I clutched the second apricot. I would give it to the Lady Constanzia. I did not doubt but what she would be deeply appreciative. Such tidbits, such things as a fresh apricot, are rare in the depths, even in the diet of a free woman. I would feed it to her by hand, little by little, as she knelt there, back-braceleted, by the wall, chained to a slave ring. This would contribute to her disguise. Also, of course, as she was a free woman, it would please me to have her take it in this fashion.
20
Tonight the pit master had come with me to the cell of the peasant.
Sometimes I thought the prisoner might be dead. He was so still.
But then he would open his eyes.
“Greetings, Master,” I would say to him, for he was a free man. Then I would attend to my duties in the cell. Later I would return to the quarters of the pit master. I had never again attempted to taunt him, as I had once.
The pit master, tonight, sat for a time, cross-legged, before the peasant. It was almost as though they were both warriors. Neither spoke.
“I am finished, Master,” I whispered to the pit master, as I had concluded my duties in the cell.
He rose to his feet.
The peasant looked up at the pit master. “Is it time,” he asked, “to do the planting?”
“No,” said the pit master. “No.”
We then left the cell.
21
“I am a free woman,” said the Lady Constanzia.
“Of course,” I said.
We were in the Lady Constanzia’s cell. She had eaten, and I was preparing to leave the cell.
She was wearing the brief, white, sliplike garment, of which she was fond. It was not unlike a slave tunic.
“But I want to be a true woman!”
“Dismiss the matter from your mind,” I said.
“But what if the free woman is not the same as the true woman?” she asked.
“Obviously it is not,” I said.
“I am in anguish,” she said.
“Do not concern yourself with such matters,” I advised her.
“I must!” she wept.
“The free woman is a political concept,” I said, “with a particular political history, relevant to a particular time and place. The true woman is a biological concept, relative to a species, its nature, and the conditions germane to its fulfillment.”
“I have been free,” she said. “Now I want love.”
“Put such thoughts from your mind,” I said.
“But I am afraid of love,” she wept.
“Of course,” I said.
“It makes slaves of us!” she wept.
“Yes,” I said.
“Janice,” she said.
“yes,” I said.
“I want to be a slave!” she whispered.
“Dismiss the thought fromyour mind,” I said.
“Today,” she said, “when we were above, when he came to the ring, I spread my knees before him!”
“You must not do so!” I said. “You are a free woman!”
“Do you think not being branded, not being collared, makes me a free woman?” she asked.
I did not respond.
“Do you think not being legally embonded, in some technical sense, makes me a free woman?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I love him!” she said. “I love him!”
“You do not even know him,” I said.
“We have talked for days at the ring!” she said. “He cannot even look at me without my wanting to cry out for his touch!”
“It is the slave garb,” I said, “the collar.”
“In them I am myself!” she said.
“You are a free woman,” I said.
“No!” she said.
“Very well,” I said. “Then I shall not take you again to the surface.”
“No, no!” she said. “Please, forgive me, Janice. I am sorry. Forgive me! I will obey! I will obey!” Hurriedly then she put on the robes of concealment.
I then left the cell.
I locked it with special care. I was pleased the guard did not have the key, for I feared that the cell door now was no longer closed on a free woman, but on something considerably more desirable, something considerably more tempting.
22
“Master?” I asked.
The pit master, of late, had seemed much lost in thought.
Seldom now he read at the table.
Fina, too, his preferred slave, was much concerened.
She was not now present.
I did not know what produced this change in the pit master. Some days ago I had, as I had intended, confessed my trickery with the free woman. I had bellied, cowering, at his feet. But he had only crouched down beside me, and put his great hand on my head, and shaken it a little, almost affectionately. “So, now,” he said, “you know you are in Treve?”
“Yes, Master,” I whispered.
“Kajirae are such curious creatures.” He said.
“Am I not to be beaten?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” I said. My good fortune in this matter, I suspected, might have less to do with my deserts than with the preoccupations of the pit master.
Let me speak for a moment of the pit master.
As I had come to know him better, I had come to realize he had a large, deep, unusual mind. I am sure Fina was well aware of this, as well, and it was probably one of the reasons she was so much his slave, so to speak, though hers was a state collar, like mine. I thinkg that we, women, although not immune to male beauty, are less seriously influenced by it than men, the brutes, by female beauty. Indeed, a pretty male face can be aversive to us. The masculinity that attracts us, and can overwhelm us, is one of intelligence, power and virility, one of ruggedness and might. We are looking, so to speak, for our harem master, although we would hope to be the only slave in his harem. We want a man at whose feet we feel it is appropriate that we should kneel, as women, and slaves. We do not want an equal; that is not enough for us; we want more than that; we want a master. We want him to be strong, ambitious, aggressive, possessive, jealous, lustful, dangerous, dominant. We want him to guard us, and protect us, and own us, with masculine ferocity, to see us as his rightful properties. We want to feel ourselves as though we were nothing before his wrath and power. We want to feel that it is the most important thing in the world for us that we please him. We want him to be jealous of us, and fiercely possessive of us; we want to be important to him; we do not want to be ignored or neglected; we do not want to be taken for granted or just be “there,” perhaps almost unnoticed, as are so many “wives” of Earth; the slave, I assure you, receives a great deal of attention, perhaps more than she sometimes cares for; she, in her service, and subject to his command and domination, is muchly noticed; one of the cruelest of punishments he can inflict upon us is to subject us to the same neglect and indifference commonly accorded to an Earth “wife”; how we strive to be pleasing to hi, that that will not occur; but it seldom occurs; better the mercy of the slave lash; he must want to keep track of us, for we are his possessions; he must want to know our thoughts, our whereabouts, and our every action. He desires us; he lusts for us; and we are his; and so he is jealous of us and inordinately possessive of us, his relished goods, his coveted prizes, his properties, his slaves; and so he keeps us on a short leash. The pit master, despite the monstrosity of his appearance, was mighty in his manhood. We slaves were helpless in his arms. When I clutched him I must despair of the least shred of dignity. In the arms of such a man a girl is muchly aware that she is in her collar and will shortly find herself subdued, and forced to yield herself wholly, spasmodically, helplessly, whether she wishes to or not, in the most degrading and wondrously joyful of all ecstasies, those of a slave to a master. Beyond, however, the gloriously humiliating, reductive, exultant, grateful, exalting, writhing submissions of a begging slave, Fina, I was sure, was actually enamored of him. She was not simply his obedient ecstasy slut. She was enamored of him, and he of her. But I do not think he knew her feelings toward him. And I do not think he would have believed her, if she had found the courage to declare them. Given his misshapen bulk, its gross disproportions, and his monstrous visage he did not believe any woman could love him. One other feature of the pit master I should mention. His mind was not only large, deep and unusual, but it was also an independent mind. He thought for himself. How few men and women of Earth, I thought, did that. Is not acquiescence superior to inquiry? Is not cowardice, rather than simple discretion, the better part of valor? Is not conformity to prescribed falsehood less perilous than the seeking of truth? In any event, with respect to the enforcement of commands, customs, and such, the pit master was selective. He was neither legalistic nor rule-bound, but, too, he was neither antinomian nor iconoclastic. He would neither agree to be the same, as most, nor disagree merely to be different, as some.