Doubtless he was embarrassed to be found on his knees, a slave in his arms. Certainly I trusted so.
“Do you accept the gift?” asked Captain Nakamura.
“Yes,” said the stranger.
“I am sure I can find others, who will buy it from you, if you wish,” he said.
“No,” said the stranger.
“Lord Nishida and Tarl Cabot, the tarnsman,” he said, “have included some tokens with the gift, which, as you are accepting it, I may present to you.”
“My thanks,” said the stranger.
“One is a slave garment,” he said, “which seems more locally cultural than her current tunic, and the other is a coiling of chain and rings, which, I am told, is a sirik.”
The stranger accepted the small package, a slave tunic, within which was wrapped a sirik.
“Do you wish her current tunic back?” asked the stranger.
“No,” said the captain, smiling, “though we have purchased some local slaves, for transportation to the islands.”
I did not understand the smile of Captain Nakamura, as he seemed, on the whole, a rather undemonstrative, reserved fellow. To be sure, I am informed by the stranger that these fellows are much freer in emotion, teasing, joking, and such, when amongst one another.
The slave, who had her head down, I thought was smiling, as well.
I did not understand the meaning of this, either.
The first thing I would have done was discard the long, heavy, opaque Pani tunic, which seemed quite inappropriate for a slave, at least in good weather, given what a slave was.
Let it be cast away!
Captain Nakamura then bowed, excusing himself, but paused, at the door. “It is my understanding,” he said, “from a cripple at the castle, a man named Rutilius of Ar, that the slave, Alcinoë, may have value in Ar.”
“Oh?” said the stranger.
The slave, on her knees, turned white.
“It is his claim that she is the former Lady Flavia of Ar, a fugitive, one for whom a sizable bounty would be paid. I was to arrange for her delivery to Ar, collect the bounty, and divide it, on my return, with him.”
“Interesting,” said the stranger.
“In any event,” said the captain, “the slave is yours.”
“Yes,” said the stranger, “she is mine.”
The tone of his voice, I conjectured, would leave no doubt in the slave’s mind but what she was indeed his.
It would be up to him, whether or not she would be taken to Ar.
With another short, courteous bow, Captain Nakamura withdrew.
I was apprehensive.
The attitude of the stranger seemed to have changed.
Outside the tall window a cloud must have passed before Tor-tu-Gor, and the room seemed suddenly, ominously dark, and the slave little more than a shadow between us.
But the simple words of Captain Nakamura, I thought, even more than a darkening cloud, had engloomed the chamber. It was as though they had enkindled a mysterious lamp, a lamp of memory, which, when lit, emitted not light, but darkness, fear, and cold. Where there had been warmth, light, joy, touching, and love, there was now a dampness, as of the dungeon, a darkness as of caverns, a polar chill, the coldness of fearful order, of propriety, of a vision of justice, as unwelcome as the touch of a snake at night.
The stranger handed me the scrap of cloth, which would be a typical slave tunic. He retained the sirik.
I myself had no doubt that the slave, appropriately on her knees before her master, the stranger, had once been highly placed in Ar, and perhaps a conspirator in the treason that had betrayed that city into the hands of Cos, Tyros, and several of the free companies.
The stranger looked down on the slave, and she shrank small before him. I sensed then that his memory swept him back to Ar, and that, for a moment, he saw before him not a loving, eager, precious possession, who might be sought even at the World’s End, but a traitress and fugitive, one vain and treacherous, one who, when free, had betrayed her Home Stone, abused power, and turned even on her supposed friend, whom she had honored as her Ubara.
“Strip,” he said to her.
“Master?” she said.
“Instantly,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, frightened, and hastened to pull away, over her head, the Pani tunic.
He then dangled before her frightened eyes the loops of chain, with its rings.
“I am no longer she whom you despise,” she said. “I am different! I am now in a collar! I am only a collared slave, and yours, my master! I am contrite! I am penitent! I have learned softness, deference, humility, vulnerability, giving, truth, honesty, kindness, caring, service, awareness of others!”
She looked up at him.
With a movement of his foot, he brushed the Pani tunic to the side. I thought it made an unusual noise, sliding on the boards.
“Stand,” he said.
“Surely you care for me, a little!” she said. “And know, Callias, of Jad, that I am yours, not just to the collar, but to the heart.”
He reached down, and struck her twice, sharply, first by the palm of his right hand, and then by the back of his right hand.
“The slave,” he said, “does not soil the name of a free man by putting it on her slave lips.”
I supposed she had been aware of this protocol, that the slave does not address a free person by his name, but, perhaps, in the stress of the moment, this simplicity had escaped her. In any event, such lapses are not permitted in a slave.
“Forgive me,” she said.
He motioned for her to rise, and she did so, and stood before him, though I feared she might fall.
“Prepare to be siriked,” he said.
She put her hand, frightened, before her face, and then, suddenly, turned, and fled to the opposite wall, against which she stood, the palms of her hands at the side of her head, her belly to the wall.
“Return,” he said, evenly.
Numbly, she turned, and retraced her steps, and then stood before him, head down, small before his size and power.
Then she raised her head, and said, “Sirik me.”
The neck ring was snapped about her throat first, rather like a Turian collar. Next her small wrists were clasped in the wrist rings, each at the terminus of the short, horizontal chain, attached to the vertical chain dangling from the collar, which vertical chain, continuing, looped down to the floor where, attached to it was the second horizontal chain, each end of which terminated in an ankle ring. Two snaps, and she was ankle bound. The sirik is a lovely and practical chaining arrangement. The two horizontal chains may be used in conjunction with the vertical chain, or independently, in which case one might have wrist shackles, in which the wrists might be confined before or behind the slave, and ankle shackles. Her wrists, now confined before her, were some six inches apart, and her ankles were something like a foot apart, permitting her to shuffle, or walk with small, careful, measured steps, but not allowing her to run. The vertical chain may function independently, as well, as a chain leash, or a tethering device, by means of which the slave might be secured to a slave ring, a tree, a stanchion, or such. The length of the vertical chain, which may loop to the floor when the slave’s hands are lowered, is also long enough to permit her, her hands lifted, to feed herself.
He regarded the slave before him, small, naked, siriked.
“The visage of Master is terrible,” she said. “Is Master angry? Does Master despise his slave? How different he is now from but moments before. She would that Captain Nakamura had not spoken of past things, of fearful things, of things long since regretted. I am not different from what I was, but moments ago, in Master’s arms.”
He was silent. His fists were clenched.
“It seems Master has recalled another woman,” she said, “the vain, deceitful, greedy, traitress, Flavia of Ar.”
“Yes,” he said.
“She who once was that woman now stands before you,” she said, “nak
ed, and siriked.”
“It is thus,” said the stranger, “that Marlenus prefers to have his captives brought before him, naked and chained, then to be flung to their knees before his throne.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
He regarded her, I fear, with ferocity.
“I am naked and chained,” she said. “I am helpless. You can do with me as you wish. I cannot escape. I cannot prevent you from taking me to the restored Marlenus now, and putting me before him, if you will, my knees on the tiles, before his throne.”
“Cry out now,” he said, angrily, “with all the pride, fury, and rage of the free woman.
“Were I free,” she said, “I would not do so, but would rather beg to be shown mercy, and beg instead that you would make me your slave.”
“You are such?” he said, scornfully.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Slave,” he sneered.
“Yes, Master,” she said, humbly.
“Cry out,” he demanded, “angrily, loudly, insolently! Threaten me! Denounce me!”
“Do you not understand, Master,” she said. “I cannot do so. That is all behind me. See my collar. See my mark! I am now a slave!”
“Yes,” he said, “it is true. I doubt then that you, now a slave, would be impaled as high as a free person, for that might demean them, you, say, some seven or eight feet, not twenty or thirty, as they, to show your lowliness.”
“I am sure,” she said, “in the end, it makes little difference.”
He folded his arms, and regarded her.
“Despise me if you wish,” she said, “but despise me not as the Lady Flavia of Ar, for I am no longer she. Despise me then, if you must, as a slave, the slave that I am.”
“You should be taken to Ar,” he said.
“Take me to Ar,” she said.
“I do despise you,” he said, “but not for your collar; rather for what you once were.”
“And no longer am,” she said.
“But were once!”
“But no longer!”
“You should be taken to Ar,” he said.
“So,” she said, “I am to be taken to Ar?”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Are there no better things to do with a slave?” she asked.
She was cuffed, sharply.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said.
“Ar would be too easy for you,” he said, “for one who was once the Lady Flavia.”
“Master will not take his slave to Ar?” she said.
He was silent for a time, regarding her. Her head was down. Then he said, “No.”
“Master?” she said, looking up.
“There are better things to do with a slave,” he said.
“That is my hope,” she said.
“Long ago, on the ship,” he said, “I told you that I did not care for gold washed in blood.”
“That pleases me,” she said.
“And thereby I lose myself a fortune,” he said.
“But obtain thereby,” she said, “a much greater fortune, that of being yourself.”
“Slut, slave, vile thing,” he said.
“I will try to please my master,” she said.
His eyes were hard.
“Be kind,” she said, frightened.
There was a small sound, as the links of the sirik rustled.
Not every man, of course, will accept bounty, particularly on a woman. Callias, of Jad, was a warrior, an oarsman, at one time an officer. Bounty hunters are commonly low warriors, men without Home Stones, brigands, assassins, villains, thieves, reprobates, the recklessly impecunious, gamblers, the dishonored. I had not thought that Callias was such a man, and my judgment was now vindicated. To be sure, what now stood stripped and siriked before him had once been the Lady Flavia of Ar. Nothing could change that.
The stranger did not care for gold washed in blood.
Should he then return her to Ar, that she might suffer at the hands of an alien justice?
What good could be served by such an act?
Many are the masks of justice, and behind those masks there may be no face, only a choice of masks.
He who has power chooses a mask to his liking.
How fiercely the masks scowl at one another.
I thought the slave was right, that the Lady Flavia of Ar was gone, that she had vanished, with the snapping of a collar. What remained might be named, and dealt with, as one pleased.
Still the lovely slave between us had once been the Lady Flavia of Ar. That could not be gainsaid.
“May I kneel?” she asked.
The stranger nodded, and she sank to her knees, gratefully. I did not know if she could have managed to stand much longer.
“At least,” I said to the stranger, “you have recalled the nature of the slave.”
“Yes,” he said. “She was once Flavia of Ar.”
“And more broadly, and to the point, and more importantly, I trust, putting aside her past, which we may ignore for the moment,” I said, “you have recollected the nature of a slave, as a slave.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Good,” I said. “Now, I trust, you have overcome your foolishness, or weakness.”
“What foolishness, what weakness?” he asked, not pleasantly.
“At least,” I said, “the remote possibility of caring for a slave.”
“Have no fear,” he said. “I have eluded that danger, if ever it was a danger, which very thought seems absurd. All such risks, however unlikely or tenuous, are put aside.”
“Good,” I said. “Then you will see her, and treat her, as what she is, a slave.”
“Yes,” he said. “As worthless, meaningless collar meat.”
“Precisely,” I said.
“But, in her case,” he said, “there is something in addition, that will add to my pleasure.”
“What?” I asked.
“That she was once the Lady Flavia of Ar.”
The slave, head down, siriked, moaned in misery.
“The Lady Flavia of Ar,” I said, “—who is now mere collar meat.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you hate her?” I asked.
“I must try,” he said.
“For what she once was?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do not hate me, Master!” she wept. “I love you! I love you!”
“Liar!” he said, angrily.
“I may not lie!” she cried. “I am a slave!”
He drew back his hand, and she shrank down, but he did not strike her.
He placed his boot on her shoulder and thrust her to the floor, on her side. She crawled back to him, on her belly, and, putting down her head, kissed the boot which had spurned her to the floor.
“You have been white silk long enough,” he told her.
“Master?” she said.
“On your knees,” he said, “former Lady Flavia of Ar, facing away from me, your head to the floor.”
With a rustle of chain the slave obeyed.
“So, Master?” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Master well humbles the former Lady Flavia of Ar,” she said. “But Alcinoë, the slave, hopes that she will be found pleasing by her master.”
“Return shortly,” said the stranger to me, and I left the room. I heard a jerking of chain, and heard the slave cry out, startled. Then I heard her cry out, “Master! My Master!”
I walked about the trading area, which, if anything, was even busier than before. Against one wall there was a coffle of stripped, kneeling slaves who, I supposed, had been brought in by a dealer, for the inspection of the Pani. From something Captain Nakamura had said earlier, I gathered they had already made certain purchases. The girls were in neck coffle, and had been placed in the position of pleasure slaves, which seemed to be the sort of slaves in which the Pani, for their various purposes, were interested. When a girl was regarded, she would lift her head, and say, “Buy me, Master
.” I suspected, however, that few of the girls were interested in being bought by the newcomers, so strange and unfamiliar to them, within whose purview they found themselves scrutinized.
I returned to the open portal of the back room, and entered. “It is as I feared,” I said.
“Oh?” said Callias.
He was seated near a wall, that in which the portal was, cross-legged. The slave was lying near him, lovingly, on her side. I noted blood on her leg, which suggested that, however unlikely it seemed, the Pani had actually kept her white silk. In that I suspected the hand of Lord Nishida and Tarl Cabot, the tarnsman. I noted that she was no longer confined in the sirik, and its coils lay to one side, near the cast-aside Pani tunic. Her head was against one of his legs. She looked at me, but dreamily. It was almost as though I were not there.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“Very little, Master,” she said. She drew up her legs more.
“I am not too pleased,” I said.
“Oh?” said Callias, seemingly distracted.
“Next,” I said, “I suppose you will grant her a tunic.”
“I suppose so,” he said. “That should make it less likely she would be stolen.”
“Am I likely to be stolen?” she asked Callias.
“You are that beautiful,” he told her.
“Master,” she said, kissing his knee.
“Not the Pani tunic,” I said.
“Certainly not,” he said.
The small slave tunic brought into the room earlier by Captain Nakamura, in which the sirik had been wrapped, lay to the side.
“You will, at least, I trust,” I said, “see to it that she works for that tunic, perhaps for several weeks.”
As an animal, a slave is not entitled to clothing. If permitted clothing, it must be understood as a gift from her master. To be sure, most slaves are clothed, particularly in public. Free women are quite adamant on that point. If it is appropriate to speak of a compromise in these matters, presumably it would be that the slave is clothed, but as a slave. Here we have something of an agreement, or compromise, between free women and masters, namely, that the garmenture of the slave must be clearly indicative of her bondage, and, secondly, that the slave, as she is usually the property of a man, may be dressed for his pleasure. The usual outcome of this interaction is the slave tunic. The camisk is less acceptable to free women, but they reconcile themselves to the camisk on the grounds that the female slave is so worthless that it is acceptable for her to be camisked. The female serving slave of a free woman is likely to be modestly tunicked, whereas the slave of a free man is likely to be tunicked in such a manner as to make it clear to other men that she was worth buying.
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