But then what would they do, where would they go? How would they survive in the forest, naked and chained?
Their very survival depended on masters, and, as they were slaves, on pleasing masters.
The chain was clearly frightened.
All that they knew, and were familiar with, lay behind them.
One girl, the last on the chain, turned to look back at me, almost wildly, her hands steadying her burden.
It was she who had seemed, finding herself in “position,” perhaps for the first time in her life, to have come suddenly to a new sense of herself, to a new astonishing awareness of herself. The very assumption of “position” by a woman can have that effect. It is hard to be in “position” and not know oneself a female, and a particular sort of female. It is not only a symbolic posture for a woman, which she well understands, her kneeling, and vulnerability, and such, but it is an arousing posture, as well. I had seen her expression, her surprise, her apprehension, her fear, her curiosity, her incipient readiness. I had little doubt she would heat quickly, and might be the first of the lot to weep in need at the smallest touch of a master.
Then the chain moved, presumably frightened to remain where it was, presumably fearful of falling behind, and, the chain jerking against the side of her neck, she stumbled forward. Then she, with the others, had disappeared into the forest.
The women, I supposed, had not been named yet.
I recalled they had been recently sold, though to whom, or what, I knew not.
In any event, names, if they were to receive them, would be given to them by masters. The slave in her own right has no name, no more than any other animal. As a slave changes hands, she is commonly renamed.
I looked after the departing march.
It was no longer visible.
Then, to my surprise, I heard, from deep within the forest, what was, unmistakably, the roar of a larl.
I found this anomalous.
The larl is not indigenous to the northern forests.
I had let the march proceed without me, and none seemed to be concerned with that.
I was hungry.
I would now return to the hut of Pertinax.
Chapter Six
It was the afternoon of the day following the encounters on the beach, first with Sullius Maximus, and later with Torgus, the fee fighter, or mercenary, and his cohorts.
I was now accompanying Pertinax, deeply into the forest, being led, I supposed, to the alleged rendezvous with one whom I had been led to believe would be an agent of Priest-Kings. I supposed, of course, for reasons earlier suggested, that this individual would not be an agent of Priest-Kings but, most probably, of Kurii.
As it would turn out these matters were darker and deeper than I had suspected, and, in a sense, perhaps unknown to either, both Priest-Kings and Kurii, in a way, were being used.
Agents of both Priest-Kings and Kurii were being applied, unbeknownst to themselves, it seems, to the ends of a third party, or, perhaps it might be better said that three stratagems were afoot, which were occasionally intertwined. Do not dark rivers sometimes flow in the same channel?
The light was mottled, filtering through the foliage of the canopy.
“We are not in the reserves of Port Kar,” I said to Pertinax. This was obvious, for the reserves are gardened, or nearly so, shrubbery cleared, trees spaced, and such, that they may grow exuberantly upward, muchly straight, and tall. One nurses, so to speak, the loftiest and best wood, before its harvesting. Too, we had crossed none of the ditches that act as boundaries to a reserve, whether one of Port Kar or of another polity. Here, in this part of the forest, there was a great deal of shrubbery, brush, broken branches, fallen timber, debris of various sorts. Occasionally one waded through leaves, as through thigh-high surf. Here the trees were muchly together, each challenged by the others, leaves competing for sunlight, roots engaged in their subterranean contests to absorb water and minerals.
“No,” he said.
“You have not been this way before,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“The trail, however, is clear,” I said.
“You see it?” he said, surprised.
“Yes,” I said.
It was not really difficult. I did not know the sign but it appeared here and there, each sign usually visible, some fifty yards or so, from the vantage point of the previous sign. It resembled a yellow stain, such as might have resulted from talendars being rubbed on bark, but, examined closely, given its articulation, it was clearly the product of intelligence, of some intelligence.
“I suspect that we had to come today,” I said. I recalled he had been quite clear about the time we would enter the forest.
“Yes,” he said.
This confirmed my suspicion that the stain, whatever might be its composition, would be temporary, evaporating, or lapsing from visibility, within twenty or so Ahn. I took this as confirming my view that we were dealing with Kurii, for their science could easily manage such a thing. To be sure, so, too, could that of Priest-Kings. I also suspected that there would be a scent, or a flavor, to such a thing, that it would attract insects who would eliminate any possible residue.
“Oh!” cried Constantina.
I had jerked on the leash.
She could not see, of course, as she was hooded. Too, her wrists had been bound behind her.
Cecily had been similarly served. She, too, was hooded, and her small, lovely wrists fastened behind her.
This morning, to her consternation, I had fashioned a hood for Constantina, from opaque cloth, which artifact, once it was well on her, and completely enclosing her head, I fastened in place with some string about her throat.
I had then tied her hands behind her back, and put her to her knees.
“What are you doing?” had asked Pertinax, uneasily, not that I think he much minded seeing Constantina as she then was.
Certainly I had seen his eyes on her frequently the preceding evening. Her appeal to him had been much enhanced, I gathered, by my judicious amendments to her garmenture.
Doubtless he, too, suspected that she was no longer capable of removing her collar.
That, in itself, can make quite a difference in a man’s view of a woman.
All in all, I think he was toying with the thought of her as a slave. What would it be, if she were truly a slave?
Would that not be pleasant for a fellow?
She did not object, of course, to the hooding and binding, as she was desperate to keep up her pretense of bondage before Pertinax. I was not supposed to know that she was a free woman.
“Is it not obvious?” I had asked.
“But, why?” he asked.
“She is a slave,” I said. “Why should she know where she is going?”
“I see,” he said.
Such practices help to keep the slave helpless, and dependent on the master.
“Hood me, too, Master,” begged Cecily.
