The beast growled. Cornhair could see fangs at the side of its mouth. Some saliva dropped to the sand, dampening it.
Cornhair’s body tensed to run.
She wanted to stay still.
She wanted to run.
She knew she must not move.
She knew she would move.
She knew she must not run.
She knew she was going to run.
Perhaps she could reach a railing and clamber to safety.
“We paid good money for these beasts,” said Lady Virginia.
“Be patient,” said Lady Delia.
“Are you afraid, female slave?” called a woman.
Cornhair dared not respond, for she feared the slightest sound, or movement, might tip a precious, invisible balance, precipitating the beast’s charge.
“Open the gate!” cried a woman in the stands.
“Loose the dogs!” cried another.
Then Cornhair noted a subtle change in the demeanor of the beast, difficult to place, but indisputable. The fur rippled, almost unnoticeably. Muscles were moving, tensing. She saw the hind legs move a little deeper into the sand. The head of the beast lowered some inches, but the eyes remained fixed on her.
“It is going to charge,” thought Cornhair.
“Run, Cornhair!” cried Lady Delia. “Run!”
“She wants me to run,” thought Cornhair. “I must not run. It is going to charge. I am close. I see it. I must run!”
“Run!” cried Lady Delia.
Cornhair, in misery, crying out, terrified, turned and ran.
She heard the shriek of the crowd, the sudden, scrambling scratching of paws in the sand behind her, the great beast speeding forward.
She sensed the great body in flight, as she threw herself to the sand, was conscious of a sharp, hissing sound, the shadow of the beast above her, wild, hawklike, then its furred weight half on her, half beside her, her tunic and body spattered with blood.
She heard cries of alarm and dismay from the stands.
She struggled to free herself from the weight of the dog, half on her. She pulled herself free, and stood, unsteadily, bewildered, in the sand, beside the beast. It was half torn apart. She could see bones, half of its head. The sand was drenched with blood. She looked to the box of the hostess, the box where Lady Delia had presided over the sport. A man stood there, large, roughly clad, bearded, behind the railing, in his arms a rare Telnarian rifle, a weapon seldom found these days except in the possession of members of the imperial guard and certain elite forces.
The free women were on their feet, and were being thrust, and herded, at gunpoint, toward one of the exits from the stands, except one, the Lady Delia, who was held in place, standing alone, in the box of the hostess.
There were perhaps twenty or thirty men about, in shabby garments, in the caps of boatmen, variously armed.
Perhaps there were others, elsewhere.
Cornhair saw the last of the free women, saving the Lady Delia, disappear through one of the exits of the stands.
“Slave!” called the fellow with the rifle, perhaps the leader of the strangers.
“Master!” responded Cornhair, and ran quickly to the sand before the box, and fell to her knees. How natural, and right, that now seemed to her.
The fellow with the rifle gestured to a confederate, and he unlooped a rope at his belt and flung its loose end over the railing to the sand.
“Hold to it!” he called, and Cornhair seized the rope and was soon pulled up to, and over, the railing. She instantly knelt and put her head down before the man with the rifle, and pressed her lips to his boots.
“Stinking slave,” hissed Lady Delia.
“Thank you, Master,” whispered Cornhair.
“You are sweaty, filthy, covered with blood,” said the man with the rifle. “Do you know where you can wash, and clean yourself?”
“Yes, Master,” said Cornhair. She recalled the room of the bath. To be sure, it was little more than a cistern, a bath for slaves. Doubtless, in the domicile, there were facilities fit for free women.
“Do so,” said he, “and then return here, naked.”
“Yes, Master,” said Cornhair.
“Doubtless,” said Lady Delia, bitterly, fixing her contemptuous gaze on the man with the rifle, “you like to look on the bodies of slaves.”
“Yes,” he said.
“You have done well, for robbers and pirates,” said Lady Delia. “We here, your captives, are not merely free women, but each of us, each one, is a woman of station and means.”
“That is known to us, fine lady,” said the man.
“We may be exchanged for handsome ransoms,” she said.
“Doubtless,” said the man.
“You seem strange fellows, for river men,” said Lady Delia.
“We are not river men,” said the man.
Cornhair then rose, and hurried to the room of the slave bath.
On her way she passed several cells. Many were empty. In one cell, now crowded together, frightened, were the twenty or so slaves who had served with her at the suppers. They were still in serving tunics. The eyes of one, wildly, regarded her. Clearly none, Cornhair realized, understood what had transpired, nor, really, did she. They saw her bloody, in a brief, bloodied tunic, hurrying by, feet and legs covered with clinging sand. They would not know she had been in an arena. Probably they did not even know there was an arena. Nor, Cornhair supposed, would they realize what the free women had held in store for them, that they would be given knives and set on one another. They did not speak, nor, in her uneasiness, did Cornhair. They had not been given permission to do so. Speaking without permission, as slaves were well aware, could bring the whip. A bit later, on her route to the bath, Cornhair passed several cells crowded with free women, still in their abundant, expensive finery. So closely were they packed into the small cells, that they could scarcely move. Several, bodies pressed against the bars, cried out to her.
“Free us, slave!”
“On the wall, across the way, see, keys! Take them! Undo the locks! Free us!”
“Open the cells!”
“Now!”
“Obey!”
“Obey!”
Cornhair hurried past, frightened. Free men had turned the keys in those locks! How could she, a slave, dare to undo their work?
Soon Cornhair had finished her bath, and, with a few hasty strokes, had brushed and combed her hair.
As she was hurrying back, making her way through the domicile, to ascend the internal stairs leading up to the stands, several of the strangers, certainly looking much like rough river fellows, passed her, apparently on their way to the cells below, that of the slaves, those of the free women.
Cornhair kept her eyes down. It is not always wise to meet the eyes of a free man.
“Thirty darins,” said a fellow.
“Thirty-five,” said another.
“Perhaps forty,” said another.
Cornhair, who had last sold for five darins, was quite ready, perhaps in her vanity, to welcome such enlarged, unsolicited assessments of her likely block value. Whereas free women quite commonly compare themselves to one another with respect to beauty, and have very clear views on the matter, most such estimations remain speculative. The value of the slave, on the other hand, is what men will pay for her.
In a moment, Cornhair had made her way up the stairs, and emerged amongst the tiers of the small arena.
The man with the rifle was still in the box of the hostess. He was with four or five of his fellows. The Lady Delia was also in the box, standing, proudly, disdainfully, looking across the arena, over the sand, to the now-empty tiers on the opposite side.
At a gesture from the man with the rifle, Cornhair hurried to him, and knelt before him, humbly, head down.
“I note that the stinking slave has returned,” said Lady Delia.
“Not stinking, Lady,” said the man with the rifle. “She is now cleaner than you.”
“Doubtless,” said Lady Delia.
“A free woman may be careless in such matters, even slovenly,” said the man, “but a slave may not. A slave is to keep herself fresh, clean, and well-groomed, that she may be the more pleasing to her Master.”