her eyes bright with tears, tears running down her cheeks.
“You had me whipped,” she said.
“Certainly,” I said. “You were to some extent displeasing.”
“I hate you,” she said, “I hate you!”
“Beware,” I said.
“I hate you!” she hissed, and turned about, to enter the cage.
“Ai!” she cried, for my hand in her hair had arrested her progress. I drew her backward, up, and off balance, and threw her on her back before me, at my feet, and turned to the proprietor. “What do you want for her?” I asked.
“No, no!” she cried.
“How much?” I asked.
“Do not sell me to him!” she wept.
“Three silver tarsks!” cried the proprietor.
“One,” I said. It was well over what I conjectured he had paid for her. With a silver tarsk he might, in the current market, buy two of her. She was not worth a silver tarsk, but one does not always buy, or sell, with purely economic considerations in mind. I had been annoyed. Besides, at the moment, money did not much matter to me. I had recently, in the street outside, acquired additional resources.
“Done!” he said.
“No, no,” she wept.
There was much laughter from the other cages.
“Beat her well!” called a slave. “Sell her for sleen feed!” called another.
I drew a silver tarsk from the ruffian’s wallet, and tossed it to the proprietor, who caught it, neatly, in his left hand.
“I am staying the night,” I said to the proprietor.
After the business of the street, a quarter of an Ahn past, I was not sure what might lurk in the darkness.
I thought nothing, but it is a long walk toward the center of the city and the inn of Tasdron where I had left my things.
“The tavern is closed,” he said.
I slapped the hilt of the blade at my left hip, for I had regathered weapons upon my return to the tavern. The proprietor’s man had not chosen to question me in this matter. It reposed in its greased scabbard, slung from its across-the-body strap, from, as I was right-handed, the right shoulder to the left hip. I had a knife, as well, in its sheath, fixed laterally on my waist belt, behind my back. In this way it is not obvious, from the front, that it is there. It is quickly and easily drawn with the right hand.
“Very well,” said the proprietor.
“I will visit your kitchen, as I will need some supper,” I said.
“As you wish,” said the proprietor, looking from the large coin in his hand to the blade at my hip.
I looked at the supine, trembling slave. Her left knee was raised.
The proprietor’s man removed her collar. She had been sold.
“Bell her,” I said to the proprietor’s man, “and chain her, to await me, in the first alcove.”
“It will be done,” he said.
“I trust the alcove is well furnished,” I said, “with various instruments, a switch, a whip, such things.”
“Of course,” he said.
The slave looked at me, frightened, over her shoulder, her dark hair about her back, as she was conducted, by the left arm, from the room.
“There was an altercation in the street,” said the proprietor. “I heard so from my man.”
“Have no fear,” I said to the proprietor. “None know I am here. Reprisals are unlikely. I will leave before dawn. If any inquire after me, tell them I may be found at the wharves, and will be armed.”
***
“May I speak?” had asked the girl kneeling beside me.
“No,” I had said.
I had had her for a silver tarsk.
She was then silent, in the brief white tunic, kneeling beside me, on my leash. She had slender ankles, and nicely turned calves. It was clear why the corsairs had not left her behind in her village square, naked and bound, contemptuously rejected. It is no coincidence that most slaves are “slave beautiful,” for, if they were not, it is not likely that they would be made slaves. Suppose one were interested in the capture of wild kaiila. Would one not choose, as far as possible, to herd only the finest to the sales pens? It is much the same with women. Being made a slave is, in its way, a tribute to the beauty and desirability of a woman. Sometimes a free woman is spoken of, if not to her face, as “slave beautiful,” namely, that she is beautiful enough to be a slave. Supposedly this is quite insulting to a free woman, and would result in cries of rage and protest, but, should this lamentable assessment come to her attention, she is