“That one,’’ he said, indicating the chief of the display slaves to a keeper, “prepare her, and bring her to my hut tonight.”
“Master!” cried the blonde, joyfully, lifting her small, chained wrists, to the extent that her chains permitted.
“Master!” cried Huta, raising her head, in disappointment, in protest. “Is it not I who am to be brought to your hut?”
“No, I!” cried the blonde.
“I!” said Huta.
“I love you, my master!” said the blonde.
“I love you, my master!” cried Huta.
“Is it true?” asked Abrogastes of Huta, looking down upon her.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered, putting down her head.
“With the hedged-in, qualified, partial, careful, incomplete love of a free woman?” he asked.
“No, Master,” she said.
“With the profound wholeness of a slave’s love?” asked Abrogastes.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“I juice when you but look upon me, Master!” said the blonde.
Her companions gasped.
How dare she admit such a thing! But then she was now only a slave.
Then her companions blushed and put down their heads. They, too, were only slaves. They, too, had knelt before masters. Their bodies could be easily checked. And if they lied, they would be beaten.
“And what of you, little slave?” asked Abrogastes of Huta.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered. “Many times, at your least glance, I have juiced.”
Abrogastes regarded her.
“Though you have not deigned to touch me,” she said, “you have conquered me, and I am yours.”
“Before I met men such as you, Master,” said the blonde, “I knew men only of the empire. Before I met men such as you, I did not know that such men existed, men before whom a woman can be naught but an obedient and eager slave.”
“You will share my couch tonight,” said Abrogastes, to the blonde, “and you,” he said to Huta, “will be our serving slave.”
“But what of my needs, Master?” asked Huta.
“You have not even begun to experience needs,” said Abrogastes.
“Yes, Master,” said Huta.
Abrogastes then turned to the assemblage. “Continue with your sport,” he said. “And outside, there are more than four hundred more, and though they are not high ladies, yet they are delicate and refined, and of the empire, and will serve as well as any, I ween, in the furs, and at the ovens, and the laundry troughs, and in the pantries and butteries. They are to be distributed to any who did not win in the hall.”
Cheers met this announcement.
Men were gambling, too, among themselves, for many of the other gifts which had been distributed. Only the rifles, it seems, were not put up as stakes.
One man, leading two of the slaves on tethers, their wrists bound behind them, passed Abrogastes, eager, it seemed, to get to his quarters.
“Hail, Abrogastes!” he said.
“Lash them, that they may understand that they are slaves, and then enjoy them,” said Abrogastes.
“Yes, noble Abrogastes,” said the man. “Hail, Abrogastes!”
A keeper had freed the three display slaves, and their leader, her arm in the grasp of another keeper, was being hurried from the hall, doubtless to the heat shed, with its large wooden tubs.
As Abrogastes left the hall, Farrix, the Borkon, standing by the side door, spoke to him. “Hail to the Alemanni,” he said.
“Hail to the Alemanni,” said Abrogastes and, in the purple cloak, trimmed with the fur of the ice bear, took his leave, followed by the clerk, and three shieldsmen.
“On your feet, slut,” said a keeper to Huta.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You are to be congratulated, on surviving the decision of the scales,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” she said.
She shuddered as he touched her, with the freedom of a keeper.
“It seems you will live,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“At least until morning,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, trembling.
“Among the Drisriaks,” he said, “we throw those who are not good slaves to the dogs.”
“I will try to be a good slave.”
“See that you do,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
She was about to be conducted from the hall by the keeper, when she found her way barred by Ingeld.
Swiftly, confronted by a free man, she knelt.
She kept her head down, that she not risk meeting the eyes of a free man.
“If you are to be sent barefoot, in a slave rag, to the hut of a noble,” said Ingeld, “you must be brushed and combed, and washed.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
Ingeld frightened her, even more than Abrogastes.
“Do you love your master?” inquired Ingeld.
“Yes, Master!” said Huta.
“You will love whomever the whip tells you to love,” said Ingeld.
“Yes, Master,” she whispered.
“Take the slave away,” said Ingeld.
“Yes, milord,” said the keeper.
CHAPTER 12
“Oh!” said the small, exquisite redhead, in the bright sunlight, amidst the stalls and carts of the Sephisa market in Lisle. “Do not turn around,” said a man’s voice.
The redhead whimpered a little.
“What you feel is a gun at your spine,” said the voice. “One false move and this weapon will scoop a hole eight inches wide in you, and every gut in your pretty little belly will be pasted on that wall across the square.”
“There are people about,” whispered the redhead. “I need only scream.”
“It would be your last,” said the voice.
“What do you want with me?” she asked.
“Remain calm, smile,” said the voice.
The redhead tried to smile. “You do not want me,” she said, frightened. “I do not know the art of writhing in chains, of serving a master. I’m only a woman’s slave, a lady’s maid.”
“That is a waste,” said the voice. “Your legs are exquisite.”
“Master?” she asked.
“If you are a lady’s maid,” he said, “do you not think she could dress you more richly, more amply?”
The redhead wore only a brief, sleeveless brown tunic, ragged at the hem, of simple corton.
“My mistress is not rich,” she said. “Too, she enjoys dressing me in this fashion, to demean me, that my sexuality will be evident.”
On her neck was a slim, close-fitting steel collar, closed in front, with a small padlock.
“You are shopping,” he observed.
“Yes, Master,” she said,
“Do not drop your net of produce,” he said, “and advance easily, as if nothing were amiss, to the edge of the market, to the alley there, and do not turn around.”
“Please!” she said.
“Now,” he said.
The point of the object, which was surely a muzzle or muzzlelike, pressed into her lower back, harshly.
“Yes, Master!” she said.
She moved toward the alley.
“In here,” he said.
Moaning, she entered the indicated door, a shabby door, one of several, in a worn, defaced wall, covered with scrawls, and the remains of some yellowed, posted bills.
“Kneel,” he said, and she knelt, on some boards, before a shuttered window, through which light filtered, and a chair, on which a man sat. She could see, rimmed with light, little more than the outline of his body. She could tell, however, that he wore a mask.
“Put aside the groceries,” said the man in the chair, not unkindly.
She put them to the side.
“I know little of serving men, Master,” she said. “I am a lady’s maid.”
“Show her the picture,” said the man in the chair.
From behind her a drawing, in color, was produced, and held before her face.