By Judicial Decree
(2nd edition)
by
Commander James Bondage
Copyright 2016
Commander James Bondage
Introduction to the 2 nd Edition
This new edition of one of my earliest and most popular stories was written for both those who are only familiar with this book from the current version sold by my former publisher, Strict Publications, and those who have never read it at all. The edition available for the last few years was extensively bowdlerized, substantially damaging the impact of the story, as I think anyone who reads both this version and that one will agree. Changed circumstances have permitted me to offer this refurbished edition, something I have wanted to do for some time.
This second edition has also been extensively re-written, to correct many of the mistakes, typographical errors and inconsistencies that escaped the editor’s scrutiny previously, as well as to improve some of the more clumsily written sections. It is being offered at a low price in the hope that it will tempt new readers to venture further into the widely imitated world I created in By Judicial Decree, which now spans nine novels. If you like the characters and setting of By Judicial Decree, you can look forward to seeing them again, eight more times, or possibly nine, depending on when you read this. I hope you will enjoy it.
Commander James Bondage
Cover image courtesy of Strutter. More images by this talented digital artist can be seen at Renderotica and Art of Darkness.
It is only by an accident of history that we no longer follow the ancient Roman custom of judicial enslavement by reason of debt. What if history had taken a different path? Modern physical theory teaches us that there exist an infinite number of universes, where history did go a different way. If this is true, then there must be some universes where the old Roman law is still followed…
Chapter One
When Olivia Addison hosted a party, she made certain that the result would be as close to perfection as was humanly possible. That was one of the main reasons why, at the youthful age of twenty-four, she was considered one of the, if not the premier hostess in county society. This particular party, however, had to be even better than usual, because it was to be the most important one she had ever thrown. All of the leading citizens from Celestial County had been invited, and all had accepted, even persons of such exalted social status that Olivia would never have dared to invite them until this year. This affair would be the victorious culmination of the long battle she had waged to reach her rightful place at the top of county society. She studied the seating charts again. If Senator Hallwell and his wife sat over here…
Her train of thought was abruptly derailed by Yana, the maid.
“I’m sorry to interrupt you, Mistress, but there are some men are at the door who say they need to see you right away,” Yana said.
Olivia had little patience for incompetent servants. She turned on the short domestic and, glaring down from her full height, she snapped, “I instructed you that there are to be no visitors today until the caterers have finished setting up.” She struck the little dark-haired maid across the face, knocking her to the ground. The little domestic slave had picked the wrong day to cross Olivia.
Olivia Addison had been born into a wealthy family of high status. But Olivia wanted to move higher still, and to do that she needed to catch the right husband. Fortunately for her ambitions, she was the most desirable girl in her social group, and she could have her pick of the men. After some investigation, she settled on David Addison as being the one with the most promising future, the one most likely to provide the money to support the lifestyle to which she felt she was entitled, and to finance her rise to the upper levels of society. With her classic beauty, long blonde hair and her sleekly curved body, it was not difficult for her to capture her prey, and David proposed to Olivia just one year after she had made the decision that he was to be her husband.
David had proved to be as successful in business as Olivia had expected. His investment company made more than enough money to pay for the huge house, luxury cars and servants, and more importantly, to afford the expenses entailed by the elaborate parties, the memberships in the exclusive clubs and all the other bills generated by Olivia’s campaign to capture county society. Indeed, David’s company had been so successful that Olivia had insisted her father invest all his money in it, since it paid far better returns than his old, conservative investments.
And now, in just a few hours, all her planning and hard work would finally reap the reward she had sought…
An insistent pounding on the front door disturbed her thoughts again.
“Yana, go and tell whoever it is that if they do not go away, I’ll have the sheriff come and arrest them for trespassing,” she said, glaring.
“I was trying to tell you, Mistress,” Yana said, rubbing her cheek where Olivia had hit her. “It is the sheriff; three of his men, anyway, and the constable. They say they have to talk to you. I told them that you didn’t want to see anyone, but…”
“I see that I’m just going to have to handle this myself,” Olivia said, marching off to the door. “I’m coming,” she called, as the pounding was renewed even more loudly, and was now accompanied by bellowed demands for the door to be opened.
She snatched the door open to see the town constable in his traditional cylindrical red hat, in the company of three sheriff’s deputies in their black and gold uniforms. The constable was holding a scroll decorated with ribbons and wax seals.
Before Olivia had a chance to give them a piece of her mind, the constable spoke.
“Are you Mrs. Olivia Pierson Addison, the wife of David Addison, who is president and chief executive officer of a business known as Addison Investment Trust?” he asked, in an official-sounding voice.
“What?” asked Olivia, taken aback by both the question and the manner of its delivery. The constable had not even offered the most elementary courtesy before asking this impertinent question. “Of course I am Olivia Addison and David is my husband, as you should know perfectly well, Constable Arthur, after the amount of money we throw around at your charity carnival every year,” she said with some heat. “Why have you…?”
The constable interrupted her, unrolling the scroll and reading, speaking in a voice louder than any she had ever heard him use before. “By order of the High Court of Celestial County, in and for the State of New Harrow, I hereby serve notice that this property and all chattels and persons herein are as of this moment seized and placed in the custody of this County until the matter giving rise to this judicial order shall be adjudicated.” He lowered the scroll and turned to the deputies. “Go in the house, impound any slaves you find, and put them in the van. We’ll take an inventory of the contents later.” He looked at Olivia, who was staring at him, for the moment struck dumb by shock.
“Mrs. Addison, I’m afraid that includes you. The sheriff’s deputies here will have to…”
“Who do you think you are?” she shrieked at the constable before he could finish. “How dare you invade my home? I’ll have your job; I’ll have you strung up on the town whipping post before I’m done with you,” she ranted, hardly knowing what she was saying in her rage. “When David gets back, he may just take a horsewhip to you himself! In fact… What are you doing?”
The constable gestured to the burly deputy, who stepped up to Olivia, and quickly confined her hands in cuffs and then, before she responded to this new outrage, stuffed something bulky in her mouth and tied it in place around her neck.
“For your information, Mrs. Addison,” Constable Arthur said, “auditors from the State Assessor have seized Addison Investment Trust and all of its assets this morning under a court or
der. It appears that the entire company was nothing but an elaborate fraud. Your husband has disappeared, and is now a fugitive from justice.” To the deputy holding Olivia, he said, “Take her away, Mike.”
Olivia’s face turned white with rage. She screamed dire threats of what would happen to Constable Arthur if he did not have her released immediately, that he was lying about David, that he was a filthy low-class goon, but all that came out from the gag was “Nnnnnnnn!” before the sheriff’s deputy dragged her to the van, and casually tossed her inside like a sack of laundry.
* * * * *
Olivia spent a long night in the county jail. It was made longer by the fact that she continuously berated and threatened the turnkeys, until they too gagged her and left her in restraints all night when she refused to shut up. Still gagged and in manacles, she was dragged to court the next morning. The wheels of justice turn swiftly in Celestial County.
Olivia sat with court officers on either side to await her turn. She listened to the auditor from the State testify about the results of his investigation into the financial condition of David’s business.
“An inspection of the records of Addison Investment Trust revealed that the company had in fact made no investments of any kind on behalf of its clients, but had simply used money from new investors to make ‘dividend’ payments to older ones. It was a classic pyramid scheme,” the state auditor droned in a bored voice. “The total assets of the company as of yesterday afternoon consisted of a bank account containing one hundred two crowns, and some office furniture.”
“Did you investigate the personal assets of the owners of the firm?” the judge asked.
“Yes, Your Honor, if I may,” the auditor replied, opening a notebook and flipping through the pages. “The business license indicates that the joint owners of Addison Investment Trust were a Mr. David Addison and Mrs. Olivia Addison. It appears that their personal holdings include a large house, some valuable artworks and other personal furnishings, two bond-servants and several motor vehicles. However, closer inspection of these assets revealed that they are either heavily mortgaged and have little or no equity value, in the case of the house; were purchased on time-payments on which the majority of the payments are still due, in the case of the art; or have already been staked as collateral for secured loans to the Addisons, in the case of the slaves and the motor vehicles. We have yet to discover any significant equity in any property, real or personal in the names of the owners.” He looked blandly at the Judge and said, “We have thus far been unable to interview Mr. Addison concerning any of these matters.”
“There are a lot of people in this county that would like to do that,” the judge said grimly. “All right, let’s get on with it.” He banged his gavel down.
Olivia was hustled to a seat at the table in front of the bar of the court, and her gag was removed.
“Your Lordship,” she said, as soon as she could speak, “this is all a terrible mistake. David took care of all of the business. I didn’t know…”
The judge cut her short. “Olivia Addison, is this your signature on this application to operate a business in this county?” he asked, holding up some papers. “Show these papers to Mrs. Addison, please.”
A court officer jumped up, and brought the business license papers over to Olivia’s table, and laid them down before her.
She made a show of studying them, as if there might be some doubt about the matter in her mind.
“Well,” the judge demanded, “is that your signature on page one, or is it not. Remember you are under oath.” She hesitated, wondering if denying it would do her any good.
As if reading her thoughts, the judge said, “Before you answer, I remind you that the signature has been notarized and witnessed by three persons in the prescribed manner, and the court has additional samples of your signature for comparison. The penalty for perjury is…”
“Oh yes, I suppose it’s my signature,” Olivia said hurriedly. The penalty for perjury, she recalled, was twenty-five lashes in the public square. “But, Your Lordship, I knew nothing about what David was doing at the office. He handled all the business and never told me anything about it. Whatever he may have done, I’m not responsible.”
“Do you have anything further to say on your behalf in this matter?” the judge asked in a cold voice.
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Olivia said, with a feeling that something terrible was about to happen.
“Then this hearing is closed,” the judge pronounced. “This court finds as follows: the individual before it known as Olivia Pierson Addison is a co-owner of a business known as Addison Investment Trust and that said business is insolvent and unable to meet its obligations. Based on and as a consequence of the forgoing factual findings, the court will issue a final order.” He gestured to Olivia. “The prisoner will stand.”
She did, her knees shaking so badly that she had to hold the edge of the table to keep from falling back into her chair.
“Pursuant to the laws of the State of New Harrow, this court orders that Olivia Pierson Addison shall be enslaved and stripped of all rights as a free person of this State, and of the Western Provinces, and shall henceforth and for the rest of her natural life be made a bond-servant. It is further ordered that she be sold by the constable at the next slave auction in this county, and that the proceeds of her sale be distributed to the claimants of Addison Investment Trust. Let the judgment be recorded.” He banged the gavel with finality.
“No!” screamed Olivia. “No, it was David, I tell you! I didn’t know anything about mmmmm!…” The court officers rammed the gag back into her open mouth, ending her protests, and dragged her from the court.
Chapter Two
Quentin Scales was one of the best slave agents in the business, and he knew it. Today he was representing a principal who was both extremely demanding and extremely generous. Quentin knew that if his purchases failed to please this principal, he might well have to find another line of work. On the other hand, if he pleased the man, well then, the rewards would be... substantial. He was willing to take the risk to reap the reward; that was one of the things that made him so very good at his job.
He paged through the catalog for the upcoming auction, skipping ahead to the section listing the females over eighteen, “legal for all purposes”, as the table of contents put it, then to the Premium Selection. There was one page devoted to each item, accompanied by brief biographical and personal information, and a photograph of the face. He turned the pages slowly, looking each woman over carefully. Item number eight looked interesting: a twenty-four year old upper class housewife named Olivia Addison, who had been enslaved by judicial decree for debt. She was clearly very beautiful, and her measurements indicated that she had a shapely body, but her background and the sulky expression on her face in the photo indicated that she would be difficult to break to service. There probably would not be much interest in her for that reason, and he could probably pick her up for a song.
However, she was perfect for Quentin’s principal. The man positively enjoyed breaking in his female slaves, possibly even more than he liked using them after they were trained. As far as his principal was concerned, he feistier this Mrs. Addison was, the better. He folded the corner of the page down to mark it, and continued through the catalog.
When he came to item twenty, he stopped, staring at the image, unable to tear his eyes away. The picture was of a redhead with enormous green eyes like emeralds. Her nose was small and slightly up-tilted, her lips full and red. Her features together with her expression of sweet purity and innocence made her not just beautiful, but stunning, overwhelming.
He forced himself to look away from the photograph to read the information. The girl’s name was Elenora Reilly, and she had just turned eighteen. Her father was a merchant who had pledged her as collateral for his business, which became insolvent and resulted in her judicial enslavement and sale. While her face spoke of the innocence of youth, measurements suggested a bod
y that was fully mature. This one, he knew, would draw a big price. He was determined that his principal have this Elenora, whatever she cost. Quentin felt certain that his principal would be very grateful to the man who brought him this prize.
The auction began with the sale of various low-grade utility slaves, of no interest to him. Quentin looked around to size up his probable competition. Most of the crowd consisted of locals who had come to pick up a household slave, or maybe a concubine, on the cheap. He did not have to worry about them, but he did have to consider the usual buyer’s agents, his friendly competitors: Barkley, Hanson and Merrick. He nodded to acknowledge their gestures of greeting. They would make sure that if he was going to get this redhead, he was not going to do it on the cheap.
At last, the auctioneer called out an item of interest: the Addison woman, who was number eight in the Premium category.
He could see her accompanied by a handler as she came through the door at the back of the glass-enclosed runway. She seemed to be saying something to the handler, and shaking her head. The handler produced a short black club, which Quentin immediately recognized as a control rod, and touched it to the back of the blonde’s head. Her mouth opened in what Quentin presumed was a scream, and she fell to her knees. The handler pulled her to her feet and said something to the woman. This time she nodded her head, and the handler made a signal for the auctioneer to proceed.
“Item number eight,” the loudspeaker announced. “Mrs. Olivia Addison, age twenty-two, married, five-foot six, one hundred twelve pounds, enslaved by judicial order two weeks ago. Mrs. Addison comes from a very good family in the Celestial County, and would make a fine addition to any household.”
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