The proprietor’s man returned the whip to its peg. He then returned and freed her wrists from the ring.
“You may now return to your cage,” said the proprietor, “on all fours.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
At the gate to her cage, she turned about, on all fours, and lifted her head to me, her eyes bright with tears, tears running down her cheeks.
“You had me whipped,” she said.
“Certainly,” I said. “You were to some extent displeasing.”
“I hate you,” she said, “I hate you!”
“Beware,” I said.
“I hate you!” she hissed, and turned about, to enter the cage.
“Ai!” she cried, for my hand in her hair had arrested her progress. I drew her backward, up, and off balance, and threw her on her back before me, at my feet, and turned to the proprietor. “What do you want for her?” I asked.
“No, no!” she cried.
“How much?” I asked.
“Do not sell me to him!” she wept.
“Three silver tarsks!” cried the proprietor.
“One,” I said. It was well over what I conjectured he had paid for her. With a silver tarsk he might, in the current market, buy two of her. She was not worth a silver tarsk, but one does not always buy, or sell, with purely economic considerations in mind. I had been annoyed. Besides, at the moment, money did not much matter to me. I had recently, in the street outside, acquired additional resources.
“Done!” he said.
“No, no,” she wept.
There was much laughter from the other cages.
“Beat her well!” called a slave. “Sell her for sleen feed!” called another.
I drew a silver tarsk from the ruffian’s wallet, and tossed it to the proprietor, who caught it, neatly, in his left hand.
“I am staying the night,” I said to the proprietor.
After the business of the street, a quarter of an Ahn past, I was not sure what might lurk in the darkness.
I thought nothing, but it is a long walk toward the center of the city and the inn of Tasdron where I had left my things.
“The tavern is closed,” he said.
I slapped the hilt of the blade at my left hip, for I had regathered weapons upon my return to the tavern. The proprietor’s man had not chosen to question me in this matter. It reposed in its greased scabbard, slung from its across-the-body strap, from, as I was right-handed, the right shoulder to the left hip. I had a knife, as well, in its sheath, fixed laterally on my waist belt, behind my back. In this way it is not obvious, from the front, that it is there. It is quickly and easily drawn with the right hand.
“Very well,” said the proprietor.
“I will visit your kitchen, as I will need some supper,” I said.
“As you wish,” said the proprietor, looking from the large coin in his hand to the blade at my hip.
I looked at the supine, trembling slave. Her left knee was raised.
The proprietor’s man removed her collar. She had been sold.
“Bell her,” I said to the proprietor’s man, “and chain her, to await me, in the first alcove.”
“It will be done,” he said.
“I trust the alcove is well furnished,” I said, “with various instruments, a switch, a whip, such things.”
“Of course,” he said.
The slave looked at me, frightened, over her shoulder, her dark hair about her back, as she was conducted, by the left arm, from the room.
“There was an altercation in the street,” said the proprietor. “I heard so from my man.”
“Have no fear,” I said to the proprietor. “None know I am here. Reprisals are unlikely. I will leave before dawn. If any inquire after me, tell them I may be found at the wharves, and will be armed.”
***
“May I speak?” had asked the girl kneeling beside me.
“No,” I had said.
I had had her for a silver tarsk.
She was then silent, in the brief white tunic, kneeling beside me, on my leash. She had slender ankles, and nicely turned calves. It was clear why the corsairs had not left her behind in her village square, naked and bound, contemptuously rejected. It is no coincidence that most slaves are “slave beautiful,” for, if they were not, it is not likely that they would be made slaves. Suppose one were interested in the capture of wild kaiila. Would one not choose, as far as possible, to herd only the finest to the sales pens? It is much the same with women. Being made a slave is, in its way, a tribute to the beauty and desirability of a woman. Sometimes a free woman is spoken of, if not to her face, as “slave beautiful,” namely, that she is beautiful enough to be a slave. Supposedly this is quite insulting to a free woman, and would result in cries of rage and protest, but, should this lamentable assessment come to her attention, she is likely, secretly, to be profoundly pleased. What woman would not wish to be “slave beautiful?” To be sure, given the robes of concealment, the veilings, and such, it is often difficult to know whether or not a free woman is “slave beautiful.” This is a difficulty one seldom encounters with slaves, of course, given the garmenture in which men place them. I had picked up my things, in the small pack, at the inn of Tasdron, as I commonly did in the morning, in case I might wish them. One did not know when the long poles might thrust one ship or another from the wharves, the sail take the wind, or the low-banked oars enter the water, and rise again, shedding their sparkling showers in the early morning light. Sometimes it seems that the blades have lifted rainbows from the water.
I saw nothing of much interest about.
I feared another morning might be lost.
Perhaps she had already been shipped north.
I felt the girl’s head lean toward me, and I felt her lips, soft, on my thigh. How timid, and humble, was that kiss! Did she fear to be cuffed to the planks? I recalled her startled, begging cries toward morning, and how she had clutched me. She had entered the alcove an enslaved woman; she had left it a slave.
“You may speak,” I said.
“I do not know my name,” she said. “I do not know my master’s name; I do not even know what is on my collar.”
“Be content,” I said. “I am watching.”
“Was Master pleased?” she asked.
“‘Pleased’?” I said.
“— In the alcove,” she said.
“More so toward morning, than before,” I said.
“Master well knows how to subdue a slave,” she said.
“I needed a slave,” I said.
“A slave hopes that she was pleasing to her master,” she said.
Certainly she had been zealous to please.
“A slave was pleasing,” I said.
“Then a slave is pleased,” she said.
Before we had left the tavern I had removed her bells, leaving them behind in the alcove.
As it had been chilly in the gray light, in the vicinity of the wharves, I had wrapped my cloak about me, and she had heeled me, hurrying behind me, unbidden, to the inn of Tasdron.
She had been pleasant in the bells. I wondered if a master would place bells on the other slave, the Earth slut, who had sold for forty-eight copper tarsks. What would an Earth slut make of being naked, and belled? Any woman, I supposed, would understand such things, what sort of woman would be belled, and the meaning of being belled.
In the dining hall of the inn of Tasdron, I had knelt her beside my table. As my resources had been considerably replenished the previous evening, I had breakfasted well, on larma, vulo eggs, fried sul, roast bosk, sa-tarna, and even black wine, the beans for which, I supposed, derived from the far slopes of the Thentis mountains, and may have been brought west at some risk. For the girl I ordered a bowl of slave gruel, to be placed on the floor beside the table, from which she would feed, head down, without the use of her hands. At two of the other tables, slaves, kneeling beside the table, were also given slave gruel. Their masters did permit them to hold the bowl with both hands, but were not otherwise permitted to use their hands. One of them smiled at me, over the rim of the bowl, but then lowered her eyes, and then lowered her head, to feed, shyly, humbly. Had her indiscretion been noted, I had little doubt but what she would have been cuffed. A slave must be careful with her smiles, for masters are often particular about such things. The girl is to keep well in mind to whom she belongs. Only one is her master. The other two slaves were tunicked, briefly, of course, as they were the slaves of men.
I glanced at my slave, as she fed, obediently. I supposed that she might have, the previous night, objected to such an arrangement. This morning she took it as a matter of course. She had learned much in the alcove. I wondered how a certain Earth-girl slave might appear, so feeding. As any other slave, I supposed. Interestingly, I suspected that the Earth-girl slave would welcome the opportunity to feed so beside her master. It would excite, reassure, and fulfill her. From the first moment I had seen her, her shocked, trim, well-turned, exciting, slender body seemingly arrested in motion, then uncertain, wavering, and the startled, vulnerable expression in her eyes, her suddenly paled, sensitive, exquisite features, the parted, ready, inviting, kissable lips, in that large, strange emporium, I had sensed she belonged at a man’s feet. Had I gestured imperiously to my feet, I had the sense she might have crawled to me and placed her lips upon them. But then she half cried out, and fled away. I thought she might do. Yes, I thought. Put her on a chain, and train her, and she might do very nicely. She would respond well to male domination, to command, to being collared, to being helplessly owned. Her fulfillment would be to be a man’s possession. The judgment of my colleagues, too, had borne me out. She would need little breaking to the collar. She had, I suspected, worn one, so to speak, since puberty. Yes, I thought, she would feed well beside a man’s table, or from his hand. She would be incomplete and miserable without a master. She was a slave, a lovely slave. I must forget her!
Several others, some with slaves, had then entered the dining hall. Some were free women who, naturally, regarded the slaves with satisfaction and contempt. Two approached my table.
I had not invited them.
“Put her in a collar,” said one of them to me, of my slave.
“She has been recently purchased,” I said. “That omission will be soon rectified.”
I supposed that some of the metal workers’ shops would now be open.
“Animals look well in collars,” said the other.
“True,” I said. I wondered how she might look in a collar. Given the veiling, it was hard to tell.
“Clothe her,” said the first woman.
Tears formed in the eyes of the girl from Asperiche.
Few things can so reduce and humiliate a female slave as the withering, contemptuous glance of a free woman.
There would be little to protect them from free women, if it were not for masters.
“I will consider the matter,” I said.
I supposed that one or another of the cloth workers’ shops would be open, or soon open.
“Apparently you cannot afford to clothe her,” said the first woman.
“Or are too cheap to do so,” said the second.
“Here is a tarsk-bit,” said the first woman. “It should be enough for a tunic.”
“Or a rag,” said the other.
I stood up, and slipped the coin in my wallet.
“You are both thoughtful and generous, kind, noble ladies,” I said to them, “and doubtless you are both as beautiful as you are beneficent.”
“Perhaps,” said one, provocatively.
“Let us see,” I said.
“What?” they cried.
I seized them both, and flung them on their bellies across the small table, with a clatter, amidst the dishes, and the residue of food.
It was a simple matter, then, to keep them in place.
I jerked back their hoods, and tore away their veils.
“Behold!” laughed a fellow. “Two are face-stripped!”
Some of the free women, at the other tables, stood. One had screamed, two gasped. “Interfere!” said one of them to a fellow, standing, watching, he presumably her companion. “Not at all!” he laughed, striking his left shoulder twice with the flat of his right hand. “Beast!” she cried to him. “Do something!” said another free woman to her escort, or companion. “I am,” he said. “I am watching.” “Take me home,” she said. “Later,” said he, “after breakfast.” “Now!” she said. “I would not hazard the streets of Brundisium alone,” he said. She remained standing beside him, and seemed pleased enough to be doing so.
“Remove their sandals,” I ordered my slave, “and give me the straps.”
“Stop!” cried one of the free women, and then the other.
I tied the hands of each behind her back.
Each had long hair, and, by the hair, I fastened them together, knotting them, head to head, close to one another.
“No!” they cried, as my knife parted garment after garment.
“Have no fear,” I said. “I will stop with the last garment.”
“Sleen!” cried one.
“Perhaps I will not stop with the final garment,” I said.
“We are free women!” cried the other. “Free women!”
“Have mercy,” cried one, “mercy!”
“Ah, silk,” I said, “and not overly long.”
“Beast, monster!” said the other.
“Have no fear,” I said.
I pulled them by the hair to their feet. They were now face-stripped, barefoot, and bound.
I regarded them.
“I find both of you inferior to my slave,” I said.
“Sleen, sleen!” hissed one.
“Ah,” I said, “a sleen! Here are your purses. If you wish them, you may carry them in your mouth, as might a pet sleen.”
“Never!” cried one.
“Then you will leave them here,” I said.
“No!” cried the other.
“Open your mouths,” I said.
Each bit on her purse.
“I will now permit you to leave,” I said. “If you should crave succor, from some fellow outside, it is likely your purse will fall. Perhaps the best thing would be to kneel down before one fellow or another, and put your head down, and release the purse, thereby keeping it near. You might then beg, head down, to be untied. To be sure, the purse might be taken and you left on your knees, barefoot and bound.”
“I would say that is extremely likely,” said a bystander.
It was true that times were hard in Brundisium.