The figure of the woman, swathed in black, heavily veiled,
descended the steps of the slave wagon. Once at the foot
of the stairs she stopped and stood for a long moment. Then
the musicians began, the hand-drums first, a rhythm of heartbeat
and flight. To the music, beautifully, it seemed the frightened
figure ran first here and then there, occasionally avoiding
imaginary objects or throwing up her arms, ran as though
through the crowds of a burning city-alone, yet somehow
suggesting the presence about her of hunted others. Now,
in the background, scarcely to be seen, was the figure of a
warrior in scarlet cape. He, too, in his way, though hardly
seeming to move, approached, and it seemed that wherever
the girl might flee there was found the warrior. And then at last
his hand was upon her shoulder and she threw back her head
and lifted her hands and it seemed her entire body was
wretchedness and despair. He turned the figure to him and,
with both hands, brushed away hood and veil. There was a cry
of delight from the crowd. The girl's face was fixed in the
dancer's stylized moan of terror, but she was beautiful. I had
seen her before, of course, as had Kamchak, but it was
startling still to see her thus in the firelight-her hair was long
and silken black, her eyes dark, the color of her skin tannish.
She seemed to plead with the warrior but he did not move.
She seemed to writhe in misery and try to escape his grip but
she did not. Then he removed his hands from her shoulders
and, as the crowd cried out, she sank in abject misery at his
feet and performed the ceremony of submission, kneeling,
lowering the head and lifting and extending the arms, wrists
crossed. The warrior then turned from her and held out one
hand. Someone from the darkness threw him, coiled, the chain
and collar. He gestured for the woman to rise and she did so
and stood before him, head lowered. He pushed up her head
and then, with a click that could be heard throughout the
enclosure, closed the collar-a Turian collar-about her throat.
The chain to which the collar was attached was a good deal
longer than that of the Sirik, containing perhaps twenty feet
of length. Then, to the music, the girl seemed to twist and turn
and move away from him, as he played out the chain, until she
stood wretched some twenty feet from him at the chain's length.
She did not move then for a moment, but stood crouched down,
her hands on the chain. I saw that Aphris and Elizabeth were
watching fascinated. Kamchak, too, would not take his eyes
from the woman. The music had stopped. Then with a suddenness
that almost made me jump and the crowd cry out with delight
the music began again but this time as a barbaric cry of rebellion
and rage and the wench from Port Kar was suddenly a chained
she-larl biting and tearing at the chain and she had cast her
black robes from her and stood savage revealed in diaphanous
, swirling yellow Pleasure Silk. There was now a frenzy and
hatred in the dance, a fury even to the baring of teeth and
snarling. She turned within the collar, as the Turian collar is
designed to permit. She circled the warrior like a captive moon
to his imprisoning scarlet sun, always at the length of the chain.
Then he would take up a fist of chain, drawing her each time
inches closer. At times he would permit her to draw back again,
but never to the full length of the chain, and each time he
permitted her to withdraw, it was less than the last. The dance
consists of several phases, depending on the general orbit
allowed the girl by the chain. Certain of these phases are very
slow, in which there is almost no movement, save perhaps the
turning of a head or the movement of a hand; others are defiant
and swift; some are graceful and pleading; each time, as the
common thread, she is drawn closer to the capped warrior.
At last his fist was within the Turian collar itself and he drew the
girl, piteous and exhausted, to his lips, subduing her with his
kiss, and then her arms were about his neck and unresisting,
obedient, her head to his chest, she was lifted lightly in his arms
and carried from the firelight.
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