a table in the wilderness

2006-12-15T15:41:00.000-08:00

I say that they branded me and I say that they tied me to the wheel. Nothing

prepared me for what they were actually preparing to do to me. First, they tied

me to a wheel that they had laid out on the ground expressly for this purpose.

This wheel was old, it was splintery, and apparently had never been really well

cared-for, so that even where there were no splinters, the wood still scraped

hard against my skin. I was completely naked. They’d thrown me roughly

against the wheel, without any care for my distress, my modesty, or even any

respect for my identity as a living, feeling, being. Already there were bruises on

my face and on my arms. Even my flower was bruised from their inspection.

Also, before tying me to the wheel they’d lashed my back with one of their

whips, a multi-corded thing with little knots on the ends. When I asked why

they lashed me, Dashsnare simply smirked and said, “Pride.”

All of this seemed quite unreasonable to me. I felt completely invaded, and

attacked, and I responded. It took them some work to tie me down: I kicked,

screamed, and fought as hard as I could. Both of them, Dashsnare and the other

man, broke out into a sweat before they were finished tying me down.

Dashsnare left in frustration when he finished.

Finally, though, the fire was lit. It burned down after a time to red coals. The

short slaver tended the fire carefully, adding wood now and then. It was clear

that he was trying to create a body of very hot, white coals, and that he wanted

to sustain it at that level of heat. I was tied, helpless, arms above my head, legs

apart, the thigh about to be branded, completely immobilized.

“What is your name?” I asked the short slaver, “I have not heard it spoken by

the others.”

“Curiousity is unbecoming in a slave,” he replied gruffly.

I persisted. “Tell me your name, please. You are going to do something

horrible to me, at least tell me who you are.”

He looked me in the eyes, almost as if he was taking the measure of my spirit..

“You are nobody,” he replied, “and no one will ever pay attention to anything

you say again, as long as you live, so it makes no difference what I do, or do not,

tell you – because if you tell someone I told you my name, they won’t believe I

did it.” He laughed. “My name is Lachesis.”

“But that is not a use name. That is your real name, is it not?” I answered.

“Aye,” he replied, “it is my name. If you were free, I would not tell you. But

you are not free, and as I say, no one will believe you.”

“Where are you from?” I asked. Really I was hoping to engage him in

conversation so that he would forget his task.

“I am from a city in the foothills, near to the road that leads to the Priest Kings.”

“And you are a warrior? You were a warrior?”

“Look at my belly, girl” he laughed. “I war only with ka-la-na, and with paga”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that a man like me would never be a warrior.”

“oh?”

“I am a poor man, or would be, except for this trade. I am a man of low caste,

unlike your family.”

This annoyed me a little. “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Only this: your grandfather, the physician, I suppose he goes about in your

city. When he goes out, people greet him with deference. They start all their

conversations to him with words like “If you please, Master,” “Would you mind,

Master,” “May I ask, Master” or “May I approach, Master,” he laughed again.

“Everyone probably speaks to him like that. No one shouts at him, no one tells

him to get out of the way. If your grandfather had a son, your grandfather

would only have to seek out a master of whatever profession he wanted for his

soon, and request an apprenticeship for the boy. Warrior, artisan, scribe,

whatever he wants. All doors are open.”

I listened quietly, trying not to look at the fire.

“But,” continued Lachesis, “the best I can hope for my daughter is to sell her to

an important man. Perhaps he will enjoy her, notice her. Perhaps in time, he

may come to love her, perhaps free her, perhaps make her his Companion, a

member of his family, his homestone, his caste. Those are the best dreams I

have for my daughter: to sell her as a slave to a man like your grandfather.”

He poked at the fire with a stick. Lachesis had gray hair, and it was dirty, like

his fingernails. Yet his eyes were not entirely glazed over with cycnicism, like

Twistcharm’s, nor were they dull and stupid, like Dashsnare’s. They were dark,

but held a spark of intelligence, of feeling. I realized suddenly, that Lachesis was

a man who might, occasionally, be troubled by his work. He straightened up

quickly, and looked almost as if he had heard my thoughts.

“Your world,” he said quietly, “your grandfather’s world, requires the existence

of men like myself. If I did not do this work,” he continued, “another man

would. Better for me to do it, and perhaps, someday, I might not have to sell

my daughter in order to get her a future.”

After he said this, he walked over to the front of the wagon, and after a bit, he

pulled out the brand he wanted. He walked back to the fire, and threw the

brand into the coals. Gradually the brand began to glow red. Then he pulled

the brand out of the fire.

“Prepare yourself” he said. Before I could realize it, he stuck the brand onto my

thigh. The shock of the burn, to me, was such that at first I did not feel it. I

heard the sizzle, I saw the smoke, I smelled burning flesh, but I experienced

these things before I felt the pain. The pain, when I felt it at last, was horrible.

It was more than pain. It was as if my entire body, mind, spirit, and soul, had

become simply one huge blue-white flame. I could not even cry out. I could not

even imagine where the pain began and where it ended. All I could do was

experience the pain, gap-mouthed and silent, until the pain overwhelmed me,

and everything went black.

When I returned to consciousness, Lachesis was there, watching me.

“This sometimes happens” was all he said, addressing nobody in particular. He

had a cloth soaked in some serum that I did not recognize. My mouth moved as

if to form a question.

“Of course you would not know this serum,” he said, as if anticipating my

question. “Physicians have made special serums and potions for slavers for a

very long time.” Then he smiled at me. “Physicians live with very few

illusions.”

Lachesis placed the cloth over my thigh, and tied another cloth around it to hold

it in place. Even that was almost too much for me. The nerve endings in my leg

being exposed and injured, everything he did to me was an agony.

The night passed slowly. I was torn between exhaustion and pain, and perhaps

I should say agony. A person who has never been badly burned cannot

understand the agony of charred skin and muscle. Lachesis returned every two

hours to tend the wound.

“Why are you so careful?” I asked him.

“The scar needs to be beautiful,” he replied, or we lose money.”

What he said was true. My grandmother’s house slaves would tell stories

sometimes, of slaves they met, who had been sentenced to a life time of service

as pot girls because of a careless brand. They’d spoken of these pot girls both

with sadness, and relief as if they were glad to have avoided their fate. A pot

girl is less than nobody. She will never serve the master personally. She will

never be noticed. She lives out her days among iron pots and kitchen refuse. It

is almost like what warriors call “garbage death” except that the sleens never

come to put an end to it. Emotionally, pot girl is a living death.

Thinking of this, I turned my head towards Lachesis, as best I could.

“Thank you,” I whispered hoarsely.

He said nothing, but appeared a little shocked.

The sun was high when I awoke the next day and it was hot. A dry wind blew hard

and everything seemed parched. The dryness of the wind suggested that there must be a desert

nearby. I had slept, but I was still tired. I was still sore.

Lachesis appeared, bearing a bowl of something.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Food.” He replied quietly. I was still tied to the wheel. Lachesis, working quickly, untied me. “Get up.” he ordered.

Moving stiffly, I got up off the wheel. I stood up, but my ears began to ring and I felt faint, so I sat down.

“You need to eat” was all he said, and handed me the bowl. In the bowl

was some kind of soup. I tasted it, and it was cold. It had no real flavor – just water,

meal, some white roots, green leaves, and shredded blue roots.

“What is this called?” I asked, because I had never seen it before.

Lachesis laughed. “I am sure this dish is served in your grandfather’s house,” he said, “it’s slave porridge.

You’ll be eating a lot of it in the future.” He laughed again. “It will be a long time before you taste an eel or a blueberry again, girl,” was all he said.

I did not truly realize the truth of what he said that day, but he was right. I learned to eat

the porridge, but I never really learned to enjoy it. In my house now, of course, I do

not permit that dish to be served. Since I have only two slaves, their diet is the same as

mine. I do realize, though, that it would be impossible to do this in a large house with a dozen slaves. The expense would be terrible.

After I ate, Lachesis came and took the bowl from me. Then he said to

me “Get up. You will join the other slaves now.” I got up with some trouble but

the dizziness did not return. Following Lachesis, I walked across the camp to an area

under a large tree where four other slaves sat. Lachesis pointed at them in turn as

he said their names: Afsana, Dunya, Mirit, and Tovah. Then he pointed at me. “Etana” he said, mispronouncing

my name. The consonant he pronounced as a “t” instead of a “d”. I was not about to argue

with him about it, though. Then Lachesis spoke again. “Teach her what she needs

to know, or I will beat all of you.” Without another word, he turned his back and walked away.

The first one to speak was Mirit, who appeared to be the senior member,

or leader, of the group. “Welcome,” she said, “join us.” She said this very

quietly, and she smiled when she said it and her smile appeared sincere. Her eyes were full of concern.

“Thank you,” I replied, trying to smile. I was not sure exactly what I needed

to know, and I was not sure I wanted to learn it, but it was clear that

survival required me to learn whatever she was about to teach me. “Have you been a

slave long?” I continued, “and why are you being sold?”

“Curiousity is unbecoming in a slave, Etana. ” she said gently. Her voice was beautiful and silky

like the lower registers of a flute. “You ought not to be curious, and even if you have a question,

you should never speak it. Just let the question go.” Her response, delivered so sweetly, did not

seem like the rebuke that it was. She was beautiful, and perhaps more surprising, she wore her

nakedness with a grace that was difficult to describe. “little one, you have much to learn.” When

she said these things, it was like her voice smiled, like she had some light in her spirit, and it glowed

through her words, comforting, like a candle in the first dark of evening. “Let this be your first lesson.”

The other girls laughed. They did not have her beauty or her grace. I could imagine that they would

be sold. But Mirit – the name means “sweet wine” – seemed very close to perfection. I could not

imagine that anyone would let her go. It just shows you how little I knew, then.

Mirit was indeed beautiful, but she was young, like me. It takes a very long time to learn to be a

slave and it is much more of a process, like learning to play a musical instrument, than it is something

that you might pick up, like learning to do a certain kind of needlework. It is not so much learning

as it is transformation of character. It is true when I talk to free people, that they immediately

say, when speaking of the idea of slavery, that a slave gives up freedom. Of course a slave gives up

certain freedoms, but free people also give up certain freedoms. What a free person will not address,

and what a slave will talk about, is the slave’s freedom to express their inner nature in a way that

free people either can not or will not express it. It doesn’t seem to occur to free people that this

freedom to express one’s true and inner self has any value. It does not seem, I have found, to be

something that a free person finds important. Yet I learned, because I had both good, and bad,

masters, that the best master will help you teach yourself just exactly who you are. I have no idea

how the best masters accomplish this, but they do it. People fear masters, because they do not understand

what a master is. A master cannot make a person be who they are not. It is not in their power to do that.

The best master, however, can show you, and teach you, to be your best self, if he is any good at all. This

idea seems very complicated for people, but it seems to me to be the reason why a slave often adores her

master for reasons she cannot explain. When a master places a collar on a slave, if it is a true collar, it

creates a bond between them. It is important to say, also, that not every collar is a true collar. A physical

collar means nothing. The bond is what matters. These ideas as I say, seem very complicated, because

they rely on a standard of mutual self-honesty that is very challenging and apparently almost impossible

for people to maintain. But. I am old, and again, I wander from my story.

I spent some days here, learning, among these girls. I ate the slave porridge, and sul – a kind of vegetable

soup, and sometimes redfruit and tospit fruits. Mirit spoke to Lachesis often on my behalf, and obtained

oils and lotions for my hair and skin. Mirit was clever and never spoke of my need as a personal need.

She always presented these things as essential to getting a good price for me. She also saw that my flower

remained clean shaven, and she taught me different gestures and postures.

At first, I learned to “tower”: kneeling with knees together, back straight, leaning on my knees. I thought,

when I learned this, that being a slave was not too demanding, although I was still embarrassed to be

naked, and even more embarrassed to be unveiled. Having my face unveiled seemed much more horrible of the two.

One day, Mirit said to me: “Today, I will teach you to nadu.” The word was unfamiliar to me, of

course, so she showed me what to do: she knelt in Tower, and then spread her thighs very far apart.

Then she placed her hands, palms up, on her thighs.

I was of course absolutely horrified when I realized that she wished me to assume this position.

She was completely exposed, and no modesty was left to her at all.

“Now,” she said, in that beautiful gentle voice, “ you do this.”

“No” I replied firmly. I could not imagine it.

“You must. This is who you are now.”

I knew she was right. I hated that she was right, but she was right. Doing this well would

determine my future, probably. I remembered what Lachesis had said about his ambitions

for his daughter: be a slave, be loved, be freed. This was now also my path.

Almost tearfully, I knelt in Tower, and opened my thighs wide. Mirit watched me carefully.

“Edana,” she corrected me, “straighten your back! Do NOT try to hide!” Her voice was unusually firm.

I did as she said, but she wanted more.

“Straighter!” she said “Make your back like a stick”. Then she said: “Look like you think you are a captive queen!”

“Why?” I asked, “I am just a slave!” I felt completely humiliated sitting like this. Humiliation, in me, leads to rebellion and defiance, I learned.

“Girl!” she frowned, “do you want to be pot girl, or first girl?”

I didn’t know what she meant, and she saw it in my eyes.

“Do you want to be loved by a master, or do you want to wash his dishes?”

She looked hard at me.

“Do you think a master wants a swayback, sloppy, badly groomed girl in his bed, or do you

think he wants a beauty that his companions will envy? Do you want to be bought low, or

high, on the chain? All of this is up to you. Set aside your past. It is gone. Look to your future.”

That was all she said, and she said it gently, and quietly. Mirit also taught me the position of

submission, with my hands over my head. Learning to Nadu without embarrassment or shame

was more difficult for me than being branded, and it taught me that slavery was a condition

of the heart and spirit, not of the body. Mirit taught me other things as well, because she was

generous, and wanted me to do well in my future life. She also taught me to speak of myself in

the third person, to say “this girl” instead of “I”. This particular thing I learned so well that to this day

occasionally I will lapse into speaking this way. It is an odd thing to command servants with sentences

that begin “This girl…” such as “This girl wishes you to change the flowers downstairs in the vases.” Or

“This girl wonders why the meal is late.” I sometimes even have spoken to my grandchildren this way.

“This girl wishes you to finish your sul before you may have your cherries and chocolate.” My grandchildren,

raised with slaves, find these kinds of things amazing to hear. I remember Mirit kindly, however, because

she taught me what was important to know: that my future depended on my attitude in the present.

It is a lesson I did not forget, and I bless her memory for teaching it to me.

Lachesis came, one evening, and gave me a contraceptive serum. The next morning, we were awakened

early. “Hurry,” he grumbled, “we will go to market today. You will be sold” He got out the big chain

and fastened us to it. Position on the chain was very important. I found that I was third on the chain.

It was a warm morning. My future was about to become known to me

2006-12-15T15:29:00.000-08:00

If the months after I put on my veils did not actually stretch into eternity, it certainly seemed at the time that they might actually do so. It was not merely that I put on the veils. It was that the veils changed my life and my relationships with the people around me. For example, I was no longer allowed to play with slaves in the courtyard. And then, too, once I put on the veils I became “Young Mistress” to distinguish me from my grandmother, who was “Mistress”. I became invisible to my uncles, because, after all, I was a freewoman now, and a woman is fairly useless to a man aside from a few well-defined purposes. So, to my uncles I was now “milady” or “Lady Edana” and they became “Sir” or “My Lord” or “Lord So and So” to me. The exception to this of course was my grandfather, who remained Grandfather, to me. However, he was now so removed from my new social world that it was impossible even to imagine that he had ever sat me in his lap and kissed me on the cheek. He was, after all, the Lord of the Homestone now, and I was simply one of the women for whom he had responsibility. That is how my life changed when I began to wear veils.

In addition to the endless needlework, my grandmother began to assign me more chores. She now expected me to supervise slaves in the gardens, and to learn from them how plants grew. She expected me to keep inventory of the contents of the chillers. She was of course training me for my future role as mistress of a large household. I also began to go into the markets, always escorted, to learn what things cost, and how to buy. Eventually I was given a small amount of gold and taught to keep accounts. Apparently this training was to continue until my grandmother felt comfortable that I could rule a household without disgracing her name.

The new year festivities had, by now, been celebrated seventeen times since my birth.

Three seasons after this, another war came. My grandfather by now was retired, his practice largely taken over by his assistants – myself being one of them, of course. He was still treated with respect wherever he went, and his opinions were often sought in the most puzzling cases. My grandmother was still busy directing the affairs of the family, and I still was unable to learn why it was that the endless amounts of sewing and needlework that she did, never decreased.

The war was expected for months. Even so, nothing that anyone had suggested had prepared anyone for the total destruction of the city that the war brought. Men and animals lay dead in the streets, and slaves were led away on long chains, some of them from the only homes they had ever known, headed for places that no one had even heard of. Our house slaves also were lost, including the main cook and all but two of my grandfather’s personal attendants. Those two were left behind only because of their age.

Then one night, the warriors came pounding down the doors in the middle of the night. I was not yet retired for the evening, and was reading in the courtyard by oil lamp when they found me. There were three of them. One was short, and looked a little dirty. The other was tall with one eye missing. The third was handsome but spoke very harshly. The short one stepped towards me and with a swift gesture tore the veils from my face.

“Take this one”, said the one eyed man, “and let’s leave this damned city.”

I screamed as loud as I could but no one seemed to hear me. I had no way of knowing that these three had just murdered my grandparents. I screamed and screamed, and one of them picked up my veils from the ground and stuffed them into my mouth.

“Shut up or I will cut your tongue out”, he growled. “Women talk too much anyway.” Then he spit on the tile. Throwing me onto his shoulder, he stood still for a moment while his companions tied my legs and arms together as if I were an animal being trussed for slaughter. In this way, I was carried out of the only home I had ever known.

Hoisting me on to his shoulder, he spit on the tile, and waited while his companions tied my arms and legs together, as if I were an animal being trussed for slaughter. He carried me out of the only home I had ever known. I had a lot of time, while hanging over his shoulder, to notice that he smelled like leather and unwashed sweat. My breasts were uncomfortable bouncing against his back, and my long braids trailed between his legs. The ropes cut hard against my wrists, and my hands began to go a little numb. What I did not know was that others, remaining behind, were setting fire to my grandparents’ home. By the morning, everything I had ever known would be a pile of smoking ash and scorched stone.

Later in my life I wondered, when I thought of these events, why it was that I wasn’t stripped naked and inspected right then and there. I never understood that, because in most cases, that’s what would have happened. All they saw was my face. The rest, for them, would be a matter of luck, depending on what they wanted. The journey seemed to take a long time, and every step this man took jarred my bones. I sobbed through my gag, and more than once the man growled and grumbled. Once or twice he even offered to impale me if I didn’t quiet myself.

When I arrived at their camp, which was high in the hills outside what had been our City, I was dumped in a corner, added to a group of four or five other women. These women were naked. I was still clothed. The naked women glared at me with contempt.

After dumping me on the ground, the tall warrior stretched a little, saying: we’ll see to them later, when we’re in a better mood to enjoy them. The other two laughed when he said this, and then the three of them walked away. It was a warm night. I lay on the ground, tied up like an animal, and wept until morning.

The men did not return until the middle of the next day. They came, looking tired and unwashed. I saw that they were older than they had appeared during the night, and they did not seem as fit as warriors ought to be. Ignoring the other women, the short one bent over me, and with a hook knife, cut the ropes on my ankles and wrists. I had managed, in the course of the night to work the veils out of my mouth, and these piled in a disgusting heap next to me. Then he forced me to my feet and without another word cut the ribbons that bound my braids, so that my hair fell free.

-Slave hair is always unbound, he muttered. Then he grabbed my hair with his filthy hand and dragged me roughly to a tent on the other side of the camp. The other men I had seen the previous night were there, along with one other man I had never seen before. This new man was sitting in a chair. When I saw him together with the others, I realized suddenly that these men were not warriors: they were ordinary slavers.

The one-eyed man took me from the short man, and then pushed me down on my knees.

-What was your name? he asked harshly, -What were you called?

-I am Edana of Ko-ro-ba, I said, looking him directly in the eyes. –I am the granddaughter of the physician Aodhan of Ko-ro-ba.

-Granddaughter of whom? He looked mildly surprised.

-Aodhan the physician, I replied

-of Ko-ro-ba? he looked a little startled.

-Yes.

The man sitting in the chair eyed me carefully. He looked very tense. His back never touched the chair. His elbows rested on the arms of the chair and his hands met in front of his chest, fingers inter-laced, the index fingers tapping almost nervously. He wore a long robe that apparently at one point had been blue or green and was now fading to something near to brown. The embroidered details on the hems of this robe had apparently at some point been very beautifully worked, but now stitches were missing, and threads stuck out here and there at odd angles. No warrior would look twice at a robe like this, let alone wear it. The warriors of Ko-ro-ba were extremely proud men. Almost unapproachable at times, they were men of few words who accepted only the authority of their commanders. Their pride also extended to their appearance. The warriors of Ko-ro-ba were fit, hard-muscled men who wore clean linen and polished leather. Every detail of their appearance spoke of their pride in their responsibilities and duties. The man in front of me wearing this horrible robe was no more a warrior than was the tree outside the tent. I continued to look at him. His hair was sandy colored, a little gray at the temples, and it looked like it had been trimmed with a knife. He had a very large, slightly crooked nose, and a wide mouth. His eyes were small, and hooded, almost, by his eyelids. He held his mouth very tightly, which made his lips almost disappear.

-Granddaughter of Aodhan of Ko-ro-ba? he hissed, as if he’d not heard the conversation clearly.

There was silence in the tent.

He looked at the other three for a second.

-Idiots, he said, looking at no one in particular.

“Twistcharm, what are you saying?” asked the short slaver.

“Only that you have brought me the granddaughter of one of the most prominent physicians in Ko-ro-ba. The name of Aodhan is known in at least three cities. He defied the Priest-Kings by trying to continue the work of Flaminius. Oh excuse me. You have never heard of Flaminius, who tried to cure the Holy Disease. His cylinder was raided, his work destroyed. Aodhan continued that work, and what’s more, the Priest-Kings left him alone because of his skill as a surgeon repairing battle injuries. Now you expect me to sell a girl who is probably going to tell the first person who asks her where she’s from, that she is Aodhan’s granddaughter. Marvelous.

“We could cut her tongue out,” suggested the one-eyed man hopefully.

“No man wants to be pleasured by a woman without a tongue,” replied Twistcharm, who was now becoming both annoyed and impatient with his companions.

“Still, if we cut her tongue out, she could be a kitchen slave,” volunteered the one-eyed man.

Twistcharm lifted a brass goblet off the ground and heaved it at the one-eyed man. “Damn you, Dashsnare,” he screamed, “Cut her tongue out and we make no profit on the sale. Idiot.”

The odd names intrigued me. It was obvious that these were use-names, not real names. That these men had use-names told me that they were lower caste people, of First Knowledge, only. People of first knowledge have names that they use in order to protect their real names from being known. People of first knowledge believe that if a person knows another person’s real name, that this knowledge can be used for making charms, and spells, and such. People of Second Knowledge, like my family, know that this is not true.

The discussion about me, and my tongue, continued in the background. It was so horrifying that I tried not to pay attention to it.

“May Golden Beetles suck all the liquid from your body while you live for bringing this woman here” swore Twistcharm at Dashsnare. Then he turned and looked at me. Motioning to Dashsnare, he smiled then, and said, quietly, “Strip her.”

I did not realize what was about to happen to me. I had, at that time, no idea, that anything like this could happen to me, that is how sheltered I was at that moment in my life. Twistcharm and Dashsnare looked positively gleeful, or as near to gleeful as they were capable of looking, in any event. Twistcharm pulled a knife from his belt and handed it to Dashsnare. There was nothing particularly interesting about this knife. It was, in fact, completely forgettable. But the fact is that I never forgot that knife, and the memory of it chills my heart, to this day.

Dashsnare stepped up to me and began to cut my clothes off. Mind you, I did not stand there like a statue while he did it. I tried to get away from him, but the third man, whose name I still did not know, was standing behind me. He grabbed my arms. I was trapped between Dashsnare and the third man, and so there was nothing I could do to protect myself from this disgrace. Dashsnare cut, and ripped, and soon my clothes were a pile of rags on the floor. I have heard it said that sometimes, when a slave is stripped, her clothes will be burned in front of her, to impress on her exactly what her new condition of life has become. This, however, did not happen to me. I was still, however, naked in front of three men, and I had never been naked in front of anyone before except in the bath, and I felt deeply shamed to be naked in front of three strange men.

There is nothing that prepares a woman of my background for this kind of degradation. All my life I had been taught to be modest in dress and in manner, and now three men were leering at me, and laughing. They walked around me, my desperate efforts to cover myself with my hands and arms moving them to even higher amusement. They laughed and laughed. Then Dashsnare noticed the two thin gold bracelets on my left arm.

“What are those?” he asked – and I’m sure that he asked only to torment me because he must have known what these bracelets meant, because it was common knowledge in my City. In Ko-ro-ba, all women of a certain caste put three bracelets on at the age of 15. A bracelet was removed each time a woman bore a child. I wore three bracelets, so anyone would have known that I had, as yet, no children. The bracelets had a particular meaning for me, also, because since I was being trained as a physician, I would not be allowed to practice my art until I had borne these two children. I was not then, and still am not now, sure exactly how this rule came about, but our society is so old that I can only suppose that there is wisdom behind it. Perhaps it was only that my life should be well-ordered and stable before I take on concern for the troubles of other people. Now, of course, as the mother of three sons, and grandmother of perhaps 14 children (and as a former slave, my heart does count the children of my sons’ girls as grandchildren although I would never say that to anyone, because it is an unacceptable thing to say). Looking at my wrist, I remembered suddenly when my grandfather had tied the threads on that the bracelets later replaced.

But I digress -- please forgive me, my age affects my mind and makes it wander sometimes – from my story. I had stood there for what seemed to me a very long time, when Dashsnare spoke again, the clever boy.

“Let’s inspect her now!” he said, “so we know what we have!”

And so they began to touch me. “It would be good if we were able to certified her heat,” he said, nearly chirping with happiness at the idea. Twistcharm glared at him, and Dashsnare stopped talking. They continued touching me, first my hair and face, neck, shoulders. Then my face, and in fact my entire body began to burn with shame as the three of them in turn touched my breasts, pinched my nipples, and stroked my thighs. They then parted my thighs and the final indignity began. Pushing my legs apart, Dashsnare began to stroke my flower. They laughed yet more when, upon stroking me, they discovered that my flower was already wet and somewhat swollen.

How helpless a woman is, in this situation, betrayed by her body before men like these. These men were men that I would have ignored had I passed them in the street, men that my family would have considered less than beggars! My anger flared, and my eyes must have shown it, because Twistcharm slapped me hard, across the face.

“You are nothing, now, girl” he sneered, “less than nothing. You are now worth only what money I can get for you, so don’t let your ideas of who you might have been color the reality of who you are, now.”

I said nothing, and then, as if to emphasize his point, he thrust two fingers high up inside of me, straining, but not breaking, my maidenhead. Then he laughed at me. “You are whatever I tell you to be, until I sell you. Then you will be whatever your master tells you to be.” Those words appeared to amuse him a great deal. Smiling at his own cleverness, he put the two fingers he’d had inside me, covered with my own juices, in my mouth. No. Put is not the right word. He forced my lips apart, and pushed his fingers between my teeth. When he finished doing that, he stepped back and looked at me, again, this time pausing for a moment, as if something were wrong.

“Now, tell me,” he asked quietly, ” since when does a slave stand before a free?”

I refused to answer and I refused to kneel. Dashsnare and the third man brought their combined strength down on my shoulders, crumpling me to my knees.

“You are unwilling” smiled Twistcharm. He reflect a moment, then said, “and some would pay a greater price for the pleasure of breaking you.”

“I will not be broken,” I hissed at him. Twistcharm laughed.

“Take her outside,” he commanded, motioning towards the tent flap, apparently growing impatient with the whole business, “Take her outside, tie her to a wheel or a tree, or whatever you want, and then brand her -- oh – and shave the flower clean. It seems to be the style these days.”

“Which brand shall we use?” asked Dashsnare, apparently trying to be helpful. The whole idea struck me as completely beyond comprehension. Apparently they were going to brand me like a bosk, or some similar animal.

“That’s an excellent question,” replied Twistcharm thoughtfully, “Do we have anything that would interest a collector?”

“Well…”

“Oh please don’t tell me that you have something new and strange. Fads don’t work, you know. A certain brand might interest someone today, but then it might fall out of favor and we might lose money.”

“No, no, that’s not what I had in mind. Someone sold me a nice brand with a standard K on it, but the letter is worked in an interesting way. The blacksmith is considered an artist.”

“Good. Use that one -- and be sure you tie her up well. And gag her. If I hear screaming tonight, I’ll take it out of your hide.”

I was pushed to my feet, and although I struggled, kicked, and resisted with all my might, they were still stronger. They dragged me across the camp, and in the end, in spite of my struggling and biting, I was tied to a wagonwheel.

A TABLE IN THE WILDERNESS: chapter 3

2005-11-18T10:48:00.000-08:00

CHAPTER 3:

Of course I did not understand anything about wars, then. I did not see anyone killed. I never saw the bodies of the dead, although I did see the wounded, when they were brought to my grandfather – but even then I only saw them quickly in passing, as they came through the side doors to the south wing, where my grandfather had the slaves set up rooms to house them while they were being cared for. Once the wounded began to arrive, I was kept well away from the south wing, and the amount of needlework I had to do seemed to increase with each passing hour. My grandmother, you see, set me to mending tunics, and when I wasn’t mending tunics, I was rolling linen strips into bandages. I was not allowed to tire of rolling bandages, or at least I was not allowed to say that I was tired and bored of doing it. My grandmother’s glance could be a terrible thing. Sometimes my grandfather would come out of the south wing, looking tired, and covered with blood, but I was not allowed to talk to him then – rather I should say that I tried to visit him, but all my efforts to see him would end with me being dismissed from his presence with a very sharp “child, you don’t belong here, now GO! ” while some slave or other took me by the hand and led me back to an adult in the main part of the house.

One day, however, I came into the south wing to deliver a basket of freshly rolled bandages, and everyone was rushing around. It was clear that my grandfather and his assistants were very short-handed. I took the bandages out of the basket, and carefully placed them in the cabinet on the lower shelves, where they would be easy to reach in a hurry. The bandages were different widths, some large enough to wrap around a man’s thigh, others smaller – the smallest for finger wounds, or stumps, rather. Men lost fingers often in battle. When I got done putting the bandages away, I found that my grandfather had been watching me.

" Granddaughter, go wash your hands and put on an apron," he said to me, "and be quick about it."

Without a word, I went into the room were the medical aprons and robes were kept. I put on a green apron, like the one my grandfather wore over his working robes, which were also green. I tied my hair up with a green ribbon, and put on a cap that was meant to keep my hair from falling into wounds. After preparing myself in this way, I returned to the room where my grandfather was working.

In this room there were ten wounded warriors laying in medical beds. The warriors all had serious wounds, and they were in various stages of treatment, one or two of them apparently just having arrived. My grandfather pointed at one of his assistants, and said to me: “Edana, go to Bricriu”, and then called to Bricriu: “Bricriu, show Edana how to clean a wound! We need the help!"

"Yes Master Aodhan," replied Bricriu, "as you wish, Sir."

I went to where Bricriu was standing, his apron covered with blood, cleaning pebbles and dirt out of a horrible gash in a warrior’s leg. Bricriu sighed and motioned to me to come to where he was.

" Young Mistress, this water is filthy," he said, "please bring me a clean basin full of very hot water, if you would."

I nodded and after a moment returned with a clean basin full of very hot water, and some clean linen cloths. Bricriu poured something from a small bottle into the basin which turned the water a pale gold color, and which also smelled terrible.

“Put a cloth in the water, and then quickly apply it to the leg,” he commanded. It felt odd to be commanded by my grandfather's assistant.

The leg he spoke of belonged to a naked, red-headed warrior, whose leg had been opened from hip to knee. Although his forehead was beaded with sweat, and his mouth a tight line because of pain, so much was honor and modesty in his blood, that he covered his genitals with the corner of a sheet so as to spare me the sight of his nakedness. We worked for a long time on this man’s leg: Bricriu cleaned the wound little by little, being careful that all the foreign matter was gone, and I following behind him packing the wound with cloths that had been soaked in an herb meant to prevent infection. Of course I did not use my hands to pack the wound, because as Bricriu said, hands are never really clean. Instead I used a tool that looked something like two small forks joined together like tongs.

When we finished, Bricriu gave the warrior a serum to drink that would kill pain and make him sleepy saying, “I gave him something when I started, but nothing really kills the pain unless they go to sleep.” The warrior, all during this procedure never cried out. We cleaned four more wounds of that severity, working for several hours. This was the first day of my training as a physician.

In our home, we did not worry about warriors coming around looking for chain luck. With chain luck, the warriors come and take free women for slaves, hoping to find that they’ve happened on a beautiful woman. The women in our home, although beautiful, were either older, like my grandmother, or insane, like my mother, or children, like me. My aunts were not in the home at this time, having been taken to their own families by uncles, and I had no sisters. I think now, too, that my grandfather’s position as a physician must have obtained the home a little respect, but I don’t know.

What I did know was that women were disappearing in other homes on account of the warriors, but no one came to us. I knew that because I was still doing my best to hide in corners and hear every conversation I could, when I wasn’t rolling bandages. Adults, I found, will say remarkable things when children sit either at their feet, or behind them. The adults talk, and they look at each other, but they don’t look around, and certainly they never look down. In this way, I managed to keep myself well-informed without having to ask questions.

The war went on for a long time, and on account of the war, the Festival of the Waiting Hand, and the New Year carnivals were not held. Because of this, our doors were not repainted, and there were no games, no carnivals anywhere to be found. We did nail some Brak Bush to the doors, and chewed the leaves according to custom, but purgatives are small comfort when what you really want is a carnival.

After the war ended, things went back almost to the way they’d been before. The south wing was re-painted, the floors re-tiled. Grandmother threw out all the furniture from the south wing, and the drapes, and so everything was refreshed and made new. My grandfather went back to his scrolls, and I continued to grow. After a while my body began to look and behave like a woman’s body, and my grandmother decided that it was time for me to wear veils on my head and my face. She brought me a long white veil, and showed me how to fasten it on my hair, which she first insisted that I braid.

"I don’t want to braid it, Grandmother," I said to her.

"Nonsense," she replied. "You must obey the rules of decorum. You must maintain a modest appearance. Do you want a man to think you have a slave belly? Do you want to be taken for a slave, and spend your life on your knees, begging for a man’s attention and wearing a collar like an animal?"

"I don’t see what that has to do with braiding my hair. It hurts my scalp," I replied.

"Edana, be quiet and braid your hair," she replied, "and take these three face veils.
The quilted one goes on top. Wear them, unless you want men to think you have face-stripped yourself for their pleasure. You are the daughter of a respectable homestone."

"I really don’t understand why this is needed," I said.

"Edana, one more comment from you and you will be punished," she replied.

Her eyes were starting to glow with irritation.With a dreadful, heartbroken sigh, I put on the head veil and the face veils. My childhood was over.

TO BE CONTINUED...

A TABLE IN THE WILDERNESS: chapter 2

2005-11-18T10:40:00.000-08:00

CHAPTER 2

It seems to me that the world is moving faster than it did when I was a little girl. I suppose everyone feels the pace of time quicken with the passing years. I can look back and remember when I was a young girl, a child, even, that the afternoons seemed to last forever and there was never enough to do to fill them. I was a mischievous child. I did not attend to my lessons very well, and I had a hard time paying attention to the needlework and mending that my grandmother insisted I learn to do. Grandmother was beautiful, I thought. Her hair was gold and silver, and she dressed always in beautiful pale dresses, trimmed with ribbons and lace. Her veils were almost transparent, and even the quilted veil seemed to shimmer and change color when she moved. She was strict about wearing the veils, and I dreaded the day I knew would come when she would make me wear them. Inside Grandmother’s apparent delicacy, however, there lived a firm spirit. She knew how to talk to a merchant, and she had no patience at all with my mother’s nervous temperament.

Grandfather was very tall and quiet. He was a physician now, and carried the burden of other people’s secrets. His hours were unpredictable, and he was likely as not to be called away in the middle of the night. Grandmother disapproved of people being sick in the middle of the night, because it disturbed Grandfather’s rest. She had learned a long time ago, though, to keep that opinion to herself. They lived in a house that was open, and simple, and built around a courtyard. Grandfather loved birds, so there was an aviary in one corner. He liked to tame wild birds, and he had one or two wild birds that would come when he called them. The courtyard was tiled in an old design, one of those designs that had a meaning if you could read the lines and shapes. The tiles were mostly dark blue, and the lines and designs in green, gold, and gray. I remember some purple also, but I don’t think that’s right. Grandfather had nothing to do with the Priest Kings, as far as I knew.

I had three uncles, also. One was a money counter, one was an artisan, and the other did something that I did not understand. My uncles and their wives would come in the evenings to visit. The men would sit with my grandfather and talk over the events of the day. My aunts would go off with my grandmother to help with her endless needlework. Sometimes I would listen to the men talk because they were interesting. Nobody noticed me, because I was small, and I hid in the shadows, or sat behind their couches.

I remember one afternoon I got very bored with my toys, and made a beautiful skirt from tulips and yellow talender flowers. It was not very long, but very pretty, I thought. In the evening, I decided to show off my beautiful skirt, and so I went into the courtyard dancing, wearing nothing but my little skirt and some bells I had found and threaded onto a piece of ribbon. I was very proud of myself, and thought that I danced quite wonderfully. No one seemed to enjoy my dancing, which surprised me because when the slave girls danced, my uncles enjoyed it. Still, I did my best dance. My uncles looked at the floor, and my grandfather called my mother and grandmother. My mother turned white and my grandmother grabbed my by the arm and dragged me upstairs to my room, speaking very sternly about slaves and free women and one thing and another. I didn’t understand. What I did understand was that I spent that evening shut up in my room doing more needlework, and I was not allowed to come down and listen to the conversations. Also my grandmother took away my little skirt and my bells. The next evening, when my uncles arrived, one of them laughed and called me “Lale” which means tulip. After a few days, it was my new name. No one ever called me Edana again, until I was grown.

It was not long after this event that the wars began. For me it is not so much a matter of remembering what cities went to war against each other as it is a matter of remembering what I felt, and saw, and heard. At first, all I knew was that my grandfather began to speak more quietly. My uncles had less time to play with me, and my grandmother became short-tempered, and began to order more food.

Not long after I noticed these things, I saw a tarn flying across the sky screaming. I had never seen one of these huge war birds before, except in the bird stables. War tarns in the sky are very different than they are on the ground. In the air, wings pounding the sky, screaming, they inspire terror. On the ground they look clumsy. It seems true of nature, even here, that a bird meant for flying does not move easily on the land. I watched the tarn flying against the cloudless sky; the tarnsman looked so small in the saddle. It was hard to believe that the tarnsman controlled the uneasy truce between war bird and man, but he did control it, so long as he did not lose his tarn whistle. As I continued to watch, I wondered what the tarn was doing in this particular part of the world. Then I saw it fly back and forth, and I saw two or three others join it. They circled something I could not see, flying in and out of my line of sight. The screaming scared me. I ran inside, covering my ears with my hands, crying.

"Child, what is the matter with you?" This is my grandmother speaking, her hopes for my future dissolving, it seemed, with every new and unintended breach of propriety I committed. Then she heard the war birds. They were coming closer. The household linens she was embroidering slipped to the floor as she stood up and walked quickly to the doorway.

"Aodhan!"She cried to my grandfather, "Aodhan, come here quickly!" The intensity of her speech made the veils around her mouth tremble a little when she spoke.

"Aye, Mab, I hear the birds," he replied steadily. He walked in from the garden with a rolled up medical scroll in his hand, thumb stuck in the scroll so that he would not lose his place. "I hear the birds," he sighed, " I have heard them before. Now collect yourself, woman, for the little ones, as you’ll be no example to anyone raising your voice like that," he grumbled. He settled himself in one of the chairs with his scroll, looking for the place he’d left off reading.

Grandfather was handsome I thought. His hair was streaked white and gray, his beard sort of silvery, cut very short, and his eyes reminded me of seawater. His hands and arms were all scarred up, and one of his fingers was missing. A snake tattoo curved around the index finger of his left hand, from the base of the finger all the way to the fingernail. It was a wonderful snake, full of colors and designs. It even had eyes. I loved this snake. Sometimes, when my grandfather played with me, he would make hissing noises and pretend that the snake was real. When he did this, I squirmed and wiggled and laughed, because for all the hissing noises, it was really a nice snake. The game always ended with a kiss on the cheek from my grandfather. I remember my family now, and I realize that these people have been dead such a long time, its almost like they were never alive, but they were alive, and vibrant, once. Soon I will join them in their sleeping.

The war birds got louder. Tower girls and garden slaves began to run into the house, eyes wide with fear. They huddled together, kneeling in corners. Soon the sky was filled with war birds, and the screaming overwhelmed us. Now and then a feather would land on the roof with an odd thud. I ran into my grandmother’s bedroom and hid under her bed. My grandmother continued embroidering her linens, but her hand shook just a little. My grandfather put down his scroll and stood at the door, watching the sky. Then he turned to my grandmother.

"Mab, my darling, we’ll have guests soon,"he said to her.

I could hear his voice even from under the bed. Then he went back to watching the sky. So began my first war.

TO BE CONTINUED

A TABLE IN THE WILDERNESS: chapter 1

2005-11-18T10:34:00.000-08:00

CHAPTER 1

I write because I want to be remembered. I think everyone does, regardless of what they say. Of course, I have reasons for wanting to be remembered now: I am 80 years old. My journey here is almost finished and soon my homesick body will go back to the ground that it came from. It is an odd thing to be 80 years old. Alone, I do not feel old. I feel alive, full of energy to myself. I feel beautiful. Then, by chance, I will pass a mirror or a dark glass and see a wrinkled old woman smiling back at me. When did I grow so old? I don’t know. I don’t even ask why the old woman looking at me is smiling. I just feel shock. I feel the shock and I stand there until the shock passes, then I keep walking.

I came to live in this ruined villa forty years ago. In those days, before the wars, it was not a ruin. The gardens then were full of flower trees, Hogarth trees, clovers, and many rare specimens from both the Schendi rainforests and the deserts. This part of the world is a very happy place for plants. All kinds of things grow together here that could not grow together elsewhere, so the liana vines and needle trees make peace together in this unusual climate. I have worked hard, since I came here, first to maintain, and then to restore, the gardens.

Seven hands ago, while visiting for the new year rituals, my youngest son came to me and insisted that I move my rooms from the second floor to the first. My son, although the soul of courtesy and consideration, is still a warrior, and he is accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. His concern for my welfare and comfort came in the form of a simple “Mother, your rooms will be moved to the south wing. Ute says these rooms are damp in the evening.” He speaks to me this way because of his training, and his position. I hear the heart behind the words, smile at him, and simply reply, “Yes darling, of course”.

Now who is Ute? She is one of the nine women who wait on my son’s every wish and desire. Ute is a slave. I have no idea where this manuscript will end up, so I want to say that the institution of slavery in this society is very ancient – at least as old as Glorious Ar, and to the best of my recollection, Glorious Ar is around thousand years old, as some measure time. When I first came here, of course, I did not understand slavery and found it a brutal and horrifying practice. I suppose I found it even more brutal and horrifying because I came to this land originally as a slave, captured, and sold off a chain.

TO BE CONTINUED