She looks at him. She knows he may even order her slain, if she is not sufficiently pleasing to him. She trembles. He is not displeased to see her fear. But she tries to overcome her fear. She wishes to become one of his favorites. In the first weeks, and months, after her capture she hated him, and feared that he might summon her; then, for months, accustoming herself to the indolence, the disciplines and routines of the slave quarters, his harem, she became indifferent; but then she noticed that the other women did not respect her, and rejected her as an unattractive freak, an oddity in the lofty, ornate, perfumed halls; she became skeptical of her womanhood and attractiveness, and miserable; enemies in the harem, resenting her beauty and intelligence, made her life miserable, demeaning her loveliness, insulting her, playing tricks on her, such as spoiling her food, and stealing her garments or ornaments. Once they tied her, naked, on the tiles all night. Her standing in the harem, she understood, would depend on her standing with the master. Also, she is becoming desperate for sex. Insolently then, she asked the chief eunuch to be brought to her master’s attention. “There are other slaves,” he told her. She suddenly realized then that she would have to await his pleasure, completely. At last, in the past two months, she has lived on the hope that her master would summon her to his chamber. Then, she was given the opportunity to dance for him.

Now she lies, frightened, in his bed.

She, before her dance tonight, had seen him only once, and that briefly, when he, in the helmet of a warrior, had struck her down from horseback with the flat of his sword on her neck. Stunned she had fallen, and he had leapt from his horse, dragging her to her feet and tethering her to his stirrup. She remembered then a nightmare of being dragged through burning streets, with fighting about her, and crashing walls. When he came to his camp there were two other women, too, tethered to his stirrup. He turned all three over to his men, for herding into the compound of captured women. He then disappeared again, toward the city. She had not seen him since then, until her dance before him. Then, observing her, he seemed not the rough warrior, blood on his helmet, in torn tunic, with great shield, but a man, adorned in noble robes, of power and riches, one significant in the state, one who could own many girls such as she.

She wishes to become one of his favorites. It will make such a difference in her life in the slave quarters. All the girls vie eagerly to be a favorite. But, suddenly, looking at him she realizes he can make her love him, literally, and that she will. She had not counted on that. She turns her head to one side.

“Regard me, Slave,” he says.

“Yes, Master,” she whispers.