A messenger had been awaiting the return of the pit master. His missive had been delayed, given the disruptions in the city, and those in the pits.
“I will never see him again!” said the Lady Constanzia.
“Eat,” I said.
‘No,” she said.
“Do you wish me whipped, that you have not fed?” I asked.
“Take it to the other girls,” she said. “None will know.”
I put the plate to one side. My fellow pit slaves would be glad to get it. It was better than their common fare in the pits. They would fall on their knees about the pan, seizing what they could from it.
“I bring you word,” I said, “which has but recently been received.”
“Is it word from him?” she asked, looking up.
“Alas, no,” I said. “But it should make you happy. It is good news for you, indeed.”
“What?” she asked, in misery.
“Your ransom has been paid,” I said. “The agreed-upon amounts have been lodged with the business council, the entire matter attested to by the commercial praetor. I saw the orders, and the seals.”
“You cannot read,” she said.
“I could not read the orders,” I said, “but I saw them, and the seals.”
The orders, bearing the seals, had been delivered to the pit master.
“Rejoice!” I said. “Your sojourn here, in this damp, dismal place, in this cell, behind these bars will soon be done. You will soon be returned to your native city and your accustomed mode of life.”
She put her head down on the mat, and sobbed.
“Do not cry,” I said. “This is what you have longed for, this is what you have waited for, this is what you have lived for, what you have hungered for, your freedom, your liberty!”
She wept.
“What is wrong?” I asked.
“Better a chain in a poor man’s kitchen,” she said.
“What?” I said.
She looked up at me. “You know I am not a free woman,” she said.
“You are a free woman!” I assured her. “You must be!”
“Why?” she asked.
I did not know what to respond to her.
“I want to be helpless,” she said. “I want to be owned!”
“Lady Constanzia!” I protested.
“Do you not understand?” she asked. “I want, with all that I am, with everything that I am, to love and serve, holding back nothing, ever! I want to give all!”
I was silent.
“Surely you understand these things, Janice,” she said.
“I am only a collared slave,” I said. “I have no choice in such matters!”
“Fortunate Janice!” she wept.
“Hist!” I said. “I think I hear the approach of the guard. Hasten! Don the robes of concealment!”
“No,” she wept.
“You must!” I said.
“No,” she said. “Whip me, if you wish, as a slave.”
The guard’s footsteps came closer.
I seized up her robes of concealment and flung them over her as though they might have been bedclothes.
I then knelt before her, putting my hands out. “Please, Master!” I said. “Here is a free woman! She is not clothed. All is well. I will soon leave the cell! Please do not look. Please do not compromise her modesty!”
But he did look, a little, particularly were one ankle emerged from beneath the robes.
But then he took his way away, continuing with his rounds.
“Thank you, Master,” I said.
“Those were the happiest days of my life,” said the Lady Constanzia, “with him, in his power, in a collar and the rags of a slave.”
I kissed her, trying to comfort her.
“I will never see him again. I will never see him again,” she wept.
I picked up the plate, with the untouched food, and left the cell, locking it behind me.
27
“May I speak, Master?” I asked.
“Yes,” said the pit master.
I was following him in the corridors, on his morning rounds, the day following the events recently recounted.
“The strangers sought an entrance to the tunnels,” I said.
“It would seem so,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Who knows?” he said.
“Master knows,” I speculated.
“Are you insolent?” he asked, not looking back, continuing to move before me, with those short, irregular steps.
“No, Master,” I said. ‘Forgive me, Master! I beg not to be beaten!”
28
“Is this the Lady Constanzia?” asked the fellow behind the high desk, looking down upon us.
“Yes, your honor,” said the pit master.
“Bring her forward,” he said. He was, as I understood it, an officer in the business court, that under the jurisdiction of the commercial praetor, subject, ultimately, to the high council.
The Lady Constanzia, clad in new, rich, ornate robes of concealment, fully hooded and veiled, was conducted forward, between two guards, from the pits. There were also, in the lofty, circular, sunlit room, the light coming through high, narrow windows, dust motes visible within it, two guards of the court. A broad, scarlet marbled circle was before the high desk of the praetor’s officer, and the Lady Constanzia was conducted to its center, the guards then withdrawing, moving back, several feet, leaving her there, alone, on the circle. She seemed small there, even tiny, before the high desk. The pit master, as indicated, was also in the room. I, too, was there. Indeed, it was I who, in my office as keeper for the state of the free woman, had led her here, she leashed and back-bracleted on the way. Though it might be thought demeaning to a free woman to be in the keeping of a slave, it was also thought to be less compromising to her modesty than to be led by a male. Having such in the keeping of a female, too, of course, is likely to be safer than entrusting them to a male who, after all, particularly if irritated of provoked, might be tempted to do far more to her than compromise her modesty. The slave, too, of course, is much more subject to supervision and control than a free man. She may, for example, for any lapse, or putative lapse, be easily put to punishment. Within the entrance to the court the Lady Constanzia had been freed of the leash and bracelets. One of the guards had inserted these within his pouch. I knelt back, and to the side, on the left side of the room, as one would face the desk. I wore a clean, modest tunic. My hair had been washed and brushed. It had also been tied back, behind my head. In this fashion it was perhaps less distractive, less luxurious and slavelike. But it also, of course, accented my collar.
To the left of the praetor’s officer, to our right, as we faced him, below him, on the floor level, on a bench, behind a table, was a court’s clerk.
“You are the Lady Constanzia, of the city of Besnit?” inquired the praetor’s officer.
“I am,” she said.
“You have been the object of ransom capture,” said the praetor’s officer.
“Yes your honor,” she said.
He then addressed himself to the court’s clerk. “There is no difficulty as to the matter of her identity?” he asked.
“No, your honor,” said the clerk. “Her fingerprints tally with those taken shortly after her delivery to Treve by the abductors.”
“Have the agents of the redemptor accepted her as the Lady Constanzia?” inquired the praetor’s officer.
“They have, your honor,” said the clerk.
“In virtue of interrogations and such?”
“Yes, your honor.”
“There is the matter of the slipper.”
“It is here,” said the clerk. He produced a tiny, jeweled, muchly embroidered slipper. It might have cost more than many slaves.
The praetor’s officer nodded to the clerk and carried the slipper to the Lady Constanzia, who took it in her hands, and looked upon it.
“Do you recognize it?” asked the praetor’s officer.
“Yes, your honor,” she said. “It is mine.”
“It matches with that brought by the agent of the redemptor?” asked the praetor’s officer.
“Yes, your honor,” said the clerk. He then took it back from the Lady Constanzia and returned to his desk.
“The court of the commercial praetor of the high city of Treve,” said the praetor’s officer,” accepts the prisoner as the Lady Constanzia of Besnit.”
The clerk made a notation on his records.
“You are now within the custody of the court of the commercial praetor of Treve,” said the officer.