It was getting darker now. I wanted to go back to the camp. I felt very helpless, kneeling there, naked, chained to the stirrup.
"I shall return with you to your camp, to pick up the sixty-eight men," said Aulus.
"Good," said Pietro Vacchi, turning his tharlarion.
I was suddenly plunged into terror.
"You may break position, Tuka," said Aulus. "What is wrong?" "Nothing, Master," I said, in terror.
I did not want to go to the mercenaries" camp. It was not merely that I feared such men but that Mirus, I knew, was from Brundisium. Indeed, he and Hendow, my former master, had grown up together there. They had known one another since childhood. On the last night I had seen him in the tavern Mirus had told me that he and Hendow would die for one another.
I rose to my feet. Only too clearly was Aulus going to accompany the captain to his camp.
"Master," I begged, pressing myself against the side of Aulus" s tharlarion, looking up at him, "please do not take me to the camp of the mercenaries, please! Please!"
"Why?" he asked.
"I fear one who may be in the camp," I said.
"Who?" he asked.
"Mirus, from Brundisium," I wept.
"If he is from Brundisium," he said, "he is probably on his way back there now." I looked up at him, tears in my eyes. What he said, of course, might be true. I did not know.
"Do not be afraid," he said.
"Please, Master," I said. "Do not take me to the camp!"
"Was he on your chain?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"If it were his intention to hurt you," he said, "he could have done it then." "Please do not take me to the camp!" I begged.
"Do you really think I am going to send you back to Venna?" he asked. "Please, please!" I begged.
"I, and many others, Vacchi, will be there to protect you," he said. "Please, Master!" I begged.
"Do not embarrass me," he said.
"Come along, Aulus!" called Pietro Vacchi, looking back over his should. "Bring you men, and do not neglect, too, to bring the wagon, with the coins!" "We are coming," called Aulus.
"Please, Master!" I wept, putting my hands to his boot, "Please, Master!"
Then I saw him draw forth a tharlarion whip. "No," I begged, "please!" the lash cut down at me! I felt its blow. I had been whipped! I covered my head and eyes and, terrified, turning about, rushed to the end of the chain, but there, caught by the collar, pulling against the stirrup. I was brought up short, half choked, terrified. Then he reeled me in, gathering lengths of the chain in his hand. He then, as I stood there, naked, trembling, put the whip again to me, three times, and then another lash, for good measure. I was then sobbing, and weeping, wildly. He then cast loose the chain and moved his tharlarion forward, to ride with Pietro Vacchi. I hastily, whipped, stumbled after him.
"Tonight," said Pietro Vacchi, as though he might not have noted my beating, "you will be entertained as though you might be a Ubar!"
"The hospitality of Pietro Vacchi is well known," said Aulus.
I hoped, wildly, that Mirus would not be in the camp of Pietro Vacchi. I hoped he would have already set out for Brundisium. Surely he would not be expecting me to be brought to the camp.
"I have picked up a gentlewoman from Ar," said Pietro Vacchi. "Perhaps you would enjoy enlightening her on what it is to be a female."
"However I may be of service," said Aulus.
"And your little Tuka is a pretty one," said Vacchi.
"She is only a slave," said Aulus, "but she is, of course, yours for the evening."
"Excellent!" said Pietro Vacchi.
I hurried along beside the tharlarion of Aulus, his stirrup chain on my neck. "Ho, Lad!" called Vacchi, holding in his tharlarion. "This is not the way to Brundisium!" he addressed a tall fellow in the shadows, making his way northward on the Viktel Aria.
The figure in the shadows lifted his head.
I had quickly knelt, as soon as the progress of the tharlarion had been arrested, with my head down to the stones of the Vitkel Aria. I did not want to be recognized. The figure in the shadows had been one I could not mistake. The tharlarion began their trek again, southward, toward the camp of Vacchi, the men of Aulus, and the wagon, with its box of coins, following.
There had been no mistaking the figure in the shadows. Too, it had been going north, not west, or northwest, toward Brundisium. It had been going north on the Vitkel Aria, toward Venna, in the vicinity of which lay the camp of the black chain of Ionicus.
I grasped the chain with two hands. I could not get it off my neck.
Surely in the darkness I had not been recognized. Surely I would have seemed then only another slave, only another soft, pretty thing, of no account, kneeling on the road, kneeling in the darkness, its head down, its neck chained to a master" s stirrup.
I dared not look back.
How formidable the figure had seemed, so tall, so broad-shouldered, so purposeful, so menacing, in its remnants of a work tunic. But, now, too, I was sure it was armed. Over its left shoulder, there had been slung a strap, from which had hung a scabbard, the attitude of which had suggested only too clearly that it was weighted with a blade.
"Perhaps, earlier in the evening," Aulus was saying, "before you are ready for her in your tent, you might put her before your men."
"How is that?" asked Vacchi.
"She is not unskilled in the movements of slave dance," said Aulus. "My lads could use a treat," said Vacchi. "Too, I could use ostraka in a helmet for her, with five granting her use. What think you?"
"Excellent," said Aulus. "Your men will be pleased."
I looked back. I almost cried out with fear. The fellow who had been going north was no longer going north. He had changed his direction. He had been moving toward Venna, and the camp of the black chain of Ionicus. But he was now coming south. He was behind the wagon, rather to its right, as I looked back. Indeed, he was only twenty yards, or so, now, behind me.
"Too," said Aulus, "by the time she is brought to your tent she should then be nicely ready."
"Precisely," laughed Vacchi.
I followed the men, on my chain tether. So I might dance? So soldiers might draw lots for my use? So I might serve Pietro Vacchi? But what then? Would the man following not "bide his time" as Tupita had said? Would there not come a time, sooner or later, if he were patient, when he could find me alone? I might even be staked out, my hands and legs widely separated. I had heard mercenaries sometimes enjoyed fastening women down in such a way. But I would be scarcely less helpless if I were in a tiny slave cage, through the bars of which he might thrust with his sword, perhaps a hundred short, sharp times, or, similarly available to him, for whatever he might choose to do to me, chained with my belly to a tree, my ankles and wrists fastened about it.
I looked back in fear.
He was still following!
One stroke of his sword, I knew, if it were his decision to be swift with me, could remove my head.
"I am looking forward to seeing her dance," said Vacchi.
But I did not even know if he would be swift with me.
"Have you used her?" asked Vacchi.
"Several times," said Aulus.
"How is she?" asked Vacchi.
"She is a slave," laughed Aulus.
"Do you recommend her?" asked Vacchi.
"Yes," said Aulus.
"She is a slave?" said Vacchi.
"She is a superb slave," said Aulus.
"Excellent!" said Vacchi.
I hoped tat when the men were through with me, the others, and the master, Pietro Vacchi, that they would put me in a slave pen, preferably with other girls. Surely in a camp of mercenaries they would have other girls. Such should be common in such a camp. They would presumably pick them up here and there, perhaps selling some, and adding others. Perhaps some, more beautiful, or popular, might be kept more or less permanently with the troops. Perhaps some of the soldiers, officers probably, even had their own girls, taken here or there, their own property. They had spoken of a "gentlewoman," though, I suppose, if she were free, she would not be put with slaves, but might sleep chained at the feet of her captor, at least until her thigh made the acquaintance of the brand and her neck of the collar. Hopefully the bars would be sturdy, and closely set. I would want to sleep near the center of the pen. It would be safer there. Perhaps such things, the presence of other slaves, and of bars of iron, could protect me.