fed but once a day!' I saw no one in the observation panel. I remained sitting, as I was. 'Kneel beside me,' begged Lady Claudia. I then heard something like a stool or platform scrape on the stones outside the door. A moment later I saw a small head rise up behind the panel, that of a child or woman. I could see little, but it seemed to be a delicate head, covered closely with a white, scarflike turban, and I saw deep eyes, and a bit of veil, over the bridge of a fine, delicate nose.
'I se, Lady Claudia,' said a woman's voice, from behind the door, amused, 'that you will not be so lonely now.'
'Glory to Ar!' cried Lady Claudia, frightened. Then she turned to me. 'Kneel beside me,' she begged, 'or we will not be fed!'
I knelt beside her, and the woman behind the door laughed. Then she snarled, 'Spies!' I did not think I could get my hand through the panel, as it was narrow. 'Glory to Ar,' said the woman behind the door.
'Glory to Ar! Glory to Ar! Glory to Ar!' cried Lady Claudia. Then she turned, distraught to me. I had been silent. 'Please!' she begged.
'Glory to Ar,' I said, three times. The woman behind the door laughed.
I wished I had a way to get my hands on her. Her small, turbaned, veiled head then disappeared from behind the opened panel and, a bit later, the low panel slid back and a pan of water was slide partway beneath the door. Lady Claudia went to it and took it back to the right, where she emptied it in a small, shallow cistern in the cell. She then slid it back under the door, and returned to kneel where she had been before. It did not seem probably I could get my hand well through the low portal, to seize an ankle or wrist. It was worth considering, of course. A male warder, taller, could see through the observation panel, and determine that we were kneeling in our proper places, at the same time that he might shove pans beneath the door with his foot. The woman would, however, would not be tall enough for that.
Her head again appeared behind the panel.
'Food pan forward,' she said.
Lady Claudia immediately fetched a shallow pan from the side and put it about five feet in front of where she now again knelt. I gathered she had been well trained in these feeding procedures. Presumably to have put the pan forward earlier, before receiving the order, or permission, would have been regarded as presumptuous, and perhaps have resulted in its remaining empty for the day. 'You are pretty, naked, Lady Claudia,' said the voice.
Lady Claudia choked back a sob.
'Glory to Ar!' said the voice behind the door, sternly.
'Glory to Ar!' cried Lady Claudia, three times. I repeated this formula, as well, three times.
The head then disappeared again from the panel. At the same there was a tiny scrape, as of wood on stone, probably from a platform on which she had stood. There was then silence, no sound of pans, or such. I quickly, to the consternation of Lady Claudia, moved to the observation panel and looked through it. I saw the warder going down the corridor. She was barefoot, and wore tatters which barely covered her calves. These tatters appeared to be the remains of what had perhaps once been a double dress, now shortened. The hems of both the inner and outer skirt, doubtless in their shortenings, had been deeply serrated, each in a series of some seven or eight large, triangular points. These points were alternated in such a way that those of the inner skirt appeared between those of the outer skirt. Thus, though the general appearance of the garment suggested rags, they were, in their way, contrived rags. In a way, though she perhaps did not understand this, they invited a man to their removal. Perhaps it was her hope that if the city fell such a garment might save her life, sparing her for the collar. The white, scarflike turban on her head, I supposed, was a vanity, to conceal shortly cropped hair. The veil, of course, was appropriate for a free female. I observed her calves, her bare feet, the cleverly contrived rags she wore. Perhaps she had already rehearsed how she would surrender herself to a man. If the time came, I was sure, stern warder though she might pretend to be, she would submit herself quickly enough and appropriately enough, ending her farce, accepting nudity and a collar, to a master. She bent down and picked up a bucket, and, before she turned back, I left the observation panel and returned to my place.
'Do not leave your kneeling position at such a time,' begged Lady Claudia, tears in her eyes.
The head appeared behind the observation panel and found us in our places. As soon as it left the panel this time I bent down to see if it might be possible to seize her somehow from under the door. But, to my irritation, a pan, into which had been ladled some meal and a piece of bread was thrust beneath the door with a rod. Lady Claudia rushed to the pan and placed the meal and bread in the cell's food pan some five feet in front of her and then replaced the delivery pan half under the door. It was pulled back with the rod. The warder, given that she was a female, had been well taught suitable alterations in the common routines of warders. Doubtless, too, somewhere there were men about, to back her up, if need be. I was angry. I then straightened up in time to be in place when she looked through the panel again. The use of the two pans is not primarily for security as one pan could be used, or an exchange of pans, provided suitable distances between the prisoners and the warders are maintained, but rather to keep pans localized to given cells. This helps to prevent the spread of infections and makes each cell responsible for its own hygiene.
'Please give us more to eat!' cried Lady Claudia.
'You are too fat now,' said the warder. 'Please!' begged Lady Claudia.:Lady Claudia, in my opinion, was certainly not fat. On the other hand, it was probably true that she had been better fed than most in Ar's Station, at least prior to her incarceration in the cell, given her former hoarding and the additional food she had obtained at the wall, in the basket.
'Are you afraid your pretty complexion will suffer?' asked the warder. 'Please!' said the Lady Claudia. 'Please!'
The panel slid shut.
'The she-sleen!' cried Lady Claudia. 'How I hate her!' she clenched her fists. 'I hate her! I hate her!' she said. She pounded her fists on the stone, the blows softened by the intervening straw. Then she looked dismally, angrily, at the bit of meal and the crust of bread in the pan. 'Surely it is their intent to starve me!'
'Us?' I asked.
'Yes, us,' she said.
'You are probably being fed as well as most in Ar's Station,' I said. The men on the walls, hopefully, would receive more. Yet those I had met had seemed half starved. 'Too,' I said, 'it is not unlike the rations given to new slave girls in their training period, when they are being taught their dependence on me for their food.'
She made an angry noise and stood up. She made as though to move to the pan, but stopped short. 'Oh!' she said. My hand had closed about her ankle.
'Get on your belly,' I told her.
'What are you doing?' she exclaimed, angrily. She could not advance toward the food.
'Now,' I said.
Angrily she went to her belly and I drew her back a foot or two by the ankle. She put out her hands but could not reach the food. I then got up and went to the pan. I picked it up and took it back, toward the back of the cell, where I sat down, cross-legged, the pan before me. She turned about, not daring to leave her belly, to look at me.
'You may approach,' I told her. 'But do not come close enough to touch the food.'
She squirmed forward, desperately.
'Are you hungry?' I asked. 'Yes!' she said.
'Would you like to eat?' I asked.
'Yes!' she said.
'Perform,' I said.
'No!' she cried. 'I am a free woman!'
'Very well,' I said. I paid her no more attention. I fingered some of the meal into my mouth. It was in a glutinous, semisolid glob. It was neither sugared nor salted.
'Please!' she cried. She had not risen from her belly.
'Do you think you are still alone in the cell?' I asked.
'Please!' she begged.
I fingered more of the meal, a good two fingersful, into my mouth.
'I will perform!' she said.
