But, both kneeling, they clung to one another, kissing, each weeping.
I stood to one side, embarrassed, if not dismayed, at this demonstration.
“It is only a slave,” I said.
“Yes!” he gasped.
“Are you going to keep it?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “yes!”
“For a time, at any rate,” I said.
“Yes!” he said. “Yes!”
I feared he was not attending much to me.
“I take it,” I said, “that that is Alcinoe. That was the name, at any rate, on the collar.”
“Yes,” he said.
“I gather you do not need now to journey to the World’s End, as it, so to speak, has been brought to you.”
He mumbled something, but the words were blurred, as he had his mouth on the side of her neck, under her hair.
“I suppose Lord Nishida, and perhaps Tarl Cabot, suspected you had some interest in this slave. Otherwise, certainly her presence here would seem fortuitous. Are you listening to me? She is a well-formed slave, but you could probably trade her in, at a slave house, for a better, given an extra coin or two.”
“No,” I think he said.
“I do not much care for that tunic,” I said, “it is too long, too heavy, too opaque. A scrap of silk would better remind her that she is a slave.”
He then put her at arm’s length, and looked upon her, enraptured.
“What color are her eyes?” I asked.
But I received no answer, for they were again in one another’s arms. Her eyes, as I later ascertained, were brown. It seemed difficult to communicate with Callias at the time.
“Is she white silk?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he mumbled.
“Surely you are interested,” I said. To be sure, a white-silk slave is quite rare.
I was having not much fortune in conversing with Callias, and so I thought I might try it with the slave. “May she speak?” I asked Callias.
“Yes,” he said. “Certainly.”
I was alarmed for Callias. Apparently he had given the matter very little thought. In any event, it seemed he accorded her a standing permission to speak. Many masters do, but, of course, with the understanding that that permission is revocable at any time. He had not even made the slave wait, in unsettled apprehension, for a time, to see what might be his decision in the matter. Whereas many masters do accord their girls a standing permission to speak, many others do not, but expect the slave, under normal conditions, at least, to request permission to speak, before speaking. Fewer things make it clearer to a woman that she is truly a slave, than that she may not speak without her master’s permission.
“Slave,” I said.
“Master?” she said.
“Are you white silk or red silk?”
“White, white, white!” she said, continuing with her kisses, then licking at the shoulder of her master, thereby confessing herself the more his loving, begging beast.
That answer, it seemed to me, was clear enough. I supposed that she had been kept white silk deliberately. I would not have guessed, however, from the sheen of sweat on her body, her avidity, the eagerness of her kisses, the wetness of her hair back against her neck, that she was white silk. As mentioned, white-silk slaves are rare. Often there is not one in a slave house.
Given the look of this slave, who was quite beautiful, though I had seen many better, it seemed unlikely she was truly white silk. Her body, its deliciousness, its vitality, its movements, its pressings and brushings, its piteous closures with, and its desperate touchings against, the master, its pleadings, did not suggest white silk. To be sure, there is a simple test for such things, often conducted by slavers. If she were truly white silk now, it was interesting to speculate on what she might be if red silk, if become the victim of irresistible slave fires. How easily a slave may be managed, and controlled, by such things! Must she wait? Will one choose to satisfy them, and how often, and in what way, and to what extent? A red-silk slave is often deprived of attention for some days, say, four or five, before being brought to the block, that she may writhe in the sawdust, extend her hands pathetically, and howl her need to the buyers.
“Have you had your slave wine?” I inquired.
I thought this a judicious question, and one that might not occur to Callias, and the slave, given the reckless pitch of their activities. A sober head is not amiss in such matters. It also seemed a good question to ask, too, as the slave, if white silk, did not seem destined to long remain in that condition.
“Yes, Master,” cried the slave, gasping, “that horrid stuff was forced down my throat shortly after my first collaring, and when I first came aboard the great ship, that of Tersites, and before I was landed, at the World’s End, and again, here at Brundisium, before I was brought ashore.”
I was well satisfied in this. Indeed, given improvements in slave wine, dating back some years, brewed from the sip root, the first administering of the wine would be sufficient indefinitely, until the administration of a releaser, which removes its effects. The releaser, I am told, unlike slave wine, which is quite bitter, is quite pleasant, rather like a sweet wine, or fruit liqueur. It is usually administered when it is decided that the slave is to be bred. Sometimes slave wine is administered more than once. There could be several reasons for this, for example, one might not know if it has been administered before, and one might wish to make sure of the matter, or one might simply wish additional security in the matter, which seemed to explain the dosage at the World’s End, or that before bringing the slave ashore in Brundisium. Too, one might administer it as a punishment, rather like a whipping or a night in close chains. Needless to say, if the slave comes with papers, a certification with respect to slave wine, and the date of its most recent administration, will usually be included in the papers.
“She seems a passionate little thing,” I said. “Are you going to breed her?”
“Yes, breed me, breed me, Master,” she wept, kissing him.
“I do not think she understands,” I said to the stranger, Callias. “Are you going to put her out for breeding?”
“Put me out for breeding?” she said, startled.
“It is a way of increasing one’s stock of slaves,” I said. “To be sure, there would be a fee for the use of the male slave.”
“I could be bred?” she said.
“Of course,” I said, “you are slave stock.”
This sort of thing, on the whole, however, is usually done by fellows who have many female slaves and do not know them, often the proprietors of large farms. The slaves, then, are bred with the same attention to lines, and properties, as other domestic animals, tarsk, verr, hurt, kaiila, tharlarion, and such. This sort of thing is independent of the sort of thing practiced on the great slave farms. Some bred slaves have pedigrees going back several generations.
“Master, Master,” she wept, “do not breed me. Keep me for yourself!”
“He will do as he wishes, slave,” I informed her.
Usually, in slave breeding, both the male and female slave are chained in a breeding stall, and hooded, that neither may know the other. The breeding takes place under the supervision of masters, or their agents, and the slaves, of course, are forbidden to speak to one another. If the breeding is successful, the mother is hooded during labor, and never sees the child, which is taken from her, to be tended, and cared for, elsewhere.
“I am so a slave, so a slave!” she said.
I frankly doubted that Callias would put her out for breeding. Indeed, I was beginning to wonder if he would release her from his arms.
“It may be done with you,
“Yes, Master,” she whispered, frightened. It seemed I had suggested to her a new dimension of being a slave, to which she had hitherto devoted little thought.
