Numbly, she turned, and retraced her steps, and then stood before him, head down, small before his size and power.
Then she raised her head, and said, “Sirik me.”
The neck ring was snapped about her throat first, rather like a Turian collar. Next her small wrists were clasped in the wrist rings, each at the terminus of the short, horizontal chain, attached to the vertical chain dangling from the collar, which vertical chain, continuing, looped down to the floor where, attached to it was the second horizontal chain, each end of which terminated in an ankle ring. Two snaps, and she was ankle bound. The sirik is a lovely and practical chaining arrangement. The two horizontal chains may be used in conjunction with the vertical chain, or independently, in which case one might have wrist shackles, in which the wrists might be confined before or behind the slave, and ankle shackles. Her wrists, now confined before her, were some six inches apart, and her ankles were something like a foot apart, permitting her to shuffle, or walk with small, careful, measured steps, but not allowing her to run. The vertical chain may function independently, as well, as a chain leash, or a tethering device, by means of which the slave might be secured to a slave ring, a tree, a stanchion, or such. The length of the vertical chain, which may loop to the floor when the slave’s hands are lowered, is also long enough to permit her, her hands lifted, to feed herself.
He regarded the slave before him, small, naked, siriked.
“The visage of Master is terrible,” she said. “Is Master angry? Does Master despise his slave? How different he is now from but moments before. She would that Captain Nakamura had not spoken of past things, of fearful things, of things long since regretted. I am not different from what I was, but moments ago, in Master’s arms.”
He was silent. His fists were clenched.
“It seems Master has recalled another woman,” she said, “the vain, deceitful, greedy, traitress, Flavia of Ar.”
“Yes,” he said.
“She who once was that woman now stands before you,” she said, “naked, and siriked.”
“It is thus,” said the stranger, “that Marlenus prefers to have his captives brought before him, naked and chained, then to be flung to their knees before his throne.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
He regarded her, I fear, with ferocity.
“I am naked and chained,” she said. “I am helpless. You can do with me as you wish. I cannot escape. I cannot prevent you from taking me to the restored Marlenus now, and putting me before him, if you will, my knees on the tiles, before his throne.”
“Cry out now,” he said, angrily, “with all the pride, fury, and rage of the free woman.
“Were I free,” she said, “I would not do so, but would rather beg to be shown mercy, and beg instead that you would make me your slave.”
“You are such?” he said, scornfully.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Slave,” he sneered.
“Yes, Master,” she said, humbly.
“Cry out,” he demanded, “angrily, loudly, insolently! Threaten me! Denounce me!”
“Do you not understand, Master,” she said. “I cannot do so. That is all behind me. See my collar. See my mark! I am now a slave!”
“Yes,” he said, “it is true. I doubt then that you, now a slave, would be impaled as high as a free person, for that might demean them, you, say, some seven or eight feet, not twenty or thirty, as they, to show your lowliness.”
“I am sure,” she said, “in the end, it makes little difference.”
He folded his arms, and regarded her.
“Despise me if you wish,” she said, “but despise me not as the Lady Flavia of Ar, for I am no longer she. Despise me then, if you must, as a slave, the slave that I am.”
“You should be taken to Ar,” he said.
“Take me to Ar,” she said.
“I do despise you,” he said, “but not for your collar; rather for what you once were.”
“And no longer am,” she said.
“But were once!”
“But no longer!”
“You should be taken to Ar,” he said.
“So,” she said, “I am to be taken to Ar?”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Are there no better things to do with a slave?” she asked.
She was cuffed, sharply.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said.
“Ar would be too easy for you,” he said, “for one who was once the Lady Flavia.”
“Master will not take his slave to Ar?” she said.
He was silent for a time, regarding her. Her head was down. Then he said, “No.”
“Master?” she said, looking up.
“There are better things to do with a slave,” he said.
“That is my hope,” she said.
“Long ago, on the ship,” he said, “I told you that I did not care for gold washed in blood.”
“That pleases me,” she said.
“And thereby I lose myself a fortune,” he said.
“But obtain thereby,” she said, “a much greater fortune, that of being yourself.”
“Slut, slave, vile thing,” he said.
“I will try to please my master,” she said.
His eyes were hard.
“Be kind,” she said, frightened.
There was a small sound, as the links of the sirik rustled.
Not every man, of course, will accept bounty, particularly on a woman. Callias, of Jad, was a warrior, an oarsman, at one time an officer. Bounty hunters are commonly low warriors, men without Home Stones, brigands, assassins, villains, thieves, reprobates, the recklessly impecunious, gamblers, the dishonored. I had not thought that Callias was such a man, and my judgment was now vindicated. To be sure, what now stood stripped and siriked before him had once been the Lady Flavia of Ar. Nothing could change that.
The stranger did not care for gold washed in blood.
Should he then return her to Ar, that she might suffer at the hands of an alien justice?
What good could be served by such an act?
Many are the masks of justice, and behind those masks there may be no face, only a choice of masks.
He who has power chooses a mask to his liking.
How fiercely the masks scowl at one another.
I thought the slave was right, that the Lady Flavia of Ar was gone, that she had vanished, with the snapping of a collar. What remained might be named, and dealt with, as one pleased.
Still the lovely slave between us had once been the Lady Flavia of Ar. That could not be gainsaid.
“May I kneel?” she asked.
The stranger nodded, and she sank to her knees, gratefully. I did not know if she could have managed to stand much longer.
“At least,” I said to the stranger, “you have recalled the nature of the slave.”
“Yes,” he said. “She was once Flavia of Ar.”
“And more broadly, and to the point, and more importantly, I trust, putting aside her past, which we may ignore for the moment,” I said, “you have recollected the nature of a slave, as a slave.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Good,” I said. “Now, I trust, you have overcome your foolishness, or weakness.”
