24 The Origins of Boabissia

"And this was found about your throat as a baby, in the wreckage of a caravan, by Alars?" he asked. He stood close to her. He looked at it in the light, holding it between his fingers. It was still on its thong about her neck.

"Yes," said Boabissia.

"It was on your neck?" he asked.

"Yes," said Boabissia. "And I have continued to wear it."

"I see," he said.

"Are you acquainted with the young woman inside?" an attendant had asked at the gate.

"Yes," I said. "I think so."

"It was here she entered," said Feiqa.

"Yes," I said.

"Please come in," had said the attendant. We had entered and followed him through the gardened courtyard, with its fountains, and, on the other side of the court, across the shaded portico and into the recesses of the house.

Hurtha and I had returned around noon to the insula, after leaving the area before the Central Cylinder. As soon as we had entered through the shuttered gate into the insula's small, dim vestibule, there, in the light, the dust in it, we had seen Feiqa. "Masters," she said, eagerly, rising to her feet, moving toward us. Then she stopped short. The shackle on her left ankle, fastening her to a floor ring, saw to this. She knelt at the end of the chain. The shackle looked well on her ankle. "Masters," she said.

"Where is Boabissia?" I asked. "I thought you would have been left upstairs.

(pg. 291) "I was," she said. "But Mistress returned and fetched me. She had found something which greatly excited her. I must accompany her that I would know the place, and then, presently when you returned, lead you there."

"That is why you are chained here?" I asked.

"Perhaps, Master," she said. "But Mistress also, of course, may have thought of a slave's comfort.

I smiled. Boabissia was not the sort of person who would think of a slave's comfort. Indeed, she believed that slaves should be treated with great strictness and subjected to ruthless and uncompromising discipline.

"Why did she not wait for us?" I asked.

"She could not wait," said Feiqa. "She was in too great a hurry to get back."

"What is this all about?" I asked.

"She thinks she may have found the house of her people," said Feiqa, "that she might enter, that incredible fortune might be hers, that she might be able to claim her patrimony."

"I gather it was a fine house." I said.

"I think it is probably very beautiful," said Feiqa. "I caught a glimpse of the garden within, in the courtyard, and the house beyond, a large, lovely house, with a shaded portico, when she was admitted. Whoever owns it must be very rich."

"What makes her think that it might be the house of her people?" I asked.

"The tiny sign near the call rope," said Feiqa. "It is a Tau, much as on her neck ornament."

"The same form of Tau?" I asked.

"It is very similar," she said.

"Exactly similar?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"But very similar?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Some clue, then as to her origins, may be there," I said. Goreans are usually rather careful about such things as crests, signs, family emblems, and such. Sometimes such things are actually registered, and legally restricted in their use to given lines.

(pg. 292) "I really think it is possible, Master," said Feiqa.

"If all is well then," I said, "let us rejoice for Boabissia, and her good fortune."

"It looks like a fine house?" asked Hurtha.

"Yes, Master," said Feiqa.

"Boabissia will like that," he said. "She has always been a spoiled, greedy little thing. It will not displease her to be rich."

"The family, too, if there is a fine house, and grounds, and such," I said, "may be powerful and of high station."

"She will not object to that either," said Hurtha.

"Where is this house?" I asked.

"It is not far, Master," said Feiqa.

"That is interesting," I said.

"There are some fine houses in this district," said Hurtha, "particularly over several blocks. We saw some yesterday."

"True," I said. Ar, as many cities, sometimes had rather contrasting neighborhoods in surprising proximity to one another. For example, the Avenue of Turia, nearby, was one of the finest streets I Ar. Yet, behind it, reached by a crevice between some buildings, only a walk of some two or three Ehn away, was the Alley of the Slave Brothels of Ludmilla.

"Where is the key to your shackle?" I asked.

"Over there, Master," said Feiqa, pointing. It hung on a hook, where it might be convenient to tenants or visitors, near the door that led to the apartment of Achiates.

I fetched the key. I returned to where she knelt, shackled. I looked down upon her. I wondered if there would be point in having her, there, suddenly, on the floor of the insula's vestibule, before I unshackled her. She was very beautiful.

"Master?" she asked.

I thrust her back to the floor, in a rattle of chain. "Oh!" she cried. It did not matter. She was only a slave. "Oh!" she gasped, and then was clutching me. "Disgusting," said a free woman, entering the insula, and then proceeding upstairs. I stood up. Feiqa was at my feet, gasping, shaken. Such things may be done to such as she. They are only slaves.

Feiqa reached to my foot and kissed it, tears in her eyes.

"Kneel," I said. I then removed the shackle from her fair (pg. 293) ankle. But I then held her ankle in my hand, substituting now for the clasp of the shackle the grip of the master. She gasped. She put her head down. She knew herself held, and as a slave. She lifted her head. She looked at me wildly. She was helpless. Once more I found her beautiful. I thrust her back, again, down to the stones of the dimly lit vestibule, and pulled her by the ankle to me. Then I saw to it, as it pleased me, at my caprice, for she was a mere slave, that she must again helplessly suffer the exigencies of her bondage.

"Oh, Master, Master, Master," she said, kissing me.

"Lead us to the place Boabissia found," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

On the way, following Feiqa, hurrying ahead of us, we saw a female slave, stripped, carrying a heavy yoke, tied on her, supporting buckets of water. Her master was behind her Sometimes he poked her with a sharp stick, to hurry her along. Boabissia would have approved of that. She was in favor, I recalled, of stern treatment for slaves, particularly, it seemed, luscious female slaves, like the lovely nude struggling bound in the yoke, with its buckets, or Feiqa. We also saw a chain of female slaves, permitted tunics, but hooded, in neck coffle, and two slave wagons, with blue and yellow silk. This was the district of the Street of Brands.

"It is this house," said Feiqa.

"The wall is impressive and the gate is strong," observed Hurtha.

I saw the Tau near the call rope. It was indeed quite similar to that which was on Boabissia's small disk. I now recalled what Boabissia's disk had reminded me of. The resemblance, however, was not exact. There were at least two differences. That was good. The form of Tau near the call rope I had seen before, long ago, in Ar, on another street, and, more than once, at the Sardar Fairs.

"Is anything wrong?" asked Feiqa.

"Boabissia has already entered?" I asked.

"I think so," said Feiqa.

I drew on the call rope. We heard the bell jangle within. In a moment an attendant, a young man, had come to the gate.

(pg. 294) "And this was found about your throat as a baby, in the wreckage of a caravan, by Alars?" he asked. He stood close to her. He looked at it in the light, holding it between his fingers. It was still on its thong about her neck.

"Yes," said Boabissia.

"It was on your neck?" he asked.

"Yes," said Boabissia. "And I have continued to wear it."

"I see," he said. "May I remove it?"

"Of course," she said. He delicately undid the thong. Boabissia smiled at Hurtha and myself. She had been there when we had been ushered into his presence. Feiqa has been put on a neck chain, just inside the gate. It was fastened to a ring, one of several there, fastened in the wall. It was sunny there. She must kneel. She must keep her head down. I gathered they did no pamper slaves in this house. We would pick her up on the way out. The fellow had greeted us pleasantly. It was almost as though he had expected us, or someone, to come. He had not, as I recalled, seemed surprised to see us. Similarly we had encountered no difficulty in being admitted into his presence, in spite of the fact that he was presumably an important man. It was a large, officelike room. There was a broad desk. There were many papers about. He was a distinguished looking fellow. I had never seen him before.

He was examining the disk in his hand.

"I think," said Boabissia, "that it may afford a clue to my identity."

"Perhaps," said the fellow.

"But surely it does," she protested.

"How could I know that you did not merely find this, or buy it, or steal it?" he asked.

"I assure you, I did not," said Boabissia. "It is mine. It was on me as an infant. I have always worn it."

He regarded it.

"Is it not the same as the sign on your house?" asked Boabissia.

"It is quite similar," he admitted.

"But not identical," I said.

(pg. 295) Boabissia cast me an angry look.

The fellow looked at me, and smiled. "It is, however," he said, "what the sign was, some years ago, before its style was slightly changed."

"But that is right!" exclaimed Boabissia. "It was on me from years ago!"

"Precisely," he smiled.

"I would not have known that," she said. "Had I made a counterfeit, I would have done it, not knowing any better, in your modern fashion, and then you would have been able to detect, from the time involved, that the disk was a forgery, that it was fraudulent.

"True," he said.

"You see!" said Boabissia to me, triumphantly.

"Yes," I said.

"He is jealous," said Boabissia to the fellow. "He is almost beside himself with envy. He only wants to see me denied my fortune, deprived of my rightful deserts."

"Your fortune?" asked the fellow. "Your rightful deserts?"

"Yes, my rightful deserts, my rightful dues," said Boabissia. "I am determined to receive them."

"I understand," he said. "I shall examine the records. If all tallies, as I suspect it will, have no fear, you will receive, as you have put it, your rightful deserts, your rightful dues."

"All I want," said Boabissia, "is exactly what I deserve."

"I shall check my records," he said. "If it is within my power, I will try to see that you do indeed receive exactly what you deserve, precisely what you deserve."

"Thank you," she said, and cast an angry look at me.

"What is it, incidentally," he asked, "that you think you deserve?"

"Do you not recognize me?" she asked.

"I do not understand," he said.

"I may be your long-lost daughter," she said.

"To the best of my knowledge," he said. "I do not have any daughters, long-lost or otherwise. I do have some sons."

"Look at me," she said.