left.
Men rushed to the benches and slid oars through the oar openings in the side of the ship.
Another man began to call to them and their oars, in unison, began to dip and pull.
Men ran here and there about the deck. Some attended to ropes. Some lashed down loose objects on the deck. Weapons were fetched, and sand and water. Hatches were closed, and secured.
I was very excited, but helpless. I could not participate in the least in what might ensue.
I knew the waters of Thassa were plied by many ships, and, among them, were the ships of pirates. Cos and Ar, I had heard, were now at war, the matters having to do with the piracy on the Vosk not having been satisfactorily adjudicated. But Ar had no navy, though it did have a fleet of river ships that patrolled the Vosk. The ship might, of course, be of Port Kar, or of one of the northern ports, or even of Torvaldsland.
I could not free my ankles, wrists and belly of their chains, which kept me, by their arrangement, on my knees. I was frightened. If the ship fell to pirates I, and the other girls, I knew, would fall helplessly to them too, lovely spoils, naked slave booty, to the victors. I hoped that they would want us. If they did not, we would be thrown overboard. In such circumstances, girls try to be wanted.
'Get those slaves below deck,' called an officer.
I and the other four girls, who had been on deck at the same time, were seized by the arms and dragged along the deck. The hatch to the slave hold was opened. To my horror I saw my sisters in bondage tumbled down the ladder. 'No!' I cried. Then I, too, was thrown through the hatch, striking the stairs, rolling, chained, tumbling, to the flooring of the hold. I was much bruised. 'No!' I heard cry. Then the girls from the deck cages, too, were taken to the hatch and rudely ordered to descend into the hold. 'The smell!' screamed one of them, and then she was thrust flying through the opening. Twenty girls from the deck were then with us. Looking up, we saw the heavy hatch close. The new girls screamed at the darkness. We heard the hatch bolts flung into place, and the two heavy locks snapped shut.
17
The Leash
The heavy door opened.
Some men were there, one of whom held a tiny lamp.
The room was long, and wide, and low, with many square wooden pillars. The walls and flooring were of stone. I think it may have been beneath a warehouse, near water. I did not know. I had been brought there, bound and gagged, in a closed sack, in a lighter from the pirate ship.
I had been in the room some four days.
The men entered the room.
I did not know where the room was.
I wore the slave oval locked about my belly, and was neck chained.
The slave oval is a hinged iron loop which locks about a girl's waist. Two wrist rings, on sliding loops, are fitted on the oval. It also has a welded ring on the back, through which a slave bolt may be snapped, fastening the girl to a wall or object, or through which a chain might be passed. My wrists were locked in the wrist rings.
I sat on straw, my legs drawn up.
My neck wore an iron collar, with its ring, behind my neck, through which a long chain passed, the chain, too, being held to the wall by its own rings. The chain, with its collars, was more than a hundred feet long. Some forty or fifty girls were chained on my side of the room, and another forty or fifty on the other side of the room. The room was dingy, and smelled of musty straw. The light of the tiny lamp the man carried seemed bright in the room.
'What girls here,' asked one of the men, who seemed imposing, in helmet and cloak, with four fellows, of the man with the lamp, a short, fat fellow in the merchants' white and gold, 'are from the Clouds of Telnus?'
'None, of course, Noble Sir,' said the merchant.
'It is well known,' said the tall man, the leader of the others, 'that you deal in black-market slaves.'
'Not I!' cried the shorter man, the merchant.
The taller man, in the helmet, looked down upon him, menacingly.
'Perhaps the Noble Sirs would like gold,' suggested the fat man. 'Much gold?'
The taller man extended his hand.
The fat man thrust gold into the other's palm. 'That is twice the normal fee,' he pointed out.
The tall man dropped the gold into his pouch. 'What girls here,' he asked, 'are from the Clouds of Telnus?'
The fat man shook. 'Two,' he whispered.
'Show them to me,' he said.
The short fat man led the way toward myself and the auburn-haired girl, who had been in a deck cage. We were chained side by side. She wore the normal Kajira brand. I wore the Dina. I felt uneasy, and so, too, doubtless, did she. We could not kneel before the free males for we were in close neck collars, held closely to the wall.
'Were you two from the Clouds of Telnus?' asked the tall man.
'Yes, Master,' we said.
The tall man crouched down beside us, irritably. One of the men with him wore the green of the physicians. The tall man looked at us. As naked female slaves we averted our eyes from his. I smelled the straw.
'Wrist-ring key,' said the tall man.
The merchant handed him the key that would unlock the wrist rings.
'Leave the lamp and withdraw,' said the tall man. The short merchant handed him the lamp and, frightened, left the room.
The men crouched down and crowded about the auburn-haired girl. I heard them unlock one of her wrist rings.
'We are going to test you for pox,' he said. The girl groaned. It was my hope that none on board the Clouds of Telnus had carried the pox. It is transmitted by the bites of lice. The pox had appeared in Bazi some four years ago. The port had been closed for two years by the merchants. It had burned itself out moving south and eastward in some eighteen months. Oddly enough some were immune to the pox, and with others it had only a temporary, debilitating effect. With others it was swift, lethal and horrifying. Those who had survived the pox would presumably live to procreate themselves, on the whole presumably transmitting their immunity or relative immunity to their offspring. Slaves who contracted the pox were often summarily slain. It was thought that the slaughter of slaves had had its role to play in the containment of the pox in the vicinity of Bazi.
'It is not she,' said the physician. He sounded disappointed. This startled me.
'Am I free of pox, Master?' asked the auburn-haired girl.
'Yes,' said the physician, irritably. His irritation made no sense to me.
The tall man then closed the auburn-haired girl's wrist again in its wrist ring. The men crouched down about me. I shrank back against the wall. My left wrist was removed from its wrist ring and the tall man pulled my arm out from my body, turning the wrist, so as to expose the inside of my arm.
I understood then they were not concerned with the pox, which had vanished in the vicinity of Bazi over two years ago.
The physician swabbed a transparent fluid on my arm. Suddenly, startling me, elating the men, there emerged, as though by magic, a tiny, printed sentence, in fine characters, in bright red. It was on the inside of my elbow. I knew what the sentence said, for my mistress, the Lady Elicia of Ar, had told me. It was a simple sentence. It said: 'This is she.' It had been painted on my arm with a tiny brush, with another transparent fluid. I had seen the wetness on the inside of my arm, on the area where the arm bends, on the inside of the elbow, and then it had dried, disappearing. I was not even sure the writing had remained. But now, under the action of the reagent, the writing had emerged, fine and clear. Then, only a moment or so later, the physician, from another flask, poured some liquid on a rep-cloth swab, and, again as though by magic, erased the writing. The invisible
