I fell asleep. I am sure it was well before the mat check.
42
“Shhh,” I heard. “Do not make any noise.”
I awakened on the mat. It must have been well after the mat check.
It was Aynur’s voice.
It was dark in the room. I could hear the breathing of several of the other flowers, asleep nearby on their mats.
“Mistress?” I asked.
I was still on my belly, from the switching I had received the preceding evening.
“Place your wrists, crossed, behind your back,” said Aynur. I complied and, in an instant, with a double loop, they were corded together.
“Do not many any noise,” said Aynur.
“What is it?” I whispered, frightened.
“You are to be taken to see the master,” she whispered. I was startled to hear this. Was this how he had his girls brought to him, in the darkness of the night, secretly? Or, did this have to do with other business, clandestine business perhaps, nocturnal interrogations? Perhaps he was curious to know what had transpired in the garden. Indeed, perhaps the stranger was with him and I must now be brought before them.
“Should I not be silked?” I asked.
“You will go as you are,” she said.
Aynur then reached before me and thrust a wad of cloth into my mouth. This she bound in place with a folded scarf, knotted behind the back of my neck. The original wad of cloth, now held in, as I struggled with it, moving it about in my mouth, expanded to fill my oral cavity. “Be very quiet,” said Aynur. “Do not make any noise.” It was an effective gag. Even had I dared, I could have done little to make myself heard. “Get up,” said Aynur. I rose to my feet. I felt her had on my back. “Move,” she said, “barbarian.” I was pressed toward the door. The door was now unlocked. I receded her, directed by her, down the main corridor, and then into a side passage, past several doors, and then into a small room. It was dark. Aynur closed the door behind us. Surely this was not the compartments of the master!
“Sit,” said Aynur.
I sat down.
“Cross your ankles,” said Aynur.
I did so and Aynur, in the darkness, bound them together.
A moment or so later a fire-maker was struck in the room and a man, masked, lit a tiny lamp on a table. There was another man in the room, as well, also masked.
Near the table, on the floor, there was a slave box.
“This is the slave,” said Aynur. “I deliver her to you, Masters.”
I struggled suddenly with the bonds, but could not free myself.
The men regarded me, bemused.
I tried to speak but was prevented by the gag. I could utter only small sounds, pleading sounds, questioning sounds, sounds of misery and fear.
“You have done well, slave,” said one of the men.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
Then Aynur turned to me. “Do not fear, barbarian slut,” said she, “but after today, sooner or later, I would have found a way to get you out of the garden! Do not think to lie again, filthy little slave, in the arms of my Camillus!”
I supposed that guards might be sometimes suborned, with the promise of the gift of dangerous, delicious, clandestine favors, and such, to cooperate in such matters. Intrigues in the gardens, in the slave quarters, can be quite fearful.
“See her struggle,” said Aynur to the guards. Then she again addressed herself to me. “One of the guards, one who leaves the city tonight,” she said, “will be thought to have stolen you from the slave quarters, doubtless for your golden collar.”
I looked at her, angrily, over the gag. Did she truly think I might be stolen for my golden collar?
“I myself will return to the quarters, locking the door behind me. How surprised, how horrified, will we all be in the morning!”
Again I struggled, but Aynur had tied me quite well.
“But I have been saved the trouble of arranging these matters,” she said, “for others, it seems, are interested in you. Tonight’s events have been planned, it seems, for some time, but only this evening was I contacted by a guard, he who leaves the city this night. You can imagine with what joy I attended his proposals.”
I looked to the men. It was hard to read their eyes. I did not think they were guards in the house.
One thing unnerved me, terribly. Though I was stripped and bound before these men, I did not seem to find myself regarded with interest, curiosity, or relish I might have anticipated, that which one might expect to be accorded to such as I, a naked, bound slave. I hoped, of course that this might prove to be an ordinary, if unusually daring, case of slave theft. Stealing slaves, as you might expect, is a not unusual practice on this world. Among many young men the theft of slaves, and even of free women, from enemy cities is regarded as a sport. Among slavers it is regarded as a business. The prevention of slave theft is one reason for the presence of slave rings in public places, for the fastening of slaves to the foot of couches at night, and so on. I did not much fear slave theft as it would extract me from the boredom, if security, of the garden, indeed, I welcomed the prospect for I hoped that it would, sooner or later, bring me within the grasp of a master who would know how to handle me, and would do so, with audacity and command. But I did not think these men were simply interested in picking up a pleasure-garden girl, even one who might be of unusual interest, either for their own house or to put on the block in some foreign city, hopefully turning a tidy profit on her. I might be beautiful or not, but I did not think these men were interested in that sort of thing. They did not seem to regard me with an interest which suggested they wanted me for themselves, nor, as far as I could tell, did I find in their gaze any speculations as to how I might appear to possible buyers, or to an unknown principal.
“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.