Chapter Six
Ladies In Training
“Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg.”
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, scene 4
Morning sun slanted between the steep cliffs sheltering The Pagan Princess as she rocked in the gentle swell of the water in Lust Lagoon. She tugged periodically at her anchor chain, in a mocking metaphor of the girls’ captivity. The light combed through the trees and brush clinging to the rocky walls, their limbs and branches sheltering a multitude of brilliantly-plumbed birds. They launched out into the scented air, circling over the ship, their calls and cries boasting of their freedom while fifty girls chained to whipping posts bolted to the rear deck looked up with tear-blurred vision.
“From this moment on,” I began, “you will always address the men as ‘sir.’ Any mistake or
