Part 43 (1/2)

The monster then put me back on my knees, my head down, near the ring.

A strand of hair, out of place, he brushed forward. Now again my hair was before my body.

”Her gruel is ready,” said the brunette.

I did not understand why he had, a moment ago, put me to my back.

He had been, it seemed, curious about something.

”It is best,” he said to me, ”that you not eat first.”

”Yes, Master,” I said. I might not, otherwise, be able to retain the provender, even as simple and bland as it might be.

I saw, in the shadow, the whip, now once again in his hand.

”This slave,” said he, to the other women in the room, ”has been errant. She, in a darkness, did not reveal her condition, bond, to a free woman. She permitted the free woman, in ignorance, to speak freely to her. She permitted her not only to think that she was free, but even of a given caste.”

The women at the wall looked at one another.

I suddenly realized why I had been put on my back. He had read my collar. He, then, could read. He knew my name, that which I had been given, that on my collar, which, perhaps, had been worn by many others before me! I recalled that some of the guards in the pens did not care to administer a formal whipping to a woman, as opposed to some admonitory blows now and then, until they knew her name, a.s.suming she had been given one.

Punishment on this world is often construed in a somewhat personal fas.h.i.+on, as something pa.s.sing from a particular master to a particular slave. This has a way of making it more meaningful to the slave. Too, of course, knowing the name, if the slave has one, makes it easier, particularly in a situation such as the pens, to keep track of things, to inform others, and such, for the punishment for later infractions may be considerably more severe if it seems the slave has failed to profit from her earlier discipline, and so on. I did not know my name. But he knew it.

”Why did she do that?” asked one of the women by the wall.

”Why did you do that?” asked the pit master.

”I was afraid!” I said. ”I did not know better! I should have known better! I should have known better!”

”You did not think that you were the same as she,” said the pit master.

”No!” I a.s.sured him.

”You understand clearly that you are only a slave, an animal, and nothing more?”

”Yes, Master!” I said.

”She is a new slave,” said the pit master to the women in the room.

”Let her learn her collar!” said one of the women.

I felt the coil of the whip touch my back. I shuddered.

I was indeed a new slave. I had undoubtedly much to learn. But I did not think that I was really a stranger to the collar. I had, I was confident, as all women, an instinctive grasp of its import. I felt that I had, thus, in a sense, understood it even before it was on me. Had I not considered it in countless thoughts? Had I not worn it in a thousand dreams? To be sure, it doubtless had many meanings, rich and complex, subtle and deep, which only gradually, bit by bit, as they were revealed to me, I might come to understand, and love.

”Perhaps, Master,” said the slave who had borne the torch, ”as she is a new slave, and did not know better, one might, this time, omit her punishment.”

There was a silence.

”Forgive me, Master!” she said, and knelt, her head to the stones, her beautiful hair upon them.

”You will know better next time, will you not?” asked the pit master.

”Yes, Master,” I said.

”How many blows should you receive?” he asked.

If one suggests too few, one is almost certain to receive far more than one might otherwise receive. If one suggests too many, perhaps in the hope of receiving less, one may find that one receives precisely what one has requested. The master usually has some number in mind which seems appropriate to him.

You will never receive less than that number, but you may very well, particularly if you try to manage matters cleverly, receive far more.

”However many Master wishes,” I said. It was a response I had learned in the pens. One is a slave. One does not play games with the master. All depends on him. All depends on his will.

One is a slave.

I saw the shadow of the whip lift, and I closed my eyes.

I received ten lashes.

I lay there by the ring for several minutes afterward. I was on my belly. My cheeks were wet with tears, even the stone by the ring. I hurt. I sobbed. Yet he had not been cruel with me. The blows had been sharp, but clean. They had been mercifully arranged on my body, even predictably so. Too, they had been timed. It is particularly frightening when, as a part of the punishment, one does not know where the blow will fall, or when. Too, mercifully, though he saw to it that I was well punished, he had not used his man's strength on me. Only on the tenth stroke, which, before its delivery, he informed me was the last, did he let me glimpse even a particle of the strength with which a stroke, if he so chose, might be delivered. I had screamed, so struck. Then I had not even been able to scream. I had knelt there, wide-eyed, in disbelief.

Then, an instant later, I had sunk to my belly. ”Mercy, Master!” I wept. ”Mercy, Master, please, mercy!”

But the beating, of course, was done, for the tenth blow was the last. But still, hysterical, I wept. ”Please, do not strike me again, Master! Please, Master, do not strike me again!” I realized then what, even with so small a portion of his strength, might be done to me. I had been well punished by the first nine strokes, I a.s.sure you, but that tenth stroke told me more than the first nine. It said, in effect, ”Beware, let this be the tiniest hint of what might be done to you.” And so now, minutes later, I lay at the ring. I choked back tears. I had now well learned my lesson. I was only a punished slave. But the lesson I had learned extended, of course, as doubtless it was intended it should, far beyond the occasion of the moment. It had to do with more than the mere triviality of my having failed, in my confusion and fear, to make my condition clear to a free woman in the darkness. It had also informed me that I was not only subject to punishment, but, when appropriate, would be punished. This reinforced, too, my understanding of my condition, which was bond, and its obvious concomitant, that of being subject to masters, fully, in all things. Lastly, I had been taught something more of the whip. I now understood, better than I had before, what it might do to me. I now feared it, terribly. I was afraid, now, even to look upon it.

”Kneel, barbarian,” said the brunette, not unkindly. I struggled to my knees, my hands bound before me, my neck still tied to the ring.

”Feed, barbarian,” she said, placing a shallow bowl of gruel before me.

I put down my head, and, not using my hands, fed.

I ate, hungrily, obediently.

But, too, from time to time, head down, pausing in my feeding, from licking at the sides of the bowl, the gruel about my mouth, I trembled. Beyond the leather, I knew, even to the tiny extent that I now understood it, there were other things, things far more frightening and effective, to which I might be subjected, if it were the will of men. I moaned, and returned to my feeding. I ate eagerly, gratefully. Tears fell into the gruel. My punishment, I realized, however informative and momentous from my point of view, had doubtless been, from the point of view of the pit master, relatively light and perfunctory. My offense, it seemed, happily, had not been regarded as particularly heinous, particularly in a new slave. Indeed, I was even being permitted to feed.

”Oh!” I said, suddenly, startled. I stiffened. ”Master?” I said.

My fingers twisted, startled, my hands bound before me.

”Master?” I asked.

”You may continue to feed, if you wish,” he said.

”Oh!” I said. But I could not feed, of course! The rope on my collar pulled against the ring.

He moved my hair about, away from my ears. ”Pierced-ear girl,” he murmured.

”Oh!” I said.

His grip on me then was like iron.