There were four of them.
“Be done with it,” I said.
“Perhaps you would like some of the same,” said Thoas, swinging his looped belt. He was sweating.
“It was you,” said Aeson, “who brought this wretch back.”
“Why,” said Tereus, “did you not leave him for the sharks?”
“He has been beaten enough,” I told them. “If you would beat someone find a whole man.”
“You are a whole man,” said Tereus.
“Better,” said Andros, “you had left him in the sea.”
I shrugged.
“I advise you, dear Rutilius,” said Tereus, “not to be on the open deck after dark.”
Thoas delivered another kick, from which the bent, cringing, knotted body of Seremides recoiled. “Seek Thassa, sleen,” he said.
“It is enough,” I said to the men.
“Do you seek to interfere?” asked Tereus.
“It is enough,” I told him.
Tereus looked at me, and he, and his fellows, lifted their belts and ropes, and I prepared to defend myself.
But Tereus looked behind me.
“Yes,” he said, then, satisfied, contemptuously, “it is enough.”
The four then turned about and left. This had occurred in the vicinity of the second mast.
I sensed someone behind me, and I turned. The strange warrior, Nodachi, stood there.
Then he left.
I did not know how long he had been present.
The body of Seremides shook with tears.
“Stop it,” I said. “You are a man.”
Whereas Warriors, or men, might weep, as under the snake, which would draw tears from rocks, or weep as might larls in raging grief, if a city falls, a fellow is slain, or a Home Stone dishonored, this was unseemly. Did those on his galley, whom Seremides had so roundly abused, carry on so?
“Do not hurt me,” said Seremides.
Seremides, unarmed, no longer whole, clad in a cast-off tunic, cringing, might have been the sorriest beggar in the Metellan district, in Ar. So the dreaded master of the elite Taurentians had come to this?
I wondered if he would be any longer regarded as worth the impaling spear in Ar. Would it not embarrass the city to publicly expose so abominable and craven a wretch upon her lofty walls? Surely better the bow string in the darkness of a prison’s cellar.
“Hail, Rutilius, mighty master!” laughed Iole, first amongst the lingering slaves.
There was laughter from the girls.
The body of Seremides shook with weeping.
“You are a man,” I said to Seremides. “Be silent.”
“He is no longer a man!” scoffed Iole.
I wondered if this were so.
“Hail, Rutilius!” laughed another of the girls, Pyrrha.
I regarded the girls, angrily, and they instantly became subdued.
“Who amongst you dares to so speak the name of a free man?” I asked.
“None, Master,” whispered Iole, quickly.
“You are in the presence of a free man,” I informed them.
“Master?” said Thetis.
“First obeisance position!” I snapped.
Moaning, frightened, the six girls went instantly to first obeisance position, kneeling, their heads to the deck, the palms of their hands beside their head. I let them remain that way for a time, waiting to learn their fate.
“May I speak, Master?” whispered Iole.
I went to her and pulled her head up, by the hair. She tried to turn her head away, and down, but, by the hair, I, crouching, held it so that she must look at me. Her eyes were bright with fear, and tears.
“Yes,” I said.
“Forgive us, Master,” she said, “if we have been displeasing.”
“You have not been fully pleasing,” I said.
“Forgive us, Master!” begged Iole.
“Yes, Master,” said the others.
It is the duty of a slave to be fully pleasing, to the best of her ability, and it is for the master to judge of her ability.
“Be as you were,” I told Iole, releasing her, and she resumed first obeisance position. She trembled.
“It is no wonder we put you in collars,” I said.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered.
“I have a mind,” I said, “to send for punishment tags, wire them to your collars, and send you running, hands thonged behind you, to your keeping areas.”
In such a case the girl is expected to beg her keepers for discipline, that she may be improved. If she does not, the punishment is doubled, or trebled.
“Please, do not, Master,” begged Iole. “We are contrite!”
“Up,” I said, “go, be about your work.”
The six slaves sprang gratefully to their feet and fled from the open deck.
Tereus, and his fellows, had been neither reprimanded, nor punished. Why then should the lash be put to the vulnerable, bared backs and legs of slaves? Their guilt, if guilt it was, was less.
I recalled them.
How delightful they were, in their tiny tunics. How pleased I was that there were two sexes, and one that of the female. How utterly beautiful, and fascinating, is the human female, so utterly different from the male, such a delicious and perfect complement to him, and his needs, as he to her, and his to hers.
They make lovely slaves. And that, of course, is what they should be. Women require masters, as men require slaves. Women are lost without a master, and men forlorn without a slave.
It is the truth of nature.
I turned to face Seremides, crouching on the deck.
“You have not been under the snake,” I said.
He put his head down.
“Perhaps you should be put in a collar, and given to girls for their play,” I said.
“Do not hurt me,” he whispered.
“Where has Seremides gone?” I asked.
He looked about, frightened, for I had used his true name, and had spoken it aloud. Then he said, “I am he.”
“Perhaps you were always thus,” I said. “But before we could not see it. Before it was well concealed.”
“I was feared,” he said, tears in his eyes.
“Now,” I said, “you are the sport of slave girls.”
“Tyrtaios,” he said, suddenly, looking beyond me.
I had not noted the approach of Lord Okimoto’s new high officer.
“Tyrtaios,” said Seremides, plaintively, and put his hand out to him. “Tyrtaios, will you not help me? Have we not plans? Are we not equals? Are we not to share in all things? Are we not friends, allies?”
Tyrtaios continued on his way.
“I fear,” I said, “your succor, your allegiance, all that you could supply of profit or value to another, is now naught.”
As Tyrtaios made his way forward, he passed a slave girl, making her way aft, a small sa-tarna pannier on her back. The officers, as the men, eat in shifts, during designated watches, but the officers and the men do not eat together. The officers’ cabins are aft, some in the stern-castle itself.
