“You are a slave,” said the giant.
“I have strange feelings,” she said, kneeling at his thigh, looking up at him, tears in her eyes. “I have never had these feelings before. I am uncomfortable. I do not know what to do!” There was laughter She squirmed on the stones.
“I am helpless,” she said. “I am at the mercy of men. I beg kindness!”
“We must be on our way,” said the naval officer.
“You will complete what he began, will you not, Master?” begged the slave. “I beg to be touched! I beg it! I will do anything!”
“You must do anything, in any event,” said the giant.
“Yes, Master,” she moaned.
“I am so helpless,” she wept. “I am so helpless!”
“What a slut she is!” cried Sesella Gardener.
“You, too, will learn such helplessness,” the officer holding her leash assured her.
“No, no!” said Sesella Gardener.
“Ah, but yes, my pretty little prostitute,” said the man holding her leash.
“No, no!” said Sesella Gardener. “And I am not a prostitute! I am not a prostitute!
“Oh!” she wept, in pain.
“Your denials grow tedious,” said the man.
He stood to her left, the leash in his left hand, looping up to her throat. Her head was up, held there, painfully. His right hand was still anchored in her hair. It was twisted tightly about his fist. She did not dare to move.
“Oh!” she said, again.
The slave regarded her, agonized.
“Oh!” cried the prisoner.
“No, no!” cried the slave. “Do not hurt her!”
Men looked at her.
“Please do not hurt her,” said the slave, in a small voice.
“Is it yours to interfere?” asked the giant.
“No, Master,” she said.
“Did you request permission to speak?” asked the giant.
“No, Master,” she whispered.
“Stand,” said the giant.
She rose unsteadily to her feet.
He then held her by the hair and cuffed her, twice, once with the flat of his right hand, a stinging blow that left her face red, and then a backhand blow, lashing, with the back of his right hand.
She then sank, again, to her knees.
There she looked across to Sesella Gardener, whose head was still held tightly by the officer’s hand in her hair.
“I need nothing and want nothing from a stinking slave,” said Sesella Gardener, between clenched teeth, not daring to move her head, even a quarter of an inch.
“Yes, Mistress,” groaned the slave.
“You must learn,” said the giant, “that is not yours to interfere in the doings of men.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
The officer of the city removed his hand from Sesella Gardener’s hair.
“When it is convenient,” said the giant, “you will receive your first whipping.”
“Yes, Master,” said the slave.
“For, obviously, you have much to learn.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
Sesella Gardener now shook her head, tossing her long, lustrous hair about, arranging it as she could, by these movements.
Tuvo Ausonius noticed this. She is vain, he thought, as vain as a slave girl.
“It is time to leave,” said the naval officer.
“Please, Master,” begged the slave. “May I speak?”
“Yes,” said the giant.
“I was concerned for her,” said the slave.
“It is permissible to be concerned, and to be kind,” said the giant. “It is not always permissible to speak. And it is not permissible to interfere.”
“Then, ultimately, I am totally powerless!” she wept.
“Yes,” he said.
“Am I truly to be whipped?”
“Yes.”
“I shall try to be more pleasing.”
“That would be wise on your part,” he said.
“Master!”
“Yes?”
“I am needful.”
“That is common in a slave girl.”
“Will you touch me, sometimes?”
“Perhaps if you beg prettily enough,” he said.
“I shall! I shall!” she said.
“Slut!” said Sesella Gardener, kneeling, leashed, tossing her lovely hair about her shoulders with a movement of her head.
Tuvo Ausonius wondered what it might be to own Sesella Gardener, to truly own her, fully, as a master owns a slave girl.
He put such thoughts from him.
The naval officer then turned about.
The giant looked down at the slave, at his feet, and then he lifted his eyes, and surveyed the throng. Then he looked down, again, at the slave.
“No, Master,” she breathed. “Please, no!”
“You have my permission,” he said to the throng. He then turned about, to follow the naval officer.
The slave scrambled to her feet, following him.
“Oh!” cried the slave. “Oh!”
Men laughed.
“Oh!” she cried.
But she did not dare now to object, nor to show resentment, nor to even concern herself with the ascertainment of the identity of those to whose attentions she found herself subject, those whose interest, as she now understood, was only too naturally and comprehensibly stirred by one such as she. She had learned that a woman such as she, a slave in the streets, unless put under some particular protection, must expect such things.
Clearly her master had begun her instruction.
But had it not begun even with the searing of the iron?
Beyond the crowd, the assemblage of which had been parted by their passage, she turned to look back. There, at the end of the corridor opened in the throng, small, much alone, kneeling, on the leash, she saw Sesella Gardener.
“Slut! Slut!” cried Sesella Gardener to her. And then Sesella Gardener spat downward, on the stones.
The slave then turned about, to hurry after her master. How wrong she had been, she realized, to have implicitly put herself on a level with a free woman, daring to speak of her as though she might be a sister, daring to speak on her behalf, before men, as though she, too, might be free.
She must learn her place, and all that it might mean, that she was a slave.
“Get on your feet, my pretty little prostitute,” said he who held the leash of Sesella Gardener.
She looked up, in mute protest.
He shook the leash.
She rose to her feet.
She blushed. She had seen slaves respond to a similar signal.
“You claim,” said the officer in charge, he who had been in closest converse with Tuvo Ausonius, “that you are not a prostitute.”
“Yes!” she said.
He lifted up the silk and jewelry.
There was general laughter.
“Too bad, dearie,” called one of the women in the crowd.
“We paid for our licenses!” called another.
“Too bad you didn’t!” called another.
“Now you’ll get what you deserve!” said another.
“Slave bitch!” called another.
“No, no!” cried Sesella Gardener.
“You do not care for slaves, do you?” asked the officer who held her leash.
“They are sluts, sluts!” said Sesella Gardener.
“It is time to return to headquarters,” said the officer who had been in closest converse with Tuvo Ausonius.
“Come along,” said the officer who had the dark-haired beauty in custody, giving a tug on the leash.
She looked at him, wildly.
“You have an appointment to keep,” said a man.
“Yes,” called one of the women, “with a hot iron!”
Sesella Gardener spun to face Tuvo Ausonius.
“You have done this to me!” she cried.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” said Tuvo Ausonius.
“Do not let him know where I will be sold!” she cried to the officers of the city.