“Consider,” said he, “improving your behavior.”
“Improving my behavior?” she asked.
“Some might suspect,” he said, “that you were not a slave.”
“Get out!” she said.
“Farewell, milady,” he said, and turned about, and left.
“Bring me something good to eat!” she called after him.
When he had disappeared through the hatchway she crawled on her knees to the front of the cage, a movement of a foot or two, and grasped the bars.
It must be he, she thought.
He was polite. He called her “milady!” But perhaps he was mocking her.
She did not know.
Of course the agent would not care to make his identity too obvious to her, not until later.
It must be he.
Who else could it be?
Improve her behavior! The other girls did not like her! That was too bad, that slaves might not like her, she, who could command them, and whip them, and buy and sell them as she pleased!
But, too, perhaps it would not be wise for him to try to bring her luscious viands, and dainties, for what if the brute of a barbarian on board should learn of this, and become suspicious?
She thought of the barbarian, such a formidable, silent, brooding giant of a man.
She was terrified of him. But, too, she knew that she must, somehow, draw herself to his attention. That she must arrange, somehow, sometime, when she had the knife, to be alone with him.
How terrifying to be alone with such a brute, a stranger to civilitas, not even civilized, not even, perhaps, of the empire!
She did not wish to behave as a slave!
Surely he would be more interested in her if she behaved as if she were free, not as one of those curvaceous, groveling, helpless, passionate chits in bondage! But his interest in her, if she seemed free, she feared, might be simply to tear her freedom from her, and put her to his feet, helpless, and no different then from any other slave!
It must be the blond-haired officer, she thought, grasping the bars, it must be he!
But if it were not he, who then might it be?
How she hated the severe officer, the impatient officer, who had switched her, putting two sudden, stinging, rich stripes on her, she on all fours, as though she might have been no more than a slave girl!
Before she had left Lisle, the very night she had left the royal palace, she had switched her own slave girl, mercilessly, for she had, it seems, rendered intelligence to the informants of Iaachus as to the marvelous beauty of her mistress. How the curvy little thing had wept and squirmed, as a slave, begging for mercy!
So it could not be the severe officer, the beast!
Too, it was he who had had her isolated, caged here, alone, her cage not with the cages of the others.
Then she sat back in the cage, shuddering.
It might be he.
He might be trying to divert possible suspicion from himself, trying to conceal the latent relationship between them, that of the supplier of the weapon, that of the guarantor of safety, that of the provider of swift, sure return transportation to Lisle, to the one to whom the deed fell, to the appointed assassin, to the one who need do no more than scratch a skin with a tiny point.
Perhaps he was a consummate actor?
He had put her here, alone.
Perhaps that was to diminish the chances of her being suspected, of her giving her true loftiness, her station and freedom away, doubtless inadvertently, perhaps in an instant of forgivable carelessness, in the presence of the mere slaves.
It could be he.
Perhaps, too, cleverly citing discipline as a blind, utilizing it as a pretext, he was giving her privacy, separating her from degraded animals, those meaningless slave girls, in deference to her different nature, and the delicacy of her feelings.
It must be he!
But he had not permitted her clothing in the cage.
But then it had not been permitted to the others either, in their cages, in the common room.
The young naval officer, he who had been on the quay, she thought, may have been responsible for that. He had made some remark which might have been interpreted as a recommendation to that effect.
Why had they deferred to him, as they had? His rank, surely, at least insofar as she could read the relevant insignia, was not so high.
She hated the young naval officer.
But it seemed clear, too, that he would know how to treat slaves. Of that she was sure.
But she was not a slave!
How should she behave, she wondered, in the presence of the severe officer, he who had switched her.
She smiled to herself.
Perhaps she should behave in his presence as though she were truly a slave.
That would surely be amusing, he acting his role, she hers, and none suspecting that they were both merely consummate actors! But what if he were not the one? What then, surely then she should not play such a role before him. Too, enacting such a role, as Iaachus had required of her, made her considerably uneasy. It produced feelings in her which she found oddly disturbing, not at all the sort of feelings one might expect to have if one were merely playing a role.
Too, she had heard that there were tests in such matters, available to skilled masters, by means of which hypocrisy and sham might be detected. That frightened her. To be sure, she knew little of such tests.
She sat back, farther, in the cage, her knees up. She regarded the gate, with its bars. She was well held in that cage, she knew, as well held as if she herself might be only a slave girl.
There were two sorts of tests, we might remark, one of which was used to pick out slave girls from among free women, this usually used to detect runaway slave girls trying desperately to pass themselves off as free women, but which might, if one wished, serve equally well to pick out free women from among slave girls, among whom they might, as in the siege of a city, have attempted to hide themselves; and one of which was used to determine the authenticity or inauthenticity of slave behavior. Slavery is not, of course, a simple matter of behavior, though it manifests itself in behavior, sometimes even subtly, but it runs deep in the woman, coursing in every fiber of her being. A negative result in such tests distinguishes the mere appearance of slavery, its mere simulation, from its reality, or depth actuality. In such a situation the slave is quickly taught the truth of her slavery, that that is what she truly is. It does not take the intelligent woman long to understand this. Sometimes she is simply offered the choice of a full and perfect slavery or death, and she understands that there are no third options, such as acting, sham, or pretense, or even the tiniest particle of mental reservation. In this moment the woman must examine herself, perhaps more profoundly than ever before in her life. In a moment of emotional catharsis, she understands what she is, in her deepest heart, falls to the feet of even a hated master, and rejoices.
The door to the hold opened and she raised her head instantly, and drew her knees up higher, and leaned forward, her hands about her legs, hiding herself so.
How terrible that she should not have been permitted clothing!
A stock keeper, a short, stocky, homely, simple-looking man, put his head inside the door and switched off the overhead hold light.
“You!” she called, as he withdrew.
After a moment the door slid back and the figure of the man reappeared in the portal.
“Come here!” she said.
The hold was now much in darkness except for two small, reddish night bulbs, on the wall.
By the light of these one might check the hold, and, perhaps, its occupants, or cargo, without illuminating the entire area.
It seemed that he was about to withdraw.
She called out, “Sir!”
He paused.
“Please come here, sir!” she said.