I thought that perhaps the inn should provide separate spaces for women, not just separate marked-out spaces, but say, a separate room, or area. She half reared up, making tiny noises. He had gagged her well. Then he pressed her back to the boards. I blamed the keeper as much as anything, three copper tarsks for a girl, for a quarter of an Ahn, was outrageous. It was no wonder that some fellow, under the circumstances, might be forced to make do as he could, even having recourse eventually, if he was desperate enough, to a free woman. I trod a bit further ahead. It was less dangerous now, as I could see better. Too, the tiny tharlarion-oil lamps, here and there, at the walls, were helpful.
"Do not approach me, sleen!" hissed a woman. Her arm was back. She crouched in the center of one of the spaces. Her hand, held back, held a small dagger, of the sort which some women think affords them protection.
"Forgive me, Lady," I whispered, "I am trying to reach my space." She brandished the weapon.
"I mean you no harm," I said. I do not think it is a good idea for women to carry such weapons, incidentally. Their pretentiousness annoys some men. indeed, some men will kill a woman with such a weapon rather than take the moment or so necessary to disarm her and make her helpless.
"Do not approach me!" she hissed. "Oh!" she said. "Stop! You're hurting me!" The dagger fell to the floor. My hand was still on her wrist.
"I shall scream," she whispered, tensely. "oh!"
"It will be difficult to scream, held as you are," I said. My left hand was behind the back of her neck, pressed tightly against it, and my right hand, moved from her wrist, now covered her veiled mouth, tightly, pressing back. She looked at me, angrily, over the veil. She squirmed. She made tiny noises. Her small hands were futile, trying to pull my hand from her mouth.
"I mean you no harm," I said. "I am only trying to get to my place." She nodded, a tiny, difficult movement. "Will you scream, if I release you?" I asked.
She looked at me, and then shook her head, as she could, quickly, earnestly, negatively. She was lying, of course. But this would give me the opportunity to get her veil into her mouth.
I released her mouth and she pulled back and opened her mouth widely, to scream. I bunched and thrust veil into her mouth. She looked at me, wildly, half gagging, my fingers and cloth in her mouth. Little by little, then, with my fingers, patiently, my thumb holding my present accomplishments in place, and pushing them further back, to make room for more folds, I worked more of the veil into her mouth. Finally I pulled out the pins at the side, and completed the work. Some veils are held not with pins but with hooks and cords, passing about the back of the head. Others are a part of the hood itself. With the hood cords, which can fasten the hood more or less closely about the neck, like a cloak. I fastened the veil in place. She then looked at me, well silenced. No longer had she the dignity of the veil.
She did not try to dislodge the silencing device I had placed in her mouth but she lifted her hands, shamed, before her face, to conceal her countenance from me.
I noted how her hands were held before her face.
I pulled her hands down, away from her face. I held them, she helpless to resist, and then, for a time, not hurrying, considered her lips and mouth. They were indeed excellent. She turned her head to the side.
I turned her about and put her on her stomach. I then removed her stockings. Her slippers, removed for the night, were to one side. With one stocking I bound her hands together, behind her back, leaving two ends loose. I then crossed and bound her ankles with the other stocking, and, as she winced, pulled her legs up behind her. I looped one of the two loose ends from the stocking securing her wrists twice about her ankle tie and then tied it to the other loose end. This fastened her in a slave bow. I pulled her hood down about her face. In this way her facial modesty was protected. Her lips and mouth, then, were not exposed to the gaze of men, as though they might be those of a slave. I then found he dagger and, carefully, with regard to her modesty, cut and divided her garments, removing fastening and hooks from them. This left her fully and modestly concealed, albeit with only strips and pieces of clothing, the devices for arranging and closing which had been removed. I did not think she would find that her dignity would be compromised unless, of course, foolishly, she chose to move. I then picked up her small dagger, and my pack, and the blankets, and again made my way toward my space. When I reached it, I put down the pack and blankets. I also put the small dagger under my foot, and pulling up on the handle, broke the blade away. The two parts I cast away, back by the wall. No longer would it endanger her life.
I looked about. There were some empty spaces on the floor, for example, space 98, to my left, as I would face the front of the room, but, on the whole, the level was very crowded. I would have liked the comparative privacy of space 99, in the corner, but it was occupied. I suspected that the empty spaces, or most of them, had been vacated by fellows who had left early. Some folks leave almost in the middle of the night, and then stop at another inn, in the early afternoon. That way they can usually count on obtaining excellent accommodations. Most inns want you out by noon, the tenth Ahn.
I glanced back to the space occupied by the free woman whom I had not found pleasing, she on whose mouth I had seen fit to impose closure, she whom I had left in precarious concealments and slave trussing. She was motionless. I doubted, however, that she was asleep. She would not wish to attract attention to her present straits. In the morning, with folks bustling about, she would probably be all right. Now, however, she might be plucked as easily as a larma, one overhanging a public path. I had scarcely arranged my blankets and put the pack down for a pillow when I saw an attendant enter the room, carrying a stripped female, her hands tied behind her, over his shoulder, her head to the rear, in slave position. I gestured to him, and, exciting my envy somewhat, he picked his way expertly among the sprawled, slumbering bodies to my space. "I shall return in an Ahn," he said. He then sat his burden beside me.
"You!" said the Lady Temione.
"Shhh," I cautioned her. "People are trying to sleep." She tried to struggle to her feet, but I gently placed her on the blanket beside me, on her side.
"This a terrible mistake," she whispered. "You know I am a free woman." "Yes," I said.
She had been relieved of her shackles, but her wrists were thonged behind her back. About her neck, however, there was now wound, in three close, unslippable loops, a heavy length of chain. Two links of this chain, not the end links, were fastened together in front with a heavy padlock. The two ends of the chain then, below the connected links, hung down in front, in an attractive, tielike, cravatlike, arrangement. There was a practical aspect to this as well, of course. The same chain, in virtue of the links selected, may be worn by any woman. Too, attached to this chaining, near the padlock, was a metal tag of some sort. I could not see it well in the darkness.