Clitus Vitellius then left me, to return to his furs, to sleep.

I cut again at the soil with the hoe, chopping down, loosening the dirt about the roots of the sul plants.

The sun was terribly hot.

On my throat I wore a rope collar. My hands were terribly blistered. It was painful to hold the hoe. My back hurt me. It seemed every muscle in my body ached.

I wanted to throw myself down and weep, but the suls must be hoed.

"You will learn toil, small beauty," Thurnus had told me. I had well learned toil, and misery. It is not easy to be a peasant's girl.

It is a hard slavery.

I remembered seeing Clitus Vitellius leave. He had not looked back. I had wanted to call out after him, but I had not dared. I did not wish to be whipped.

It is not easy to be a peasant's girl. it is a hard slavery.

I remembered the sting of the switch across the back of my thighs as Melina had driven me to the kennel.

"I will make you wish you wore a longer tunic, Slave!" she had cried.

I had dropped through the kennel door and, some feet below, struck the straw-strewn floor of the kennel. The kennel was a cage, a sleen cage, tipped on its side, fully barred, sunk mostly into the ground. The cage in its original attitude, when used for sleen, would have been some four feet in height, six feet in width and twelve feet in length. Tipped on its side, to better accommodate humans, it was some six feet in height and four by twelve feet in breadth and length. In this attitude, it was entered from the top. Within there was a wooden, runged ladder, for climbing out of it. It was sunk some four and a half feet in the ground. Wooden planks, covered with straw, lay over the bars on the bottom. These planks were separated by some two inches apiece, to facilitate drainage. The cage was roofed, too, with planks; these planks were set flush with one, another; they were fastened over the top of the bars, including some, sawed, over the barred door. At night a tarpaulin was thrown over the cage roof. Standing in the cage one could look out, one's shoulders being approximately at ground level.

I dropped to the floor of the cage.

I heard the heavy barred gate at the top, over my head, with its attached planks, flung shut. It made a harsh sound of metal and wood. Then I heard the rattle of two heavy padlocks on chains. There were two heavy metal snaps, as the door above me was fastened shut.

I looked up. I was locked within.

"Kneel," said a voice.

I knelt. There were four other girls in the cage.

"In the position of the pleasure slave," said one of them.

I complied.

"Let us see your brand," said another.

I turned to the side and drew back the tunic.

"A Dina," said another girl. There were four besides myself in the cage, Thurnus's other girls.

"Did you know," asked one, "that Dinas are suitable to be the slaves of slaves?"

"No," I said, "I did not."

"You were not given permission to cover your brand," said one, sharply.

I drew back my hand. I turned to face them, on my knees. They sat in the cage, on the straw.

"Are you a pleasure slave?" asked one, curious.

"Yes," I said.

They laughed. "Here you are a work slave," said one. "Here you will be worked hard," said another.

I straightened my back. They made me angry. I assessed them, obviously to a woman's eyes, though a man might not have noticed, one by one. It is a slight, tacit thing that women understand. I smiled. They were angry.

"Perhaps I will not be worked as hard as you think," I said.

I was clearly their superior in beauty.

"Insolent slave!" cried one. "How haughty you are, Slave Girl!" said another.

I shrugged.

"Do you think you are more beautiful than we?" asked one of them.

"Yes," I told them.

"Do you think you will please the master more than we?" asked another.

"Yes," I told them. "I am clearly more beautiful."

"She-tarsk," said one. "She-sleen!" cried another.

"You will be worked hard!" said another girl.

"We will see to that!" vowed the fourth girl.

"Do you have a comb for my hair?" I asked.

"Do not break the position of the pleasure slave," warned the largest of the girls, Sandal Thong, a long-armed, freckled giantess of a peasant wench.

"Very well," I said.

"It becomes you," said Verr Tail, a wide-shouldered, auburn-haired girl.

"Thank you," I said.

I did not wish to be caged with them. I could sense their hostility. Too, they could surely detect that I did not care for them. But we were locked in the same small cage.

"Doubtless you will soon become the master's favorite," said Turnip, a dark-haired, wide-faced girl.

"Perhaps," I said, tossing my head.

"Radish is now favorite," said Sandal Thong, indicating a blondish, thick-ankled girl at her left. I recognized her. It was she whose heartbeat had given the time count in the boys' sport of girl hunt the preceding night. Last night she had served one of the warriors of Clitus Vitellius. I recalled her pressing back against him, his hand on her heart, his calling the count. I myself had been in the arms of such men many times. They were not peasant boys.

"I was the girl of a warrior," I told them.

"You are very pretty," said Radish. I decided I did not dislike Radish.

"You were poor in the furs," said Sandal Thong. "That is why he gave you away."

"No!" I cried.

"Poor in the furs!" laughed Sandal Thong.

"Why did he give you away?" asked Verr Tail.

"I do not know," I said.

"Poor in the furs!" said Sandal Thong, pointing her finger at me.

"We have few furs in this village," laughed Turnip. "We will see how you roll in the straw!"

"If you are not good," said Verr Tail, "we will soon know. Thurnus will tell everyone whether you are good or not."

"I am good," I told them.

"Why did your master give you away?" asked Turnip.

"It amused him," I said. "He is Clitus Vitellius, a captain. He can have many girls, more beautiful than I. He made me love him, hopelessly and desperately, and then, for his amusement, discarded me. He toyed with me. He used me for the object of his sport. Then, when he had won, fully and completely, he cast me aside, ridding himself of me, giving me away."

"Did you truly love him?" asked Radish.

"Yes," I said.

"What a slave you are!" laughed Sandal Thong.

"He made me love him!" I cried defensively. Yet I knew I would have loved him, even had he not made me love him. Had I had the choice as a free woman I would have chosen to love him; but the choice had not been mine, for I had been a slave; he had overwhelmed me, forcing me to love him, consulting not my will, before I could have chosen to do so; I who had desired to kneel before him of my own free will had been commanded to his sandals as a slave girl.

"You are a fool to have loved your master," said Sandal Thong.

"I love my master," said Radish.

Sandal Thong turned about and struck Radish to the side of the cage. "Slave!" she cried.

"I cannot help it that I love my master!" said Radish.

Sandal Thong spun about, facing me. "Do not break the position of the pleasure slave!" she said.

I held position. "Are you not a slave, too?" I cried.

Sandal Thong stood up. She was a tall girl. She fingered the rope collar on her throat. She stood there in the brief slave tunic, of the wool of the Hurt. It was the only garment she had, as with the rest of us. She was a large girl, heavy-boned, tall, stronger than we, powerful when compared to us, but to a man she, too, would have been slight, at their mercy. "Yes," she said, "I can be beaten, or sold or slain. I can be given as a gift among men. They can put me in chains. They can burn me with irons. They can do with me what they wish." She looked out through the bars of the cage, at ground level. "I must kneel to them. I must be obedient. I must do what I am told." She looked down at me. "Yes," she said, "I, too, am a slave."