'A traitress,' said Clitus Vitellius.
'Doubtless you will discipline her well,' said the man.
'It is my intention,' said Clitus Vitellius.
I put down my head.
'I grant you passage,' smiled the man on the ship.
I felt myself taken and lifted, bound, to a sailor, who lifted me over the rail. He put me by the mast, kneeling, bound.
In a moment, Clitus Vitellius, aided by the hand of the man who had spoken to us, leaped aboard.
'Bring her about,' called the man to his helmsmen.
'Left oars!' called the oar master. 'Stroke!'
Slowly the galley began to swing about.
The man who had welcomed us aboard, permitting us passage, looked down at me. I looked up at him, naked and bound.
'In courtesy,' said Clitus Vitellius, 'I grant you and your men slave rights upon this woman. But beyond this, I reserve her to myself. If you wish her beyond my permissions, we must do contest.'
'You wish to keep her for your discipline?' asked the man.
'Yes,' said Clitus Vitellius.
The man crouched beside me. He thrust open my mouth, holding it with two hands. 'Barbarian,' he said.
'Yes,' said Clitus Vitellius.
The master, a free male, permitted me to close my mouth. He took the tag on my collar in his fingers. He scraped salt from it.
'I was being sent to the Lady Elicia of Ar,' I said, 'my mistress.'
'You should belong to a man,' said the man.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'You seem interested in the slave,' said Clitus Vitellius, puzzled.
'You are an enslaved Earth girl,' said the man to me.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'You were sent once,' he asked, 'to a paga tavern on Cos, called the Chatka and Curla?'
'Yes, Master,' I said.
I felt his hands, hard on my arms. 'Excellent,' he said. He looked at me, and I felt terror. 'I shall now ask you a simple question,' he said, 'and you will answer it immediately and truthfully, if you would live for another five Ihn.'
Two sailors seized Clitus Vitellius, who struggled. I looked at him, wildly.
'Have you heard of one called Belisarius?' asked the man.
'Yes, Master,' I whispered. 'I brought him a message.'
'What message?' he asked.
'I do not know!' I cried.
He stood up. 'We shall have the message,' he said.
'I do not know what it is!' I cried.
'Release me!' demanded Clitus Vitellius.
'Thurnock,' said the man. 'Take the slave below. Put her in Sirik. Chain her in the hold.'
A large man, blond-haired, powerful, threw me to his shoulder. 'Master!' I cried to Clitus Vitellius.
I heard him struggling.
'Release me!' cried Clitus Vitellius.
'I would speak with you upon the high deck,' said the man to Clitus Vitellius, 'and I would speak with you alone.'
'I do not understand,' said Clitus Vitellius.
'Release him,' said the man. The sailors released Clitus Vitellius.
'Come with me to the high deck,' said the man. He turned, and led the way. Clitus Vitellius followed him, angrily.
The large man descended a short flight of stairs, leading downward from an opened hatch.
The ceiling of the hold was low, and, at the bottom, the man bent over, and carried me in his arms. In the hold there were many supplies, and weapons, and riches. The convoy had been broken and it had scattered. Many ships had been taken. Much loot lay in the hold. This ship alone, I gathered, carried the ransom of a dozen Ubars.
The man lay me on my side on the boards of the hold. Against the wall of the hold there were five girls, illuminated in the light of a tiny ship's lantern. They were stripped. Each was chained by the left ankle to a common ring.
The man brought a Sirik, and locked it on my throat, and about my wrists and ankles. Then, with another chain, looping it through the Sirik chain which fell from my Sirik collar to my braceleted wrists and confined ankles, he secured me to a heavy ring, passing one end of the looped chain through the ring and then, with a heavy padlock, closing the open end of the loop. Only then did he untie the bonds on my wrists and ankles. When I was freed of those bonds I was chained in Sirik, fastened at the ring. I was secured much more heavily than they.
'The men,' said one of the women, 'were taken from the boat and chained, and put in a round ship.'
'What men?' I asked her, puzzled.
'The men who were with me in the longboat,' she said. 'Do you not remember me?'
'No,' I said.
'We were together,' she said, 'on the Luciana of Telnus.'
'You are the free woman!' I exclaimed.
She laughed ruefully and lifted with her small hand the chain which held her fair ankle. She indicated the other girls beside her. 'We were all free,' she said.
'Rejoice,' said I, 'that men found you pleasing.'
The girls shuddered.
'They are going to take us to Port Kar and sell us,' said one.
'What is it like, being a slave?' asked one of the girls.
I looked at her beauty, and laughed. 'You will find out,' I said, '-Slave.'
She shrank back, frightened, against the wall of the hold.
'What ship is this?' I asked.
'It is the Dorna,' said one of the girls.
'And who is its captain?' I asked, referring to the man who had spoken with us, the lean, strong, reddish- haired man, so like an animal, clearly of the warriors.
He frightened me.
'That is Bosk, of Port Kar,' said one of the girls.
Above us the hatch was closed. I heard it lock. I looked upward. I was in Sirik, fastened to a ring, chained in the bold of the Dorna, the ship of the dreaded pirate and slaver, Bosk of Port Kar.
I lay down on the planking of the hold, naked in my chains.
'We shall have the message,' he had said.
But I did not know what the message was.
'We shall have the message,' he had said.
I did not know what the message was. When I failed to give it to him I did not know what would be done to me.
These were days of war. I had been an unwitting message girl for one side. I had now fallen into the hands of the other side.
I looked at the other girls. How I envied them. They would be branded and made simple slave girls.
They need only obey and be dreams of pleasure to men.
I felt the planking of the hold with my body. The chains were tight on me. I did not know what would be done with me.
