The brute knew this. He was merely reminding me of my helplessness. It was doubtless an excellent lesson to be administered to a slave, and particularly, I supposed, to one such as I, an Earth-girl slave.
“It was shown to me,” I said, “but I cannot read. I am illiterate! It was never told to me.”
“Even if you could read,” he said, “you cold not see it now, for it is on your collar.”
“Please, Master,” I said, my eyes closed. “I would know my name.”
I must, I knew, hear my name first from the lips of a man.
“Do you beg to know the slave’s name?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” I said. “I beg to know the slave’s name.”
“It is a barbarian name,” he said, “short, luscious, and splendidly fitting for a slave.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He was silent.
“I beg to know the slave’s name,” I said.
“It is ‘Janice’,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“’Janice’,” I said.
“That is the sort of name beneath which a slave squirms well,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said. I felt the chain from my wrists between my thighs. Thence it ran back to my shackled ankles.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Janice, Master,” I said.
“Go to sleep now,” he said, “Janice.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
In a bit he had returned to his furs. He blew out the tiny flame of the lamp.
We were then in utter darkness.
I lay there for a time, and then lifted the chain on my wrists a little. I pressed my lips to it, and then to the manacles on my wrists, one after the other. I was ignorant of many things, but now, at least, I was no longer ignorant of my own name. I now knew who I was. I was Janice.
I then fell asleep.
14
“How free slaves are!” she cried, delightedly.
“Shhh, Mistress,” I cautioned her.
“You must not call me ‘Mistress’!” she whispered.
“Forgive me,” I said. Such things, from training, and from force of habit, sometimes slip out.
“And do not ask for my forgiveness,” she whispered. “Please! Someone might hear! Think of me only as a slave in your charge.”
“I will try,” I said. We had come from the bazaar with its sights and sounds, and booths and stalls, and the crowding, and the music. I much enjoyed that part of the city. We were now climbing steps to the upper terraces and courts. From there one may obtain a grand view of the mountains.
“I am so grateful to you!” she said.
I held her leash, preceding her. Her hands were braceleted behind her.
“It was your aide,” I said. “I only conveyed your please to the depth warden. Had I not do so, in some failure to comply with your request, I might have risked serious discipline.”
“Nonetheless, I am grateful!” she exclaimed. “You need not, I am sure, have conveyed my pleas. You might even have managed somehow to escape punishment for the inadvertence. Since my care was put in your keeping I have not even seen the depth warden. He might never have known. You might have pretended to misunderstand, or forget, or you might have denied that such pleas were made.”
“In such a matter,” I said, “your word would be taken over mine.”
“How vulnerable are slaves!” she marveled.
“Yes,” I said, climbing upward. “We are vulnerable.”
“But you could have conveyed my pleas in such a manner as to have had them discounted, or rejected as haughty demands, or such.
I was silent.
“You must have enjoined them upon the depth warden with sympathy.”
I supposed that was possible. She had been so pathetic.
“Oh! She suddenly exclaimed, in pain.
“Do you wish to pause?” I asked.
“No,” she said, looking at me, wincing, lifting one foot a little.
“Your feet are not yet toughened,” I said. She was barefoot, of course. This was in accord with her guise.
“Do you wish to wait?” I asked.
“Someone is coming,” she said.
Coming down the stairs was a man.
“Come, slave!” I said. “Do not dawdle!”
with a little cry of pain she followed me up the stairs, the leash straight between us. Little consideration is shown to slaves. The fellow glanced at us, sizing us up, as men do, as slave meat, in passing. We looked down. Had he stopped, we would have knelt.
“Is your foot all right?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
I think that the very first day on which I had seen the free woman, several days ago, over the pool, had been the same day on which a transformation had begun to be wrought in her. There were doubtless several causes for this, not to mention a certain ripening of her understanding, of how she was fully, truly, even though a prisoner, at the mercy of men. Specifically, I think it was useful to have had to explicitly, frequently, and humbly address the depth warden as “sir,” which practice apparently, in its present authentic form, began on that day, to know that she was not permitted to attempt to interfere with the latching of the cage, and might thus, at any moment, walking or sleeping, be plunged into the pool, to the creatures which frequented it, and, perhaps most significantly, to learn that she, though a free woman, was being housed in a slave cage. This latter comprehension, in itself, it seemed, had acted profoundly upon her consciousness. She had began soon after that, as I had learned from the brunette, Fina, she preferred by the pit master, who slept at his feet, to kneel in the cage at the approach of the pit master, the depth warden, who commonly attended to her. Further, she began, aside from the courtesy expressed in the use of the expression “sir,” to address him with great deference, and to importune him, when she dared, in suitable humility. Too, as she now used the word “sir” there could be no hint within it, as there might have been, as I understand it, before the day of her instruction at the pool, of irony or insult. Now no longer did she use it exaggeratedly, or pointedly, or sneeringly. It now emerged from her lips with sincerity, with understanding and respect.
I recalled that once, in my training, one of the girls in my group had dared to say the word “Master” to one of the guards in such a fashion that it was clear she did not mean it, in such a fashion that it constituted, in effect, a sneer. She was punished, terribly, and, in an instant, was blubbering for mercy, contrite, and fiercely instructed, begging with the utmost terror and authenticity to he who was then to her as master for mercy. Such insults, of course, are not tolerated for an instant in a slave. We quickly learn that the masters are truly “Master.”
“I am tired,” she said, climbing the stairs. Too, I think her foot hurt her.
I looked up and down the broad stairs. They were empty now, save for us.
“Let us rest,” I suggested.
She sat on the stairs.
“See,” she said, proudly, “how I hold my legs together, and to the side. Is it not attractive?”
“Seeing you thus,” I said, “I would think a man might be tempted to seize your ankles and part them.”
“Oh?” she said, pleased.
“It is more modest to kneel,” I said, kneeling on the broad step, my legs together.
“Should I be kneeling?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
Immediately she knelt.
“As I hold the leash,” I said, “you should be on a stair lower than I.”
She descended one stair, happily.
“That is not how you kneel before men, is it?” she asked.
“You are inquisitive,” I said.
“Is it?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I am a slave of a sort which, I expect, you, as a free woman, many never have heard of.”
“You are a pleasure slave,” she said, helpfully.
“You have heard of us?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “My brother has two of you. He pits them against one another.”
“The beast!” I exclaimed.
“He is well served.” She said.
“Doubtless,” I agreed.