“Such feelings are natural,” I said.
“But you do not address them as ‘sir’?”
“No,” I said. “We address them as “Master”.”
“I would be terrified to do that,” she said, “how it might make me feel.”
“You will learn to do it,” I said. “And you will alos learn that it is a quite meaningful mode of address. They are the masters.”
“You are a barbarian!” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “I am a barbarian.”
“It is thusly fitting that you should be a slave!” she said.
“But not such as you?” I asked.
“No, no!” she said.
“Why?” I asked. “Are you less female than I?”
She looked at me, wildly.
“You have fought your femaleness for a long time,” I said. “But the masters will not permit your continuing to do so.”
She shook with terror.
“For the first time in your life,’ I said, “you are going to become a full woman, a true woman, the woman you were born to be.”
“No!” she protested.
“What is important here,” I said, “has nothing whatsoever to do with one’s origins. They may condition and flavor our slavery, and make us of more or less interest to one man or another, but they are, in themselves, of no great importance. What is crucial here is not whether one is a barbarian or not, or comes from this city or that, but what we have in common, whether one is a female or not. That is what is of ultimate importance in these matters, our sex, our femaleness.”
She jerked in the chains, helplessly.
She put her head down. She sobbed.
Then she looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes. “But then it would be fitting,” she whispered. “that we both be slaves.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you understand the numbers written on my body?” she asked, looking up at me.
“You want to know your category, your future brand, your likely disposition, your period of training, a possible place and time of sale, such things?” I asked.
“Yes!” she said. “Yes!”
“I did not even know they were numbers,” I said, lightly.
“You are illiterate?” she said, suddenly, angrily.
“Why have you dallied here!” she said.
“Perhaps to give you an apricot,” I said.
“Give it to me!” she said.
“No,” I said. I wanted one for myself. The other I thought I would give to the Lady Constanzia.
“So that is why you have remained here!” she said. “Not to feed me, not to help me, unknown to the others, in fear of me, or seeking my favor, but, like them, to torment me!”
“I think you are little to be feared now, free woman,” I said. “And, if I were you, I do not think I would overrate the favors you have to dispense. Even men will take from you precisely what they please, and in any amounts or modalities they wish, and at any time of the day or night. And you will strive desperately with all your beauty and intelligence to please them.”
“You want only to torment me, like the others,” she said.
“You were not really very nice to them,” I said.
“But they are nothing, only slaves, and I am a free woman!” she said.
“You, too, will soon be nothing,” I said, “only a slave.”
She looked up at me, angrily.
“And you, too, will learn to fear free women,” I said. “You will learn to fear them terribly.”
“Is this your petty vengeance on a free woman,” she asked, angrily, “you illiterate, stupid, sleek, embonded, collared little she-urt?”
“I do not think I am smaller than you,” I said.
“It is you who are stupid,” I said.
“I, you illiterate, collared she urt?”
“You were brought here hooded,” I said. “You do not even know in what city you are.”
“I am not stupid,” she said. “It is you who are stupid, if you think I do not know where I am!”
“Oh?” I said.
“It is you who are stupid, not me,” she said. “Anyone would know where he was, here is this place. Do you think I do not know in what mountains I am? Do you think I cannot tell the coloration of the Voltai, the Scarlet Mountains? Do you think I am totally unaware of the distances and times I have traveled? Do you think I cannot recognize the accents of the men who brought me here? Do you think I cannot understand the emblems and accouterments of the men of this place? Do you think the markings on the tarn saddles are in some foreign tongue? Do you think the songs of the crowd are unintelligible to me? Do you not think I can recognize the seven towers of war, the wall of Valens, the standards on the bridge behind us, the banners about, those that fly even from the warehouses themselves?”
“I do not know,” I said.
“I am in Treve!” she cried. “I am in Treve!”
I smiled.
“You tricked me!” she cried.
“Yes,” I said.
But my triumph was short-lived, for at that very moment two strong masculine hands closed on my upper arms, from behind. “Do you think it is nice to trick a free woman, tasta?” he asked. It was the voice of he who had been behind me in the crowd.
“No, Master,” I said. “Forgive me, Master!”
“her manner changes quickly,” observed the free woman.
“I wondered why you were dallying here,” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
“What a slave she is,” said the free woman.
“What was it you wanted to know?” he asked.
“In what city I ear my collar, Master,” I said.
“So small and simple a thing?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“It seems you might have found that out in a thousand ways,” he said.
“I am illiterate, Master,” I said. “It is not so easy.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?” he asked.
“Would Master have told me?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “And then I would have beaten you, and then bound you and wired a note to your collar, testifying to your indiscretion.”
“Yes, Master,” I said, in misery.
“But it is now too late for such things,” he said, “for you have tricked a free woman and have now learned in what city you are.”
“Forgive me, Master,” I begged.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“You have discomfited this free woman,” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said, frightened, my eyelids pressed shut.
“You are now going to kick and squeak before this free woman,” he said.
“Master!” I moaned.
He spun me about. “Oh!” I cried, as I was lifted from my feet.
I heard the free woman gasp.
“Oh!” I cried, again.
“Excellent little tasta,” he said.
“Master?” I said. “Master?”
I heard some men laugh, doubtless passers-by.
But then, in moments, my feet off the ground, my arms and legs clutched about him, I began to gasp. Then, a little later, he lowered me to the ground, and mercifully, bundled my head in his cloak, only then permitting me to open my eyes. I could see the darkness inside the cloak, and sometimes, as I was turned toward the sun, the coloring if it, red, and light through the tiny openings in the weaving. And then, shortly thereafter, as he took me again from myself, as men can, and mastered me, I began to kick and squeak.
After a time he was through with me.
“Closer your eyes,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He then removed his cloak from about my head.
“The free woman,” he said, “will tell you when I am gone. Only then may you open your eyes.”
“Yes, Master” I said, lying on the stones of the docking area, my body a medley of sensations, physical and psychological, of confusion, humiliation, fear, and rapture.
“When you return to your kennel tonight,” he said, “you are to tell your keeper what you have done today.”
“Please, no, Master!” I begged, my eyes pressed shut. “Yes, Master” I said, in misery.
I lay on the stones.
“He is gone,” whispered the free woman, after a time.
I opened my eyes, and rose to all fours, and looked at the free woman.
“Are you going to tell your master, or keeper?” she asked.