“Please, no, Masters!” said Aynur. “My perfidy would be clear to all! I would be nailed to the gate!”
“It might be dangerous to return her to the house,” said the second man.
“That is true,” said the first.
“It would be better,” said the second, “to bind her and gag her, and put her in the slave box, and then cast the slave box into one of the more remote carnariums.”
“We could save the slave box,” said the first, “and, at night, simply weight her and cast her into the carnarium. She would disappear without a trace.”
“Yes,” said the second, thoughtfully. “That is much better.”
“No, no, Masters!” wept Aynur.
“We could then sell the slave box,” said the first.
“Yes,” agreed the second.
“Have mercy, Masters!” cried Aynur.
“You are a treacherous slave,” said the first man.
“No, Master, no!” she cried.
“You are disloyal,” said the second man.
“No, Masters, no, no!” she cried.
“Do you deny the words of free men?” inquired the second man.
“I beg humbly only to correct the misapprehensions of Masters,” she wept. “I was treacherous. I was disloyal. But I am no longer treacherous! I am no longer disloyal! I have learned my lesson. Forgive me, Masters! Give a foolish, disobedient slave the opportunity to redeem herself! I will never again betray a master!”
“What are you?” asked the first man.
“A slave, Master!” said Aynur.
“And what else?” he asked.
“Nothing else, Master,” she said. “Only that, Master!”
“Are you determined now to be a good slave?” inquired the first man.
“Yes, Master! Yes, Master!” wept Aynur.
“Perhaps we should then cut her throat before we cast her into the carnarium,” said the first man.
“No, Master! Have mercy, Master!”
“What are you good for?” asked the second man.
“All the things that a slave is good for!” she wept.
“You are cold,” said the second man.
“No,” she said, “I have a thousand heats and a thousand flames!”
“Do you think you could please a man?” asked the first man.
“Desperately and fervently,” she said, “in all the ways that a woman can please a man! I beg only the opportunity to show you!”
“Let us leave her fate in the hands of the other slave,” suggested the second man.
“No, no, no!” cried Aynur, turning white. “No, Master! Please, no, Master!”
“But she was first girl over the other slave,” said the first man.
“So much the better,” said the second man.
“You were, as I understand it,” said the first man to Aynur, who seemed now unable to rise even to her knees, “a poor first girl, one not only unpopular in the garden, but even one richly hated therein, one who ruled it strictly and cruelly, personally, arbitrarily, using your modicum of power as an opportunity to satisfy your vanity, bestowing favors on your sycophants, indulging in petty vendettas, stealing from, and abusing, those whom you disliked. Too, you tried to seek power from guards, and even, through them, to contact, and influence, others, others, even outside the house. Your pettinesses, and administered punishments, often founded on nothing more than your whims and tastes, were notorious in the house.”
Aynur moaned.
“And, in an abuse of your power, you tricked this other slave, and illicitly, treacherously delivered her, for putative gain, into our hands, in this act betraying both your office and your master.”
Aynur’s wrists seemed small, behind her back, pinioned there by the bracelets.
How helpless we are, bound!
“So it seems fitting then,” said the first man, “that your fate be now put in the hands of she whom you tricked, she whom you betrayed into our grasp.”
“Do not entrust my fate to her, Masters!” wept Aynur. “She hates me. Please, no, Masters! I am, when all is said and done, only a slave, and I am naked, and braceleted, at your feet. Have mercy on a slave, Masters!”
“What is to be done with her?” asked the first man of me.
I was startled by what had occurred. I knew that Aynur despised me. I knew that she hated me. I knew that she had willingly delivered me into the hands of these men, neither knowing nor caring what they sought of men. I knew she wanted me out of the house. I was sure she welcomed this opportunity to rid herself of me. She would not have cared, I was sure, if they had simply, once outside the house, cut my throat, or, for some reason, cast me into some pit, one of the great carnariums outside the city. She did not wish me well. She was my enemy.
“Shall we weight her ankles and hurl her into a carnarium?” asked the second man. “Shall we throw her to leech plants? Shall we stake her out to be eaten alive by insects?”
I was silent, disconcerted.
Suddenly Aynur, on her belly, oriented herself toward me. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, lying before me on the stones, a prostrate, naked, braceleted slave. I might have been a queen, kneeling over her, concealed even in the heavy, dark cloak.
But there were rings of metal on both our necks.
“We can expose her in the mountains,” said the second man. “We can leave her bound, at the mouth of a larl’s cave.”
“My life is in your hands,” wept Aynur. “Please, sweet, beloved Gail, my favorite, beloved sister in bondage, be kind, be merciful!”
Aynur did not now have her talmit, that symbol of authority. She did not now have her switch.
“I am sorry I was cruel to you!” said Aynur. “I am sorry! Am sorry!”
No longer was she first girl. She was now naught but another slave. And a rather pretty one. There was no special reason, I now saw, why she have been first girl, any more than several of the others.
“Please, beloved Gail,” she wept.
“She is beautiful, Masters,” I said, suddenly. “You do not wish to hurt her.”
He who was first among the captors looked at me, startled. The newcomer, too, who had paid little attention to these matters, turned, now, to regard me.
“She is your enemy,” said the second man. “How shall we kill her?”
“She is only a slave,” I whispered. “She wants to love and serve.”
“Yes, yes,” whimpered Aynur, her head turned to her left, her cheek on the stones.
“Do you no understand?” asked the second man. “We are granting you a rare privilege. We are permitting you to dictate the manner of an enemy’s death. You may never again receive such an opportunity. Relish your revenge! Let it be sweet!”
I put my head down. I wanted none of this.
“Beg!” said the second man to Aynur. She cried out, kicked. “My life is in your hands,” wept Aynur to me. “Permit me to be spared! I beg my life!”
“How do you address her?” inquired the second man of Aynur. She wept, again, again kicked.
“Mistress! Mistress!” she said. “I beg my life, Mistress!” I was in consternation.
I was now as Mistress to the proud Aynur!
“If I am to die, please let it be done quickly, mercifully, Mistress,” said Aynur.
“Speak!” the second man ordered me.
“I am a slave, Master,” I said. “It is neither mine to prescribe, nor dictate, the manner of another’s death. It is rather mine to obey, to serve.”
Aynur lay helplessly before me. All that had seemed cruel and hard about her before was now gone. She was now no more than the slave she was. The cruelties, the artificialities, had been broken away from her. She was now utterly vulnerable, and soft, and tender, and beautiful. Now she was no more than a helpless slave girl.
“What is to be done with her?” inquired the second man.
I looked down at Aynur, and she looked up at me, piteously. No longer was she the Aynur of old.
“We are both slaves, Masters,” I said. “That is all we are. That is our destiny and nature. We beg to love and serve. That is what we wish, to be pleasing, and to be loved. Please be kind to us. Please show us mercy. We beg it.”