“Yes,” said the brunette. “I want to be a slave. I have wanted to be a slave since I was a young girl. That is why I want to be marked, to have my nature, destiny, and meaning proclaimed publicly on my body. I am not ashamed to be a slave, for it is what I am, and want to be. I revel in it, I exult in it! It is my joy! I want to love a man so deeply that I will accept nothing short of utter bondage at his hands. I want to submit to him, and love and serve him, wholly and helplessly. And I want him to want me so fiercely that he will be content with nothing less than my categorical possession; I want him to want me so much that he will be satisfied with nothing less than putting me to his feet, in his collar, as his indisputable property.”
The blonde began to tremble.
Why should the words of the brunette, a mere slave, concern her, she, a free woman?
“What is wrong, Cornhair?” asked the brunette.
“Nothing,” said the blonde.
“You are disturbed?”
“No.”
“I suspect,” said the brunette, “that you are in some way special. But how is it that you, if you are, might be special?”
“Perhaps I am particularly attractive to Masters,” said the blonde.
“You do not yet know your collar,” said the brunette. “You are still much like a free woman. Your body is stiff, and wooden. You lack the modalities of the slave, her sensuousness, her fluidity, her subtle movements, her grace, her vulnerability, her sense of being owned, and desired, and desired as the slave she is, her pleasure in such things, and her joy.”
“The barbarian asked for me!” said the blonde.
“Perhaps he recalls you from the Narcona,” said the brunette.
“Doubtless,” said the blonde.
“But why should he choose you?” asked the brunette.
“Why not?” asked the blonde.
“You are beautiful,” said the brunette, “but you are not yet a suitable slave.”
“Perhaps I will never be a suitable slave,” said the blonde.
“Perhaps not,” said the brunette, “but I assure you that you are eminently suitable for the condition. I have seldom seen a woman, even at a glance, more obviously suitable for slavery.”
The blonde stiffened, in fury, hating the brunette, but felt uneasy, rejecting the sheet of flame which had suddenly flared in her belly.
How fearful it would be, to be truly a slave!
“Why you?” said the brunette. “There are others, several others, better slaves.”
“But nonetheless it was I for whom he asked,” said the blonde.
“He is a barbarian,” said the brunette.
“No matter,” said the blonde. “He is a captain. He is charged to recruit comitates. He is no simple bumpkin from the forests, lost when separated from his sty of pigs or patch of roots. He is an officer. He was held in honor on the Narcona. Surely he has visited cities, frequented markets, perused slave shelves and cages, been in the brothels and taverns, and is no stranger to marked chain-sluts.”
“So why would he want you?” asked the brunette.
“Because of my extraordinary beauty,” said the blonde.
“Perhaps he is curious about you,” said the brunette. “He may be wondering if you, despite your seeming inertness and rigidities, have the makings of a slave.”
“I am extraordinarily beautiful,” said the blonde.
“There are things in this camp, and things about you, I do not understand,” said the brunette.
“It seems that I am to prepare myself alone,” said the blonde.
“I think it is just as well,” said the brunette. “You are not popular with the other girls. You hold yourself apart from them. You behave as though you were superior to them. This is resented. Many times, were it not for my switch, they would have dealt roundly, and effectively, with your impatience, your lofty manners, your impudence.”
“A slave is grateful,” said the blonde.
“You are not,” said the brunette, “but you should be.” The brunette then turned away, but, before exiting that portion of the long, warm tent, turned back. “Prepare yourself,” she said. “See to it! Be ready, soon!”
“Yes, Mistress,” said the blonde.
“When the gong sounds,” said the brunette, “proceed to the kitchen, to be given your flagon or tray.”
“Yes, Mistress,” said the blonde.
The blonde, naked save for the tavern tunic, knelt before the mirror, and returned the tiny tube of lip coloring to its place on the table.
She hooked her fingers over the chain on her neck, with its disk, and drew against it, once or twice.
Hateful thing, she thought, but it is, in its way, attractive.
In her days of liberty and wealth, of travel and extravagance, she had had high collars of rows of jewels closed about her neck, nine such rows, collars worth fortunes, and these had been well matched by the bracelets on her arms, the rings on her fingers, the diamond tiara fixed in her bright hair. She was well aware, so bejeweled, in her off-the shoulder gowns, lengthy, silken, and shimmering, of her striking appearance at the gaming tables. How beautiful she was, and yet she suspected that many of the men present might have been more struck by the glitter of jewels and the brandishing of position and station, than the lovely, living manikin which served as the cabinet of their mounting, and the tray of their display. Few, it seemed, in such precincts, looked past the blaze of taste and wealth to the model by means of which such things were exhibited. Lady Publennia Calasalia did not much care for men, save for what benefits might be derived from them. She had, of course commonly seen through and scorned a variety of suitors, most of whom, clearly enough, even of the honestori, were merely interested in accruing to themselves the advantages which might appertain to an alliance with a patrician, particularly a wealthy one. But these advantages, eventually, muchly diminished, as various accounts became unavailable to her. No longer could she draw on her family’s wealth on a dozen worlds. Later, her very name was excised from the Calasalii’s rolls of lineage. For better than a year she had lived in nigh destitution, supported only by a pittance begrudgingly extended by her outraged family. Soon she had been reduced to marketing her jewels, her goods, and slaves, to inhabiting humble quarters in poor districts, even to patronizing the women’s public baths, and had but one slave left of her former retinue of slaves, a small, exquisite, redhead, Nika, whom she had often beaten, perhaps because there was little else at hand on which to vent her anger and frustration. Men who had sought her hand now avoided her, and would not extend her loans. Then, somehow, it seemed, eventually, her plight had come to the attention of a sympathetic, mighty figure, Iaachus, the Arbiter of Protocol in the court of the emperor, Aesilesius.
She looked at the simple, plain, light, attractive chain on her neck. Any beast, even a dog, she thought, might wear such a collar.
And the fools who saw it on her would think she was a beast, a slave! How little did they know! How wrong they were!
She recalled her jeweled collars. How conveniently they might be affixed, or removed.
How different from the chain, with its disk, now fastened on her neck!
She wondered if the men who had looked upon those jeweled, sparkling collars had more seen her, or the collars. Were they not dazzling, so bright, so calling attention to themselves as to blind a vision which might, otherwise, have noted a woman? Did they not divert an attention away from what was incidental to their display, a rack, a platform, a woman? What was most important here? What would be the prize? How would one see the woman, as a woman, or as an instrumentality by means of which a putative treasure might be secured? Which, jewels, or woman, would be the essence and motivation of some projected quest? Or had she affected such displays that she might conceal herself behind them, fearing to be looked upon simply, primitively?
In the case of a slave, things were muchly different.