When in mid afternoon they stopped again. Dorinda knew she had reached the scene of her ordeal. There were sounds. Corporal Kahdin became embarrassed. He produced the handcuffs awkwardly.
'Behind back, I’m fearing,' he requested.
The hired girl turned and placed her wrists conveniently. How familiar the steel bands had become. He made them as tight upon her as he could without pain.
'Must be at back,' he explained apologetically. 'All peoples are wishing to see Jew girl’s breasts. Jew girls have fine breasts.
'But I am not a jewess.'
'Ah true. But no one knowing. Your breasts are most fine. With little hands chain at back, cannot cover. Is not allowed for girl to cover in ceremony.' Thoughtfully he inserted a finger beneath the briefs, pulled and let it snap back against her hip. 'Most will think this should remove. But not now. General Hakim must believe in little something kept in reserve.'
'If you’ll take off the handcuffs I’ll promise to show myself and cover nothing,' the captive offered.
'This I would do. But people enjoy to see a girl in chains. Wicked Jew girl who tried to blow up bridge. She must be punished. But I put on handcuff. No more.'
'Am I supposed to do anything?' the impending martyr asked bemusedly. 'I mean, make faces, stick my tongue out? Do I sit down or stand up or lay on the floor? Should I look scared or brazen?'
'Not know brazen. Best look very haughty. Eyes flash fire and hate.' The corporal did his best to demonstrate. 'But I must ask you to stand up straight and turn about so everyone see. Is bad with truck in motion, but you manage.' He looked at her with sudden compassion. 'Must take tarp off now.'
It was not a good moment for the nearly naked girl. The line that divided her from a girl sentenced to die on the morrow was to fine for comfort. Today there was no difference between them. She would receive the same insults and the same missiles and the same spittle as if she was the guilty one. She would be terribly alone. She wanted to cry, but would deny herself the comfort as long as she could.
The wire enclosed her, its gate locked importantly by a very official and distant corporal Kahdin. There was much tugging and small sounds of snaps and buckles. Without warning the tarp was swept away. She stood naked for the multitude.
There was the same surging cry that greets the players entering the field. Elation, awe, good spirits. Faces were everywhere. It was a roman holiday. General Hakim’s munidicence made it free for all. The first sticks and stones beat upon the wire with frightening volume.
The corporal seated himself with the driver. A small escort of uniformed troops, well armed, surrounded the vehicle and its unpopular cargo. The captured girl was thankful to see the general was protecting his investment. Such a crowd, left to its own devices, could easily kill her.
It was all frightening, beastly, and quite difficult. In spite of being within the limits of a town the road was far from smooth. All Dorinda’s energies were devoted to keeping her feet. With hands linked at her back it was not easy. The jolting of the truck forced upon her a constant change of stance so that the citizenry did indeed have a constantly changing view of their enemy. She thought, fleetingly, of the real saboteur crouched somewhere in a cell awaiting her captor’s pleasure. Assuredly this was not a land in which to espouse the rights of women.
Nostalgically a vision of Kyrexos and of her home in the USA flitted across her mind. In desolation she realised that she would probably never see them again. From what was happening to her now, the life expectancy of one of Rabin’s Rentals could surely not be long. She wept. The crowd roared its approval of her tears.
It was not a big place. But the circle and the various side streets on which the prisoner was to be exhibited accounted for perhaps four miles of shameful stumbling and balancing for the female object of everyone’s vilification. Most of the crowd followed to enjoy her exposure to the full, but heads stuck out of windows and doors. It was a gala day. The litter on the floor became an additional hazard for the caged girl striving to stand. Very little of what was thrown reached her with any velocity. But there were a lot of broken pieces that fell within the wire. Dorinda hoped that tears and haughtiness together were appropriate to the occasion.
The grand tour concluded, the truck was positioned in the center of the main square and came to a standstill. Corporal Kahdin unlocked the door to her cage and joined her within. He was smiling cheerfully. Undoubtedly the general would be pleased with his conduct of the day’s affairs. He carried something that caused his captive to wince.
'Are now on long display,' he announced. 'Poor girl are not allowed sitting down. She must stand.'
'I’ll stand,' his prisoner promised miserably. 'You don’t have to chain me.'
'Not needful.' The corporal agreed. 'But giving much more pleasure for all to see. Could not do in motion for fear of maybe fall. But now quite safe.'
Grinning widely, so that Dorinda guessed he, too, was enjoying what must be done, he buckled the dog collar around her neck and snapped the light chain tether above her head to one of the hoops and the wire. No locks were needed. Handcuffed she was powerless to touch the new infliction. It gave her about a foot of latitude in which to turn. That was all. 'Soldiers stay on guard. No harm come,' he assured her earnestly as he left and locked her cage again.
Had Rabin and his daughter realised what they had consigned her to do? Probably. She was a woman. It did not matter. That had been the theme of the dinner conversation. Shame and indignity would be her lot from this time forward.
She let her eyes rove. The seething crowd had become amorphous, without identity. She felt their hate and their lust as she had not felt their sticks and stones. Those who got closest to the cage were men who had the strength, they were the ones she knew would conceal the rigid sex beneath their haik, longing to spend it within her loins. They were the ones for whom she wore the chains. Each could see her as his own. Each would violate her in his mind. She supposed it was not really much different from the plight of a girl in the stocks at Tyburn Hill, or held in a pillory in the old Massachusetts colony. No different from all the girls everywhere who had been displayed for crimes, real or imagined. Always the crowd had roared its approval of her body and her shame. There would be but few who saw virtue triumphant. For most she would be a visual instrument of latent lust.
She suffered. The crowd shared that suffering with delight. As the dismal time slowly spent itself she discovered that, in a small measure, she could control them. Her tears were met with vociferous approval. To tug against the tether on her neck would send a wordless susurration of sound through the ranks. If she struggled against the handcuffs a low rumble of approval signalled her ignominy. She found that she could mute the vocal discords by standing very straight and thrusting out her breasts in arrogant disdain. For a few moments they would be content to look at what they seldom saw. There would be among them adolescent males who had never seen a woman’s breasts. The knowledge of their tumescence gave her a momentary glow of satisfaction. She was deeply thankful for the cage and for the guards.
The military concluded the exercise with aplomb and dispatch. The driver and the corporal resumed their seats as the afternoon waned. The soldiers took up their escort. The small cortege made its way to a barracks, though a huge door that closed behind them, and stopped beside a smaller, but still impressive door. To the chained girl it was peace after storms. Her enemies were behind a very high wall. 'Welcome to Fort Rahbeal,' the corporal glowed.
Dorinda gave him a wan smile. 'What now, a cell?'
He seemed genuinely shocked. 'Oh no. No cell ‘till much later in night. This evening you are guest of general Hakim. Much arrack and champagne.' He viewed her with reverence. Such honour was not for all.
She strove to share his enthusiasm as he removed her shaming leash from her neck. At the moment the general was an enigma. She supposed, wearily, that the least she could expect of him was to be used. Her status would be about that of a dancing girl. But she took heart when he lifted her from the truck and handed her over to a girl who now stood waiting. A girl both respectful and awed. As his last gesture for the day, corporal Kahdin unlocked the handcuffs from her back and locked them again at her front. Ceremoniously he handed the key to the prisoner’s new escort who accepted it with glowing panache. For her this was an occasion. She looked at her prisoner and smiled shyly. The corporal saluted and was gone.
Nothing made sense. But why should it? Sheherazade had taken it for granted. So must she. Her feminine escort led her out of the centuries into the exquisitely modern. General Hakim evidently believed in comfort. When the moment came for the bath, the girl shyly touched the handcuffs and held up the key. 'No fight?' she asked simply.
For the first time that afternoon Dorinda laughed. She shook her head, smiling into earnest eyes. 'No fight.' It
