"Perhaps Master thinks I am stupid," she said.
"No," he said. "No!" Properties such as intelligence and imagination are prized in female slaves. It helps them, obviously, to be better slaves. Too, it is pleasant to dominate such women, totally.
"Does Master think I am a she-tarsk?" she asked.
"No!" he cried.
"Beware," Philebus cautioned her, his whip in hand.
"Let her speak, let her speak," said the burly fellow, tensely.
I did not think the swaying slave would be likely to be mistaken for a she-tarsk. She might, however, as she was acting, be mistaken for something of a she-sleen. To be sure, the whip can quickly take that sort of thing from a woman.
"Alas," she lamented, "I am not worth even sleen feed!"
"No!" cried the burly fellow. "Do not say that! You are exquisite!"
"But such a charge has been cited against me," she moaned.
"By some wretch I wager!" said he, angrily.
"If Master will have it so," she demurred.
"Would that I had him here," he said. "I would well chastise him, and with blows, did he not retract his judgment, belabor him for his lack of taste!" In fairness to the burly fellow, it had been Temione the free woman against whom he had leveled that charge, not Temione, the slave. There was obviously a great deal of difference between the two, even if Temione herself was not yet that aware of it.
"Alas that I am so ugly!" she said.
"Absurd!" he cried. "You are beautiful!"
"Master is too kind," she said.
"You are the most beautiful slave I have ever seen!" When he said this I noted that a pleased look came over the features of Philebus. He would not now, I suspected, be willing to let Temione go easily, if at all.
"Surely Master speaks so to all the slaves," she said.
"No!" he said.
"That you will have the poor slaves open and gush with oil at your least touch."
"No!" he cried. She did not understand as yet, I gathered, given her newness to slavery, that such, emotional and physical responsiveness, was expected of, and required of, all slaves, at the touch of any master.
"Can it be then, Master," she asked, "that you do not wish to cast me from you?"
"I do not understand," he said.
"Will you not order me from your presence," she asked, "or have me dragged from your sight?"
"No!" he cried.
"Then Master finds me of some interest?" she asked.
"Yes!" he howled in pain.
I saw that he wanted to leap to his feet and seize her. I did not think he would be able to get her even as far as one of the small alcove tents within the enclosure. More likely, she would be flung to the dirt and publicly ravished, before the fire, even where she had danced. She might then, in a moment, bruised in his ardor, gasping in her collar, be dragged to an alcove, and forced again and again to serve, until dawn, until at last she might lie soft against him, by his thigh, in her collar, having served to quench for a time the flames of so mighty a lust, one which she, as a slave, had aroused and which she, as a slave, must satisfy.
"A girl is pleased," she said.
The music stopped, and the girl, instinctively, among the others, fell to the dirt and lay there before him, on her back, looking at him, her breasts heaving, a submitted slave.
The burly fellow threw aside his goblet and leaped to his feet.
Men rose up, crying out with pleasure, striking their left shoulders.
"I must have her!" cried the burly fellow.
The girls about Temione looked at one another, excited, but fearfully. Tonight the paga would flow. Tonight they would hurry about, serving well. Tonight much pleasuring would take place within the enclosure. Let them prepare to work, and hard. And let them anticipate their helplessness in the grasp of strong masters.
"Superb!" called out a man.
"Superb!" cried another.
Temione now was on her hands and knees, frightened.
"I will buy her!" cried out the burly fellow.
"She is not for sale!" cried Philebus.
"Name your price!" cried the burly fellow.
Temione, on her hands and knees, looked up, frightened, at her master. She could, of course, be sold as easily as a sleen or tarsk.
"She is not for sale," said Philebus.
"A silver tarsk!" cried the burly fellow. Men whistled at the price he was willing to put out for the slave, particularly in a time and place where there was no dearth of beautiful women, a time and place in which they were plentiful, and cheap. "Two!" said the burly fellow.
Temione shuddered.
"She is not for sale!" said Philebus.
"Show her to me!" said the burly fellow.
Philebus, not gently, jerked Temione back on her heels, so that she was kneeling, kicked apart her knees, which she, in her terror, had neglected to open, and thrust up her chin. She looked at the burly fellow, her knees apart.
"I know you from somewhere, do I not?" he said.
"Perhaps, Master," she stammered.
"What is the color of your hair?" he asked, peering at it in the flickering light, in the half darkness.
"Auburn, Master," she said.
"A natural auburn?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," she said. It is not wise for a girl to lie about such things. She may be easily found out. There are penalties, incidentally, for a slaver passing off a girl for an auburn slave when she is not truly so. Auburn hair, as I have indicated, is prized in slave markets. The fact that Temione's hair, like that of the other debtor skits at the Crooked Tarn, bad been shaved off, to be sold for catapult cordage, may have been one reason that the burly fellow had not recognized her. At the Crooked Tarn, when he had seen her, she had had her full head of hair. It had been very beautiful, even shorn, hanging on the rack in the courtyard of the Crooked Tarn.
"I think I know you," he said.
"Perhaps, Master," she said. Then she cried out with fear, and bent over, cringing, in terror, for Philebus had cracked the whip near her.
"Speak clearly, slave," said Philebus.
"My hair is grown out a little now," she said, looking up, frightened, at the burly fellow. "It was shaved off before. It is grown out a little now!"
"Speak, slave," said Philebus. "Where do you know him from?" He snapped the whip again, angrily.
"From the Crooked Tarn, Master!" she cried, but looking, frightened, at the burly fellow.
"You!" he cried.
"Yes, Master!" she said.
"The free woman!" he cried.
"But now a slave, Master," she said, "now a slave!" "Ho!" cried he. "What a fool you have made of me!" "No, Master!" she said, fearfully.
"You fooled me well!" he said.
"No, Master!" she wept.
"An amusing little slave," he commented.
She dared not respond, nor meet his eyes.
"A gold piece for her," said the burly fellow.
The slave moaned.
"Two," said the burly fellow. "Ten."
"Do you think you are a special slave, or a high slave?" asked Philebus of the girl, moving the coils of the whip near her.
"No, Master!" she said.
"Twenty pieces of gold," said the burly fellow.
"You are drunk," said Philebus.
"No," said the burly fellow. "I have never been more sober in my life."
The girl shuddered.
"I want you," said Borton to the girl.
"May I speak?" she asked.
He nodded.
"What would Master do with me?" she asked, quaveringly.
"What I please," he said.
"Do you have twenty pieces of gold, Borton?" called out one of the fellows nearby.
Borton scowled, darkly.
There was laughter. His finances, I gathered, may have been somewhat in arrears since the time of the Crooked Tarn.
"Ten silver tarsks," said Borton, grinning.