I lifted the water bag from the pole, where it hung outside the entrance of the tent.
One of the men cried out with rage.
I lifted the bag, drinking deeply. I replaced the plug and put back the bag, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. The leader resheathed his scimitar and lightly, dismounted.
I returned to the mats, sat again cross-legged upon them, and picked up my small glass of tea, which I had not yet finished.
He entered the tent, bending down.
“Tea is ready.” I said to him.
He went to the back of the tent and, with a knife, freed Alyena of her restraints. She looked up at him, terrified. But he was not irritated with her.
It is nothing for a man to overpower a female.
“Serve us tea,” he said.
Trembling she measured him a tiny glass of tea. His men stood outside, wary.
“The tea is excellent,” I said.
In sharing their water I had made myself, by custom of the Tahari, their guest.
9 Zina, a Beautiful Traitress, is Dealt With in the Fashion of the Tahari
“Chain the two prisoners,” said the leader of the raiders, to one of his men.
He then looked at me.
One of the men came into the tent and picked up the chains, which had lain, coiled, on the mats, in readiness. One length of chain he retrieved from the dust, where I had hurled it, snaring the fleeing Alyena by her ankles.
“Kneel,” said one of the men.
“No, Hassan!” cried one of the girls. The other girl, she, who had torn at her hair, when captured, knelt. The girl who had, when captured, looked disbelievingly at the bonds on her wrists, stood, angry, defiant.
She came and stood before him, naked in the tent, on the mats. Her body was covered with sweat. The legs, from the thighs down, were covered with dust, dark in her sweat, and scratched by the myriad thrusts of brush through which, tethered, she had been dragged at her captor’s stirrup.
“It was I, Zina,” she said, “who, for a tarn disk of gold, betrayed the caravan into your hands, giving you its inventory, its schedule, its route!”
Such matters, I knew, were usually carefully guarded in the Tahari, even in times of relative peace.
The other girl cried out in anger at her, but did not dare rise. “Chain her,” said Hassan, indicating the kneeling girl. One of the men, from behind, put ankle rings on her, joined by about a foot of chain. I heard the two, heavy snaps of the locks. He then unbound her wrists and coiled the tether. Before her body he locked her wrists in three-link slave bracelets.
“In the sun,” said Hassan to two others of his men. They departed and, shortly, returned with a heavy, pointed stake. It was some four feet in height, some four inches in diameter. One man held the stake and the other, with a heavy hammer, drove it deeply, firmly, into the earth, until only some two inches of it were visible. At this end, fastened to a bolted band, fitted into a groove at the termination of the stake was a metal ring. The man who had held the stake then took a snap collar, with chain and snap lock, about a yard in length, and secured the girl, on her knees, by the neck, to the stake.
“Free me!” demanded the girl, Zina.
“Free her,” said Hassan.
One of his men took the binding fiber from her wrists.
“Pay me!” she demanded.
At a gesture from Hassan, one of the men, from a small coffer to one side, drew forth a golden tarn disk, and gave it to the girl. She clenched it in her hand.
“Give me clothing,” she said.
“No,” said Hassan.
She looked at him, frightened.
“You have been paid,” he said. “Go.”
She looked about herself, fearfully. She looked at the tarn disk.
“Give me water,” she said.
“NO,” he said.
“I will buy it,” she said, frightened.
“I do not sell water,” he said. “Go.”
“No!” she wept.
“Go.” he said.
“I will die in the desert,” she cried. The golden tarn disk glinted in her hand.
“I betrayed the caravan to you!” she cried.
“You have been paid,” he said.
She looked from man to man, into the eyes of each. Her lip trembled. “No,” she whispered. “No!”
She looked at Alyena, who knelt beside the tea, looking down at the mats, not daring to raise her eyes. Alyena’s shoulders shook. Her breasts, pendant, were sweet, loose, inside the rep-cloth blouse. The naked girl knelt beside her, frantic, timid, and reached out to touch her shoulder.
“Plead for me,” begged Zina.
“I am only a slave,” wept Alyena.
“Plead for me!” begged Zina.
Alyena, anguished, tears in her eyes, looked at Hassan, her Master. “I plead for her, Master!” she cried.
“Leave the tent or be lashed, Slave,” said Hassan.
Alyena leapt to her feet, weeping, and fled from the tent.
The girl then, again, now half crouching, looked about at the men, from face to face. She looked into the eyes of each. Their eyes were merciless.
She leapt to her feet. “No, Hassan! No!” she cried, the golden tarn disk clutched in her small palm.
“Leave the camp,” he said.
“I will die in the desert,” she whispered.
“Leave the camp,” he said.
“Keep me as a slave girl!” she cried.
“Are you not a free woman?” he asked.
“Please, Hassan,” she wept, “keep me as a slave girl”
“But you are free,” he said.
“No!” she cried. “In my heart I have always been a true slave girl. I only pretended to be free. Whip me for it! Though I was fortunate enough never to be collared or branded, or mastered, I am a natural slave! Though I have lived as a free woman since birth, I concealed the fact that I was a true slave!”
“And when did you learn this fact?” asked Hassan.
“When my body changed,” she said, looking down. The men laughed.
I looked upon her. Her contours were lovely. It was not unlikely she would please a master.
She stood before Hassan, relaxed, soft, though frightened, her right foot at a right angle with her left, turning her hip out, opening her beauty to him, as a slave girl. “I confess to you, Hassan,” she said, “what I have never confessed to any other man-that I am a slave girl.”
“Legally.” said he, “clearly you are free.
“More real than the law is the heart,” said the girl, quoting a proverb of the Tahari.
“It is true,” said Hassan.
“Keep me,” she said.
“I do not want you,” he said.
“No!” she cried.
“I do not want you,” he said. Then he said, “Conduct this free woman from the camp.”
One of the men seized her by the arm.
“Let me sell myself!” she wept.
As a free woman she could do this, but, of course, she could not revoke the transaction for, after its completion, she would be only a slave.
“I will sell myself into slavery,” she said.
Hassan indicated to his man that he should release the girl. He did so.
“Do you understand what you are saying?” asked Hassan.
“Yes,” she said.
“Kneel,” he said.
She knelt before him.
“What have you to offer?” he asked.
She held out the golden tarn disk.
He looked at it, held in her small palm, proffered to him, piteously.
“Please, Hassan,” she said.
“I see that you are a true slave, Zina,” he said.
“Yes, Hassan,” she said. “I am a true slave.”
“It is far more than you are worth,” he said.
“Take it,” she begged.
He looked at her.
“Please take it!” she begged.
He smiled.
She took a deep breath; she closed her eyes. Then she opened her eyes. “I sell myself into slavery,” she said.
His hand, open, was poised over the coin. Her eyes looked into his. His hand closed upon the coin; the transaction was completed.
“Chain this slave,” he said.
Roughly the girl, whose name had been Zina, but who was now as nameless as a newborn she-kaiila, was taken from the tent and thrown on her belly in the gravel by the slave stake. The collar, from behind, was put about her throat and locked; her head was jerked sideways as, by the collar chain, in the fist of one of Hassan’s men, she was secured by the snap lock at the chain’s fret end, to the stake ring. Her ankles were chained, snapped into the ankle rings; her right wrist was then locked in a slave bracelet; Hassan’s man, reaching under her right leg, by the dangling bracelet, rudely jerked her right hand and wrist under her right leg: he then locked her left wrist in the bracelet, confining her hands behind and below her right leg. She lay on her side in the gravel, miserable. When free women and slave girls are chained together, it is common to respect the distinction between them by chaining them somewhat differently; in this case the free girl’s hands were braceleted before her body, the slave’s were fastened below her right leg; it is common for the slave to be placed under greater restraint, and more discomfort, than her free sister; this acknowledges the greater nobility of the free woman, and is a courtesy often extended to her, until she, too, is only a slave; “Give the free girl a switch,” said Hassan; it was done; the free girl wielded the switch with two hands; the slave, as she was chained, could not defend herself.