Part 21 (1/2)

One commonly mentioned reason is that it draws a clear distinction in a profoundly stratified society between our lowliness, marked by our rags, or brief tunics, and such, and the loftiness of free women, expressed in the complexity, richness and ornateness of their habiliments. It is not likely then that we will be confused with our betters. The most significant reasons, however, I suspect, have to do with the gratifications of men, who enjoy dressing us, if at all, for their pleasure, and with the informative, mnemonic, and stimulatory effects achieved on the slave herself. It is hard to be dressed in certain fas.h.i.+ons without comprehending very clearly and meaningfully that one is beautiful and desirable-and owned. These comprehensions, in turn, enhance s.e.xual responsiveness. The garmenture of the slave, then, has its effect not only on those who see her, but on the slave herself. With respect to the first reason, that of protecting free women, I think there may be something to it. For example, if stalking, or careful hunting is involved, or if an escape must be made quickly, then the robes of concealment, as they are often called, might give some pause to a hunter. Who would wish to risk his life for a woman only to discover later in his camp, after her unveiling, that better than she might have been purchased for a few coppers from an itinerant peddler? Would he not feel much a fool? To be sure, he might be lucky. He might have his rope on a prize. But, even so, would that not be mere luck, and, in a sense, would he not then be merely a lucky fool? Certainly professional slavers on this world would customarily exercise great care in such matters, perhaps even having recourse to elaborate techniques of inquiry and espionage. It is rumored they sometimes work in conjunction with free women who manage baths, and such, patronized b y free women. In the conquest of cities, of course, or in elaborate raids, in which perhaps outlying villas, or cylinders, are struck, by several men, one may take more time, sorting out captures into field girls, kitchen -and-laundry girls, kettle-and-mat girls, tower slaves, pleasure slaves, and such. In the capture of a city a woman may be disrobed, or ordered to disrobe, on the spot. One then may decide whether or not to put her on his rope or, in some cases, to bind her and then insert a nose ring, to which a leash cord may be attached. Sometimes a given warrior may have several women hurrying behind him, their leash cords grasped in his fist. When a conquering force is disciplined, the women are sometimes merely bound helplessly, and marked, and then left where they may be easily found later, in collections, for return to the original captor. The marks are various. Sometimes the names, or signs, are written on her body.

Sometimes a token is affixed to her, as, say, a tag-bearing wire thrust through an ear lobe and then twisted shut, to preclude dislodgment. Women of my world, of course, for the most part, are not veiled.

In this way those of this world who come to my world, doubtless for various purposes, but amongst them, it seems, though perhaps only incidentally, to acquire women for this world, women who will become such as I. encounter little difficulty in making their a.s.sessments. Doubtless it pleases them to do this at their leisure, and quite openly. How convenient all this is for them!

Are the goods not, so to speak, publicly displayed? What sort of culture, I wondered, allows its women to be so exhibited, to be displayed so brazenly, so publicly and conveniently, for the inspection of men?

And what of the women? Have they, in their haughty displays, no inkling of how they appear to men? Do they wish to insult men? Do they wish to disturb and taunt men? Do they wish, in their frustration, to challenge men? Or do they long on some level to be taken in hand, and be done with as men please? Do they long on some level for the iron and the chain? I remembered with chagrin how I had on my old world obtained gratification from teasing boys. Now I belonged to men.

The soldier released my hair, and my head came forward. I kept it lowered.

The platform on which I knelt was some twenty feet square, and the aperture within it was some four feet by five feet. It had slid out from the side of the citadel. It was large enough that one of the great birds could have landed on it. The tripodlike arrangement of beams which, with its pulley, facilitated the movement of the rope, could be set up or taken down. Above the track of the platform, swung back now, was a double gate. It was such that the platform, if the tripod of beams was not set up, could be extended or withdrawn without reference to it. In each of the double gates was a smaller opening which was now shut, through which only one person at a time might pa.s.s. Given these arrangements several permutations were possible, the most obvious being the gates shut and the platform withdrawn, the gates shut and the platform extended, and the gates open with the platform extended or withdrawn. I would not wish to have been on the platform if the gates were closed and the platform was withdrawn. I suddenly whimpered, for the platform began to move back, into the citadel. I did not dare rise, of course. I did look up and saw, as I pa.s.sed under the wall, heavy and menacing, in a large, oblong overhead slot, the downward-pointing spikes of a great, barred barrier.

One would not wish to have been beneath those spikes had they descended. just behind that area was the inner threshold, which would be closed by the gates. With a rumble the platform stopped. It stopped well within the gate. This allowed the gates, if and when they would be closed, clearance of the tripod, that a.s.sociated with the windla.s.s. In this fas.h.i.+on the tripod might, if one wished, be kept in its braces. I then saw, rattling and heavy, the barred gate, with the spikes, descend. The spikes descended into sockets in a stone sill. I could now see the windla.s.s. It was within the gate itself. The gates were then closed.

I knelt on the drawn-back platform. The gates were twice barred, with heavy beams. They slid slowly across the inner faces of the gate. They must have weighed hundreds of pounds.

They were now secure within their monstrous iron brackets.

The gates were now closed, now barred. The gates were heavy and high.

They must have been a foot thick. The exterior surfaces had been sheathed with nailed copper sheets, the intention of which, one supposes, was to resist fire.

I looked at the great gates.

How helpless I felt, kneeling on the platform, my upper body pinioned helplessly within that stout canvas sheath. It was so tightly buckled upon me that I could scarcely move my hands and arms within it. Too, it was buckled closely about my neck.

The beams of the platform were rough and heavy. They felt splintery beneath my knees and where the upper sides of my toes, as I knelt, now rested upon them. The bottoms of my feet burned from the ascent to the lower level. Here and there on the platform were deep gouges, where weapons might have struck, or the talons of the great birds.

I did not know where I was!

I had not asked to be brought here!

What was I doing here? This was not even my world!

I was afraid.

How faraway then seemed my own world, and my past.

”I will tell them that you are here,” said one of the soldiers.

We were then, it seemed, expected.

This understanding did not ease my apprehensions.

What was I doing here? Why could I not be as other girls, routinely processed, auctioned summarily off a block to the highest bidder, and then led, braceleted, barefoot, frightened, hopeful, to the domicile of my buyer, and new master? How was it that I was so different? We waited on the drawn-in platform.

It seemed we waited a long time.

It was hot in the sack, my hands and arms closely confined within it, hut, on my bared legs I could feel the cool air of the mountains. The mountain air, too, moved my hair a little. I shook my head a little, to move the hair away from my eyes. Confined as I was I could not reach it with my hands.

”Steady. little vulo,” said one of the men.

He brushed the hair back from my face with his large hand. I looked up at him, gratefully, and then again put my head down. Masters are often kind to us, for we are so much theirs, and so helpless. But they are always the masters.

I was grateful for his small kindness.

A touch, a smile, a candy, a pastry, mean much to us.

We are kajirae.

On my old world I had lacked an ident.i.ty. Perhaps we all did. On my old world roles and masks made do for ident.i.ties, for realities. We were all told we were real, of course, but when we inquired as to what we were, really, we were met with evasive answers; I suppose we were just supposed to know; when we went to touch those supposed realities, our hands pa.s.sed through them. They weren't really there.

And if they were truly us, then we, too, were not there. But we knew we were real somehow, something beyond the masks, the roles. Not everyone wants to disappear behind a mask, or even to hide behind one.

It seemed we were all waiting. Young, we were supposed to wait. Reality was around the corner.

Existence and truth must be postponed yet another day. And so we waited, and distracted ourselves with sweets and lies. But where was the end of this? Were the older ones real either? Could it be that the older ones, too, were waiting? Were they embarra.s.sed to admit this? Were the parents real? Had they learned, in their longer lives, secrets they refused to reveal? It is a terrible thing to look behind a mask and see nothing. The masks can be voracious. How many scream, trapped within a mask? How many do not scream, unaware that they have become the mask, that now there is nothing left but the mask? We awaited the return of the soldier.

How could I be here? Was it not madness that I was here? But I was here.

Here, however, I had a reality. I had an ident.i.ty. There were no problems with that matter here. No longer need I wait in some windy place, on some lonely bridge or busy street corner, hoping to meet myself. That rendezvous had now occurred. Here, at last, I was something, really. Here I had an ident.i.ty.

It was an ident.i.ty as real as that of a dog or pig. I was a kajira.

I looked up. Then I looked down.

”Bring her,” said the soldier to the jailer.

He stood some ten or twelve feet from us.

I felt myself drawn to my feet. The jailer did this. It was done by means of the ring on the back of the sack, that by means of which I had been attached to the ring on the rope. I stumbled a little. I feared to fall. My hands and arms pinioned I would have no way of breaking the fall. I did not lose the tunic. It was now muchly dampened, and must bear within it tooth marks.

The jailer snapped a light leash to a small ring on the sack straps, just below my chin.

This development affected me with apprehension.

I had not been leashed below, outside, on the ledge.

Was a leash necessary? Surely not!

But what manner of place was this? What was I to see? This leas.h.i.+ng was surely not for purposes of display, not here, not now, but now, I understood, of girl management, of girl control! Or perhaps girl instruction! I knew a female could learn much on a leash. And where was I to be taken? I was suddenly very much frightened. I was suddenly so much more in their power.

I was leashed!

Did they think I was a new girl? But here, in this place, I was a new girl! I was an ignorant slave here, one unaware of her surroundings and their nature. Might I run, or bolt? Might I, in some imminent situation, overcome with terror, attempt irrationally, unable to help myself, to flee? But even it I wished to do so, and dared to do so, I could not. I was leashed.

Or was it to teach me something that I was leashed? Did I not yet know myself slave enough?

Apparently they would see to it that I would learn.