Cornhair muchly feared Borchu and her switch.
So she stayed between the wheels, hiding, holding the clapper of the bell, crouching down. She did not dare, of course, leave the wagons without being accompanied or having been ordered to do so, say, to gather hineen for the common kettles. For such a lapse a slave might be hamstrung or fed to the dogs. One of the other camp slaves, White Ankles, had told her Borchu was searching for her. She had not yet, however, been seen by Borchu nor had Borchu called her name, at least within her hearing. Cornhair trembled, and clutched the clapper of the bell even more tightly. Where was Borchu? Was Borchu really seeking her, or was it a cruel joke played on her by the other slave, for Cornhair knew she was not popular with the other girls. Perhaps because she was so obviously superior to them? Should she have sought out Borchu? Would that have been safer, and meant fewer strokes of the switch? She did not know. Borchu, too, seemed to hate her, so much, even more than the other slaves. She did not know why that should be. Perhaps it was because of her hair color, or eye color, which were unusual, even amongst humans? Surely it could not have to do with her character or personality, such as they were. These would have been of no more interest or concern for a Herul than the character or personality of a pig. Perhaps it had to do, then, with her carriage, attitude, or bearing, for it seems possible that, at that time, some trace of her former station and quality, its haughtiness and insolence, the recollection of the arrogant height of her birth, perhaps hinted at now or then in a gesture or expression, might have lingered in Cornhair’s demeanor.
Perhaps at that time she did not fully understand the transformation effected in a woman by the affixing of the collar. Perhaps at that time she thought herself a slave only in a legal, or nominal, sense. Perhaps she had not yet realized her collar, had not yet learned it. The time would come when she, as other slaves, would understand that no bit of her was free, that no particle of her was free, that every cell in her body was a cell in the body of a slave. One morning the slave awakens, and realizes she is a slave, helplessly and irremediably, and should be a slave, that this condition is hers, and rightfully and perfectly so, and then she has changed forever. She kneels, and is transformed; the war is done, and may not be renewed; she is ecstatic in the defeat for which she has longed; she experiences the liberation of submission; she has freed her deepest self. She embraces her bondage humbly, gratefully, and joyfully. She has then come home to her being and sex. She is then content at her Master’s feet. But, of course, it was common enough for Herul women to hate slaves. In this, Borchu was not unusual. This may have had to do with some Herul men, some of whom found soft, fair skins of interest, as an oddity, if nothing else; surely they were different, at any rate, from the shimmering, tinted scales of their women, resistant to the scratching of brush, thorns, and knife grass. She had cut the calf of her left leg on such grass, and was now alert to avoid its yellow, innocent-appearing patches. Accordingly, not only Borchu, but many of the Herul women, as well, hated the small, soft-skinned beasts about whose neck was chained the slave bell. Too many men, perhaps, seized and sported with such stock, and used it liberally for their pleasure, even as the inclination of the moment might move them. Did the Herul women not note slaves being dragged up the steps of wagons or being put to the dirt between the wheels? In any event, by the Herul women, the smooth-skinned wearers of the slave bell were commonly despised even more than the tiny, raiding filchen which would try to gnaw through the sacks of hineen. And, unfortunately for the slaves, they found themselves generally under the supervision of the Herul women, for the men, in general, paid them little attention, save when they were moved to do so. Now, usually, Borchu was diligent and tenacious, but there had been the incident, and that had apparently distracted her, that is, if she had been looking for her at all.
Cornhair did not fully understand the incident, even though the Heruls spoke a dialect of Telnarian, or something which seemed part Telnarian, and part something else, something low-pitched and sibilant. Indeed, Cornhair, to her grief, had had difficulty understanding the Heruls at first, and had not immediately grasped that they were speaking Telnarian, or something like Telnarian. Other camp slaves, at first, had translated for her, and, later, helped her to recognize and expect the phonemic substitutions which brought the Herul stream of sound into something recognizably Telnarian. Happily for her, the Heruls found her Telnarian intelligible, possibly because her phonemes were sounds with which the Heruls were familiar, from prisoners, slaves, tradesmen, administrators and officials at Venitzia, and such. Cornhair had never thanked the other slaves for their assistance in her linguistic acclimatization, which is understandable, as they had been clearly of the humiliori, at best, and she had been not only of the honestori, but of the patricians, and even of the senatorial class. Indeed, two of her uncles had served in the senate itself. Shortly after she had made it clear that they were owed nothing, as they had merely, appropriately, served their better, one who had been of a much higher station than theirs, they had withdrawn from her. She did not have anything further to do with them. They were inferior. Too, she did not need them any longer.
It was extremely important, of course, for a slave to understand the language of her Masters. She is to be docile and submissive. She is to obey instantly and unquestioningly. Masters tend not to be patient with stupid or ignorant slaves. Even a claim of noncomprehension, however justified, or a pathetic plea for clarification, or repetition, might bring the lash, or worse. The slave struggles with all her intelligence and application to learn the language of her Masters, and to learn it quickly, and well. She is a slave.
Her first sense of the incident was when a fellow went to the steps of a wagon, followed by several other fellows, and called out to a putatively unseen occupant. Others had soon gathered about, too, amongst them women, and children.
“Hunlaki is old,” she had heard.
She did recognize Hunlaki, now and then in the camp. He was one of the few male Heruls in the camp who seemed old. He did seem clear-eyed, and strong, and agile, but, it was true, he was old, or, at least, older than most of the males in the camp. There were several middle-aged and old women amongst the Heruls, and many children, of both sexes, but very few old men. She had speculated that Herul males were not long-lived, at least on the whole. In a sense, she was correct. We, at our distance, and with our familiarity with the annals, are in a much better position to understand what occurred than the slave, Cornhair.
“The wagon is mine!” had called the fellow, at the foot of the stairs leading up to the wagon. “Emerge from my wagon! It is mine, by claim!”
“Blood!” had cried an old woman, to others, as she hurried toward the wagon, soon joined by others, and swarming children.
Indeed, there were one or two Telnarian traders, from Venitzia, as well, in that small crowd.
“Hunlaki is done,” announced a short, thickly bodied fellow, his horse tied to a nearby wagon.