I wiped my hands on my thighs.
Tupita was a good cook, indeed!
Then, while the men continued to talk, we attended to domestic tasks, suitable for us, consequent upon the completion of the meal. I found a kind of fulfillment, and reassurance, and confirmation of what I was, in doing these things. I was particularly pleased to do them before the stranger. I wanted him to see me performing these tasks. Too, I would have loved to do small tasks for him, even if he did not see me do them, such things as sewing his tunic or, as I had for Aulus, polishing his boots.
We were then finished with the work and came and knelt by the fire, Tupita and I, slaves.
I would soon, I suspected, now that the work was done, be returned to the slave wagon.
I wanted to hurry about the fire, and throw myself on my belly before the stranger, tears in my eyes, covering his feet and ankles with kisses, his helpless slave, begging his touch. Surely he knew me! My belly burned, my thighs flamed. I put down my head. I hoped he could not smell me.
"My friend," said the stranger to Mirus.
Tupita drew back a little. Only in a moment or two did I understand her action. "Yes," said Mirus.
"She is pretty, isn" t she?" asked the stranger.
"She is beautiful," said Mirus, regarding Tupita.
"I mean the other one," said the stranger.
I suddenly knelt very straight, back on my heels. I did not understand what was going on.
"She?" asked Mirus.
"Put you shoulders back, thrust out your breasts, girl," said the stranger. I obeyed.
"Yes, she," said the stranger.
Mirus regarded me. I felt very much a slave. "She is acceptable," he said. His voice was dry, and cold.
The stranger then took a length of binding fiber from his wallet and walked about the fire. I assumed he was going to bind me for some purpose or other. Perhaps he was not pleased that I had tried to suck and lick at his fingers when he had fed me. Perhaps I was to be put back bound, as a punishment, in the slave wagon. I hoped he did not intend to strangle me, or give the fiber to Mirus, that he might do so. Certainly it had been a small thing, and I could hardly have helped myself, with the feelings I had toward him, and being a slave. I might even have done so if I had been a free woman, in a mute, slave-like plea for attention! Surely a girl would never be punished for such a thing, or with little more than an angry, impatient cuff.
But he went not to me but to Tupita.
"What are you doing?" asked Mirus.
"Binding a slave," he said.
He, as she knelt, pulled her wrists behind her, crossed them, and bound them together. He then crossed her ankles and, with the same length of fiber, bound them to her wrists. Fulvius had earlier tied me in much the same manner. It is a common slave tie. In it the female is fastened in a position of subservience, cannot rise to her feet, is well displayed, cannot defend herself, and is utterly helpless.
I suddenly feared they wanted to tie Tupita in this way so that she would be unable to interfere in whatever they planned to do to me.
"Why have you bound her?" asked Mirus, puzzled.
His puzzlement reassured me. If this were some plan on the part of the stranger and him presumably he would not have asked this question. Mirus, then, I was relieved to note, seemed to much in the dark on this matter as I.
"Master, may I speak?" I asked the stranger.
"No," he said.
Tupita was smiling.
I them realized that this must be some scheme into which she had entered with the stranger. She and he seemed to understand what was transpiring, even if Mirus and I did not.
"I am well bound, Master," said Tupita to Mirus.
"Obviously," said Mirus. He had watched the stranger place, pull tight, and knot the cords. I, too, had watched. He had worked unhurriedly, even, I suppose, casually, but efficiently. I shuddered. He was clearly no stranger to the binding of women.
The stranger then returned to his place on the other side of the fire, where he sat down cross-legged. He picked up a bota, which I had learned contained paga, took a swig, and passed it to Mirus. Mirus drank, too, and returned the bota to him. The stranger closed it.
Mirus looked at the stranger.
"Perhaps we should be entertained," he said.
"Perhaps," said Mirus, puzzled.
"I can do little, Master," said Tupita. "I am bound."
"Do not underestimate yourself," he said.
"True, Master," she laughed, delightedly. There are many things, of course which a woman, bound, can do for a man, and, indeed, if she is bound she knows, if anything, she must strive even more desperately to be pleasing to him.
"Please him," said the stranger to me, indicating Mirus.
"No," said Mirus, coldly.
The stranger looked at me.
"Please, Master," I said to him. "I think he would prefer to kill me." "Please him," urged Tupita.
I looked at her, wildly. Surely she, of all people, would not desire that! "Must a command be repeated?" inquired the stranger.
"No, Master!" I said. The tone of such a voice is unmistakable to a slave girl. She knows she must obey unquestionly, perfectly, immediately. I hastily crawled to Mirus.
"Do not touch me, slave," he said, with unmistakable menace in his voice. "Master!" protested Tupita.
I looked back, at the stranger, frightened.
"Very well," said the stranger, to Mirus. I knelt back on my heels. I realized now what the plan of Tupita and the stranger must have been. in the two days or so since he had been with Mirus and her he had doubtless been informed, or had gathered, what the situation was amongst us. The specific suggestion I suppose had been Tupita" s. I looked at Mirus. I did not think, really, now, he still wanted to kill me. I think that had gone from him. On the other hand he was still, obviously, consumed with hatred for me. Too, undoubtedly somehow, on some deep level, perhaps something far beneath the level of discourse, of excuses, of considerations, of reason, he may have felt that he had been denied or thwarted, that he had been deprived of some dur satisfaction. Surely his decision to spare me had not come from deeply within him, spurred by his own misunderstandings, and acceptable to him, but had been the result of yielding to the unwelcome, perhaps resented intercession of Tupita. His hand had been stayed not by the merits of my case, if ti had them, or even by a master" s decision to spare a contrite, errant slave, but by his love for a woman, and, indeed, one who was only a slave. In this he may even have felt that he had lost honor. The plan, then, of Tupita and the stranger had been a simple one, involving the utilization of a common biological universal, the placatory, behaviors of the errant female before the dominant male. In this way, it seemed, they hoped that his wrath might be diverted to desire, and that in place of my blood he might be persuaded to accept in substitution something as simple as my beauty, and my total subjugation and conquest. This sort of thing is not unknown. Many times in conquered cities women kneel before invading warriors, baring their breasts and bodies, begging not to be put to the sword but rather to be permitted to please them, and then to be kept as slaves. It is a well-known fact, too, that it is not easy for a man to remain angry with a beautiful, contrite female who strips herself before him, kneels, kisses his feet, begs his forgiveness, and pleads to be ordered to the furs, that she may there await him in trepidation, and, when he chooses, attempt to assuage the harshness of his wrath with the softness of her beauty and love.
"You do not mind, do you?" asked the stranger, "If she performs for the rest of us?"
"Of course not," said Mirus.
"I understand, girl," he said, "that you are a dancer."
"Yes, Master," I said. "I have danced."
"Are you a dancer?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," I said. "I am a dancer."
"And have you danced before men?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," I said. Surely he knew this. I gathered then that he did not wish it known that he knew me. This, like his features concealed in the mask, it seemed, he wished to keep secret, at least from Mirus and Tupita. It was possible, of course, I suppose, that he really did not remember me from before. But I knew him, even with the mask. Surely he most know em. I was not even masked. Indeed, I was hardly clothed. If he did not remember me, then, I supposed, it was because there had been little about me of interest to him, or to make me worth remembering. But if he gave me a chance I would try, and desperately, through sedulous service and unstinting love, to make myself well worth remembering to him! Perhaps he had known many women, and really did not remember me?