I was to be appropriately placed, aligned, and instructed.
Outside the chamber I could see little but the stone flagging of the corridor hall. I was aware of the proximity of two or three men. I did not look up. They wore heavy boot-like sandals. One of them reached down and took me by the upper left arm, and guided me to a position in the center of the corridor. My body was then aligned with the long axis of the corridor. With respect to the interior of my chamber, I was facing left.
I heard other doors opening behind me, one by one, and heard the voices, in various languages.
I remained as I was, not daring to change my position in the least degree.
I was yet, it seemed, to be instructed.
I realized then, only fully comprehending it for the first time, one takes such things so for granted, that the voice which had addressed me had done so in my own language.
Other doors opened, father down the hall, behind me.
Patterns of light moved about on the stones, the consequence, I suppose, of the movements of lanterns.
He had had an accent, of course. Whereas it is surely possible to speak a language which one has not learned in one’s childhood without an accent, it is, as one might suppose, unusual. One’s speech generally tends to retain a foreign flavor. Sometimes that the tongue one speaks is not native to one is revealed by so little as an occasional slip in pronunciation, say, the shifting treatment of a consonant, perhaps under conditions of stress, such as anger, or fear. He had made no attempt, as far as I could tell, to disguise an accent. That his speech might be intelligible to me was, perhaps, quite sufficient for him. I could not place the language these men spoke among themselves. It was no language I knew, nor even one I could recognize. Yet, oddly, it seemed sometimes reminiscent of other languages, which, to one degree or another, if only by sound, I was familiar with. At times I even thought I detected a word I knew. To be sure, similar sounds need not mean similar words. A given sound might have many meanings, and quite different meanings.
I kept my head down.
My eyes were now becoming adjusted to the light.
The only source of light in the corridor, as far as I could tell, was that carried by various men, which source I supposed was lanterns. Without that light the corridor, as far as I could tell, would have been totally dark. The corridor itself, I supposed, would be sealed off by some door or gate. Even if I had been able to get loose from my collar, that by means of which I had been fastened to the wall of my chamber, even if I had been able, somehow to get though the heavy door which kept me in my chamber, I would, I supposed, have soon encountered another barrier, that which, presumably, closed the corridor. Too, as the corridor was in utter darkness, as soon as a lantern was lifted in it, I would have been rendered temporarily blind, and totally at the mercy of whoever had entered.
From the point of view of most, I suppose, the corridor would have counted as being, at best, only dimly lighted, but, as such things tend to be relative, it seemed, by contrast, well illuminated to me.
I was aware of a fellow standing near me. He had the heavy bootlike sandals, as did the others. Other than the sandals, his legs were bare. He wore a tunic, or something like that. I did not understand his mode of dress. It was totally unlike things with which I was familiar. I did not think I knew this place. This place, I thought, is very different from what I am used to. His legs were sturdy. I found them frightening, and disturbing. What place is this, I asked myself. It is so different from places with which I am familiar. I am not in my own culture, I thought. This is not my culture. I thought. This is a different culture. This may be a quite different culture. Things may be quite different here.
And my speculations, as I would soon learn, would prove correct, profoundly correct.
Then the man moved away.
But another, in short time, paused near me.
I was much aware of him, but, of course, I kept my head down. He was, it seemed, like the other, large and strong. I found his presence disturbing, as I had found that of the other.
The culture here, though quite different from my own, I thought, seems all of a piece. Things seem to fit, the nature of my incarceration, the simplicity of things, the architecture, the mode of dress, the iron on my wrists and angles.
I kept my head down.
What place was this? How had I come here? Surely I did not belong here! But then I trembled. Perhaps, I thought, the thought terrifying me, this is where I belong. Perhaps I was not where I belonged before. Perhaps this is exactly where I belong.
The fellow beside me moved away.
The last door had now apparently been opened. I heard no more of them being opened.
I lifted my head the tiniest bit. I saw small ankles before me, joined by chain, as mine were. I was only one in a line. I was then, I conjectured, as I had suspected. I was here as a result of selections, based upon some criterion or other. The matter was objective, not personal. It was not that I had offended someone and that my plight had been accordingly engineered for someone’s amusement, or that it constituted perhaps, in its way, some sweet tidbit of revenge, one perhaps of many such, the subjects of which, left here, might later be dismissed from mind, and, in time, forgotten. No, the matter was impersonal. My position here was not a consequence of who I was, but, rather, of something else, perhaps of what I was. The primary reason I was here was, I supposed, because I was of a certain sort, or kind. But what sort, or kind, could that be? I did not know. I looked at the ankles before me, and the anklets, so close about them. Some of the links of chain between the anklets rested on the stones. I supposed that the metal on my own anklets, though I had not seen it in the light, was the same, or similar. Certainly there would be no reason for it to be different. No, there was nothing unique or special than characterized the others in the line. It extended before me and, doubtless, behind me. How many were in it I did not know. There had been several doors opening and closing. Perhaps, I conjectured, there might be fifty of us in this line. There were several in front of me, and doubtless several, given the doors opening and closing, behind me. I thought I might be about two thirds of the way back in the line. Those before me and behind me, as nearly as I could tell, from the languages which had been addressed to them, did not speak my language, or, indeed, one another’s language. Our placement in line, I suspected, might not be a matter of chance. I did not think that we had a language in common, as yet.
I heard the tread of those heavy sandals approaching. I put down my head, even lower. Then they passed.
I, and doubtless the others, had been forbidden to look upon our captors. This was very unsettling to me. I wondered why this was. Yet I was, also, afraid to look upon them. I did not know what I would see. Why do they not wish us to look upon them, I wondered. Can their aspects be so terrible, or hideous, I wondered.
Perhaps they are disfigured. I thought. Perhaps they are not truly human, I feared. Perhaps they are animals! I did not want to be eaten! But I did not think they were animals. And I doubted that I would have been brought here to be eaten. Certainly I had not been fattened. Rather, given the meager diet to which I had been subjected, my figure had been excellently trimmed. This suggested an entirely different theory as to what might be one of my major values in such a place. To be sure, terribly frightened, I thrust this very thought immediately from my head. It was too terrible to even consider.
I then heard, the sound frightening to me, from back, near what must be the end of the line, the sound of several coils of chain thrown to the flooring.
“Steady,” said a voice near me.