“You cannot do this to me!” she cried.
“Put her with the other goods,” he said, turning away.
She tried to spring to her feet, but, as she was tied, her ankles fastened but some six inches apart, that she might be well apprised of her bondage, she fell, to her left shoulder. She looked after him, wildly. Hands were then put upon her, and the stock tender, Qualius, had lifted her in his arms, and carried her to a storage area.
She remained kneeling on the beach, shivering with cold, her head down, her arms held about herself.
“Sell me, sell me!” she thought.
Her captors wanted a darin for her.
One of the Heruls snorted, explosively. She would later understand that noise as a Herul laugh.
Attention then seemed diverted from her.
She recalled the words of the barbarian, that, if she were not sold, she would be given away, or left helpless on the beach, perhaps for the nibblings of filchen, if not of larger beasts, or left to die of exposure.
Surely they would not tell the Heruls that!
The Heruls must suppose her captors might hold her dear, hold for at least a darin.
“A darin!” she thought. “I should sell for a thousand darins, for ten thousand darins!”
“I am freezing,” she thought. “Sell me soon, for a penny, for the peeling of a fruit, for a crust of bread, for anything, but sell me, sell me soon!”
The tradings were taking place, offers and counteroffers, bargainings and negotiations, these strung out for better than fifty yards along the beach.
The slave necklace was no longer on her neck, with its metal pendant.
Suitably clothed, the brand covered, might she not pass as free, somewhere, somehow?
She thought of trying to rise and run, but where, and to what? Too, she doubted that her legs would hold her. She feared, even, she could not move her legs, that they were too cold to serve her.
“If escape were possible for me,” she thought, “it would be here, in the wilderness, into the forest! This would be my chance, here, not in civilization, where I, marked, would be clothed as a slave, where I would be known, recognized, and identified as a slave, where I would be collared, but, alas, even here, there is no escape for me. I could run only into darkness, cold, and death. I would be eaten. I would starve!”
Then she put aside the foolishness of even contemplating flight.
She did not think she could even rise to her feet.
No, she realized, there was no escape for the female slave, not in the cities, not in the forests, not in the fields, nowhere. She had known that when she was free, that was understood, and it had amused her, but, then, she had never thought that she would be a female slave, and that there would never be any escape for her.
“At least I am not in a collar,” she thought. “My throat is bare!”
No one seemed to be about.
Her hand reached out, just a little, slowly, to clutch the furs, and, almost at the same time, the knout fell on her body, and then again and again, and she put her head down, covering it with her hands. “Forgive me, Master!” she cried. “Forgive me, Master!”
“Are you cold?” asked he who then was to her as keeper and captor.
“Yes, Master!” she cried.
“Do you wish to speak?” he asked.
“Yes, yes, Master!” she cried.
“Speak,” he said.
“I am cold, Master!” she wept. “I freeze! Please let me cover myself with the furs!”
“Do you petition permission to enclose yourself in the furs?” he asked.
“Yes, yes, Master!” she said.
“You reached out for the furs,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Without permission,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master.”
“Your petition is denied,” he said.
Shuddering, Cornhair kept her head down.
She should not, of course, have reached for the furs. Such things, as should have been understood, are not permitted to a slave.
Cornhair was not merely a beautiful woman, but a highly intelligent woman. Yet she had much to learn about her new status, that of the female slave. Given her intelligence, of course, she should learn very quickly.
The barterings and exchanges now seemed less. Indeed, more than one sled, with new burdens, had been drawn back into the forest, and more than one spread platform of poles, heaped with goods, drawn by its horse, slid over the edge ice and splashed into the chill waters of the Lothar, to ascend shortly the far bank, bordering the now-snowy plains beyond.
Cornhair heard the squealing of a pig and looked up, startled. A fellow was walking back to a sled, the pig under his arm. Also, at almost the same time, a heap of cloth was cast before her by a squat Herul. How fine such fellows looked, how at ease, mounted, as they left the island, some alone, some, mounted, tending the platform-drawing horses beginning to cross the river, and how ungainly afoot.
“Dress,” said an Otung.
Cornhair seized up the garments and eagerly, gratefully, drew them on. How precious they were to her. Had she ever worn anything so warm? She was familiar, in her way, of course, with such garments, as they were such as the Otung women wore, and such as she had often donned and worn in and about the hall of the Otungs. To be sure, these were plain, and shabby, worn, and such, but they were long, and thick, and layered. She also drew on the thick woolen hose. Although she, and the other slaves brought from Inez IV to Tangara on the Narcona, had become familiar with such garments, she and the others slaves had not always been so sedately and concealingly clad. At the evening suppers and feasts in the hall, the Otung women dining apart, in the woman’s hall, a long shed adjoining the greater hall, she, and the others, had served the men naked, hurrying to and fro, responding to their cries, hastening to bring them meat and drink, in particular, spiced and honeyed bror, brewed from golden lee. That slaves should serve so, stripped, and commonly collared, is, incidentally, a not unfamiliar custom amongst not only barbarians, with their rude ways, but is popular, too, amongst many refined gentlemen of the empire. Men, civilized and barbarous, being men, enjoy being served by naked slaves. It is one of the pleasures of ownership, and the Mastery, and few things, it might be added, given the contrasts involved, clothed and unclothed, serving and being served, and such, better impress upon a slave her femaleness and its meaning.
A tentacled appendage seized the now-dressed Cornhair by the back of the neck, and forced her down, to her knees, her head down.
She whimpered, frightened.
She heard a surprising sound, the striking, the clanking, of a clapper within metal, and sensed something under her neck. There was another such sound, and a chain was drawn up about her neck, and behind her neck, closely, and she heard the snap of a lock behind the back of her neck.
It was the first she had known of, or heard of, the Herul slave bell.
The point of the bell was not, in particular, to designate its wearer a slave, for all human females in a Herul camp were slaves. Rather it was, first, to remind the slave that she was a slave, and a beast, for such bells were sometimes hung about the necks of cows in the herds, and, second, to mark her movements. Interestingly, even in civilized areas, slaves are occasionally belled, though seldom so simply and crudely. The jangle of bells fastened about a girl’s ankle, wrist, or neck well impresses upon her that she is not like other women, that she is not free, but a slave. Too, it is not unusual that a new slave, one who is not yet sexually subdued, one not yet sexually owned, one who has not yet fully learned her collar, might be belled. This not only helps her to keep in mind, with each jangle, that she is a slave, but is useful for a variety of other reasons, in particular, those associated with location and tracking. How can she conceal her presence when each of her movements is betrayed by the bells put upon her by Masters; and how could she contemplate escape, however absurd such a musing, however foolish such a fancy, where each step would be clearly marked, bright with the informing music of her bondage? Too, as suggested earlier, bells have their effect upon the passions, both those of slaves and Masters. A belled slave, gasping and begging, brought cruelly to the incomparable ecstasies of the slave orgasm, is pleasant to listen to, wild-eyed and gasping, as she bucks and writhes in her chains.