vineyards at various times, such things. The humiliori, it must be understood, however, were free men. They were not slaves. A distinction was drawn between them and slaves. Indeed, on many worlds, slavery, or, at least, open slavery, was illegal. It was not that many of the humiliori were slaves; quite otherwise; it is only that they were bound. It had been too easy before, you see, on thousands of worlds, for, say, an extorted, despairing, overtaxed peasant to load his wagon and abandon his fields, disappearing into the wilderness, there to sow new fields, harvesting there his own crops, and not those of others. But the binding, for most practical purposes, stopped this sort of thing. Its value was obvious. It was instrumental in stabilizing the population, and the occupational groups. The Imperium had presumably not adopted such measures without thought. Indeed, perhaps they were necessary. Certainly the empire, for all its seeming eternality, its solidity, and such, was wracked by fiscal crisis, exacerbated by centuries of civil war. Worlds had been devastated; there had been frequent famines, these often consequent not upon natural causes, such as shifting patterns of precipitation, or soil exhaustion, but upon the literal, forcible disruption of agriculture, reduced or suspended in the dislocations of the wars, and sometimes from climatic changes consequent upon literal alterations in the rotations and axes of worlds, the effects of the impact of weaponry; and there had been plagues, in particular those of the second, the fifth and ninth dynasties; some blamed them for much; some worlds had been isolated, quarantined; others had been disposed of; bounties had been placed on the heads of individuals from such worlds; where found they were exterminated; mines had been exhausted; deficits in trade had drained bullion to the outer worlds; too, there was little doubt but what there must be some truth to the rumors of grievous mismanagement, of speculation, of broadcast corruption in high places; were there not stories of the pleasure worlds of emperors, entire planets devoted to their delight; it did not seem that frugality and nobility, so conspicuously absent on so many minor worlds, in the local halls of government, in the municipal offices, in the courts of the bishops, in the headquarters of the civil and military governors, would be likely to reign in the high palaces of power themselves. The bindings also introduced, in their way, a new social order. In any event, the taxes, those in coin, and those in munera, were now easier to collect. One might also note, in passing, that with the binding, and the shortage of free currency, resulting in part from the taxes, that an economy of barter, and kinds, was becoming more widely spread. Even before the binding, many peasants had lost their lands to taxes, and become coloni, tenants on the lands of others. The landlord, often with his troops, provided protection to the peasants. This was particularly true of the large, powerful landlords, the sort who managed to acquire the lands of others, the sort who throve in such times. This matter of protection was not a negligible consideration. Brigandage was prevalent in many places, it itself in part doubtless a result of the ruin of many small farmers, and the flight from the land. When the bindings took place the lives of the coloni, the tenants, did not much change. Most remained where they were, though now legally bound, by imperial edict, recorded in the pandects, to the soil, and, in a sense, to the lord, who owned it. In this way, on many worlds there came to be what we may speak of as a manorialized economy, a largely agriculturally based economy, relatively self-sufficient peasant communities clustering about a given holding, a given stronghold, or manor. This thing, on many worlds, became increasingly widely spread with the collapse of the cities, the desertion of urbanized areas, the ruin and decay of thousands of small, once thriving municipalities, the breakdown in order and policing, the general falling into disrepair of roads and waterways, the disruption of commerce and communication, the gradual isolation and ruralization of the vast majority of the population. To be sure, such things take a long time. On some worlds they were more advanced than on others. There was, to be sure, one statistically minor countertrend, minor at least, on the whole, to these rather general developments. That was the tendency for large numbers of the ruined, the destitute, and impoverished, as well as the curious and ambitious, the eager and adventurous, as always, rather than placing themselves under the protection of local lords, bosses, captains, and such, to seek out certain major cities, there to seek their fortunes. It was said that many embarked, in the holds of cattle ships, even for the worlds of Telnaria itself. There was some security in this, of course, provided the journey could be successfully accomplished, for in certain of the larger cities, and in the capitals, and in the worlds of Telnaria, too, one supposes, the state provided a dole of grain, and games. The situation thus, in some respects, was paradoxical. While thousands of towns and smaller cities fell into ruin, and the great majority of thousands of populations became increasingly isolated and ruralized, certain other cities, particularly metropolises, and the seats of governors, prefects, bishops, and such, places already overcrowded, experienced additional, unwelcome influxes of population. These frustrated, seething masses, idle and unproductive, demanding food and amusement, constituted a force to be reckoned with, an expensive, explosive, difficult-to-control, dangerous urban proletariat. Most were citizens and, accordingly, the dole was their right. It was the duty of others, the responsibility of others, those of other places, of other worlds, you see, to feed and care for them, to entertain them, and such. The support of these unproductive megapopulations in certain large urban areas, it was speculated, further drained the resources of the empire. Worlds were set aside to feed and clothe them. Worlds were combed to find oddities, exhibits, animals, performers, and such, to entertain them. This influx to the major cities, incidentally, was considerably slowed by the stabilization edicts, the binding laws, and it is not hard to suppose that that might have been one of the elements of their rationale. But, of course, the cities were already overcrowded, even before the bindings, and their populations were continuing, in one way or another, to increase. On Terennia, incidentally, the world on which we now are, the bindings had not yet taken place, but it was rumored they were imminent. To be sure, in the cities there was not so much to fear from the bindings, particularly if one did not have a trade or craft. Too, one could always have a riot, and kill and steal, and stone the palaces and houses of the rich, and destroy public buildings, and such, and thus doubtless, in time, win for oneself an exemption from strictures more generally applied elsewhere. It might be noted that the peasant could not well be bound here for here he had no land and here he was no tenant. The pay woman might have been bound, perhaps, but then she was, in a sense, in virtue of her loss of status, her new class, her profession, and such, already bound.
“I must go,” said the peasant.
The warm, moist lips of the pay woman pressed against his thigh. It was a kiss, such as might have been that of a slave to her master.
The peasant stepped back from her.
“Return to the bed,” he told her.
She obeyed, and knelt there, her knees half lost in the bed covers, watching him.
“You do not seem like the other women of this world,” he said.
“How so?” she said.
“They seem vain, cold, sluggish, petulant, inert,” he said. He found them not of much interest. He did not know who could.
“They are equals,” she said.
He did not contest this. He did not even, really, understand it. What did it mean to be equal, really? He thought them superior in some ways to men. Certainly they were more beautiful.
“Legally,” she explained, “by law.”
“How can law make what is so exquisitely different the same?” he asked.
“It cannot,” she said.
“You are not like the other women here,” he said.
“No,” she said. “I am not like them.”
“I wonder if they are really women.”
“They are women,” she said. “It is only that they are sleeping.”
“‘Sleeping’?” he asked.
“It is only that they have not yet met their master,” she said.
He regarded her, not speaking.
“Every slave needs her master,” she said. “She is incomplete without him.”
The peasant, not understanding these things, drew shut his cloak, and picked up his sack, that with the long straps, by means of which he could carry it on his back. When he had taken ship at Venitzia, it had carried several loaves of bread. Only part of a loaf was now left.
“You are not from this world,” said the pay woman.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“From the way you handled me,” she said.
“I have a coin,” he said. “Are you certain that you will not accept it?”
“Keep it,” she said.
His staff was by the door.
