“Slave,” said he in the chair to me.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
I looked up at him from my side, where I lay. He had not ordered me to kneel. It seemed it was his will that I should retain my low position. It is difficult, of course, to get to one’s knees, bound as I was, but it can be done. If ordered to do so one strives to do so as quickly and gracefully as possible. We are expected to obey unhesitantly and swiftly, subject, of course, to the proviso that we should do so as well, as beautifully, as possible. These people have, as I have suggested, a highly developed aesthetic sense. They require beauty in their slaves, both in appearance and movement.
“Dorna,” said he, “has been a slave longer than you so it is fitting that it would be her ears which would first be pierced.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Accordingly,” he said, “even though she is a high slave and you are a low slave, you are, at this moment, as your ears have not been pierced, a thousand times higher than she.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. I was, of course, puzzled by this. One thing seemed clear, once again, the apparent cultural momentousness of ear piercing on this world.
“But,” said he, “as soon as your ears are pierced, you will be, again, a thousand times lower than she.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He turned to the fellow in the apron. “Pierce her ears,” he said.
I could not resist, of course, bound as I was.
The leather worker put his tiny kit of tools down beside me, and, undoing a string, opened it, and spread it out.
“Kneel her,” he said.
A fellow seized me my the hair and pulled me up, painfully, to a kneeling position.
“Spread your knees,” he said.
I obeyed.
“Hold her head,” said the leather worker to the fellow who had knelt me.
He crouched behind me and fastened his hands in my hair, tightly. I could not move my head in the slightest without great pain. It hurt even as he held me. “Take her arms, you, and you,” said the leather worker to two other fellows. “Hold her down, on her knees.” The two fellows addressed them, one on each side of me, seized an arm. I was then held in place, bound hand and foot, down, on my knees, one man holding my head, by the hair, another holding my left arm, and another my right. Their grips were tight. I had little doubt that marks would be left on my arms. To me, of course, these precautions seemed not only unnecessary, but excessive. I did not much fear having my ears pierced. I gathered, however, that on this world many women might. Perhaps they would shriek and struggle, however futilely. I began to sense then, even more, how momentous ear piercing was on this world. This made me uneasy. If I had truly understood the meaning of ear piercing on this world perhaps I, too, I supposed, might have regarded it with horror, and striven to resist, however meaninglessly, however stupidly, however unavailingly and ineffectually. But I doubted it. As a slave it seemed to me fitting that my ears would be pierced, and that men would do with me as they wished. It was not lost on me, of course, that I was knelt. This was to make it clear, I gathered, that ear piercing was something that was done only to slaves. Too, the fellow who had pulled me up to my knees had told me to spread my knees. Thus, I would be kneeling as a certain sort of slave, when this was done to me. I would thus, I suppose, associate these two things, my ear piercing and the sort of slave I was.
I saw the leather worker with a bright, long needle.
I felt my left ear lobe drawn downward, taut. It was then pierced. There must have been a drop of blood, as the worker rubbed the ear with his thumb. He then inserted a tiny object, like a droplet with a steel pin, though the wound and, on the other side of the ear lobe, snapped on a tiny disk. These operations were then, with suitable adjustments, repeated with respect to the right ear lobe, even to the wiping away of what must have been another drop of blood. I was then released and allowed to lie on my back. The leather worker was then wiping his needle and returning it to his kit, which he then did up, as it had been. There had been very little pain, though I had felt a prick each time, and I could now feel the tiny rods through my ear lobes. It was a strand feeling. My ear lobes felt a little sore. This soreness, I realized, would quickly pass.
“You are now a pierced-ear girl,” the fellow in the apron informed me, grinning.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
I sensed, frightened, he liked me that way.
“You are not to disturb this work,” said the man in the chair.
“No, Master,” I said. I gathered that some women, doubtless would of this world, might, perhaps in hysteria, try to tear such things from their ears.
The man in the apron stood up, and caught a coin in one hand, tossed to him by the fellow who had conducted him hither. The man in the apron then bowed, and, with another look at me, lying on my back, bound, on the flagging, took his leave.
One of the men looked down at me. “Pierced-ear girl,” he sneered.
I turned my head away. I did not dare to look at him.
I suddenly sensed a new, pervasive, remarkable interest in me. I sensed powerful heat. It was almost like waves of flame. I lay there, small and helpless, a naked, bound slave at the mercy of masters. Was there now so much that was now so different about me?
“Tenrik,” said the man in the chair, sharply.
“Yes, Captain!” said the jailer.
“This is not the time for us to amuse ourselves with a slave,” said the man in the chair.
“No, Captain,” said Tenrik.
In a moment it seemed that order was restored.
Whereas the remark had been ostensively addressed to Tenrik it had obviously not been intended for him, or for him in particular, but, by means of him, so to speak, had been a remark addressed to all.
I gathered the remark, of course, that there might well be times when such as I might be given up for the amusement of men, but that this was not such a time.
Too, I gathered that there was discipline in this place, and here I do not speak of such things as the correctives and admonitives, however sure, strict and sever, to which an errant slave might find herself subjected, but of sterner stuff, the discipline of the military, that of the Warrior, that discipline necessary for the raid, the engagement, that required for decisive and coordinated action in highly dangerous circumstances, and, even, too, that other sort of discipline, the long, slow, staying sort of discipline, that which might be required for weeks and months, even years, that tenacity, that sturdiness, needed for the sometimes seemingly endless rigors and privations of campaigns, and wars.
I rose a bit, on my elbows, my wrists tied behind me.
I looked about a bit. Some of the men were still regarding me. But they would not act, not now.
I was safe now, at least for a time.
I looked away from the eyes of a man, frightened. His eyes might as well have been those of a lion.
But I was safe now.
The eyes of others, too, were as those of lions.
I shuddered.
How fearful it must be for any woman to be among such men, let along one such as I, a slave!
I felt as though I might be a delicacy, one which, had it not been for a word from he in the chair, would by now have been seized and devoured. But on this world there were doubtless many such delicacies, silked and perfumed, combed and belled, deliciously curved, trained, eager to please. Might they not be encountered in any tavern? Indeed, I had at one time thought that I might be sent to such a tavern. Girls such as I, from my world, are apparently popular purchases with tavern keepers.
I lay there before the dais, helpless, but now, apparently, quite safe.
But I felt somehow angry, somehow vaguely dissatisfied, even irritated.
What sort of girl was I?
How pleased I was that I was now safe!
They could not touch me now!