“Keep moving,” said the driver. “It is not far now.”
To her surprise, Cornhair heard music, coming from a tavern. Within there were lights. Men loitered about.
Too, here, behind the barricade, some shops were open, and men were about, though she saw no women. Cornhair did not realize it but there were parts of Telnar to which the general unrest in the city had not much penetrated, or, perhaps better, had not been permitted to much penetrate. Many of the windows in the walls above the shops did remain shuttered. Fear, she supposed, hid behind shutters. Strange, she thought, how life might differ, from one side of a wall to another, how civilitas and the jungle might exist within yards of one another. In parts of Telnar, musicians and street dancers performed, recitals and plays were presented; poets sang their work to the music of flute and lyre; in other parts, streets were unlit and doors were bolted, blood flowed and men roamed the streets like wolves.
“We are here,” said the driver. “Stand here. I will deliver you. I must have a receipt.”
He strode to a heavy double door, and swung the knocking ring thrice against its bolted metal plate.
He turned back to the slaves.
“You are to be sold tonight,” he said.
He was then admitted.
The slaves, naturally, remained in place. Should the Masters return, and find them elsewhere, even slightly, or differently ordered, it might mean the lash.
In a few moments two men emerged from the double door, the driver and another, from within.
He from within carried a switch.
Slaves view such things with apprehension.
How different it is from being a free woman!
The driver folded a paper, and thrust it into his tunic, presumably the receipt. “I must gather my horses,” he said. “I abandon the wagon. It is an impediment. It has been noted. Perhaps, with good fortune, in better days, it can be reclaimed.”
“Return by some circuitous route,” suggested the man from within.
“I return not now at all,” said the driver. “I am under a different instruction.”
“The wharf house is closed, I take it,” said the man.
“Things there are not safe,” said the driver.
“Things are not safe here, either,” said the man from within.
“I fear a landing,” said the driver.
“The palace and senate have proclaimed such a thing impossible,” said the man from within.
“Let us hope that dreaded Abrogastes is listening,” said the driver.
“There are the batteries,” said the man from within.
“That is true,” said the driver.
“Farewell,” said the man from within.
“Farewell,” said the driver.
The driver then turned about to unharness his horses, and the man from within, with his switch, approached the slaves, and regarded them, not speaking.
“Lift your heads,” he said.
The slaves stood, and stood well, not wishing to be cuffed, or switched.
Inspected, they refrained from meeting his eyes.
Slaves are accustomed to being looked upon by men.
It is part of being a slave.
“Average goods,” he said.
He then tapped the first girl lightly with the switch indicating she should proceed within.
“You, too,” he said to the second girl.
With a rustle of her shackling, she followed the first girl.
He paused at the side of Cornhair, but then, to her uneasiness, moved beyond her.
Why was that?
And could it be true, that they were “average goods”?
“I like red hair,” he said to the girl behind Cornhair. “I think you will bring your share of darins. Why were you not, I wonder, in an earlier lot?”
She then moved forward, making her way through the double doors. Cornhair could see lamp light within.
Why was I not in an earlier lot, wondered Cornhair. I have been accounted beautiful. Surely, when I was a free woman, I was thought beautiful, very beautiful. And, indeed, was beauty not germane to the plans of Iaachus, Arbiter of Protocol, when he sought to recruit an agent for a clandestine mission of great import, an arbitration of delicate political matters by means of a poisoned dagger? Well do I remember when I, to my indignation, to my mortification, to my outrage and humiliation, was ordered to strip myself, I, the Lady Publennia Calasalia, of the Larial Calasalii, before him, as though I might be a captive, even a slave! But I was found beautiful, even beautiful enough to wear a collar! And thus the poisoned dagger would be delivered to me, and not to another! And as a slave, too, surely men have found me beautiful. Surely it is not difficult to comprehend their appraising regard, their assessment of the likelihood that I might look well on my belly before them, my lips pressed to their boots.
“You, Slave Five,” said the man, “have a nice width, would be a cuddly package in a Master’s grasp.”
Cornhair heard a rustle of chain, but the slave did not respond.
“You came from the delta, by keel boat,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Proceed,” he said. “Inside, your chains will be removed, and before you are put in your cage, you will be washed and fed.”
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”
Cornhair, understandably, was uneasy, at her apparent neglect.
She felt the switch under her chin, and she lifted her head more.
“You tremble,” he said. “Are you afraid?”
“Yes, Master,” she whispered.
“You are rather slight,” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said.
“But such as you look well, stripped, on your hands and knees, in a cage.”
Cornhair was silent.
“But all women do,” he said.
Cornhair started.
“Yes,” he said, “all women.”
He then walked about Cornhair, and paused when he was again on her left.
“Blond hair, blue eyes,” he said.
“May I speak?” asked Cornhair.
“Certainly,” he said.
“Why does Master concern himself with me?” she asked. “Should I not be within, to be relieved of my impediments, as the others, to be cleaned and fed, before my caging?”
“Yes,” he said, “you are the same one. I am sure of it.”
“Master?” said Cornhair.
“You were on a sales shelf in Harmony Street,” he said, “with others, the placard on your neck. And you failed of a sale in the market of Horace, in Endymion’s Way.”
“I was soon sold from the house,” she said.
“After having entertained the leather, I suspect,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, wincing, recalling the generous application of the torch of leather to her back, her hands tied over her head, to a ring.
“But you seem different now,” he said.
“Different, Master?” she said.
“Let us see,” he said.
“Oh!” she said.
“Ah,” he said, “the little beast is now ready for a Master.”
Cornhair trembled, not speaking.
“What are you?” he asked.
“A slave, Master,” she said.
“For what do you exist?”
“To give pleasure to Masters,” she said.
“You are going to be pretty on the slave block, are you not?” she was asked.
“I will try, Master,” she said.
“You are going to be such on the slave block,” said the man, “so desirable, so exciting, and pathetically needful, that every man in the house will want to own you, that every man in the house will want his collar on your neck, that every man in the house will want to throw you in chains to his feet.”
“I will try, Master,” she said.
“You want to be in a collar, and in chains at a Master’s feet,” he said.
“Master?” she said.
“You want to be in a collar, and in chains at a Master’s feet,” he said, again.
“Yes, Master,” she said, startled. “I want to be in a collar, and in chains at a Master’s feet.”
“Yes,” thought Cornhair, shaken, and trembling, “I want to be in a collar, and in chains at a Master’s feet. I am a slave!”