disk was pierced once, and in the piercing there was a tiny leather loop. It was through this loop that the string was run. In this way the disk hung evenly at the base of the throat. It was easy to lift the disk and see the sign. Their feet were wrapped in rags, to protect them from the needles of the forest, and the stones.
“You may go ahead,” said Otto.
Axel and Astubux, and Julian, turned their steps toward the village. Axel was heeled by a strikingly well- figured woman, his slave, Oona, and Astubux by an exciting, slender blond slave whose name was Ellen. These slaves heeled their masters perhaps somewhat more closely than was necessary, but they desired to be close to them. Both were burdened, each carrying on her back certain objects, supported there with an arrangement of straps, containers in which food and drink had been brought, rolled cloaks, and such, things with which the masters did not care to inconvenience themselves, their hands being left free for the use of weapons. When the men had fed they had been served by the slaves. The slaves, though serving the food, were forbidden to touch it themselves. They might, however, take it from the hands of their masters. Three of them, Oona, Ellen and Janina, were thusly fed by hand, drink, too, being held for them by their masters. One, an unnamed brunette, knelt to one side. Her master, from time to time, when it occurred to him, would toss a bit of food to the grass before her, which she must take, touching it only with her mouth. A pan of water was also set forth for her, which, too, she must not touch with her hands. “Thus does a bitch eat and drink,” she was told. “Yes, Master,” she had said.
Exquisite, beautiful, trained Janina went on for a little way, but then stopped, some yards away, and waited.
Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs, looked down on one of his slaves.
“Prepare to bear your burden,” he said.
“Master!” she begged.
“Perhaps you are overdressed?” he asked.
She looked up at him, in agony. Often, in the privacy of his hut, and even publicly, when she had served table, and men feasted, she had been stripped.
“I enjoy seeing you, and your brand, slave,” he had sometimes said.
“Yes, Master,” she had said.
How far away was Terennia!
And how great the gulf between the slave and free!
But in all the cruelty, and all the contempt, he had shown her, he had never touched her, save to administer an occasional blow, or reprimand, usually with the back of his hand.
At night she was returned to her cage, though she was now permitted a blanket.
“What is wrong?” he asked, for tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“You have not touched me,” she said. “I am a slave. I am now only a helpless slave! I would be touched!”
He regarded her.
“I beg mercy, Master!” she said.
He did not speak.
“I am not what I was. Surely you must understand that!” she wept. “I am now only a slave, your slave. I beg to be taken in the arms of my master!”
He did not speak.
“Is that not a purpose to which a slave is to be put?” she asked.
He did not speak.
“I am hot, and lonely, and in need. I am on fire with the love of my master, and he will not deign to touch me, save to strike me!”
He did not speak.
“You have not even named me!”
“True,” he said.
“I would be named,” she said.
“You have not earned a name,” he said.
“Give me an opportunity to earn a name, Master,” she begged.
He turned away from her.
“Bear your burden,” he said, not looking at her.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered.
He went down the trail, and was followed by Janina.
The nameless slave, weeping, then fixed her burden on her back, and held it there, by the straps. Then she hurried after the party, which was already some yards down the trail.
Overhead the sky, as of now, was clear.
