I, lying in the sand, was conscious of their feet about me. I did not want to be beaten.
"She is a pretty little thing, is she not?" asked Thurnus. I supposed I did look beautiful, a slave girl, lying at their feet in the warm sand.
"I am pleased that you like her," said Clitus Vitellius.
"I am grateful for the gift," said Thurnus.
"It is nothing," said Clitus Vitellius. "She is only a lovely trifle."
"On your hands and knees, Girl," said Thurnus.
I rose to my hands and knees. I felt a length of sleen rope tied on my neck. The other end of the rope was looped several times and the loops loosely knotted about a bar of the sleen cage. The resulting tether was about a foot long.
"Look up at me, Girl," said Thurnus.
I looked up at him.
"You attempted to escape," he said.
"I had no chance to escape, Master," I said. "A sleen was set upon me."
"It is true," said he, "that you had no chance for escape. But you, ignorant girl, did not know that."
I was silent, frightened.
"Did you try to escape?" he asked.
I had tried to escape. "Yes, Master," I whispered.
"Sit with your back against the cage, legs drawn up," he said. I did so, my neck roped to one of the bars. He crouched down, near me.
He drew out a sleen knife.
He felt the back of my legs, with his left hand.
"Pretty legs," he said.
"Thank you, Master," I said.
"Do you know what these muscles are?" he asked, touching the twin cords behind my right knee.
"Tendons, Master," I said.
"Do you know what they are for?" he asked.
"They control the movement of my leg," I said. "Without them I could not walk."
I felt the blade touch the left tendon behind my right knee. If Thurnus were to draw the blade toward him, the tendon would be severed.
He replaced the sleen knife in its sheath.
Then he struck me twice, once striking my head to the right, and, then, with the back of his hand, lashing it to the left.
"That," said Thurnus, "is for having tried to escape."
"Yes, Master," I said.
He then took my legs, drawn up, in his hands, pressing with his thumbs against the inner tendons behind both the left and right knee.
I shrank back, miserable, my head to one side, against the bars.
"Remember, small, luscious, beauty," he said.
I looked at him with horror. "Yes, Master," I said. The memory of the sleen knife was vivid in my mind.
He removed his hands from my legs and I almost collapsed in the sand.
"On your hands and knees, Girl," said Thurnus.
I went to my bands and knees, and he unknotted the loops of sleen rope from the bar of the cage, and threw it loose beside me, in the sand, whence it rose to the bond on my neck.
"Look up at me, Girl," he said.
I looked up at him, the rope on my neck.
"Go to the hut," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said.
They then turned away from me, Thurnus and Clitus Vitellius. "I must leave before noon," Clitus Vitellius was saying. "There are four sleen in which I am interested."
"Let us discuss the matter," Thurnus was saying.
They left the training pit. On my hands and knees, miserable, in the hot sand, the rope on my neck, I looked about the training pit, at the rack of whips and ropes, the sleen tethers, the cages, the wooden barrier about the training area, and then, on my hands and knees, made my way through the sand and out of the training area toward the hut of Thurnus, the rope dragging behind me.
I had begun to understand what it would be to be the girl of a peasant.
In the street of the village, I stopped. Feet stood before me. I looked up, miserable, in the dust, the rope hanging from my neck. It was two peasant boys.
"What slave is this?" asked one. He was Bran Loort, leader of the peasant boys, a rugged youth verging into his manhood. He had in him, said some, the makings of a caste leader.
"It is the clever, beautiful slave who eluded us last night in our sport," said his fellow.
"So it is," acknowledged Bran Loort.
"It is said," said the one, "she has been given to Thurnus."
"Then," said Bran Loort, "she will be in the village."
"It seems so," said the other.
"Please, Masters," I said, "do not detain me."
"Let us not detain her," said Bran Loort. They stepped aside, as though I might have been a free woman. Dragging the rope on my neck, on my hands and knees, through the dust of the hot, sunny street, I crawled past them.
How far from me then seemed Judy Thorton, the lovely co-ed.
I thought of the college boys whom I had despised or tolerated, with whom I had been so haughty. How they would have laughed to have seen me now, on a world where there were true men.
In the vicinity of Thurnus's hut, at the side of one of the wagons taken in the raid on the camp of the Lady Sabina, being loaded with supplies and gear, was Clitus Vitellius.
I seized at his knees, weeping. "Keep me. Keep me, Master," I begged.
He looked down at me. It was shortly before noon.
I looked up at him, tears in my eyes. "I love you, Master," I wept.
"She does not want to be a peasant's girl," laughed one of the men.
"I love you, Master," I said.
Clitus Vitelllius rook the rope from the ground, which hung from my throat. He held the rope.
"She does not want to be left in Tabuk's. Ford," said one of the men.
"Who can blame her?" asked another.
I looked up at Clitus Vitellius, my hands about his knees, tears in my eyes. He held the rope which was on my neck. "I am your conquered slave," I wept. "Please take me with you."
He put his foot on the rope, pressing it to the ground. Then, beneath his foot, he drew the rope to him. My head was dragged from his knees to the dust at his feet.
I lay before him, helpless.
"You are a slave girl in the village of Tabuk's Ford," he said. Then he threw the rope to the ground and turned away from me.
I scratched in the dust and wept, beside the wheel of the wagon.
9
Rain
I cut at the soil with the hoe, chopping and loosening the dirt about the roots of the sul plant.
The sun was high overhead. It was hot. There was a peasant's kerchief on my head.
I worked in my master's fields. I was alone. I wore a peasant's tunic. It was white and sleeveless, of the wool of the Hurt. It came high on my thighs. Thurnus had shortened it. His companion, Melina, had taken the Ta-Teera from me and burned it. "Scandalous slave! Scandalous garment!" she had cried. She had then thrown me a peasant tunic, which had fallen to my knees. Thurnus, wanting to see more of my legs, to her anger, had shortened it with shears.
I straightened my body. My back hurt. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand.
"You will learn toil, small beauty," he had said when I had knelt before him, among the pilings beneath his hut, my hands tied behind my back, my neck roped to one of the pilings.
I remembered the morning bitterly.
"I am going to Ar with the master," had said Marla, turning before me. "Now who is the most beautiful?" she asked.
"You, Marla," I had said.
"Farewell, Slave," she said, and left me.
I had knelt there beneath the hut of Thurnus, in the Ta-Teera, my hands tied behind my back, my neck roped to one of the pilings.
To another of the pilings four beautiful she-sleen were tethered. They were on short tethers. They were sleek, lovely animals. My master had purchased them. They could not reach me.
Clitus Vitellius and his men milled about.
"I shall miss you," said Eta, kissing me. "I wish you well, Slave," she said.
Lehna, Donna and Chanda came to me, and kissed me, and hugged me. "I wish you well,
Slave," they said.
"I wish you well," I said.
Slave Beads stood to one side, looking at me.
"Will you not say farewell to your sister slave?" I asked.
She came to my side, and knelt down beside me. "Yes," she said, tears in her eyes. "We are all slaves," she said. She took me in her arms and kissed me. Slave Beads was no longer the Lady Sabina. She, too, now, was only a slave. "I wish you well, Slave," she said.
"I wish you well, Slave," I said to her.
"Coffle line!" snapped a guard.
Swiftly the girls fell into coffle line. I watched them. I wished I were with them.
Each beauty knew her place.
They did not daily forming the line. They did not wish to be whipped.
Marla led the line. What beautiful legs she had. The girls extended their left wrists, for the rings to be locked upon them. They stood straight, their eyes looking ahead, under discipline. Maria's right foot determined the line. Each girl, with the exception of Maria, the line's leader, aligned her right foot with that of the girl before her in the line. Sometimes a coffle line is drawn in the dirt and the right foot of each girl is placed on it vertically, such that the line besects the ball and heel of each foot.
Clitus Vitellius did not so much as look at me.
The guard, who was the blond soldier, Mirus, whom I found most attractive of the men of Clitus Vitellius, after he himself, unlooped the coffle chain from his shoulder.
The girls stood erect, left arms extended, wrist straight with the arm, their left arms aligned, each at a forty degree angle from her body, right arms at their sides, palms on thighs, ankles closely together, bellies sucked in, chins up.
Marla's wrist was locked in the first wrist ring. She smiled. She was coffled. When the lock snapped on her wrist she placed her chained left wrist at her side, her palm on her left thigh, still looking ahead.
Lehna, who was very beautiful, was the next locked in the coffle. She placed her left wrist at her side, looking ahead.
There are a large variety of coffle arrangements, given mixtures and combinations of materials and bonds, and aesthetic, physical and psychological considerations. Coffle arrangements are seldom random. From the physical point of view, the most common coffles are left-wrist coffles, left-ankle coffles and throat coffles. Left-wrist coffles and throat coffles are useful trekking coffles. The left-ankle coffle and the throat coffle free the hands to carry burdens. Clitus Vitellius still had the wagons stolen from the camp of the Lady Sabina and so his girls did not have to carry the burdens of his camp. Such burdens are often carried by girls in ankle coffle or throat coffle, and are balanced on the head, usually steadied by the right hand.
Donna and Chanda were now added to the coffle. Their left hands, now locked in wrist-rings, lay against their left thighs.
There was another snap of a wrist ring and the chain bore yet another jewel, the lovely, half-stripped Slave Beads.
Last on the chain was Eta. The guard looked at her, and their eyes met, and then he put the chain on her.
I did not know why Eta was last on the chain. I knew the look in the eyes of the guard. He wanted her for his own slave. She looked frightened. He stood behind her for a moment, and she pressed back, putting her head back against his shoulder. Then he moved away from her.
There was a mark on the side of Eta's face, where she had been struck. Perhaps she had not been fully pleasing for an instant to one of the soldiers, or to Clitus Vitellius, and had thus been struck, and put at the rear of the chain. Perhaps she was at the rear of the chain because she was the most beautiful, and her beauty was being saved for last; thus the chain would have begun with the beautiful Marla and then, with a surprise, finished with a girl yet more beautiful than the first. But perhaps she was thought to be ugly for a day or two, until the blow healed, and thus, for ugliness, was put at the back of the line. Or, perhaps it was merely that the last wrist-ring had then been open, I being left in Tabuk's Ford, and thus there was no reason for her any longer to be excluded from the coffle. Thus, she would merely have been placed in the available wrist ring, in my place.
Sometimes masters punish us without explaining the reason It is then for the slave girl to guess and wonder, and try harder to please. Sometimes, perhaps, there is no reason! We are so much at their mercy!
Beside my knee, in the dirt, there was a pan of water, and one of wet meal.
The last girl, Eta, was now coffled.
"Stand easily, Slaves," said the guard, and walked away.
Marla turned to face me. She lifted her chained left wrist.. "I wear the chain of Clitus Vitellius," she said. "You wear the rope of a peasant."
"Yes, Mistress," I said.
She turned away from me.
The men were now hitching the bosk to the wagons taken from the camp of the Lady Sabina.
Two peasant boys stood nearby. They looked at me. I, kneeling, clad in the Ta-Teera, my hands tied behind my back, my neck roped to the piling beneath Thurnus's hut, regarded them.
"Greetings, Slave Girl," they said to me.
"Greetings, Masters," I said to them.
They turned away, grinning, and left the vicinity of the hut.
The first team of bosk was hitched up, two of the great animals, broad, shaggy, with polished horns.
Clitus Vitellius was talking with Thurnus.
"I, and the men, and other girls," he had said, "will leave Tabuk's Ford in the morning. You will remain behind. I am giving you to Thurnus."
I had cried out with misery and horror in his arms. "Master!" I had cried. He had then gagged me. He then tied my hands behind my back, and took me naked and stumbling from his furs. He found an ankle stock of heavy wood near the perimeter of his camp area. He put me on my back. The stock consisted of two heavy, oblong pieces of wood, each about four inches thick, joined together by hinged iron. He flung open the stock. He looked down at me. I half reared up, struggling, to a sitting position, my hands tied behind my back, my eyes wild over the gag. Our eyes met. He then, swiftly, brutally, used me, and I, miserable, helpless, my eyes hot with tears, again could not resist him, and, again, unable to help myself, responded to him, and responded as a slave. He laughed at me derisively and then, crouching beside me, threw my ankles into the stock and closed it, one of the two four-inch blocks of wood on each side of my ankles, and flung the hasp over the staple, which would hold the blocks shut. Then, with a drilled peg and a bit of binding fiber, attached to the stock, he, slipping the fiber through the staple and securing it to the peg, fastened the hasp down. This would hold a bound slave. If. my hands had not been tied a padlock would have been used. Tied as I was I was the prisoner of the stock, its weight and constraint. I lay on the ground, twisting, moaning. It seemed my guts had been torn out. I looked up, miserable, at the stars.
Clitus Vitellius then left me, to return to his furs, to sleep.
I cut again at the soil with the hoe, chopping down, loosening the dirt about the roots of the sul plants.
The sun was terribly hot.
On my throat I wore a rope collar. My hands were terribly blistered. It was painful to hold the hoe. My back hurt me. It seemed every muscle in my body ached.
I wanted to throw myself down and weep, but the suls must be hoed.
"You will learn toil, small beauty," Thurnus had told me. I had well learned toil, and misery. It is not easy to be a peasant's girl.
It is a hard slavery.
I remembered seeing Clitus Vitellius leave. He had not looked back. I had wanted to call out after him, but I had not dared. I did not wish to be whipped.
It is not easy to be a peasant's girl. it is a hard slavery.
I remembered the sting of the switch across the back of my thighs as Melina had driven me to the kennel.
"I will make you wish you wore a longer tunic, Slave!" she had cried.
I had dropped through the kennel door and, some feet below, struck the straw-strewn floor of the kennel. The kennel was a cage, a s
leen cage, tipped on its side, fully barred, sunk mostly into the ground. The cage in its original attitude, when used for sleen, would have been some four feet in height, six feet in width and twelve feet in length. Tipped on its side, to better accommodate humans, it was some six feet in height and four by twelve feet in breadth and length. In this attitude, it was entered from the top. Within there was a wooden, runged ladder, for climbing out of it. It was sunk some four and a half feet in the ground. Wooden planks, covered with straw, lay over the bars on the bottom. These planks were separated by some two inches apiece, to facilitate drainage. The cage was roofed, too, with planks; these planks were set flush with one, another; they were fastened over the top of the bars, including some, sawed, over the barred door. At night a tarpaulin was thrown over the cage roof. Standing in the cage one could look out, one's shoulders being approximately at ground level.
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