"Keep your head down," I muttered to Marcus.
"Very well," he growled. Phoebe was behind us, on her stomach, shuddering, covering her head with her hands. I did not envy her, a naked slave, caught inadvertently in such a place.
In a few moments the procession had passed and we rose to our feet. The crowd had dissipated about us.
"You are safe now," I said to Phoebe, "or at least as safe as is ever a female slave."
She knelt timidly at the feet of Marcus, holding to his leg.
"We cannot resist Cos," said a man, a few feet from us.
"We must place our trust in the Priest-Kings," said another.
Across from us, about seven feet away, on the other side of the narrow street, was the free woman who had secured her robes, that they might not touch an Initiate. She rose to her feet, looking after the procession. We could still hear the bells. The smell of incense hung in the air. Near the free woman was a female slave, in a short gray tunic. She, too, had been caught, like Phoebe, in the path of the procession. She had knelt with her head down to the street, the palms of her hands on the stones, making herself small, in a common position of obeisance. The free woman looked down at her. As the girl saw she was under the scrutiny of a free person she remained on her knees. "You sluts have nothing to fear," said the free woman to her, bitterly, "It is such as I who must fear." The girl did not answer. There was something in what the free woman had said, though in the frenzy of a sacking, the blood of the victors racing, flames about, and such, few occupations of a fallen city. I supposed, either free or slave, were altogether safe. "It will only be a different collar for you," said the free woman. The girl looked up at her. She was a lovely slave I thought, a red-haired one. She kept her knees tightly together before the free woman. had she knelt before a man she would probably have had to keep them open, even if they were brutally kicked apart, a lesson to her, to be more sensitive as to before whom she knelt. "Only a different collar for you!" cried the free woman, angrily. The girl winced, but dared not respond. To be sure, I suspected, all things considered, that the free woman was right. Slave girls, as they are domestic animals, are, like other domestic animals, of obvious value to victors. It is unlikely that they would be killed, any more than tharlarion or kaiila. They would be simply chained together, for later distribution or sale. Then the free woman, in fury, with her small gloved hand, lashed the face of the slave girl, back and forth, some three or four times. She, the free woman, a free person, might be trampled by tharlarion, or be run through, or have her throat cut, by victors. Such things were certainly possible. On the other hand, the free women of a conquered city, or at least the fairest among them, are often reckoned by besiegers as counting within the yield of prospective loot. Many is the free female in such a city who has torn away her robes before enemies, confessed her natural slavery, disavowed her previous masquerade as a free woman, and begged for the rightfulness of the brand and collar. This is a scene which many free woman have enacted in their imagination. Such things figure, too, in the dreams of woman, those doors to the secret truths of their being. The free woman stood there, the breeze in the street, as evening approached, ruffling the hems of her robes. The free woman put her fingers to her throat, over the robes and veil. She looked at the slave, who did not dare to meet her eyes.
"What is it like to be a slave?" she asked.
"Mistress?" asked the girl, frightened.
"What is it like, to be a slave?" asked the free woman, again.
"Much depends on the master, beautiful Mistress," said the girl. The slave could not see the face of the free woman, if course, but such locutions, "beautiful Mistress," and such, on the part of slave girls addressing free women, are common. They are rather analogous to such things as "noble Master," and so on. They have little meaning beyond being familiar epithets of respect.
"The master" said the free woman, shuddering.
"Yes, Mistress," said the girl.
"You must do what he says, and obey him in all things?" asked the free woman. "Of course, Mistress!" said the girl, and leaped to her feet, scurrying away. "You may go," said the free woman.
"Thank you, Mistress!" said the girl, and leaped to her feet, scurrying away. The free woman looked after the slave. Then she looked across at us, and at Phoebe, who lowered her eyes, quickly. Then, shuddering, she turned about and went down the street, to our left, in the direction from whence the Initiates had come.
"The people of Ar are frightened," said Marcus.
"Yes," I said.
We saw a fellow walk by, mumbling prayers. He was keeping track of these prayers by means of a prayer ring. This ring, which had several tiny knobs on it, was worn on the first finger of his right hand. He moved the ring on the finger by means of the knobs, keeping track of the prayers that way, comes to the circular knob, rather like a golden circle at the termination of the Initiate's staff, one knows one had completed one cycle of prayers. One may then stop, or begin again.
"Where do you suppose the Initiates were bound?" I asked Marcus.
"To their temple, I suppose," he said.
"What for?" I asked.
"For their evening services, I presume," he said, somewhat irritably.
"I, too, would conjecture that," I said.
"The sun gate!" he cried. "We must be there before dark!"
"Yes," I agreed.
"Is there time?" he asked.
"I think so," I said.
"Come!" he said. "Come quickly!"
He then, leading the way, hurried up the street. I followed him, and Phoebe raced behind us.
2 The Tent
"You may turn about," said Marcus, standing up.
Phoebe, kneeling, gasping, unclasped her hands from behind her neck, and lifted her head from the dirt, in our small tent, outside the walls of Ar, one of hundreds such tents, mainly for vagabonds, itinerants and refugees.
"Thank you, Master," said Phoebe. "I am yours. I love you. I love you."
"Stand and face me," he said. "Keep you arms at your sides.
Marcus took a long cord, some five feet or so in length, from his pouch, and tossed it over his shoulder.
"Am I to be bound now?" she asked.
"The air seems cleaner and fresher outside the walls," I said.
We could hear the sounds of the camp about us.
"It is only that we do not have the stink of incense here," smiled Marcus.
"Do you know what this is?" he asked, Phoebe. He held in his hand, drawn forth from his pouch, a bit of cloth.
"I am not certain," she said, timidly, hopefully, "Master." Her eyes lit up. I smiled.
"It is a tunic!" she cried, delightedly.
"A slave tunic," he said, sternly.
"Of course, Master," she said, delightedly, "for I am a slave!"
It was a sleeveless, pullover tunic of brown rep cloth. It was generously notched on both sides at the hem, which touch guarantees an additional baring of its occupant's flanks.
I saw that Phoebe wanted to reach out and seize the small garment but that she, under discipline, kept her hands, as she had been directed, at her sides. The cord over Marcus' shoulder, of course, was the slave girdle, which is used to adjust the garment on the slave. Such girdles may be tied in various ways, usually in such ways as to enhance the occupant's figure. Such girdles, too, like the binding fiber with which a camisk is usually secured on a girl, may be used to bind her.
"It is to be mine, is it not?" asked Phoebe, eagerly, expectantly, hopefully. She would not be fully certain of this, of course. Once before, in the neighborhood of Brundisium, far to the north and west, when she had though she was to receive a similar garment, one which had previously been worn by another slave, Marcus refused to permit it to her. He had burned it. She was from Cos. "I own it," said Marcus, "as I own you, but it is true that it was with you in mind that I purchased it, that you might wear it when permitted, or directed."
"May I touch it, Master?" she asked, delightedly.
"Yes," he said.
I watched her take the tiny garment in her hands, gratefully, joyfully.