“What foolishness, what weakness?” he asked, not pleasantly.
“At least,” I said, “the remote possibility of caring for a slave.”
“Have no fear,” he said. “I have eluded that danger, if ever it was a danger, which very thought seems absurd. All such risks, however unlikely or tenuous, are put aside.”
“Good,” I said. “Then you will see her, and treat her, as what she is, a slave.”
“Yes,” he said. “As worthless, meaningless collar meat.”
“Precisely,” I said.
“But, in her case,” he said, “there is something in addition, that will add to my pleasure.”
“What?” I asked.
“That she was once the Lady Flavia of Ar.”
The slave, head down, siriked, moaned in misery.
“The Lady Flavia of Ar,” I said, “-who is now mere collar meat.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you hate her?” I asked.
“I must try,” he said.
“For what she once was?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do not hate me, Master!” she wept. “I love you! I love you!”
“Liar!” he said, angrily.
“I may not lie!” she cried. “I am a slave!”
He drew back his hand, and she shrank down, but he did not strike her.
He placed his boot on her shoulder and thrust her to the floor, on her side. She crawled back to him, on her belly, and, putting down her head, kissed the boot which had spurned her to the floor.
“You have been white silk long enough,” he told her.
“Master?” she said.
“On your knees,” he said, “former Lady Flavia of Ar, facing away from me, your head to the floor.”
With a rustle of chain the slave obeyed.
“So, Master?” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“Master well humbles the former Lady Flavia of Ar,” she said. “But Alcinoe, the slave, hopes that she will be found pleasing by her master.”
“Return shortly,” said the stranger to me, and I left the room. I heard a jerking of chain, and heard the slave cry out, startled. Then I heard her cry out, “Master! My Master!”
I walked about the trading area, which, if anything, was even busier than before. Against one wall there was a coffle of stripped, kneeling slaves who, I supposed, had been brought in by a dealer, for the inspection of the Pani. From something Captain Nakamura had said earlier, I gathered they had already made certain purchases. The girls were in neck coffle, and had been placed in the position of pleasure slaves, which seemed to be the sort of slaves in which the Pani, for their various purposes, were interested. When a girl was regarded, she would lift her head, and say, “Buy me, Master.” I suspected, however, that few of the girls were interested in being bought by the newcomers, so strange and unfamiliar to them, within whose purview they found themselves scrutinized.
I returned to the open portal of the back room, and entered. “It is as I feared,” I said.
“Oh?” said Callias.
He was seated near a wall, that in which the portal was, cross-legged. The slave was lying near him, lovingly, on her side. I noted blood on her leg, which suggested that, however unlikely it seemed, the Pani had actually kept her white silk. In that I suspected the hand of Lord Nishida and Tarl Cabot, the tarnsman. I noted that she was no longer confined in the sirik, and its coils lay to one side, near the cast-aside Pani tunic. Her head was against one of his legs. She looked at me, but dreamily. It was almost as though I were not there.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“Very little, Master,” she said. She drew up her legs more.
“I am not too pleased,” I said.
“Oh?” said Callias, seemingly distracted.
“Next,” I said, “I suppose you will grant her a tunic.”
“I suppose so,” he said. “That should make it less likely she would be stolen.”
“Am I likely to be stolen?” she asked Callias.
“You are that beautiful,” he told her.
“Master,” she said, kissing his knee.
“Not the Pani tunic,” I said.
“Certainly not,” he said.
The small slave tunic brought into the room earlier by Captain Nakamura, in which the sirik had been wrapped, lay to the side.
“You will, at least, I trust,” I said, “see to it that she works for that tunic, perhaps for several weeks.”
As an animal, a slave is not entitled to clothing. If permitted clothing, it must be understood as a gift from her master. To be sure, most slaves are clothed, particularly in public. Free women are quite adamant on that point. If it is appropriate to speak of a compromise in these matters, presumably it would be that the slave is clothed, but as a slave. Here we have something of an agreement, or compromise, between free women and masters, namely, that the garmenture of the slave must be clearly indicative of her bondage, and, secondly, that the slave, as she is usually the property of a man, may be dressed for his pleasure. The usual outcome of this interaction is the slave tunic. The camisk is less acceptable to free women, but they reconcile themselves to the camisk on the grounds that the female slave is so worthless that it is acceptable for her to be camisked. The female serving slave of a free woman is likely to be modestly tunicked, whereas the slave of a free man is likely to be tunicked in such a manner as to make it clear to other men that she was worth buying.
The stranger glanced down to the slave, lying at his right knee. “Would you like a tunic?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, Master,” she said, “very much.”
“You,” I said, “as far as I know, do not even have a slave whip.”
“That is true,” he said.
“I assure Master,” said the slave, “he does not need a whip.”
“No,” he said. “One must have a whip.”
“But for what possible purpose?” asked the slave.
“Guess,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “What is Master doing?”
The stranger was removing his dagger belt, from which he removed, as well, the dagger and its sheath. He then buckled the belt, so that it constituted a closed loop.
“Master?” said the slave.
“This will do,” he said, “until I obtain a proper whip.”
“I see,” she said, uneasily.
“And now,” he said, “I think I shall begin your training.”
“My training?” she said.
“Surely you know that slaves, as many other sorts of animals, are trained.”
He then tossed the looped, buckled belt across the room, to the far wall.
“Fetch it,” he said, “on all fours. Do not touch it with your hands. Bring it back in your teeth.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
It pleased me to see the former Lady Flavia of Ar cross the room on all fours, bend down, pick up the belt in her teeth, and then turn about, and return, on all fours, to her master, the belt dangling from her teeth.
He removed the belt from her teeth. “You may now,” he said, “show the belt deference.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“We do not yet have a whip,” he said. “Lick and kiss it.”
This was an analogy to the simple ceremony of kissing the whip, wherein the slave demonstrates her bondage and submission, acknowledging and accepting her subjection to the mastery, a common symbol of which is the whip. Similar things may be done with rope, the chain, slave bracelets, and such.
