"Chain them together by the neck," said the officer. "And take them to the pens. See that they are branded by morning."

Chains were brought and the six women were fastened together by the neck. They were then knelt again before the officer, facing him. How strange it must have been for them, free women, to find themselves in steel collars, linked to other such collars, by chains.

"Please, no more the whip!" wept one, seeing it poised in a fellow's hand.

"Do not whip us more!" begged another, cringing.

"Please, do not whip us!" begged another.

"As slave girls," said the officer, "you will doubtless become quite familiar with the whip."

One of the women moaned. She seemed to me one who might have been cruel to slaves. Now she herself had felt the whip. Had she owned female slaves? If so, she had undoubtedly found the whip effective in controlling them. She would now find that it would be similarly effective in controlling her.

"Are you prepared to obey?" inquired the captain.

"Yes, yes!" said the women.

"Turn to the right," he said.

They then, kneeling, were in a line, one behind the other, their right sides to the wall.

"Keep your eyes straight ahead," said the officer.

The women complied.

"You will learn to be females and please men," he said.

One of the women gasped. Two of the others trembled.

"Sell them out of the city," said the officer. Women wept.

"Do you wish a record made of this, Captain?" asked the fellow in the blue tunic, he with the scribe's box, on its straps, slung at his left side.

"No," said the captain. "Keep no record of this. They have shamed the city, and the Home Stone. Let them go their way. Let them not be remembered. Let it be, in the records of the city, as though they had never been."

One of the women sobbed.

"Put your hands behind your back," said the soldier in charge of the small coffle. "Now hold your left elbow with your right hand, and your right elbow with your left hand." This pins the arms back, the forearms parallel to the ground. Sometimes arms are tied in his position.

The women complied.

"On your feet," said the soldier in charge of the small coffle. "Left foot first, step! Step!"

The coffle was then marched past me. It rounded the corner of the wall and would, I take it, cross the bridge, and the docking area, on the way to the pens.

I felt sorry for the free women, in a way, but I think I sensed, and they sensed, as the men about perhaps did not, for I sometimes think men are very stupid, that the fate inflicted upon them was not as grievous as might be supposed. To be a woman, a true woman, in its total dimensionality, is not only a not unenviable fate, it is a fulfilling, exciting, thrilling, profound, deep, beautiful, and glorious thing. Sometimes I feel sorry for men, just a little, but then I grow afraid, for I remember that they are, after all, the masters.

The fellow with the whip had followed the coffle.

Around the corner, perhaps on the bridge, I heard the crack of the whip, and a cry of fear.

I doubted that the leather had touched anyone, but it could have, of course.

But then, a moment later, I heard the whip again and, this time, a cry of pain.

Yes, I thought, shuddering, men were the masters.

The officer and his companions, that small retinue, then left the terrace.

Shortly after the departure of the officer and his retinue I think the terrace, previously muchly cleared, must have been reopened, for I had scarcely closed my eyes, sitting at the wall, when I felt hands fumbling at the lock gag, opening it. "Are you all right?" begged the Lady Constanzia. Her eyes were wide with fear. "Yes," I said. Her companion, the scarlet-clad fellow, had removed his cloak. It was muchly wound about his arm, const.i.tuting in its way, it seemed, an improvised shield. Strangers in this city are not permitted to carry weapons. He wiped the lock gag on his cloak and returned it to his pouch. I was pleased to see it disappear therein. I then began, for no reason I understood, to tremble. The Lady Constanzia kissed me. "They would not let us come to the terrace," she said. "You are sure you are all right?" "Yes," I said.

The Lady Constanzia freed the leash from the ring. It then hung loose within the ring. The scarlet-clad fellow turned her about and took her in his arms. She lifted her lips to his. How soft she was in his arms!

How she melted to him! She was then, surely, as a slave girl in the arms of her master. I was startled.

How could this be? Was she not a free woman? Did she not know better? Had she not been taught?

Had she no pride? But I saw her now, before me, as a slave girl in the arms of her master. "I love you, my master!" she whispered.

He then crushed her to him. He sobbed. "Master?" she asked. He then, forcibly, put her from him. "It is nothing," he said. She then knelt, as delicately, and naturally, as any slave. He seemed overcome by emotion. "Master?" she asked, again.

"Curse honor!" he wept, suddenly.

I am sure that neither of us understood his outburst.

"When will I see you again, Master?" she asked.

He looked down upon her, tears in his eyes. His fists were clenched.

"Master?" she asked.

"I do not own you!" he cried. "You belong to another!"

She looked up at him, puzzled.

"You are merchandise!" he wept. "You are a mere property!"

"Yes, Master?" she said, puzzled.

"I must remember that!" he cried.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Your sort, and better, may be purchased in any market," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Why then," he demanded, "do I feel as I do?"

"How is it that Master feels?" she begged.

"I fear I have grown fond of a slave," he said.

"Cannot one grow fond of a slave, even of so small and unimportant a thing?" she asked.

"Curse the codes!" he cried.

"When shall we see one another again, Master?" she asked.

"Never!" he wept.

She looked at him, aghast. She almost rose to her feet, but she stayed kneeling. I gathered that he had seen to it, in the time they had had together, that she had received training. He had her under discipline, which is suitable, as he thought her a slave.

"Never," he whispered, looking down at the stones.

"If I have displeased Master," she said, in agony, "I will endeavor to improve my behavior!"

"I have dallied overlong in the city," he said. "The extension granted to me, the last for which I might apply, expires tomorrow at sundown. I must, by then, conclude my business, and take transport for the foothills."

"No!" she wept.

He then put his cloak about him, and turned about, and strode rapidly away.

"Master!" she called after him, in agony. "Master!"

After he had disappeared, taking his way through one of the buildings to the left, the Lady Constanzia collapsed to the stones of the terrace, weeping.

Her fate, though she was a free woman, was not that different, I conjectured, from that of many slaves.

They could not go their own ways. They were bought and sold, and handed about, and taken here and there. I recalled a slave who had wanted desperately to serve and please a fellow, he whose whip she had first kissed. But her feelings, only those of a slave, had been unimportant. She had been sold from that house. She had been carried far away. She now served here. The case, I thought, was not really so different with the Lady Constanzia, as she was a prisoner. She could not go where she wished. Her disposition, too, as in the case of a slave, was in the hands of others. In the case of a slave, of course, the disposition is in the hands of the master. It is he with whom one must deal, if one wishes to acquire the woman. She is his to keep or sell, as he pleases. The average man of this world would no more think of stealing a slave within his own city, or a host city, one which has extended the courtesy of its walls, than he would of any other act of illicit and dishonorable brigandage. There is sometimes a double frustration involved in these things, that of the slave whose master will not sell her to one to whom she wishes to belong, and that of the fellow who wishes to own her, to whom she will not be sold, for one reason or another, perhaps for spite, perhaps because the owner wishes to keep her for himself, perhaps because the would-be purchaser cannot meet the owner's price.

The key to understanding these matters, of course, is to understand, simply, and clearly, that the female is an article of property, that she is owned. In the case of the Lady Constanzia, as she was a free woman, her disposition was, I supposed, in the hands of certain officials of Treve.

I almost wished that the Lady Constanzia was a slave, and had a private master, that the scarlet-clad figure might have approached her master with the intent of negotiating her purchase.

But perhaps his funds, even in such a case, would not have sufficed for her purchase? Perhaps his funds, those still at his disposal, were required for the discharge of his business here? And he would not steal her, it seemed. No, that would not be honorable. She did not belong to him. He could no more bring himself to steal her than he could have brought himself to steal a silver vessel, a golden plate, from a house in which he had been accepted as a guest. It was little wonder, then, that he, torn by desire and love, in bitter rage, cursed the strictures of honor. By the men of this world we are highly prized. They hunt us down and capture us, and make us serve them, and keep us for themselves. We are treasures to them. They will kill for us. But few of them, it seems, no matter how exquisite we are, no matter how beautiful we are, will compromise their honor for us. And I do not object to this for, without honor, how could they be men, and, if they were not men, true men, how could they be fit and perfect masters for us?

In time, red-eyed, the Lady Constanzia rose to her feet, unsteadily.

She took the leash, pulling it from the ring.

"I am sorry," I said to her.

"We had a wonderful day," she said. "We did everything, we saw everything."

"I am sorry," I said.

"I'm sorry we put the lock gag on you," she said, "but we thought it best. We would not have wanted you to furnish information to others, about who I was with, where we might have gone, and such. I did not want to risk being summoned in early. You understand. We did not want to risk you spoiling our holiday."

I nodded.

I recalled the frustration of the intruder who had been unable to question me because of the lock gag. I recalled the look in his eyes, and the readying of the sword, but he had not struck me. He had flung me, rather, angrily to the side. I had lain there, terrified. But I had survived.

None of the slaves had been put to the sword. Our collars, it seemed, had saved us. This is not that unusual, incidentally. In the sacking of a city, slaves, like other domestic animals, other valuables, and such, are often saved, while free folk may be put to the sword. Indeed, sometimes free women, I have heard, take the collars from their own girls, putting them about their own necks, that they may increase their chances of survival. They often then, selfcollared, knot a rag about their hips, to conceal that they have no brand, and hurry into the streets, to surrender, as a slave, to one of the conquerors. Sometimes their girls pursue them, to point them out to the conquerors. Sometimes they subdue their former mistresses, remove the cloth at their hips, and bind them, and lead them on ropes to the conquerors.

"Can you stand?" asked the Lady Constanzia.

"Yes," I said, rising unsteadily.

In a few moments then we were making our way across the terrace to the broad steps far from the wall.

At the height of the steps I asked the Lady Constanzia to wait for a moment, while I looked back, across the expanse of the terrace. It seemed very broad. Here and there, on the wall, at the bridge, and to the right, and at certain places on the bal.u.s.trade, were lamps. The sky was dark with clouds. One of the buildings, bordering the terrace, one now rather before me, and to my right, was still afire. Smoke rose from it to the dark sky. Artisans were still working with the tarnwire.

"Strangers held the terrace," said the Lady Constanzia.

"Yes," I said.

Toward its center was the place where the butchery had occurred.

How desperate had been those men. They had sought an entrance to the pits. They had apparently found one. In the corridors, I gathered, the last of them had died.

I looked back to the wall where I had been chained, that to which the slaves had been commanded, that against which the free women, those who had proclaimed themselves slaves, had also been confined. I could see the bridge across the way, that across which the free women, in coffle, had been marched, their arms held up, closely behind them, the elbow of the left arm grasped by the hand of the right, the elbow of the right grasped by the hand of the left. They would be, presumably, in the pens by now. They might already be branded. My thigh tingled as I remembered my own branding in the pens, long ago. It had been quite painful. I had cried out in misery. A branding rack had been used, to hold us steady for the mark. Our hands had been braceleted behind our backs, to a belly chain, that we not be able to tear at the brand. My entire group, it was said, had been excellently marked. Certainly I was. But this was not surprising for the iron masters in such a place, of the caste of Metal Workers, are skilled. We had all been given the common kajira mark. Perhaps theirs would be the same. They were to be sold out of the city, I recalled. They would find themselves then at the mercy of strangers. Gone would be their privileged status, that of the free woman. Gone would be the protection of the law, of guardsmen, of the shared Home Stone. Let them then salvage what they could of their lives.

Let them strive to learn how to please.

I thought of the slave girl, Dorna. The earrings had been quite attractive on her. I suspected that she might now be quite fond of them. That seems to be the way it is with the women of this world. They fear them. Then they love them. To be sure, they also made her only a pierced-ear girl. I supposed that she might now be bathing her master.

I then, on my leash, following the Lady Constanzia, descended the long stairway to the lower levels. I stepped carefully, as my hands were braceleted behind me.

In two places on the steps I saw dark stains, which I supposed to be blood.

"We saved a piece of fruit for you," said the Lady Constanzia. "I put it in my tunic. I will give it to you below."

"Thank you," I said.

We continued on our way.

The Lady Constanzia was crying.

TWENTY FIVE

"Somewhere," said the peasant, dully, "I heard steel, I heard shouting."