‘Surely that is not necessary,’ I said. ‘Am I not yearning to be returned to the arms of my master?’ I asked. ‘Some of the men,’ he said, ‘suspect that you are a runaway.’ ‘I see,’ I said.”
“You were not curious,” I asked, “that an evening stop was scheduled at a road village?”
“Doubtless they had some business there,” she said. “I did not inquire.”
“Continue,” I said.
“My wrists were bound behind me,” she said, “and other ropes were looped about my upper body, and tightened. Then I was put on a leash, as though I might be a slave. Thankfully, before the charade of my binding and leashing was accomplished, I had asked for sandals, and had been given them. They doubtless had several pairs, from the women in tow. With the sandals I could keep up with them on the road, without much pain. To be sure, our progress would not be rapid, as our party included its animals, the six slaves, bound, tethered in their rope coffle. Although the switch was occasionally used with them one can do only so much with women and the switch, as, despite their earnestness and fear, they lack the stamina and speed of men. I myself, of course, was not switched. I would not have stood for it. About the eighteenth Ahn we reached the road, and, shortly thereafter, we reached what I took to be the village of Ragnar, no more than some small buildings, mostly dark, some little more than shacks, on both sides of the road. I supposed some of the residents had fields nearby, vineyards, orchards, or such. The village was probably a market at times, for I saw dark stalls, and doubtless, to some extent, it catered, in one way or another, to the traffic on the Brundisium road. There was, for example, from the signs, a wainwright’s shop, mostly for repair, I supposed, a Leather Worker’s shop, probably for harnesses and traces, a Metal Worker’s shop, probably mostly to furnish wagoner’s hardware, and such. It must have once had better times, for, I learned, the Inn of Ragnar, for which the village was named, was dilapidated, and closed. Its auxiliary buildings, its stables, its stable yard, and such, like the main building, seemed similarly fallen into a state of forlorn desuetude. Apparently, its well was still in use, as I saw a girl drawing water.
“The leader then conferred briefly with one of his men, he whom I suspected had been absent from the camp earlier, for several hours. I heard the fellow say, ‘The twentieth Ahn,’ but could make out nothing else. The slaves were then put between two of the small buildings, and the men sat near them, in various attitudes of repose, some fetching food and drink from their packs. To my disgust I saw one of the slaves whimpering for food, and bending forward. A fellow held out a scrap for her, and she bent forward, gratefully, and, hands bound behind her, took it from his hand. The other slaves, too, then, importuned the men for bits of food. Some were fed by hand. At other times scraps were tossed to the ground, which the slaves, sometimes fighting for them, might retrieve as they could, in the moonlight. The leader and I remained standing, outside the group, at the edge of the road. Then he drew on my leash and I followed him, and found myself brought into a small building, one of those few in which a lamp had been burning, visible through the window. It was a Metal Worker’s shop, and it was empty. There was a fire in the forge. I thought this strange, for the Ahn. A bell hung at one side of a door, leading through the back, perhaps to the proprietor’s private quarters. The leader then removed the leash from my neck. ‘Thank you,’ I said. I then turned about, that he might undo the ropes that bound me, but he spun me about, rudely, and pointed to the floor, and said, ‘Kneel there.’ It was a command such that a woman, despite her status, whether slave or free, could not but obey instantly. I was frightened. ‘You are from Brundisium?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Describe its Home Stone,’ he said. I was silent. ‘You have holdings in Brundisium, treasure, high family,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘yes!’ ‘Then it is clearly in my best interest to hold you for ransom,’ he said. ‘No!’ I cried. ‘List your holdings, and the streets,’ he said. ‘Name your family, its members and their wealth.’ ‘I lied!’ I said. ‘I do not have family in Brundisium, but I have great wealth, placed with coin merchants!’ ‘Name them,’ he said. I was again silent, frantic. I twisted in the ropes. Tears burst from my eyes. He then ruthlessly demanded from me information upon information, information which would be common knowledge to anyone from Brundisium, things as obvious as to where lay her Street of Coins, her largest markets, how many gates she had, and such. ‘I invested through agents, from Ar!’ I cried. ‘Name them,’ he said. ‘It will be easy to examine your claims.’ ‘I lied!’ I wept. ‘I lied!’ ‘And you are a liar from Ar,’ he said. ‘Do you think I do not know the accents of Ar? You may deny being of Ar but you are belied by the very words in which you enunciate your denial, for they proclaim you of Ar. You are no more from Brundisium than Talena of Ar. Indeed, perhaps you are Talena of Ar.’ ‘No,’ I cried, ‘no!’ It is strange but one is almost always unaware of one’s own accent. Is it not the others who always have an accent? ‘No’, said he, ‘I do not think you are Talena of Ar. I think, rather, you are the Lady Flavia of Ar.’ ‘No,’ I wept. ‘No!’ ‘Stay on your knees, Lady Flavia,’ he said. ‘I am not Lady Flavia of Ar!’ I said. ‘But before I return you, naked and bound, to Ar,’ he said, ‘something is to be done to you. You have been annoying.’ He then went behind me and removed my sandals. ‘You will not need these any longer,’ he said. He put them to the side, on a shelf. ‘What are you going to do?’ I said. He then went to the cord dangling from the bell which hung near the door leading from the shop, presumably to the private quarters of the Metal Worker. He rang it once, decisively. Shortly thereafter three men emerged from the rear, one the Metal Worker, a brawny fellow in a leather apron, and two others, strapping young men who, I took it, were his sons. The Metal Worker began to stoke the coals at the forge, and thrust two irons into the coals. ‘Get up,’ said the leader, and I struggled to my feet. The two young men stood behind me. They held my arms. I struggled. I was helpless, in their power. ‘What are you going to do?’ I cried. He did not respond to me, did not grant me his attention, but addressed himself to the Metal Worker. ‘Strip and brand her,’ he said.
“In moments I lay supine, head down, ankles elevated, in the rack, my limbs held in the clamps. I wept and squirmed, save that I could not move, in the least, my left thigh. In double clamps, it was held utterly motionless. I looked up at the leader, turning my head to the left. ‘Desist!’ I wept. ‘Desist! I am a free woman!’ ‘That was determined while you slept,’ said the leader. ‘You dared to draw back my tunic in my sleep, you dared to examine me?’ I cried. He laughed. So, too, did three or four of his men who had now entered the shop. He held the tunic now in his hand. He dangled it. ‘And we ascertained,’ said he, ‘as we had anticipated, further discoveries. What fine lady, such as a Lady Flavia, would flee from Ar without resources?’ ‘I am not the Lady Flavia!’ I cried. He reached into his pouch and drew forth a handful of small objects, which he held where I might see them. They were the jewels I had concealed in the tunic. They sparkled in the light of the lamp. Amongst them was the small key, as well, which fitted my collar lock. I felt sick, helpless, discovered, ruined, and destitute. I no longer had the wealth which I had brought with me, with which I might have hired men and brought myself again to power, and, without the key, I could not remove the collar. It was now fixed on me with the same understated, flawless efficiency with which it might have encircled the neck of a slave. ‘Please, let me go, have mercy!’ I begged. Then I shouted, angrily, squirming before him, ‘Do not look upon me in that way!’ He smiled. ‘I am a free woman, a free woman!’ I cried. ‘Is the iron ready?’ asked the leader, of the Metal Worker. I heard an iron moved amongst coals, then lifted from them, and thrust again amidst them. I did not look. ‘Nearly,’ said the Metal Worker. ‘You have everything,’ I said to the leader. ‘Let me go!’ He turned to a sand glass on a nearby shelf. I could not well see it. I remembered someone had spoken of the twentieth Ahn, the fellow whom I thought had earlier absented himself from the camp. ‘Let me go!’ I begged. ‘I will let you kiss me!’ ‘But you are a free woman,’ he reminded me. ‘No matter!’ I said. To be sure, it is an inestimable privilege, to be permitted to kiss a free woman. ‘If you are a free woman,’ he said, ‘you should not be locked in a shameful collar.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘of course not!’ He then turned the collar on my neck, so that the lock was upward, at the front of my throat, inserted the key, moved back the bolt, and removed the collar from me. He then handed the collar, the key left inserted in the lock, to one of the young fellows, one of those I thought likely to be a son of the Metal Worker. The young man looked at the device approvingly. It was, I knew, a quality collar, finely tooled and attractive. I had seen to that in preparing my disguise, which I began on the first day of the uprising, when the outcome was muchly unclear, a rudely armed populace rising against a professional soldiery. It was surely far different from the dark, cheap, plainer, common collars I saw hanging on a projecting spindle at the side of the shop. The leader looked down at me, at my now-bared throat, and, I fear, my lips, and then he looked into my eyes. I realized he wanted me uncollared, the beast, that it might be clearer what he was doing, that he was preparing to kiss a free woman. ‘Yes,’ I said to him, ‘you may kiss me.’ ‘Your kiss for your freedom?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘yes!’ ‘I do not bargain,’ he said. ‘I do not understand,’ I said. Then he bent down beside me. As I lay, supine, and backward sloping, my head low, my wrists over my head, behind my head, on each side, in the clamps, my ankles higher, on each side, in their clamps, my left thigh held immobile in its double clamps, he took my hair in his hand. He held my hair, painfully, so that I could not turn my head from him. There was amusement in his eyes. ‘No!’ I cried. Then his lips were pressed to mine. I was held in place. I could not struggle. For several Ihn I was forced to endure that merciless, shameful contact. Then he drew away from me and gestured to the Metal Worker. I looked up at the leader in consternation, in shock, and reproach. How dared he, and I a free woman! Where were guardsmen that I might summon? Surely that was not such a kiss as might be given to a free woman! Might it not have been more appropriately imposed upon a paga girl or a brothel slut, fastened down for a man’s pleasure? But I
