Pulendius, nursing his kana, moving it about in the delicate, shallow bowl, looked upon the young, dark-haired woman. Pulendius was still a strong man, but he had, in these past years, grown somewhat corpulent, doubtless from the rich food, the softness of his life, the luxuries. He looked at the young, dark-haired woman. She seemed to him a fine, vital, healthy young animal. He wondered what sort of slave she would make. The bodyguard, too, one of the gladiators, he who was behind and to the right of Pulendius, also regarded her. He, too, wondered what sort of slave she would make.
A junior officer approached the table. Shortly thereafter, the captain rose and, wiping his lips, and making excuses, took his leave from the table.
Pulendius, and the bodyguards, watched him leave. So, too, did the ship’s first officer. The naval officer, too, he on leave, as it seemed, seemed to note the captain’s departure.
“There seems an anklet of some sort on her ankle, a band of some sort,” said the young, dark-haired woman, offhandedly.
“Why, yes,” said Pulendius. “So there does.”
“That is enough!” suddenly cried the young, dark-haired woman flinging down her napkin, and rising to her feet. The entire table regarded her.
She pointed to the bodyguard, he whose presence, if not regard, seems to have made her uneasy throughout the evening.
“He keeps looking at me!” she said, angrily.
“Ah, my dear, but who would not?” said Pulendius, soothingly. “Or,” he added, tactfully, “at our other charming companions, as well?”
This addition clearly met with the approval of the other women at the table, who, to be sure, for the most part were not at all unlikely recipients of just such attentions.
Reddening, the young, dark-haired woman once more took her seat.
“It is not as though you were in a haik, my dear,” said one of the women. This remark was greeted with laughter. The young, dark-haired woman again reddened, and looked down. The haik was a dark, cumbrous garment which would cover a woman from head to toe. Through a narrow aperture in the garment, that aperture itself covered with black lace, or black gauze, a woman might peer out. It was sometimes worn by the women of certain desert worlds, who would kneel behind their men, who spoke with other men of the things of men. One did not always know if the wearers of the haik were free women, fully clad within the haik, or collared, naked slave girls, waiting for the guests to leave. How embarrassed the young, dark-haired woman was. How like a fool she felt!
“Kana, all about!” called Pulendius.
The pourer of kana hastened to fill the transparent, shallow bowls.
Even that of the young, dark-haired woman was filled. The pourer of kana did not meet her eyes, but then she did not meet the eyes of the other guests, either.
“What is the nature of the contest of the morrow’s evening?” inquired one of the men at the table of Pulendius.
Pulendius grinned at the first officer, still at the table. “It is something of a surprise,” he said.
“Has it to do with the prisoner, who was brought on board at Tinos?” asked the young naval officer, sitting somewhat to the left of Pulendius.
He himself, it might be mentioned, came aboard from the shuttle, from Tinos station. Tinos, as the reader may have suspected, given an earlier remark, was far outside the normal lanes of imperial shipping, let alone those of a cruise ship. It may be of interest to note, for what it is worth, if anything, that communication with Tinos station had been lost some four days ago. Such disruptions, however, were not unprecedented. Indeed, communication between certain remote, diverse parts of the empire had tended, in the last few years, to become uncertain, even precarious. Certain imperial outposts had not been in contact for more than a dozen years.
“You must wait and see,” chuckled Pulendius.
The young, dark-haired woman was looking at the gladiator, the bodyguard, to whom she had but shortly before, later to her embarrassment, called attention. He stood there, his mighty arms folded across his chest, at his station. He returned her gaze. He did so quite openly. There was nothing furtive, or even subtle, in it, as one might have expected, given her earlier outburst. Perhaps he felt himself secure in the favor of his lord, Pulendius. Or, perhaps it was merely that he did not fear the displeasure of any man. That is possible. That is sometimes the case with those who have lived at the edge of life, where it is coldest and brightest, where it is most close to death. And so he returned her gaze. But it seemed to her now that he did so not with the simple, candid forthrightness of his earlier regard, with its rather straightforward expression of keen interest, even of a strong man’s lustful appraisiveness, but now with a subtle, almost imperceptible contempt. The mad thought crossed her mind that it would now be appropriate for her to be punished. Of course, as she understood now, she should not have risen up, and spoken out as she had. That had been a mistake. She had embarrassed herself. She felt a fool about that. But surely she had not been mistaken, not about his gaze, about its possible meaning, insofar as she could understand such things, or dared to understand them. And how he was looking on her now! Surely only a woman in a slave market should be looked upon in that fashion! And how dare he regard her, too, with that subtle contempt? Did he not know she was of the blood, of the original high families of Telnaria itself, that she was of the senatorial class, of the patricians, however far removed, that class from which the senate was to be taken, the senate, which must still, even after these eons of time, if only as a token of tradition, confirm the emperor?
But what could such a lout, he, or Pulendius, that parvenu, that upstart, or the other guard, know of such things? But he saw her only as a woman, and perhaps, worse, as a certain sort of woman, and one for which he now seemed to feel contempt. The thought crossed her mind of a woman, not herself, surely, who, stripped at his feet, in the shadow of his whip, would hasten to do whatever he might want. Indeed, what choice would such a woman, not herself, of course, have? The mad thought crossed her mind, instantly rejected, with confusion, that she would envy such a woman. She looked up, again, at him. How he looked at her! How angry she was! “I am not naked, on a chain, turning before you in a slave market,” she thought. And then she thought how she might, in an obscure part of her, in the deepest and most secret part of her, beg to be such a woman, thrill to be such a woman. She looked down at her plate. She felt feelings she had never felt before, at least not in this fashion, not to this extremity, not to this degree. She felt warm, uncomfortably so, confused, vulnerable, weak, suddenly, embarrassingly, extremely feminine. She decided she hated him. Then she saw that Pulendius, amused, was regarding her.
It was at this point, to her relief, that the captain returned.
“Is anything wrong?” inquired the naval officer of the captain.
“No,” said the captain. “It was nothing.”
“You are just in time, Captain,” said Pulendius, lifting his bowl. “I am preparing to offer a toast.”
“Splendid,” smiled the captain. He tapped the table once, next to the shallow bowl there, which had not been filled when the others had been filled, he then being absent, and the pourer of kana hurried forward, returning forthwith, almost unnoticed, so suitably unobstrusive she was, to her station.
“I offer this toast to our lovely fellow passenger,” said Pulendius, lifting his bowl a little toward the young, dark-haired woman, who seemed startled.