I went inside the brush wall, and knelt down. I wanted to be protected and fed. I would do what they wished to pay for my lodging. Behind me, the thorn brush, so thick and high, by means of hooked poles, was pulled into place, closing me in the camp with the men, and the girl.
I had now been in the camp for two days. Angrily I tended the brazier, on my knees, fanning the coals. Sparks scattered about. My body was stung by them. I used a squarish piece of stiff leather to fan the coals. From the brazier, protruding, was the handle of an iron.
Many were the menial tasks which I was forced to perform in and about the camp.
I was not pleased.
I had been forced to build fires and help cook the food. I had been forced to help serve the food, and to pour wine and paga for the men, as though I might be a servant. I had been forced to help put food away afterwards, and clean goblets and utensils, and clear away the litter and debris of the feeding. I had been forced to sew rent garments, and once, not satisfied with a seam, Eta had had me rip out the thread and perform the entire task again, doing it well. To my humiliation, too, I was taught to wash clothing on rocks, pounding and rinsing, on my knees, at the edge of the tiny stream which moved through the camp. Outside the camp I was set to picking berries and gathering armloads of wood. Outside the camp I would be accompanied by one of my captor's men. On Earth, I had enjoyed a rather elevated socioeconomic status. In my home we had always had, as long as I could remember, both a maid and a cook. From the age of fifteen I had enjoyed giving them orders, as an equal, but not quite. I was not the sort of girl who was accustomed to perform menial tasks, or be of service to others. That was for women of a rather different class, one beneath mine. But here, in this camp, I was helping Eta to cook, and clean and sew, and performing even more degrading tasks, such as serving men at their meals. That might be all right for Eta. I did not know her class. Judging by her garment it was low. But it was not all right for Judy Thornton. I was a brilliant girl, and I wrote poetry. Sometimes, when no men were about, I would refuse to help Eta. She would then, not speaking, not protesting, but sullenly, perform the task herself. When men were about, I would do what tasks she set me. I was afraid of the men.
There were sixteen men in the camp, including my captor, though seldom, during the day, were there more than four or five within its confines.
My captor himself had set me the work of tending the coals in the brazier, where the iron was heating.
I did not dare disobey him.
I was not surprised that there were coals for the brazier, as, on my first full day in the camp, moving about it, I had discovered that it was well stocked with supplies. It was in the nature of a cache camp, which might be returned to now and again. In a cave in the adjoining cliff there were several boxes. Several were locked, but others were open. There were flasks of wine there, and bottles of the brew called paga; stores of salt, grains, dried meats and vegetables; tunics, cloths and blankets; too, there were tools and utensils, and threads and needles; I found some perfumes and jewelries; I did not dare to bedeck myself with them, though I was curious to do so; they were quite barbaric; the girl, Eta, I noted, wore as her only jewelry a sturdy band on her neck; this suggested to me that one were not simply free to help oneself to such finery; doubtless if the men wished me to wear such jewelries they would throw them to my feet and order me to don them, or perhaps, more frighteningly, they would, with their large hands, put them on my body themselves: I found a chest containing medicines and bandages; too, there were some rolls of furs; a box of leather goods, too, I found, which contained strips of leather, pieces of leather, and straps of various sorts; I found two whips, but I did not understand their function, as the men seemed to have no animals on which to use them; also, though heavy enough, they seemed rather short-bladed for the ponderous beasts I had earlier seen in the retinue, those shambling oxlike beasts drawing the wagon; their soft leather blades were not more than a yard long; indeed, the blades of one were scarcely wider than a girl's back; there was, also a box of chains there; I did not look at them closely; I did not understand their purpose. To one side had lain the sacks of coals and some irons.
I tended the brazier.
It was now late afternoon.
A few yards away, Eta was roasting the haunch of meat on a spit. I could smell the roasting meat.
I was hungry.
In the confines of the camp my captor had continued to restrict my feeding to his degrading handouts, which he would place in my mouth, or make me reach for, kneeling, not using my hands.
How I hated him!
How he kept me on my knees to him. How I hated him! And yet he was the most magnificently attractive man I had ever seen. I hoped he would let me have a scrap of the roast meat. How relieved I had been on the trek that he had not abused me, not used me for his pleasure, as would have been so easy, I, his helpless, naked captive. And yet, too, how angry I had grown, so amorous, so weak, so frustrated. Had I not been his? Was I not physically attractive to him? I knew now I was no Eta, but surely I was better than nothing. Why had he not taken me, if only, throwing me to the grass, briefly, brutally? He had kept me under his dominance, strictly, and then, when I had obviously ached for his touch, he would turn away, not so much as glancing at me. One night when I had laid near him, bound hand and foot, I had literally whimpered in my need, trying to put my head against him. He had put wadding in my mouth, and lashed it in with binding, gagging me, then pushed me from his side that he might sleep. I slept little that night, rolling and squirming with misery. Two days later, after we had stopped to camp, my need so much upon me, I knelt before him and, tears in my eyes, began kissing at his feet and legs. I lifted my eyes to him, filled with team. "Rape me," I begged. "Rape me!" But he had turned away. That night, in my bonds, for hours, I had wept and squirmed. I was then a virgin. I did not even know, fully, then, what a man could do to me. Yet, even then, had I been told how it is that girls. of a certain sort, of a sort which I was soon to find myself to be, could sometimes in their need scream and writhe in the grass, could sometimes dance wildly beneath the moons, clawing at them, could sometimes tear their fingernails bloody scratching at the cement of their kennels, could sometimes bruise their bodies hurling them against the bars of their cells or tear their flesh pulling against their shackles to touch a guard, I would have dimly understood. How cruel men are sometimes, not to satisfy such a woman.
But I resolved to resist my captor.
All of the men had, by now, filtered back into the camp. Two men were playing, to one side, a board game, with tall pieces. There were one hundred squares on the board. Some four or five men crouched about, watching the play. Other men sat about. Most talked. Two drank wine together. One man worked on the scabbard of his sword with a small, fine tool. Another man was, slowly and smoothly, sharpening the blade of his spear. My captor, with two lieutenants, sat over a map, drawn with a stick in the earth. They discussed some project, the nature of which I, of course, ignorant of the language, could not understand. Once, one of the lieutenants glanced up, toward me, looking at me; then he returned his attention to the map.
My captor rose to his feet and approached the brazier. I knelt back, on my heels. With a heavy glove, picked up from the grass, he pulled forth the iron and examined it. It was whitish hot. I withdrew from it, leaning back, so intense was its heat. He thrust the iron back in the brazier, deeply, and indicated I should continue my labors, with which directive, of course, I complied.