"Very beautiful," said lady Claudia.

"No more so than you," I said.

"Am I truly so beautiful," asked Lady Claudia.

"Yes," I said.

Lady Claudia put down her head, shyly.

I supposed it would not do to tell Lady Claudia, as she was still a free woman, but she was actually, at this time, at any rate, far more beautiful than Lady Publia. This was because she had now begun to get in touch with her womanhood. In the past few days in the cell she had begun to discover herself; she had begun to learn her femaleness.

"But you are a slave," snarled Lady Publia.

"Yes," whispered Lady Claudia, speaking not her legal status but her truth. Lady Publia laughed, scornfully.

Lady Claudia lowered her head, shamed.

I wondered if Lady Publia thought her own truth was different. She, too, after all, was a female.

"Slave!" sneered Lady Publia.

Lady Claudia did not respond.

In general physical characteristics, such as their height and figure, their eyes and hair, their complexion and such, they were rather similar.

Lady Publia regarded Lady Claudia scornfully.

Lady Claudia did not meet her eyes.

I thought they might look well, particularly if Lady Publia were improved, as a brace of slaves. Sometimes one can get more for two girls together, as a brace, each reinforcing or enhancing, or setting off, the other in some way, than one could get for them both, sold separately. To be sure, many buyers, when they buy more than one item, expect a discount on one or both of the items.

"Turn about now," I said to Lady Public, "and go to your stomach, as you were before, with your arms at your sides, the palms up."

She did so, and now lay as she had before except that now she was stripped. "You are a free woman, as I understand it," I said. "Yes!" she said.

I put her hair behind her back, over her shoulders.

"And what, then," I asked, "would you have done, if Cosians had come upon you?" "I am a free woman!" she said. "I am not a slave! I would never have surrendered!"

"I do not like her, Master," said Lady Claudia. "And I would not be as she. I would find that disgusting and terrible, as well as ultimately barren and miserable."

"I am not sure there are free women," I said, "except in a trivial legal sense." "I am such a woman!" cried Lady Publia.

"How such women shame women such as I, who are weak and needful, and loving," said Lady Claudia.

"In your weakness and need, and love," I said, "in your honesty, and truth, you are a thousand times stronger, and greater, then such caricatures of women, then such travesties of women, then such pseudomales and facsimile men, denying themselves and their feelings, holding themselves rigid, not daring to feel or be themselves."

"But men keep women such as I powerless," she said, touching her thigh. "Yes," I said, "and you love it."

"Yes," she whispered, frightened, looking down, trembling with emotion. I gathered together the scarflike material she had had wrapped turbanlike about her head, her veil and her "rags," and handed them to Lady Claudia. "What are you doing?" asked the prisoner.

"Put these over there, by the rope, and the leash and collar," I said to Lady Claudia.

She obeyed. She then returned, to be beside me.

"There are trumpets outside," said Lady Claudia, suddenly.

"It is another assault," I said. Almost simultaneously there were raised thousands of cheers.

"There are your friends, the Cosians," I said to Lady Publia.

"They are not my friends!" she said.

If there was a response from the walls, it was hard to make it out. "But yet you were preparing yourself quite carefully, hoping to be permitted to belong to one as a slave."

"Liar!" she cried. I saw her small fingers move, but she did not dare to clench her fists. The fingers moved helplessly, but the palms remained facing upward, exposed.

"You were bearing much gold," I said, "which, foolishly, you thought to offer to Cosians, that they might spare you and keep you as a slave. But that was stupid. For they would take the gold and then do what they wanted with you, putting you to the sword or not, as they pleased."

She cried out in anger.

"But if your thoughts in this matter had been correct," I said, "it might have been too bad, might it not, for many of the other women of Ar's Station, women less fortunate, less rich, than you, who lacked the means wherewith to purchase their lives?"

"That could not be my concern," she said, angrily.

"But I assure you, Lady Publia," I said, "the pertinent determinations in such matters, when the women are stripped and stood against a wall, are not made on the basis of gold."

"I suppose not," she said, bitterly.

"Why, too," I asked, "did you, a wealthy woman, of the Merchants, choose to wear artful rags, as though you might be a simple low-caste maid?"

She was silent.

"There are two reasons," I said. "The first is that you feared that the high castes and the richer castes, such as the Merchants, might be less likely to be spared by the enemy, that they might be the subject of more resentment, perhaps because of envy, or perhaps that they would be particularly sought out for vengeance, on the supposition that they, presumably the more powerful castes in the city, might be most responsible for the prolongation of the siege. You, on the other hand, by your disguise, so to speak, might hope to escape such a fate. Cosians would see you, you hoped, not in terms of politics, but merely in terms of loot. The second reason is more interesting. You wanted to be seen in terms of something well worth hunting and capturing. Thus the artful rages, apparently so inadvertently but excitingly, displaying your calves. You did not wish to be brought down with a quarrel at a distance but to find yourself at close quarters with captors. Then you would surrender to them."

"No!" she cried.

"It is for such a reason," I said, "that your rags were designed to be removed swiftly, so easily and gracefully, and on your knees."

"No!" she said. "No!"

"Lie quietly," I said. "And most interestingly, and objectionably," I said, "you had not had your hair shorn."

Lady Publia did not respond.

"To be sure," I said, "you wished to give the impression that you had done so. That was the purpose of the cloth you wore about your head. It was intended to make it seem as though you, perhaps in understandable vanity or embarrassment, wished to conceal shortly cropped hair. certainly I, at first, assumed your hair had been shorn."

"I, too," said Lady Claudia.

"Do you recall," I asked Lady Claudia, "that I earlier suggested that there might be a reason, other than reasons of your sort, for not having her hair cropped?"

"Yes," Lady Claudia.

"Do you now suspect such a reason?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Yes," I said. "With such hair, such lovely hair," I said, toying with it, behind Lady Publia's back, "she would be more likely to be spared." Lady Publia tensed, angrily.

"Let other women have their hair shorn," I said, "donating it to the defense of their city. Not she. It, like the artful rags, their length, their ease of removal, and such, had its clever, calculated part to play in her plan. She would thus, retaining her hair, it enhancing her beauty, if captured, stand out like a paga slave among mill sluts. If selections were to be made, it then seems that surely she would be among the first chosen, not for the sword, but for the chain."

Lady Publia's small fingers moved wildly, angrily, but she dared not close her hands. The palms remained up, exposed.

"There are the trumpets again," said Lady Claudia.

"It is the recall," I said.

"Nut they will come again, will they not?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "and, if necessary, again, and again." I looked down at Lady Publia.