The Captain

CHAPTER 23

The small slave, hooded, naked, kneeling, her wrists encircled with steel, put out her hands, following the chain running from her wrists, and felt the heavy ring, fixed in the floor, to which she, by the wrists, was chained.

It was only that night that she had been sold, and that only in a magistrate’s auction, one in which a variety of items, not only women, had been offered, abandoned parcels, unclaimed trunks, confiscated properties, a captured stray dog, many such things.

She felt the ring carefully, her small fingers touching it, and holding it.

She had been exhibited naked, of course.

She had obeyed the auctioneer with perfection.

It had not been necessary to strike her, even once.

She was still reeling with what it had been like, ascending to the tall, wide, rounded block, the lights, being frightened, not being able to see the men, really, the sawdust beneath her feet, the loose metal collar with its light chain on her neck, not inhibiting her movements, the prodding of the auctioneer’s coiled whip, which had snapped once and had made her cry out, almost as though she had been struck.

There seemed something terribly familiar about the ring. She put out her fingers and felt the floor about it.

She tried, defensively, to conceptualize the matter as one of having given the men a good show, but she realized that that was a self-serving distortion of what had actually occurred. Oh, to be sure, doubtless it had been a good show, but that was largely the auctioneer’s doing. Putting it the other way suggested that it might have been the consequence of some decision on her part, or the result of some benevolent or defiant intention, that sort of thing. Rather she was only a property, which had been well displayed, in numerous attitudes, postures, and such. It was true, however, a little later, and as the bidding heated, she had been almost overcome with strange feelings, exciting, moving, thrilling feelings. It was then that she had, suddenly, perhaps for the first time, fully understood that she was a property, really, a wondrous, vital, excited, acutely conscious, extremely sensitive, highly intelligent, incredibly desirable property, a property that most men would find far more appealing than gold and diamonds, a property for which men might even kill. She tried to force such thoughts, such memories from her mind. Could it have been she who had behaved as the girl on the block? She could feel the heat as the men cried out. She could feel the interest and desire, like waves, such an incredible feeling, wash over her. She had had an identity imposed upon her, a clear, incontrovertible identity, but, too, this identity had seemed to emerge from within her. It was as though, for the first time in her life, she had had no choice but to be what she truly was. On the block then, there had been, at the end, only a flushed, startled, sweating, comprehending, leashed slave girl. But now, again, she was frightened. One bidder had apparently, not even audibly, but by signs from the audience, topped each bid. He had had her for a bid of forty darins, which was high for a girl at the magistrate’s auction, and well satisfied the auctioneer, but would not have been unusual, or even high, for a typical auction of women, even in a small town. But, of course, rich men seldom attended magistrate’s auctions, apparently finding them of little interest. Too, she was not even trained. But now, she realized, she no longer belonged to the city, but, presumably, to some private individual.

She now had a master!

Her fingers touched the ring, and the floor about it.

They trembled a little.

“Oh!” she cried, softly, for large, heavy hands were at her neck, undoing the fastenings on the hood, and then they thrust up the hood, a little, revealing her trembling, parted lips, there was no doubt they were masculine hands, and they held her face. The hood was left much in place, so that it acted as a blindfold. She felt her hair, what had been loosened in the partial lifting of the hood, touched, felt, almost wonderingly, and then arranged, softly about her shoulders. This seemed to be done almost with a sort of curiosity. Her hair had been washed and combed prior to the sale, but it was a bit disarranged now, and sweaty, from its incarceration in the hood. She had also been touched with perfume, prior to being taken to the block. The perfume was perhaps a bit subtle for a slave, but then she was new to the brand. Perhaps they thought it might make her first night in chains, at the mercy of a master, easier. But that seems unlikely. It is much more probable that it was designed, in its subtlety, to encourage a master to prowl her beauty, almost as in curiosity, detecting and relishing it. It was, of course, a cheap perfume. That would be expected from a magistrate’s auction. And it was also, as those versed in such matters would have recognized, a slave perfume, a perfume extracted and prepared with the vulnerable beauty of a slave in mind. She was now aware of someone, behind her, bending over her, taking in the scent of the perfume.

She did not dare speak.

She knew herself slave.

Then, in a moment, she felt a glass held softly to her lips, and tilted a little.

She tasted kana and was eager for more, but the glass was withdrawn.

Barely had she wet her lips.

She understood then that what she drank, and in what quantities, was no longer at her discretion, but at that of another.

Her lips trembled a little.

She heard a tiny noise, as of something being broken, a cracker, or perhaps a biscuit.

A moment later she felt a small piece of pressed cake of cereal put betwixt her lips, against her teeth.

She thought to lift her hands but, as she was kneeling, and they were fastened, she could not bring them near her mouth, not without changing her position, bending down, lying down, such things.

She opened her teeth and took the bit of pressed cake into her mouth, and ate it.

She was surprised at how sensitive her lips were, so soft, and moist, to the smallest touch. She could scarcely conjecture what it might feel like, what it might be to feel with them other surfaces, other textures, such as the body of a man. She felt, again, the presence of a bit of pressed cake against her teeth.

Even the tiny pressure of the cereal cake against her teeth could be felt, so clearly, so precisely. Her entire body was becoming sensuously alive, even helplessly so.

She fed.

She opened her mouth, again, lifting it, delicately, even imploringly, as she was hungry.

Surely there must be more.

But there was not.

She understood then that what she ate, and in what quantities, was no longer at her discretion, but at the discretion of another.

Indeed, whether she was to have food or drink at all, she now realized, was not at her discretion, but at that of another. It had not been a true feeling, at all, she then realized. It had been an instruction.

She trembled. She had learned a valuable lesson for a slave.

Suddenly, terribly frightened, she put down her hands and grasped the ring, and she then put them about the ring, seeing how it fitted into its hemispherical staple, and she then felt the heavy, solid plate, bolted into the floor, in which the staple, with the ring, was fixed, its dimensions, its shape, its height above the floor, the location and nature of the bolts which anchored it in the floor, and she then felt, even, the very nature of the floor itself, and a crack in a board, a place where something once must have scraped.

Her heart began, to pound wildly.

Surely she knew the plate, the ring, the staple.

She was certain then, too, that the crack, or gouge, she could now feel was one which once she had seen.

She lifted her head, her lips trembling. She jerked at her chains, but her wrists could move only a few inches upward, as they were fastened closely to the ring.

“Yes,” said a voice. “It is the same room.”

She squirmed on her knees, and jerked at the chains.

Hands took the hood in their grip and pulled it wider, and then, lifting it, tore it away.

“You!” she cried.

He seemed very tall then, standing over her. In his hand was the hood.

Damp, dark hair was loose, and wild, about her head and shoulders.

“Is this some form of jest?” she asked, pleadingly.

“I suppose so,” he said.

“Is this the room of my master?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“It is my room,” he said.

“You are my master?” she said.

“Yes,” said Tuvo Ausonius, “I am your master.”