luxurious,' I said.
'Why do they not take us outside and chain us to a post?' she asked. 'Perhaps that the people do not tear us to pieces,' I said.
She shuddered. The cell door, now, it seemed, so stoutly locked, might be serving as much to protect us as confine us. On the other hand, perhaps most of the people outside did not even know why we were here. If they did, perhaps they would have been at the door, trying to force it open.
'The Cosians must not bring their catapults into action, at this range,' she said.
'Why not?' I asked.
'The people,' she said. 'The crowding. It would be terrible.'
'I see,' I said.
'Surely they would not do so,' she said.
'I would conjecture that the engines will be in place by morning,' I said. 'But they will not use them!' she said.
'I would expect them to do so,' I said, 'with stones, and oil, and javelins.' 'There must be little food in the citadel now,' she said.
Our rations, small though they were, had been halved. We were both weak. 'Why do they bother feeding us?' she asked.
'I do not know,' I said. I had some idea as to why they were probably feeding her, at least. I did not, however, want to speak to her of this. The observation panel in the door slid back. I saw the head of our warder rise up, behind the slot, as she stepped up, onto her platform. She still had the white, scarflike turban and veil. 'Prisoners, forward,' she said. 'Kneel.' We obeyed. It was toward dusk. It was not time to be fed.
'You, Claudia, slave girl,' she said. 'Knell behind him and to his left.' A slave girl, in heeling her master, commonly follows on the left. That she follows indicates that she is subservient, that he is master and she slave; that she follows on the left is a cultural matter probably indexed to the fact that most Goreans are right-handed. Her presence on the left, thus, is not likely to interfere with his draw or the movements of his sword arm.
'You are pretty, slave girl,' snarled the warder to Lady Claudia. 'How natural you look there!'
'Yes!' said Lady Claudia to her. 'I am a slave girl! He has taught me that I am a slave girl! I know it now!'
'Slave! Slave!' snarled the warder.
Lady Claudia, of course, was not a slave, not a legal slave, at any rate. She was still, legally, a free woman. I had seen no point in imbonding her. Similarly, I had ordered her not to submit herself to me, of her own free will, even when she had begged to do so. In either case, she could have been taken from me easily enough by force, and then freed, to be made again legally susceptible to whatever punishment they wished to visit upon her. To be sure, they might, if they wished, make her a slave themselves, or let her be a slave, either by my action or her own, and then, if she were a slave, do anything they wished with her.
I found it hard to understand the warder's hatred for Lady Claudia. It surpassed anything which seemed rationally connected with her culpability in the matter of espionage. The first time I had used Lady Claudia, the first day I had been in the cell, flinging her to my feet in the straw, I had taken little time with her. Later that afternoon, after I had slept, I had awakened and snapped my fingers. She was over against the far wall, wide-eyed, half covered in the straw, lying on her side, watching me. At my signal she had crawled across the floor, through the straw, and then knelt before me, her head down, submitted. I had taken her by the arms and thrown her again to the straw. I had not expected the intensity and helplessness of her response. Within the Ahn she had become, in effect, my slave.
That night I gave her the name 'Chloe'. A transformation had soon become visible in her, over the next two or three days, in her entire body and personality. The hardness, the selfishness, the nastiness, the smallness, the pettiness, the meanness which had so characterized her began to melt away. In its place she was becoming soft and feminine, delicate and attentive, eager to please and serve, and loving. At first the warder was much amused by the imperious and uncompromising treatment to which my fair cellmate found herself subjected, taking great pleasure in her fate. Sometimes, in the first day or two, the warder would even watch us, encouraging me and jeering at the helpless, lovely spy. Soon, however, as it became clear that the Lady Claudia was becoming happier, and more fulfilled and more beautiful her attitudes changed, dramatically. The warder now begun to castigate her, and subject her to incredible verbal abuse, of the sort to which free women often subject slave girls. The Lady Claudia, on the other hand, though not even enslaved, did not seem to mind. She was beginning to understand, dimly, it seemed, what the nature of bondage might be for a female. The sterner I was with her the more she seemed to enjoy it. The stricter I was with her the more she loved it. When I would cuff her from me she would crawl back to my feet, kissing them. Treated as a woman, and finding herself in male power, she would look up at me, with love, awe and gratitude in her eyes. I scarcely dared conjecture what her responses might have been, had she known herself truly, helplessly, imbonded. I had little doubt that she would bring an excellent price on the slave block.
'Slut! Slut! Slut!' screamed the warder at her. Her hostility was clearly directed at the Lady Claudia and not me. She could not stand it, it seemed, that the Lady Claudia, almost before her eyes, had become beautiful. I regarded Lady Claudia, the «Chloe» of my uses. She had indeed now become beautiful, wholly and through and through beautiful. She was now very different from her former self. She could not now even dream of betraying Ar's Station, or men. Yet her former self had done so, and her new self, whether in true justice or not, could be held accountable for the action.
'Yes,' said Lady Claudia, softly, humbly, then adding, meaningfully, somewhat maliciously perhaps, for she was still a free woman, 'a€”Mistress.' The warder cried out in fury and smote on the cell door with her small fists. 'For what purpose have you interrupted us?' I asked the warder.
'I am not speaking to you,' she said.
'But I am speaking to you, female,' I said.
The head moved angrily, behind the slot. I wished I could reach the veil and pull it away from her, face- stripping her. I wondered if she would be pleasing. 'Do not think that you can escape punishment by pretending to be a slave!' said the warder to Lady Claudia.
'Do not fear, my dear,' said Lady Claudia. 'I know that I am a legally free woman. I may be in my heart a slave, and I may be kept in this cell, and serve her, as a slave, but I know that I am legally free.'
'Do you think the citadel will fall tomorrow,' I asked, 'or the nest day? And do you still wear artful rags, and go barefoot, and display your calves and ankles?'
Her eyes widened. She realized then I must have spied on her through the slot. I knew these secrets about her, whose import must be clear enough to any strong man. Her small brows knit in fury.
'Do you think you will have an opportunity to surrender to a man?' I asked. 'Have you practiced how to tear your robes from your breasts, the words with which you will beg to be spared?'
'Sleen!' said the warder.
'I see that you have,' I said, 'noble free woman.'
'Sleen!' she cried.
'Perhaps you would look well, naked,' I said, 'in a coffle.'
'Sleen! Sleen!' she cried.
Lady Claudia laughed merrily.
'Laugh now!' she said. 'But I will tell you why I have come. You, Lady Claudia, traitress and slut, have been sentenced by Aemilianus. Tomorrow, at noon, you are to be displayed above the wall, as an act of defiance, impaled!' Lady Claudia turned white.
'Ad for you,' said the warder, addressing me, 'I do not know what is to become of you. Aemilianus, for some reason, seems hesitant about you.' The observation panel then slid shut, with a snap.
I caught Lady Claudia, that she not fall.
'I am sorry,' I said.
'Is impalement swift?' she asked.
'It need not be,' I said.
'I cannot move,' she said.
I then lifted her and took her back, and put her gently on the straw.
I was not surprised that Aemilianus was less certain what to do with me. My own case, in his mine, must
