It was the scalp of he who had been the third of the war chiefs in the summer camp.
Iwoso then closed her eyes, in misery, turning her head away, her head held in place by the ropes under her chin.
I removed the girth rope from Ubar of the Skies. I took the reins from the sable monster.
"You are free, Sweet Friend," I said. I caressed that savage beak. It put it down, against my side. Ubar of the Skies was not a woman, something to be owned and dominated, something, even with the whip, if necessary, to be forced to love and serve, somthing which could not be fulfilled until it found itself helplessly, with no recourse whatsoever, willlessly, at the feet of a master.
"The trail is clear," I said to Hci.
"Yes," he said.
The five Kurii, I saw, those who had been with Sadak and Kog, lay slaughtered on the trail. They had been riddled with arrows and hacked to pieces. Some, I think, may have been slain my Yellow Knives who, in wrath, sensing perhaps a betrayal or fraud in them, had fallen upon them.
It would be a long time, I thought, before Kaiila or Yellow Knives would be likely to again take such beasts for supernatural creatures, visitants from the medicine world.
"Do you see those dusts?" Hci asked Iwoso, pointing to various points in the west.
"Yes," she said.
"Those will be Sleen and Dust Legs, even Fleer," he said, "intercepting your people, doing massacure among them."
I could see riders, even, in the Yellow-Knife camp, below. Lodges were burning.
"There will be much loot, many kaiila," said Cuwignaka. "Doubtless they will find their journey worth thier while."
"And they need not even have attacked a summer camp," said Hci, bitterly.
Iwoso sobbed.
"Need they?" asked Hci.
"No, my captor," said Iwoso.
"The Yellow Knives are defeated," said Hci to her. "They are scattered. They flee for their lives."
"Yes, my captor." she said.
"There is now no hope of rescue for you, my roped, Yellow-Knife slut," said Hci.
"No, my captor," she said.
"You are now totally alone," he said.
"Yes, my captor," she said.
"You now belong to the Kaiila," he said.
"Yes, my captor," she said.
Chapter 48
TWO WOMEN
"Free the slave," said Hci to Iwoso, pointing to Bloketu.
"Yes, my captor," said Iwoso.
I looked down from the escarpment to the victory camp below, whre, yesterday, the Yellow Knives had had their encampment. Th site was now occupied by Dust Legs, Sleen and Fleer.
"I free you," said Iwoso to Bloketu. She fumbled with the knot on Bloketu's collar, removing it from her.
It was early in the morning.
We had brought the girls to the edge of the escarpment, near the posts. We had not roped them to them, however. They had spent the night, as the several nights previously, hooded and bound in the prison lodge. They were still stripped, as before. In another such lodge, hooded and bound, were Alfred, and four of his officers. He had not perished of the blow from the knob-headed canhpi. These were all who had survivied of the soldiers.
"Kneel, Free Women," said Hci.
Both of the girls, naked, knelt on the stone at his feet.
"Put your heads down," said Hci.
They lowered their heads.
"I pronounce you both slaves of the Kaiila," said Hci.
They shuddered, slaves.
"Your former names, 'Bloketu' and 'Iwoso'," said Hci, "are now put on you as slave names."
They trembled, named.
"You may raise your heads," said Hci.
They did so, frightened, public slaves. Bloketu tried to read in teh eyes of Cueignaka, and Iwoso tried to read in the eyes of Hci, what was to be her fate. The status of being a public slave tends to be an ambigous one. What is a girl to do, how is she to act, to whom is she to relate? In such a status she is an impersonal property, as of a state, clan or tribe. NO particular master is likely to have any special concern for her, nor can she, as such a slave, amelorate or improve her condition, or even secure, to some extent, her possibilities of servival, by becoming, in virtue of deep, sweet, delicate, intamate and exquisite relationships, so fulfilling to both the woman and the man, a prized possession of her owner, a treasure to her master.
Hci swung coiled ropes in his hand.
He then struck Iwoso.
"Have you ever been whipped?" he asked."Yours is the first blow that was ever put upon my body, Master," she said.
He then struck her again, savagely. "Oh!" she cried, putting her head down to the stone.
"Are you pretty?" asked Hci. "Answer 'Yes' or 'No'."
"№ 1" said Iwoso.
"Lying slave!" said Hci. He then struck her another blow.
"Are you pretty?" asked Hci.
"Yes," cried Iwoso. "I am pretty!"
"Pretentious, arrogant slave!" cried Hci. "Surely you know that that is a judgement more properly to be made by masters than imbonded sluts. It seems you must be whipped."
"Have mercy, Master!" cried Iwoso.
He then struck her, twice more. She sobbed, head down, at his feet.
"Do you persist in being disobedient?" he inquired.
"Master!" she wept, in protest.
"Answer 'Yes' or 'No'," he said.
"Master!" she cried.
"Yes, or no?" he asked.
"No," she wept. "No!"
"Thus," said he, "you admit to having been previously disobedient."
He then struck her, three times.
"Do you persist in being disobedient?" he then inquired, again.
"Yes!" she cried, miserable.
"Then, clearly," he said, "you are to be whipped, or slain." He then struck her five times.
"No," she wept. "No! No!"
"Then, again," said he, "you acknowledge a previous fault."
He then stuck her once more.
She lay then, on her stomach, her soft body on the hard stone, her back striped, sobbing, at Hci's feet.
"Have you been tricked?" asked Hci.
"As you see," said Hci, quoting Iwoso's remark to Bloketu in her lodge, overheard by us the night of their caputre, "it is not difficult to trick a stupid slave."
"No, Master," she wept.
Bloketu, I thought, had been avenged.
"Have pity on me, Master," wept Iwoso.
"On your knees," said Hci. Both girls, then, were kneeling, stripped, at his feet.
"In virtue of the power vested in me as a commander in the Sleen Soldiers, and in accordance with the wishes of my father, Mahpiyasapa, civil chieftain of the Isbu Kaiila," said Hci, "I pronounce you both free."
They looked up at him, wildly.
"It is sad," he said. "Bring the staff and thongs," he said to me.
I brought the long staff, about seven feet long. This was bound behind the necks of Bloketu and Iwoso. I then tied their hands together behind their backs.
"What is going on?" cried Iwoso.
"You have had a taste of slavery," said Hci. "Now you have been freed."
"But, why!" cried Iwoso.
"That you may, together, in the full accountability of the free person," said Hci, "face the justice of the Kaiila people."
Bloketu began to sob.
"No!" cried Iwoso. "No!"
Chapter 49
JUDGMENT
"There is no doubt as to the guilt of these two," said Mahpiyasapa.
The men about him, and behind him, grunted their assent. "Cinto!" said several. "Surely! Certainly! Agreed!"
The two women, kneeling before the men, the staff bound behind their necks, their hands tied behind their backs, trembled.
"The testimonies have been taken," said Mahpiyasapa. "The evidence is clear. Concerning their complicity in the matter of the attack on the summer camp there is no doubt."
"Cinto!" said the men. "Agreed!"
"They have conspired against the Kaiila people," said Mahpiyasapa.
"Cinto!" said the men.
"They have betrayed the Kaiila," said Mahpiyasapa.
"Cinto!" said the men.