“Yes, Master,†she said.
He indicated that she might kneel before the throne.
“Is this she who was to you as Mistress?†inquired Miles of Argenturn,
addressing himself to the terrified slave from Cincinnati at his feet.
“Tell them I am Tiffany Collins, from Earth I†I told Susan.
“’She is truly from Earth, I think, Master,†wept Susan, and that is what, I
recall, she told me her name was.â€
I almost cried out with relief.
“And putting aside such former names and worlds,†said Miles, “as whom do you
know her here?â€
Susan began to tremble.
“You know the penalties for a slave who lies,†said Miles. “Think carefully and
well, my small, nose-ringed beauty.â€
“She is she who was to me as Mistress,†said Susan, sobbing, “she whom I served,
Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus.â€
There was a cry of elation from the crowd.
“Forgive me, Mistressl†cried Susan. She then, at a sign from Miles, led by the
thong, in the grip of a soldier, hurrying, almost running, that she did not
place the least stress on the device in her nose, was being conducted rapidly
from the room. I supposed she would be placed with other women, perhaps wearing
similar devices. They can be tied about slave ring% fastened to other such
thongs, and so on. Just before the soldier had grasped the thong I had seen her
wildly look at Miles of Argentum. Doubtless she remembered him well from the
audience, so long ago. Too, I thought it quite likely that be remembered her. In
that audience he had looked upon her as though she might not be likely to
quickly slip his mind. Too, he had had her summoned to the dais by her palace
name. She had tried to read in his countenance, in that brief, wild instant,
before she was removed from the dais, her fate, but she had been unable to do
so. He was not, perhaps by intention, even looking at her. She did not know then
if, when the collar of Ligurious was removed from her, she would be sent to his
headquarters or not. There, of course, if she were found sufficiently pleasing,
after perhaps a closer examination and trial, another collar might be put on
her. She would, in any case, wear one collar or another, somewhere. She was a
slave.
I the captain from Ar,†said Miles of Argentum.
lean figure entered the hall, and approached now ‘long aisle.
“Drusus Rencius, Captain of Ar, on detached service to the forces of Argentum,â€
said Miles of Argentum. “I believe you two have met.â€
I shook my bead, disbelievingly. I had been told he was a renegade from Ar.
Twice, I knew, suddenly realizing it now, he could have me from Corcyrus,
delivering me to Argenturn, once when we were on the walls near the tarn perches
and once, later, when, my whereabouts unknown to Ligurious and others, I had
been in the house of Kliomenes, braceleted, half naked and helpless. But he had
not abducted me, nor attempted to do so. It seemed rather he had, for whatever
reason or reasons, preferred, as he had once remarked on the walls of Corcyrus,
to let the game take its course.
“Do you know this woman, Captain?†asked Miles, general of Argentum.
Drusus Rencius handed his helmet to a soldier and climbed then to the height of
the throne.
He put out his hands and lifted me to my feet before the throne. He then held me
by the upper arms and looked down, deeply, into my eyes.
I shuddered. This was not a matter in which he wished to risk any mistake.
“Yes,†be said.
“How do you know her?†asked Miles of Argenturn.
“I was, for several weeks,†he said, “her personal body-guard.â€
“You know her then quite well?†asked Miles.
“Yes,†said Drusus Rencius.
“Can you identify her?†asked Miles.
“Yes,†said Drusus Rencius.
“Who is she?†asked Miles of Argentum.
“She is Sheila, Tatrix of Corcyrus,†said Drusus Rencius.
There was a sudden cry of pleasure and victory from the crowd. Drusus Rencius
released me, and turned about, and, descending ffom the dais and making his way
through the crowd, left.
I watched him leave.
“Strip her,†said Miles of Argentum, “and put her in golden chains, and put her
in the golden cage.â€
I felt the hands of soldiers at my clothing. It was torn from me, before the
very throne. Then, when I was absolutely naked, a golden collar, to which a
chain was attached, with Jk~ wrist rings and ankle rings, was brought. It was a
chaining system of that sort called a sirik. M? chh, was thrust up and I felt
the golden collar locked on my throat. Almost at the same time my wrists, field
closely together before me, were locked helplessly in the wrist rings. In
another instant my ankles, held, were helpless in the ankle rings. A chain then
ran from my collar to the chain on my wrist rings and from thence, the same
chain, to tile chain on my ankle rings. My ankle-ring chain was about twelve
inches in length, and my wrist-ring chain was about six inches in length. The
central chain, where it dangled down from the wrist rings, Jay on the floor
before the throne, before it looped up to where it was closed about a central
link of the ankle-ring chain. This permits; the prisoner, usually a slave, to
lift her arms. She is thus in a position to feed herself or better exhibit tier
beauty to masters in a wider variety of postures and attitudes than would
otherwise be the case. The point of the sirik is not merely to confine a woman,
but to confine her beautifully.
Two guards then held me, one by each arm, before the throne. I was naked. I was
chained. I wore the sirik.
They lifted me up, then, at a sign from Miles of Argenturn. I was absolutely
helpless. My feet must have been some six or seven inches from the floor before
the throne. Even by pointing my toes I could not couch the carpeting. I was held
there, being exhibited to the crowd, chained in the sirik.
“Behold the Tatrix of Corcyrus,†called Miles of Argentum, indicating me with a
sweeping gesture, “helpless, and in chainslâ€
There was a wild cheer from the crowd, almost a shriek, as though for blood.
“Will you come back for me?†I had asked Ligurious.
“Have no fear, Lady Sheila,†he had said. “You will be come for.â€
“Soon?†I had asked.
“Yes,†he had said. Then he had bade me farewell, and left.
I looked down on the crowd, into the wild eyes, the upraised fists. I saw, too,
the soldiers. I moved helplessly in the chains, held before the crowd. Ligurious
and the woman, and the others, had doubtless, by now, on tams, made good their
escape. The uniforms the men had worn were not unlike that in which I had just
seen Drusus Rencius, and not unlike those of certain others about the dais,
soldiers. They were, I took it, babilifnents of Ar. The woman in the slave
collar and on the leash, covered by
the sheet, her bare feet and ankles visible
beneath it, would presumably be assumed to be merely a naked captive.
I struggled in the chains. The words of Ligurious, that I would be come for, now
took on a new and frightful meaning for me.
I looked down into the crowd.
Now it seemed, truly, I had been come for.
“Make wayl Clear the way!†called Miles of Argentum. Soldiers began to clear the
aisle of men and women, that we might have a clear exit from the great hall. I
was lowered to my feet.
“What are you going to do with me?†I asked Miles of Argentum.
“We are going to take you into the courtyard,†he said, and put you in the
golden cage. You may recall that I told you once that you belonged in a cage, a
golden cage.â€
Tears sprang into my eyes. I did not want to be put into a cage. I was not a
slave, or another type of animal. Too, I did not understand the meaning of a
golden cage.
At a sign from Miles of Argentum a soldier picked me up, lightly, in his arms.
He held me as easily as though I might have been a child.
Then, in his arms, I was carried rapidly down the steps of the dais and down the
aisle, between the halves of the parted crowd.
In a matter of but moments I was blinking against the sunlight in the courtyard.
Too, I felt the heat and the sun on my bared skin. I was put on my feet near a
tall, narrow, cylindrical cage with a conical top. The height of this cage was
about seven feet; its rounded floor was perhaps a yard in diameter. In the top
of the cage, at the top of the cone, on the outside, there was a heavy ring.
I was thrust into the cage and the door was locked shut behind me.
It had two locks, one about a third up from the door and the other about a third
down from the top.
“In this cage, Lady Sheila,†said Miles of Argentum, “you will be paraded
through the streets of Corcyrus, exhibited in Our triumph. Doubtless you will
enjoy receiving the love and devotion of your people. You will, thereafter, be
transported n this same cage to Argentum. I might mention to you that he bars of
this cage, like the chains you wear, are not of pure gold, but of a sturdy
golden alloy. Similarly, portions of the cage, like the floor and the interior
of the top, and the gilded cone ring, are of iron. You will find that the
holding power of these various devices is more than adequate, by several
factors, to hold ten strong men. Incidentally, allow me to commend you on how
well you look in chains. You wear them beautifully enough to be a slave.â€
I clutched the golden bars, in order not to fall.
“Your body, also,†he said, “is beautiful enough to be that of a slave.â€
I moaned. I could see men approaching, with rope. Too, behind them, drawn by two
tharlarion, came a flat-topped wagon. At the back of this wagon was an
arrangement of beams, with a projecting, supported, perpendicularly mounted beam
that extended forward, some fifteen feet in the air, toward the front of the
wagon. At the forward portion of this projecting beam there was a ring, not
unlike the one on the top of the cage.
Miles of Argentum surveyed me, and the chains, and the cage.
“Yes,†he said, “these arrangements all seem suitable and efficient. I think we
may count on your arriving in Argentum in good order.â€
A rope was being passed through the ring at the top of my cage.
The flat-topped wagon was being drawn near. I gathered that the cage would be
suspended from the ring on the projecting beam on the wagon, that it would hang
suspended over the surface of the wagon, some feet from the flat bed of the
wagon. From within the cage, it suspended thusly, I would not even be able to
touch anything outside of the cage.
I was totally in their power.
I was inutterably helpless.
“What are you taking me to Argentum for?†I asked.
“For impalement,†he said.
14 The Camp of Miles of Argentum; Two Men
“No,†I whimpered. “Nol†I awakened, my legs drawn up, cramped, in the tiny
cage. I lay on my side. I heard the chains move on the small, circular floor of
the cage. I twisted to my back, my knee raised. I could feel the chain from the
collar lying on my body. My manacled hands were at my belly. The chain joining
them I could feel, too, on my belly. I could feel the extension of the central
chain, below the manacles, too, on my body, and then it passed between my legs,
lying on the iron floor, then making its rendezvous with my shackled ankles. I
had been dreaming that I was again being carried in the cage through the streets
of Corcyrus. Because of ‘the width of the wagon bed and the height of the cage,
some five feet or so above the surface of the wagon bed, I had been reasonably
well protected from the blows of whips, the jabbings of sticks. Soldiers, too,
patrolled the perimeters of the moving wagon. More than one man, pressing
between the soldiers and clambering onto the wagon, sometimes unarmed, sometimes
with a whip or stick, sometimes even with a knife, was seized and thrown back
into the crowd by soldiers. The crowds cheered Miles of Argentum. and his men.
And, as my wagon passed them, they seemed to go mad with hatred and pleasure,
crying out and jeering me, and shrieking with triumph to see me so helplessly a
captive. The people of Corcyrus, it was clear, had welcomed the men of from Ar,
as liberators. The colors of Argentum and of Ar, on ribbons and strips of cloth,
angled from windows and festooned, even being stretched between windows and
rooftops overhead, the triumphal way such colors, too, were prominent in the
crowd, on garments being waved, fluttering, by citizens and sometimes even
children, perched on the shoulders of adults. I had stood in the cage,
frightened, bewildered and confused. I had not been able to even begin to
understand the hatred of the people. I had stood in the cage that I might be
better seen. If I did not do so, Miles of Argentum had informed me, simply, I
would be beaten like a slave.
I had now awakened in the cage, frightened. I had dreamed I was being again
carried through the streets of Corcyrus. I had- recoiled, fearfully, from the
sting of a fruit rind hurled at me. Often in that miserable journey, suspended
in the cage, carried between jeering crowds, I had been pelted with small
stones, garbage and dung.
I whimpered, chained in my tiny prison. At least I was alone now, and it was
quiet. The cage creaked a little, moving in the wind. I crawled to my knees and,
with my fingers, parted the opaque cloth which had been wrapped about the cage
for the night, before it had been raised to its present position. I looked out
through the tiny crack. I could see fires of the camp, and several tents. I
heard music from the distance, from somewhere among the tents, where perhaps
girls danced to please masters. We were one day out of Corcyrus, on the march to
Argenturn. I looked down to the ground. It was some forty feet below. The cage
was slung now not from the ring on the wagon beam but from a rope which had been
to this height and the rope secured.
“Villainess of Corcyrusl Tyranness of Corcyrusl†the people had cried.
I lay back down then in my chains, on the small iron floor of the cage, my knees
pulled up high, and looked upward at the hollow, conelike ceiling of the cage.
It seemed I had no more tears to cry.
I did not want to die.
I heard the music in the distance.
I wished that I were a slave, that I might have a chance for life, that
I might have an opportunity to convince a master somehow, in any way possible,
that I might be worth sparing.
But I was a free woman and would be subjected only to the cold and inhuman
mercies of the law.
I was being transported to Argentum for impalement.
I could not cry any more.
Then, suddenly, I felt the cage drop an inch, and then another inch.
I scrambled to my knees, looking out, as I could. But, because of the opaque
covering of the cage, its fastenings and the difficulty of moving it, I could
see very little.
Then the cage was still. Then, after a time, it dropped another inch, and then
another. I knelt in the cage, holding my chains, to keep them from making noise.
Slowly the cage was lowered. Then it rested on the ground.
My heart was beating wildly. I now seemed very much alive. The stealth, and the
gradualness, which seemed to characterize what was going on, did not suggest the
activities of authorized representatives of Miles of Argentum. It did not even
occur to me to scream. From whom would I summon help, and to what purpose? If
these nocturnal visitors wished to steal me, perhaps to make me a slave or sell
me, I would go only too willingly into whatever bondage they chose to inflict
upon me. I would enter it joyfully. I would revel in it. I would, in my
gratitude, see to it that I proved to be to them a slave beyond their wildest
dreams.
Then suddenly I was terrified. What if these visitors were not opportunists or
slavers. What if they were men of Corcyrus who wished to return me to the city,
there to subject me to secret and horrifying tortures which might shame the
agonies of an impaling spear on the walls of Argentum?
I did not know whether to cry out or not.
The cover on the cage was unlaced, and thrust back, around the cage. Two men
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