The Chieftan

CHAPTER 19

Otto sat alone in his hut.

Outside, beef roasted on a spit.

Beer, in drinking horns, was being passed about.

From where he sat, Otto could hear, clearly, the blows of a smith’s hammer.

The huts of the chieftain’s village, within the palisade, tended to circle about a rather large open space. It was larger than was required for the huts in the chieftain’s village itself, and served as a place of assembly for not only the occupants of the chieftain’s village, but of the several nearby Wolfung villages as well. It was in this open place that Otto, that being the name he had taken for himself, as we have learned, had been lifted upon the shields, to the clamor and acclaim of the Wolfungs. Too, the palisade of the chieftain’s village was the stoutest of any of the villages, and his village, in case of need, was intended as a bastion of defense and a refuge for the Wolfungs for miles about. There were also supplies stored in the capital village, so to speak, which might alleviate the hunger of a great many people, in case of the failure of local croppage, or in the unlikely event of a siege conducted by men armed similarly to themselves. To be sure, a single blast from a Telnarian rifle would have blown the gate away. There was, at one point within the palisade, a deep well, which, within living memory, had never gone dry, even in the late summer. The largest hut, but primitive, as well, was the chieftain’s hut, which had only recently been reoccupied. Its floor was strewn with rushes, but there were rolled skins and furs there, which might also, if one wished, be spread upon the floor. The roofs were thick, and thatched. The walls of most of the huts were of daub and wattle, but the walls of the chieftain’s hut were made of timbers and roughly hewn planking. The interior area of the chieftain’s hut, the roof supported by several posts, gave an area with a diameter of some fifty feet. It could house then, in council, the high warriors of the Wolfungs. Others, women, retainers, and such, could wait outside. There were also, within the palisade, and within the palisades of other villages, as well, coops, stables and pens for domestic animals, which we shall call, for purposes of convenience, chickens, cattle, sheep and pigs, such terms being sufficiently appropriate for our purposes. Many of these were gathered in at night. Some cattle, in particular, milch cows, as we shall call them, were housed with families, in their own huts. There were also, here and there, cages, mostly quite small, with thick iron bars. The Wolfungs had their smiths, you see, who attended to their metalwork, in particular, the forging of weapons, spearblades, and such. There were also other devices, such as log kennels and chaining logs.

“My chieftain,” said Astubux, appearing at the entrance to the chieftain’s hut.

Otto then rose to his feet and went outside, to the open place.

He lifted his hand to the Wolfungs, who cried out upon seeing him, who raised drinking horns and spears in salute.

Janina, who was now clad in the long, loose garb of a Wolfung woman, hurried to kneel beside him.

“Here,” said Astubux, gesturing toward the large chair, on a wooden dais, set up a few feet from the fire, where the chieftain was to have his seat. Across the back of the chair was flung the pelt of a forest lion. Skins of this beast, too, were strewn on the platform.

Otto took his seat, and indicated that Janina, his slave, should kneel beside the seat, on its left.

She hurried to do so.

The officer of the court, the salesgirl and Oona, the woman in the pantsuit, knelt near a post in a hut, not far from the gate. It was dark in the hut but, clearly, outside, there were festivities. They could see, through the chinks in the daub-and-wattle siding of the hut, the flickering of a fire, the light of torches being carried about, such things. They could see bodies, too, like shadows, passing back and forth, the men in rough tunics of pelts, the women in their long dresses, of some plain cloth. There was an excellent reason why the three women knelt near the post. They had been roped to it, closely, by the neck. Their hands were still bound behind their bodies. The three women and the ensign, prisoners, had arrived in the village in the late afternoon. They had been immediately separated, the women put in this hut and the ensign taken elsewhere. Although the officer of the court would scarcely have admitted this to herself, she, and we may speculate the others as well, had been dismayed at the special selection, the special treatment, exhibited in this matter, at their being totally separated from the ensign. This keeping them together, without the ensign, did much to impress upon them, and quite acutely, that they were women. It made them, somehow, feel far more helpless and vulnerable than might otherwise have been the case. They were now merely captured women.

Two large Wolfung females then entered the hut, one bearing a lamp.

The one without the lamp removed the ropes from the prisoner’s necks. Then she untied their hands.

She indicated that they should precede her out of the hut. In a moment they were conducted between numerous men and women into the vicinity of a large fire, and knelt down before a rude dais, on which a chair had been set.

The officer of the court shrank down, and put her head down, for, to her consternation, her astonishment and horror, she recognized the figure in the chair.

She lifted her head a little and looked about. She and her fellow prisoners were the object of much attention, of both the men and women.

She gasped.

She saw Janina beside the great chair. She was kneeling there. How fitting for a slave! She hoped that Janina would not recognize her.

Where was the ensign, the young naval officer? He was nowhere in sight. She hoped he had not been killed.

She knew barbarians thought little of death. They lived with it. They were familiar with it. She remembered what had been done by the Ortungs on the Alaria, to the officer who had sat with them at the entertainment, to the captain, to his first and second officers, doubtless to many others.

But she, and the insolent, vain salesgirl, and Oona had not been killed, at least not yet.

That could have been done at the capsule.

It would have been easy enough there.

What did that mean?

Please spare me, she thought. I will do anything!

“You!” said the barbaric figure; in regal pelts, sitting on the chair, pointing.

The officer of the court thought she might die, but she realized, then, that it was not at her that he had been pointing.

“Stand,” said the chieftain, “and come closer.”

The salesgirl, in the slacks and jacket, these garments now foul with sweat and dirt, trembling, stood up.

She approached the dais.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Ellen, milord,” she said.

“Free women,” he said, “will be killed. Slaves, if found acceptable, may be spared, at least for a time.”

He regarded her.

“Do you understand?” he asked.

“Yes, milord,” she said.

“What are you?” he asked.

“I am a slave — Master,” she said.

“Remove your clothing,” he said, “completely.”

The men watched intently, and so, too, fearfully, and then in indignation, and then in envy, did the officer of the court. She gasped, seeing that garments much like those hidden beneath her “same garb” had been beneath the jacket and slacks. She is a slut! thought the officer of the court. But how beautiful she is! thought the officer of the court.

“Shall we keep her, at least for a time?” called the chieftain to the assembled Wolfungs.

“Yes, yes!” they cried. Some pounded on shields with spears.

Ellen, the salesgirl, sank to her knees to one side of the dais, trembling.

“You!” said the chieftain, pointing to the officer of the court.

She shrank back, hoping she would not be recognized.

“Stand,” said the chieftain, “and come closer.”

Numbly the officer of the court, on this remote world, in the presence of barbarians, rose to her feet. She approached the dais, and stood before it. She did not dare to meet his eyes. She hoped that he would not recognize her.

“Free women,” he said, “will be killed. Slaves, if found acceptable, may be spared, at least for a time.”

He regarded her.

“Do you understand?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

She resolved to offer him defiance, to proclaim her freedom. Was she not in “same garb”? Was she not an officer of a court? Was she not of the honestori? Was she not of Terennia, where men and women were absolutely the same in all ways? Was she not of the blood itself?

“What are you?” he asked.

“I am a slave, Master,” she said.

“That is known to me,” he said, in contempt.

Her heart sank in misery. He knew her. He recognized her. Too, she had always known, even from the first moment his eyes had fallen upon her, seeming to see her, even though she was in the dark, voluminous robes of the court, as though she might be stripped and shackled on a slave block, that he had somehow pierced to the most profound secrets of her heart, discerning there her true self, the waiting, concealed, yearning slave.

“Remove your clothing,” he said, “completely.”

Almost fainting, wavering, her fingers fumbling with the closures, the officer of the court opened the drab, bulky “same garb” and then, shuddering, lowered it to her hips.

“Ah,” said a man.

“Slave, slave,” said a man.

“You are beautiful,” whispered Oona.

The men were intent.

The officer of the court then lowered the same garb to her ankles, and stepped from it.

She heard an intake of breath.

She looked at the chieftain.

Then she sat on the ground and removed the bootlike shoes she had worn, and the long dark stockings. These stockings, as we may recall, had some purple thread sewn at their top, to show that she was of the blood. Then she had removed the brassiere and the panties.

She then stood before him, and them, a stripped slave.

“What was your name?” he asked.

“Surely you know,” she said. Then she said, “Tribonius Auresius.”

“That is a man’s name,” he said.

“It is — was — my name,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“My mother put it on me,” she said.

“Why?” he asked.

“I do not know,” she said. “Perhaps that I should think of myself as a man.”

“Are you a man?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Did you try to think of yourself as a man?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“What are you?” he asked.

“A woman,” she said.

“You are no longer permitted to think of yourself as a man,” he said. “You must now think of yourself as what you are, a woman.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes, what?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“This one,” he said to the crowd, “I will decide personally, whether she is to be kept or not, at least for a time.”

There was assent to this.

The officer of the court then, frightened, knelt beside Ellen, both at the foot of the dais, and a bit to the chieftain’s left. She did not even know if she would be kept, even for a time.

Perhaps she could please him. Perhaps that is what he would want. Certainly he had looked upon her often enough in a way which suggested that he would not be displeased to have her at his feet.

She shuddered, considering what it might be, to be at the feet of such a man.

The woman in the pantsuit was then ordered to rise, and to approach the dais.

She did so, slowly, frightened.

The two slaves at the foot of the dais muchly feared for her.

She, too, as the others, was questioned.

“But none will be interested in me!” she wept.

“Stand straight, put your shoulders back,” commanded Otto.

There was a coursing through the crowd, of admiration.

“I am a slave, Master,” she responded.

“Remove your clothing, completely,” she was told.

“Please, no, Master,” she said.

“Strip,” she was ordered, “utterly.”

She began to remove her garments.

“And you will be whipped,” he said, “for having dallied in response to an order.”

“No one will want me!” she wept.

“Stand straight,” he said.

A man clapped his hands with pleasure.

“Ah!” cried Axel.

Oona had a striking figure.

She seemed surprised, even startled, at the response of the men. It had not even occurred to her that she might be of interest.

“Shall we keep her, at least for a time?” inquired Otto, laughing.

“Yes, yes!” called men.

Axel stepped forward, towering over Oona. “Are you a good slave?” he asked.

“She does not smell, like the others!” called a man.

“I will try to be the best slave I can, Master,” said Oona, frightened.

“I want her!” announced Axel.

“Are there any objections?” asked Otto.

There were none from the Wolfungs.

“Kneel there, my slave,” said Axel, indicating a place near the other slaves.

“Yes, my master,” said Oona, looking at him with awe, and stirred by feelings she had thought she might never again feel, save in her thoughts, and in her dreams.

“Bring the other!” said Otto.

In a few moments the ensign was brought, moving with short steps, before the dais. His ankles were shackled. It was the sound of the smith’s hammer shaping these devices to his ankles to which the chieftain had listened, before emerging from the hut. A cloth, simple and brief, had been twisted about the loins of the ensign. It was not such that it might conceal a weapon. He stood before the dais, his arms folded.

“These are slaves,” said Otto, indicating the women kneeling to the left of the dais, as one would look outward from the chieftain’s chair.

“At least two are,” said the ensign.

“All are,” said Axel.

“Is it true?” asked the ensign of the women.

“Yes, Master,” said the former salesgirl.

“Yes, Master,” said the former officer of a court.

“Yes, Master,” said the other woman, the slave who had been put under claim by Axel, a counselor of the chieftain.

“Are you a slave?” asked the chieftain of the ensign.

“No,” said the ensign.

“That is known to me,” said the chieftain.

“What do you want of us?” asked the ensign.

“The utility of female slaves is evident,” said Otto.

“And what of me?” asked the ensign.

“You will work in the fields,” said the chieftain.

The ensign regarded him.

“I think,” said the chieftain, “that, in time, you may be worth a ship.”

“I am worth a thousand ships,” said the ensign.

Men whistled in awe.

“Who is this?” asked Astubux.

“Your name,” said the chieftain.

“I am Julian, of the Aurelianii,” said the ensign. The men and women about looked at one another. This name meant little to them. It was, however, much like the names one tended to associate with the remote, mysterious empire.

“Know, slaves and prisoner,” said Otto to the four before the dais, the kneeling women, and the standing male, “that the forests about us are dangerous. They teem with beasts. Your safety, particularly in the night, depends on your being within the palisade. Too, there is nowhere to go, nowhere to run. There are no friendly forces, no imperial outposts, no escape for you, on this world. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” said Julian, of the Aurelianii.

“I understand, Master,” said the slaves, each, as his eyes fell upon them.

“We will talk later,” said Otto to Julian, of the Aurelianii.

Julian nodded.

“This prisoner,” said Otto to men near him, “is to be kept in a log kennel at night. During the day he is to be used in the fields. See that he is worked long and hard.”

“We will do so, our chieftain,” responded a man.

“Take him away,” said Otto.

The ensign was then turned about and conducted from the presence of the assembled Wolfungs.

“Let these two stinking slaves be washed,” said the chieftain, indicating the former salesgirl and the former officer of the court. “Then let them all be tied at posts, to await the heating of the irons.”

“Yes, my chieftain!” said a man.

“Now,” said Otto, rising from the chair, and standing on the dais, “let the feasting begin!”

“Please, no!” cried the former officer of the court, as she was forced down by two brawny Wolfung women into the wooden tub of cold water.

She shrieked with misery, chilled, but was held in place. Sometimes she was bent double, her head forced under water, to make certain that the dirt in her hair might be soaked free. She rose sputtering from the water, shuddering and shivering. She moaned and protested, but was silenced with a blow, as heavy brushes were applied to her body, and not with gentleness by the free women, for she was a slave, and little love is lost between free women and slaves. In a nearby tub the former salesgirl, shivering, and whimpering and crying out, underwent a similarly abusive, rude scouring.

The two slaves were then drawn from the tubs and dragged by their impatient attendants to short posts. There they were knelt down with their backs to the posts. Their ankles were tied together, behind the post, and their hands were taken up, and behind the posts, where their wrists were tied together, and fastened there, behind the post, to a ring.

“I am cold!” wept the former officer of the court, but the women had left. Looking to her right she saw the former salesgirl at another post, similarly secured. Looking to the left she saw the woman who had been put under claim by Axel. She, too, was similarly secured. She had been there earlier, as she had not been subjected to a bath, it not having been deemed that she needed one.

The former officer of the court looked up.

“Master!” she said.

Before her there stood, looking down upon her, a drinking horn in his hand, Otto, the chieftain of the Wolfungs.

“They bathed me!” she said, appealing to him.

“You do not expect us to brand a filthy body, do you?” he asked.

“Surely I am not to be branded!” she said.

“Look,” said he, indicating, nearby, a brazier, glowing with heat. From the brazier there protruded the handles of three irons. Two men crouched near the brazier, tending it.

“Please, no, Master,” she said.

“The word ‘Master’ fits well on your lips, very naturally,” he observed.

“You have known it would, have you not?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“How long have you known I was a slave?” she asked.

“From the first moment I saw you,” he said.

“How?” she asked.

“From your body,” he said, “and from its movements, and from your least expressions.”

“What is the brand?” she asked, fearfully.

“It is one common in the galaxies,” he said, “the slave flower.”

“Do not mark me with that,” she wept, “or I shall always be a slave. It is known everywhere!”

“But you are a slave,” he said. “It is fitting that your body be marked with the flower of bondage. No longer is your inner truth to be hidden from the world. It is rather, now, to be proclaimed, to be made public, to all, by that mark.”

“Will you keep me?” she asked.

“Axel,” said he, “will tie his disk on her neck.” He pointed to the woman who was under Axel’s claimancy.

“What of me?” she asked.

“She,” said the chieftain, indicating the former salesgirl, “I will, at least for the time, take.”

The salesgirl looked wildly over at him, from her post.

“But what of me, Master?” asked the former officer of the court.

“Yes, what of you?” he asked.

“Keep me!” she begged.

“Why?” he asked.

“I would be your slave!” she wept.

“It is my intention,” he said, “to put my disk on your neck, at least for a time.”

She tried to move toward him a little, but could not do so. He looked down upon her.

“Do I have a name?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“Master!” she wept, but he had turned away.

There were the sounds of much feasting.

She watched the brazier, glowing in the shadows, as though it might be filled with jewels of fire.

***

Astubux sat on the dais, a drinking horn in hand, and the chieftain had returned to his place there.

“My chieftain,” said Astubux.

“Yes,” said Otto.

“What of the prisoner?”

“His taking has muchly pleased me,” said Otto, moodily.

“You can add him to your plans?” asked Astubux.

“His presence here considerably increases their probability of success,” said Otto.

“Which, I gather, is slight at best,” said Astubux, glumly.

“Drink, feast,” encouraged Otto.

“And the slaves?”

“I am thinking that two of them may figure in my plans, but only in a small way, as is fitting, as they are females, and slaves.”

“Axel has the one who was called ‘Oona,’ “said Astubux.

“Does it concern you that we have given her to Axel, who is one of my advisors.”

“Am I not, too, a counselor of my chieftain?” asked Astubux.

“You looked closely upon the blonde, whose name was ‘Ellen,’ “said Otto.

“What man would not?”

“Would you like her, to tend your hut?” asked Otto.

“Yes!” said Astubux, turning about.

“She would probably know little about tending a hut,” said Otto.

“I could teach her quickly enough with the knout,” said Astubux.

“I am thinking of giving her to you in a few days,” said Otto.

“My chieftain!” said Astubux.

“You would like her?” asked Otto, smiling.

“Yes!” said Astubux.

“She is only a slave,” said Otto.

“No matter!” said Astubux.

“Your disk will be on her neck,” said Otto. “But wait some days.”

“Yes, my chieftain,” said Astubux.

“More drink,” called Otto.

“What of the other one, the young brunette,” asked Astubux.

“I will, for the time, put my own disk on her neck,” said Otto.

“And what then?” asked Astubux.

“I do not know what I will do with her,” said Otto.

“You seem angry, my chieftain,” said Astubux.

“She is a worthless slave,” said Otto.

“But surely a pretty one.”

“Yes,” said Otto, angrily.

“She would fetch a good price,” said Astubux.

“Perhaps I will sell her,” said Otto.

Then Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs, put back his head and drank, and so, too, did Astubux, one of his counselors.

Shortly thereafter there was a cry of pain. A few minutes later there was a second cry, much like the first. Then, a few minutes after that, there was a third cry, it quite like the first two.

“The slaves have been marked,” said Astubux.

“Yes,” said Otto, chieftain of the Wolfungs.

***

A nameless brunette, a slave in a primitive village on a remote world, was thrust into her master’s hut, before him. She fell to the rush-strewn floor before his seat. It was a large hut, with posts here and there supporting the roof. There was a fire in the firepit.

He sat then in the chair, and she looked up at him, from the floor.

“Put more wood on the fire,” he said.

She found wood at the side of the hut.

“Enough,” he said.

“Kneel here,” he said, indicating a place before his chair.

She complied.

She put her hands on her thighs, but kept her knees closely together.

He looked down upon her, moodily, angrily.

She pressed her knees even more closely together.

He did not speak.

“I have been marked!” she said, suddenly.

“Put your knees apart,” he said.

The slave did so, feeling strange sensations.

On her neck, tied there, on a leather string, there was a leather disk.

A similar disk was on the neck of the blonde, but she had been put in a cage.

A disk, too, had been tied on the neck of the woman put under claim by Axel. She had understood that that was Axel’s disk, marking her as his. He had then tied her hands together, with a leather strap, before her body, and then, with one strand of the strap, extending from her wrists, had led her to his hut. She had followed timidly, but had not held back. “Are you not

frightened to belong to such a man?” the brunette had asked her, when the women, after their marking, had been crouching together.

“Better to be owned for an hour by such a man,” she had said, “than to live a lifetime with a weakling.”

Then she had been pulled to her feet, and Axel had put his disk on her neck. Then he had bound her hands before her.

“Do not forget,” had said the chieftain, “that she was tardy, earlier, in responding to a command.”

“I shall not, my chieftain,” had grinned Axel.

The brunette had then shuddered, for she recalled that the woman was to be punished for her laxity. She doubted that the woman would fail to profit from the lesson. Indeed, from even the thought of this lesson she and the blonde had already profited, having learned that these were not men such as they had hitherto known, that these were not men to be trifled with.

Axel had then led the woman to his hut.

Shortly thereafter they had heard the lash. Axel was sharp with her, but short. Axel, she gathered, was fond of the woman. He had wanted to do little more than let her know what the lash was like, and that it would be used upon her if she were not pleasing. Axel would be kind to the woman, but not lenient. She would not forget that she was a slave. She would be kept under perfect discipline.

The chieftain had then had the two young women stand, and, from behind, he had tied the string about their necks, and each, then, was tagged with his disk.

She wore it now, before him, but dared not touch it.

She had been elated when the chieftain had had Janina conduct the blonde to a cage, and lock her therein. But then she had been terrified, when he had taken her by the arm, and thrust her toward his hut. She was within it now. They were alone. Janina was not present. She had been told to go to a certain hut. It was the hut where the three slaves had been kept, before being brought forth at the feast. Janina had not been pleased to go there. The brunette had smiled. She would have cause to regret that later. But, to be sure, the brunette was also apprehensive. She had never been alone with a man before, certainly not like this, not a slave with her master.

“You are a long way from the court now,” said Otto.

She looked up.

“And from the arena,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

Somewhere outside, beyond the palisade, there was a frightful roar, as of some great carnivorous beast.

She trembled.

“It is a forest lion,” he said.

“You treated me with insolence and cruelty,” he said. “In the arena you had me bound. On the ship you attempted to embroil me in difficulties with Pulendius.”

Once again there was the roar from outside the palisade.

“Do you wish to be put outside?” he asked.

“No, Master!” she said.

“One such as you,” he said, “should not be fed to lions, but thrown bound to filchen.”

The filch was a tiny, rodentlike creature. They were omnivorous. In certain seasons they tended to run in packs, swarming over the ground like insects.

“Please, no, Master,” she said.

“You are low, and petty,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“You look well where you are, kneeling naked before a man,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“It is where you belong,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“I hold you in utter contempt,” he said.

“Master?” she asked.

“I had thought, once,” said he, “you might have the makings of a worthy slave.”

“I do not understand,” she said.

She watched him draw forth a leather strap. “Lift your hands, wrists crossed,” he said.

She watched while her wrists were bound together. A loose end of the same strap extended from her wrists, leashlike, as it had from the wrists of Axel’s slave.

She was then pulled, on her knees, to one of the posts, and her wrists were tied to the post.

“Master?” she asked.

“You are frigid, aren’t you?” he asked.

“I do not know, Master,” she said.

“The lash,” said he, “informs a woman that frigidity is not acceptable.”

“I do not think I am frigid, Master!” she said.

“Oh?” he asked.

“Try me,” she said, looking back, over her shoulder.

“Try you?” said the chieftain, amused.

“Yes!” she said. “I have strange feelings! I have never felt them before, not like this, not with such intensity. I do not think I am frigid! I want to be in my master’s arms!”

“You,” he asked, amused, “once an officer of a court, a woman of Terennia, ask to be taken in a master’s arms?”

Suddenly, helplessly, astonished, squirming, she pressed herself against the post.

“Yes,” she begged. “Yes!”

“Surely,” said he, “you do not think I have put you at the post merely to lash the ice away from your body?”

“Am I to be whipped?” she asked. “Why?”

“You were a slave by law when you submitted to me in the darkness, on the Alaria,” he said. “But I did not enforce your bondage. I continued to respect you, according you honors appropriate to a free woman, to one of the honestori, even to one of the blood, and, as such, or as though you might still have been such, I did not gag you, for I had been given your promise that you would remain silent. But you lied to me. I accepted your word, and was betrayed. You cried out. You brought guards down upon us. We might have all been killed. You were a treacherous, lying slave.”

“Master!” she protested.

“You could have been slain, as a lying slave!” he said.

She looked back at him, in agony.

“I learned then,” he said, “that you were worthless, that you were meaningless, the least of slaves, the most contemptible of slaves!”

“Not the whip!” she wept.

“Be punished, worthless bitch!” he cried.

But he struck her only a few times. Then he threw down the whip, in fury.

Then he untied her from the post and she slipped down, beside it.

He returned to his seat, and sat there, moodily, angrily.

She lay crumpled, her legs drawn up, near the post to which she had been fastened.

She could not believe what had been done to her.

She had never felt a blow, until the abuse of the free women, when they had scoured her in the wooden tub, that her body might be fit to be branded. Now she lay at the post, on the rushes, a whipped slave.

“I have been punished, have I not, Master?” she asked.

“Your punishment,” he said, “has not even begun.”

She rose to her hands and knees, and crawled to him, and then lay before him. She put his foot upon her head.

“The slave begs the forgiveness of her master,” she said.

He pulled his foot back, angrily.

“I ask only the opportunity to please you,” she said.

He did not respond.

“Surely my body is not without interest,” she said.

She said this for she thought, the naive little fool that she was, that this would be what would be of most importance to him, a particular configuration, and not the delicious, sensitive wholeness of her, the total female and slave. She knew herself, of course, that the true depth of her bondage lay in her heart and belly, in her thoughts, in her devotion, in her heat, in her love, in her desire to serve selflessly, abandoning herself to the master, surrendering herself wholly to him, his slave, his to do with as he pleased. That her body might be beautiful, or exciting, or of interest, was a joy to her, surely, and, too, one for which she was grateful, for it helped her to express the inwardness of her bondage, of her love, for you see, from the first moment she had looked upon the titanic, fiery youth on Terennia, she had wanted him to want her, to care for her, to be attentive to her, to place her uncompromisingly in his chains, to own her, and fulfill her.

“Let me serve you,” she said.

“What does a woman of Terennia know of serving a man?” he asked.

“Teach me,” she begged.

“A taste of the whip, and you are ready to learn,” he said, angrily.

She put her head down.

“Do you think I have brought you here to serve me?” he asked.

“Master?” she asked, raising her head.

“I brought you here only to denounce you, and chastise you,” he said.

“Let me prove to you that I am truly what you think me to be,” she said.

“And what is that?” he asked.

“A slave, Master,” she said.

“And what sort of slave?” he asked.

“A loving slave who would serve you with every bit of herself, with her whole body, her whole heart, with all that she is, and ever hopes to be!”

“Clever slave,” he sneered.

“Master?” she asked.

“Lying slave!” he cried.

He cuffed her.

She struggled to her knees, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She looked at him and felt, suddenly, a wave of fear, and hatred, and misery, and desire, and helplessness.

“I have strange feelings!” she wept. “I cannot help myself! Treat me then, if you wish, as a hated, despised woman. Abuse me! Are you dissatisfied with me? Have I displeased you? Make me pay! Make me pay well! Ravish me. Subdue me. Teach me I am a woman. Leave me in no doubt as to the matter. Make me beg for more. But attend to me! Do not ignore me!”

“And what are these feelings?” he asked.

“I think — I think that I am in — in heat, Master,” she said.

“Yes,” he sneered. “Even a woman such as you, one so vain, so petty, so meaningless, so contemptible, with a disk on her neck, will find herself in heat!”

But then once again her helplessness, her vulnerability, her love, overcame her. “I am yours, totally, Master,” she said. “Please be kind to me, my master,” she begged.

He rose from the chair and went to the portal of the hut. “Janina!” he called. “Janina!”

In a few moments, summoned, Janina appeared at the portal.

He indicated the brunette, now on her hands and knees, on the rushes, before the chieftain’s chair.

“Get this slut from my sight!” he said. “Cage her!”

Janina rushed to a side of the hut and seized up a switch and ran to the brunette. She lashed down at her with the switch, and the brunette cried out in misery. “Get out! Get out!” said Janina.

The brunette fled from the hut, switched.

“That way!” said Janina. “There! Down on all fours!”

“Yes, Mistress!” wept the brunette.

“Get in it!” said Janina.

A stroke of the switch hastened the entry of the brunette into the heavy but tiny cage. She turned about, on her knees, within, to see the door flung shut and the two padlocks, heavy, flung on the hasps, over the staples, and snapped shut.

The brunette, kneeling, clutched the bars, looking up at Janina.

“Earlier you smiled at me, when you thought to be alone with the master,” said Janina, angrily. “Now I smile at you!”

“Forgive me, Mistress!” said the brunette.

“Janina!” called the chieftain, and the slave ran to him.

In her cage the brunette lay down. It was cold. She wept.