The Captain th-2

by John Norman

  “A husband has no rights which he may enforce?” asked Tuvo Ausonius.

  “Not unless we permit it,” she said.

  “Everything is up to the woman,” he said.

  “Of course,” she said.

  “It is all on your own terms,” he said.

  “Yes, of course,” she said.

  “What of nature?” he asked.

  “We have improved on nature,” she said.

  “I wonder,” he said.

  “As a same, you are not permitted to wonder about such things,” she said. “It is forbidden to wonder about them.”

  “But what if they are absurd?” he asked.

  “It is forbidden to ask such questions,” she said. “Remember that you are a same!”

  “Perhaps you would now like me to kneel before you, and beg your hand in marriage,” he said.

  “Certainly, if you wish,” she said.

  “That would be entirely appropriate?” he asked.

  “Certainly,” she said.

  “I was not truly eager for the marriage,” he said.

  “What?” she said.

  “But I thought it might be construed as a portion of my duty to the empire,” he said.

  “Your duty!” she cried.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Well, I was not eager for it either!” she said.

  “Why then did you agree to the matter?” he asked.

  “These things were arranged by my mother and another,” she said.

  “Why did you agree to them?” asked Tuvo Ausonius.

  She regarded him, angrily.

  “Why?”

  “It was to my advantage!” she said.

  “You are a mercenary little thing,” said Tuvo Ausonius.

  “I hate you!” she said. “Even on the Alaria I hated you.”

  “It seems your feelings were somewhat ambivalent, ranging between disgust and greed,” said Tuvo Ausonius.

  “I despised you.”

  “And do you think I would have held you in high esteem, one only of the Auresii?”

  “Knave!” she said.

  “What sort of relationship would we have had?” he asked.

  “It would have been on my terms,” she said. “I assure you of that!”

  “You do hate me, don’t you?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “You are a weakling!” she said.

  “And doubtless you would punish me for that?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I would have made you suffer! I was even considering ruining you!”

  “Would you not then have ruined yourself, as well?”

  “No!” she said. “I could have taken what I could from you, and then contracted other marriages.”

  “You are materialistic, indeed,” he said.

  She looked at him, in fury.

  “Therefore, what has happened to you is surely not inappropriate.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, suddenly.

  “Do you wish to discuss our possible marriage further?” he asked.

  “If you wish,” she said, uncertainly.

  “You are a free woman,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And you would consider proposing yourself as a marital partner to a free man?”

  “Certainly,” she said.

  “Even to me,” he said.

  “Possibly,” she said.

  “Do you know the penalties for a slave girl who lies?” he asked.

  “How could I know such things?” she whispered.

  “I thought you might have heard,” he said.

  “She would be severely punished,” she said.

  “That is my understanding, as well,” he said.

  “Such things are of no interest to me,” she said.

  “I thought they might be.”

  “No,” she said.

  “You are Tribonius Auresius, of Terennia, where you are an officer of a court?”

  “Yes!” she said.

  “You are Tribonius Auresius, a free woman, one of the honestori, even of the patricians?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said.

  “Normally,” he said, “one might expect those of the patricians to wear some token of their blood, a purple ribbon, even a thread somewhere. Have you such a token?”

  “I did not so garb myself,” she said.

  “Even though traveling?”

  “No,” she said. “Do you have such a token about you?”

  “I normally do not wear the color,” he said. “I find it does not fit well with same garb, and that it sometimes tends to evoke resentment or envy.”

  “The lower orders are subject to such faults,” she said.

  “‘The lower orders’?”

  “Yes.”

  “I admire your ensemble,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “They are clearly the garments of a free woman.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “As I understand it, a slave girl who dares to don such garments without the authorization of the master may be severely punished, even slain.”

  She turned white.

  “To be sure, sometimes a master will order his slave to wear such garments, perhaps because, for some reason, he wishes to keep her true status a secret.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes,” she said.

  “You are trembling,” he said.

  “I think that I will be leaving now,” she said.

  “You will remain,” he said.

  “Please, Person Ausonius!” she said.

  “It is fortunate that you are not a slave girl,” he said, “for a slave girl’s addressing a free person by his name in that manner can be cause for severe discipline.”

  “Do not forget that you are a same!” she said.

  “You are a free woman, are you not, even of the patricians?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes!”

  “Your shoes are pretty,” he said, “Remove them.”

  She looked at him, agonized, but she dared not disobey such a direct order, as she was a slave.

  “Very well,” she said.

  “No,” he said, “not there, there.”

  She rose from the bed, on which she had sat, and sat on the floor, beside the bed.

  “Now the hose,” he said.

  He watched. Her legs were shapely.

  “Now rise,” he said. “Come here.”

  She stood small, trembling, before him.

  He put his hands to the scarf, at her throat. He very gently unwrapped it, revealing the slave collar.

  “Master!” she moaned, falling to her knees.

  “Do you really think I cannot tell a slave, when I see one?” he asked. “How she moves, the nature of her body, little things, of which she is not even aware.”

  “You are a same!” she wept, looking up at him.

  “No,” he said. “In my arms I have held a slave. I can no longer be a same. I have tasted slave meat.”

  “Forgive me, Master!” she wept.

  “Do you think I do not know why a slave is sent to a man’s room?” he asked.

  “Forgive me, Master,” she said.

  “So,” said he, looking down upon her, “this is what has become of my former betrothed, my former fiancée, the proud, mercenary, materialistic little snip, Tribonius Auresius.”

  “Yes, Master,” she said, fearfully.

  “The collar looks well on you.”

  “Thank you, Master.”

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “I do not truly have a name,” she said. “In this house I am called ‘Flora’.”

  “An excellent name for a slave,” he said.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  “It will do,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said.

  “Surely your master did not tell you to appear before me in the garment
s of a free woman.”

  “No, Master,” she said.

  “Remove them,” he said.

  She hastened to rid herself of the garments of the free woman, and then there knelt before him the same slave who, earlier, had knelt before her master, she in the narrow bandeau, she of the black, twice-turned cloth cord, the bits of silk. She even, with acute self-consciousness, realizing how this must accentuate the beauty of her figure, in misery, replaced the scarlet hair ribbon.

  “Aii,” said Tuvo Ausonius.

  “But what is that flower in your belt?” he asked.

  “The slave flower,” she said, “which I have been ordered to offer to you.”

  “Your master thinks so little of you?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master!” she wept.

  “Place the flower on the foot of the bed,” he said. “Remove your garments completely. Remain kneeling.”

  “Yes, Master,” she wept.

  “In the corner of the room, there,” he said, pointing, “there is a slave whip. Crawl to it, on all fours, and fetch it, bring it back to me in your teeth.”

  The slave complied.

  He took the whip from her and put it on the bed, by the flower.

  “Lift your wrists, crossed,” he said.

  In a moment her wrists were lashed together. He then tied them to the ring at the foot of the bed, a common feature in many bedrooms in the empire.

  She then knelt at the foot of the bed, her wrists tied before her, to the ring.

  “You thought to make a fool of me,” he said. “I do not care for that.”

  He picked up the whip, and shook out the blades.

  “I am of the Auresii!” she said.

  “Are you?” he asked.

  “No, no!” she said. “I am only a slave girl!”

  “You came to this room under false pretenses,” he said. “You dared to garb yourself without authorization in the garments of a free woman. You pretended to be free, to be the free woman, Tribonius Auresius, once my fiancée. Your speech was insolent. Many were the lies that passed your deceitful lips. By recourse to insidious psychological devices you attempted to bend me to your will. Though an animal you dared to speak of marriage. You addressed me by my name, soiling it, by putting it on the lips of a slave.”

  “Mercy!” she begged.

  “There are many counts against you, Flora,” he said.

  “Forgive me, Master!” she begged.

  “What I do not understand,” he said, “is why you did these things.”

  “From what I knew of you, Master,” she wept, “I loathed you. The thought of you disgusted me. My very skin crawled at the thought of your touch.”

  “Because you thought me a same, a weakling?”

  “Yes!” she said.

  “Do you think such things are true?” he asked.

  “No, Master,” she said. “I see they are not.”

  “But even if they had been true,” he asked, “would they have excused your conduct?”

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “Is it up to the slave girl whom she will content and serve?” he asked.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “It depends on whom?” he asked.

  “On the master!” she said.

  “Are the feelings of the slave girl of any account?” he asked.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  “You know these things?” he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she wept.

  “And yet you did what you did,” he said.

  “Forgive me, Master,” she said.

  His eye looked to the slave flower, on the foot of the bed. She followed his eye.

  “Punish me,” she said. “I am yours to do with as you will.”

  “Do you care for your master?” he asked.

  “I love him,” she said.

  “A slave can love?” he asked.

  “No woman who is not a slave can know what love truly is,” she said.

  “I have heard that love makes a slave of a woman,” he said.

  “That is why such feelings are forbidden to sames,” she said, “that women not be weakened, not be placed in such chains, not be so enslaved.”

  “And yet,” she said, “it is only in such bondage that they are truly themselves, and truly free.”

  “Interesting,” he said.

  “And think how much more so is this the case when the woman is truly slave, legally, and in all respects.”

  “Surely you fear the labors, the terrors, of slavery,” he said.

  “Yes, Master,” she said. “For we cannot choose our masters, and are owned, and must serve, unquestioningly. Yet, too, in such a condition, for all its miseries and terrors, we know ourselves the most needful and open to love, the most sexual, the most free, the most ourselves.”

  He put aside the ship, and bent down, freeing her wrists.

  “You may offer me the slave flower,” he said.

  Timidly, confused, she took the flower from the bed, and, kneeling before him, with two hands, lifted it to him.

  “I offer you my slave flower, Master,” she said.

  “Stand,” he said, “turn about, cross your wrists behind your back.”

  Startled, the slave did as she was told.

  She felt her hands tied together, not gently, but rudely, tightly, behind her back. One hand still clung to the slave flower. She was tied in such a way that her hands were fastened rather at the center of the black, cloth cord, the ends of which were then brought together before her belly, and tied there, this holding her hands rather at the small of her back.

  “Master?” she said.

  “You have complied with the orders of your master,” he said. “You have come to my room, and have offered me the slave flower.”

  “Master?”

  “Perhaps you will come again, sometimes, to the room,” he said, “and will serve me, and I will see to it that you do it well, indeed, with perfection, but now, now I think I will spare you for your master.”

  “I do not understand,” she said.

  “I do not accept the flower,” he said. “I reject you. I am sending you back to your master.”

  “Am I not of interest?” she asked.

  “Vixen,” said he, “I am hastening you from the room before I cannot help myself, but throw you to the slave ring.”

  “Master!” she cried, joyfully.

  “Once, too,” he said, “you were of the honestori, of the empire, and a patrician.”

  “But not now!” she said.

  “No, not now,” he smiled.

  He took the flower from her and thrust it in the cord at her waist. He put the bandeau, the bits of silk, and the ribbon, too, beneath the cord, but at the left hip.

  He went to the door and opened it.

  She regarded him, wonderingly, gratefully.

  “Get out!” he said, hoarsely.

  “Master!” she cried.

  “Is it necessary to whip you from the room?” he inquired.

  “No, Master!” she said.

  At the door she stopped, momentarily, and lifted her lips to his cheek, and kissed it, lightly.

  “Thank you, Master,” she said.

  “Now, shapely slave girl,” he said, “get out!”

  “Yes, Master!” she said.

  “Oh!” she cried, sped forth into the hall, stung by a slap below the small of the back.

  The guard looked up, from his chair, and then rose to his feet.

  “She is rejected,” said Tuvo Ausonius to the guard.

  “Do you want another?” asked the guard.

  “There is one I would like,” said Tuvo Ausonius.

  “Who is she?” asked the guard.

  “It is not important,” said Tuvo Ausonius, and retired within the room, and shut the door.

  Flora hurried past the guard, to return to the lower floor.

  CHAPTER 32

  “Is it as she has spoken?” asked Otto.

  “Yes,” said Tuv
o Ausonius.

  Flora knelt before the table, at which were seated Tuvo Ausonius, and a seeming same, the smaller individual who had accompanied him to the holding in the mountains, Julian, who was the master of the house, and Otto, her master.

  Two slaves were in attendance, who would serve the table. One’s name was Renata, the other’s Gerune.

  The individual seated by Tuvo Ausonius, she in same garb, seemed troubled, and fearful.

  It was the evening following the visit of Flora to the room of Tuvo Ausonius.

  Flora trembled.

  Her master has summoned her before the table.

  She knelt there, naked, save for a collar, her knees spread, in the fashion of a pleasure slave, her wrists crossed, her hands tied together before her body.

  Her master wished, it seemed, a full account of what had occurred in the room of Tuvo Ausonius. The slave, for example, had returned early, rejected, the slave flower thrust in the black cord, it then serving to bind her, holding her wrists to her back.

  She had been taken immediately to her cell, and unbound only within it, and then had been locked within.

  She had been denied her garment.

  Tuvo Ausonius had not objected to the interrogation of the slave, and had graciously acceded to Otto’s request that he monitor her testimony, in order to assure its absolute fidelity to what had occurred.

  At times Otto’s eyes had blazed with fury, and his fists had clenched on the table.

  But the slave fully, tearfully, honestly, gave an account of what she had done.

  “Such behavior is to be punished surely, and terribly,” said Otto.

  “You see,” said Otto, turning to Julian, “she is utterly worthless.”

  “Then sell her,” said Julian.

  Renata and Gerune exchanged frightened glances. They, too, could be sold on a whim.

  The lip of the individual seated by Tuvo Ausonius, she in same garb, trembled.

  Otto turned to Tuvo Ausonius. “You are he who was most abused by the impudence of this embonded slut,” he said. “What punishment do you recommend?”

  The individual beside Tuvo Ausonius regarded him wildly, frightened.

  “There are complicated circumstances involved,” said Tuvo Ausonius. “I would recommend lenience.”

  Flora looked at him, wildly, gratefully.

  “Show your gratitude,” said Otto.

  Flora sprang to her feet and hurried to kneel before Tuvo Ausonius. She put down her head and covered his feet with kisses.