“Yes, my master,” said Oona, looking at him with awe, and stirred by feelings she had thought she might never again feel, save in her thoughts, and in her dreams.
“Bring the other!” said Otto.
In a few moments the ensign was brought, moving with short steps, before the dais. His ankles were shackled. It was the sound of the smith’s hammer shaping these devices to his ankles to which the chieftain had listened, before emerging from the hut. A cloth, simple and brief, had been twisted about the loins of the ensign. It was not such that it might conceal a weapon. He stood before the dais, his arms folded.
“These are slaves,” said Otto, indicating the women kneeling to the left of the dais, as one would look outward from the chieftain’s chair.
“At least two are,” said the ensign.
“All are,” said Axel.
“Is it true?” asked the ensign of the women.
“Yes, Master,” said the former salesgirl.
“Yes, Master,” said the former officer of a court.
“Yes, Master,” said the other woman, the slave who had been put under claim by Axel, a counselor of the chieftain.
“Are you a slave?” asked the chieftain of the ensign.
“No,” said the ensign.
“That is known to me,” said the chieftain.
“What do you want of us?” asked the ensign.
“The utility of female slaves is evident,” said Otto.
“And what of me?” asked the ensign.
“You will work in the fields,” said the chieftain.
The ensign regarded him.
“I think,” said the chieftain, “that, in time, you may be worth a ship.”
“I am worth a thousand ships,” said the ensign.
Men whistled in awe.
“Who is this?” asked Astubux.
“Your name,” said the chieftain.
“I am Julian, of the Aurelianii,” said the ensign. The men and women about looked at one another. This name meant little to them. It was, however, much like the names one tended to associate with the remote, mysterious empire.
“Know, slaves and prisoner,” said Otto to the four before the dais, the kneeling women, and the standing male, “that the forests about us are dangerous. They teem with beasts. Your safety, particularly in the night, depends on your being within the palisade. Too, there is nowhere to go, nowhere to run. There are no friendly forces, no imperial outposts, no escape for you, on this world. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” said Julian, of the Aurelianii.
“I understand, Master,” said the slaves, each, as his eyes fell upon them.
“We will talk later,” said Otto to Julian, of the Aurelianii.
Julian nodded.
“This prisoner,” said Otto to men near him, “is to be kept in a log kennel at night. During the day he is to be used in the fields. See that he is worked long and hard.”
“We will do so, our chieftain,” responded a man.
“Take him away,” said Otto.
The ensign was then turned about and conducted from the presence of the assembled Wolfungs.
“Let these two stinking slaves be washed,” said the chieftain, indicating the former salesgirl and the former officer of the court. “Then let them all be tied at posts, to await the heating of the irons.”
“Yes, my chieftain!” said a man.
“Now,” said Otto, rising from the chair, and standing on the dais, “let the feasting begin!”
“Please, no!” cried the former officer of the court, as she was forced down by two brawny Wolfung women into the wooden tub of cold water.
She shrieked with misery, chilled, but was held in place. Sometimes she was bent double, her head forced under water, to make certain that the dirt in her hair might be soaked free. She rose sputtering from the water, shuddering and shivering. She moaned and protested, but was silenced with a blow, as heavy brushes were applied to her body, and not with gentleness by the free women, for she was a slave, and little love is lost between free women and slaves. In a nearby tub the former salesgirl, shivering, and whimpering and crying out, underwent a similarly abusive, rude scouring.
The two slaves were then drawn from the tubs and dragged by their impatient attendants to short posts. There they were knelt down with their backs to the posts. Their ankles were tied together, behind the post, and their hands were taken up, and behind the posts, where their wrists were tied together, and fastened there, behind the post, to a ring.
“I am cold!” wept the former officer of the court, but the women had left. Looking to her right she saw the former salesgirl at another post, similarly secured. Looking to the left she saw the woman who had been put under claim by Axel. She, too, was similarly secured. She had been there earlier, as she had not been subjected to a bath, it not having been deemed that she needed one.
The former officer of the court looked up.
“Master!” she said.
Before her there stood, looking down upon her, a drinking horn in his hand, Otto, the chieftain of the Wolfungs.
“They bathed me!” she said, appealing to him.
“You do not expect us to brand a filthy body, do you?” he asked.
“Surely I am not to be branded!” she said.
“Look,” said he, indicating, nearby, a brazier, glowing with heat. From the brazier there protruded the handles of three irons. Two men crouched near the brazier, tending it.
“Please, no, Master,” she said.
“The word ‘Master’ fits well on your lips, very naturally,” he observed.
“You have known it would, have you not?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“How long have you known I was a slave?” she asked.
“From the first moment I saw you,” he said.
“How?” she asked.
“From your body,” he said, “and from its movements, and from your least expressions.”
“What is the brand?” she asked, fearfully.
“It is one common in the galaxies,” he said, “the slave flower.”
“Do not mark me with that,” she wept, “or I shall always be a slave. It is known everywhere!”
“But you are a slave,” he said. “It is fitting that your body be marked with the flower of bondage. No longer is your inner truth to be hidden from the world. It is rather, now, to be proclaimed, to be made public, to all, by that mark.”
“Will you keep me?” she asked.
“Axel,” said he, “will tie his disk on her neck.” He pointed to the woman who was under Axel’s claimancy.
“What of me?” she asked.
“She,” said the chieftain, indicating the former salesgirl, “I will, at least for the time, take.”
The salesgirl looked wildly over at him, from her post.
“But what of me, Master?” asked the former officer of the court.
“Yes, what of you?” he asked.
“Keep me!” she begged.
“Why?” he asked.
“I would be your slave!” she wept.
