She screamed with misery when the blindfold was removed, looking out upon buyers.

She was soon sold.

The girl in the house tunic was hurried to the height of the block.

"What have we here?" cried the auctioneer. "Surely there is some mistake. This is only a meaningless little house slave!"

The crowd roared with laughter.

The man with the tablet listened intently. He did not order me immediately to the foot of the stairs, those leading to the surface of the great block at the Curulean.

He glanced back at the slender, frightened girl, in the bit of white fluff, still in chain and collar, on the bench. She looked away from him, frightened, looking straight ahead.

I wished my hair was longer.

I listened to the sale of the girl in the house tunic. It would soon be torn from her.

"Number," said the man with the tablet to me.

I turned, and put my head to the side, that he might read the tiny number printed in lipstick beneath my left ear.

"Ninety-one," he said. He jotted it down on the sales sheets.

I heard the tunic torn from the girl on the block, the roar of the crowd.

She was now being exhibited naked.

The man with the tablet thrust me toward the foot of the block, and I stumbled to the place at the foot of its stairs. I stood, that I not disarrange the bands of silk so cunningly looped about me. The man with the tablet had apparently decided not to alter the order of sales. I think this was wise on his part. The girl in the house tunic, seemingly not yet broken in, not yet humbled and trained to the collar of pleasure, might have whetted the appetite of the buyers for an even more virginal, innocent form of merchandise, but, on the block, as I gathered from the remarks of the auctioneer and the responses of the crowd there was now little illusion left lingering of her formality or restraint, or reluctance; only too clearly, she starved for male domination, was she eager and ready for the slave ring at the foot of a man's couch.

Then she was sold.

I climbed to the height of the block. The block was very large. I had not realized how many were in the crowd. The crowd was silent. This frightened me.

The auctioneer seemed puzzled, too, but only momentarily. "Someone, it seems," he said, "has sent us a gift." He indicated me with the whip. "Its contours," he said, "suggest that it is lovely." He looked out to the crowd. "Shall we see?" he asked.

But the crowd, instead of urging him on, was quiet. His hand shook for a moment. I was frightened. I did not understand the mood of the crowd.

"Let us see," he continued, with feigned humor. He lifted away loops of silk which concealed my head. There was a murmur of admiration from the crowd. I was too vain not to have been pleased. "A lovely face," he said, "feminine, soft, vulnerable, expressive. It would be easy to read in order to control her." He shrugged. "The hair, of course," said he, "is far too short, but I am assured, by officers of the Curulean, that it will grow."

There was no laughter from the crowd.

The auctioneer's hand trembled. He was nervous. I thrust my right leg forward, lifting it, pointing the toes, touching only the toes of my right foot to the floor. My left hip was turned out. I lifted and extended my left arm, wrist bent, palm to the left.

Gracefully then did he unloop, bit by bit, the silk from my left arm.

"A lovely limb," he said.

The crowd seemed quiet, intense, watchful. The auctioneer was clearly disturbed.

"Let us see if there is more of interest here," he said.

I heard an intake of breath from the crowd, but there were no bids.

We did not complete the choreography which had been planned. Much depends upon the crowd. It interacts in the drama of the block in a way that it, or many of its members, fails to understand. The auctioneer, puzzled, finally removed from my person the bands of silk. He did not spin me from them; he did not roll me from them at his feet.

"This is the woman," he said. "What am I bid?"

There was no bid.

"Look!" cried a voice. The crowd turned, and I and the auctioneer, looked as well. At the height of the center aisle, high, framed in the portal of the market hail, stood a warrior, in full panoply of war. He did not speak. He carried shield and spear. On his left shoulder hung the scabbard of the short sword. He was helmeted.

"Master?" inquired the auctioneer. His voice faltered.

The warrior did not speak.

The auctioneer indicated me, taking his attention from the figure who had recently entered the hail.

"This is the woman," he said, weakly. "What am I bid?"

At this point the helmeted warrior began to descend the aisle. We watched him approach.

In moments he stood, too, on the block, facing the crowd. He struck the butt of his great spear on the heavy wood. "Kajira canjellne!" he said. "Slave girl challenge!" He turned to look at me, and I knelt. I could not speak. I feared I might faint.

He turned again to face the crowd.

"I will have this woman," he said. "For her I will stand against all Ar, and all the world."

"I love you, Clitus Vitellius!" I cried, tears in my eyes.

"You were not given permission to speak!" cried the auctioneer. He lifted his whip to strike me.

But the point of the spear of Clitus Vitellius lay at his throat. "Do not strike her," said Clitus Vitellius.

"Yes, Master," said the auctioneer, white-faced, lowering his arm, frightened, hacking away.

Clitus Vitellius turned again to face the crowd of Ar. "Kajira canjellne," he said. "Slave girl challenge."

There was no response from the crowd. Then one man rose to his feet, striking his left shoulder. And then another rose to his feet and did the same, and another and another. Soon the crowd was on its feet, cheering and striking their left shoulders. Clitus Vitellius stood straight on that great platform, his great, circular shield on his left arm, his mighty spear, seven feet in length, headed in tapering bronze, grasped in his right hand. His head was high, his eyes were shrewd and clear, those of a warrior.

"She is yours, Master," said the auctioneer to Clitus Vitellius.

I knelt at his feet, joyfully. He would now free me, and take me as his companion. He put aside his shield and spear, to lift me to my feet as his equal.

"Your whip," said Clitus Vitellius to the auctioneer.

"You did not wish her whipped," he said.

"She is mine to whip," said Clitus Vitellius. The auctioneer placed his whip in the hands of Clitus Vitellius.

"Master?" I said.

"Yes?" he said.

"Are you not going to free me?" I asked.

"Only a fool," he said, "frees a slave girl."

"Master!" I cried.

"Kneel to the whip," he said.

I obeyed. I put my head down, and, beneath my body, crossed my wrists, as though they were bound. My back was bowed, ready for whatever punishment he might see fit to administer to me. I was in consternation. I trembled. Could I be still a slave girl? Could he be serious? Was it his intention to keep me still as a slave?

Surely not. Surely not!

"I would not wish you to take a loss on her," he was saying to the auctioneer. "Here is something which may cover the cost of the miserable little slave."

I heard a pouch, heavy, filled with metal, strike heavily on the smoothed beams of the surface of the block.

"The gratitude of the house, Master!" cried the auctioneer. He untied the strings of the pouch and, crying out with pleasure, spilled coins of gold to the woods. Swiftly he sorted the coins, expertly. "There are a hundred tarn disks of gold here!" he cried.

The crowd roared its approval.

I cried, tears falling to the wood of the block, mixing in the sawdust. It was ten to a hundred times, or more, what I was worth. I saw then the extent of the regard of Clitus Vitellius for me. I wept with joy.