the same long rope as the others. It is looped about the neck and knotted, and then taken ahead to the next girl. The loop was loose, but it could not be slipped.
I regarded her.
The beast was beautiful, quite beautiful.
I was annoyed.
She was more beautiful than I remembered her. I had wanted to find her less beautiful. But she was more beautiful. To be sure, she had now had some training, had learned to kneel, and obey men.
I was angry.
I had hoped to cast her image from me, to rid myself of her memory. I should not have come to the docks! I should not have watched, and waited, for days. I might have taken ship for Daphne days ago, but I had lingered in Brundisium. I was a fool.
“Master?” asked my slave, timidly.
I did not respond to her.
Surely the slave in the coffle could not be as beautiful as she seemed. I looked at the others, and was reassured. They were all lovely, and surely she on whose breast was inscribed the faded number, 119, was no better than most of them, and less than several of them.
Why then did she seem as she did to me?
I moved close to her, a bit back and on the right side, and breathed, softly, on the side of her neck, below the right ear. “Oh!” she said, softly, startled, and jerked at the cords on her wrists, but, too, inadvertently or not, she had also lifted her head. She had responded, as a slave, to the caress of a man’s breath.
“Not so close,” said one of the guards.
I moved back.
It had been a simple test, but it had told me what I wanted to know. She was a slave, no more than a slave, and should be a slave.
I smiled to myself.
She was a worthless piece of collar meat, no different from tens of thousands of others.
She belonged in a collar, and chains, at a man’s feet.
That was indisputable.
Two fellows, officers, were approaching from one of the ships. Behind them I could see several armsmen were boarding. One of the officers carried a tablet.
I would soon be rid of the troublesome slave. How pleased I was! I had never forgotten her, but now it would be easy to do so, for she would be carried to the north, and I should never see her again.
I had not remembered her as beautiful as she was. To be sure, she had now been in bondage for a time. Being in her natural place does much to enhance the beauty of a woman.
I must forget her.
What would it be to own her, I wondered, for such a woman must be owned. They must be treated with firmness, and never permitted to forget that they are mere slaves. They are to be mastered, uncompromisingly and utterly.
I looked back to the coffle. Papers were being exchanged between the officer and the scribe. Much is done with notes.
Men need slaves.
The coffle would soon be boarded, climbing the narrow plank to the ship.
I would never see her again.
I could then forget her.
How pleased I was.
I considered how she might look on all fours, crawling to me, bringing me the whip, it held between her small, fine, white teeth, the slave whip. I considered how she might look, kneeling before me, the coiled whip now in my hand, addressing to it the attentions of the female slave, caressing it with her lips and tongue, humbly, and at length, well aware that if I were not satisfied, it would be used upon her.
“Master,” said my slave, “might we not now return to the inn of Tasdron?”
Again I did not answer her.
“She is not so beautiful, is she?” asked my slave.
“No,” I said.
The coffle had now begun to move toward the nearest of the two small ships. Docksmen stood at mooring cleats, ready to loose the ropes and fling them to fellows aboard the ship. A mariner stood at the bow, amidships, and stern, each with his harbor pole. Four mariners stood ready to hoist the small yard, with the now-folded sail. Oars were still inboard. The two helmsmen were at their posts.
I would wait until the ship departed, and see it disappear, a bright speck, outside the farther breakwater. That would be the last of it, and of her. The matter would then be done.
The coffle was conducted up the planking onto the deck. There they were knelt, and relieved of the neck rope. They would remain bound and blindfolded