“Be kind, dear Mistress!” wept Cornhair.
“Perhaps, slave,” said Lady Delia, “you are curious as to why your collar was removed.”
“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.
“We would not want it soiled,” said Lady Delia.
There was laughter in the stands.
“Mistress?” said Cornhair.
“Nor,” said Lady Delia, “would we wish it to injure the jaws of fine beasts.”
“I do not understand, lovely Mistress,” cried Cornhair. “Be kind to me!”
“You were curious as to the nature of our gathering, of our sisterhood, so to speak.”
“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.
“You may have wondered as to its purpose.”
“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.
“We all have something in common,” said Lady Delia.
“Mistress?” said Cornhair.
“We all hate slaves,” said Lady Delia.
“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. This made Cornhair decidedly uneasy, but she understood it well enough. Certainly it was common enough that free women resented, if not hated, slaves, for their attractions, for their appeal to men. Where men were concerned there was a natural rivalry between the free woman and the slave. Why should a man prefer a lovely, needful, collared beast on his chain to the inestimable privilege of relating to a free woman? Was that not incomprehensible? Who could understand it? Cornhair, as a free woman, had not hated slaves so much as despising them, and holding them in an utter contempt, for the meaningless animals they were. One can well imagine then her feelings at her own reversal of fortune, when she found herself in a collar. Still, even as a free woman, she had often wondered what it might be, to find herself owned, and helpless, at a Master’s feet.
“But,” said Lady Delia, “our feelings go much beyond simple hatred. No. Much more is involved. Each of us has a personal interest in these matters. Though we are free women, each with the status and resources of free women, each of us, at one time or another, has been put aside or neglected, even abandoned, for a worthless slave. How foolish and stupid are men! Each of us, each a free woman, in all our glory, at one time or another, sustained this unspeakable indignity. Realize the outrage of being superseded by, or discarded in favor of, a meaningless, curvaceous beast, a slave, something we ourselves could have bought for a handful of coins!”
“It is not our fault, Mistress!” said Cornhair. “We are taken in war, chained, seized, abducted. It is done to us by men!”
“I have seen you, such as you,” said Lady Delia, “content, lips parted, half naked, pressing your lips to a man’s thigh!”
“Have mercy, Mistress!” said Cornhair.
“You, such as you, belong chained at a man’s feet,” said Lady Delia.
“Mercy, please, Mistress!” said Cornhair.
“We are met here for vengeance on such as you,” said Lady Delia.
“Hateful slave!” screamed a woman from the stands.
“I have done nothing, Mistress!” cried Cornhair.
“We know your sort,” cried Lady Virginia, from the side of Lady Delia. “You are all seductive sluts. You will all beg, all lick and kiss, all crawl for the caress of a Master!”
“How can a free woman compete with a slave?” cried a woman from the stands.
“Mercy, Mistresses!” cried Cornhair. “Have their bellies never been enflamed,” she asked herself, “as the bellies of slaves? Do they know what it is to wear a collar and be owned? Have they never felt the lash?”
“Slave! She is a slave!?” cried a woman.
“I have done nothing!” cried Cornhair.
“You, and others, will stand proxy!” said Lady Delia.
“Others?” said Cornhair.
“Those who served with you,” said Lady Delia. “They will be given knives and set on one another in the arena.”
Several of the women in the stands clapped their hands, and laughed.
“It will be amusing to see them set on one another,” said Lady Virginia, “screaming, weeping, crying for mercy, cutting and hacking, bleeding in the sand, slave girls set on slave girls!”
“Have mercy!” begged Cornhair.
“A different fate is in store for you,” said Lady Delia.
“The dogs, killing dogs, will be set on you,” said Lady Virginia.
“We will see you torn to pieces, before us,” said Lady Delia.
Cornhair looked wildly about, and ran across the sand to the heavy door which she had seen from within, from the far end of the tunnel, before she had been hooded and led to the sand. It was through this door that the two women who had accompanied her to the sand had recently withdrawn.
Cornhair yanked, again and again, with all her strength, on the handle. It was of iron. The door was of heavy timbers. It scarcely moved.
She looked about, again, and saw another door, to the side. She hurried, gasping, sand about her legs, halfway up her calves, to that door. Then she stopped. There was no handle on that door. It was such that it could only be opened and shut vertically, as it would be lifted and lowered, probably by means of balanced weights.
Then, from behind the door, she heard snarling and growling, and the movement of excited, massive bodies.
She threw her hand before her face, and cried out in misery, and then turned and ran to the sand before the box of Lady Delia and her friends, and fell to her knees, and extended her hands upward, piteously. She could now hear, from across the arena, the agitation of beasts from behind the vertical door, beasts now disturbed, now alerted, doubtless now anticipating their release and feeding.
“Do not release the dogs, kind, lovely Mistress!” cried Cornhair. “I am only a slave!”
“Slave! Slave!” cried several of the women in the tiers.
“Do not despair, Cornhair,” said Lady Delia, kindly. “Would you like a chance for your life?”
“Yes, yes, Mistress!” cried Cornhair, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Note the walls, and the railings,” said Lady Delia. “They are not too high. Might you not leap up and seize the railing and draw yourself up to safety?”
“I would be permitted to do so?” asked Cornhair.
“Yes,” said Lady Delia. “And, if you succeed, we will see that you are conveyed to Telnar and sold in some nice market.”
“Mistress?” said Cornhair.
“You have my word on it,” said Lady Delia, “freely and publicly given, the unimpeachable, sacred word of a free woman of the empire.”
“Thank you, Mistress!” cried Cornhair. It would require effort, surely, serious effort, for it was not an easy leap for a woman, or a normal woman, but Cornhair was desperate, and terrified, and she felt convinced she could reach the railing, grasp it, and then pull herself up, and over it, and thus reach the lowest level of the seats.
“You do not have a great deal of time, dear,” said Lady Delia. “I am preparing to give the signal, letting this lifted scarf fall, following which the dog gate will be opened.”
“Hurry, slave,” called a woman.
“It is fortunate that you are clad as you are,” said a woman.
“Decent robing would be an encumbrance,” said another woman.
There was laughter.
It may be recalled that the railings about the height of the wall were in the form of large, white, wooden cylinders.
Cornhair backed away, grateful, determined, secured good footing in the sand, hesitated, and then raced toward the nearest railing. A few feet away she was sure that she had been right, that she would be able to reach, and clutch, the railing.
She did so!
Her hands were on it.
To be sure, given its size, it could not be embraced, but she need only pull herself, inch by inch, up, inch by inch, over its painted, solid, immobile, dry curvature.
Then she cried out, a small cry of misery.
The cylinder was solid, indeed, but it was not immobile!
It turned!
She pulled herself up an inch or two.
The cylinder then, like an elongated wheel, like a heavy bar, rotated on its axis, toward the arena, some two or three inches.