"This is the former Lady Mina, a huntress, from the luxurious Noviminae villas in the vicinity of Lydius. But she is a huntress no more."
I regarded her.
"Speak," said my hostess to the woman.
"I went hunting," she said, "but it was I who was caught and put in a cage." "How were you taken?" I asked.
"Please," she said.
"Speak," I said, "or will it be necessary to draw you forth from the cage and whip you?"
"I was the Lady Mina," she said, "of the villas of Noviminae, near Lydius. I set out in my hunting leather with crossbow, upon a pacing tharlarion, after tabuk." "You were alone?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"A fool, fit for the collar," commented my hostess.
"I was after tabuk," she said, "but others, too, were abroad that day, who sought a slower, softer game."
My hostess laughed, and the slave clasped the bars yet more tightly.
"I did not suspect they were in the vicinity," said the slave.
"That is not unusual," I said. Such men, of course, commonly know their business. "I spotted a tabuk, and set off in hot pursuit, across the fields," she said. "It was an agile, wily beast, and led me a splendid chase. Intent upon it I did not note the other riders, closing in upon me. The tabuk harried to exhaustion, helpless, lying gasping on the grass, I rode to it, my crossbow ready. It would not be a difficult shot. I would enter my bolt into its heart. I took aim. But the bow was lifted from me. "Greetings, said a man. "How dare you interfere! I cried. "The tabuk is mine! "No, he said, "it is you who are ours. "What? I cried. "Greetings, said he then, "slave. "What! I cried. But I felt then two ropes, from opposite sides, encircle my neck. I was dragged back off the tharlarion into the grass. I sprang to my feet. I reached for my dagger, but it had been removed from my sheath! I stood there, wild, on the grass, between them, the two ropes on my neck. Then in short order I was stripped and bound, my ankles together and my hands before me. I saw the exhausted tabuk recover and rise unsteadily to its feet, and trot away. I, on the other hand, was thrown on my back before the saddle of the leader of these men. Both my bound ankles and wrists were thonged to rings. I was in the place in which I would have brought home the tabuk, save I would have had him on his belly, so bound. My captor had put me on my back, I suppose, so that I might see him. We then began to move slowly toward a distant wood, that of Nina. It was in that place that they had their camp. "Oh! I cried. I had never felt the hands of a man on my body. "You cannot do this to me! I cried. "I am a free woman! "Be silent, said he, "slave. I struggled wildly. Then he leaned down and seized me by the hair with his left hand, and pulled my head up, and then, then with the flat of his right hand, cuffed me, and then flung me back where I had been, as though I might have been a mere object. I could not believe it. He had cuffed me! Me! A woman from the villas of Noviminae! I lay there before him. We rode slowly. I could not believe what he was doing to me. I was a free woman! I dared not protest. I had learned my captor was not a weakling, and that he was quite capable of punishing me. Soon I began to squirm before the saddle. I could not even begin to understand such feelings. Some of the men laughed. At last, as we entered among the trees of the woods of Nina, he gave me respite. "Thank you, I said pridefully, in haughty irony. But in a moment I jerked helplessly, writhing, looking up at him, in frustration against the rings. The men laughed. "Yes? he asked. "Nothing! I said. I dared not confess to him how distressed I was at the stoppage of his touch, at the cessation of those intriguing, unfamiliar, troubling sensations which seemed to radiate through my entire body, seeming to change everything within me and my whole concept of myself. I dared not beg for more. We were then at his camp, and I was put bound on the leaves of the wood's floor. They had brought my tharlarion along. I supposed they would sell it. I wondered what my own fate would be."
My hostess laughed.
"Go on," I said.
"There were other girls, too, in this camp," she said, "but they appeared to be mere peasant lasses. They were on a common neck chain, stripped, fastened between two trees. They seemed, unlike myself, suitable candidates for slavery." My hostess smiled.
"Continue," I told the slave.
" "You will now beg to wear shackles and cook, said the leader. "Never, I said. They then untied me, but only to string me up by the ankles to a tree branch. In moments I begged to wear shackles, and cook. They took me down, and, in horror, I saw the metal put on my ankles. They were close shackles, and gave me a play of no more than three horts. They need not fear I would run away. I then, though I was of the villas of Noviminae, cooked. It was the first time I had ever served men."
"How did you feel about this?" I asked.
She looked down.
"Speak," said my hostess, sternly.
"I was unutterably thrilled, so to serve men," she whispered.
"Of course," said my hostess, "for you were not truly a huntress. You were only a slave pretending to be a huntress."
"Yes, Mistress," said the woman in the collar.
"The pretense is now over," said my hostess. "Yes, Mistress," she said.
"What occurred then?" I asked the slave.
"There is little more to tell," she said. "After the meal I lay at the feet of my captors. I was docile. I hoped that they would touch me. After they had drunk they removed the shackles from me and I was passed about, among them. I could not believe the things I did, nor the feelings I experienced. There were cries of rage, and denunciation, from the other girls, who could see everything. But I did not care. I could not help myself. They had a wagon there, with a cage on it. They would leave the camp after darkness. When they left, I, and the others, were bound hand and foot, and put in gag hoods, so that we could neither see nor speak. We were then put in the wagon cage. It was locked. We then were taken from the woods of Nina. Eventually, when our solicitations for aid would be meaningless, for who cares about the lamentations of unknown females, our gag hoods and bonds were removed. Then, still sturdily encaged, but mercifully now only stripped, we were brought south. It was a long trip. In the beginning I was much at the mercy of the other girls, and was much beaten by them. They resented my behavior in the woods. Then, at a night camp, another girl was taken from the wagon, for the pleasure of the captors. She learned, too, she was a woman. There were then two to abuse, and beat. Then there were three. And, soon, there were more in the cage who now knew themselves than did not. The beatings then must stop, save for those administered, and often harshly by the captors. Then, in time, there were none in the cage who has still to learn the meaning of their sex, none who had not now learned that they were slaves, and fully."
"Excellent," I said.
"We even began to beg for the attentions of our captors,"
"Of course," I said.
"What had begun in the vicinity of Lydius, as, with the possible exception of myself, a cage of free women had become, by the time we had reached Venna, on the Viktel Aria, a cage of competitive, amorous slaves."
"Was it at Venna that you were legally imbonded?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "it was there that the legal details were attended to. Our captors, quite rightly, adjudged us now ready for our brands and collars. The technicalities were attended to. We were legal slaves.
"I see," I said.
"It was only a short trip then," she said, "to the sales rooms of Ar." "I understand," I said.
She, kneeling there in the cage, her hands on the bars, looked up at me. "I had been a rich woman of the villas of Noviminae," she said. "I think my captor enjoyed selling me to a brothel."
"Doubtless," I said.
She moved back a bit from the bars. She put down her head.
"What did you pay for her?" I asked.
"Three silver tarsks," said my hostess.