“Often did I recall,” said she, “how they had spoken of having a place in mind for me, one for my safekeeping, one in which no one would ever find me!”
I heard her shake the bars in the darkness.
“Oh, yes!” she cried. “Here I am surely theirs! Here I need not fear rescue!”
I thought it true.
“Where is the ruby necklace?” I inquired. I thought it must be very pretty, and of great value.
“They left it on me, the sleen,” she cried, “until I arrived here. It was their joke, I think, that I should wear, fro all to see, hung about my neck, when I arrived here, what I had sought so avidly, so greedily, that with which they had baited their trap, that by means of which I had been snared, that in virtue of which I had come so simply into their power! But, their joke finished, it was removed from me before I was put here.”
“You do not know where it is?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Perhaps it is now once again at its work. Perhaps, even now, it is being used to snare another.”
“They are clever wretches!” she cried, suddenly. Again I heard the movement of what must be bars, shaken. She wept.
It seemed, indeed, she had been deftly, and cleverly, taken. The men here, it seemed, were not unskillful in diverse endeavors. Many businesses might be herein practiced. Certainly her acquisition, the arrangements, her transportation and such, spoke of a tried methodology, of some sort of experience or acumen in such matters. I gathered that she was rich. Her ransom, I speculated, would be considerable. It would doubtless be far more than she, or, I supposed, almost any woman, would be likely to bring on a sales block. If that were not the case, it seemed unlikely that the men here would be holding her for ransom. Rather, they would simply sell her, perhaps individually, or in a lot, with others. She was, it seemed, a free woman. I myself, on the other hand, was the sort of woman who is most appropriately owned. I had known this, even on my old world. And here, on this world, I was owned. To be sure, I would have preferred a private master. You might think, incidentally, that all of us would prefer to choose our own master, and not merely a private master, but an individual master, but that is not true. I think I would have preferred to choose my own master, but that is perhaps whom I had knelt even before my body had grown used to bonds of iron, one whom I had never forgotten, one whom I had failed to please, one whose whip I had kissed. But some of us, at least, would prefer not to choose our own master, but, rather, to have one imposed upon us, whom we must then, in the fullness of our bondage, willing or not, strive to please. Indeed, had I not met a particular man, one I well remembered, I, myself, might have preferred this latter alternative. I did, of course, hope to have a kind master, or, at least, one as kindly as was compatible with the clear, strict relationship in which we stood to one another. I wanted to win the love of my master, whoever he might be. I asked only the opportunity to serve and love. I was waiting to serve and love. But, in any event, it is not we who choose the masters. It is the masters who choose us.
“Hist!” she said, suddenly. “Someone is coming!”
I sat up, as I could, in the net, my hands bound behind me, my ankles crossed and tied. The net swung.
I heard nothing.
I saw nothing.
I was very still. I strained to hear. If she had truly heard something, her senses must have become considerably sharpened in this environment. To be sure, she might have learned, somehow, to detect and interpret the slightest of sounds in such a place. I did hear a stirring in the waters somewhere beneath. I had heard that sound before.
I thought I saw a light, dim, far off.
What would be done with me?
I recalled that the man in the chair had speculated that Dorna, the high slave, would not be displeased with my disposition. That recollection did not hearten me.
Closer grew the light.
“He is coming,” whispered the woman from the darkness. I heard the slight creak of the chain.
It seemed to me that at least two were in the passage, but it may be, I thought, that only one counted.
of what use, I asked myself, would be my beauty, if beauty it was, or the helplessness of my sexual reflexes, taken as a matter of course in a slave, in a place such as this?
But doubtless I would be assigned my duties!
The light came closer.
I did not even know my name! I had a name. One had been given to me by my masters. But I did not know what it was. It was on my collar. I knew that. But I did not know what it was. Indeed, I could not even read.
Now I could hear tiny sounds, unusual sounds, in the approaching passage.
I shuddered, waiting, bound in the net.
I recalled the girl from the surface, a slave, who had been whipped and sent, plunging, into the depths. She was terrified. I had no doubt she would do her best to be found pleasing.
The light was now closer, and I could determine, clearly, that there were two figures in the passage. The first was a woman, in a brief tunic. No more than a rag. She was excellently curved. She was doubtless a slave. She carried a torch. I was not sure what was behind her. I did not even know, for certain, if it were human or not. It seemed large, broad thing. But it had tiny legs. It walked bent over. I did not know if it could straighten itself or not. It less walked than shambled. It moved with small steps.
I blinked against the light. It was now bright, contrasting with the precedent darkness.
The woman continued to approach.
The thing, whatever it was, with its small steps, its lurching gait, came shuffling, shambling, behind her, snuffing, sniffing, and grunting. It was not, I surmised, human.
The woman stopped.
She now stood a few feet from me, behind a low wall. This wall was apparently circular. My net, I know discovered, was suspended almost over the center of what appeared to be a large, circular, well-like enclosure. The enclosure was perhaps some sixty-five to seventy feet in diameter. The water, several yards below, was very dark. I saw that my net had some ropes attached to it, which extended to a wall behind the walkway where the woman stood, behind what appeared to be the exterior wall of the well-like structure. I heard a creak of chain to my right, and I looked there, quickly. It was from that direction that I had heard the voice of the free woman earlier. I gasped. There, a few feet to my right, there hung, suspended from heavy chain, fixed in the ceiling, a narrow, conical-topped, cylindrical cage. It was perhaps some six feet in height, and some two to three feet in diameter. In this cage, standing within, veiled, in robes of concealment, was a woman. The arrangement of the veils suggested that they were merely tied about her features, and not pinned. Her robes of concealment seemed soiled and, at the hems, were torn. Her small hands grasped the bars of the cage. It was these she had, it seemed, futilely tested from time to time. She did not have gloves, which must have cost her modesty somewhat, but I did not find this surprising. From time to time, her wrists might have been corded before her, or behind her, and men on this world seldom, as I understand it, put bonds over such things as gloves or hose. They prefer on the whole, it seems, to place bonds upon, and to check and test their knots, the arrangement and such, on the bared limbs themselves. In this approach one obtains greater security, of course, as layers between the bonds and the flesh are avoided. I recalled her slippers had been, by her own account, taken from her to be used as evidence of her capture. Too, as I recalled, her ankles had been bound with her own hose. That sort of thing is not unusual. Indeed, the guards in the pens had said that free women were eager to oblige their captors, for they carried about with them, for the convenience of the captors, their own won bonds, one stocking for the ankles, and the other for the wrists. The free women pulled their feet back, a little more under her robes. She was doubtless terribly distressed that her feet were not covered. She was not, after all, a slave. Slaves, I might mention, are often kept barefooted.