"Fortune Favors the Slutty."

Today is the last day of the fifth Passage Hand.

In the city of Ar, sane men stay indoors. Kajuralia, the Festival of Slaves, is the one day each year where slaves are given license to indulge in many things forbidden to them during the year. They may drink wine, for one. They may roam at will throughout the city, provided they do not try to escape. A girl who tries to escape during Kajuralia, for the record, is not typically beaten or hobbled as is common, no matter which foolish attempt to gain her freedom this might be. She is commonly killed. It seems cruel, but it serves to let them know that even a day of indulgence is just that. An indulgence. It is a privilege that may be swiftly taken from them. Slave girls may also, provided their master has no objections, couch with slaves of the opposite sex that they find attractive. That is an area where my indulgence has limits. I would not kill a girl for couching with a kajirus, of course, but I would likely consign her services to the carnarium. It is my thinking that if a girl wishes to lay with filth, she may be given the opportunity to do so in the most literal sense possible.

Today is also a day when slave girls are given permission to engage in good-natured recalcitrance. A girl might bring her master his afternoon repast, salting it to the point it is inedible, for example. At first bite, after he ejects the mouthful across the table, glaring at the girl, she may simply say, "Kajuralia, Master" with a coquettish smile and a bat of her eyelashes. He, of course, being a good sport about things will repeat the refrain, saying, "Kajuralia, Slave Girl." I have seen girls on the second or third floor of insulae, dumping water or wine onto the heads of passersby. This can be dangerous. Many an uncouth tenant in such places has been known to dump his pisspot over the rail rather than wait for it to be emptied in the normal manner. The first thing one thinks when he is doused in such an alley is , "Hey! I am walking here!" and then "That had better not be your pisspot!" Glaring up to find a duo or trio of giggling kajirae, on this day and no other, he will realize what has happened. It will be only wine or water. Shaking his fist at them, he will laugh and say "Kajuralia, you sluts!" and they will repeat in as sweet a sing-song voice as they can manage together, "Kajuralia, Master!"

Some vendors and shop owners, in the spirit of the holiday and, hoping to divert themselves from the mischievious doings of free-roaming slave girls, will leave out trays of pastries for them. This is another aspect of Kajuralia which I find pleasant, infrequently as it occurs. The holiday is truly meant to be a relaxation of the bonds of slavery, not an insult to free persons. Nearly all girls, after a day of revelry, long to return home to their chains and collars and abject submission. On a day like today, a Merchant who would normally beat back window shopping sluts with a broom might, today, smile and offer them a sampling of his pastries with a friendly, "Kajuralia, girls" to which they would reply "Kajuralia, Master." Tomorrow, of course, and every day after, they will be subject to his broom.
I left the Boarding House quite early this morning, long before Lar-Torvis rose to signal the start of the festivities. On the table in the great room near the hearth, I left a few bottles of heavily watered wine and a note. It read: "Kajuralia, Slaves."