She cried out with misery.
'Bring condiments as well,' I advised her. '50a€”51a€”51.'
In a moment or two she had regained the kitchen, and, an instant or two later, clutching a small, partitioned hand-rack of small vials and pots, each in its place, she again emerged into the public area.
'67,' I said. '68.'
'Please!' she cried. 'have mercy!'
'69a€”70,' I said.
She hastened toward me, terrified, with quick, small steps.
'75a€”76.' I said. 'Obeisance.'
She cried out with misery, performing obeisance.
'77,' I said. '78a€”79.' Then the porridge, with the seasonings and condiments was on the table. '80,' I said.
She leaned back. I feared she might faint. Then she again performed obeisance, and shrank back.
'Do not leave,' I told her. 'You do not have permission to withdraw. Back on your heels.'
She knelt back on her heels, frightened.
I tasted the porridge. It had not yet been seasoned. Trying it, with one spoonful or another, from one vial or pot, or another, I seasoned it to my taste. I would later, now and then, here and there, in one place or another, mix in condiments. By such devices one obtains variety, or its deceptive surrogate, even in a substance seemingly so initially unpromising as inn porridge. She looked at me, anxiously.
'I think this will prove satisfactory, free woman,' I said.
She breathed more easily.
I put down the spoon.
'I shall take this other bowl away,' she said.
'Not yet,' I said.
'Sir?' she asked.
I rose to my feet and pressed her back to the tiles, and pulled her wrist chain down, lifting up her feet. I then slipped the wrist chain behind her feet and ankles, and pulled it up behind her back. This held her hands rather behind her, at the sides. I then put her again to her knees.
'Sir?' she asked.
'You do have auburn hair, don't you?' I said.
Then I picked up the original porridge and held it in the palm of my left hand and took her firmly at the back of her head, by the hair, with my right. 'No!' she cried.
I plunged her face downward, fully into the porridge.
I held the bowl firmly, pressed upwards. I held her hands firmly, pressing her face down into the bowl. She struggled unavailingly. Then I let her lift her head, sputtering, choking, coughing, gasping for air, her face a mass of porridge. 'I can't breath!' she wept. 'I'm choking!'
Then I thrust her face again into the bowl.
'Eat,' I said. 'Eat.' Wildly she began to try and take the material into her mouth. Then she twisted her head to the side. 'It's inedible!' she wept. I turned her head again, and pushed it down. 'Eat!' I said. I supposed it was possible someone could drown in a bowl of porridge. I pulled her head up then, so she could breathe, and she gasped for breath. 'Please!' she wept, through the glutinous mask on her face. Again I pushed her head down, and again, she strove to get the stuff in her mouth. Then I put the bowl on the floor before her, and put her to her belly before it, and put my foot on her back, so that she could not rise. Her face was at the bowl. 'Eat,' I said. She put her head down over the bowl and, lapping, and biting at the substance, fed. When I removed my foot from her back, she looked up at me. 'Please!' she begged. 'Eat,' I said, then kicked her with the side of my foot, and, as she addressed herself again to the contents of the bowl I settled myself before the low table, cross-legged, and returned to my own repast. Once again she looked up at me, frightened, through the paste of porridge, it thick about her face and on her eyelashes. 'I'm on fire!' she wept. 'Water! I beg it!'
'Eat,' I said.
Frightened, she again lowered her face to the bowl.
After a time I had finished my own porridge.
When I glanced again at her she had rather finished her porridge, and was lying on her belly, her head turned toward me, looking at me.
'You are a monster,' she said.
'Lick your bowl,' I said.
Miserably she did so.
'Some porridge has been spilled,' I said. 'It doubtlessly overflowed that sides of the bowl when you pressed your face into it. That can happen when one feeds too greedily, too enthusiastically. One expects a woman to feed more delicately, more daintily. To be sure, you are a free woman, and may eat much as you wish. Still, such feeding habits would disgust a tarsk. If a slave fed anything like that, she would be under the whip within an Ehn.'
She looked at me, frightened.
'You can see porridge about, here and there,' I said. ' Do not let it go to waste.'
She moaned, and, on her belly, lowered her face to the floor. Her tongue was small, and lovely. Trained, it might do well on a man's body.
'Are you finished?' I asked her, after a time.
'Yes,' she whispered, in her chains, on her belly, looking up at me. 'Rejoice that you are a free woman, and not a slave,' I said. 'Had you been a slave, you might have been killed for what you did earlier.'
She was silent.
'Do you understand?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'Approach me, on your belly,' I said.
She squirmed to the table, her hands still behind her.
I then reached behind her and drew the wrist chain down and, forcing her legs tightly back against her body, put it back in front of her legs. It was then as it had been before. I let her straighten her legs.
'When you bring the check,' I said, 'do so in your teeth.'
She looked at me, angrily.
'Do you understand?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'The check is to be paid, or put on the bill, I gather, at the keeper's desk,' I said. One had to pass the keeper's desk after leaving the paga room. That arrangement, I supposed, was no accident. For example, it would save posting of one employee, which was perhaps a calculated economy on the part of the proprietor. I would not have put it past him, at any rate. Too, in virtue of this arrangement, one need not entrust coins to debtor sluts, slaves, and such. In this house I suspected that they would not be permitted to so much as touch a coin. They would be kept coinless, absolutely.
'Yes,' she said.
'Do you wish to say anything?' I asked.
'I hate you! I hate you!' she said.
'You may, after performing obeisance, withdraw,' I said.
Swiftly she performed obeisance, and then rose to her feet, and, moving carefully, with small steps, as she could, hurried to the kitchen.
I would finish my bread, and nurse the paga for a time, and then retire to my space. It was in the south wing, on the third level, space 97. I would pick up my ostrakan, with the blankets, at the keeper's desk. I wondered how I might approach Ar's Station and deliver the message of Gnieus Lelius, the regent of Ar, to the commander at Ar's Station, Aemilianus. If I appeared to be of Ar, I might fall afoul of Cosians. If I appeared to be with Cos I might have considerable difficulty in approaching the defenders of Ar's Station. Still I must do something soon. The siege at Ar's Station, I had gathered, might be approaching a critical juncture.
As I pondered these matters the door to the paga room burst open and the fellow, fierce and bearded, who had been in the baths now appeared, in the uniform of the company of Artemidorus of Cos, which, indeed, I had
