Cornhair, to her consternation, and misery, in the cold, was relieved of the ropes and furs, and, by two Otungs, dragged to her feet, and, arms held, exhibited to the Heruls. In that instant, shivering, moaning with cold, she realized she was the only female amongst the trade goods. The other women, nineteen of them, who had been brought to Tangara with her on the Narcona had been branded and distributed amongst the Otungs, two by outright gifting, Nissimi and Rabbit, to men named Ulrich and Vandar, and the remainder by lot. The brand, the lovely slave rose, of course, as it had been with the others, had been burned into the thigh of Cornhair. Indeed, the mighty barbarian, the imperial officer, Otto, had personally supervised her marking.
The Otungs released Cornhair and she fell to her knees. Surely now that she had been exhibited, and as a slave is exhibited, openly, fully, and without compromise, she would be again permitted the warming shelter of the furs, but the boot of a Herul was upon them. She put down her head, shivering. She dared not speak, nor, at the moment, reach for the furs. She wisely sensed that such boldness would not be permitted to a slave. Along the beach there were several sleds, which, raftlike, presumably poled or drawn, had been brought to the island from the forest side, with several Otungs. On the river side of the beach, nearest the plains beyond, were a number of Heruls, and a cluster of horses. There were also several light, wheelless platforms of poles, to which some of the horses had been harnessed. Between the sleds and the platforms were heaped or stacked goods of various kinds. On the forest side were such things as bundles of pelts, sacks of dried meat, hard-shelled winter fruit, vessels of honey, canisters of salt, mainly from brine springs, and quantities of wood, some cut and smoothed into boards. The salt and wood was of particular importance to the Heruls, as both wood and salt were rare on the Flats of Tung. The wood served mainly for the repair and construction of wagons, and the salt for lick blocks, accessible to the herds. Salt, too, it might be mentioned, might be traded for by the Heruls with the Telnarians of Venitzia, but that tended to be expensive as it was imported. Pelts obtained from the Otungs might be traded, in turn, with merchants, usually those of Venitzia, for any number of manufactured articles. The Heruls, for their part, had with them such things as crates of domestic fowl, pigs crowded into small wooden cages, and, from Venitzia, axe heads, knife blades, beer and kana, and a great number of bolts of cloth, of diverse qualities. The thicker, finer, and more ornate cloths were favored by the higher women of the Otungen, and the coarser fabrics were allotted to the lesser women and slaves. Cornhair, head down, her knees half in the sand and grit of the cold beach, shivering, clutched her arms about herself. She listened to the voices. She knew she was being bargained for. She heard the tiny sound of coins, surely not darins, but pennies. She saw four cast down on the furs beside her. They were kicked back, and the Herul, hissing, snatched them up again. One of the Otungs pulled her head up and back, and, with his free hand, lifted and spread her hair. Her hair color she had learned, in the hall to which she had been led, bound and leashed, from the Telnarian wilderness camp, through the forest, was not that unusual amongst Otung women. But then Otung women were seldom slaves. It was more common that they owned slaves. Such slaves, as those brought with her to Tangara, were more likely, like most slaves, to be dark haired and dark-eyed. Certainly a hair and eye color such as hers, blue-eyed and blond-haired, was not unknown in the markets, but, too, it was not that common in most markets, particularly in those of the colonial worlds.
After her branding, she had been knelt, nude, hands tied behind her, her ankles linked but some inches apart in thong shackles, her thigh still afire with pain, before the barbarian captain, Otto.
“I am branded,” she said.
“As were the others,” he said.
“I gather then,” she said, “that I am not to be immediately slain.”
“Perhaps,” he had said, “you were branded merely that you might be slain as a marked slave.”
“I think not,” she said.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“On my knees,” she said, “before a free man.”
“You will grow familiar with such a posture, before the free,” he said.
“I am not to be immediately killed,” she said.
“No,” he said. “Even a slave such as you, as worthless as you, might have her uses, putting herself, for example, instantly, at a snapping of fingers, at the disposal of the free, wholly and helplessly surrendered, as a slave is wholly and helplessly surrendered, hoping that lengthy and inordinate pleasures may be derived from her body, that Masters might then feed her and permit her to live. A dead slave is good for little but food for the dogs.”
“I see,” she said.
“Surely when you were free, you must have wondered what it would be, to kneel as you are now, naked, helpless, bound, a slave, before a free man.”
She was silent.
“You will be trade goods,” he said.
“I?” she said. “I? Trade goods? Trade goods! I am not to be kept?”
“No,” he said.
“You are a king!” she cried. “Am I not to be a king’s slave?”
“No,” he said.
“I am not trade goods!” she said. “I cannot be traded! I was the Lady Publennia Calasalia, of the Larial Calasalii!”
“We will see what we can get for you,” he said. “But, if nothing, then we will give you away, or leave you bound naked on the beach, for animals, or to die of exposure.”