What right had I, I asked myself, to arrogate to myself the prerogatives and prides of the free woman?
And the slave, I reminded myself, does not belong to herself. She belongs to her master. She has no self to defend, no honor to preserve, no person to strive to keep isolated and inviolate.
I am not a free woman, I thought.
In a sense, I have never been one.
I was not free.
I did not want to be free.
I was content to be a shamed slave. It was what I was and wanted to be. Then I was no longer chagrined at my behavior in the Room of White-Silk. I regretted only that I might not have been as pleasing as possible to the masters.
Too, I had begun to suspect what I might become, and was willing to become, and wanted to become, in their arms, a slave.
The hood was removed, and I drew in a deep breath, and shut my eyes against the hurtful light.
Some cloth was thrust against me, and I took it.
Blinking, clutching the cloth, I looked about myself.
I was in a cell, a relatively small cell, about eight feet square, with a wall of bars on one side, facing a street. The floor of the cell was some four feet above the level of the street. In this way what was in the cell, given the bars, could be easily viewed from the street. To the left of the bars was a cement platform, at the same level as the floor of the cell, too, about four feet high, on which was spread a worn, soiled scarlet rug. There were steps on the outside leading up to this circular, cement platform, the steps which I had doubtless recently ascended, assisted by the guard. The guards had gone. A barred gate, to the left of the cell, would open to a small passage, which connected with the platform. It was through this passage that I had been introduced into the cell.
I looked about. There were six other girls in the cell. I looked up at a large man, stripped to the waist, who was regarding me.
He would be a slaver’s man.
I clutched the cloth.
Each of the girls wore a brief, wrap-around tunic, and each had, either about herself, or at hand, a short, white sheet.
What I held was such a tunic, and such a sheet.
“She is stupid,” laughed one of the girls.
I did not know what to do.
I desperately wanted to clothe myself. Now that I was not hooded, I was suddenly muchly aware of my nudity. I stood there in anguish. I did not have even a collar. What if someone should look into the cell, from the outside? I was, of course, well marked.
“How stupid,” said another girl.
“She is a barbarian,” said another.
“May I clothe myself, Master?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, and turned away. In a moment he had left the cell, closing and locking the gate behind him.
I had remembered, belatedly, that a slave may not clothe herself without permission. Most slaves, of course, have a standing permission to clothe themselves, a permission which is subject to revocation by the master. It is a bit like speech. A slave is not to speak without permission, but many have a standing permission to speak, a permission which may, of course, be revoked at any time. For those who might be interested in such matters, the standing permission to clothe oneself is more often granted than the standing permission to speak. There are few things more likely to convince a woman of her bondage than the need to request permission to speak. Sometimes a standing permission to speak is revoked for a few Ahn or a day, or even a week, that she may be the better conscious that permission is required, and need not be granted. Perhaps she is desperate to speak. “May I speak, Master?” “No,” she is informed. She is then well reminded of her collar and mark.
I glanced through the bars, out to the street. There were men, and women, here and there, passing, and, at some stalls, shopping, these on the other side of the street, but none seemed interested in the cell, or its occupants.
I quickly, gratefully, drew the brief, wrap-around tunic about me, tucking it in on the side. It occurred to me how simply it might be parted, and removed. I then clutched the sheet about me. It came midway to my thighs.
The bars were sturdy, some six inches apart, reinforced every ten horts or so by horizontally placed, flat, narrow plates of ironwork. The cell would have held men.
That made me feel particularly helpless.
I looked out, through the bars. Save for the bars the wall was open. It was easy to look out, into the street. And I was very much aware, as well, obviously, that it would be as easy to look within. Anyone outside might simply look within, and see us. Given the shape of the cell, there was nowhere to hide. I was suddenly reminded of a shop window on Earth, a window before which passers-by might stop, and, at their leisure, peruse what might be for sale.
And I, and the others, would be for sale!
I looked to the other occupants, the other merchandise, six girls, in the cell. Each was in a wrap-around tunic. Four were brunets, and two blondes, one a darker blond, one lighter. None were collared. But I had no doubt each was well marked. Gorean merchants do not neglect such details.
I folded the sheet, and put it about my shoulders. I was tunicked, and the tunic, while “slave short,” was not unusual. A girl would not be likely to expect more, unless she were a lady’s serving slave.
I went to the bars, grasped them, and looked out.
I was not pleased with what I saw. This could be no high market. One might as well have been chained on a slave shelf!
Surely a mistake had been made.
This was not a market in which such as I was to be sold. This was surely not the Curulean, a market of which I had been apprised, a palace of an emporium with its statues, carvings, columns, fountains, tapestries, and cushioned tiers, with its exposition cages of silver bars, with its great, torch-lit, golden auditorium which might hold more than two thousand buyers, with its great central block, with its height and dignity, from which might be expertly vended even the stripped daughters of Ubars. I looked about. The slaver’s man was nowhere in sight. I must complain. I must call their attention to their mistake.
I thought of calling out, but thought the better of it.
What if there had been no mistake?
I had been the last on the coffle to be delivered.
I had dared to suppose then that I was the best, that saved for last. But what if I had been saved for last, as I had been thought not the best, but the least? Could it be that others might regard me as less beautiful, less desirable, than I regarded myself? Was I less beautiful, less desirable, than I had thought? Surely I had been regarded as one of the most beautiful girls in my sorority! But, of course, we had never been put beside Gorean slaves. I did not know my ranking in the coffle, nor if I had a ranking in the coffle. I had no idea of the quality of the coffle as I had been hooded.
I looked about.
“What do they call you?” asked one of the girls, one of the brunettes.
“Allison,” I said.
“You are a barbarian,” said one of the girls.
“I am from Earth,” I said.
“Where is Earth?” she asked.
“It is far away,” I said.
“Barbarians are ugly, and stupid,” said the darker blonde.
“I am neither ugly nor stupid,” I said.
“If she were ugly and stupid,” said another of the brunettes, “she would not have been put under the iron, she would not be here, she would not be kajira.” I could not place her accent.
“She has skinny legs,” said another of the brunettes.
“No,” said the brunette, she with the unusual accent, “they are shapely and slender. Many men like that.”
“Well,” said the first brunette, “they are well exposed.”