“You treated me with insolence and cruelty,” he said. “In the arena you had me bound. On the ship you attempted to embroil me in difficulties with Pulendius.”
Once again there was the roar from outside the palisade.
“Do you wish to be put outside?” he asked.
“No, Master!” she said.
“One such as you,” he said, “should not be fed to lions, but thrown bound to filchen.”
The filch was a tiny, rodentlike creature. They were omnivorous. In certain seasons they tended to run in packs, swarming over the ground like insects.
“Please, no, Master,” she said.
“You are low, and petty,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You look well where you are, kneeling naked before a man,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“It is where you belong,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“I hold you in utter contempt,” he said.
“Master?” she asked.
“I had thought, once,” said he, “you might have the makings of a worthy slave.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
She watched him draw forth a leather strap. “Lift your hands, wrists crossed,” he said.
She watched while her wrists were bound together. A loose end of the same strap extended from her wrists, leashlike, as it had from the wrists of Axel’s slave.
She was then pulled, on her knees, to one of the posts, and her wrists were tied to the post.
“Master?” she asked.
“You are frigid, aren’t you?” he asked.
“I do not know, Master,” she said.
“The lash,” said he, “informs a woman that frigidity is not acceptable.”
“I do not think I am frigid, Master!” she said.
“Oh?” he asked.
“Try me,” she said, looking back, over her shoulder.
“Try you?” said the chieftain, amused.
“Yes!” she said. “I have strange feelings! I have never felt them before, not like this, not with such intensity. I do not think I am frigid! I want to be in my master’s arms!”
“You,” he asked, amused, “once an officer of a court, a woman of Terennia, ask to be taken in a master’s arms?”
Suddenly, helplessly, astonished, squirming, she pressed herself against the post.
“Yes,” she begged. “Yes!”
“Surely,” said he, “you do not think I have put you at the post merely to lash the ice away from your body?”
“Am I to be whipped?” she asked. “Why?”
“You were a slave by law when you submitted to me in the darkness, on the Alaria,” he said. “But I did not enforce your bondage. I continued to respect you, according you honors appropriate to a free woman, to one of the honestori, even to one of the blood, and, as such, or as though you might still have been such, I did not gag you, for I had been given your promise that you would remain silent. But you lied to me. I accepted your word, and was betrayed. You cried out. You brought guards down upon us. We might have all been killed. You were a treacherous, lying slave.”
“Master!” she protested.
“You could have been slain, as a lying slave!” he said.
She looked back at him, in agony.
“I learned then,” he said, “that you were worthless, that you were meaningless, the least of slaves, the most contemptible of slaves!”
“Not the whip!” she wept.
“Be punished, worthless bitch!” he cried.
But he struck her only a few times. Then he threw down the whip, in fury.
Then he untied her from the post and she slipped down, beside it.
He returned to his seat, and sat there, moodily, angrily.
She lay crumpled, her legs drawn up, near the post to which she had been fastened.
She could not believe what had been done to her.
She had never felt a blow, until the abuse of the free women, when they had scoured her in the wooden tub, that her body might be fit to be branded. Now she lay at the post, on the rushes, a whipped slave.
“I have been punished, have I not, Master?” she asked.
“Your punishment,” he said, “has not even begun.”
She rose to her hands and knees, and crawled to him, and then lay before him. She put his foot upon her head.
“The slave begs the forgiveness of her master,” she said.
He pulled his foot back, angrily.
“I ask only the opportunity to please you,” she said.
He did not respond.
“Surely my body is not without interest,” she said.
She said this for she thought, the naive little fool that she was, that this would be what would be of most importance to him, a particular configuration, and not the delicious, sensitive wholeness of her, the total female and slave. She knew herself, of course, that the true depth of her bondage lay in her heart and belly, in her thoughts, in her devotion, in her heat, in her love, in her desire to serve selflessly, abandoning herself to the master, surrendering herself wholly to him, his slave, his to do with as he pleased. That her body might be beautiful, or exciting, or of interest, was a joy to her, surely, and, too, one for which she was grateful, for it helped her to express the inwardness of her bondage, of her love, for you see, from the first moment she had looked upon the titanic, fiery youth on Terennia, she had wanted him to want her, to care for her, to be attentive to her, to place her uncompromisingly in his chains, to own her, and fulfill her.
“Let me serve you,” she said.
“What does a woman of Terennia know of serving a man?” he asked.
“Teach me,” she begged.
“A taste of the whip, and you are ready to learn,” he said, angrily.
She put her head down.
“Do you think I have brought you here to serve me?” he asked.
“Master?” she asked, raising her head.
“I brought you here only to denounce you, and chastise you,” he said.
“Let me prove to you that I am truly what you think me to be,” she said.
“And what is that?” he asked.
“A slave, Master,” she said.
“And what sort of slave?” he asked.
“A loving slave who would serve you with every bit of herself, with her whole body, her whole heart, with all that she is, and ever hopes to be!”
“Clever slave,” he sneered.
“Master?” she asked.
“Lying slave!” he cried.
He cuffed her.
She struggled to her knees, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked at him and felt, suddenly, a wave of fear, and hatred, and misery, and desire, and helplessness.
“I have strange feelings!” she wept. “I cannot help myself! Treat me then, if you wish, as a hated, despised woman. Abuse me! Are you dissatisfied with me? Have I displeased you? Make me pay! Make me pay well! Ravish me. Subdue me. Teach me I am a woman. Leave me in no doubt as to the matter. Make me beg for more. But attend to me! Do not ignore me!”
“And what are these feelings?” he asked.
“I think — I think that I am in — in heat, Master,” she said.
“Yes,” he sneered. “Even a woman such as you, one so vain, so petty, so meaningless, so contemptible, with a disk on her neck, will find herself in heat!”
But then once again her helplessness, her vulnerability, her love, overcame her. “I am yours, totally, Master,” she said. “Please be kind to me, my master,” she begged.
He rose from the chair and went to the portal of the hut. “Janina!” he called. “Janina!”
In a few moments, summoned, Janina appeared at the portal.
He indicated the brunette, now on her hands and knees, on the rushes, before the chieftain’s chair.
“Get this slut from my sight!” he said. “Cage her!”
Janina rushed to a side of the hut and seized up a switch and ran to the brunette. She lashed down at her with the switch, and the brunette cried out in misery. “Get out! Get out!” said Janina.