I released her mouth and she pulled back and opened her mouth widely, to scream. I bunched and thrust veil into her mouth. She looked at me, wildly, half gagging, my fingers and cloth in her mouth. Little by little, then, with my fingers, patiently, my thumb holding my present accomplishments in place, and pushing them further back, to make room for more folds, I worked more of the veil into her mouth. Finally I pulled out the pins at the side, and completed the work. Some veils are held not with pins but with hooks and cords, passing about the back of the head. Others are a part of the hood itself. With the hood cords, which can fasten the hood more or less closely about the neck, like a cloak. I fastened the veil in place. She then looked at me, well silenced. No longer had she the dignity of the veil.

She did not try to dislodge the silencing device I had placed in her mouth but she lifted her hands, shamed, before her face, to conceal her countenance from me.

I noted how her hands were held before her face.

I pulled her hands down, away from her face. I held them, she helpless to resist, and then, for a time, not hurrying, considered her lips and mouth. They were indeed excellent. She turned her head to the side.

I turned her about and put her on her stomach. I then removed her stockings. Her slippers, removed for the night, were to one side. With one stocking I bound her hands together, behind her back, leaving two ends loose. I then crossed and bound her ankles with the other stocking, and, as she winced, pulled her legs up behind her. I looped one of the two loose ends from the stocking securing her wrists twice about her ankle tie and then tied it to the other loose end. This fastened her in a slave bow. I pulled her hood down about her face. In this way her facial modesty was protected. Her lips and mouth, then, were not exposed to the gaze of men, as though they might be those of a slave. I then found he dagger and, carefully, with regard to her modesty, cut and divided her garments, removing fastening and hooks from them. This left her fully and modestly concealed, albeit with only strips and pieces of clothing, the devices for arranging and closing which had been removed. I did not think she would find that her dignity would be compromised unless, of course, foolishly, she chose to move. I then picked up her small dagger, and my pack, and the blankets, and again made my way toward my space. When I reached it, I put down the pack and blankets. I also put the small dagger under my foot, and pulling up on the handle, broke the blade away. The two parts I cast away, back by the wall. No longer would it endanger her life.

I looked about. There were some empty spaces on the floor, for example, space 98, to my left, as I would face the front of the room, but, on the whole, the level was very crowded. I would have liked the comparative privacy of space 99, in the corner, but it was occupied. I suspected that the empty spaces, or most of them, had been vacated by fellows who had left early. Some folks leave almost in the middle of the night, and then stop at another inn, in the early afternoon. That way they can usually count on obtaining excellent accommodations. Most inns want you out by noon, the tenth Ahn.

I glanced back to the space occupied by the free woman whom I had not found pleasing, she on whose mouth I had seen fit to impose closure, she whom I had left in precarious concealments and slave trussing. She was motionless. I doubted, however, that she was asleep. She would not wish to attract attention to her present straits. In the morning, with folks bustling about, she would probably be all right. Now, however, she might be plucked as easily as a larma, one overhanging a public path. I had scarcely arranged my blankets and put the pack down for a pillow when I saw an attendant enter the room, carrying a stripped female, her hands tied behind her, over his shoulder, her head to the rear, in slave position. I gestured to him, and, exciting my envy somewhat, he picked his way expertly among the sprawled, slumbering bodies to my space. "I shall return in an Ahn," he said. He then sat his burden beside me.

"You!" said the Lady Temione.

"Shhh," I cautioned her. "People are trying to sleep." She tried to struggle to her feet, but I gently placed her on the blanket beside me, on her side.

"This a terrible mistake," she whispered. "You know I am a free woman." "Yes," I said.

She had been relieved of her shackles, but her wrists were thonged behind her back. About her neck, however, there was now wound, in three close, unslippable loops, a heavy length of chain. Two links of this chain, not the end links, were fastened together in front with a heavy padlock. The two ends of the chain then, below the connected links, hung down in front, in an attractive, tielike, cravatlike, arrangement. There was a practical aspect to this as well, of course. The same chain, in virtue of the links selected, may be worn by any woman. Too, attached to this chaining, near the padlock, was a metal tag of some sort. I could not see it well in the darkness.

"Then release me!" she whispered.

"I do not understand," I said.

"You agreed this was a terrible mistake," she whispered.

"No," I said. "Yes, that you were a free woman."

"I do not understand what I am doing here," she said, "naked and tied beside you."

"Really?" I asked.

"It can not be that!" she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I am free!" she said.

"But your bills are not paid," I said.

She made an angry noise.

"It seems that this time you did not manage to inveigle some fellow into paying them for you."

"What are you going to do to me?" she asked.

"What do you think?" I asked.

"Not that," she said.

"Precisely," I said.

"I am not an inn girl," she said. "I am a free woman! I am not subject to guest use!"

"Were you told you were not subject to guest use?" I asked.

"No," she said, hesitantly.

"So?" I said. "But I assumed, of course, as I was freea€”"

"Are you a virgin?" I asked.

"That is surely a personal matter," she said. "Surely that is my own business." "It would take only a moment for me to make the determination," I said. "No," she said, pulling back. "I am not a virgin.

"It would seem then," I said, "that at least once or twice you must have had to pay off fellows for their assistance."

"They were not gentlemen," she said.

"I think you will discover," I said, "that from now on you no longer possess bargaining power in such matters."

"I do not understand," she said.

"In the future," I said, "I think you will find that you will no longer have control over the gratifications which might be attendant upon your uses, nor over the numbers, times or natures of them."

"I do not understand," she said, frightened.

"I am pleased you are not a virgin," I said. "Thus our relationship can be much simpler."

"Am I truly available to you?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "I paid for you, for the Ahn."

"Paid?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"It must have been terribly expensive," she said.

"The price of an inn girl here," I said, "is three copper tarsks for the quarter of an Ahn."

"That is extremely expensive, is it not?" she asked.

"Terribly so," I agreed. I was not too pleased with the keeper. Surely he was a heinously gouging scoundrel. Other than that, however, he seemed a rather good fellow. Space 97, for example, did have one edge, the top edge, on the wall. "If a common inn girl costs so much," she breathed, "how could you even begin to afford someone like me? You must have been devastatingly smitten with my beauty!"

"You are actually a bit fat," I said, "but I think that could be worked off you, with a sparing, judicious diet, complex exercises, suitable disciplines, and such."