The woman in scarlet silk rose somewhat angrily. She had a narrow steel collar on her neck, which had been covered by the earlier higher, heavier collar, that to which her chain had been attached. I was quite pleased to see that she was collared. She too then was only a slave! She went to the side, to a small table within one of the roofed defense works. There she shook some meal from a cloth sack into a shallow pan. She then, from an earthen pitcher, poured some water into the pan. She then shook the pan, mixing the ingredients. She held the pan in her left hand. From the table, she picked up, to my dismay, a long, supple switch. I did not care to see it in her possession. She now approached me, the pan in her left hand, the switch in her right. She put the pan down, on the stone flagging, before the dais, a bit to the right of its center, as I faced it. She pointed to the pan with the switch. I rose to all fours and crawled to the pan. I put down my head.

“What do you think of her, my dear Dorna?” asked the man in the chair.

“She is worthless,” said the woman.

“Perhaps not entirely without worth,” he said.

“She is worthy only to comb the hair of a true woman, if that,” she said.

The fellow chuckled.

“Giver her to me, as a slave’s slave,” she wheeled, “that I may do with her as I please.”

“I do not think you will be displeased with her disposition,” he said.

“Oh?” she asked, interested.

“You will see,” he said.

This exchange alarmed me somewhat.

“Continue to feed,” said the woman to me.

I continued to feed. It was slave gruel.

Whereas the food was certainly feed, and true food, though plain fare, the function of this feeding, of course, was primarily symbolic or ceremonial. I was feeding as a certain sort of thing in a certain sort of way, on a certain sort of provender. I was under no delusions as to what I was, or how I fed, or on what I fed. Another lesson implicit in this matter, which might be noted, was that I was dependent on others for my feed, not only with respect to its quality, quantity and nature, but even with respect to whether I would to be fed or not. In this, of course, all slaves, even the highest, are similarly dependent. The people of this world are rich in traditions and symbolic behaviors, which are very meaningful and important to them. There are many such behaviors, traditions, ceremonies, and such, and there is, apparently, a considerable variety in such matters from place to place.

I sensed a man moving about, behind me.

“Keep your head down,” said she who had been called Dorna.

There was some laughter.

I continued to feed.

One is, of course, vulnerable, so feeding. More than once in the pens I had been caught at such a pan.

Then the man who had been behind me had ascended the dais. He had entered recently, apparently. He conferred with the occupant of the chair. He then left. He had paid me, as far could tell, little, or no, attention. Indeed, he may have scarcely noticed me. I was not important. I was only a kajira, feeding at the foot of the dais.

“Lick the pan,” said Dorna.

I did so. I was angry with her. She held the switch. Had my performance not been of interest? Could she have done better? Were her curves likely to be of more interest to men than mine? But it was I who was feeding, and she who held the switch. But I could set myself to please the men! Take away her switch! Let us compete as equals!

“Lift your head,’ said Dorna. “How silly you look!”

There were crumbs of meal about my mouth and lips.

“Bring some meat,” said the occupant of the chair.

Dorna, with an angry swirl of her silks, spun away, to return to the small table under the roofed defense work.

I wondered that the fellow accepted, with such apparent tolerance, what appeared an obvious manifestation of annoyance on the part of the slave, if not of actual insolence. Did she not fear her silks would be removed and that she might be tied to a ring and whipped? I supposed she must have felt the whip at one time or another. She did move well, of course. That suggested that she was not totally unfamiliar with the whip. We must move well. We are not free women. If we do not move well, men, and their whips, see to it that we soon do. And whatever might have been her peripheral tokens of irritation or exasperation she did obey with alacrity. Yes, I thought, she undoubtedly knew something of the whip. Yet, too, undeniably, her behavior seemed to leave something to be desired. Perhaps she presumed too much on the status of a high slave, which status, it seemed, must be hers. Or perhaps she had been a high free woman, and her master, or masters, allowed her to act as she did, finding some amusement in the absurdity of it, she not understanding the joke, knowing they could in an instant bring her to her knees as a humbled, abject, servile, weeping slave. But, in any event, she was accustomed, it seemed, to being treated with some indulgence, perhaps even with permissiveness. How else would she have dared to exploit such latitudes of tolerance as seemed to be accorded to her? To be sure, she was a high slave. But are not such, in the final analysis, owned every bit as much as we? And is not one man’s high slave no more to another than the least of his bond maids, laboring shackled in his stables, her use a perquisite for rude grooms, and is it not the case that even for the same man she who is this evening a high slave may be tomorrow the least of his properties in the scullery?

Dorna returned with a small dish in which there were some tiny bits of meat.

She handed this to the occupant of the great chair.

He regarded me, and I looked up at him, from all fours, from the floor below the dais.

“She has pretty hair,” he said.

“Mine is better,” said the woman.

We were both dark brunettes. Indeed, our hair was almost the same color. Perhaps hers was a little darker. I suddenly realized that our complexions must, too, be similar. I then suspected, naturally enough, immediately, that perhaps we were both of the “type” in which the personage in the chair might have an interest. Some men, it seems, are interested in certain “types” of women. On this world men have little difficulty in finding the types in which they might be interested. Here there are many markets, some of them even specialty markets, catering to particular tastes. One may accordingly, at one’s convenience, browse though various markets, seeking wares to one’s liking. A fellow, sooner or later, is almost certain to find an item, fastened to one ring or another, which will conform to his particular taste. Too, as an option, “want lists” may be circulated. Some women of Earth, I suspect, owe their very presence on this world, their very brand and collar, to the fact that they happen to satisfy, unbeknownst to themselves, in virtue of some particular configuration of properties, features and such, to a greater or lesser degree, the requirements of such a list. To be sure, these are doubtless delivered to specific customers. If there is a consolation or advantage in this it is that they are almost certain to find that they are exactly, or almost exactly, what someone wants. I did think that my figure might be superior to hers, at least from the point of view of what seemed to be the common preferences of men of this world.

The occupant of the chair tossed one of the pieces of meat to the floor.

I went to it, on all fours, and put down my head, and picked it up.

The next tidbit of meat he tossed to the first step of the dais, where I retrieved it.

I looked up at him, the palms of my hands on the firs step of the dais, my knees on the flagging below the dais.

He tossed the next piece of meat on the second step.

Obediently I took it. He was drawing me upward.

The next tidbit he threw to the floor of the dais, before his chair. I crawled to the floor of the dais and put down my head and picked up the bit of meat. I was grateful for it. I had not had beat since the pens. I looked up at him. My hair fell before my shoulders. I was nude. My neck was innocent of a collar. On my thigh there was, of course, the brand. Once or twice in the pens I had been given a candy, a hard candy, and once, a part of a pastry. I did not hope for such items here, of course, at least at this time. He now held the next piece of meat between his fingers. I was to approach him, and take the it from his hand. I crawled to him, and knelt before him, and dared to put my hands upon his left knee. Dorna, the high slave, was a little before me, and to my right. She was standing beside the arm of the thronelike chair, at his left. I put my head forward, delicately, to take the piece of meat, but he drew back his hand a little. I then drew back my head a little, and looked up at him.