He might have remained crouching in his hole, thinking what thoughts he might, but I do not think he would have dared to touch me. A male slave can be slain for touching a free woman. "She is not here for punishment," Hermidorus had informed the dark shapes beneath the grating. I then realized that a slave girl, perhaps for purposes of her discipline, might be lowered through the grating hole, doubtless into eager hands, the grating then being resecured.
In the corridors, in our movements through them, particularly in the upper levels, we would sometimes encounter slaves, usually employed in domestic tasks, such as running errands, carrying burdens, dusting or cleaning. These women were usually naked, except for their collars, which, I gathered, was the way women were usually kept in a slaver's house. At the approach of the free men, Hermidorus and Drusus, they would immediately position themselves, usually with their knees wide, kneeling back on their heels, their heads up, their bands on their thighs, in the position I had come to understand was that of the pleasure slave, but sometimes, instead; kneeling with the palms of their hands on the tiles, their heads down, too, to the same tiles.
There was one temporary, partial exception to this, which I wrn mention. After we had left some carpeted corridors, higher in the house, and were moving to the lower levels, and traversing heavy, ftagstonelike tiles, we approached a slender, dark-haired girl who, on her hands and knees, in chains, with a bucket of water, cloths and a brush, in that portion of the corridor, was scrubbing tiles.
As we approached, she oriented herself towards us, palms of her hands on the floor, and put her head to the tiles. But, as we neared her, she lifted her head, desperately.
"Hermidorus!" she cried, suddenly. "Hermidorus!"
He stopped before her, a few feet from her, and we stopped, too, behind him. "Do you not know me?" she begged. The chain she wore was a work sirik. It resembles the common sink but the wrists, to permit work, are granted about a yard of chain.
Like the common sirik, it is a lovely chain. Women are beautiful in it.
"Deirdre!" she cried. "Deirdre! Two years ago ill Ar we lived in the same building!"
He looked at her, not speaking.
"Deirdre," she whimpered.
"In the instant you were imbonded, you ceased to be Girl,' be said.
"Girl?" she said.
"what is your house name?" be asked.
"Oh, no," she said. "Not you! Not you, of all people! You not see me as a slave! You could not see me as a slave! I you. That would be impossible! You could not relate to as though I might be a slave! You could not! One such as would never enforce my slavery upon me! One such as you could never do so!" Then she looked up at him, her lower lip trembling. "'Renata' is my house name," she said. He then removed the belt from his tunic. The accouterments on it he handed to Drusus Rencius.
"You lifted your head from the tile position before free persons had passed you, Renata," he said. "You also addressed a free man twice by his name. Similarly your speech has been inadequately deferential. It has not been interspersed at appropriate points, for example, by the expression "Master.' You have also referred to yourself as though you might still be ~Deirdre.' Such falsifications of identity are not permitted to slaves. Deirdre is gone. In her place there is now only a slave, an animal, who must wear whatever name masters choose to put on her. Similarly, when asked a question, that pertaining to your house name, you did not respond with sufficient promptness. Do you understand all that I am saying, fully and clearly, Renata?"
She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. "Yes, Master!" she said.
"On all fours, Renata," he said.
"Yes, Master," she sobbed, assuming this position.
"Perhaps you should precede us a few paces down the hall," said Drusus Rencius to me.
I moved, frightened, a few feet down the hall, not looking. Then, suddenly, I heard the belt beginning to fall, sharply, on the girl. I turned in time to see her on her side, in her chains, receiving the last few blows. She had not been pleasing. She was a slave. Of course she was being punished.
Then Hermidorus, without further ado, took back his accouterments from Drusus and slipped them on his belt. He then fastened the belt again about his waist. I was startled that one such as he, seemingly so scholarly and gentle, possessed such uncompromising strength. The female had learned, to her sorrow, that in his presence she would not be permitted the least slackness in her discipline. "I am sorry for the interruption," Hermidorus apologized to Drusus Rencius. "That is perfectly all right," said Drusus.
The girl lay on her stomach, in her chains, in the water on the tiles. She lifted her head, gazing in pain, disbelief and awe at Hermidorus. She was a slave who had not been pleasing. She had been put under his belt.
We then continued down the hallway.
"Master," she called out, "I want to lay for you! I want to lay for you! Please have me sent to your rooms! I want to lay for you!"
Hermidorus did not look back.
I looked back. I saw in the girl's eyes that she now knew she was a slave, and helplessly so, and that she loved him.
We continued on our way.
I wondered if he would have her sent to his rooms. The decision' was his. She was a slave.
"As the house opens to the public at the tenth Ahn," said Hermidorus, "perhaps I should now take you to the office of Publius, who wished to greet. you before you left the premises." The tenth Ahn is the Gorean noon.
"Splendid," said Drusus Rencius.
We were then making our way upward from some of the lower pen areas.
I had not realized the complexities of a slaver's house, and this house was not an unusually large one. We had seen the baths and the sales yard, which is also used for exercise; we had seen various holding areas, ranging from silken, barred alcoves for superb pleasure slaves, through cells and cages of various sorts more fit for medium-priced women, to incarceration chambers that were little more than grated pits or gloomy dungeons, areas in which a slave might be terrorized to find herself placed; other holding areas, ranging from good to bad, were no more than a ring position, in a wall or on a floor; we also saw kitchens, pantries, eating areas, some with mere troughs or depressions in the floor, storage areas, guard rooms, offices, and places for the keeping of records; there were also a laundry and an infirmary; too, there were rooms where such subjects as the care and dressing of hair, the application of cosmetics, the selection and use of perfumes, manicure and pedicure, and slave costuming were taught, and even rooms where inept women, usually former members of the upper castes, could be instructed in the small domestic tasks that would now be expected of them, small services suitable for slaves, such as cleaning, cooking and sewing. Certain areas of the house, however, I was not shown, presumably because I was a free woman, such as the lowest pens, the branding chamber, the discipline room, and the rooms where girls were taught to kiss and caress, and the movements of love.
"I will be good! I will be good!" I heard a girl cry, from within a low, steel, rectangular box, shoved against the side of the passage, presumably that it would not be in the way. I stopped, startled. It had not occurred to me that a girl could be held within those small confines. Indeed, in the half-darkness of the lamp lit passage I had hardly noticed the box It was about four feet long and three feet wide, with a depth of perhaps eighteen inches. It was of steel and opened from the top. In the lid, at each end, there was a circle, about five inches in diameter, of penny-sized holes. It was locked shut, secured by two flat, steel bars, perpendicular to its long axis, padlocked, in front, in place. "I will be good!" wept the girl, from within.