male ownership. Too, of course, the wrist rings, and the collar, are truly locked on her. There is no doubt about it. It is a slave, with all that that means, who is dancing.
I watched her, my breath almost taken away by her beauty.
'She is a valuable woman,' said Hermidorus.
I did not doubt it.
''Come along,' he said.
We are readying her for her sale,' said Hermidorus.
I watched her naked on the block, under the tutelage of a whip-carrying trainer. It was small, rounded room, with mirrors. He was putting her through slave paces.
'She is to be auctioned in five days,' said Hermidorus.
My eyes and those of the girl met. At that instant her weight was on the palms of her hands, her arms straight, and the sides of her feet, her body lifted from the block, her legs ~ight and spread widely behind her.
I realized then, with a shock, that she was going to be sold Then she was being put through further slave paces.
'Come along,' said Hermidorus.
I was trembling. The hand of Drusus Rencius on my arm drew me, bodily, from the room.
'I have changed my mind!' wept the girl. 'I will be pleasing! I will be pleasing!'
I looked through the heavy bars of the cell, some three inches in thickness, reinforced with crosspieces, to the opposite wall. It was hard to see. There, kneeling on straw, trying to pull towards us, her wrists tied behind her hack to a ring set in the wall, was a blond girl. 'I will be pleasing!' she wept. 'I will be pleasing! I will be pleasing!'
I then turned away from her, following Hermidorus and Drusus Rencius.
'She is not yet begging to be pleasing,' said Hermidorus to Drusus.
'Correct,' he said.
I looked behind myself, following them, at the dark cells, most of them empty, along the corridor. This was certainly not my favorite part of the house. It was dark, and cold, and clammy. Occasionally my bare feet stepped in puddles of cold water, seeped to this level, and caught in concavities or irregularities in the corridor flooring. And, here and there, I could see passages, narrow, crooked and dark, leading to even lower levels. I was pleased that we were not going to traverse them. It had seemed frightening enough to me to come even to this level. Sometimes, in our descent, bn cat-walks, we had even passed over pit cells, little more than holding holes, ceilinged with locked iron gates, sunk in the floor of the corridor. I had cried out with misery and terror in passing over one of these for a large hand, emerging suddenly through the grating, had seized my ankle. Drusus Rencius had pried open the fingers 'and thrust the hand away. I then kept closely to the center of the catwalks. There were male slaves in this house, too, I had learned. Had the slave known I was free, I do not think he would have touched me.
He might have remained crouching in his hole, thinking what thoughts he might, but I do not think he would have dared to touch me. A male slave can be slain for touching a free woman. 'She is not here for punishment,' Hermidorus had informed the dark shapes beneath the grating. I then realized that a slave girl, perhaps for purposes of her discipline, might be lowered through the grating hole, doubtless into eager hands, the grating then being resecured.
In the corridors, in our movements through them, particularly in the upper levels, we would sometimes encounter slaves, usually employed in domestic tasks, such as running errands, carrying burdens, dusting or cleaning. These women were usually naked, except for their collars, which, I gathered, was the way women were usually kept in a slaver's house. At the approach of the free men, Hermidorus and Drusus, they would immediately position themselves, usually with their knees wide, kneeling back on their heels, their heads up, their bands on their thighs, in the position I had come to understand was that of the pleasure slave, but sometimes, instead; kneeling with the palms of their hands on the tiles, their heads down, too, to the same tiles.
There was one temporary, partial exception to this, which I wrn mention. After we had left some carpeted corridors, higher in the house, and were moving to the lower levels, and traversing heavy, ftagstonelike tiles, we approached a slender, dark-haired girl who, on her hands and knees, in chains, with a bucket of water, cloths and a brush, in that portion of the corridor, was scrubbing tiles.
As we approached, she oriented herself towards us, palms of her hands on the floor, and put her head to the tiles. But, as we neared her, she lifted her head, desperately.
'Hermidorus!' she cried, suddenly. 'Hermidorus!'
He stopped before her, a few feet from her, and we stopped, too, behind him. 'Do you not know me?' she begged. The chain she wore was a work sirik. It resembles the common sink but the wrists, to permit work, are granted about a yard of chain.
Like the common sirik, it is a lovely chain. Women are beautiful in it.
'Deirdre!' she cried. 'Deirdre! Two years ago ill Ar we lived in the same building!'
He looked at her, not speaking.
'Deirdre,' she whimpered.
'In the instant you were imbonded, you ceased to be Girl,' be said.
'Girl?' she said.
'what is your house name?' be asked.
'Oh, no,' she said. 'Not you! Not you, of all people! You not see me as a slave! You could not see me as a slave! I you. That would be impossible! You could not relate to as though I might be a slave! You could not! One such as would never enforce my slavery upon me! One such as you could never do so!' Then she looked up at him, her lower lip trembling. ''Renata' is my house name,' she said. He then removed the belt from his tunic. The accouterments on it he handed to Drusus Rencius.
'You lifted your head from the tile position before free persons had passed you, Renata,' he said. 'You also addressed a free man twice by his name. Similarly your speech has been inadequately deferential. It has not been interspersed at appropriate points, for example, by the expression 'Master.' You have also referred to yourself as though you might still be ~Deirdre.' Such falsifications of identity are not permitted to slaves. Deirdre is gone. In her place there is now only a slave, an animal, who must wear whatever name masters choose to put on her. Similarly, when asked a question, that pertaining to your house name, you did not respond with sufficient promptness. Do you understand all that I am saying, fully and clearly, Renata?'
She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. 'Yes, Master!' she said.
'On all fours, Renata,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' she sobbed, assuming this position.
'Perhaps you should precede us a few paces down the hall,' said Drusus Rencius to me.
I moved, frightened, a few feet down the hall, not looking. Then, suddenly, I heard the belt beginning to fall, sharply, on the girl. I turned in time to see her on her side, in her chains, receiving the last few blows. She had not been pleasing. She was a slave. Of course she was being punished.
Then Hermidorus, without further ado, took back his accouterments from Drusus and slipped them on his belt. He then fastened the belt again about his waist. I was startled that one such as he, seemingly so scholarly and gentle, possessed such uncompromising strength. The female had learned, to her sorrow, that in his presence she would not be permitted the least slackness in her discipline. 'I am sorry for the interruption,' Hermidorus apologized to Drusus Rencius. 'That is perfectly all right,' said Drusus.
The girl lay on her stomach, in her chains, in the water on the tiles. She lifted her head, gazing in pain, disbelief and awe at Hermidorus. She was a slave who had not been pleasing. She had been put under his belt.
We then continued down the hallway.
'Master,' she called out, 'I want to lay for you! I want to lay for you! Please have me sent to your rooms! I want to lay for you!'
Hermidorus did not look back.
I looked back. I saw in the girl's eyes that she now knew she was a slave, and helplessly so, and that she loved him.
We continued on our way.
