I thrust her head back, so that she was looking up, and felt about her throat, under the fur.
She was nicely collared.
“A ship’s collar?” I asked.
“Yes!” she whispered.
“Yes?” I said.
“Yes, Master!” she said.
I was pleased she had not yet been claimed or assigned.
Might she not have been uneasy, could she have sensed my pleasure, my satisfaction, in having made this determination?
To be sure, almost all the slaves on board wore the ship’s collar, were ship slaves.
“You are still Alcinoë?” I asked.
“That is what they call me,” she said.
“Then that is your name,” I said.
“Yes, Master.”
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Alcinoë,” she said, “—Master.”
“Do not forget it,” I said.
“No, Master,” she said.
I moved about her a bit, and, with my two hands, felt beneath the furring wrapped about her left ankle.
A metal band had been hammered shut there, and, now flat against the band, in its welded staple, was a smaller ring, to which a chain might be attached, or through which a chain might be run, one by means of which several girls might be secured.
In the keeping areas the girls were commonly kept chained.
“I have not seen you about,” I said.
“It is hard to exceed the length of our chain,” she said.
I twisted my hand in her hair, held her, and cuffed her twice, sharply.
She looked at me, my hand tight in her hair, startled, disbelievingly. Tears sprang to her eyes. Her lip trembled. Did she truly think she might play with a free man? Did she truly think she might speak as a free woman? Did she not know she was a slave? Did she truly think that I, or any free man, would not put her to discipline?
Let her learn differently.
Sometimes a master will allow his girl a bit of slack on her leash, so to speak, which is sometimes pleasant, but that only makes it all the more sweeter to bring her again to her knees before him, his slave.
“It is appropriate that you be chained, is it not?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I am a slave, Master,” she said.
I stood up, before her, and regarded her.
“Keep your back straight,” I said.
She straightened her back, and looked straight ahead.
“I have not seen you since the cell,” I said.
“Nor I you,” she said.
“It is my understanding that you claimed I had put you to use,” I said.
“Doubtless Master knows the story,” she said.
“Perhaps,” I said.
She dared to look up, frightened.
“Please do not have me whipped,” she said.
I supposed that I, as the putatively offended party, might suggest a repetition of her punishment, for my own satisfaction, the first having been administered merely because she had been caught in a lie.
It is interesting how a slave who has felt the whip so fears it. They will go to great lengths to avoid its kiss.
To it they know themselves subject.
Like most men, most masters, I thought that the whip, if applied, should be applied judiciously, and, preferably, not at all.
It is, after all, primarily an instrument of correction.
And, hopefully, correction will not be necessary.
What one looks for from a slave is service, and inexpressible, inordinate pleasure. Why else would one put them in collars, buy them, and own them, and master them?
To be sure, if they are not fully pleasing, they must expect to be punished, and well. They are, after all, slaves.
Too, interestingly, a slave may sometimes desire to be whipped, perhaps to reassure her of her master’s attention, that she is still important to him, that he regards her as still his slave, that he regards her as still worth whipping, and perhaps, sometimes, she simply desires to be whipped, to be reminded that she is a slave. To the slave her bondage is inexpressibly precious. And surely little could better convince a slave of her bondage than finding herself being whipped as the slave she is.
“Where are you housed?” I asked.
“In the Kasra area,” she said.
It was then further confirmed, as I had earlier conjectured. She was neither claimed nor assigned.
She was a simple ship’s slave.
“Please do not have me whipped,” she said.
The whip hurts; a slave will commonly do much to avoid it. Certainly they are seldom in doubt as to their bondage. They know themselves subject to it. It is often most effective when merely dangling inert upon its peg. It is sometimes put to the lips of a kneeling slave, that she may lick and kiss it, in trepidation and reverence. It is a symbol of the mastery. When a slave is found errant, she is sometimes required, kneeling, to beg for its attention. Sometimes, after having received its attention, she is required to kiss and thank it. “Thank you, dear whip. I shall try to amend my ways. I shall strive to become a better slave.”
“How long have you served about the ship?”
The ship was large, and one had varied duties, here and there.
“This is the third day,” she said, adding, “—Master.”
“Why did you claim I had put you to use?” I asked.
“I do not know, Master,” she wept. “I was angry, I was frustrated, I felt rejected, I felt insulted. I am sorry. I am sorry! Please do not have me whipped, again. It hurts. It hurts, so!”
“You were punished,” I said, putting the matter aside.
“I was in a collar,” she said. “I was alone with you! I could not have prevented you. I could not have resisted. Why did you not put me to use?”
“I was not pleased to do so,” I said.
“I see,” she said.
“Why did you, in Ar,” I asked, “a great lady, lower your veil before a common soldier?”
“I do not know,” she said.
“Perhaps to torment me?” I suggested.
“Perhaps,” she said. “I do not know.”
“Perhaps,” I said, “it was the act of a slave, one who desires to be taken in hand, and braceleted.”
“Surely not!” she said.
“I can understand such things,” I said, “before high officers, before men who determine the opening and closings of gates, men who hold the keys to cellars of gold, to the trove of Merchants, men who command armies, who grasp the reins of power, whose word will launch fleets, but not before common soldiers.”
She put her head down.
Beside her the vessel of black wine no longer steamed.
“Slave?” I said.
“Few men know,” she said, “the secrets even free women confide to the silence and secrecy of their pillows.”
“But it was surely foolish,” I said.
“I did not expect to be a fugitive,” she said. “I thought the power of Talena in Ar was secure. Ar was beaten and downtrodden, confused and set against herself, cleverly divided so that she would be helpless before her foes. We did not anticipate the return of the great Marlenus.”
“Most who could recognize you,” I said, “might be unwise to return to Ar, having prices on their own heads, as Seremides.”
“They might well win their own amnesty,” she said, “were they to deliver a fugitive more sought than themselves. Such things are negotiable, through intermediaries.”
“Seremides,” I said, “is on board.”
“No!” she said.
“Under the name Rutilius of Ar,” I said.
“He must never see me!” she whispered. “He must never know I am on board!”
“Who?” I asked.
“I,” she said, “of course, the Lady Flavia!”
“The Lady Flavia,” I said, “is not on board.”
She looked up at me.
“A slave, Alcinoë, is on board,” I said.
“As you wish,” she said.
“Do you enjoy having this conversation on your knees?” I asked.
“It is appropriate, is it not,” she asked, “as I am a slave, before a free man.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I see,” she said.
“I am permitting you to keep your knees closed,” I said.
“Master is kind,” she said. “What if I should wish to open them, before you?” she asked.
“Do not do so,” I said.
“I see,” she said.
I recalled that she had claimed that I had raped her.
“Seremides,” I said, “knows you are on board.”
“No!” she cried, in misery. “Surely you did not tell him!”
“Stay on your knees,” I warned her.
“No,” I said, “I did not tell him. Why should I tell him? Better, surely, that it be I alone who should bring you before Marlenus.”
“You would bring me before Marlenus?” she said.
“Who would not?” I asked.
“Might I not prove a pleasing slave, Master?” she asked, tears in her eyes.
“One does not know,” I said.
“Alcinoë would do much to please her master,” she whispered.
“Speak louder, slave,” I said.
“Alcinoë would do much to please her master,” she said.
“That is only fitting for a slave,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“For the bounty on your head, pretty kajira,” I said, “one might purchase a galley, and a dozen slaves whose beauty would shame yours, as yours, such as it is, might shame that of tarsk sow.”
“Surely not!” she said. Well had I stung the beauty’s vanity.
“Well, perhaps,” I said, “as much as yours would be beyond that of a typical copper-tarsk girl, a pot girl, a kettle-and-mat girl.”
“I thought my beauty too great for that of a female slave,” she said.
“But now,” I said, “you are more familiar with that of female slaves.”
“But I am beautiful!” she wept.
“I doubt that you would bring gold off the block,” I said, “but I think you would bring silver.”
“Surely I am beautiful!” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “you are beautiful, you are a lovely slave.”
“Am I not attractive?” she asked.
I did not tell her of the nights I had dreamed of having her, collared, in my arms.
“I have had better chained at my slave ring,” I said.
“You have had others chained at your ring?”
“Now and then,” I said.
“And how would you chain me,” she asked, “by throat or ankle?”
“As it might please me, on one night or another,” I said.
“And such is the master,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“I have never been at the foot of a man’s couch,” she said.
“In the beginning,” I said, “you would be slept on the flooring itself, or a mat.”
“Not on furs?”
“No,” I said.
“I would be slept as a low slave?”
“Of course.”
“Do you find me attractive?” she asked.
“Few slaves are without interest,” I said.
“I would like to be attractive to you,” she said.
“More attractive than a sack of gold?”
“I would scarcely dare hope so much,” she said.
“Master,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“If you did not know who I was, and you saw me on the block, naked, exhibited, posed, fearing the whip, writhing on command, might you not find me of interest, and bid for me, and hope to take me home—I, only a slave, on your chain?”
I recalled that she had lowered her veil before me, in Ar, I, only a common soldier, and more than once. However far above me she was then, I was now thousands of times higher than she, for she was now slave.
“Perhaps,” I said, “provided I could get you cheaply enough.”
“Perhaps,” she said, “Seremides does not really know I am on board.”
“He knows,” I said.
“How do you know Seremides knows I am on board?” she asked.
“Some days after having been brought on board,” I said, “I was interrogated by ship’s officers. Seremides was amongst them. Your name, Alcinoë, came up, given the contretemps of the cell. Seremides mentioned that he had seen you, and that you looked well in your collar.”
“Do I look well in my collar?” she asked, bitterly.
“What woman does not?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “We are females, the properties of men.”
“He suggested,” I said, “that you be given to him.”
“I see,” she said, shuddering.
“But, it seems,” I said, “that his request has not been granted, at least as yet.”
“He refused to abet my escape from Ar,” she said. “The mounting ladder was jerked away from me. I was left behind, abandoned.”
“Now, of course,” I said, “things are different. Now, a sack of gold might be tied about your neck, as you might be led, naked and bound, leashed, to the impaling pole, the sack to be cut from your neck and given to Seremides, as you are lifted, striving not to move, into public view.”
“We are likely to die here, in the ice,” she said.
“It seems so,” I granted her.
It was feared that some men might leave the ship, to try to cross the ice east, in the half darkness, perhaps to Torvaldsland. Pani had been set about, to guard the bulwarks, and, on the ice, to supervise the work about the ship. This venture, whispered about, to leave the ship, seemed to me madness. We were hundreds of pasangs from land, and who knew how far the ice might last, but, it seemed, even so woeful and improbable a scheme might have some appeal to forlorn, desperate minds, minds half crazed by the imprisonment of the ship, the silence, the darkness, the cold, the endless labor at the ice, the growing shortage of rations.
“I wonder where Seremides saw me,” she said.
“It could have been anywhere,” I said, “perhaps when you were unhooded, after boarding, perhaps while you were awaiting a chain assignment, in a companionway, in a corridor, on one deck or another, perhaps when you slept, in the Kasra holding area, to which he, as a high officer, might have had access.”
“Few, if any, men are allowed there,” she said. “We are managed by first girls, large tharlarion-like women, female whip slaves.”
“Interesting,” I said. I supposed it made sense that free men, on the whole, would not be allowed to walk about amongst chained slaves.
After all, should one not pay for them?
“Sometimes,” she said, “girls moaning and needing men would be switched to silence. When free I despised the needs of slave girls, but then I did not understand how they felt, how helpless they were in the throes of their needs; I did not understand what was going on in their bodies, that made them cry out, and whimper, and scratch at the boards, and moan; I did not understand what men had done to them, to so ignite their needs, to make them so piteously the prisoners of their own bodies, of what they were, the helpless victim, captive, and slave of their own womanhood.”
“One cannot ignite needs which are not there to be ignited,” I said. “What men have done is simply to free the secret slave in the heart of every woman, she longing for the sunlight of submission and fulfillment.”
“Four times,” she said, “I was awakened from my sleep, the switch flashing upon me. ‘Stop thrashing in your chains, slut,’ I was told. Had I been doing so? I did not know.”
“Presumably you were doing so,” I said.
“The switch stung,” she said.
“That is its purpose,” I said.
I recalled having learned, during my interrogation, that ph
ysicians had determined that the slave, Alcinoë, after her time with me in the cell, was almost ready to be put on the block. Apparently she had begun to sense, or fear, the beginning of involuntary, radical changes in her body, incipient glimmerings heralding the onslaught of needs which would inevitably put her vulnerably at the feet of men, the fires which, in a woman’s belly, mark her, more than a brand and collar, a man’s slave.
“In any event,” I said, “he saw you, and I am sure he recognized you.”
“I did not see him,” she said.
“It is enough that he saw you,” I said.
“Are you sure,” she said, “that he saw me?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do not any longer think of yourself as concealed, as inaccessible, as a free woman. You are now an animal. Your features must be as brazenly exposed as those of any other animal, a kaiila, verr, or tarsk. Anyone, as upon them, may look upon you, and boldly.”
Tears sprang anew to her eyes.
“Is this truly surprising?” I asked. “Did you not see many slaves in Ar? Do you still think of yourself as free? What of your own girls? What if one had dared to veil herself, even in play?”
“I would have lashed her,” she said.
“You are surely well aware,” I said, “that as a slave, an animal, you may or may not be clothed. You are surely aware of such things. Your garmenture, if any, will be decided by those who own you. Your features, and, if owners wish it, your body, will be denied the least protection.”
“Yes,” she wept, “yes!”
“Keep the palms of your hands down on your thighs,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“And keep in mind that your features,” I said, “if not your body, must be regularly and fully exposed. Free women will insist on that. Your features, at all times, must be denied even the least thread of the most diaphanous veiling.”
“How easy then,” she said, in misery, “I all unknowing, for him to see me, and identify me!”
“For him,” I said, “or anyone.”
“Even a common soldier,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “even a common soldier.”
“And anyone might bring me to Ar,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “even a common soldier.”
“Such as you,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“How helpless we are,” she said, looking up, “we, so exposed, our lips, our features, our smallest expressions, naked, bared to the view of anyone!”
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