The Slavery Of Others

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

I woke into, or dreamed it was dawn. I could hear the sound of babies crying, of soldiers marching, children chattering and playing. I could overhear the jokes and curses of the merchants opening the market place and heard the soft tolling of bells. I was given a slave’s’ tunic to wear. The door was unlocked. I was asked to come out by a much younger woman who wore a white gown and had a smooth kindly face. She told me I had been sold to Bejamite agents who lived outside the city. It was ruse to avoid tax. The Bejamites had a nominal share but pocketed a sum not to claim me. This left the trader free to rent me out at a higher price, tax free.

She had been sent to collect me, as her mistress was renting me. The place was a vast arena of tall, grey buildings where prisoners were taken from court, workers were hired and slaves traded. Others such as strangers, visitors, children and the old were being traded; some seemed to be completely unaware of what was happening to them. I saw this as an opportunity to escape. The girl looked at me sadly and pointed to a gatepost. A cage hung there with the dried corpse of a man. Gaunt and papery with age, the hollow sockets of his eyes seemed to stare at me in anguish. The sign below read "escaped slave." The girl gestured with a hand drawn across her throat. Then she saw I could read the notice. I too noticed I could. She took me aside to confide in me.

"Worn has laws forbidding striking you— if a person strikes an apparent slave that person might find he hits a fellow-citizen, because many citizens dress no better. No one will hit you, except a guard."

We came into a square, raucous with the life of merchandise and austere business. The disapproving statue of Areh stood in the centre. The girl hurriedly took us past another gantry, on which a recent body had been hanged. The girl seemed to be crying. She too was a slave. We walked on. The girl began to explain;

"In Worn, about two thirds of the population consist of slaves. The system encourages slaves to save up to purchase their freedom, and some slaves operate businesses by themselves, making only a fixed tax-payment to their masters."

To reach the outskirts of the city, the girl hailed a cart and a pair of carrats. The driver made no secret of his contempt for them both.

The girl made a quick gesture as if to hire another and held out her money in an accomplished way. The driver hastened his services. Soon they were travelling through the fern forests and giant rose-trees that surrounded the city. The rats scampered on as if icons of energy. Soon they came to an exquisite villa circled by miniature lakes, vistas and temples. A long drive took them to the front entrance where a lady met them, dressed in long, scarlet drapery and an ornate head-dress. She greeted them as friends.

"Welcome, My name is Evol."

She wafted them up the white, marble steps. She rolled her eyes as the driver coaxed, bullied and menaced the rats to turn and find a life that led back to the cart-rank in the city. With a seismic screech, the cart left. The host led both slaves up the stairs into the welcome-chamber. The girl whom the woman introduced to me as Dremitslass was dismissed.

I stood in Evol’s presence. Dremit, as I gathered she was called, sped away with loyal efficiency. Dremit the slaver had died and she took her name. The woman introduced herself, as if in some theatrical performance. Her room was hung with tapestries and drapes.

The chair she sat in was of solid gold. I was tired.

"Come closer, knave."

I pulled away instinctively. Evol noticed and adopted a fierce and determined look on her face.

"If there’s something you don’t like then speak up now."

"How can anyone claim to own another? It’s cruel and perverse!"

"Just this once I will allow you to speak. Listen, we are all part of slavery, slavers, enslaved and semi-slaves. Get it clear in your mind. There are levels of enslavement here in Worn, ranging from beggars, disenfranchised citizens and new arrivals."

"What makes me a lesser person, then?"

"In most cases I can answer, it is the extent to which your body is owned that defines the common ground in the deprivation of civic rights."

"Then surely I have no motive to do anything for you?"

"You are blameworthy. If anything goes wrong, you are responsible and the matter must be made public. I find physical punishment distasteful, but it serves to define the boundaries of civilisation. It is difficult to sympathise with your condition. What is uncivilised thus builds what is civilised.

"Then, why me?"

"You are my slave because I want your skills, created by your mind to lead me to happiness. According to Phertigmo, you are an andropon, a two footed man, whose naked legs symbolise physical work. They should never be covered."

I looked down at my rugged shanks.

"According to Pseudo-Arifet, your daily routine could be summed up in three words: "work, discipline, and feeding." My favourite poet Mura's advice is to treat you as domestic animals, that is to say punish disobedience and reward good behaviour.

"I won’t let you lay a hand on me!"

Evol laughed, or rather gurgled with mock surprise.

"It’s not my task. For his part, Arifet prefers to see you ‘treated as children and to use not only orders but also recommendations, as the slave is capable of understanding reasons when they are explained.’ As an owner, when you come into my hands, I work you under my hands. Your talents are mine."

"Believe that if you will."

"I will get you to change. In the City, according to a code engraved in stone, you are in a state of dependence. The only way to prove otherwise is to sue. I am responsible for all your offences and, inversely, I receive amends for crimes committed against you by others. In the City code, where all civil punishment is monetary, fines are doubled for you committing a misdemeanour or felony. Conversely, an offence committed against a slave is much less expensive than an offence committed against a free person."

"I own my own talents and abilities.’"

"You do not even have the right to own a house and livestock, nor clothing and household furnishings."

"You can flog me all you want, you’ll never get my assent."

"It is wrong for a citizen to suffer the indignity of force; it is not efficient to use force for intellectual growth. Yet what was it Phertigmo said ? ‘And of all the animals the slave is the most unmanageable inasmuch as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated; he is the most insidious, sharp-witted, and insubordinate of animals."

"I am no animal."

"I could flog you, or rather, Dremit could..maybe even will. Our literature is full of scenes of your being flogged; it is a means of forcing you to work, as are the control of rations, clothing, and rest. This violence could, but would not, be meted out by me, but by Dremit, who is also a slave. Thus, at the beginning of Doliper’s The Knights, two of you complain of being "bruised and thrashed without respite" by your new supervisor.

However, Doliper, that wicked jester, also cites what is a typical old saw in Ruhian comedy, your pathos. I pity your condition and want you to work incessantly in order to avoid the harsh punishments our conventions allow. Without these conventions our culture cannot thrive. I regard it my right to counsel you on these matters as consent in your wretchedness is a useful technique for ensuring the complete acceptance of your role. This is without any change in the regime."

"Even the threat of violence will not make me do what you want."

"Oh you won’t now!"

Evol stood up as if she were giving a theatrical performance.

"As Crattyr said in his speech, Against Seretre." If, gentlemen of the jury, you will turn over in your minds the question what is the difference between being a slave and being a free man, you will find that the biggest difference is that the body of a slave is made responsible for all his misdeeds, whereas corporal punishment is the last penalty to inflict on a free man. This why access to suitable parts of the body, such as the lower seat, should not call for removal of clothes."

I felt a cold gust confirm my tunic’s vulnerability to my rear. I could hear Dremit practising with a bullchafer whip on the lawn. I saw Evol roll her eyes at the sight.

"Dremit is my ‘companion.’ Dremit protects me, assists me and deals with my minor problems. Although Dremit is a slave, Dremit is a sister to me."

He thought about the girl Dremit. She was not tall and yet slim. Dremit had white, almost porcelain skin and dark brown hair that she tied back. Though youthful, her care-worn features and demeanour showed age beyond her years, while her eyes betrayed intelligence that her manner could not conceal. Dremit was quiet and shy as it seemed befitted her station as a slave. She was letting freedom down with her common sense.

"...Dremit , like other slaves has a different degree of ownership: such as the right to own property and authority over your work. You as Andropon have none of these rights. Such slaves as Dremit have authority over you. Though your name is Annaltasknave, as she was the one who found you in your weakness. You were caught by Annalta who obeyed Siri. She is a powerful being whom I serve. I have rented you via some Bejamites. Be careful of Annalta. She wants power and I have to give in to her. Siri bears some grudge against you."

I knew otherwise, but kept up the impression:

"But I never met her…"

The woman looked at him with a fierce expression.

"You have no mouth unless I bid it move. Do you understand? Take the scroll. I want you to polish my style so that it gleams. My name is Evol. There is Brukret at my door. Brukret! Take this man to the slave-prison.! Give him the scroll I have written. Give him some broth! He will work for me tomorrow. I don’t want to hear from him until then."

She took out a scroll on which she had been writing. She asked me to look through it. That night I read the scroll she had written;

"I have written this for you, my tutor-slave. It sums up my respect for my trade. If you are not a Wornian citizen then it is not against the law to be a prostitute. We are mostly slaves of either sex, or Kittems whose parents were not Wornians but who have some rights. There are two kinds of prostitute; those who can be bought and those who are companions. The companions are more talented and educated than wives and daughters who live at home. A woman is private here to protect her rights. This is why men like companions.

Unlike you I was not captured on the borders of the homeland. My parents were basket-makers, or so I thought. When I was eighteen I was told I was a slave and a slave’s daughter. My false brother described the day his parents had gone to the marketplace and purchased my pregnant mother, hoping I would be a boy. She died giving birth to me. My apparent parents never told me about being a slave. Both of them died within the year and my sham brother decided to sell me as his wife thought me too beautiful.

My buyer was Sutrub, who took me into his home.

"He regarded me as a daughter. I had my own room and woman- slave. I was bought chic gowns and he was patient and loving. In time, he bought tutors who got me to write, to sing and to dance. My woman slave showed me the manners expected on a lady. Sutrub began to take me to parties where he was always greeted with great fervour. I knew he had a wife and a son, but I never met them. He allowed me to converse with clients, who developed my conversation and taught me history, law and politics, subjects dear to him. He taught me to converse and to be a hostess. Many praised my charm and wit. I deliberately cultivated the attentions of the man in the hope that he would buy me from my owner. Before this could happen, he died."

"In his will, he gave me the woman who had acted as my personal slave and enough to keep me for a year. Then he gave me a wooden box, with a comb, mirror and jewels carved with the face of the Goddess Siri. His most precious gift was his last, his name. Sutrub left me this small, but cosy villa in the lemon groves outside the city. A woman cannot possess assets, uless she is a slave-trader, but Sutrub’s son, Setsero pledged this estate would never be sold in my lifetime. I read the great books and study science, but I have no-one to teach me now. I like to spend my days in reading and studying, though with a reduced staff I could not go on expeditions as I had done before with Sutrub. I love poetry and want to learn to write it, though I hate the bitter anti-feminist old poets who are popular and want to compete with them.

"I often go with my friends who are also hetairai. We gather in the old temple of the love-goddess, Siri. Sometimes I go for walks in the courtyard , with, my guard and my slave, Dremit, who is the daughter of my late female slave, Lijehslady. Sometimes my friends visit and sometimes I go to their homes and hold parties just for women. What a shame wives and mistresses never see each other, as some would marvel at the parties we have. I have Dremit in my kitchen, you, my tutor, in my courtyard and my rooms."

I rewrote the script as expertly as I could, then slept.

As the young guard took me from the cell the next evening, I felt nothing but anger against the woman, a slave who acquiesced in the slavery of others. I struck out at him and he was unprepared for the blow. He fell on the lawn. I stumbled into the garden under the triple moons of Ruh. I dragged myself rapidly through the undergrowth. Then I reached the road I recalled from the route the carrat cab had taken. I ran, oblivious to destination into the blind night.