I glimpsed the face of a girl, white and frightened, in the center of the crowd. She was standing, being held by two fellows, on wrist in the care of each. To one side, quite close, there knelt four other girls, three in tunics of the wool of the bounding hurt, one in silk.
'Guardsmen!' I repeated, angrily, and forced myself forward.
The face of the standing, captive girl manifested sudden relief.
'Would you not know?' said one of the men, disgustedly.
One of the kneeling girls, too, cried out with joy.
'We are saved!' said another.
'What is going on here?' I demanded, not pleasantly.
'First the curfew,' grumbled a fellow to another.
'Now this!' exclaimed another.
I resolved I must learn more of what was on the boards. Marcus could read them much more rapidly than I.
'Release me,' said the standing girl, angrily. The two fellows who had seized her wrists let them go, and she rubbed her wrists, as though to push away even the memory of their grip.
'Greetings and welcome, noble guardsmen of Cos!' said she, delightedly. 'I think you have arrived in time!'
The other four girls made as though to rise, righteously, but a glance from Marcus put them back instantly on their knees. This, I think, was not noticed by the girl who was standing, who was, I take it, a sort of leader amongst them. 'What is the difficulty?' I asked.
'We caught her drinking from the top bowl of the fountain,' said one, pointing to a nearby fountain.
'You are not kneeling,' I said to the girl in the center.
'I am a woman,' she said, 'why should I kneel?'
This seemed to me a strange response. I would have supposed it an excellent reason to kneel, being in the presence of men, if one were a woman. If she were a free woman, of course, fitting or not, there would be no legal proprieties involved. A free woman, as long as she remains free, can stand to the fullness of her short, graceful height before men.
'What is your status?' I asked.
'Slave,' she said, tossing her lovely head, her hair swirling.
To be sure, my question was somewhat rhetorical, as her neck was appropriately banded.
I considered her.
She met my eyes for a moment, and then, angrily, looked away.
She was rather modestly garbed, I thought, her tunic coming to her knees. Too, it was not belted. This was presumably to conceal her figure. On the other hand, I conjectured that beneath that garment, woven of the wool of the bounding hurt, her figure might not be without interest. She wore no makeup. She had been given sandals. I considered her mien. I did not doubt but what she had a weak master. 'As you are slave,' I asked, 'how is it that you are not kneeling?'
'A strange question,' she said, 'coming from a guardsman of Cos.'
'Yes,' said a man, angrily.
'Tell me of your master,' I said.
'He is liberated,' she said, 'and of the times! He knows my worth!'
'You would not be insolent in Cos, or Anango, or Venna!' said a man.
'I am in Ar!' she laughed. 'Cos' Ar!'
'Hold!' I said angrily to the men, holding them back.
'Let her be punished,' said a fellow.
'No!' she laughed. 'You do not dare touch me now! There are guardsmen of Cos present! I am safe!'
Inwardly I smiled, wondering what her attitude might be, had she found herself anywhere but where she was, and in the presence of the power of Cos, in the form of Marcus and myself. What if she had found herself, for example, tied with wire in an alcove in Brundisium, almost concealed in ropes on a submission mat in the Tahari, wearing a body cage in Tyros, bound to the wheel in the land of the Wagon Peoples, shackled on a sales platform in Victoria, fearing the auctioneer's whip, or prone and chained on one of the swift ships of the black slavers of Schendi?
'Is it true that you have drunk from the higher bowl of the fountain?' I asked. 'Yes!' she said.
'How is it that you have done such a thing?' I asked. Slaves, of course, like other animals, are expected to drink from the lower level of a fountain, and, generally, on all fours.
'My master permits such things!' she said. 'He is noble and kind!'
'A weakling and a fool,' said a man. 'I know him.'
'And he celebrates them! He grabs me modestly! He accords me sandals! He respects me!'
There was laughter.
'He accords me an allowance, and my own hours, and my own room!' she said. 'And does he require your permission before he puts you to use?' I asked. 'Of course,' she said.
There was a reaction of amazement from the men present.
'And does he receive this permission when he wishes it?' I asked.
'Sometimes,' she laughed.
'I can well imagine his anxiety,' I said, 'as to whether or not it will be granted.'
She laughed. 'Glory to Cos!' she said.
But neither Marcus nor myself, nor any other there, echoed this sentiment. 'You are not always in the mood,' I said.
'Of course not,' she said.
'Sometimes you are weary,' I conjectured, 'or are afflicted with a headache?'
'Yes,' she laughed. 'But I do not need an excuse!'
'I see,' I said.
'Sometimes,' she said, 'I deny him, to win my way, to punish him, to teach him a lesson.' She laughed, and threw a meaningful look at the other girls kneeling near her. One or two of them looked up at her, smiling.
'I understand,' I said. 'Does your master trouble you often in this regard.'
'Not so much now,' she said, angrily.
'You are aware that he can sell you,' I said.
'He would not dare to do so,' she said.
'But you know he has this legal power?'
'In a sense,' she said.
'In the fullest of senses,' I said.
'Yes,' she said, drawing back a little.
'And you know that he can do with you as he pleases?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said.
'Interesting,' I said.
'Do you forget the proposed laws of respect!' she said.
'They were never enacted,' I said.
'They should have been!' she said.
There was an angry mutter in the crowd.
'My master,' she said, 'is a kind, liberated, noble, enlightened master! He accepts such laws, or laws much like them, as much as if they had been proclaimed by the councils and promulgated by the Ubara herself!'
'The actual words of the Ubara,' I said, 'or at least as reported on the boards, where to the effect that slave girls should be obedient and try to please their masters.'
'It is well,' said a man,' or Ar would have gone up in flames.'
'I do not know of such things,' she said.
'Are you pleased with your master? I asked.
'He is noble, and kind, and liberated and enlightened,' she said.
'You seem deprived, and unfulfilled.'
'I?'
