Count, however, aims to change these policies. If he is successful then it will be possible to implement a more rational plan of advancement that results in minimum technological levels being achieved in ten years. Once that has been accomplished the grand fleet can be built and I will be free to leave this world."

Jahan stopped, as if realizing he was opening himself up far too much.

"Achieving our Imperial goals early would certainly be wonderful, my Lord," Evelyn gushed. She wanted to move the conversation on, to get him past his moment of uncertainty, to settle him. Her words were carefully chosen to emphasize the impersonal aspects of his information, to indicate approval and agreement, to calm him. But she also wanted more. "But, in school they told us that rapid technological advancement could lead to unacceptable stresses on the local culture. Even to social collapse."

Jahan, leapt away from his personal revelations by diving into the impersonal facts. "That's a fact, but exactly what constitutes rapid or unacceptable is open to debate. In any event, the Count is unconcerned with this because his plan calls for a complete remodeling of society on Wells. In effect, he will deliberately break the local culture and use rapid technological change as one of the tools of this goal. He's quite brilliant you'll see."

Evelyn thought about the idea and liked it less and less with every passing thought. 'If he breaks our society, what will he replace it with? And the teachers were quite convincing about the certainties of unintended consequences of introducing new technologies. Any technology introduced to a culture will be put to use for purposes not intended or foreseen by it's creators. The studies and historical precedents were... impressive. The only way to compensate for that is by introducing draconian regulation. The more rapid the change....'

"I am sure he must be, my Lord. Certainly he seems to know more than the Imperial scientists who created my school curriculum," Evelyn offered.

Jahan frowned. "You think that a veiled insult, but it's the truth. The Count is a brilliant man, a genius. You will discover this in time. For now, you will discover what happens to insolent servants away from the lax discipline of my father's home. Stand and face away from me. Bend over and place your hands behind your head."

Swallowing nervously, Evelyn slowly rose and followed his orders. The position bared her ass to him and, with the motion of the train, made it hard to keep her balance. She spread her legs a little, conscious that doing so exposed her sex to his view, but willing to make the sacrifice in order to avoid falling to the floor. The impact of his belt upon her flesh was enough to drive her to her knees with a scream of pain, however.

"Get up," he ordered. "Without using your hands," he added as she began to lower her arms to steady herself.

She stood, painfully, and had just resumed the ordered position when another blow staggered her. The second was worse than the first, scraping across skin that was either abused or sensitized by the first. Again she screamed and was driven to her knees. And again, this time without being ordered, she rose. Her ass cheeks felt as though they were burning and a cold, cold sweat had broken out all over her body. She felt frozen and shivered from it and from anticipation of the next wave of pain that was sure to follow. The feel of his open hand smacking between her legs drove the breath from her body.

"Your cunt will not enjoy the privilege of my cock if you continue to be insolent, Evelyn. The next time you dare to be insolent to me or in regard to my friends I will flog you. You may go to your room now. With only your shirt on. You need to learn your place."

Evelyn hesitated, sure that something else would follow, but nothing did. Carefully she stood and made her way to the exit to the car on uncertain legs. Picking up her folded clothing she held it to her chest as she left the car and made her way across the narrow connecting plank to the next car. Opening and closing the door behind her, she found herself in the conductors car. Off duty train personnel crowded into the smoky room engaged in various activities. Or they had been engaged in various activities. Now, they all stared at Evelyn.

Panicked, all Evelyn could do for an eternal moment was stand stock still in horror. A whistle from somewhere in the crowd, and low laughter from the rest of it, broke the spell and she was able to start pushing her way through the press. She yelped in pain as strong fingers pinched one of the welts rising on her bottom and ran, trailing tears through the uproarious laughter of the crowd and then through the kitchen of the next car before she was able to cross into her own car and stumble into her small compartment.

The tears had the best of her then and she sat on the narrow bunk that filled most of the space and sobbed.

To be continued...