she inquired.
'Disgusting, simply disgusting,' said the Lady Melpomene, quickly.
'Most disgusting of all, perhaps,' said the Lady Florence, 'was the disgraceful sight of those half-naked slave girls pawing after the fighters.'
'Yes,' said the Lady Melpomene.
'They are only slaves,' pointed out Kenneth.
'This is true,' admitted the Lady Florence.
'Yes,' said the Lady Melpomene. 'What can one expect of collared sluts?'
'I wonder, though, what it would be like to feel such emotion,' mused the Lady Florence.
'They wear only a rag and a collar,' said the Lady Melpomene. 'They are owned. They must serve. They are not permitted pride. Under such circumstances it is doubtless easy to feel emotion'
'Perhaps,' shuddered the Lady Florence.
'With your permission, Lady Florence,' said Kenneth, 'I would like to get Jason to the stall, that we may dry and warm him. He is hot and sweaty. I do not wish him to take a chill.'
'I trust you take as good care of my tharlarion as you do of your fighters,' said the Lady Florence.
'Of course,' grinned Kenneth.
'You may kiss my feet, Jason,' said the Lady Florence I bent, putting my lips to her slippers, kissing them. 'Now those of the Lady Melpomene,' she said. Again I bent, this time pressing my lips to the slippers of the Lady Melpomene, too, kissing them.
'He has become a sturdy brute, hasn't he?' asked the Lady Florence.
I lifted my head.
'And a handsome brute, too.' she said.
'Come, Jason,' said Kenneth, drawing me to my feet. He half pushed me down the corridor.
'Kenneth!' called the Lady Florence.
Kenneth stopped and turned.
'Is he to be rewarded?' she asked.
'Surely,' said Kenneth. 'Was it not a splendid performance? Did he not do excellently?'
'Double rations, and wine,' she said.
'Of course,' said Kenneth.
I was angry.
'And no slut!' she said, clearly.
'He is a male slave, a fighter,' protested Kenneth. 'He needs a collared slut squirming in his arms. He has earned her.'
'No slut,' she said.
'Let me at least chain Taphris at his side,' said Kenneth. 'She is the least of the sluts, and has been shorn.'
Taphris shrank back.
'No, Kenneth,' said the Lady Florence. 'Do not give him a woman.'
'He is a man,' said Kenneth. 'He needs meat and a slave girl.'
'He is not to be given a woman,' she said. 'Is that clearly understood, Kenneth?'
'Yes, Lady Florence,' he said, angrily.
'Kenneth,' she said.
'Yes, Lady Florence,' he said.
'I will later find a slut for him,' she said. 'I have a slut in mind.'
Kenneth looked at her, puzzled. 'Very well, Lady Florence,' he said. Then he turned about, to thrust me ahead of him down the corridor, I looked back, seeing again, at the gate, the Lady Florence and, beside her, the Lady Melpomene. Then I yielded to the pressure of Kenneth's arm and was guided down the corridor, toward the stall set aside for our fighters. Bares was close behind us, and then Taphris. Back, behind the gate, from the tiers, I could hear shouting. Another match was in progress.
21 THE INCUBATION SHED
I was naked and sweating profusely. It is hot in the incubation shed.
'The Mistress seems in a good mood,' I said.
'Shhh,' Bares, who was stripped to the waist, cautioned me. 'Listen.' He put his ear down to the warm sand.
I joined him, listening. Beneath the warm sand, say a foot below the surface, we heard a tiny noise, a scratching.
'It will be coming out soon,' said Bares, grinning, straightening up.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'Taphris,' said Bares, 'put more sticks in the flame ditch.'
She looked at us. She was naked. Bares had made her remove her clothes in the incubation shed. She was covered with sweat. Her flesh, in the light from the flame ditch, it almost encircling the buried clutch before us, glowed reddishly. Girths cloths lay at hand. These, sewn from feed sacks, are used to dry and wrap the hatchlings. Snout straps, too, coiled, used to secure their jaws, also lay nearby.
'I should not have to do this work,' said Taphris.
'Get on your hands and knees,' said Bares. 'Carry the sticks, one by one, in your mouth.'
'Yes, Master,' she said, angrily. I smiled to myself to see the Mistress' spy, commanded by a free man obeying.
'It is too bad she is not to be used,' said Bares. 'She needs raping'
I shrugged. What Bares said was doubtless true.
'Kenneth, too, is displeased with her,' said Bares to me. 'One can scarcely make a move in the stables without knowing that the little she-sleen is going to report it to the Mistress.'
I nodded.
We watched Taphris, on her hands and knees, carry a stick to the edge of the flame ditch and, shutting her eyes, drop it in, then quickly drawing back. She then looked at us.
'Continue, Slave,' said Barns.
'Yes, Master,' she said, returning on her hands and knees to the box for another stick.
'It is irritating, having such a spy about,' said Barus. 'Too, she thinks she is important. She thinks she is still a house girl, and not a stable slut. Her presence in the stables is not good for the discipline of the other girls.'
That was true. If she were not to be whipped and chained, and disrobed and raped, as might be the others, and for no obvious reason, such as being the favorite of one of the keepers, a reason a slave girl can understand, then puzzlement, and perhaps even consternation and dissension, might soon manifest itself in the kennels. The other girls might then soon want the same privileges. And if such matters were allowed to proceed unchecked soon half-naked slave girls might aspire to the pretensions of free women, desiring to be the mistresses of their own clothing and bodies. But matters, of course, would never be permitted to reach that point. Long before that point was reached the leather would have been removed from its nail in the whipping shed.
'We must do something about Taphris,' said Barns.
I shrugged. It seemed to me now, objectively, that Taphris was under sufficient discipline. She was crawling about, naked, on her hands and knees, carrying sticks in her mouth, feeding the slow fires in the flame ditch. To be sure, it had for a moment this afternoon seemed otherwise.
'Taphris,' said Barns, sharply.
'Yes, Master!' she said, startled.
'Bring water,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' she said. She got to her feet and went to the side of the shed, where the water bucket was
