She pulled at the chains.
“I am helpless,” she said.
“Yes,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
“This is the first time a man has put me in his power,” she said.
“It will not be the last,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
“You are going to keep me as mistress?” she asked.
“Scarcely,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Tuvo Ausonius, being careful not to look at the woman at the foot of the bed, gathered up the articles on the bed, the necklaces, the bracelets, the silk, and such.
“Why do you not look at me?” she said.
He put the articles on the floor, near the table, rather as though they might have been removed there. He then drew back the bedclothes, and rumpled them, in such a way that they appeared to have been naturally displaced, but in such a way, too, that she could not reach them from where she was chained, at the foot of that massive bed, anchored to the floor.
“What are you doing?” she asked, again, pulling at the chains.
“Move back,” he said to her, his eyes on the floor.
She moved back a bit, as she could, until, in a tiny bit, she came to the end of the chain. She was now off the small rug.
Being careful, again, not to look at her, he drew away the small rug and put it back where it had once been, near the table. It was now not far from the discarded adornments and garments, either. Indeed, might someone not have stood on the rug, while removing the adornments and garments, and slipped them to the floor, there, in that place?
Too, he had decided that one such as she did not need the comfort even of the tiny rug.
The chains and the floor were suitable for her.
“Look at me!” she cried. “Look at me!”
But of course Tuvo Ausonius did not do so.
He did look about the dingy, shabby room. He was rather well satisfied with it. It seemed a suitable room for punishing a woman such as she.
He placed a tiny object, metal, on the top of the dresser.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He did not bother to respond to her.
He retrieved his portfolio from the surface of the darkly varnished table.
He turned away.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Wait!” she called.
He paused by the door.
“I am naked, and chained!” she said. “I am helpless! I can reach nothing! Where is the key!”
“It is on the top of the dresser,” he said.
It would be immediately obvious, in that place, to anyone who might enter the room.
“I cannot reach it!” she said.
“No,” he said. “You cannot.”
“Look at me!” she begged.
“No,” he said.
“Release me!” she said.
“You will be released, at least of those particular impediments,” he said, “by the proper authorities.”
“‘Authorities’?” she said.
“In the morning,” he said. “You see I, in order to effect an economy, in order to save the empire money, a predilection appropriate enough in the case of a conscientious official, am in the habit of renting inexpensive quarters. You can imagine my dismay in the morning when I arrive to take occupancy and find the room occupied, as it is.”
“I do not understand,” she moaned.
“One of your customers, it seems, left you as you are.”
“‘Customers,’ “she said, startled.
“What was your name, again?” he asked. “It has slipped my mind.”
“Sesella,” she said. “Sesella Gardener!”
“Doubtless the first thing the authorities will request to see is your license.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“On this world,” he said, “it is against the law to practice prostitution without a license.”
“I am not a prostitute!” she said.
“But only now have you been caught,” he said.
“I am not a prostitute!” she said.
“How long has it been going on?” he asked.
“I am not a prostitute!” she cried.
“And the penalties for such are not light,” he said.
“What are they?” she said.
“In the future,” he said, “you need not concern yourself about your perfumes. They will be decided for you, or you must submit them for approval to others.”
“No,” she cried. “No!”
But Tuvo Ausonius had left, closing the door behind him.
CHAPTER 16
“Please,” she said, hurrying forward, and kneeling.
It was dawn, outside the summer palace. Otto and Julian had spent the night in the palace.
“I will do my best to further your business,” Iaachus had assured Julian, once again, even as they had left the inner gate, but moment, ago.
“Do you think he will do so?” had asked Otto.
“I do not know,” had said Julian. “It is hard to read Iaachus.”
“I think he fears you,” said Otto.
“Why?” asked Julian.
“Your blood, your lineage, your station,” said Otto.
“Perhaps,” said Julian.
It was scarcely light when Julian and Otto left the palace, now no longer in the company of guards, though, doubtless, they would be watched, as they took their way across the great plaza, in the center of which rose the domes and spires of the palace.
In an inner courtyard, as they had made their way across the damp flagstones, Julian had pointed upward, to a window, and then to another. They were dark now.
“Those are the quarters of the princess Viviana,” he said, “and those of the princess Alacida.”
A slave girl, carrying a two-handled vessel of water, knelt down, on the damp stones, and put her head down.
It was hard even to detect the color of her hair in the light.
She lifted her head, after they had passed, to look after them.
“Did you see the curtain move, in the window of the princess Viviana, and a shadow in that of the princess Alacida?” asked Julian.
“Yes,” said Otto.
“It seems they are watching,” said Julian.
“What for?” asked Otto.
“Who knows?” said Julian.
Otto had speculated, idly, how such windows might be reached, perhaps from the roof.
It might be a coup, he thought, to steal a princess.
He wondered if Viviana, or Alacida, or both, would make a good slave girl.
Shortly thereafter they were outside the palace.
They had seen a small figure in the vicinity of one of the fountains rise up, when they had exited the palace. The figure was scarcely detectable in the light, and had almost been lost against the marble of the fountain.
Doubtless it was no more than some pathetic vagrant.
“See?” asked Julian.
“Yes,” had said Otto.
“Beware,” had said Julian.
“I see it,” had said Otto.
It had hurried forward.
Now it knelt before them, some yards from the outer gate.
“I have been waiting for you, all night,” she said. “They would not let me wait by the gate, close to it, like a dog, as I wished. They would not let me.”
“Surely we know you,” said Julian.
“Yes,” said Otto, looking down on the figure.
“Who are you?” asked Julian.
“One who became yesterday a devotee of Dira,” she said.
“The goddess of slave girls,” said Julian.
“Yes,” said Otto.
“Who are you?” demanded Julian.
“Renata Alerina Gina Ameliana,” she said.
“Of the Amelianii?” said Julian.
“Yes,” she said.
This, then, was no pathetic vagrant, despite how small she seemed, how piteous, how pleading, how humble, kneeling there before them in the half darkness, on the damp stones, clutching about herself some shreds of embroidered leel, doubtless once fine stuff, but torn now, ripped from the collar downward, and damp and soiled, from the night spent in the open, spent waiting, on the stones of the plaza.