“Oh?” said the stranger.
The slave, on her knees, turned white.
“It is his claim that she is the former Lady Flavia of Ar, a fugitive, one for whom a sizable bounty would be paid. I was to arrange for her delivery to Ar, collect the bounty, and divide it, on my return, with him.”
“Interesting,” said the stranger.
“In any event,” said the captain, “the slave is yours.”
“Yes,” said the stranger, “she is mine.”
The tone of his voice, I conjectured, would leave no doubt in the slave’s mind but what she was indeed his.
It would be up to him, whether or not she would be taken to Ar.
With another short, courteous bow, Captain Nakamura withdrew.
I was apprehensive.
The attitude of the stranger seemed to have changed.
Outside the tall window a cloud must have passed before Tor-tu-Gor, and the room seemed suddenly, ominously dark, and the slave little more than a shadow between us.
But the simple words of Captain Nakamura, I thought, even more than a darkening cloud, had engloomed the chamber. It was as though they had enkindled a mysterious lamp, a lamp of memory, which, when lit, emitted not light, but darkness, fear, and cold. Where there had been warmth, light, joy, touching, and love, there was now a dampness, as of the dungeon, a darkness as of caverns, a polar chill, the coldness of fearful order, of propriety, of a vision of justice, as unwelcome as the touch of a snake at night.
The stranger handed me the scrap of cloth, which would be a typical slave tunic. He retained the sirik.
I myself had no doubt that the slave, appropriately on her knees before her master, the stranger, had once been highly placed in Ar, and perhaps a conspirator in the treason that had betrayed that city into the hands of Cos, Tyros, and several of the free companies.
The stranger looked down on the slave, and she shrank small before him. I sensed then that his memory swept him back to Ar, and that, for a moment, he saw before him not a loving, eager, precious possession, who might be sought even at the World’s End, but a traitress and fugitive, one vain and treacherous, one who, when free, had betrayed her Home Stone, abused power, and turned even on her supposed friend, whom she had honored as her Ubara.
“Strip,” he said to her.
“Master?” she said.
“Instantly,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, frightened, and hastened to pull away, over her head, the Pani tunic.
He then dangled before her frightened eyes the loops of chain, with its rings.
“I am no longer she whom you despise,” she said. “I am different! I am now in a collar! I am only a collared slave, and yours, my master! I am contrite! I am penitent! I have learned softness, deference, humility, vulnerability, giving, truth, honesty, kindness, caring, service, awareness of others!”
She looked up at him.
With a movement of his foot, he brushed the Pani tunic to the side. I thought it made an unusual noise, sliding on the boards.
“Stand,” he said.
“Surely you care for me, a little!” she said. “And know, Callias, of Jad, that I am yours, not just to the collar, but to the heart.”
He reached down, and struck her twice, sharply, first by the palm of his right hand, and then by the back of his right hand.
“The slave,” he said, “does not soil the name of a free man by putting it on her slave lips.”
I supposed she had been aware of this protocol, that the slave does not address a free person by his name, but, perhaps, in the stress of the moment, this simplicity had escaped her. In any event, such lapses are not permitted in a slave.
“Forgive me,” she said.
He motioned for her to rise, and she did so, and stood before him, though I feared she might fall.
“Prepare to be siriked,” he said.
She put her hand, frightened, before her face, and then, suddenly, turned, and fled to the opposite wall, against which she stood, the palms of her hands at the side of her head, her belly to the wall.
“Return,” he said, evenly.
Numbly, she turned, and retraced her steps, and then stood before him, head down, small before his size and power.
Then she raised her head, and said, “Sirik me.”
The neck ring was snapped about her throat first, rather like a Turian collar. Next her small wrists were clasped in the wrist rings, each at the terminus of the short, horizontal chain, attached to the vertical chain dangling from the collar, which vertical chain, continuing, looped down to the floor where, attached to it was the second horizontal chain, each end of which terminated in an ankle ring. Two snaps, and she was ankle bound. The sirik is a lovely and practical chaining arrangement. The two horizontal chains may be used in conjunction with the vertical chain, or independently, in which case one might have wrist shackles, in which the wrists might be confined before or behind the slave, and ankle shackles. Her wrists, now confined before her, were some six inches apart, and her ankles were something like a foot apart, permitting her to shuffle, or walk with small, careful, measured steps, but not allowing her to run. The vertical chain may function independently, as well, as a chain leash, or a tethering device, by means of which the slave might be secured to a slave ring, a tree, a stanchion, or such. The length of the vertical chain, which may loop to the floor when the slave’s hands are lowered, is also long enough to permit her, her hands lifted, to feed herself.
He regarded the slave before him, small, naked, siriked.
“The visage of Master is terrible,” she said. “Is Master angry? Does Master despise his slave? How different he is now from but moments before. She would that Captain Nakamura had not spoken of past things, of fearful things, of things long since regretted. I am not different from what I was, but moments ago, in Master’s arms.”
He was silent. His fists were clenched.
“It seems Master has recalled another woman,” she said, “the vain, deceitful, greedy, traitress, Flavia of Ar.”
“Yes,” he said.
“She who once was that woman now stands before you,” she said, “naked, and siriked.”
“It is thus,” said the stranger, “that Marlenus prefers to have his captives brought before him, naked and chained, then to be flung to their knees before his throne.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
He regarded her, I fear, with ferocity.
“I am naked and chained,” she said. “I am helpless. You can do with me as you wish. I cannot escape. I cannot prevent you from taking me to the restored Marlenus now, and putting me before him, if you will, my knees on the tiles, before his throne.”
“Cry out now,” he said, angrily, “with all the pride, fury, and rage of the free woman.
“Were I free,” she said, “I would not do so, but would rather beg to be shown mercy, and beg instead that you would make me your slave.”
“You are such?” he said, scornfully.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Slave,” he sneered.
“Yes, Master,” she said, humbly.
“Cry out,” he demanded, “angrily, loudly, insolently! Threaten me! Denounce me!”
“Do you not understand, Master,” she said. “I cannot do so. That is all behind me. See my collar. See my mark! I am now a slave!”
“Yes,” he said, “it is true. I doubt then that you, now a slave, would be impaled as high as a free person, for that might demean them, you, say, some seven or eight feet, not twenty or thirty, as they, to show your lowliness.”
“I am sure,” she said, “in the end, it makes little difference.”
He folded his arms, and regarded her.
“Despise me if you wish,” she said, “but despise me not as the Lady Flavia of Ar, for I am no longer she. Despise me then, if you must, as a slave, the slave that I am.”
“You should be taken to Ar,” he said.