Lady Bina and the beast, later remunerated a number of customers who had lost their goods.
“It would be better, in the future,” said the Lady Bina, “if you kept to the streets, for it would then be easier to recover lost articles.”
“Mistress wishes to continue her enterprise?” I inquired.
“Certainly,” she said.
“Perhaps we could avoid the district of Six Bridges,” I said.
“If it were not the district of Six Bridges,” said the Lady Bina, “it would be another district.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I had said, in misery.
“Too,” she had said, “Six Bridges houses several of our best customers.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I had said.
And so it came about that I was taking a roundabout way to Six Bridges, this time, at least, again on the street level. Once more I was hoping to avoid the laundry slaves of the establishment of the Lady Daphne. I had first encountered them a month ago on the street, and then, more frighteningly, on the bridge last week. Usually, of course, I did not encounter them. Had I done so regularly our service would have been irreparably disrupted. Twice I had been accompanied in my rounds by the Lady Bina, and once by the Lady Delia. If the laundry slaves had been about then, and noted my passage, they had not disturbed me, as I was accompanied by a free person. The beast, of course, did not accompany me. It seldom went out while Tor-tu-Gor reigned amongst the towers. Had he been with me I would have had little doubt but what the laundry slaves of the Lady Daphne would have kept their distance, if not have fled altogether back to her house. Men sometimes became embroiled, as mercenaries, in the disputes between the laundering houses, but the routine policing of territories was generally entrusted to slaves.
I was within fifty paces of one of the lower entryways, a back entryway, to Six Bridges when, to my dismay, I saw my two nemeses, one emerging from a doorway to the left, the other from a doorway to my right. I had little doubt they had been waiting there, watching, for me to come close enough to surprise. Carrying the laundry, a rectangular bulk of it, steadying it on my head with two hands, I could not well have turned about and fled.
They were too close.
Both were smiling.
Both were carrying a peeled, supple branch.
I did not know how long I could hold the laundry, if those branches were laid against the back of my thighs, or across my arms and shoulders. They would avoid my face, I was sure, lest I be permanently marked or damaged.
I was, after all, goods, perhaps goods of some value.
The first of the two laundering slaves whipped her branch viciously through the air, twice. I heard its swift rush through the air. The other slapped her branch in her palm.
“Why are you not on the bridge?” laughed the first.
“You looked well, paralyzed, unable to move, cowering on your belly,” said the second.
“She is a barbarian,” said the first.
“I will enjoy this,” said the second.
“I mean you no harm,” I said. “Please! Please let me pass. I must do as I am told.”
“So, too, must we,” laughed the first.
“You were warned,” said the second.
They then, improvised switches at the ready, stepped forward. They lifted their arms, eager, grinning, but then, to my amazement, they stopped, and turned white.
“First obeisance position,” said a voice behind me, sharply, a male voice, “switches in your teeth.”
The two laundry slaves swiftly went to first obeisance position, kneeling, head to the ground, palms of their hands on the ground, the switches crosswise in their teeth.
Both were discomfited, frightened, in the presence of a man, presumably a free man.
“You, you with the laundry,” said the voice. “Remain standing, where you are, and do not turn around.”
I think the man then withdrew a few feet behind me.
Then he said to the two laundry slaves, “Get on all fours, and approach me, the switch in your teeth, both of you.”
I watched them, frightened, crawl past me. The first one cast me a look of terror, of misery.
In the house I had been trained to crawl thusly to a man, humbly, the switch held crosswise between my teeth. It is one way in which a slave may bear the whip or switch to her master.
She does not know how, or if, it will be used.
She will soon learn.
I did not turn around.
“Now turn about, and belly,” said the voice.
Then I sensed that the slaves had been put to their bellies, their heads toward me.
I then heard some small, frightened sounds, as though limbs had been jerked about, behind backs, and then tiny noises, as though wrists had been thonged together, and not gently.
I then heard two small cries, accompanying a ripping of cloth.
“Now,” said the voice, “let us see about these switches.”
“Mercy, Master!” said the first of the two laundry slaves.
“Were you given permission to speak?” he asked.
“No, Master, forgive me, Master!” said the girl.
A moment later I heard the switch being applied to the two slaves, a blow for one, and then a blow for the other, and so on.
There was much sobbing.
“Knees,” said the voice.
“Henceforth,” said the voice, “you are not to bother this slave, or any other, as they are about their work. If you do, you will be placed on a slave ship for Torvaldsland or Schendi. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” they said.
Then they cried out with pain, as though they might be being dragged at a man’s hip, in leading position.
“Move,” he said, and I saw the two slaves pass me, on the right, tied together, closely, head to head, by the hair, their tunics torn to the waist, their hands thonged tightly behind them, their backs and the back of their thighs richly striped from the blows of a switch.
“Stop!” he called.
Instantly they stopped.
“Tell your Mistress,” said the voice, “that this district is open, and will not be defended, or contested. It, and its pricings, are not to be managed, or controlled. If the Lady Daphne does not find these arrangements acceptable, her house will be burned to the ground.”
“Yes, Master!” they said.
“Now, go,” said the voice.
The two bound, chastised slaves then, awkwardly, as they could, uncomfortably, half stumbling, fled down the street.
“Do not turn around,” said the voice behind me.
I remained still, looking ahead, frightened, balancing the laundry, holding it in place with my two hands.
“A slave thanks Master,” I said. “A slave is grateful.”
I trusted he would not now, himself, take the laundry and cast it to the gutter. Would that not be a rich Gorean joke, at the expense of a helpless slave, a joke worth recounting in the taverns?
“You are Allison, the barbarian slut of the Lady Bina, are you not?” asked the voice.
“I am Allison,” I said, “girl of the Lady Bina, who resides in the house of the pottery merchant, Epicrates.”
“The barbarian slut,” he said.
“I am barbarian,” I said, “Master.”
“A barbarian slut,” he said.
“If Master pleases,” I said.
