“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“You understand,” he said, “that we may, if we wish, put you back over the pool, and assure you that that is not the worst sort of accommodation in the pits.”
“Yes, sir,” she said. She bowed her head.
“Your behavior is particularly to be commended,” he said, “as you are not bond.”
She lifted her head, it seemed, as though puzzled.
“When one is bond,” he said, “one has absolutely no choice-instant and unquestioning perfection of service is required.”
“Sir?” she said.
“Janice!” he snapped.
“Master!” I cried, startled.
“Obeisance!” he said.
Instantly I knelt forward, the palms of my hands on the floor, my head to the floor.
“Lick and kiss,” he said.
I scrambled forward and, head down, kissed and licked, swiftly, frightened, at his feet and sandals.
“Enough!” he said. “Back!”
I drew back, hastily. But he was no longer paying me attention.
“You see?” he asked the free woman.
“Yes, sir,” she said, trembling.
“You seem to have learned something of what it is to be in the keeping of men,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Keep in mind,” he said, “in the future, that you are still in their keeping, utterly.”
“Sir?” she said.
“Though henceforth,” said he, “more indirectly.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“I am a free man,” he said. “I have no intention continuing indefinitely to attend to you personally. It is not as though you were my slave, a girl whose hair I might comb, or in whose feeding and watering I might take some pleasure. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sire,” she said.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “we do not have free women to attend to such matters in the depts…”
“I understand,” she said.
“This, Janice,” said he, “is the Lady Constanzia, of the city of Besnit.”
“Master,” I whispered, in misery.
“Lady Constanzia,” said he, “the bond-maid, Janice.”
“Janice,” she said.
“Mistress,” I said.
“You need not call her “Mistress,”” said the depth warden. He then turned to the free woman. “Your care, for the most part, will be in her hands,” he said. “Moreover, you will give her no trouble. And you will obey her.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
I marveled.
“Incidentally,” said he, females-.”
I was startled that he used the same expression to refer to us both. I supposed, of course, that we were both females, but, in a sense, within that genus, of two quite disparate species, one free, one slave. But, in another sense, of course, both of us were the same, both females, and were thus addressed, as only females, relative to his maleness.
“-you are to exchange little or not political or military information.”
“I know little of such things,” said the free woman.
And I knew myself, of course, almost totally ignorant of such matters, certainly on this world. Further, a limitation on our discourse had now been imposed, a limitation which would doubtless be respected. This was not a world on which such as we, she a prisoner, I a slave, would be likely to transgress such an injunction. Who would want to be thrown, for example, to those terrible creatures in the pool?
The pit master then turned about, and began to withdraw down the corridor. I had leapt up, and hurried to follow him. That was the first day on which I had begun the care of the free woman. That very night I took her her food and water. “Go to the back of the cell,” I told her. She complied. She had not knelt, of course. I was not a man. Still, I was her keeper. I think she had not really known how she should behave with me. Nor, as a matter of fact, on the whole, did I. The pit master, however, had told me to have her kneel, and help her keep in mind that she is a prisoner. I had the key to the cell on a string. I put down the food and water, opened the cell, put the key back about my neck, and brought in the food.
“There are guards about,” I informed her, though I supposed she must be aware of this.
“Yes, she said.
She did not seem particularly haughty or arrogant. A great transformation, it seemed, had come over her since the first time I had seen her, at the pool.
“Do not try to escape,” I said. The door was, after all, now open.
“I will not,” she said.
“You cannot escape,” I said “Escape is impossible for you.”
“I know,” she said.
“Kneel,” I said.
She knelt.
I let her remain kneeling for a few moments, looking at me. I then came toward her ad put the food down, on the floor, before her.
“Do not touch it yet,” I said.
She drew back her hands.
I was standing before her.
She looked up at me.
“Remove your veil,” I said.
She unwound the veil from her features, carefully, gently, where she had wrapped it about herself, and brushed back the hood of her robes of concealment.
She then looked up at me. She did not seem angry, or offended.
“You are the barbarian,” she said.
“The one whom you had punished,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“I was shipped,” I said.
“You have face-stripped me,” she said.
“Doubtless you did not then expect to be where you are now.”
“No,” she said.
“I am the one,” I said. “who speaks so terribly.”
“You speak beautifully,” she said.
“I have an accent,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “You have an accent.”
“A slave accent!” I said.
“It is a lovely accent,” she said.
“But it is a slave accent!” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “It is a slave accent.”
“You think my accent is acceptable?” I asked.
“It is a beautiful accent,” she said.
“I think you are trying to lie,” I said.
“No,” she said. “I am trying to accustom myself to telling the truth.”
“Why?” I asked.
“It does not matter, does it?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I suppose not,” She looked at the food. “But it is a slave accent,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “It is a slave accent.”
I did not think she had eaten since last night. She must be ravening.
“You may eat,” I said.
She lost no time in addressing herself to the food, but, rather to my surprise, and irritation, she did so with delicacy. She had a certain breeding and refinement, it seemed, of sort which one might not expect to find in my sort, in slaves. I supposed that if she were a slave, the signs in her manner of such breeding and refinement might be of interest to a master, not that they would make her any less a slave. Similarly a high-caste accent, with all its elegance and refinement, would not make her any the less a slave either. Such learn to leap and obey as quickly as the rest of us.
“You eat with delicacy,” I said.
Too, this refinement, this elegance, seemed so natural in her. Such, doubtless, was the effect of breeding.
“Your features are not unattractive,” I said.
It had been in consequence of my orders that she must remove her veil, exposing her features. But this was not as momentous as it might seem. I was, after all, a woman. It was not as though I were a man, a brutal masculine captor, who had torn away her veil, that he might assess her promise for the collar. Too, many free women would think nothing of appearing unveiled before their serving slaves. Yet I was sure it would not have been lost upon her that she had had to remove her veil, that so precious thing to a free woman, at my command. But she had not seemed dismayed to remove it. Was she concerned, I wondered, to make clear to us the authenticity of her new understanding, that she must obey. Or, perhaps, did she find it appropriate, for some reason, that he features be bared?
She looked up at me, timidly.
“I am not lying,” I said. “I am not a free woman. I am a slave. I can be punished terribly for lying.”
She threw me a grateful glance.