But still others, I supposed, might return quietly to their compartments, to be greeted there by their kneeling slave, to be feasted by her and then, later, in the light of the lamp of love, to recollect, and cherish her, in the furs.
Several of the other tarns, disburdened of loot, had also, now, been conducted from the docking area.
More people had now left.
The guards had relaxed their lines. Some individuals went now to greet personally the raiders. Then, some of the raiders, together with friends, left the area.
I saw the belled slave, she in the scarlet silk, leashed by one of the raiders. It was thusly she would lead him to the tavern of Fabius. He was taking no chances on her slipping away from him when he arrived there. The girl in purple silk was between two other raiders. Her small wrists were pinioned before her. They had her on a double leash. Sometimes superb slaves are sent forth to solicit for the taverns but then, when one arrives there, they hurry away, to find more customers. These two, however, on their leashes, would not be likely to do so. These two who solicited would, it seemed, also serve and, I suspected, profoundly. The taverners might not like this, the time, indeed, perhaps the entire night, of a skilled soliciting slave being spent in service, but I did not think they would object. Men such as these, once they have a girl on their leash, are seldom crossed with impunity. I saw some of the captives watching the two girls being led away, leashed. I wondered if they realized that such a fate might, in time, be in store for them.
I saw two officers beginning to examine the lines of captives. One had a grease pencil. They were followed by a scribe with a tablet, who made joggings as they proceeded down the line. Information pertaining to captives and slaves, their dispositions, and such, is sometimes marked on their bodies. The upper surface of the left breast is often used for this. The pertinent information, displayed in this manner, so conveniently and prominently, is easily read. The left breast is use, I assume, because most men are right handed. A similar consideration may illuminate the general custom of branding on the left thigh. The brand, in such a location, is more ready to the hand of a right handed master.
Some dock workers, three of them, were picking up water bags, those which had been placed near one of the warehouse doors. It seemed they would eater the captives before they were marched to the pens. I did not doubt but what their flight had been a long and dry one. Too, it is interesting how watering a captive will improve her appearance. Probably they wanted them watered before marching them down the barred corridors. Wholesalers sometimes congregate outside such corridors, leading down into the pens, looking in though the bars, forming conjectures as to the value of the catch.
I stepped a little forward. The guards did not seem to care now.
I walked a bit down the line which would have marked the front of the crowd.
Two of the guards walked away, conversing among themselves.
“Here, slaves!” I heard a fellow call.
It was the vendor of apricots. Quickly I and some four or five others sped to him, to kneel at his feet. He was in an excellent humor. I gather his business had prospered this afternoon.
“Please, Master,” we begged. “Please!”
He pointed to his feet, and we crowded, one against the other, to lick and kiss them.
“Up!” he said.
We straightened up.
“Here is one for you,” he said, “and one for you, and one for you!”
“Thank you, Master!” we cried. Such things are precious to us.
“Shameless sluts!” cried a free woman, one of the captives, in one of the coffles. She had beautiful blond hair. She was probably vain of it. The officers and the scribe had already passed her point in the line.
I had received an apricot.
“Disgusting sluts!” cried the free captive.
“Please, Master,” I cried, “another. Another!”
he looked at us.
“Please!” we wheedled. We almost rose from our knees, so eager we were.
“Very well,” he said.
“Thank you, Master!” we cried.
And each of us received another! How generous he was! He took the last apricot for himself, gripped it between his teeth, and held the basket upside down, shaking it twice.
“Thank you, Master!” we called after him, as he left.
“He should have thrown the last one amongst you,” said the free woman. “it would have been amusing to see you fight for it. You meaningless she-sleen.”
“I wish he had,” snapped one of our number, the largest, a broad-bodied girl in a coarse rep-cloth tunic. “I would have obtained it!” I supposed she might, indeed, have won the apricot in any such contest. Indeed, even if she had not won it, she might have taken it away from whoever had won it, unless, of course, the master had prevented it. To us she was quiet fearsome, but to a man, of course, she would have been as only another female, to throw to his feet.
“Do not speak back to me!” snapped the free woman.
The brad-bodied girl went to stand near the free woman, looking down upon her. The free woman was kneeling in coffle. She was neck chained. Her wrists were shackled behind her. Her ankles, too, were shackled.
“Down on your knees!” cried the free woman.
“It is you who are on your knees,” said the broad-bodied girl. I sensed she had little affection for free women.
But why should she?
Why should any of us?
Free women were our enemies. They seldom neglected an opportunity to be cruel to us. We were so helpless. They were so imperiously grand in their freedom. We muchly feared them.
“Do not rise up, Lady!” said one of our number, kneeling to the side. “You will be lashed!”
“I, lashed?” she said, incredulously. But she did not rise up, despite the broad-bodied girl’s provocation. Perhaps she recalled what had happened to the girl in the other line, the other captive, who had done that.
“Yes, you, lashed,” said the broad-bodied girl.
“You have two pieces of fruit,” said the free woman. “Give me one!”
“No,” said the broad-bodied girl.
“No?” said the free woman, stunned.
“No,” said the broad-bodied girl, taking a goodly bite from one of the apricots.
“I command you to do so!” said the free woman.
“You are shackled, and you have a chain on your neck,” said the broad-bodied girl.
“I shall call one of the guards!” said the free woman. The power of free women, if course, rests ultimately on the might of men. In the end, though this is sometimes obscured by social arrangements, it is the men who are the masters. Were it not for men, free women would be as powerless as slave girls.
“Call them,” said the broad-bodied girl, biting again into the apricot.
“Do not call them, I beg of you, Lady,” said one of the girls, quickly. “They will beat you.”
“I am not a slave,” said the free woman.
“They will not mind accustoming you early to the whip,” said another.
“Your time of ordering people about is over,” said the broad-bodied girl.
“But you may, in some years, become a first girl in some household,” suggested one of the slaves in the vicinity.
“Do you beg water?” inquired one of the dock workers of a woman some places earlier on the coffle. “I am to be addressed as ‘sir’.”
“Yes!” she exclaimed.
“Yes’, what?” he asked.
“Yes-sir,” she said.
He looked down at her.
“Please,” she said, “please, sir. I am very thirsty. Please, sir-sir-sir-sir!”
“Put your head back and open your mouth,” he said.
She then put her head back, and he inserted the spike of the water bag between her teeth. He watered her, briefly. She wanted more. It was not given to her. I saw her tongue try to obtain each last drop, each residual moistness, from about her lips. He then went to the next woman.