The Usurper

28

The sand was warm, even uncomfortably so, beneath the bared feet of Cornhair.

She could not see for the hood, covering her entire head, snugly buckled about her neck.

“Mistresses?” she begged.

But she was not answered.

She did not know to whom she belonged.

“This way,” she heard, a woman’s voice, “here, before the box of honor, housing the throne of the hostess.”

Cornhair felt the tug of the leash, and she followed on its strap, a few feet across the warm sand.

In the tunnel she had not been hooded.

She did not think the structure was a large one.

Two days ago she had been purchased from the slave house in Telnar, for five darins.

She did not know where she was.

She had been taken from the slave house, hooded, bound, and leashed. On the street outside the slave house, she had gathered, from sounds, and words spoken, that two palanquins had been waiting, with their bearers, or attendants. The two women, one of whom it seemed had purchased her, took their places in the two conveyances, which were then put to the shoulders of the bearers. Her leash was fastened to the rear of the first palanquin, which she must follow, on foot. She was still naked, from the slave house, even in the street, but naked slaves, though not common in the public streets of Telnar, were not unknown. For example, the citizens of Telnar were not unfamiliar with chains of nude girls, captives not yet put under the iron, and marked slaves, sometimes from far worlds, being conducted from port pens to markets. Also, as a discipline, or punishment, Masters might send their girls about the city, on errands, and such, clad only in their collars. Slaves are well aware that a tunic may be awarded, withheld, or removed, at the discretion of the Master. The control of clothing, like food, blindfolding, gagging, whipping, binding, and such, are at the prerogative of the Master. Girls are well aware of this, and it is nothing likely to be forgotten more than once. Some Masters keep their slaves nude indoors, but almost all will have them clothed in public, though clothed as what they are, as slaves. Cornhair, on her leash, was grateful for the hood. In its way, it granted her a certain welcome anonymity. What would it matter if she should walk as a slave, if no one knew it was she? Had she not, as a woman, at least after she had been embonded, been often tempted to do so, to walk as a slave is expected to walk, so naturally, so gracefully, so beautifully? Might it not be thrilling to do so, to walk as other girls, so excitingly, so desirably, women who were well aware they were slaves, women who were delightedly slaves, women grateful to be slaves, women proud of specialness, vain of the collars on their necks? Certainly she was a woman and much more aware of her womanhood, and its power, in a collar than she had ever been as a free woman. As a free woman she would have been afraid to walk unabashedly as a woman. As a slave she need have no such inhibitions. Indeed she might be lashed if she tried to conceal or deny the loveliness, vulnerability, and fullness of her sex. It was no wonder free women so hated slaves, for in the chains of their freedom they were denied the freedom of their sex. As she followed the first palanquin she could not but be aware of the vulgar sounds, comments, compliments, and reactions which greeted her passage. Indeed, she started several times, crying out in the hood, in response to pinches and good-natured, sharp, stinging slaps. It was natural then, in her vanity, that she walk as a slave. Who would know?

“She is a nasty little slave, Delia,” called out the woman in the second palanquin. “She will do very nicely!”

“Excellent!” was the response from the first palanquin.

“They are pleased,” thought Cornhair. “They must have bought me for a man, perhaps for a friend, a husband, a son, or nephew.”

Whereas it was unusual for a wife to buy a female slave for her husband, it was not unusual for a husband to buy himself a female slave, for his couch ring. To be sure, this liberty was not reciprocated. If a wife desired extramarital male attention she would be well advised to proceed with caution, to arrange judicious assignations, or, incognito, visit male brothels.

Perhaps it was the anonymity of the hood, or knowing herself leashed, or being unable to part her hands, bound behind her, but Cornhair had seldom felt herself so much alive as now, when she was so fully and helplessly in the power of others. Could it be that she was a natural slave, living to be owned? Too, the sensations of the unexpected attentions, a pinch, a slap, had been acute, keenly enlivening, not really painful, but assuredly stimulating. And were they not, in their way, flattering, as well? And surely the feel of a pinch, the sting of a slap, lingered in her body. To be sure, such things were far less troubling, or disturbing, or significant, she was sure, than would have been a kiss, put on her as a slave, a caress or a grasp, a handling of her as a slave. There was no mistaking such things. Why should she fear certain sensations, she wondered, if she were hooded? Who would see the parting of her lips, the sudden, astonished widening of her eyes? Who would even be close enough to sense the tiny changes in her breathing, its quickening, who so close that they might hear the tiny inadvertent noises which might escape her, scarcely audible beyond the layers of closely woven canvas?

Cornhair had the uneasy sense that she might become needful, as a slave is needful.

How helpless would she then be!

Could she resist being enflamed? What if men should do it to her?

What would it be to feel a man’s hands on her, to know herself truly his slave?

She must then hope to please him.

She had felt the lash in the slave house.

“I am afraid of the whip,” she thought. “How is it that I should fear the whip? Only slave girls fear the whip. I fear the whip. What can that mean? Is its meaning not clear? I am a slave girl!”

Cornhair was well aware of the responses from the crowd, the noises, the comments, assessing her, as a beast may be assessed.

“Thirty darins,” she heard. “Thirty-five,” she heard.

And then Cornhair walked, as might have a thirty-five-darin girl.

She heard the women in the palanquin behind her call out to her companion in the lead palanquin, that to which her leash was attached. “She is the sort that men like,” she heard.

“Excellent,” she heard, from the lead palanquin. “She will do very nicely.”

But Cornhair was puzzled. It was a woman who had bought her. But, why? Surely to give her to a male. But what woman would buy a girl for a man? Was there not a war between the free woman and the slave?

Cornhair followed on her tether, for better than an hour, through various streets, some perhaps, from the sounds, and from the smoothness of the footing, boulevards, others less favored, more cobbled, streets of a more common sort, and, occasionally, it seemed, from the adjustments of the bearers, from the dampness and spillage, from the coolness, from the absence of sunlight on her body, from the sense of compressed, narrowly channeled wind brushing her, streets less streets than dismal alleys or secluded walkways, some little more than muddy trails, crevicelike, between walls. Then, later, the passage of the palanquins once more grew linear and their progress proceeded apace. Why, Cornhair wondered, had a seeming detour, through narrow, poorly paved, even sodden, streets, been effected? Were the grand ladies, for already Cornhair had begun to think of the free in terms quite different from those in which she thought of herself, reluctant to be recognized in this part of the journey? Did they wish to conceal their approach to a particular destination, by recourse to a less public, more circuitous route? Had she not thought she had heard the drawing of the curtains on two palanquins?

What is becoming of me, wondered Cornhair.

What are these strange feelings I am beginning to have? Surely they are not appropriate for one of the honestori, for one, even, of the patricians, even of the senatorial class! But I am no longer of the honestori, no longer of the patricians, no longer of the senatorial class!

I am becoming different. I cannot help myself!

Are these two women so truly grand, so different from me?

Would I not have despised them, even mocked them, in my freedom?

Why do I now fear them as so far above me, so far beyond me?

Why do I tremble before them? Why do I fear to meet their eyes?

Why should I stand in awe of them? Why should I hurry to kneel before them, and feel it right that I should do so?

Would they not be the same as me if their thighs were marked, if they were stripped, if their necks were clasped in the close-fitting, locked band of servitude!

No, they would not then be different.

But now they are!

So different!

I am changing, she thought. I cannot help myself. I am beginning to see the world as what I now am, as a slave, as one who is owned. I am beginning to think as a slave, move as a slave, speak as a slave. I am beginning to feel my body as the body of a slave, my mind as the mind of a slave, my feelings as the feelings of a slave.

And I want it so!

No, no, no, I must not want it so!

After something more than an hour, the small procession had halted, and the two palanquins had been set down.

To Cornhair’s surprise the bearers, or their leader, were paid. The palanquins, then, had been rented.

The ladies then, if they owned palanquins, had elected not to use them. Would private palanquins have been recognized, or noted?

Also, almost at the same time, Cornhair heard the warming of an engine, and the familiar hum of a hoverer.

Too, one may have landed nearby.

It seemed another was being readied.

Someone undid her leash from the back of what had been the lead palanquin. From the feel of the leash on the leash ring Cornhair conjectured it was in someone’s hand. A slave grows quite aware of such things. Did they truly fear she might dart away, hooded, her small wrists tied behind her back? Did they truly think that a bound slave was heedless or unmindful of the futility of eluding her restraints? Did they not realize how helpless, disoriented and dependent, a woman is, blindfolded, or hooded?

She felt herself lifted in strong, masculine arms and placed over the rail of the hoverer. A moment or two later, she was knelt on the floor grating of the hoverer; her ankles were crossed; her head was forced down to the grating; the leash was taken back between her legs, it was then pulled back tightly, tautly, and used to fasten her crossed ankles together.

Her head was then held down.

She could not raise it, in the leash collar.

Her hands moved a little in the cords that held them fastened behind her back.

“Satisfactory?” asked the male voice.

“Quite,” said a woman’s voice.

“A compact, fetching little slave bundle,” said the male voice.

Cornhair supposed that a woman did look well, so tied, so displayed, so helpless. She could scarcely move.

“Do you think men would find her attractive?” asked another woman.

“She would do for a use or two,” said the man.

“Do you think she could do for a brothel slut?” asked the first woman.

“Certainly,” said the man.

“She is the sort?” he was asked.

“Eminently,” said the man.

“I do not want to be sold to a brothel!” thought Cornhair. “Do not sell me to a brothel, Mistresses!”

Cornhair had hitherto, for no good reason, taken it for granted that she would be sold to a private Master. It had never occurred to her that she might be sold to a business, an organization, a household, or such. Suddenly, to her astonishment, as she had not really thought of it before, she realized that, as a slave, she hoped very much for, and, for some reason, as though it made any difference, desperately wanted, a private Master. She hoped to be owned by a man, by one man, by only one man, whom she might then strive to serve and please, and, interestingly, she wanted to be his only slave. She suddenly realized, too, to her surprise, that she would hope to be a good slave, and would try, with all her intelligence and her emotional being, to be a good slave, indeed, the best slave she could be. And she sensed more might be involved in such a matter than merely being frightened of the whip. To be sure, the whip would be there, for she would be a slave.

“So,” said the man, “you are going to sell her to a brothel?”

“No!” thought Cornhair.

“No,” said the voice of the first woman.

In her bonds, Cornhair rejoiced.

The fellow then, apparently, left the hoverer, though she was not altogether sure of that, and, shortly thereafter, she felt the vibration of the grating, the hum of the engine, and, a moment later, the sweep of wind on her back, as the small, circular vessel rose swiftly, smoothly, into the air.

“Stand here,” said a woman’s voice.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair, her feet in the warm sand to the ankles.

“Is this a market, of some sort?” she wondered. “It does not seem likely. There is sand. Perhaps I am to be run for boys, with ropes, to be awarded to the winner in a game? I have heard of such things. Perhaps they will have nets, and be on horseback? But I do not want to be won by boys. I would want to be owned by a man. If I am hooded, I would be helpless to favor a given contestant. I hope they will unhood me.”

She considered the assailing of her lips with a Master’s claiming kiss.

This made her uneasy, but she knew she would yield, as a slave.

She sensed she would press against him, begging.

Could this be me, she wondered?

Cornhair had no idea, for a time, where she was, but she, of course, had some familiarity with Telnar, and, given her time in the hoverer, she assumed she must be a hundred miles or so from the capital. She was reasonably sure she was somewhere in the countryside, perhaps in the vicinity of a villa, or set of villas, from which one might commute to Telnar.

She heard birds. Perhaps there were trees about.

Once the hoverer had landed, her ankles had been freed and she had been stood upright, though with some unsteadiness and awkwardness, on the grating. She had then heard the rail gate of the hoverer opened, and she had been led from the vessel down the gate ramp, for the gate, when unlocked and opened, swings out, and lowers, to form the ramp. Exiting the hoverer, to her pleasure, she descended to a surface of short, soft grass, this constituting a most welcome change following her earlier trek through the streets of Telnar.

She heard no men about.

Perhaps a male had piloted the hoverer, but she did not know. Perhaps it had even been the fellow who had lifted her over the rail in Telnar. He might have returned to the small ship, or not really have left it. She did not know. There was the hood. In any event, shortly after landing, and the disembarking of the passengers, including at least the two women whose voices she was familiar with, it had departed.

She was led across the grass and into some structure, and down a passage. At the end of a short journey over a smooth, tiled surface, her journey was arrested.

The hood was unbuckled and pulled from her head, and she knelt instantly, naturally, as became her status as beast and slave. She shook her head, freeing her hair, and blinked her eyes. There were several women about, perhaps seven or eight, richly clad in Telnarian regalia. Clearly they were women of station and, doubtless, of means. And she heard the voices of others from somewhere, doubtless in another room. Several of the women present had laughed when she had shaken her head, freeing her hair. “See?” said one to another. “Yes,” laughed the other. But surely it had been a natural enough gesture for a woman, any woman? “Let them sweat blindly in a canvas hood,” she thought. “See if they would not be grateful, when it is pulled away. See if they would not struggle to accustom themselves to the light, and try to see through wet, matted hair!”

“Mistresses?” she said.

“What is your name?” asked the woman who seemed first amongst them, whom she would learn was the Lady Delia Cotina, of the Telnar Farnacii.

“Publennia,” said Cornhair.

“Oh!” cried Cornhair, struck with a switch.

“What is your name?” asked Lady Delia.

“Filene!” cried Cornhair, frightened. Then she winced, and sobbed, as the switch struck her again.

“What is your name?” asked Lady Delia.

“Cornhair!” cried Cornhair, and then she recoiled twice more, from two fresh blows of the switch.

“Mistresses?” she begged.

“A slave has no name, no more than any other beast, unless the Masters or Mistresses please,” said the woman. “She is named whatever Masters or Mistresses please.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “Forgive me, Mistress.”

“What is your name?” asked Lady Delia.

“Whatever Mistresses please,” said Cornhair.

“She is indeed a poor slave,” said another woman, she whose voice Cornhair recalled from the cell in the slave house, and the palanquins, the woman who was Lady Virginia Serena, of the lesser Serenii. She was also, as one recalls, of Telnar. “I first saw her,” said the woman, “standing on a slave shelf in one of the Woman Markets, one supplied by Bondage Flowers. I had a fellow read her placard. She is new to bondage.”

“It does not matter,” said Lady Delia, “for our purposes.”

“Certainly not,” said another woman.

“She will do as well as another,” said another woman.

“They are all the same,” said another.

“Yes,” said another.

“You were a pretty little thing,” said the Lady Virginia, “standing there, the placard hanging about your neck.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” murmured Cornhair.

“I would think men would find you a tempting morsel,” she said.

Several of the women laughed.

“Thank you, Mistress,” whispered Cornhair.

“That makes you ideal for our purposes,” said another woman.

There was more laughter.

“In the slave house,” said Lady Delia, “they referred to you as ‘Cornhair’.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You are Cornhair,” said Lady Delia, naming the slave. “Who are you?”

“‘Cornhair’, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You are going to be put in a temporary collar,” said Lady Delia.

“‘Temporary’, Mistress?” said Cornhair.

“Yes,” she said. “And then you will be unleashed and unbound.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You will also be conducted to a bath,” she said. “You will be given oils and tools, towels, brushes and combs. You are to clean and groom yourself, and well. We want you to be as fresh, clean, and lovely as though you were being sent to the couch of a Master.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“Also,” said Lady Delia, “though we recognize that your lineaments are such that they might attract and excite men, we have little interest in them. You will be clothed.”

“Thank you, Mistress,” said Cornhair, gratefully.

“Appropriately, of course,” said Lady Delia, “in the scanty, degrading tunic of a slave.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “Thank you, Mistress.”

“Afterwards,” said Lady Delia, “you will be fed amply, and given drink. Even a bit of wine. You may then rest. Later, this evening, you, with some others, will serve our table.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “Mistress is kind.”

“We will get on nicely, will we not?” asked Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “May I speak?”

“Surely, dear,” said Lady Delia.

“Who is my Mistress, who owns me?” asked Cornhair.

“I am Lady Delia Cotina, of the Telnar Farnacii,” said Lady Delia. “I suppose I own you, as it was I who purchased you. But, in a sense, you belong to all of us. You need not know the rest of us. To be sure, you are doubtless familiar, to some extent, with my friend, Lady Virginia Serena, of the lesser Serenii.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “But, I do not understand. In some sense, I belong to all of you?”

“Yes, in a sense,” said Lady Delia. “At least we all have an interest in you. Perhaps that is the best way to put it.”

“I hear others, elsewhere,” said Cornhair.

“In the auditorium and about,” said Lady Delia. “There are better than seventy-five of us here, for our meeting.”

“Where are the men, Mistress?” asked Cornhair.

Lady Delia frowned, and Cornhair shrank down, fearing another stroke of the switch. But then Lady Delia smiled. “There are no men here,” said Lady Delia. “We are all women here.”

“A sisterhood?” asked Cornhair.

“Of sorts,” said Lady Delia. “Surely we all have something in common, something which we find rather significant, something which binds us together, in a sort of sisterhood.”

“A meeting?” said Cornhair.

“Yes,” said Lady Virginia. “We are met here, well met, in congenial surroundings, equipped with suitable amenities. We are met to exchange stories, to share experiences, to enjoy collations and share decanters of kana, met for, in a sense, conviviality, for sport, and amusement, following which, after three or four festive days, we will return to our various, scattered domiciles, many in Telnar itself.”

“May I know the nature of this sisterhood, what binds you together, what is the point of your meeting, why you are gathered here, without men?”

“It will all be explained to you, in good time,” said Lady Delia. “Now we must put a nice collar on you, free you of this dreadful leash, and rid you of these nasty, slender, yellow cords, which, in their snug loops, make you so delightfully, so absolutely, helpless. Then you must hie to your bath.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “Thank you, Mistress.”

Cornhair stood where she had been told, in the warm sand.

In the dark tunnellike passage, her hands had been taken behind her and tied together. Through a small aperture in the door, at the end of the passage, some yards away, she could see a small rectangle of light, little else. It was probably early afternoon. A leash had then been put about her throat. A moment later a hood, quite possibly the same one she had worn in her trek from the prison and slave house to the hoverer port, had been drawn over her head and buckled about her neck. “Come along, dear,” said a woman’s voice, but not that of Lady Delia or Lady Virginia. She did not know where they were. She followed, on her tether, heard the door opened, and, in a moment, felt the sand about her ankles and the warmth of the sun on her arms and thighs. She was tunicked. The tunic, of course, was a slave tunic. It would not do at all for free women and slaves to be clothed similarly. The clothing of a free woman must make it clear that she is a free woman. The clothing of a slave must make it clear that she is a slave. And Cornhair’s tunic made that quite clear.

Outside, here, in this area, she heard the raucous cry of what she took to be river fowl. It was possible, then, she was in the vicinity of the Turning Serpent. Telnar, long before men had conceived of silver standards, thrones, and law, long before there had been an empire, had been a gathering and trading place, in effect, a trading station on a great river, what men now called the Turning Serpent.

There had once been eleven major ports at the far edge of the delta of the Turning Serpent, presumably far from here, given the brevity of the hoverer’s flight, where it, in its dozens of channels, poured its fresh water miles into the sea. Now, however, particularly in its lower courses, untended, poorly dredged, twisting, and treacherous, the Turning Serpent, now muchly forgotten, now muchly superseded by other transportation systems, was no longer the mighty thoroughfare of commerce it had once been. It now bore no more than a lonely vestige of its once abundant traffic; on the other hand, almost like a memory of the past, it was still plied by keel boats, some masted, and, downstream, by rafts, barges, and flatboats. In some areas, portage areas, boats were disassembled and carried overland, from one branch of the Turning Serpent to another, thence to be reassembled after reaching clear water. In other areas, particularly in the late summer, boats must be towed from the banks, this done by men or cattle. There were even, in some such places, tracks along the banks, prepared for such a purpose. Too, as one might suppose, given the neglect of the route by the empire, its lapse from economic preferment, the withdrawal of imperial supervision, and such, certain atavistic features of its historical past had reemerged, in particular, the spawning, in places, of a raw, lusty river culture, one of vain, proud, short-tempered, hard-drinking men, one in which claims as to prowess, or disputes as to taste, say, as to the quality of drinks or the beauty of slaves, and such, were likely to be adjudicated promptly, often by fist and boot, and sometimes by club and knife. It was rumored, too, that lonely stretches of the river, between villages, were not always immune to piracy. Certain areas along the river, of course, were far lovelier, and less troubled than others. We may assume that our current locale, then, is one such or, at least, was taken to be such. Indeed, the river did not become dangerous, supposedly, until one reached courses more than two or three hundred miles from Telnar. Certainly the shield of the imperium would be satisfactorily emplaced locally. There would be nothing to fear, surely, so close to Telnar. Accordingly, the area in question might be commended on two counts, first, it was close enough, presumably, to Telnar to be quite safe, and it was far enough away, it seemed, to prove a comfortable ambit of privacy and seclusion, which seems to have been desired by the Ladies Delia and Virginia, and their friends, or guests.

In the villa, or domicile, if one wishes, Cornhair had been well treated, at least for a slave. She had been well rested, and, for a slave, well fed. The last two evenings she, with others, also slaves, all quite lovely, doubtless selected with this in mind, had served the long tables in the dining hall. Each was barefoot and each was clad in a single garment, a slave tunic. These tunics, serving tunics, however, were discreet, at least for a slave tunic. The hems fell only slightly above the knees of the slaves. Perhaps that was because the supper was one for free women, and a certain properness or decorum was in order. A dinner for males might have been rather different. It was not unusual for a convivial gathering of males to be served by naked slaves, bared save for their collars. In some cases the slaves are shackled and their serving is supervised by a “Dinner Master” with his switch. Too, it is not unusual for entertainment slaves to be rented, who are musicians and dancers. The use of such slaves is often gambled for and the won slave, claimed, is chained at the winner’s place whilst the guests converse, whence she will be conducted, at the close of the evening, to his room. Men, it might be noted, at least on the whole, do not object to being served by naked slaves. It seems appropriate. And, interestingly, it seems appropriate to the slaves, as well. After all, they are slaves. It is hard to mistake the demure contentment of the female who finds herself in the place in which she senses she belongs, that of a Master’s collared slave.

At the suppers, Cornhair was one of the girls who served kana. She served humbly, keeping her head, for the most part, down. She felt it would not be well to meet the eyes of one of these women, women so different from herself, free women. She did not wish to invite the lash. The girls who served were not allowed to speak to one another. Cornhair had not even realized that there were other slaves about until the evening of her first day in the house, when she was brought forth from her cell to assist in the serving. The serving slaves, Cornhair felt, like herself, were uneasy. Timid, questioning glances had been exchanged. They might not speak, of course. “They know little more than I of these things,” Cornhair thought to herself. “They do not know, no more than I, why they are here. There are no men here. What, then, is our purpose here? I wonder if they are separated from one another when not serving. Are they, as I, put in cells, alone?” One thing that made Cornhair even more uneasy was that she sensed, from time to time, the eyes of one or another of the free women on her. She saw some smile. There was a comment. Had it had anything to do with her? She heard a tiny bit of laughter more than once, of which she feared she might be the subject.

She put her hand lightly to the collar on her neck. It had been referred to as a temporary collar. She was not sure what that might mean. Certainly it was fastened on her neck quite as effectively as any other collar. “Perhaps,” she thought, “it is temporary because I am to be given to some man, perhaps an uncle or brother, who will then put me in his own collar.”

As Cornhair had ruminated on these matters, her original curiosity as to the purpose of this gathering or meeting returned. Why had it been convened? What was its purpose? Too, in serving, even at the first supper, she had noted something else which seemed puzzling to her, perhaps an odd coincidence, or at least, surely, something unexpected. There seemed no older women in the household, at least none amongst those she had seen. The several free women in the household, or, at least, those she had seen, were all rather young.

“Cornhair!”

Cornhair looked up, frightened.

“Put down your decanter, Cornhair,” called Lady Delia, “and come here, dear, and stand before the table of favor.”

That would be the table behind which sat Lady Delia, Lady Virginia, and several others, several of whom Cornhair had first seen when her hood had been removed. It had a place of honor, at the head of the room. Cornhair supposed that the individuals at that table might have some special status. Perhaps they were officers, of a sort, ones who stood high in this gathering, this organization, or sisterhood, whatever might be its purpose.

“Shame on you, Cornhair,” laughed Lady Delia. “Do not disappoint us! You are a slave. Stand as a slave! Tall, soft, at ease, gracefully, desirably, proudly! Be attractive. Do not be ashamed of your sex! Be proud of it, love it, want it! Be excruciatingly, unapologetically female.”

“Please, Mistress!” wept Cornhair.

“It is permissible, you are a slave,” said Lady Delia.

“Please, Mistress,” begged Cornhair.

“Do you know you are in a collar?” asked Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress!” said Cornhair.

She now knew that only too well.

“Must you be lashed before you show us you know it?” asked Lady Delia.

“No, Mistress!” cried Cornhair.

“Suppose we were men and you wanted us to buy you!”

“Yes, Mistress,” wept Cornhair.

“That is why she did not sell from the shelf, or from the block,” said Lady Virginia. “That is why we had her for only five darins.”

“I see,” said a woman, “a slave, but a poor slave.”

“Yes,” said Lady Virginia.

“But she is pretty,” said a woman.

“Yes,” said another.

“Do you hear me, Cornhair?” asked Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You are a slave,” said Lady Delia. “It is what you are! Do not be ashamed of it. Be proud! How could you be more female? Feel your bondage, feel it in every fiber of your lovely, desirable body. Feel your need, let it suffuse you, let it heat you; let it torture you; feel it in every particle of your body, in every drop of your blood. You need to be owned, and to serve. You need to be handled, and mastered. You are a helpless, worthless slave, only that! Now, pathetic, delicious, worthless slave, let your body beg to be bought!”

Several of the women about the tables gasped, and others cried out in rage.

“Turn, turn slowly, slave!” said Lady Delia. Then she cried out, “Will she do?”

“Yes, yes,” cried several of the women, eagerly. A circuit of polite applause rippled about the room. Some women struck their utensils, or knuckles, on the table, in a gentle, refined tattoo of approval.

“You may return to your serving, Cornhair,” said Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. “Thank you, Mistress.”

Things then muchly returned to normal.

But Cornhair was troubled.

“I fear I am becoming a slave,” thought Cornhair. “What am I? I know there is a collar on my neck. Am I a slave? But this goes far beyond the collar! What is the collar but a symbol, a confirmation? I fear I am becoming a slave, a true slave.”

Cornhair, in the warmth, standing in the sand, where she had been told to stand, felt someone close to her.

She heard, overhead, or about, the snapping of canvas, almost as though a banner, or flag, might be torn by the wind.

“That is odd,” she thought. “I hear wind, but I do not feel it. Surely on my arms, or legs, I should feel it, but I do not.”

“Steady, dear,” said a voice, a woman’s voice.

She felt the leash and the leash collar removed. Then she felt her hands being untied.

“Keep your hands at your sides,” she was told.

The leash and the leash collar, and the cords, were apparently handed to someone. There were at least two then on the sand near her.

“Hold still, dear,” she was told.

To her amazement, she felt the collar grasped and a small key thrust into the lock at the back of her neck. She felt the back of the collar press against the back of her neck, and the key turn in the lock. Then the collar was opened, and removed.

“Why,” she wondered, “had another collar not been locked on her before the first was removed?”

“Mistress?” she asked.

She had the sense then that the collar had been given to the second person. She waited, expecting a new collar. She was, after all, a slave.

“What, dear?” asked the female voice.

“I have no collar,” whispered Cornhair.

“That frightens you, does it not?” asked the voice.

“I am a slave,” said Cornhair. She was surprised that she had said this as simply, as naturally, as she had.

“Do not concern yourself,” said the voice.

“Am I to be freed?” asked Cornhair.

“No,” said the woman. “And if I were to lift the hem of your bit of cloth, here, on the left side, your brand would be clearly visible. Have no fear, my dear, you are nicely marked.”

“I do not understand,” said Cornhair, frightened in the hood, her hands at her sides.

“For what is to be done to you,” said the woman, “it is important that you be a slave. You must be a slave.”

“I do not understand,” said Cornhair.

“You will understand, shortly,” said the woman.

“What is to be done to me?” asked Cornhair.

“It will be clear, shortly,” said the first woman. The other person, also a woman, laughed.

“Your hood is going to be removed,” said the first woman. “You are to keep your hands at your sides, until you are given permission to move them.”

Cornhair then felt the hood being unbuckled. It was spread a bit, and loosened, and then it was jerked from her head.

There were cries of pleasure from several women, cries which seemed to come from above her, and about her.

Cornhair blinked, half blinded by the light, and the glare from the sand. For a moment she could barely keep her eyes open.

There had been two women with her, who now withdrew, taking with them, as was shortly clear, the leash and leash collar, the cord with which her hands had been bound, the collar which had encircled her neck, and the hood which had covered her head.

“There is one!” cried a woman’s voice.

“See her!” cried another.

“See the slave!” she heard cry.

“Good, good!” cried another.

Cornhair looked up, bewildered, frightened.

“Slave!” she heard cry.

She heard screams of derision. She saw faces contorted with hate.

“Mistresses!” she cried, plaintively.

There was laughter.

She now understood why she had felt no breeze, for she stood within a walled enclosure. The walls did not seem unusually high, perhaps only seven or so feet in height, surmounted by what seemed to be a railing of large, white, wooden cylinders. There were tiered seats, circling above and behind these cylinders. In these seats, there might have been a hundred, even a hundred and fifty, women, ringing her. Looking up, Cornhair could see, stretched on poles, shading the stands, yellow-and-red striped, silken awnings. It was these she had heard snap in the wind. Where she stood, for the time of day, in the early afternoon, there was no shade from the walls. The sun was fierce, the glare cruel, the sand hot. Cornhair looked wildly about herself. She stood, alone and trembling, in a small arena, some fifteen yards in diameter.

Cornhair looked up.

She still stood where she had been told, her arms at her sides. She was standing below, and before, what seemed to be a small, boxed area just behind one of the railings.

A woman stood up, elegantly robed, and, with a gesture, silenced the small crowd. This was the Lady Delia.

“Mistress!” called Cornhair.

Lady Delia had been kind to her.

“Approach, female slave,” said Lady Delia.

Cornhair hurried forward, her arms at her sides, as she had been told to keep them, to stand closer to the wall, behind and above which was situated Lady Delia’s box. Lady Virginia was with Lady Delia, on her left, and Cornhair recognized some of the other women in the box, as well. They had been present when she had been unhooded after her arrival in the domicile. Cornhair put her head back that she might the more easily look up.

“You are a pretty thing,” said Lady Delia.

There was some laughter in the stands.

“Thank you, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“How are you clothed?” called the Lady Delia.

“In a tunic, Mistress,” said Cornhair, puzzled.

“What sort of tunic?”

“A slave tunic, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“Why?”

“Because I am a slave, Mistress.”

“It is rather short, is it not?”

“We are clothed, if clothed, as our Masters or Mistresses please,” said Cornhair.

“You are well displayed,” said Lady Delia. “It leaves little of your body to conjecture.”

“It is a slave tunic,” said Cornhair.

“Unfortunately,” said Lady Delia, “there are no men here.”

“Mistress?” said Cornhair.

“No men here, to want you,” she said.

“I do not understand,” said Cornhair. “May I speak?”

“Certainly,” she heard.

“May I move my arms?” asked Cornhair.

“Certainly,” said Lady Delia, “you may move your arms, your body, move as you wish. That will make things more interesting.”

“I do not understand,” said Cornhair.

“Be patient,” she was counseled.

Cornhair put her hands to her throat. “My collar was taken,” she said.

“You feel naked without it, do you not?”

“I am afraid not to be collared,” said Cornhair.

“I can understand that,” said Lady Delia. “A slave who impersonates a free woman is to be put to a terrible death.”

“I beg to be collared,” said Cornhair.

There was more laughter in the stands.

“Why?” asked Lady Delia.

“Because I am a slave, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You acknowledge that you are a slave, wholly a slave, and only a slave?” asked Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress!” said Cornhair.

“To be sure,” said Lady Delia, “not all slaves are collared, at least publicly. Some seem to be free women, moving about, conducting their business, and such, but, when they return to their Master’s domicile and the door closes behind them, they kneel, and await their commands, as the slaves they are. They may then be stripped, collared, tunicked, bound, whipped, whatever the Master pleases.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair, wonderingly.

“But such slaves are not impersonating free women, in the legal sense,” said Lady Delia.

“No, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“But slavery should be public, and manifest,” said Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“It would be quite embarrassing, and annoying, even an outrage,” said Lady Delia, “to discover that one whom you took to be free, one with whom you may have actually conversed, thought of as an equal, and such, was naught but a slave, who should have been kneeling, collared, ill-clad, and trembling, at your feet.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. Cornhair realized how mortified, and furious, she would have been, had she, as a free person, been the victim of such an imposture. But, too, she wondered if she might have been the victim of such an imposture, and more than once. How would she have known? One could not expect every woman one met to bare her left thigh. No, it was better, as Lady Delia thought, for slavery to be public, and manifest. It would not do, at all, to confuse free women and slaves. It would not do, at all, to confuse citizens with beasts, persons with objects, with properties.

“It is my impression,” said Lady Delia, “that slaves like their collars.”

“Mistress?” said Cornhair.

“That, in a sense, they like having their necks encircled with the band of servitude.”

Cornhair was silent. She feared to think such thoughts.

“It warms and heats them, it frees them, to become the most female of women, the most complete and perfect of women, the owned, submitted complement to masculine power,” said Lady Delia.

“How can it be, Mistress,” asked Cornhair, “for they are slaves?”

“As, in their heart, they wish to be,” said Lady Delia.

“Slaves!” cried a woman in the stands, “meaningless, worthless slaves!”

“Yes,” said Lady Delia, fiercely, “they have been found worthy of the collar! They are content, and reassured, in their collars! Not every woman is collared! Only those men want, the most exciting, the most desirable! So the sluts know how special the collar makes them! They have been selected not for their standing in society, their connections, the advantages they can provide, their wealth, but merely for their femaleness, which men will own, dominate, exploit, and master!”

“Have mercy, Mistress!” cried Cornhair, lifting her hands to Lady Delia.

“The sluts are proud of the bands on their necks,” said Lady Delia. “How unique, and special, that makes them! How superior to free women!”

Women in the stands cried out with rage.

“No, no, Mistress!” cried Cornhair. “They are only slaves!”

“Do they not see how men look upon their faces, their limbs, their figures, look so frankly, so appraisingly, so approvingly, knowing that such delights could be theirs, in exactly the same sense that they might purchase a pig or dog?”

“Be kind, dear Mistress!” wept Cornhair.

“Perhaps, slave,” said Lady Delia, “you are curious as to why your collar was removed.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“We would not want it soiled,” said Lady Delia.

There was laughter in the stands.

“Mistress?” said Cornhair.

“Nor,” said Lady Delia, “would we wish it to injure the jaws of fine beasts.”

“I do not understand, lovely Mistress,” cried Cornhair. “Be kind to me!”

“You were curious as to the nature of our gathering, of our sisterhood, so to speak.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“You may have wondered as to its purpose.”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair.

“We all have something in common,” said Lady Delia.

“Mistress?” said Cornhair.

“We all hate slaves,” said Lady Delia.

“Yes, Mistress,” said Cornhair. This made Cornhair decidedly uneasy, but she understood it well enough. Certainly it was common enough that free women resented, if not hated, slaves, for their attractions, for their appeal to men. Where men were concerned there was a natural rivalry between the free woman and the slave. Why should a man prefer a lovely, needful, collared beast on his chain to the inestimable privilege of relating to a free woman? Was that not incomprehensible? Who could understand it? Cornhair, as a free woman, had not hated slaves so much as despising them, and holding them in an utter contempt, for the meaningless animals they were. One can well imagine then her feelings at her own reversal of fortune, when she found herself in a collar. Still, even as a free woman, she had often wondered what it might be, to find herself owned, and helpless, at a Master’s feet.

“But,” said Lady Delia, “our feelings go much beyond simple hatred. No. Much more is involved. Each of us has a personal interest in these matters. Though we are free women, each with the status and resources of free women, each of us, at one time or another, has been put aside or neglected, even abandoned, for a worthless slave. How foolish and stupid are men! Each of us, each a free woman, in all our glory, at one time or another, sustained this unspeakable indignity. Realize the outrage of being superseded by, or discarded in favor of, a meaningless, curvaceous beast, a slave, something we ourselves could have bought for a handful of coins!”

“It is not our fault, Mistress!” said Cornhair. “We are taken in war, chained, seized, abducted. It is done to us by men!”

“I have seen you, such as you,” said Lady Delia, “content, lips parted, half naked, pressing your lips to a man’s thigh!”

“Have mercy, Mistress!” said Cornhair.

“You, such as you, belong chained at a man’s feet,” said Lady Delia.

“Mercy, please, Mistress!” said Cornhair.

“We are met here for vengeance on such as you,” said Lady Delia.

“Hateful slave!” screamed a woman from the stands.

“I have done nothing, Mistress!” cried Cornhair.

“We know your sort,” cried Lady Virginia, from the side of Lady Delia. “You are all seductive sluts. You will all beg, all lick and kiss, all crawl for the caress of a Master!”

“How can a free woman compete with a slave?” cried a woman from the stands.

“Mercy, Mistresses!” cried Cornhair. “Have their bellies never been enflamed,” she asked herself, “as the bellies of slaves? Do they know what it is to wear a collar and be owned? Have they never felt the lash?”

“Slave! She is a slave!?” cried a woman.

“I have done nothing!” cried Cornhair.

“You, and others, will stand proxy!” said Lady Delia.

“Others?” said Cornhair.

“Those who served with you,” said Lady Delia. “They will be given knives and set on one another in the arena.”

Several of the women in the stands clapped their hands, and laughed.

“It will be amusing to see them set on one another,” said Lady Virginia, “screaming, weeping, crying for mercy, cutting and hacking, bleeding in the sand, slave girls set on slave girls!”

“Have mercy!” begged Cornhair.

“A different fate is in store for you,” said Lady Delia.

“The dogs, killing dogs, will be set on you,” said Lady Virginia.

“We will see you torn to pieces, before us,” said Lady Delia.

Cornhair looked wildly about, and ran across the sand to the heavy door which she had seen from within, from the far end of the tunnel, before she had been hooded and led to the sand. It was through this door that the two women who had accompanied her to the sand had recently withdrawn.

Cornhair yanked, again and again, with all her strength, on the handle. It was of iron. The door was of heavy timbers. It scarcely moved.

She looked about, again, and saw another door, to the side. She hurried, gasping, sand about her legs, halfway up her calves, to that door. Then she stopped. There was no handle on that door. It was such that it could only be opened and shut vertically, as it would be lifted and lowered, probably by means of balanced weights.

Then, from behind the door, she heard snarling and growling, and the movement of excited, massive bodies.

She threw her hand before her face, and cried out in misery, and then turned and ran to the sand before the box of Lady Delia and her friends, and fell to her knees, and extended her hands upward, piteously. She could now hear, from across the arena, the agitation of beasts from behind the vertical door, beasts now disturbed, now alerted, doubtless now anticipating their release and feeding.

“Do not release the dogs, kind, lovely Mistress!” cried Cornhair. “I am only a slave!”

“Slave! Slave!” cried several of the women in the tiers.

“Do not despair, Cornhair,” said Lady Delia, kindly. “Would you like a chance for your life?”

“Yes, yes, Mistress!” cried Cornhair, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Note the walls, and the railings,” said Lady Delia. “They are not too high. Might you not leap up and seize the railing and draw yourself up to safety?”

“I would be permitted to do so?” asked Cornhair.

“Yes,” said Lady Delia. “And, if you succeed, we will see that you are conveyed to Telnar and sold in some nice market.”

“Mistress?” said Cornhair.

“You have my word on it,” said Lady Delia, “freely and publicly given, the unimpeachable, sacred word of a free woman of the empire.”

“Thank you, Mistress!” cried Cornhair. It would require effort, surely, serious effort, for it was not an easy leap for a woman, or a normal woman, but Cornhair was desperate, and terrified, and she felt convinced she could reach the railing, grasp it, and then pull herself up, and over it, and thus reach the lowest level of the seats.

“You do not have a great deal of time, dear,” said Lady Delia. “I am preparing to give the signal, letting this lifted scarf fall, following which the dog gate will be opened.”

“Hurry, slave,” called a woman.

“It is fortunate that you are clad as you are,” said a woman.

“Decent robing would be an encumbrance,” said another woman.

There was laughter.

It may be recalled that the railings about the height of the wall were in the form of large, white, wooden cylinders.

Cornhair backed away, grateful, determined, secured good footing in the sand, hesitated, and then raced toward the nearest railing. A few feet away she was sure that she had been right, that she would be able to reach, and clutch, the railing.

She did so!

Her hands were on it.

To be sure, given its size, it could not be embraced, but she need only pull herself, inch by inch, up, inch by inch, over its painted, solid, immobile, dry curvature.

Then she cried out, a small cry of misery.

The cylinder was solid, indeed, but it was not immobile!

It turned!

She pulled herself up an inch or two.

The cylinder then, like an elongated wheel, like a heavy bar, rotated on its axis, toward the arena, some two or three inches.

There was laughter in the stands.

She drew herself up another inch, desperately.

The heavy bar turned again, slowly, four or five inches.

Cornhair’s own efforts forced it to turn.

Then Cornhair slipped from the cylinder, and fell to the sand.

She heard cries of mirth.

She ran about the arena, and tried, again and again, at different points, to scramble to safety.

Each time the railing, like a smoothed log, spun slowly, reacting to her desperate grasp.

Her nails dug into the wood.

The railing again turned, and, again, she fell to the sand.

She stood up, and looked to the box.

She realized then that the railings had been designed to prevent escape from the arena, by animals, and, it seemed, slaves.

“No!” she cried. “No, please, no, Mistress!”

But even as she cried out, she saw the scarf flutter from the hand of Lady Delia.