Temione shuddered.
"She is not for sale!" said Philebus.
"Show her to me!" said the burly fellow.
Philebus, not gently, jerked Temione back on her heels, so that she was kneeling, kicked apart her knees, which she, in her terror, had neglected to open, and thrust up her chin. She looked at the burly fellow, her knees apart.
"I know you from somewhere, do I not?" he said.
"Perhaps, Master," she stammered.
"What is the color of your hair?" he asked, peering at it in the flickering light, in the half darkness.
"Auburn, Master," she said.
"A natural auburn?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. It is not wise for a girl to lie about such things. She may be easily found out. There are penalties, incidentally, for a slaver passing off a girl for an auburn slave when she is not truly so. Auburn hair, as I have indicated, is prized in slave markets. The fact that Temione's hair, like that of the other debtor skits at the Crooked Tarn, bad been shaved off, to be sold for catapult cordage, may have been one reason that the burly fellow had not recognized her. At the Crooked Tarn, when he had seen her, she had had her full head of hair. It had been very beautiful, even shorn, hanging on the rack in the courtyard of the Crooked Tarn.
"I think I know you," he said.
"Perhaps, Master," she said. Then she cried out with fear, and bent over, cringing, in terror, for Philebus had cracked the whip near her.
"Speak clearly, slave," said Philebus.
"My hair is grown out a little now," she said, looking up, frightened, at the burly fellow. "It was shaved off before. It is grown out a little now!"
"Speak, slave," said Philebus. "Where do you know him from?" He snapped the whip again, angrily.
"From the Crooked Tarn, Master!" she cried, but looking, frightened, at the burly fellow.
"You!" he cried.
"Yes, Master!" she said.
"The free woman!" he cried.
"But now a slave, Master," she said, "now a slave!" "Ho!" cried he. "What a fool you have made of me!" "No, Master!" she said, fearfully.
"You fooled me well!" he said.
"No, Master!" she wept.
"An amusing little slave," he commented.
She dared not respond, nor meet his eyes.
"A gold piece for her," said the burly fellow.
The slave moaned.
"Two," said the burly fellow. "Ten."
"Do you think you are a special slave, or a high slave?" asked Philebus of the girl, moving the coils of the whip near her.
"No, Master!" she said.
"Twenty pieces of gold," said the burly fellow.
"You are drunk," said Philebus.
"No," said the burly fellow. "I have never been more sober in my life."
The girl shuddered.
"I want you," said Borton to the girl.
"May I speak?" she asked.
He nodded.
"What would Master do with me?" she asked, quaveringly.
"What I please," he said.
"Do you have twenty pieces of gold, Borton?" called out one of the fellows nearby.
Borton scowled, darkly.
There was laughter. His finances, I gathered, may have been somewhat in arrears since the time of the Crooked Tarn.
"Ten silver tarsks," said Borton, grinning.
"That is a superb price, Philebus," said a fellow. "Sell her!
"Yes, sell her!" urged another.
"She is not for sale," said Philebus.
There were some cries of disappointment.
"But perhaps," said Philebus to Borton, "you would care to use her for the evening?" This announcement was greeted with enthusiasm by the crowd. The girl, kneeling and small, trembled in her collar, in the midst of the men. Philebus handed the whip to Borton, who shook out the coils. "She is, you see," said Philebus, "merely one of my paga sluts."
There was laughter. It was true, of course.
"And there will be no charge!" he said.
"Excellent, Philebus!" said more than one man.
The girl looked at the whip, now in the hand of Borton, with a kind of awe.
"May I speak?" she asked.
"Yes," said Borton.
"Is Master angry with the slave?" she asked.
He smiled. He cracked the whip once, viciously. She drew back, fearfully.
"Use it on her well, Borton, my friend," said Philebus. "It is well deserved by any slut and perhaps particularly so by one such as she. Did she not part her silk without permission? Did she not put herself to the dirt before you, unbidden? Did she not speak at least once without permission, either implicit or explicit?"
"May I speak, Master?" asked Temione.
He indicated that she might, with the tiniest flicker of an expression.
"Forgive me, Master," she said, "if I have angered you. Forgive me, if I have offended you in any way. Forgive me, if I have failed to be fully pleasing."
He moved the whip, slowly. She stared at it, terrified, mesmerized.
"Am I to be beaten?" asked Temione.
"Come here," he said, indicating a place on the dirt before him. She did not dare to rise to her feet. She went to her hands and knees that she might crawl to the spot he had specified.
"Hold," I said, rising.
All eyes turned toward me, startled.
"She is serving me," I said.
There were cries of astonishment.
"Beware, fellow," said a man. "That is Borton!"
"As I understand the common rules of a paga tavern, under which governances I understand this enclosure to function, I have use of this slave until I see fit to relinquish her, or until the common hour of closing, or dawn, as the case may be, unless I pay overage. Alternatives to such rules are to be made clear in advance, say, by announcement or public posting."
"She was not serving you!" said a fellow.
"Were you serving me?" I asked the slave.
"Yes, Master," she said.
"And have I dismissed you from my service?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said.
"That is Borton!" said a man to me.
"I am pleased to make his acquaintance," I said. Actually this was not entirely candid on my part.
"Who are you?" asked Borton.
"I am pleased to meet you," I assured him.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"A pleasant fellow," I said, "one not looking for trouble." Borton cast aside the whip. His sword left its sheath.
Men moved back.
"Aii!" cried a man. My sword, too, had left its sheath. "I did not see him draw!" said a man.
"Let us not have trouble, gentlemen," urged Philebus.
"Wait!" cried Borton, suddenly. "Wait! Wait! I know you! I know you!"
I glanced quickly to my left. There was a fellow there. I thought I could use him.
"It is he, too, who was at the Crooked Tarn!" cried Borton, wildly. "It is he who stole the dispatches, he who so discomfited me, he who made off with my coins, my clothing, my gear, my tarn!"
I supposed Borton could not be blamed entirely for his ill will. The last time I had seen him, before this evening, I aflight, astride his tarn, hovering the bird, preparing shortly to make away, he had been in the yard of the Crooked Tarn, chained naked there, still soaked wet from the bath, to a sleen ring. It had been strong enough to hold him, despite his size and strength, even when he had seen me, which occurrence had apparently caused him agitation. I had waved the courier's pouch to him, cheerily. There had been no hard feelings on my part. I had not been able to make out what he had been howling upward, crouching there, chained, what with the wind, and the beating of the tam's wings. Several of the fellows at the Crooked Tarn had intercepted him, rushing through the yard, I suppose on his way to inquire after me. Coinless, chained, naked, utterly without means, absolutely helpless, he would have been held at the Crooked Tam until his bills were paid or he himself disposed of, say, as a work slave, his sale to satisfy, as it could, his bills. He had been redeemed, I gathered, by other fellows in the command of Artemidorus, and then freed. Certainly he was here now, not in a good humor, and with a sword in his grasp.