"Paga?" I asked.
She looked up at me, suddenly, her eyes bright, her lips slightly parted. "No," she said, "wine."
"I see," I said.
There was a rustle of chain and the Lady Vivina, to the pleasure of the tables, was conducted before me.
I heard a movement at my side and saw that Telima now stood again where she had before. There were tears in her eyes. I did not doubt taht she now had four or five welts on her back from the switch of the kitchen master. The thin rep-cloth tunic provides little protection from the kitchen master's switch. I held out the paga goblet, and she refilled it.
I looked upon the Lady Vivina.
All attention was upon her. Even several of the slaves, about the edges of the room, behind the tables, had gathered to look upon her. I saw the slave boy, Fish, among them.
I regarded the girl before me. She had been chief among my prizes.
This afternoon I had presented her, with her maidens, in the chains of slave girls, together with portions of the treasures of the treasure fleet, and accountings of the balance thereof, before the Council of Captains of Port Kar. They had been beautiful, in silver throat coffle, their wrists bound behind their backs in golden slave bracelets, kneeling as pleasure slaves among the jewels, the piled gold, and the heaps of silk and kegs of spices. She who was to have been the Ubara of Cos was in the city of Port Kar only booty.
"Greetings Lady Vivina," said I to her.
"Is that the name you will choose to know me by?" she asked.
This afternoon, after returning from the Coucil of Captains, I had had her marked and collared.
Now, aside from her collar and brand, standing before me, she wore only slave bracelets.
She was very beautiful.
"Remove the bracelets," I told the man who had conducted her before me. He did so.
"Unbind her hair," I said.
He did so, and her hair fell about her shoulders, and there was a cry of pleasure from my men.
"Kneel," I told her.
She did so.
"You are Vina," I told her.
She dropped her head, acknowledging the name I had given her. Then she looked up. "I congratulate Master," said she. "It is an excellent name for a slave girl."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I am Vina," she said.
"What are you?" I asked.
"Slave," she said.
"What are your duties, Slave?" I asked.
"Master has not yet informed me," she said.
I looked upon her. I had also had her maidens marked and collared, following the meeting of the Council of Captains. They were now chained within my holding. I had not yet decided on their dispostion. Perhaps I should distribute them among my officers, or give them to my men. They might serve as prizes in games or as inducements to serve me better, that one might be received as gift in token of good service. Also I had toyed with the idea of opening a paga tavern in the center of the city, the most opulent in Port Kar, perhaps, called the Tavern of the Forty Maidens. There were few in Port Kar who would not be eager to patronize such as as establishment, that they might be served by the high-born beauties of Tyros.
But now my attention was on the girl Vina, once the Lady Vivina, once to have been the Ubara of Cos, now only female slave in the house of Bosk, he of Port Kar.
"What garments shall be brought for you?" I asked.
She looked up at me.
"Shall it be the tunic of a house slave?" I asked.
She said nothing.
"Or," I asked, "should I call for the bells and the silk, and the perfumes, of a pleasure slave?"
She smiled. "I assume," she said icily, "that I will be used as a pleasure slave."
From the sack at the side of my chair, that filled muchly with gold, I drew forth a small piece of folded, wadded cloth. I threw it to the girl. She caught it, and looked at it. "No! she cried.
"Put it on," I told her.
"No, no!" she cried in fury, leaping to her feet, holding the piece of cloth. She turned to flee, but was ringed by my men. She turned again to face me, holding the cloth. "No!" she said in rage, "No!"
"Put it on," I told her.
Furiously she drew on the garment.
There was great laughter from the tables.
The Lady Vivina stood before me clad in the garment of a Kettle Slave. "In Cos," I told her, "you would have been Ubara. In my house you will be Kettle Slave."
Enraged, red with shame, her fists clenched, in the brief garment of the Kettle Slave, the Lady Vivina stood before us.
The room was convulsed with laughter.
"Kitchen Master!" I called.
"Here, Captain!" cried Tellius, from behind the tables.
"Come here!" I called.
The man approached the table.
"Here," I told him, gesturing to the girl, "is a new girl for the kitchens." He laughed, and walked about her, his switch in his hand. "She is a beauty," he said.
"See that she is worked well," I said.
"She will be," he promised me.
The Lady Vivina looked on me with fury.
"Fish!" I called. "Where is the slave boy Fish!"
"Here!" he cried, and came forward, from behind the tables, where, with other slaves, for some time, he had been watching what had been going on. I gestured to the girl. "Do you find this slave pleasing?" I asked. He looked at me, puzzled.
"Yes," he said.
"Good," said I. Then I turned to the girl. "You please the slave boy Fish," I said to her. "Therefore your use will be his."
"No!" she cried. "No! No!"
"The use of her," I told the boy, "is yours."
"No!" she cried. "No! No! No! No!"
She threw herself to her knees before me, weeping, extending her arms. "He is only a slave," she wept. "I was to have been Ubara! Ubara!"
"Your use is his," I said.
She held her face in her hands, bent over, weeping.
There was much laughter in the room. I looked about, well pleased. Of those I looked upon, only Luma did not laugh. There were tears in her eyes. This irritated me. Tomorrow, I thought, I will have her beaten.
Sandra, at my side, was laughing merrily. I gave her head a rough shake. She began to kiss my left arm, and I, with my right hand, brushed her away. But in a moment she again held her cheek to my left arm.
The boy, Fish, was looking on the girl, Vina, not without compassion. They were both young. He was perhaps seventeeen, she perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Then he reached down and lifted her to her feet, turning her to face him.
"I am Fish," he said.
"You are only a slave boy!" she cried.
She would not meet his eyes.
He took her by the collar and turned it slightly upward in his large hands, forcing her head up to face his.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am the Lady Vivina of Kasra!" she cried.
"No," he said, "you are a slave."
"No!" she said, shaking her head.
"Yes," he said, "and I, too, am a slave."
And then, to our surprise, holding her head in his hands, he kissed her gently on the lips.
She looked at him, tears in her eyes.
Raised as she had been, in the sequestered quarters of high-born women in palace of Tyros in Kasra, I supposed it was perhaps the first time that the lips of a man had touched hers. Doubtless she had expected to receieve that kiss standing in the swirling love silks of the Free Companion, beneath golden love lamps, beside the couch of the Ubar of Cos; but it was not in the white, marbled palace of the Ubar of Cos that that kiss was to take place; and it was not to be receieved as a Ubara from the lips of a Ubar; that kiss wa to be taken place in Port Kar, in the holding of her enemies, under barbaric torchlight, before the table of her master; and she was not to wear the love silks of a Free Companion and Ubara but the brief, wretched garment of a Kettle Slave, and a collar that proclaimed her slave girl; and the lips would be those of a slave which touched hers, those themselves of a slave.