“We are likely to die here, in the ice,” she said.
“It seems so,” I granted her.
It was feared that some men might leave the ship, to try to cross the ice east, in the half darkness, perhaps to Torvaldsland. Pani had been set about, to guard the bulwarks, and, on the ice, to supervise the work about the ship. This venture, whispered about, to leave the ship, seemed to me madness. We were hundreds of pasangs from land, and who knew how far the ice might last, but, it seemed, even so woeful and improbable a scheme might have some appeal to forlorn, desperate minds, minds half crazed by the imprisonment of the ship, the silence, the darkness, the cold, the endless labor at the ice, the growing shortage of rations.
“I wonder where Seremides saw me,” she said.
“It could have been anywhere,” I said, “perhaps when you were unhooded, after boarding, perhaps while you were awaiting a chain assignment, in a companionway, in a corridor, on one deck or another, perhaps when you slept, in the Kasra holding area, to which he, as a high officer, might have had access.”
“Few, if any, men are allowed there,” she said. “We are managed by first girls, large tharlarion-like women, female whip slaves.”
“Interesting,” I said. I supposed it made sense that free men, on the whole, would not be allowed to walk about amongst chained slaves.
After all, should one not pay for them?
“Sometimes,” she said, “girls moaning and needing men would be switched to silence. When free I despised the needs of slave girls, but then I did not understand how they felt, how helpless they were in the throes of their needs; I did not understand what was going on in their bodies, that made them cry out, and whimper, and scratch at the boards, and moan; I did not understand what men had done to them, to so ignite their needs, to make them so piteously the prisoners of their own bodies, of what they were, the helpless victim, captive, and slave of their own womanhood.”
“One cannot ignite needs which are not there to be ignited,” I said. “What men have done is simply to free the secret slave in the heart of every woman, she longing for the sunlight of submission and fulfillment.”
“Four times,” she said, “I was awakened from my sleep, the switch flashing upon me. ‘Stop thrashing in your chains, slut,’ I was told. Had I been doing so? I did not know.”
“Presumably you were doing so,” I said.
“The switch stung,” she said.
“That is its purpose,” I said.
I recalled having learned, during my interrogation, that physicians had determined that the slave, Alcinoe, after her time with me in the cell, was almost ready to be put on the block. Apparently she had begun to sense, or fear, the beginning of involuntary, radical changes in her body, incipient glimmerings heralding the onslaught of needs which would inevitably put her vulnerably at the feet of men, the fires which, in a woman’s belly, mark her, more than a brand and collar, a man’s slave.
“In any event,” I said, “he saw you, and I am sure he recognized you.”
“I did not see him,” she said.
“It is enough that he saw you,” I said.
“Are you sure,” she said, “that he saw me?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do not any longer think of yourself as concealed, as inaccessible, as a free woman. You are now an animal. Your features must be as brazenly exposed as those of any other animal, a kaiila, verr, or tarsk. Anyone, as upon them, may look upon you, and boldly.”
Tears sprang anew to her eyes.
“Is this truly surprising?” I asked. “Did you not see many slaves in Ar? Do you still think of yourself as free? What of your own girls? What if one had dared to veil herself, even in play?”
“I would have lashed her,” she said.
“You are surely well aware,” I said, “that as a slave, an animal, you may or may not be clothed. You are surely aware of such things. Your garmenture, if any, will be decided by those who own you. Your features, and, if owners wish it, your body, will be denied the least protection.”
“Yes,” she wept, “yes!”
“Keep the palms of your hands down on your thighs,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“And keep in mind that your features,” I said, “if not your body, must be regularly and fully exposed. Free women will insist on that. Your features, at all times, must be denied even the least thread of the most diaphanous veiling.”
“How easy then,” she said, in misery, “I all unknowing, for him to see me, and identify me!”
“For him,” I said, “or anyone.”
“Even a common soldier,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “even a common soldier.”
“And anyone might bring me to Ar,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “even a common soldier.”
“Such as you,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“How helpless we are,” she said, looking up, “we, so exposed, our lips, our features, our smallest expressions, naked, bared to the view of anyone!”
I was muchly pleased that slaves were denied veiling.
How beautiful and distraught she looked!
How this puts them so much the more where they belong, in our power!
“You may not hide yourselves,” I said.
Her eyes were bright with tears, some coursed down her cheeks, running under the fur.
“You are a slave,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “I am a slave!”
Denial of the veil is one of the things, as noted, insisted upon by free women for the slave, this marking another dramatic difference between them, at least between those of high caste and the slave. Low-caste women, in their work, not unoften do without veiling. Good-looking girls of low-caste sometimes go about unveiled deliberately, hoping that they may catch the eye of a slaver, and perhaps be sold into a high household, or come into the chains of a handsome, well-to-do master. One of the most delightful vengeances of a free woman upon a rival is to have her rival reduced to slavery, and then have her at her feet, tunicked, and face-stripped, as a serving slave, perhaps to be later sold, out of the city. One of the most interesting things about barbarian slaves, which may surprise many, is that few seem to understand, at least at first, the shame that is done to them by denying them the veil. They seem more concerned with the baring of their bodies, which is suitable for slaves. But such are shameless and suitably enslaved. Are they not already half-slave, even before being fitted with the collar? They only become sensitive to such matters when, later, they become aware of the meaning of their bared faces. But, after a time, even Gorean women, as well as barbarians, in bondage, think little of their lack of veiling, at least when not in the presence of a free woman, particularly of high caste. Then they are often forced to feel their shame keenly. Commonly though, they, and barbarians, as well, come to revel in the lack of veiling, and, indeed, in the shame of their commonly brief and revealing garmenture, if allowed garmenture, become insolent in their shameful pride, so deplored by free women, of revealing their beauty, of both face and body, to the eyes of men.
One might note in passing how the slave tunic, or the scandalous camisk or ta-teera, are viewed by free women, slaves, and masters. The free woman regards such garments as a degradation, an unspeakable humiliation, a badge of shame, fit for natural slaves, say, women of alien or enemy cities. But, too, they often seethe with envy that it is not they who are exposed so blatantly, and desirably, to the eyes of males. Might they not, too, be so attractive, were they so excitingly clad, so invitingly bared? And how angry they are that men, who should be above such things, look with such obvious favor on mere slaves! The slave, of course, may at first be miserably shamed to be so garmented, to be put in such a garment, but, soon, she comes to exult in its attractiveness, its brevity and lightness, and the freedom it affords, not only of movement, but more significantly, its gift of psychological, emotional, and intellectual freedom. Too, of course, such a garmenture is sexually arousing, and frees the slave to be the warm, arousable, appetitious, excitable, needful, sexual animal, the slave, she has always longed to be. And as for the views of men with respect to such garmentures, one supposes they need no
