by John Norman
She jerked in the chains, helplessly.
She put her head down. She sobbed.
Then she looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes. “But then it would be fitting,” she whispered. “that we both be slaves.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you understand the numbers written on my body?” she asked, looking up at me.
“You want to know your category, your future brand, your likely disposition, your period of training, a possible place and time of sale, such things?” I asked.
“Yes!” she said. “Yes!”
“I did not even know they were numbers,” I said, lightly.
“You are illiterate?” she said, suddenly, angrily.
“Why have you dallied here!” she said.
“Perhaps to give you an apricot,” I said.
“Give it to me!” she said.
“No,” I said. I wanted one for myself. The other I thought I would give to the Lady Constanzia.
“So that is why you have remained here!” she said. “Not to feed me, not to help me, unknown to the others, in fear of me, or seeking my favor, but, like them, to torment me!”
“I think you are little to be feared now, free woman,” I said. “And, if I were you, I do not think I would overrate the favors you have to dispense. Even men will take from you precisely what they please, and in any amounts or modalities they wish, and at any time of the day or night. And you will strive desperately with all your beauty and intelligence to please them.”
“You want only to torment me, like the others,” she said.
“You were not really very nice to them,” I said.
“But they are nothing, only slaves, and I am a free woman!” she said.
“You, too, will soon be nothing,” I said, “only a slave.”
She looked up at me, angrily.
“And you, too, will learn to fear free women,” I said. “You will learn to fear them terribly.”
“Is this your petty vengeance on a free woman,” she asked, angrily, “you illiterate, stupid, sleek, embonded, collared little she-urt?”
“I do not think I am smaller than you,” I said.
“It is you who are stupid,” I said.
“I, you illiterate, collared she urt?”
“You were brought here hooded,” I said. “You do not even know in what city you are.”
“I am not stupid,” she said. “It is you who are stupid, if you think I do not know where I am!”
“Oh?” I said.
“It is you who are stupid, not me,” she said. “Anyone would know where he was, here is this place. Do you think I do not know in what mountains I am? Do you think I cannot tell the coloration of the Voltai, the Scarlet Mountains? Do you think I am totally unaware of the distances and times I have traveled? Do you think I cannot recognize the accents of the men who brought me here? Do you think I cannot understand the emblems and accouterments of the men of this place? Do you think the markings on the tarn saddles are in some foreign tongue? Do you think the songs of the crowd are unintelligible to me? Do you not think I can recognize the seven towers of war, the wall of Valens, the standards on the bridge behind us, the banners about, those that fly even from the warehouses themselves?”
“I do not know,” I said.
“I am in Treve!” she cried. “I am in Treve!”
I smiled.
“You tricked me!” she cried.
“Yes,” I said.
But my triumph was short-lived, for at that very moment two strong masculine hands closed on my upper arms, from behind. “Do you think it is nice to trick a free woman, tasta?” he asked. It was the voice of he who had been behind me in the crowd.
“No, Master,” I said. “Forgive me, Master!”
“her manner changes quickly,” observed the free woman.
“I wondered why you were dallying here,” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
“What a slave she is,” said the free woman.
“What was it you wanted to know?” he asked.
“In what city I ear my collar, Master,” I said.
“So small and simple a thing?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“It seems you might have found that out in a thousand ways,” he said.
“I am illiterate, Master,” I said. “It is not so easy.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?” he asked.
“Would Master have told me?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “And then I would have beaten you, and then bound you and wired a note to your collar, testifying to your indiscretion.”
“Yes, Master,” I said, in misery.
“But it is now too late for such things,” he said, “for you have tricked a free woman and have now learned in what city you are.”
“Forgive me, Master,” I begged.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“You have discomfited this free woman,” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said, frightened, my eyelids pressed shut.
“You are now going to kick and squeak before this free woman,” he said.
“Master!” I moaned.
He spun me about. “Oh!” I cried, as I was lifted from my feet.
I heard the free woman gasp.
“Oh!” I cried, again.
“Excellent little tasta,” he said.
“Master?” I said. “Master?”
I heard some men laugh, doubtless passers-by.
But then, in moments, my feet off the ground, my arms and legs clutched about him, I began to gasp. Then, a little later, he lowered me to the ground, and mercifully, bundled my head in his cloak, only then permitting me to open my eyes. I could see the darkness inside the cloak, and sometimes, as I was turned toward the sun, the coloring if it, red, and light through the tiny openings in the weaving. And then, shortly thereafter, as he took me again from myself, as men can, and mastered me, I began to kick and squeak.
After a time he was through with me.
“Closer your eyes,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He then removed his cloak from about my head.
“The free woman,” he said, “will tell you when I am gone. Only then may you open your eyes.”
“Yes, Master” I said, lying on the stones of the docking area, my body a medley of sensations, physical and psychological, of confusion, humiliation, fear, and rapture.
“When you return to your kennel tonight,” he said, “you are to tell your keeper what you have done today.”
“Please, no, Master!” I begged, my eyes pressed shut. “Yes, Master” I said, in misery.
I lay on the stones.
“He is gone,” whispered the free woman, after a time.
I opened my eyes, and rose to all fours, and looked at the free woman.
“Are you going to tell your master, or keeper?” she asked.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
There would be inordinate risks in not doing so.
“Surely you will be whipped, at least,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“But you will tell anyway?”
“Yes, Mistress.” Surely she must understand the ease with which the matter could be brought to the attention of the authorities. The simplest, most casual, check could determine whether or not I had complied. I did not know, of course, whether or not that check would be made. But it could be made, tonight, or tomorrow, or months from now. I would not care for it to be made and have its result not in my interest. It might be the difference between a lashing and being thrown to sleen.
“How helpless you are, as a slave,” she marveled.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said. I knelt.
“What is it like to be so helpless, so vulnerable, so subjugated, so dominated?” she asked.
“Doubtless Mistress will learn,” I said, softly.
“Men are such powe
rful brutes,” she said. “Why will they not compromise with us, and do what we tell them?”
“It is we who are slaves who must do as we are told,” I said.
“I may be made a slave,” she said.
“Mistress may be assured of it,” I said.
“Then what was done to you could be done to me,” she said. “I would have to obey!”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“Men could use me, me, a free woman-.”
“Once a free woman,” I said.
“-to satisfy their terrible, ferocious lusts!”
“Be pleased,” I said, “that on this world men are so free, so healthy, so strong. Here their lusts have not been reduced to tepidities.”
“I would have to serve!” she said.
“Wholly,” I said.
“I would be branded, and collared!” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“It is so different from being a free woman!”
“Ye,” I said.
“Then I would have to vulnerably answer to their lusts,” she said.
“And how else,” I asked, “could your own needs be satisfied?”
She looked at me.
“I do not refer to the tamenesses, the banalities, the lukewarmnesses,” I said. “I do not refer to the tepidities. I refer to perilous heights and formidable depths. I refer to matters of force and power, of storms and fire, of songs and blood, of shouting and crying, of laughter and tears, of realities, of victories, of cominance and submission, of owner and owned, of master and slave, of the joy and absolute and uncompromising conquest and the rapture of utter, unconditional surrender.”
“I have dreamed of such things,” she said.
“So, too,” said I, “has every woman.”
“I would have no choice,” she said.
“No,” I said. “You would be only a slave.”
“I could learn,” she said, “to lick and kiss for candy.”
“Or an apricot?” I smiled.
“Yes,” she said.
“You will learn just how precious such small things may become,” I said.
“I am sorry that I called out so cruelly to the slaves,” she said.
‘You yourself will doubtless discover, in time,” I said, “what it is to be insulted by, and abused by, and even whipped by, free women.”
“I did not understand,” she said.
“It is hard to understand, if one is not in the collar,” I said.
“Don’t go!” she said.
“I must be getting back,” I said.
“I awakened in my bed,” she said, “as I was being gagged. I could not cry out. It was a young, blond raider of Treve who captured me. I was stripped and bound, and put to his pleasure, in my own bed! Then he hooded me and carried me to the roof where his tarn was waiting. Later I served him nude in his camp, as though I might be a slave. I knelt, serving him his food. I poured his wine.”
“And how did you feel about this?” I asked.
I saw she was struggling to speak. Then she whispered, “I loved it.”
I nodded.
“But this distressed me,” she said, “that I should have such feelings!”
“Yes?” I said.
“So I was insolent-.”
“What occurred then?” I asked.
“He seized me and swathed my entire upper body with a coarse rope,” she said. “He then put me to his pleasure, briefly and brutally. He then swathed my lower body with similar rope. He then left me that way for the night! I wept and begged for his forgiveness toward morning, but it earned me only a kick and a warning to be silent. Then, the next day, he put me on the common chain. Afterwards I would cry out to him that I hated him, and then, a little later, I would beg him to keep me!”
“I understand,” I said.
“You cannot read the numbers on my body, truly, can you?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I am sorry.”
“What kind of slave do you think I will be?” she asked.
“That is easy to see,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“You have beautiful hair,” I said. “And your body and face, too, are very beautiful.”
“Do you think they will see me as a pleasure slave?” she asked.
“Certainly,” I said.
“That is the sort of slave I wish to be,” she said.
“Have no fear,” I said. “It is in the category that you will ascent the block.”
“But I want to belong to he who captured me,” she said.
“It is not yours to say to whom you will belong,” I said.
She regarded me, in misery.
“Anything could be done to you,” I said. “You could be taken anywhere. You could be sold to anyone.”
“No!” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“I thought he liked me!” she said.
“That is quite likely,” I said, “from what you have said, that you were unpleasant, or insolent. Perhaps you showed him a side of your personality which he did not care for.”
She looked at me.
“He may not have wanted to spend the time and effort on you, to reform you,” I speculated. “There are, after all, many slaves.”
“I can change,” she said. “I want to change!”
I regarded her.
“It was not truly I who spoke,” she said. “It was not the slave.”
“I understand,” I said.
“But why would he not want me?” she asked. “Do I not have lovely hair, and I not beautiful?”
“Such things are mere externals,” I said. “They are easily come by, in any market.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“You have a very superficial notion of what it is that men are buying in a slave.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“And what of your personality, your character, your disposition?” I asked.
“I do not understand,” she said.
“Do you think men are idiots?” I asked. “Do you think they are satisfied with mere externals?”
“I do not know? She said.
“No,” I said. “They won whole slaves.”
“Do they not regard us as mere things, as mere objects?” she asked.
“Do you think they would be satisfied for a moment with something that looked like a woman, and moved and talked like a woman, but had no insides, had no feelings, no consciousness?”
“No,” she said.
“If they did regard women as mere objects,” I said, “it would make no difference to them whether they were dealing with such a simulacrum or a woman. But that is absurd.”
“Yes,” she said.
“I must go,” I said.
“Will I ever see him again?” she begged.
“I do not know,” I said.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“There is little you can do,” I said. “The shackles and chain are upon you.”
I rose. I could see the dock workers preparing to move out the lines of captives.
“What is it like to be a slave?” she cried.
“Much depends on the master,” I said.
“I know who I want to belong to!” she wept.
“But who will buy you?” I asked.
She put back her head in misery, the chains moving on the collar.
“Present yourself well on the block,” I said. “In that way you should bring a higher price, and thus obtain a more affluent master.”
She moaned.
I looked about on the stones, for the two apricots. I seized them up. I split one and pitted it. I slipped the pit into the hem of my tunic. I would dispose of it later in an appropriate receptacle. One does not just cast such things about in such a place, particularly if one is a slave. The men of this world tend to be particular about their cities. In them, it seems, there are Home Stones. “Here!” I said. I placed the pitted fruit on the stones before her. She l
ooked down at it. “Take it,” I said. “It has been pitted. You need not fear the disposal of the seed. In time, you will learn to beg your own.”
She looked up at me.
“It is nothing,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I wish you well, slave girl,” I said.
“I wish you well, Mistress,” she said.
“Hurry,” I said.
I backed away. I saw her put down her head and bite at the fruit.
“Hurry,” I whispered.
I heard a whip crack, several yards away. I jerked back, wincing, frightened. It was a very frightening sound. It is particularly frightening when one understands something of what the whip can do to one.
The first line of captives was now on its feet.
I saw the free woman with whom I had entertained converse lift her head.
Again the whip cracked.
The second line of captives was now on its feet.
“Your first step will be taken with the left foot,” they were informed by a worker. “You will keep your eyes fixed forward. You will not look to the right or to the left.”
At the whip’s suggestion the third, and then the forth, and then the fifth, and then the sixth, rose to its feet.
I hurried away.
The whip cracked again, and the seventh line rose. The free woman was in that line.
“Your first step is taken with the left foot,” I heard. “You will keep your eyes fixed forward. You will not look to the right or to the left.”
I thought it would be more merciful if they hooded the women.
Again and again the whip cracked, as line after line of the captives, with a rattle of chains and shackles, rose to its feet.
I moved back by the doors of the warehouses.
Now all the lines were on their feet.
Workers with whips coursed the lines, snarling, adjusting posture, lifting chins with whips. Whips cracked, and more than one lash was laid upon a startled beauty who then strove zealously, instantaneously, to be found acceptable. In more than one case the very lash which had struck a captive was pressed to her lips that she must fervently kiss it in gratitude.
“Straighten your bodies!” “Suck in your guts!” “Put your shoulders back!” “More!” “Lift your chins!” “Higher!”