“Put her in the box,” said Aynur.
I was lifted up and put in the box. For a moment I was sitting up, wildly, within it, but then, by one hand in my hair, pulling back and down, and the other, lifting my ankles, and forcing them back, I was brought down in the box, on my back. I tried to rear up, but I was pressed down, rudely, uncompromisingly, just under my throat, by the hand which had governed my ankles. My bound ankles were then pulled forward and down, in such a way that the soles of my feet were on the floor of the box. I whimpered, frenziedly, pleadingly. I lay in the box then, on my back, my knees drawn up. It was small. I was cramped within it. The lid was shut. I heard bolts snap. It was s sturdy metal box, and is, in itself, its own security device. Its occupant need not be bound. It had four sets of perforations, for the admission of air. One was to my left and one to my right, where my head was. The others were to the left and right, near my ankles, as I lay. In this fashion, whether a girl’s head is to the left or right, as she is inserted into the box, there will be breathing holds in the vicinity of her face. I could see out through the perforations, by turning my head one way or the other. These perforations, in each set, were so arranged as to form a cursive kef, which is the first letter in the word ‘kajira’. The cursive kef, in variations, is also used as the common slave mark for kajirae. On my left thigh, just below the hip, I bore the same mark, put there by a slave iron.
“Bury it deep!” laughed Aynur. “Cast it into the foulest carnarium!”
I struggled inside the box. I whimpered madly. It would be only too easy, in the dead of night, to bury the box somewhere outside the walls, in some remote place, or to cast it into one of the carnariums, the refuse pits outside the wall, into which garbage, and excrement, and all filth, as from the emptying of the giant vats of the insulae, might be thrown. But could they not, if this were their intent, strangle me first, utilizing some convenient string of cord, or smother me with a blanket or cushion, one easily found, perhaps one almost at hand, or even enter a blade swiftly, mercifully, into my heart? Surely that would not be difficult. They were armed!
“Before such things are considered,” said one of the men, “we must make certain that she is the correct slave.”
I turned my head to the right in misery, looking wildly though the tiny perforations at Aynur.
“She answers the description,” said Aynur. “She had a private sale. She came to the house at the time in question.”
“One not of the house was within the house today,” said one of the men to the other. “He may have spoken to her.”
“He was alone with her in the garden,” said Aynur, angrily. “He undoubtedly spoke with her!”
“Not necessarily,” said one of the men.
Aynur looked down, angrily.
Sometimes the masters use us in silence, neither permitting us to speak, nor, for their part, deigning to speak to us. This is a very humiliating way in which to be handled, but in it we are left in no doubt as to the fact that we are mastered. Human speech does not pass between us. We are put in one position or attitude, or another. We must obey the slightest signs and indications. It helps to remind us that we are animals.
“I think we should assume words passed between then,” said the other man.
“Not necessarily,” said the first. “It is sometimes amusing to treat a pleasure-garden girl, or a high slave, as though she might be a low slave, or even the most worthless of common slaves.”
I supposed this was true. The difference between a high slave and a low slave, of course, is only the whim of the master. It is they who decide on which step of the dais, so to speak, we may kneel, or even if we may approach the dais at all.
“Surely we are not prepared to take the risk,” said the other.
“No,” said the first. “It has been resolved that we shall not wait.”
“I have delivered her into your hands,” said Aynur. “Pay me.”
“Are you standing?” asked one of the men.
Aynur fell to her knees, angrily. Then she put out her hand, palm up.
“Pay me!” she said.
I sensed that one of the men removed some coins from his wallet. I heard the clink of metal.
Aynur seemed quite pleased. Her had was out.
I saw a hand poised over hers, as though to drop coins into her opened palm.
“You are certain,” asked the man, “that you wish these coins to touch your hand?”
“Master?” asked Aynur, pulling back her hand suddenly, as though it might have been burned.
“It is nothing to me,” said the man. “But I thought it might be something to you.”
Aynur, suddenly, angrily, fearfully, held her hands behind her back. They might have been bracelted there.
Aynur, though she was first amongst us, was nonetheless a pleasure-garden girl. Pleasure-garden girls are commonly forbidden to touch coins. Reasons for this are obvious, for example, that they might receive gratuities from guests and hide them; that they might take money from guards, or others, to further intrigues or to attempt to influence masters; that they be denied the power which coins might bring, in bribing guards or tradesmen, and so on. Indeed, slaves are commonly forbidden to touch money except under certain conditions, as when being sent to the market, and so on. In this house, as in many others, slaves, at least those of the pleasure garden, were not permitted to touch money. It can be a capital offense to do so, hands may be cut off, and such. Legally, of course, the slave can own nothing, not even as little as a tarsk-bit. It is, rather, she who is owned.
“No!” said Aynur, suddenly. “I do not want the money!”
“As you wish,” said the fellow. I saw the hand, presumably holding coins, withdrawn. I heard them clinking again, presumably being returned to a wallet, falling in with others. Aynur was furioius.
But she was a slave. She was slave helpless. Even so little as a word, or a veiled hint, to the house master, by someone, might call attention to her. Would it be worth her life, say, to retain the coins? Could she successfully hide them, if they were sought for? Could she dispose of them, without being found out? Would her denials be credited, if it were stated by some authority that she had taken them? Who were these men? Did they, perhaps, have the confidence of the master? Might they not even be his agents?
“I shall, with Masters’ permission,” she said, angrily, “return to the rest area.”
“You may find that difficult,” said one of the men.
“Masters?” she asked, frightened.
“I think you will find that the guard has closed the door, after you,” said the man.
“No!” cried Aynur, in horror.
The door, of course, locked automatically.
Certainly a guard had left the door open, and certainly he might have closed it later, following our exit. It would presumably be the same guard who had contacted her earlier, and who had left the door open for our exit, he who had apparently been suborned, he who might even, by now, have left the house, to depart the city.
“Masters!” protested Aynur.
Her terror was fully justified. She could not return to the rest area. She was locked out, and within the house. In the morning she would be found in the hall. She would then be punished, perhaps by being thrown to leach plants, perhaps by being fed to sleen.
“Yes?” said one of the men.
“What am I to do?” she begged.
“You may do whatever you wish,” he said, “but if I were you, I would accompany us.”
“You have arranged things thusly!” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “If you remain here you will surely die, and thus you would be wise to come with us. In this fashion, of course, you place yourself in our power. And if this is not the slave we seek, if you have delivered the wrong girl to us, if it turns out that you have been mistaken, or have sought to trick or betray us, you will be in our power, answerable, and fully, to our displeasure.”
She moaned.