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 were the upper sides of my toes, as I knelt, now rested upon the. The bottoms of my feet burned from the ascent to the lower level. Here and there on the platform were deep gouges, were 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, but, 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 identity. Perhaps we all did. On my old world roles and masks made do for identities, for realities. We were all told we were real, of course, but when we inquired as to what 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 passed 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 embarrassed 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 identity. 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 identity. I was an identity as real as that of a dog or pig. I was 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.

The 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 too see? This leashing 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 if 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.

Had I not been leashed on the ledge, that I might be the more startled, the more apprehensive, the more conscious of it here? Where was I to be taken? What was to be done with me?

The soldier turned about, and strode away. The jailer followed him, and I followed him, on the leash.

If I were to precede him I supposed that he might have used the stout leash with which he had restrained the six-legged animal, it secured to the ring on the back of the sack.

Leashes are often held partly coiled on this world, the leash otherwise being somewhat long. The length permits the leash to also serve as, in effect, binding fiber. One usually prefers to be led rather then to lead. When one leads, as, say, if it might be the wish of the rights holder to so display one, one might, if one does not, for example, walk well, feel the free end of the leash only-too soon, as a lash. That is another advantage of the long leash, of course, that one, if the rights holder wishes, may be punished while still upon it. I preferred to be led. I hastened to keep up with the soldier and jailer, the leash in the grasp of the latter. They moved quickly. One is customarily expected to follow at an appropriate distance, that constituting an attractive, lovely interval, but it is not always easy to maintain such an interval, for various reasons, such as crowding, or the rapidity of the leash holder’s pace. Two or three times I was jerked forward, and nearly fell. The leash was often taut. I was conducted through several narrow passageways. Sometimes portions of these were barred, and signs and countersigns were given. Twice we passed women such as I, but in collars. As the men passed, they went immediately to their knees, performing obeisance. Both wore brief tunics, the skirt of one being slit to the waist on both sides. There seemed few in these narrow passages, or streets. I did see one child. I would have had to kneel before it, as before any free person. It regarded us idly. It had apparently seen many women such as I, so conducted. Then the lash jerked taut again and I nearly lost my footing. I hastened on. I did not think it would be difficult to defend such passageways.