by John Norman
"He shook me, and cruelly," she exclaimed, softly, tensely. "He flung me from him to the floor in disgust. Though I was free he held me in contempt!"
"He wanted a woman," I said.
"I was a woman!"
"But at that time not as a slave is a woman," I said.
She shuddered deliciously in her collar, sensing my meaning. But in a moment she had again addressed herself to her grievances.
"He used a slave in preference to me!" she said.
"And you watched in awe, as I recall," I said.
"Master," she said, reproachfully.
"And enviously."
"Master!" she protested.
"Perhaps you wished that it was you who was serving him rather than the slave in his power."
"Please, Master!" she protested.
"Continue," I said.
"And later, when you were kind enough to have me brought to your space at the inn, he was there, too!"
"Kind enough'?" I said.
"Forgive me, Master," she said.
"I wanted a female to relieve my tensions, and as you were then free, a debtor slut, you came cheap."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"Too, you were attractive," I said.
"Even as a free woman?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"And now," she asked, "as a slave?"
"Thousands of times more attractive," I said. "Good," she said, and her body moved excitingly, I think inadvertently.
"So do not speak of kindness," I said.
"Forgive me, Master," she said.
"Proceed," I said.
"And he was there, the rude brute, the monster!"
''I recall, ' I said.
"He spoke of me as "fat," "she said, "as "stupid," as a she-tarsk, as not being worth sleen feed!"
"I recall," I said.
"And he wanted me taken from his sight!"
"And he made you address him as "Master," " I said.
"Yes!" she said.
"Was he the first man you ever addressed as "Master"?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"I thought so," I said.
"But I was free, free!" she pointed out.
"And you are now a slave," I said.
"Yes," she said. She would now call all free men "Master," and, of course, all free women "Mistress."
"But I was then free!" she said.
"But yet you called him "Master," " I reminded her.
"Yes," she said.
"And he was the first to whom you, even though at that time free, addressed that title of respect and sovereignty."
"Yes," she said. "The brute, the monster!"
I looked at her in the light of the tiny lamp. She was very beautiful.
"Oh," she said, bitterly, "you may well wager that I never forgot the monster!"
"I am sure you did not," I said.
"Oh," she said, "I hate him! I hate him!"
"I see," I said.
"And then he was here, and I within his reach, though now as a slave!"
"I can well imagine your feelings," I said.
"Why are you smiling?" she asked.
"It is nothing," I said.
"I determined that I would present myself before him!" she said.
"Under the circumstances, as it turned out, you had no choice," I said.
She looked startled. "I suppose that is true," she said.
"It is," I assured her.
"I determined that I would show him a female, a female, indeed!"
"And you did," I said.
"Did you see?" she asked. "He did not even recognize me!"
"True," I said.
"Did you see his eyes, his expressions!" she laughed, softly.
"Certainly," I said, "and heard as well his moans of desire, his cries of anguish."
"Did I not move him, did I not excite him as a woman?"
"You certainly did," I said.
"I paraded," she laughed. "I moved. I parted my silk. I writhed. I danced!"
"And men came even to the railings to watch," I said.
"And did I not have my vengeance?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"He desired me mightily," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"And did he not exclaim that I was the most beautiful slave he had ever seen!" she said.
"That he did," I said.
"So enthralled I had him in the toils of desire that he was in pain!" she said.
"Indeed," I said.
"He did not ask for me to be taken from his sight this night!" she said.
"No, indeed," I said.
"And thus I proved my womanhood to him, and that he had been wrong in scorning me, in holding me in contempt, in casting me from him!"
"It was Temione, the free woman," I reminded her, "whom he had rejected, not Temione, the slave."
"But we are the same!" she said. "Do you really think so?" I asked. "Surely, in some way," she said.
"Perhaps, in some way," I granted her.
"He wanted me!" she said, "but he could not have me! I am too expensive, too desirable, for a mere courier!"
"Beware of playing a dangerous game," I said.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"You could come easily enough into the possession, completely, of the courier," I said.
"I do not understand," she said.
"Whether he could afford you or not," I said, "does not depend on you. It depends on other things, for example, on the market, and how much he has, and is willing to spend. Too, it depends on Philebus, and what he will let you go for. He could sell you for a copper tarsk, you know."
"I suppose that is true," she said.
"To anyone," I added.
She looked at me, frightened.
"And then you would be theirs, completely."
"Yes," she whispered.
"Too," I said, "you are a paga slave, and thus, for a tarsk bit, or a copper tarsk, or whatever Philebus is charging, you could be put into his power for Ahn at a time."
"But he would not own me," she said.
"He would have use rights over you," I said. "Perhaps you remember how he snapped the whip?"
"Yes!" she said. That is a sound, of course, that a beautiful, half-naked slave is not likely to forget.
"I expect," I said, "that you would serve him, in those Ahn, dutifully enough."
She shuddered.
"It is well for you to remember," I said, "that the last word in these matters, in the nature of things, belongs not to the slave but to the whips, and the masters."
"Yes, Master," she said.
I heard men outside. It was toward morning.
"I hate him!" she said, suddenly. "I hate him!"
"No, you do not," I said.
"What?" she said.
"You love him," I said.
"That is absurd!" she said.
"You have loved him since the first moment you saw him, at the Crooked Tarn."
"Absurd!" she said.
"It was then, even when he spurned you, and scorned you, that you first wanted to be his slave."
"Absurd!" she whispered.
"You wanted to be subject to his animality, his power, his authority, totally."
"Do not joke," she said.
"I watched you as he handled the slave. I could see your jealousy. I could smell your desire."
"Please," she said.
"You wished it was you," I said.
"No, please, no," she said, frightened.
"You wanted even then to wear his chains and be subject to his whip, to belong to him, and to belong to him in the most complete and perfect way a woman can belong in a man, helplessly, hopelessly, selflessly, as his total slave."
She regarded me, frightened. Her breast heaved. Her small hand was before her mouth.
"And that is why you displayed yourself as you did in the parade of slaves, and after, far beyond what was required by the occasion, or your legal master, Philebus. You were attempt
ing to seduce the courier, to lure him to your conquest. You were begging to be bought, as the slave you are. You were begging to be taken to his tent, bound and on his leash. You were begging to be his, and his alone."
She put her head down, weeping softly.
"Even in your freedom you had addressed to him the word "Master," " I reminded her.
Her small shoulders shook.
"Do not weep," I said. "It is a natural and good thing that you long for a master. You will not be complete until you have one."
"Why are you saying these things?" she asked, lifting her head, red-eyed. "You risked your life to protect me from him, when he was going to whip me."
"I do not think he was going to whip you," I said, "though I expect he is quite capable of it, and would unhesitantly do so if it seemed appropriate, or upon various occasions, if it pleased him."
"Why then did you interfere?" she asked, puzzled. "Why did you call attention to yourself when obviously there was something between you two, and you would be in danger, if recognized."
"Do you truly not know?" I asked.
"It was to protect me, surely."
"No," I said.
"Why then?" she asked, wonderingly.
"Because," I said, soberly, "you were serving me."
"That is what you said," she said.
"And that was the reason," I said.
"It was so tiny a thing," she asked, "a point of propriety, of precedence?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"You risked so much for a mere point of honor?" she asked.
"There are no mere points of honor," I told her. "Turn about. Put your head down to the carpet. Clasp your hands behind the back of your neck."
I amused myself with her.
Afterwards I put her gently to her side. She looked up at me, turning her head, as, with a bit of binding fiber, I tied her hands behind her back. "I am binding you," I said, "that your master, and others, may think you were used in all helplessness." I then jerked her ankles up, crossed them, and bound them to her wrists. She winced.
"I am helpless," she said.
"You are more helpless than you know, slave," I said. "But your true helplessness is not a matter of such things as a bit of binding fiber, serving to hold you, however perfectly, in a desired position at a given time, but your condition, which is bond."
Tears sprang to her eyes.
"You are owned," I said. "You are a property. You are subject to the will of others."
She sobbed.
I think she understood then, perhaps better than before, something of the true helplessness of the slave. She could be taken anywhere. She could be bought and sold. She could come into the ownership of anyone.
"What does your master charge for paga, and girl use?" I asked.
"A copper tarsk," she said.
I dropped it to the carpet, beside her.
I withdrew from my wallet two scarves.
"I am to be gagged," she said.
"It will be better," I said.
I folded one scarf over several times, forming a narrow rectangle, several folds thick. This I placed beside her. I then rolled the other scarf into a tight, expandable ball. This I thrust into her mouth. It, in its expansion, filled the oral orifice. I then secured it in place with the first scarf, which I knotted tightly behind the back of her neck. She looked up at me, over the gag. She squirmed. She was pretty.
I then blew out the lamp and, after reconnoitering, withdrew from the tent.
I recalled the copper tarsk I had left in the tent, on the carpet, beside her. That had been fitting. With it I had paid for paga, and for her use.
3 Prisoners
The road below was a dirt road. It was dusty and hot. It was long and narrow. It stretched northward.
I considered it.
It was empty.
It was hard to believe that somewhere northward, perhaps somewhat to the west now, in the vicinity of the Vosk, was the expeditionary force of Cos, and somewhere to the south, beyond Teslit, in the vicinity of Holmesk, lay the winter camp of Ar, supposedly housing a considerable commissary and depot, and one of the largest concentrations of troops ever seen in the north.
It was late afternoon. I shaded my eyes. Not a stain of dust lifted from that long, brown surface, lying like a dry line between two vastnesses of dried grass. The overarching sky was bright and clear, almost cloudless. Like the road, it seemed empty.
It was lonely here.
Yet such times are good in the life of a warrior, times to be alone, to think.
He who cannot think is not a man, so saith the codes. Yet neither, too, they continue, is he who can only think.
Teslit, a small village to the south, save for a family or two, had been abandoned. Women and livestock had been hurried away. i did not think this had been unwise. Cos was to the north, Ar to the south. Had they sought to engage, it seemed not improbable that they might meet on the Holmesk road, perhaps in the vicinity of Teslit, approximately halfway between the Vosk and Holmesk. I looked down on the road. It was said that once, long ago, there had been a battle there, more than two hundred years ago, the battle of Teslit, fought between the forces of Ven and Harfax. Many do not even know there is a village there. They have heard only of the battle. Yet it is from the nearness of the village that the battle took its name. Such historical details seem curious. I listened for a moment, and it seemed to me then, as though from below, and yet from far away, as from another time, faintly, I heard the blare of trumpets, the rolling of the drums, the crying of men, the clash of metals. Once I supposed that that placid road below, that ribbon of dust between the brown shores of grass, had run with blood. Then once again there was only the silence and the dry road, stretching northward. The camp of Ar near Holmesk, incidentally, was situated on, or near, the same site as had been the camp of Harfax two hundred years ago. Such things are not coincidences. They have more to do with terrain, water, defensibility, and such. The land, its fall and lie, wells, watercourses, their breadth and depth, their swiftness, fords, climate, time of year, visibility, precipitation, footing, and such, provide the four-dimensional board on which are played the games of war. It is no wonder that fine soldiers are often astute historians, careful students of maps and campaigns. Certain routes, situations and times of year are optimal for certain purposes, and others are not, and might even prove disastrous. Certain passes on Gor, for example, have been used again and again. They are simply the optimal routes between significant points. They bear the graffiti of dozens of armies, carved there over a period of centuries, some of it as much as three thousand years ago.
I had been in this vicinity, keeping a small, concealed camp, overlooking the road, some five days. In the north, on the morning after my small altercation with the redoubtable Borton, that in the paga enclosure, I had volunteered for, and had been welcomed into, a search party, one formed to move southward, looking for the «spy» and "thief." They had not managed to find him, I am pleased to report, or at least to their knowledge. This party, except for myself, consisted of five men, mercenaries, under the command of a Cosian regular. They had been pleased to have my company, as it was difficult to obtain volunteers for a search southward, toward the presumed position of Ar. I had explained that I was pleased to join them, particularly as my business carried me in that direction. Similarly, I confessed to them my pleasure at being able to profit, at least for a time, from their protection. This was truer than they realized. They afforded me a priceless cover, for example, from the investigations, if not the sudden, unprovoked attacks, of Cosian tarnsmen. It was also nice to be able to move openly, during the day. Then after three days, by which time they were eager to return to the main body, particularly after having seen two tarn patrols of Ar, I had bidden them farewell, and continued southward.
The road below seemed as empty as ever.
I had cut my camp into the side of a small, brush-covered hill, west of the road. The natural slope of the hill would not suggest a leveli
ng at this point. A needle tree provided practical cover from the sky.
I watched the road.
I had passed a night in Teslit, at one of the few huts still occupied. There I had shared kettle with a fellow and two of his sons. I had made my inquiries, purchased some supplies and then, in the morning, had left, southward. In an Ahn, I had doubled back, of course, to my camp.
The sun was warm.
I had expected that I might find Marcus here, somewhere, that in accordance with his carefully laid contingency plan, we having become separated in the Cosian camp, thanks to my inadvertent encounter with the courier, Borton. But I had seen no sign of him. Similarly I had heard nothing in the village, from the folks there. I assumed he must have left the camp expeditiously, as would have been wise, lest his putative affiliation with me be recalled, and then, after perhaps waiting a few Ahn in the vicinity of Teslit, not making his presence known, had hastened southward, that he might convey his intelligence speedily to the men of Ar near Holmesk. That is precisely what I would have expected. He was an excellent young officer, with a high sense of duty. He would not daily foolishly in the camp of Cos, as I might have, in the event that it might prove possible to render some assistance to an imperiled colleague. Such imprudence would jeopardize his opportunity to convey his data to the south. Marcus could be depended upon to do his duty, even if it meant the regrettable sacrifice of a comrade. To be sure, he himself, as he had made clear to me, with much firmness and in no little detail, back in the Cosian camp on the Vosk, was similarly ready, in such a situation, to be sacrificed, and cheerfully. Indeed, he had even insisted upon it. I had not gainsaid him, for, as I have mentioned earlier, it is difficult to argue with people who are reasonable.
The road was empty.
I myself, without Marcus, was not eager to approach the camp of Ar near Holmesk. I might be taken for a spy there. This sort of thing had already happened in Ar's Station. My accent, if nothing else, would probably render me suspect. Too, by now, Marcus was presumably already at Holmesk, or in its vicinity. Even if he were not, I suspected that the commandant at Holmesk was as much aware of the position and movements of the Cosian expeditionary force as either Marcus or I. Marcus refused to believe this, given the inactivity in the winter camp. There was, of course, a simple possible explanation for this inactivity, the cruelest consequence of which, to date, had been the failure to relieve the siege at Ar's Station. This possible explanation was simple. It had to do with treason in high places.