And no one need know that she had been put aside by the house. And few, in any case, would know that!
Surely, with wit, she might win her freedom!
Clearly the two bolts on the heavy door to the storeroom were thrust aside.
“Down,” whispered a girl, and Cornhair, and her sisters, knelt, facing the door, their heads to the floor, the palms of their hands flat on the floor beside their head.
“It is too early for the supper gruel,” thought Cornhair.
“Kneel up,” said a man’s voice. Cornhair recognized the voice. She and the others straightened up. It was that of a stocky fellow, with close-cropped hair, who was their keeper. He wore the livery of the company, red, with a chain-encircled flower on the left sleeve. “In the morning,” he said, “you will gather up your straw, you will sweep up your sawdust. You will fill bins. You will be given brushes and water. The boards will be scrubbed. No mark, no stain, no stink, will remain. Everything will be fresh, and clean. Tonight you will have a piece of meat in your gruel. Tomorrow morning you will be ankleted, and your house collars will be removed.”
He then turned about and left. Cornhair heard the two bolts thrust into place.
“What does this mean?” asked Cornhair.
“It is good news,” said one of the girls. “We are not to be sold in Venitzia.”
“I knew we would not be,” said another, “when we were purchased by the company and kept here. We are to be shipped elsewhere.”
“Where?” asked a girl.
“Masters know, not we,” said another.
“Meat in the gruel would tell you something is afoot,” said another.
“Too, he did not speak of changing the straw, or such,” said another.
“Fresh straw, fresh beasts,” said another.
“I am not a beast,” said Cornhair.
“You are a beast,” said a girl, “only a mediocre one, as you sold for only fifteen darins.”
“A—a—thousand!” said Cornhair. “No, ten thousand!”
“The slave, White Ankles, was present, with her Master, and heard,” said a girl. “She told the gruel-bringer, and the gruel-bringer told me.”
“White Ankles is a liar,” said Cornhair.
“What is your name?” asked the girl.
“Publennia, Lady Publennia, of the Larial Calasalii!” said Cornhair.
“We have a great lady amongst us,” laughed a girl.
“Your name is ‘Liar’,” said the first girl.
“You may call me Filene, if you wish,” said Cornhair.
“‘Liar’!” said several of the girls.
“Then, ‘Cornhair’!” said Cornhair, tears in her eyes.
“‘Liar’, ‘Liar’!” chanted several of the girls.
“No one here,” said the first girl, “sold for more than one hundred darins.”
One of the girls gasped in astonishment. “So much?” she said.
“How many sold for as little as fifteen darins?” asked the first girl.
“I did,” said a girl.
“I sold for only eleven,” said another girl.
“Only three then, of us all,” said the first girl, “sold for fifteen darins or less.”
“How many did you sell for!” demanded Cornhair.
“Forty,” said the first girl.
“Now you see, great lady,” said one of the girls to Cornhair, laughing, “what you are worth, aside from robes and pretenses, and jewels, and embroidered purses, weighty with gold, and the artifices of society, if you were ever truly a great lady, what you are worth, as a female.”
Cornhair clenched her fists in frustration.
Tears ran down her cheeks.
“Understand yourself for what you are, Publennia, or Filene, or Cornhair,” said the first girl. “You are a beast. Only a beast. You, as we, can be bought and sold, and will, as we, be bought and sold, and you, as we, as what we are, as neck-ringed, branded beasts.”
“And you, Liar, are a cheap one!” laughed a girl.
“I do not like house collars,” said a girl. “I will be glad to have it off my neck.”
“They need them for the next girls,” said a girl.
“I want a good collar, a private collar,” said the girl who had spoken of house collars. “It need not be fine, it need not be belled, or plated with gold, or set with jewels. I just want a nice collar, light, simple, and plain, locked on me by a kind, strong Master, who will well master the slave in me!”
“Our ankleting will take place before our collars are removed,” said a girl.
“Of course,” said another.
“Why ankleting?” asked a girl.
“Shipping anklets,” said a girl.
“Why not shipping collars?” asked another.
“Do not fear,” laughed a girl. “Your neck will not be naked long.”
“I do not understand,” said a girl.
“It will wear a coffle collar,” said a girl. “We are to be coffled.”
“Please do not call me ‘Liar’,” said Cornhair.
“On your knees, and beg,” said the first girl.
Cornhair went to her knees. “Please do not call me ‘Liar’,” she said.
“Yes?” said the first girl.
“Please do not call me ‘Liar’, Mistress,” said Cornhair.
“What would you be called?” asked the first girl.
“You will be called whatever men name you!” said a girl.
“‘Publennia’,” said Cornhair.
“‘Cornhair’ will do,” said the first girl.
“Thank you, Mistress,” said Cornhair.
Cornhair fought the close-fitting metal circlets on her wrists, pulling against the three short links that fastened them together.
“Free me!” she cried. “I do not belong here! It is a mistake! I am a free woman! Clothe me!”
Her hands were braceleted before her so that she, as the others, could reach into the gruel bowl to feed herself, when it was available.
Her hands, now, were clenched on the coffle chain before her, at her neck. The chain ran from the coffle collar to the back ring of the collar of the girl before her, rather as, from the back ring of her own coffle collar, the chain ran back to the front ring on the girl’s collar who followed her. Her position in the coffle, which consisted of forty girls, was rather toward the center, as the coffle was arranged in terms of height, the tallest girls first.
“I am a free woman!” she cried.
“Be silent!” said the girl before her, turning back. “They will lash us all!”
“I will buy and sell you all!” screamed Cornhair. “I will put you in the fields to draw water for laborers, in pens to swill with pigs, in stables to shovel dung, shackle you in public sculleries, have you fed on garbage and beaten every morning and evening!”
“Be quiet,” said the girl, “or we will all be beaten!”
“What is going on here?” asked a docksman.
“Nothing, Master,” said the girl before Cornhair.
She put her head down, humbly, and Cornhair did so, as well. What might be hoped for, from a simple docksman?
He was soon about his business, and Cornhair raised her head.
It was warm on the loading pier, and, to her left, the immense, vertical hull of the freighter towered above her, gray against the blue sky and white clouds. At its side, open and gantry-like, was a vertical frame, its loading platform now at the pier level.
The sky was bright and the air clear. The world’s star, Inez, was near its zenith. Docksmen called to one another. An official, with his white uniform, was some fifty feet away, turning papers in a ringed tablet. One could hear the trundling of wheeled carts on the pier. Some minutes before, some two hundred yards away, there had been a roar and a geyser of smoke; the pier had shaken, and a blast of heat had swept the pier, and, trailing flame and smoke, a ship, gradually at first, like a thoughtful arrow, and then, as though resolved, ever more quickly, sped away, disappearing in the sky, as though hungry for some unseen, but intended, target.