“Take me to Ar,” she said.
“I do despise you,” he said, “but not for your collar; rather for what you once were.”
“And no longer am,” she said.
“But were once!”
“But no longer!”
“You should be taken to Ar,” he said.
“So,” she said, “I am to be taken to Ar?”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Are there no better things to do with a slave?” she asked.
She was cuffed, sharply.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said.
“Ar would be too easy for you,” he said, “for one who was once the Lady Flavia.”
“Master will not take his slave to Ar?” she said.
He was silent for a time, regarding her. Her head was down. Then he said, “No.”
“Master?” she said, looking up.
“There are better things to do with a slave,” he said.
“That is my hope,” she said.
“Long ago, on the ship,” he said, “I told you that I did not care for gold washed in blood.”
“That pleases me,” she said.
“And thereby I lose myself a fortune,” he said.
“But obtain thereby,” she said, “a much greater fortune, that of being yourself.”
“Slut, slave, vile thing,” he said.
“I will try to please my master,” she said.
His eyes were hard.
“Be kind,” she said, frightened.
There was a small sound, as the links of the sirik rustled.
Not every man, of course, will accept bounty, particularly on a woman. Callias, of Jad, was a warrior, an oarsman, at one time an officer. Bounty hunters are commonly low warriors, men without Home Stones, brigands, assassins, villains, thieves, reprobates, the recklessly impecunious, gamblers, the dishonored. I had not thought that Callias was such a man, and my judgment was now vindicated. To be sure, what now stood stripped and siriked before him had once been the Lady Flavia of Ar. Nothing could change that.
The stranger did not care for gold washed in blood.
Should he then return her to Ar, that she might suffer at the hands of an alien justice?
What good could be served by such an act?
Many are the masks of justice, and behind those masks there may be no face, only a choice of masks.
He who has power chooses a mask to his liking.
How fiercely the masks scowl at one another.
I thought the slave was right, that the Lady Flavia of Ar was gone, that she had vanished, with the snapping of a collar. What remained might be named, and dealt with, as one pleased.
Still the lovely slave between us had once been the Lady Flavia of Ar. That could not be gainsaid.
“May I kneel?” she asked.
The stranger nodded, and she sank to her knees, gratefully. I did not know if she could have managed to stand much longer.
“At least,” I said to the stranger, “you have recalled the nature of the slave.”
“Yes,” he said. “She was once Flavia of Ar.”
“And more broadly, and to the point, and more importantly, I trust, putting aside her past, which we may ignore for the moment,” I said, “you have recollected the nature of a slave, as a slave.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Good,” I said. “Now, I trust, you have overcome your foolishness, or weakness.”
“What foolishness, what weakness?” he asked, not pleasantly.
“At least,” I said, “the remote possibility of caring for a slave.”
“Have no fear,” he said. “I have eluded that danger, if ever it was a danger, which very thought seems absurd. All such risks, however unlikely or tenuous, are put aside.”
“Good,” I said. “Then you will see her, and treat her, as what she is, a slave.”
“Yes,” he said. “As worthless, meaningless collar meat.”
“Precisely,” I said.
“But, in her case,” he said, “there is something in addition, that will add to my pleasure.”
“What?” I asked.
“That she was once the Lady Flavia of Ar.”
The slave, head down, siriked, moaned in misery.
“The Lady Flavia of Ar,” I said, “-who is now mere collar meat.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you hate her?” I asked.
“I must try,” he said.
“For what she once was?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do not hate me, Master!” she wept. “I love you! I love you!”
“Liar!” he said, angrily.
“I may not lie!” she cried. “I am a slave!”
He drew back his hand, and she shrank down, but he did not strike her.
He placed his boot on her shoulder and thrust her to the floor, on her side. She crawled back to him, on her belly, and, putting down her head, kissed the boot which had spurned her to the floor.
“You have been white silk long enough,” he told her.
“Master?” she said.
“On your knees,” he said, “former Lady Flavia of Ar, facing away from me, your head to the floor.”
With a rustle of chain the slave obeyed.
“So, Master?” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Master well humbles the former Lady Flavia of Ar,” she said. “But Alcinoe, the slave, hopes that she will be found pleasing by her master.”
“Return shortly,” said the stranger to me, and I left the room. I heard a jerking of chain, and heard the slave cry out, startled. Then I heard her cry out, “Master! My Master!”
I walked about the trading area, which, if anything, was even busier than before. Against one wall there was a coffle of stripped, kneeling slaves who, I supposed, had been brought in by a dealer, for the inspection of the Pani. From something Captain Nakamura had said earlier, I gathered they had already made certain purchases. The girls were in neck coffle, and had been placed in the position of pleasure slaves, which seemed to be the sort of slaves in which the Pani, for their various purposes, were interested. When a girl was regarded, she would lift her head, and say, “Buy me, Master.” I suspected, however, that few of the girls were interested in being bought by the newcomers, so strange and unfamiliar to them, within whose purview they found themselves scrutinized.
I returned to the open portal of the back room, and entered. “It is as I feared,” I said.
“Oh?” said Callias.
He was seated near a wall, that in which the portal was, cross-legged. The slave was lying near him, lovingly, on her side. I noted blood on her leg, which suggested that, however unlikely it seemed, the Pani had actually kept her white silk. In that I suspected the hand of Lord Nishida and Tarl Cabot, the tarnsman. I noted that she was no longer confined in the sirik, and its coils lay to one side, near the cast-aside Pani tunic. Her head was against one of his legs. She looked at me, but dreamily. It was almost as though I were not there.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“Very little, Master,” she said. She drew up her legs more.
“I am not too pleased,” I said.
“Oh?” said Callias, seemingly distracted.
“Next,” I said, “I suppose you will grant her a tunic.”
“I suppose so,” he said. “That should make it less likely she would be stolen.”
“Am I likely to be stolen?” she asked Callias.
“You are that beautiful,” he told her.
“Master,” she said, kissing his knee.
“Not the Pani tunic,” I said.
“Certainly not,” he said.
The small slave tunic brought into the room earlier by Captain Nakamura, in which the sirik had been wrapped, lay to the side.
“You will, at least, I trust,” I said, “see to it that she works for that tunic, perhaps for several weeks.”
As an animal, a slave is not entitled to clothing. If permitted clothing, it must be understood as a gift from her master. To be sure, most slaves are clothed, particularly in public. Free women are quite adamant on that point. If it is appropriate to speak of a compromise in these matters, presumably it would be that the slave is clothed, but as a slave. Here we have something of an agreement, or compromise, between free women and masters, namely, that the garmenture of the slave must be clearly indicative of her bondage, and, secondly, that the slave, as she is usually the property of a man, may be dressed for his pleasure. The usual outcome of this interaction is the slave tunic. The camisk is less acceptable to free women, but they reconcile themselves to the camisk on the grounds that the female slave is so worthless that it is acceptable for her to be camisked. The female serving slave of a free woman is likely to be modestly tunicked, whereas the slave of a free man is likely to be tunicked in such a manner as to make it clear to other men that she was worth buying.