Had she no concept as to where her true happiness might lie?

“Yes,” she said, “to the very highest of castes-saving only that of the Initiates, of course.”

The Initiates, as I understood it, were celibate, or putatively so.

“Oh, yes! He would come back!” she said. “He was smitten with me! But I would not so much as glace at him now, I reclining in my palanquin. Let him tremble. Let him suffer! The palanquin seemed a sturdy sort. It was he, of course, who would close its shutters. ‘Doubtless you will bring a high ransom,’ he said. ‘What?” I said, turning quickly toward him. The doors of the palanquin swung shut. I heard two bolts slide into place. It suddenly seemed extremely quiet in the palanquin. I rose to my knees and pounded on the door. I could hear my pounding very clearly but could hear little or nothing from outside. I was suddenly extremely frightened. The palanquin lifted. It began to move. I lost my balance. I wept. I recovered my balance. I cried out. I scrambled about the palanquin, pounding on the sides, the ceiling, the surface of the couch. It continued to move. I did not know to whence it was being borne. I was wild inside it, like a trapped animal. I called to the bearers. It seemed they could not, or would not, hear me. I screamed, my cry wild in the palanquin, reverberating within it, hurting my ears. But such a cry, I suddenly suspected, might not even be audible outside the palanquin. I tore away the hangings inside the palanquin. Behind them was iron. It was doubtless layered, insulated, and baffled. Outside, visible from the outside, would be the lacquered wood of the palanquin, it giving no hint as to what was inside. I lunged, and pressed, against the shutters of the door. They were, too, beneath the silk, torn away, of iron. Their construction was doubtless the same as, or comparable to, the construction of the sides. They were closed, and locked. I put my fingers to the margins of the shutters. They were fitted closely into heavy linings of leather. I could not begin to move them. I flung aside the cushions of the palanquin. I tore aside the coverlets. I thrust back the mattress. The flooring, too, was of iron. I tore the silk from the ceiling. It, too, was of iron. In it, as in the walls, were tiny baffles, doubtless such as to admit air, but soften, or preclude, the exit of sound waves. I knelt on the floor, pressing upward. I could budge nothing. I screamed again. I called out. I threatened. I promised rewards! I cajoled! The palanquin continued to move. It turned from time to time. Perhaps we were in less traveled streets now, side streets. I grew hoarse with calling out. I could now scarcely speak. The finger tips of my gloves, and the palms of them, were worn and soiled from pressing the hard surfaces about me. My gloves were expensive. They would be ruined. They were even torn at the knuckles. And my knuckles within them, and the sides of my fists within them, hurt, from my pounding on the sides, the floor and ceiling of the palanquin. It turned again, and continued to move. I thrust down the mattress and the coverlets, twisted as they were, and knelt on them, and pounded them, in frustration, in futile rage. I then, exhausted and miserable, threw myself to my stomach upon them, weeping.”

“Go on,” I said.

“I was in an iron box,” she said, “being carried away.”

“You were helpless,” I said.

“For the first time in my lift,” she said. “The palanquin was apparently later placed on a wagon, doubtless covered over, and thusly was I removed from the city. I eventually fell asleep and, doubtless Ahn later, I awakened. The palanquin must have been removed from the wagon. The doors opened, and a voice said, ‘Come forth.’ I crept to the edge of the palanquin, to the threshold. It was dark outside. I was in some sort of ruined barn. I could see though its sides, and roof. We were somewhere in the country. The moons were full. A rope was dropped over my head and drawn closely about my neck. By its means I was drawn from the palanquin. One man then stood behind me, he who held the rope by means of which I was kept in place. I was then, other than for the fellow behind me, standing before my captors. There were, altogether, six or seven of them. He who had lured me to the shop was there, and still masked. It was he who was most prominently before me. It was he, it seemed, who was first among them. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ I demanded. ‘You cannot get away with this!’ I cried. ‘You will pay for this!’ I cried. ‘Release me!’ I demanded. ‘Keep your mouth shut,’ he said. He said that to me, a free woman! ‘I will do as I please!’ I said. ‘Do you wish to keep your clothing?’ asked one of the men. Another laughed. ‘I am a free woman,’ I whispered. The fellow in the mask, whom I had foolishly taken as a smitten swain, seemed to be regarding my figure, in the moonlight. Shadows fell across me from the ruins of the barn. Doubtless he was free and could respect me, as I was free, as well. But it made me uneasy, to see him look at me, regarding me in the moonlight, in the shadows, from head to toe. ‘Whatever the ransom you wish,’ I assured him, ‘it will be paid, promptly.’ ‘Let us strip her,’ said one of the brutes, ‘and have her serve us, keeping her as a slave, until the ransom is paid. None will know. And she, in her vanity, will never speak of what was done to her.’ I could not move, for the rope on my neck. ‘No,’ said another, ‘and if she dared to do so, she would doubtless be remanded to the pens, for sale outside the city.’ I trembled. You can well imagine my terror, at the thought of being at the mercy of such beasts! Can you imagine? I, a free woman, to be kept as a slave? I am not such! The thought of it was unconscionable! I wavered. I almost fainted at the thought. ‘You see,’ said one of them, ‘she desires so to serve!’ ‘No, no!’ I cried. They laughed. How could they so misunderstand my responses? ‘You would oil, juice and gush, naked, your beauty in chains,’ said another. ‘No!’ I cried. ‘You would hasten to serve, once having felt the lash,’ said another. I almost swooned. ‘No, no,’ I murmured, scarcely able to speak. ‘Interesting,’ mused their leader. Did he, too, misunderstand my responses? ‘I am a free woman!’ I cried. But then I drew back, in terror, for he in the mask, their leader, had produced a knife. But I did not want to press back against he behind me, either. I stood where I was, frightened, the rope on my neck. Then I did shrink back, for the knife approached me. “Please!” I protested. I felt its point move though my robes, their layers. Its point was at my lower abdomen. Then, with a quick lateral motion, I crying out a little, it opened a slit in my robes, perhaps a mere hort or two in width. ‘Keep your hands to your sides,’ said the leader of my captors. The knife, its point, was within my robes. Then it directed itself toward me. I felt the point press lightly, twice, against my lower abdomen. “Please!” I wept. The point came forward a little, I pressed back, against the captor behind me, literally against him. I was pinned against him, by the point of the knife. My head was up, from the rope on my neck. ‘Does she have a belly?’ asked one of the men. ‘Oh!’ I said. I wince. ‘It would seem so,’ said their leader, he in the mask. The men laughed. ‘It is a pretty one?’ asked a man. ‘Let us see,’ said another. “Hands at your sides!’ I was sternly warned by the leader. I felt the knife turn within my robes, its blade upward. From the manner in which it had earlier parted my robes I knew it was extremely sharp. With one upward diagonal movement I had little doubt it could part my garments, with one stroke revealing me from my lower belly to my throat. I sobbed. I tensed. The knife was removed from my garments, and sheathed. I quickly put my hands over the tiny rent in my robes, and then adjusted them, that it would be covered. One of the men uttered a sound, as of disappointment. ‘Hands to your sides,’ my captor reminded me. I put my hands again to my sides. The rent was now well concealed, as I had adjusted the robes. ‘The value of a slave can only be adequately ascertained when she is utterly bared,’ said my captor, ‘but the value of a free woman, one for whom a ransom is requested, is often the better preserved the more her modesty is respected.’ ‘True,’ said a man. Unaccountably I was angry. ‘Keep your hands to your sides,’ said my captor again. I complied. I then felt a broad band of leather put about me. It was quite snug, and it was buckled behind me. Within it, my arms were helpless. It also had, as I later learned, a ring in the back, by means of which I might be attached to various objects, such as other rings or stanchions. I then stood before them, in this confinement. The rope was still on my neck. ‘What ransom shall we ask for you?’ inquired my captor. ‘I am priceless,’ I said. ‘Nonetheless,’ said he, the beast, ‘we shall think in terms of a finite amount.’ ‘Armies will search for me!’ I said. One of the men laughed. ‘But doubtless there will be a search,’ said another. ‘Have no fear, lady,’ said my captor. ‘We have a place in mind for you, an excellent place, one for your safekeeping, where no one will ever find you.’”