But then, suddenly, a wave of slave terror overcame me. I was a slave. It could be done with me as masters pleased! I was owned!
I watched the free woman withdraw, her tiny hand on the arm of the slaver.
Was she mad, I wondered. But perhaps she knew him. Perhaps he was well known in the city. Perhaps there was no danger. But surely she must understand the meaning of those three tiny chevrons on his left sleeve. Did she not know that he must have handled hundreds, perhaps thousands, like herself, in their chains and collars, appraising them, determining their order of sale, taking his profit on them?
They were now well across the terrace.
I wondered if she wondered, beneath her robes, and veil, walking across the terrace, what might be the feel of slave iron on her limbs, what it might be to feel the sawdust of the slave block beneath he bared feet, what it might be to hear the call of the auctioneer, proposing her for the consideration of buyers.
“They are gone now,” I whispered to the Lady Constanzia. “Get up.”
She rose to her knees, unsteadily, trembling. I did not think she could stand at the moment.
“I could have been beaten,” she said.
“You are in a collar, and clad as a slave,” I said.
“I could have been switched,” she said. “As a slave!”
“Of course,” I said. “I am only surprised that you were not.”
“Why?” she asked.
“The switch,” I said, “would not have marked you. Oh, it might have put stripes on you which might, for a day or so, have had some effect on your price, but the stripes would go away.”
“Then why was I not beaten?” she asked.
“He might have been afraid that she did not know how to beat a slave,” I said. “He might have been afraid that she, somehow, in her rage, might have actually injured you. Perhaps he was afraid that you might have been blinded, which would, assuredly, have lowered your price.”
She shuddered.
“But, I think,” I whispered, “that he, a salver, suspected that you might not be truly bond, but something else, perhaps what you are, a mere prisoner. He might have thus intervened to prevent the indignity of you being beaten, as a mere slave.”
“Do you think so?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Would the people of your city object to the switching or whipping of an errant slave?”
“No,” she said. “If the slave is not fully pleasing, she is to be punished. Everyone knows that.”
“And so,” I said, “they would be unlikely to interfere.”
“True,” she said.
“And they would think little of the matter.”
“That is true,” she said. “They would think little or nothing of it. They might pause to jeer the girl, encouraging her to profit from her beating. That is all. It is just something that is done-and appropriately-to slaves. They must learn to be pleasing.”
“It is the same here,” I said. “I have seen slaves publicly whipped three times in this city, once on a lower terrace, and twice in the bazaar. And several times I have seen them hastened by a blow of two of a belt or switch.”
She shuddered.
“They are slaves,” I said.
“Of course,” she said.
I looked at her.
“-As I might be taken to be,” she said.
“Precisely,” I said.
“And I might then be treated similarly.”
“Certainly.”
“And then I, too, might be whipped, as they, perhaps even on a mere whim-whipped-literally-whipped.”
“Exactly,” I said.
“Do you think any others might know that I am not bond?” she asked.
“I doubt it,” I said. “indeed, he may have thought you bond, but merely new to your collar.”
“But you think he knew?”
“I think so,” I said. “Presumably he is an experienced slaver.”
“Do you think he had any doubts about you?” she asked.
“No,” I said, reddening. “I do not think he had any doubts whatsoever about me.”
“I could have been whipped,” she said, wonderingly.
“Are you able to stand?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“You should have been switched,” said a male voice, to the Lady Constanzia.
We both, startled, looked up, from our knees.
The Lady Constanzia gasped. Then, swiftly, she thrust down her head.
It was the fellow in the scarlet tunic, with the scarlet cloak, whom I had originally noted in the vicinity of the balustrade, where we had been looking upon the mountains.
“Lift your head, slave,” said he to the Lady Constanzia.
She did so.
She kept her head up, but, after an instant, was careful not to meet his eyes. In her first glance she had grasped, with the immediate understanding a woman has of such things, the nature of his scrutiny. She knelt very straight, frightened. She was being considered, as a female. He did not hurry. And he even walked about her. Then he was again before her. “A beautiful face,” he commented to me. “Good slave curves. Excellent hair.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“You should have been switched,” he said to the Lady Constanzia.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I was startled. That was the first time I had heard her use the world ‘Master’ to a man.
“Why weren’t you?” he asked.
“I do not know, Master,” she said.
He looked at me.
“I do not know, Master,” I said.
“You were very fortunate,” he said to the Lady Constanzia.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“I, myself, would not have been so lenient,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, swallowing hard. He was such as would think nothing of beating her.
“Has she been whip-trained?” he asked me.
“No,” I said.
“She must indeed be quite new to her collar,” he said.
“yes, Master,” I said. He must then, I surmised, have been reasonably close, in the crowd, during the incident with the free woman.
“She nearly drank from the first basin,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I admitted. He had been watching us then.
“It seems,” he said, regretfully, “she is stupid.”
“No, Master,” I said. “It is only that she has much to learn about her collar.”
“She is not totally stupid?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said.
“She has some intelligence then?” he asked, interested.
“Yes, Master,” I said. “She is actually quite intelligent.”
“Excellent,” he said, pleased.
Then he looked at me, and snapped his fingers. “Collar,” he said.
Instantly I, trained, leaped to my feet and stood quite close to him, uncomfortably close, and held my hands a little behind my body. I lifted my chin. He crooked a finger under my collar and pulled me closer to him, holding me in place. I could feel his finger against my neck, on the left side, between the steel of the collar and the flesh. I could also feel the collar drawn tighter against the back of my neck.
“It is a state collar,” he said. “Your name is ‘Janice’.”
“Yes, Master,” I whispered.
He released me, and I knelt.
He then regarded the Lady Constanzia. He snapped his fingers and said, “Collar!”
She rose uncertainly to her feet, and approached him. She had, of course, had my example from which to profit. She, to my surprise, however, stood closer to him than I would have expected, and more close to him than I had, originally. It seemed she was improving on my example. Was she then, in such matters, to be my teacher? She lifted her chin delicately. In response to the “collar command,” the salve approaches the male, that he need not inconvenience himself by coming toward her. She then lifts her chin and places her hands behind her. It is thus that a girl renders herself vulnerable for the reading of her collar. In this case, of course, the Lady Constanzia’s hands were already behind her, her small, lovely wrists closely linked together, well pinioned, in the steel of slave bracelets.