"Beg her forgiveness!" I whispered to her.

"It was not my fault," she whispered to me.

"A switch!" cried the free woman.

"It was not all my fault," insisted my charge to me.

"A switch, a switch!" called the free woman.

"It was probably both your faults," I said. "Beg her forgiveness!"

"She is not begging mine," said my charge.

A lad brought a switch, probably from one of the booths. It was about three feet long, of leather, narrow, rodlike and supple.

The free woman seized it.

"Beg her forgiveness!" I said.

"Forgive me!" said my charge, suddenly, to the free woman. "Forgive me!"

"'Mistress', 'Mistress'," I urged.

"Forgive me, Mistress!" said my charge.

"You beg my forgiveness?" inquired the free woman, with mock interest, and solicitation.

"Yes, Mistress," my charge a.s.sured her.

"Oh, yes," said the free woman, maliciously, "you will beg my forgiveness, I a.s.sure you of that!"

"Please, Mistress!" I said. "She is in my charge! It was my fault. I did not watch her well enough!"

The free woman glared down at me.

"It was my fault," I said. "Beat me, instead!" I had, after all, felt the whip, and the switch.

Too, it was horrifying to think that the Lady Constanzia might be struck. Such was not for such as she.

She was a free woman!

"It was she who stood in my presence," she said, "it was she who dared to speak back, it was she who did not look where she was going!"

"Mistress, please," I begged.

"Be silent, collared s.l.u.t!" said the woman with the switch.

"Yes, Mistress," I said, silenced. She turned then to my charge.

"Does the stupid, clumsy girl beg my forgiveness," she asked, sweetly.

"Yes, Mistress," said my charge, timidly.

"We shall see!" cried the free woman.

I saw her arm raise. I closed my eyes.

"Wait," said a fellow's voice. "Do not mark her. She may have value on the block."

The free woman turned to him, angrily. But she lowered her arm. He seemed a fellow of some importance. On his left sleeve, toward the bottom, there was a blue chevron, a yellow one, and another blue. He must then, I thought, be of the Slavers, sometimes regarded as a subcaste of the Merchants, sometimes as an independent caste. He would, if of the Slavers, of course, be an excellent judge of woman flesh. "You are angry," he said to outraged woman. "You might lower her value."

"She is valueless," she snapped.

"She might bring something in a vending," he said. Then he turned to me. "She is new to her collar, isn't she?" he asked.

"Yes Master!" I averred, gratefully.

Then he looked at the Lady Constanzia. "The more quickly you learn your collar the better for you, soft, tender little vulo," he said.

She nodded, frightened.

"What satisfaction am I granted here?" inquired the offended free woman, clutching the switch.

"To your belly, slave!" snapped the slaver to the Lady Constanzia.

Immediately she went to her belly. I almost threw myself to my belly, and I had not even been addressed. His voice was such as women understand. It was the sort of voice which a woman instinctively obeys.

Even the free woman, clutching her switch, shrank back in fear.

"To her slippers, stupid, clumsy girl," said the slaver, "and beg her forgiveness fittingly."

Immediately, terrified, the Lady Constanzia struggled forward and pressed her lips to the slippers of the free woman, kissing them again and again. "I am a stupid, clumsy girl," she said.

"Forgive me, I beg of you, beautiful Mistress! Please, forgive me, beautiful Mistress!" The slippers, I supposed, might not be greatly unlike those which the Lady Constanzia herself had worn when free, even those which she might have worn on the afternoon of her abduction.

Prisoners are seldom permitted slippers or hose. Her slippers had been used, I supposed, to make clear to someone that she was in the power of her captors. It is not unusual for a slave girl to address even a veiled free woman as "beautiful Mistress,"

incidentally. It is a way of trying to mollify and flatter them. Often, of course, one does not know if they are beautiful or not. They might be fortunate to bring a few coppers as a kettle-and-mat girl, but then, of course, what does that matter, as they are free.

"It is enough," said the free woman, drawing back. She handed the switch back to the lad who had brought it.

The slaver looked down upon the Lady Constanzia, who was prostrate before the free woman. I still held the Lady Constanzia's leash. "If you would live,"

he said to the Lady Constanzia, "learn your collar quickly, little vulo. Do you understand?"

The Lady Constanzia, frightened, perhaps hardly understanding what she had done, what had been done to her, or perhaps understanding it only too well, her head turned to the left, nodded affirmatively, vigorously.

"I thank you, Lady," said the slaver to the free woman, she in the ornate robes, who had been muchly offended, "on behalf of all property holders, for your understanding in this matter, for the lenience you have shown in this instance."

"It is nothing," she said, her voice shaking a little. She was, after all, even though free, a female in the presence of such a man.

"You are doubtless as beautiful as you are merciful," he said.

Her hand went, it seemed inadvertently, modestly, to her veil.

Doubtless she wished to rea.s.sure herself that it was in place. But, it seemed, she disarranged it, slightly.

But then, swiftly, she remedied this lapse. The slaver gave not the least indication that he might have noted her embarra.s.sment.

"It is a lovely day," he said. "Might I be privileged to accompany you? In the lower gardens the veminia are in bloom."

"Of course," she said.

He then extended his arm and she placed her small, gloved hand upon it.

It is not unusual on this world, incidentally, for men to prize such things as flowers. Perhaps all men have this softer side to their nature. I do not know. At any rate, men here, or most men here, do not seem to fear this part of themselves or attempt, perhaps for some cultural reason, to conceal it. Perhaps, given their culture, in which are secured their natural rights, those of manhood and the mastery, they can afford to be whole men here, not cultural or political halfmen, of one sort or another. It seemed paradoxical to me at first, of course, to discover that these men, with their great love of nature, would think nothing of keeping a cowering, cringing woman chained at their feet. Were we regarded, because of what we were, rightly, as being worthy of less consideration than the delicate petals of a tiny blossom? Did they know us that well? Was our nature so obvious to them? Did they know, too, I wondered, that we were the secret enemy? Did they understand the secret war? But did they understand, too, that we were the secret enemy who wishes to be subdued, and enslaved? Did they understand that we wished to lose the secret war, to be vanquished, totally, that we wished, conquered and humbled, to bend our necks to the collars of the victors, that we might then serve them as their helpless slaves? I had soon come to understand that these mysterious juxtapositions, these seeming paradoxes, this thing, the love of flowers, the subjugation of women, and such, is all of a piece.

It is not simply because they know us, and know us well, our pettiness, our vanity, and such, that they put us to their feet. It is not simply because they know us, and know us well, as the enemy to be vanquished, that they put us to their feet. It is also, simply, in part, because of their adherence to nature, and their refusal to compromise it, that they put us to their feet, where we belong. They know that if we are not kept there we will destroy them. We despise and hate men too weak to keep us as slaves, for they then deny to us our own nature, and not only theirs to themselves. We want only to be owned, and to serve and love our masters. Is that too much to ask? But then, suddenly, a wave of slave terror overcame me. I was a slave.

It could be done with me as masters pleased! I was owned!

I watched the free woman withdraw, her tiny hand on the arm of the slaver.

Was she mad, I wondered. But perhaps she knew him. Perhaps he was well known in the city. Perhaps there was no danger. But surely she must understand the meaning of those three tiny chevrons on his left sleeve. Did she not know that he must have handled hundreds, perhaps thousands, like herself, in their chains and collars, appraising them, determining their order of sale, taking his profit on them? They were now well across the terrace.

I wondered if she wondered, beneath her robes, and veil, walking across the terrace, what might be the feel of slave iron on her limbs, what it might be to feel the sawdust of the slave block beneath her bared feet, what it might be to hear the call of the auctioneer, proposing her for the consideration of buyers.

"They are gone now," I whispered to the Lady Constanzia. "Get up."

She rose to her knees, unsteadily, trembling. I did not think she could stand at the moment.

"I could have been beaten," she said.

"You are in a collar, and clad as a slave," I said.

"I could have been switched," she said. "As a slave!"

"Of course," I said. "I am only surprised that you were not."

"Why?" she asked.

"The switch," I said, "would not have marked you. Oh, it might have put stripes on you which might, for a day or so, have had some effect on your price, but the stripes would go away."

"Then why was I not beaten?" she asked.

"He might have been afraid that she did not know how to beat a slave,"

I said. "He might have been afraid that she, somehow, in her rage, might have actually injured you.

Perhaps he was afraid that you might have been blinded, which would, a.s.suredly, have lowered your price."

She shuddered.

"But, I think," I whispered, "that he, a slaver, suspected that you might not be truly bond, but something else, perhaps what you are, a mere prisoner. He might have thus intervened to prevent the indignity of you being beaten, as a mere slave."

"Do you think so?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "Would the people of your city object to the switching or whipping of an errant slave?"

"No," she said. "If the slave is not fully pleasing, she is to be punished. Everyone knows that."

"And so," I said, "they would be unlikely to interfere."

"True," she said.

"And they would think little of the matter."

"That is true," she said. "They would think little or nothing of it.

They might pause to jeer the girl, encouraging her to profit from her beating. That is all. It is just something that is done-and appropriately-to slaves. They must be instructed. They must be kept in line.

They must learn to be pleasing."

"It is the same here," I said. "I have seen slaves publicly whipped three times in this city, once on a lower terrace, and twice in the bazaar. And several times I have seen them hastened by a blow or two of a belt or switch."

She shuddered.

"They are slaves," I said.

"Of course," she said. I looked at her.

"-As I might be taken to be," she said.

"Precisely," I said.

"And I might then be treated similarly."

"Certainly."

"And then I, too, might be whipped, as they, perhaps even on a mere whim-whippedliterallywhipped."

"Exactly," I said.

"Do you think any others might know that I am not bond?" she asked.

"I doubt it," I said. "Indeed, he may have thought you bond, but merely new to your collar."

"But you think he knew?"