"You will be on a chain, with other free women. You will be in the keeping of my friend, and agent, Ephialtes, as sutler. He will take care of you, or sell you, or whatever, as seems appropriate. It was my intention that you be put in slave strips in order that your sense of vulnerability, and your passion, suitably, might be increased. Too, in this fashion, I am, to some extent, preparing you for the terrors and exposures of the coffle. I have removed one slave strip as a punishment, and a sign of my power over you. To be sure, this will even further increase your sense of vulnerability, and your passion. Too, it may also better prepare you for what you might experience on the coffle, the scrutiny and attentions of men, for example. The other women, incidentally, will be stripped, totally, and their heads have been shaved. As you will, at least for a time, have a slave strip, and your hair, you will be regarded as the "first' of the free women. All of you, however, will be subject to Liadne, a slave. She will be first girl over you. She has whip rights, and so on, over you, and behind her is the power of men."
"I understand," she said.
"She has also been given a slave tunic," I said.
"How often," smiled Phoebe, "did I, as a free woman, feel repulsion and horror at even the sight of such scanty, revealing garments, in which slaves were put. Not I would be grateful for so much.
I smiled. The tunic, in its way, put Liadne a thousand times above her charges. "But she is a slave, is she not?" asked Phoebe.
"Yes," I said. Thus Liadne, tunic or not, was infinitely far beneath her. Indeed, they were not even comparable. They were not even on the same scale. One was a person, the other was an animal.
"I would that I were as she," she said.
"Perhaps, someday, you will be," I said.
"My arms are weary," she said. "May I lower them?"
"No," I said.
"May I confess something to you?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"When in Cos, and elsewhere, as a free woman," she said, "I saw slaves in slave tunics I told you that I felt horror and repulsion."
"Yes?" I said.
"But even more," she said, "I wanted myself to be put in such a tunic, and be similarly subject to men!"
"I understand," I said.
"As I am a free woman," she said, "I am shamed, keenly, to wear what I now wear, but, if I were a slave, I do not think I would be shamed. I think, rather, I would be grateful, for I might as easily have been accorded nothing. Similarly, I do not really think I would object, if I were a slave, and not a free woman, to being naked on a chain. I think, rather, I would feel grateful and very proud, that men had found me attractive enough, and exciting enough, to put me there."
"There are many aspects to slavery," I said.
"I think I am aware of aspects, from the point of view of my female fulfillments, that you, as a man, may not fully understand," she said. "Perhaps," I said. "I do know that woman make excellent slaves." "Have you never wondered why?" she asked.
"Perhaps because they are slaves," I said.
"Yes!" she said.
"Such as you?"
"Yes!"
"Yet even so," I said, "I suspect that there are senses of slavery, and aspects of slavery, that one can never fully fathom or anticipate until the experience is real for one."
"Doubtless," she said, shuddering.
I regarded her. She was lovely, kneeling before me, in the slave strip and cord, her hands clasped behind the back of her neck.
"May I lower my arms now?"
"No," I said.
"You are training me, aren't you?" she said.
"Perhaps," I said.
"I am afraid," she said.
"Do you know why I had you kneel as you are?" I asked.
"That you might busy yourself with my garmenture, without interference," she said.
"Are you modest?" I asked.
"Of course," she said. "I am a free woman."
"But when you first presented yourself before me, at the inn," I said, "you had bared your breasts."
"I think I have pretty breasts," she said.
"You do," I said.
"I bared them," she said, "because I did not wish to risk rejection." "So that is the sort of woman you are," I said.
"Yes," she said. "So not," I said, "how you could possibly object if you must display them again, and as I see fit, even as a slave?" she put down her head.
"You may lower your arms," I said.
She lowered her arms, and knelt back, on her heels.
"Knees spread," I said.
She complied.
"The slave strips looks well, fallen between your thighs," I said.
"Thank you," she said.
"Your thighs are pretty," I said.
She blushed.
"Yes," I said, "and your belly and breasts, and the rest of you." "Thank you," she said.
"Yes, you are remarkably lovely," I said. "Yes, I think you would make a lovely slave."
She trembled.
"What is wrong?" I asked.
"I am afraid," she said.
"Why?" I asked.
"I do not know anything of being a slave," she said, "should it be done to me! I know nothing of pleasing men! I do not even know the drapings of tunics, the tying of slave girdles!"
"Should you become a slave," I said, "submit yourself to your sisters in bondage, not as one who was recently a free woman but as one who is now the lowest and most ignorant of slaves, the humblest of tyros and novices. Watch them. Learn from them. Serve them. Bring them small treats which you might earn. Beg them to help you, to teach you their ways, their arts and secrets. Even such small things as the use of the tongue can make a great difference in whether you survive or not."
She trembled.
"Reach now," I said, "to the cord at the left side of your waist." "I do not even know how to strip myself before a man," she said, in misery. "There are a thousand ways in which it may be done," I said. She touched the cord. Her fingers were on it. Then she looked up at me. "How might a slave do this?" she asked.
"In one of a thousand ways," I smiled.
She moaned.
"A typical way might be as follows," I said. "The girl might stand or kneel before the master. She might say, "Your property begs to be permitted to reveal herself to you. Then, if the permission is granted, she does so."
"Your property begs to be permitted to reveal herself to you," she whispered, softly.
"But," I said, "as you are a free woman, you are not my property." She regarded me.
"And so I do not grant you permission."
"Are you angry?" she asked.
"No," I said, angrily. The slave was so visible in her, so near the surface, that it was maddening. How it strove to emerge, and become her, totally! That she, such a woman, should still be free was an outrage to all justice and rationality. Her thigh should bear a brand! She belonged in a collar!
"Master?" she asked.
I forced myself to remember that she, fittingly or not, absurdly or not, was at least at this moment, free.
"Master!" she pleaded.
She was not now a slave. I must accord her dignity and respect!
"Collar me!" she begged.
I seized her by the arms.
I held her.
But then, in the distance, we heard the trumpets, the horns.
"What is it?" she asked.
"It is the recall," I said. "The assault has been terminated."
"The city has not yet fallen," she said.
"No," I said.
I released her.
"Shall I build up the fire?" she asked.
"No," I said.
I went outside the tent and scuffed some dirt over the remains of the fire and then reentered the tent, and, from the inside, tied shut the flaps.
"It is dark," she said. "Lie down," I said.
I removed my belt, and tunic, and crouched beside her.
I put my hand down, into her hair, and lifted her head a bit, and turned it, in the darkness. With my other hand, I touched her neck.