He put it down, by the wall, with his helmet.
"Oh!" cried the Lady Temione, pulled half to her feet.
I noted the pouch had a lock. It would not, thus, be easy to open it and examine, or remove, the contents. To be sure, I was less interested in its contents than in something else. It would, of course, as he seemed to be some sort of courier, be a useful adjunct to a disguise.
He held the Lady Temione before him, her head back, his beard but inches from her throat.
"That is a free woman," I said, dryly.
With a noise of disgust he turned and cast her from him, to her side, to the foot of my space, on my blanket.
I did not know if her recognized her from before, from the paga room, or not. He was drunk. It was dark.
He looked about. As I thought, he would prefer the corner space. I did not think it would matter much to him that it was occupied.
"Ai!" cried the fellow from the space, lifted up, and suddenly thrown against the wall.
The newcomer thrust his face against the fellow's face, holding him back to the wall. "Why are you in the wrong space?" he asked him.
"I am not in the wrong space!" gasped the fellow.
He was then flung again against the wall.
"Why!" demanded the newcomer.
"There must be some mistake!" said the fellow. He was the same fellow, incidentally, happily, as I now noted, whom the newcomer had earlier ejected from his bath, and then drafted into service as a bath attendant. He was probably the sort of fellow who was very organized and rational, had come early to the inn, generally conducted his life in a sensible manner, and so on. To be sure, fellows such as the newcomer can be the bane of such fellows. Again he was flung against the wall. This was a bit noisy, but then I was not asleep. "I have the ostrakon for this space!" said the fellow.
"What has that to do with it?" asked the newcomer, again slamming him against the wall.
"Nothing, of course!" said the fellow, trying to get his breath. "I am sorry I am in the wrong space! I apologize! Forgive me! It was stupid of me!" The newcomer let him slip to the floor and the fellow hastily, crawling, fetched his belongings from space 99.
"You would not be thinking of leaving, perhaps to complain to the keeper, would you?" asked the newcomer.
"no, no, of course not," said the put-upon fellow.
He then placed his belongings in space 98, next to mine.
I frankly doubted that the keeper would be keen to mix into such an altercation, particularly one involving an armed mercenary, a fellow of the company of Artemidorus.
"You are a big fellow, too," said the put-upon fellow, looking at me. "I trust you do not want this place."
"No," I told him.
"If you do," he said, "I could always fling myself into the wall now. I have had experience."
"Do not be bitter." I said. "Get that thing out of my sight," said the bearded fellow, looking at Lady Temione. She still lay much where she had been thrown, away from him, on her side, much afraid to move, her hands tied behind her, her head toward my feet, the chain, and the tag, on her neck. She put her head down, not daring to look upon him.
"I rented her for an Ahn," I said. "I think the time must be nearly up, and the keeper's man should be along presently."
"What did she cost you?" he asked.
"A tarsk bit," I said.
"That is far more than she is worth," he said.
"Perhaps," I said.
"In many cities," he said, "one could have a coin girl for that." "True," I said. Coin girls were a form of street slave, usually sent into the streets around dusk by their masters, who commonly own several of them, with a chain on their neck, to which would be attached, normally, a bell, to call attention to their whereabouts, and a small, locked coin box. And woe to the girl who returns with coins jangling in the box! To be sure, in some places, one might even have a paga slave, or a brothel slave, for as little as a tarsk bit. "It is too much for a free woman," he said.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Particularly one such as that," he said, contemptuously.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Perhaps it is appropriate," he said, "a tarsk bit for a fat she-tarsk." "She is not really so fat," I said. To be sure, her figure could be considerably improved, and, if she became a slave, undoubtedly it soon would be.
"I have seen tharlarion," he said, "who were better looking."
Lady Temione, lying on her side, her hands tied behind her, stiffened in anger. I did not understand her response. Certainly she did not think that she was slave attractivea€”certainly not yet.
"They could not easily have charged less than a tarsk bit," I said, somewhat irritatedly. I must try to control myself. The tarsk bit, of course, in most cities, is the smallest-denomination coin in common circulation. "For so much," he said, "they should have rented her to you for a month."
"Perhaps," I said.
"Such she-tarsks are worthless," he said. "She probably doesn't even know what to do with her toes."
"Probably not," I admitted.
Lady Temione looked up, startled.
"She should have been put in a slave harness and sent to a training school," he said.
"I doubt that there are any nearby," I said.
"She should have been apprenticed to a slave," he said.
"Perhaps she will be," I said. "As I understand it, it was only tonight that she was put in the chain collar." Such training schools are normally found only in the cities. Usually, but not always, they are attached to houses of slavers. Needless to say, their students are seldom free women, but almost always slaves. The harness he referred to was undoubtedly not a security harness but a training harness, a complex affair, consisting of numerous straps and rings. It is useful, for example, in helping a woman learn how to serve a master while being denied the use of certain of her limbs, for example, her hands. It is commonly worn naked. Similarly, it helps the woman to adjust to her helplessness and her condition, as, in it, she may be fastened in an incredible variety of attitudes and positions. Its utility is limited by little more than the imagination of the master.
"You must be a strange one," he said to me, "to make do with a free female." "She does not have to remain free," I said.
Lady Temione shuddered with fear. The tag, and padlock, shook on her collar. "That is true."
He looked at the Lady Temione. She did not dare to meet that fierce gaze. Perhaps it was just as well. She might have been cuffed or kicked. I would not have approved had he done this, but under the circumstances, considering my purposes, I would not have interfered. As she was within my rental, and a free person, of course, the administration of any such discipline was really mine to do, and not his. If he wished to beat her, he should have requested my permission. Alternatively, he might have waited a bit, and paid her next rent fee himself. Any free person, incidentally, may discipline a slave. If this were not the case, then a slave, outside the knowledge of her master, might dare to be insolent to a free person.
"It would not be worth harnessing her," he said. "She would be too stupid to learn."
"Any woman can be taught," I said.
"I am a free woman!" suddenly wept the Lady Temione.