her shame and humiliation, in her uncertainty and confusion, begins to roam the high bridges, frequent lonely streets, and wander unescorted outside the city gates. She courts the collar. She seeks it. She beseeches it. She weeps with rapture as she is stripped and bound.
Hooding may also figure in certain games, as when a hooded slave, or one fully concealed in a slave sack, is gambled for. What is the value? Is the stone in the box a pebble or a diamond, is the slave in the hood or sack a beauty or a she-tarsk?
Hooded slaves may also compete in various games, as in locating objects scattered about a room, arranging objects by size or weight, threading beads, fitting puzzle pieces together, a candy for the winner, a switch stroke for the losers, placing and tying sandals, plaiting binding fiber, braiding a whip, and such. Free women occasionally use hooded serving slaves on all fours, in crawling races, in which, walking behind them, they incite them to greater speed by the frequent monitions of a switch. Free women often delight in this game, as it gives them an opportunity to show what they think of female slaves. Free women hate female slaves; men, on the other hand, prize them, and seek to own them.
What man does not desire a slave?
Hooding has many uses; one might be, I thought, to conceal an identity. For example, a woman is sometimes hooded, and gagged, to be more easily transported from a city. Sometimes a woman is sold, hooded and gagged, but this is rare, as a buyer usually wishes to see all of a slave, before risking coin.
I heard a galley being placed in the water. Pani would be the first to board. I saw men moving about, now armed. Soon, a flotilla of small boats would be launched.
“Please, Masters!” wept kneeling slaves. And then others, from the rail, knelt about us, as well. “Please, Masters!”
“You have been long at sea, beauties,” said Tyrtaios. “Perhaps you would like to go ashore.”
“Yes, oh, yes, Master!” they wept.
There must have been some twenty before us, and I could see other such groups about the deck, imploring others.
Regarding them, kneeling before us, pleading, in their tiny, form-clinging tunics, and close-fitting collars, I was again impressed with the quality of the ship’s
I thought of Alcinoe, too, then, given as a gift.
She could be given to anyone, anytime, anywhere.
For a moment I was troubled.
Then I recalled she meant nothing to me.
Excellent, I thought.
She meant nothing to me.
Still, I thought, it might be pleasant to own her, such a slave, to own her completely, as one owns a slave.
“Perhaps you can beg prettily,” said Tyrtaios.
“Master?” said more than one.
“Interest us,” said Tyrtaios. “Show that you are worth owning.”
“Do not be cruel to us,” said a slave. “Have mercy on us. Do not make us show ourselves as what we are, slaves! Do not make us move so, as slaves! Do you not know what that does to us? To so perform before men! It arouses us, like slave dance, and teaches us we belong to men! It reminds us of what we are. Be merciful! Do not ask us to do that, unless you will subsequently fulfill us, according to us the caresses of the master. Please! Please! Else we will suffer the torments of the neglected slave! Please be merciful! We are already starved for the touch of masters!”
“You are slaves,” said a man. “Move as slaves!”
“Please, no!” wept a slave.
“Move,” said Tyrtaios.
The men began to laugh, and clap.
They moved well. How beautiful are women! I saw their eyes, their expressions, the needfulness in their movements, the subtleties. What fires men have set to burn in the bellies of slaves! Is it cruel, I wondered, to have done this to them, to make them the helpless victims of such powerful, frequently recurrent needs? I supposed not, as it makes them the richest and fullest of women, the most helpless and authentic of women, the most irreparably female of women, more a woman than a free woman, afflicted by her inhibitions, locked within her conventions, the prescriptions of her society, can dream. One cannot, of course, ignite needs which are not there, cannot set fires where there is nothing to burn, where there is nothing ready to burn, nothing eager to burn, nothing hoping to burn. One can free such needs, of course, order them forth, refuse to allow them to remain feared and denied, and their freeing is, essentially, what the woman, in her deepest heart, wants. On the other hand, as they are slaves, it does not matter. They are slaves. One does what one wishes with them.
The slaves now subsided, many on all fours, looking anxiously to the men.
“Now coffle us,” said one of the slaves, “by metal, by wrist, neck, or ankle! Take us ashore, chained! We will not escape! We cannot escape! We are ready! You have made us so! We beg only haste! You need not take us to the grass, or the high, dry beach! Cast us to the wet, drenched sand, use us, if you wish, in the raging surf, but use us, Masters, use us!”
“That is enough whining and whimpering of the sluts,” said Tyrtaios, addressing me, and several, who stood about. “Get them to their mats, and put them on their chains.”
There were cries of lamentation from the slaves. Some, in frustration, and futility, struck the planks of the deck with their small fists.
I wondered if Tyrtaios cared for women.
He was, as I recalled, quite possibly of the Assassins.
Such men usually have more on their mind than slaves, such things as their kills, as wealth, as power.
One of the greatest had been Pa-Kur, whose horde had almost mastered Ar.
To be sure, the frustration of a slave is sometimes useful in the control of a slave.
And, I thought, Tyrtaios did little without purpose.
What in one man might seem pointless or gratuitous, in another, such as Tyrtaios, might be the result of sober calculation, a move on the kaissa board of advantage. On such a board slaves may be moved, as well as men.
And do they not make lovely pieces?
“Must whips be brought?” asked Tyrtaios.
“No, no, Master!” cried the miserable slaves, and they rose to their feet, many sobbing, to return to their keeping areas.
“Attend them,” said Tyrtaios to me, and some of the others, who stood about.
I heard several of the small boats being put in the water. I supposed that some two thirds, or so, of the armsmen and mariners might make their landing, and others later, as they returned.
It was toward evening now.
Why, I asked myself, would Tyrtaios have us, several of us, attend the return of the slaves to the Venna and Kasra keeping areas?
It was only later that I understood, or thought I might understand.
Tyrtaios, I suspect, wished to appear to the men as one who might have much to give, to be perceived as a likely bestower of privilege, and power.
Nearby, standing near the rail, I saw a dark figure, that of Seremides, braced against the rail, the crude, narrow crutch beside him.
When Tyrtaios glanced at him, for Tyrtaios often apprised himself of his surroundings, Seremides looked away, as though concerned to watch the small boats, now about the galley, approach the shore.
I heard a soft, feminine voice at my side, one I would have recognized in the darkness, the pitch blackness, of a dungeon of chained slaves.
“Perhaps Master would like to put me to my mat,” said the voice.
“Perhaps,” I said.
