by John Norman
"I gather that you have already put an end to some of my men," he said, "and among them two or three who were presumably my superior in swordsmanship."
"If you do not fight," I said, "you will lose face before your men."
"I am not their captain," he said. "I am their employer."
"What is that which depresses no scale," I asked, "but is weightier than gold?"
"I do not care for riddles," he said.
"What of honor?" I asked.
"An inconvenience," he said, "an impediment on the path to power."
"You seem to me," I said, uncertainly, "one who might once have had honor."
"I have outgrown it," he said.
"The most dangerous lies," I said, "are those which we tell ourselves."
"Once, I had honor," said he, "long ago, in a place faraway, but I sacrificed it for a woman, who then mocked it, and trod it underfoot."
"What became of her?" I asked.
"When last I saw her," he said, "she was naked and in chains, gripping a stirring paddle, slaving over a great tub of boiling water in a public laundry."
"How came she there?" I asked.
"I put her there," he said.
"Recollect your honor," I said.
"Tomorrow will be soon enough to do that," he said.
There was laughter from the men ringing me.
"Send these against me then," I said, indicating the ring with my sword, "one by one!"
The fellows looked uneasily at one another.
"Bowmen," said he, "lift your weapons."
There were now two or three hundred men about. Many more had come in through the gate. The concourse was crowded, save for the open space in which I stood, Ina crouched behind me.
"I wish you well, Ina," I said.
"I wish you well, Master," she whispered.
"Take aim," said Octantius.
I was curious to know what it would be like to see the quarrels in flight toward my body. I wondered if I would be able to follow them in flight.
"Fire!" said Octantius.
I do not know if I closed my eyes inadvertently, or not. Ina had her head down.
I had a sudden, odd feeling, as if I might be denying that I was struck.
But then I saw the bowmen, ten or more of them, almost as though in a dream, turning and sprawling, sinking, stumbling, falling into the dust. I was vaguely aware of quarrels slashing into the dirt, streaking like plows in the dirt, throwing up a spume of dust like water, others darting wildly upward, some lost overhead, passing somewhere, some skittering about, turning head over heels, then some bounding twenty or more feet in the air, turning, disappearing, and I wondered if this was how one in our situation might refuse to accept reality, but then I saw more than one of the bowmen lying in the dirt, quarrels protruding from their own backs, others with blood about their necks, where their throat had been cut. Ina was looking up, in consternation. I could not find metal in my own body. Then I realized it was not there. I could smell the smells of the camp. I could see the turbulence in the crowd, the movements of robes. Octantius had his hands raised. His men were being disarmed.
"We are alive," I told Ina. "I am sure of it. We are alive!" But she had fallen into the dirt. I turned her over. She had not been hit. She had fainted.
"You have led us a merry chase," cried Marcus, angrily, looking over his shoulder. "Why did you not stay in the camp? How were we supposed to know where to find you?" He was tearing open the tunic of Octantius, and then he jerked the gold, on its strings, from Octantius' neck. "Here!" said Marcus, throwing the gold to a large fellow, his face muchly concealed in a wide-scarf, with him. "Here is your gold!"
"Marcus!" I cried.
"You should have stayed in the camp!" said Marcus, angrily.
"What have you done?" I asked.
"I hired mercenaries," said he. "I went to the Jeweled Whip last night and made the arrangements. Things would have gone quite smoothly if you had stayed where you were supposed to be."
"You had no gold to hire mercenaries," I said.
"This fellow did," said Marcus, jerking a thumb back at Octantius who was still standing there, his hands over his head. "So I used his gold."
"My friend," I said.
"We might never have found you," said he, "had we not heard rumors of a berserk lunatic running about the slave camp killing innocent folk. Naturally I assumed it must be you."
"Of course," I said.
"So we hurried over here."
"How many are there?" I asked.
"A hundred, or better," said Marcus. "And I assure you these sleen do not come cheap."
I observed Octantius and his men being tied. Also I noted that their purses were being emptied.
"We will take these fellows a few pasangs from Brundisium," said the leader of the mercenaries, "strip them and set them loose."
"My thanks," said I, and my thanks were heartfelt.
"Do not thank them," said Marcus. "They are sleen for hire. It is all in the contract."
"Do you know with whom you are dealing?" I asked Marcus.
"He is dealing with Edgar, of Tarnwald," said the leader of the mercenaries.
"Of course," I said.
"The mercenary sleen does not come cheap," said Marcus. He had a regular's disdain for his mercenary counterpart. He had not yet learned to distinguish between mercenary and mercenary. That has been the downfall of several commanders of regular troops.
"Why did you not let me know you were here?" I asked.
"We weren't here," said Marcus. "We just arrived."
I swallowed, hard.
"You should have stayed in our camp," said Marcus.
"Apparently," I said.
I went to Octantius who now had his hands tied behind his back. A rope was on his neck. He and his men were to be placed in throat coffle.
"I take it," said Octantius, "that we are now to be taken out and killed."
"You are a brave man," I said.
"It is easy to be brave when one has no hope," he said.
"I am sorry I spoke to you as I did earlier."
"Your ruse was transparent," he said. "I took no offense."
"You are not to be killed," I said. "You are to be taken away from here, and released."
He looked at me, startled.
"Tomorrow," I said, "recollect honor."
He looked at me, and then he was thrust several yards toward the gate, to be held there as more of his men were being added to the coffle.
The leader of the mercenaries hefted the bag of gold in his hand. He looked at Marcus. "You did not tell us that you did not have the gold when you hired us," he said.
"I had prospects of obtaining it," said Marcus.
"What if it had not been here?" asked the mercenary.
"Then," said Marcus, "I would have sold my life dearly."
"I see," said the mercenary.
I was pleased to see that Marcus had formulated a plan for that contingency.
"Well," said Marcus to the mercenary, "you have your gold. You may now be on your way."
"Marcus," I whispered, "please."
The mercenary then went to where Ina lay in the dirt, in the center of what had been the circle. She was still unconscious. "So this is the little traitress and slave," he said. He turned her to her belly with his foot. "Not bad," he said. He then, again with his foot, turned her to her back. "Good slave curves," he said.
"Yes," I said.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Ar," I said.
"It would be dangerous to take this slave there," he said.
"I have no intention of taking her there," I smiled.
"Has she been taught anything of the collar?" he asked.
"A little," I said.
"Such as she should learn quickly and well," he said.
"I have every confidence that she will do so," I said.
"She will, or die," he said.
"Perhaps then," I said, "my camp, in an Ahn?"
"I
shall sent Mincon," he said.
"Good," I said.
"You will have to buy her if you want her," said Marcus.
"What a mercenary fellow," said the leader of the mercenaries. He then, with a laugh, tossed the bag of gold to Marcus.
Marcus caught the gold against his chest, and clung to it, astonished.
"I wish you well," said the mercenary captain to me.
"I wish you well, too," I said.
The mercenary captain then turned to Marcus. "I wish you well, too," said he, "my young friend."
"I do not understand," said Marcus.
"That is because you are not a mercenary," said the captain.
"I do not understand," said Marcus.
"We have already received our pay," he said.
"But this is the gold," said Marcus.
"Not all pay is gold," he said.
"My thanks," I said to the mercenary.
"It is nothing," he said.
He turned to leave, but then turned back. "I heard a fellow in the crowd, a few moments ago, tell someone that you had said Saphronicus was dead."
"Yes," I said.
"How did you know that?" he asked.
"I do not know it," I said. "I made it up, hoping to delay matters."
"Interesting," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because," he said, "Saphronicus is dead."
"How would you know this?" I asked.
"I have an agent," he said, "in the camp of Ar at Holmesk."
"How did it happen?" I asked.
"That seems obscure," he said. "There are many reports, which conflict with one another."
He then turned and, with a swirl of his cloak, left the concourse.
"I wish you well," called Marcus, after him, puzzled.
"You are rich," I said to Marcus.
"The dark-haired slave!" he cried. "I can afford her, she at the wagon!"
He then, suddenly, turned about, and ran from the concourse. I then went and crouched beside Ina I shook her, lightly. "Am I alive?" she asked.
"It would seem so," I said.
"Where have they gone?" she asked.
"They have been taken away," I said.
"But will they return?" she asked.
"I do not think so," I said. "The gold is gone."
"But there will be more?" she said.
"I am not sure," I said. "I have heard that Saphronicus is dead."
"Truly dead?" she said.
"I think so," I said.
"Then I am safe?" she asked.
"I do not know," I said.
"What is to be done with me?" she asked.
"While you were unconscious," I said, "someone found your slave curves of interest."
"My "slave curves"!" she said, in horror, putting her knees together, and covering her breasts with her hands.
"Yes," I said, "and open your knees, and put your hands down, on your thighs."
She obeyed.
"What now is to be done with me?" she asked.
"Come with me," I said, going back into the camp.
In a bit I knelt her before a horizontal bar, about a yard above the dirt, and tied her wrists to it.
"Master?" she asked.
"You were disobedient," I said.
"Master?" she asked.
"Earlier this morning," I said, "when I warned you to stay close to me, near the fence of the sunken sales pit, you fled from my side."
"Master!" she cried.
"Yes?" said an attendant, coming up to us.
"Bring me a slave whip," I said.
49 The Slave Girl
"I now know what it is to be whipped," she said, "and I will obey."
"Good," I said.
"I will be zealous to obey, I will be desperate to please!" she said.
"Your brand is pretty," I observed.
"I yield, I yield!" she whispered, clutching me.
"Apparently," I said.
"I can no longer live without this!" she said. "I need this, I need this!"
"They will soon be coming for you," I said.
"Hold me!" she begged. "Hold me!"
It was the afternoon of the same day we had visited the slave camp. We were now in our own camp, among the other small camps nearby. Marcus was not in the camp, as he had hastened to the vicinity of the Cosian camp, to deal with the sutler, Ephialtes, for the slim, dark-haired beauty I had arranged, somewhat maliciously, to be sure, to be presented before him.
"Do it more, please!" wept Ina.
"You squirm and thrash as a slave," I informed her.
"I am a slave!" she gasped.
Her fingernails were in my back, but I think she could not control herself.
"What you are doing to me!" she wept. I then held her at the brink.
"Perhaps you are prepared to submit, as a slave?" I inquired.
"Yes," she said. "Yes! Yes!"
"Perhaps you beg to be permitted to submit?" I asked, keeping her where she was.
"Yes!" she said. "I beg to submit!"
"You may then do so," I said.
"Master?" she asked.
I touched her once, gently.
"Aiiii!" she cried out. "I submit! I submit!"
Then she held me, closely. "I belong to men," she wept. "I belong to them!"
"Yes," I said.
"Is she ready?" inquired Mincon, now arrived at my small camp. Two other fellows were behind him.
"Yes," I said.
Ina quickly got to her knees and put her head down, low, to the dirt. I tied her hands behind her back.
"This is the traitress?" asked Mincon.
"Yes," I said.
He crouched beside her, and tied a rope about her neck.
"We are not fond of traitresses," he said to her.
"Yes, Master," she whispered, not raising her head.
"You understand the problems connected with her?" I asked Mincon.
"Yes," he said. "She will be disposed of, as one slave among others."
"Ina," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said, looking up.
"You understand the danger in which you might stand, if your former identity were ascertained?"
"Yes, Master," she said.
"I would thus take care, in so far as it was possible," I said, "to conceal it."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"In any event, that identity is now gone."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"What are you now?" I asked.
"A slave," she said.
"And anything else?" I asked.
"No, Master," she said. "I am a slave, and only a slave."
"Do not forget it," I said.
"No, Master," she said.
"She was a traitress to Ar," I said to Mincon, "and served Cos. It is perhaps then appropriate that she might be disposed of among Cosians."
"An excellent suggestion," said Mincon.
As she had served Cosians, it seemed appropriate that her beauty and service now, abjectly, and in the dimensions of the mere female slave, should be totally at their disposal. This would also, I hoped, keep her far from those of Ar. To be sure, the trends of events might take various turns in Ar, and she might not, after a time, not only not be sought by those of Ar, if, indeed, she was sought by them now, but she might not even be of interest to them. And, too, after being in the collar for a time, in virtue of its attendant transformations in beauty, attitude and behavior, she might not, now as a lovely, obedient slave, even be recognizable to those who knew her in Ar. They might note, casually, and perhaps with some interest, the resemblance of the enslaved beauty to a formerly known free woman. That would be all.
"On your feet, slave," said Mincon. Quickly Ina stood.
"You will be taken from the camp naked," I told Ina. "In this way you will be more anonymous than if you were wearing a garment of a given sort."
"Yes, Master," she said, her small, lovely, hands bound behind her back, Mincon's rope on her neck, its coils in his hand.<
br />
We had, after her discipline in the slave camp, incidentally, retrieved her garment, from where she had discarded it, thrusting it between slave cages. There was a particular reason I wished to retrieve the garment. It also gave me an opportunity to bring her back to our camp with the garment about her neck, a touch which I thought would be helpful in accommodating her to her new reality. Sometimes masters, as a discipline for their beauties, have them go naked in public, but with their tunic, or ta-teera, or whatever, about their neck or wrist. This helps the girl feel even more naked. Something similar occurs when a bound, stripped free woman is forced to hold a portion of her garments, perhaps a lovely, sliplike undergarment, between her teeth. This, as she is forbidden to drop it, acts as a de facto gag. It also, of course, helps her to understand that the nature of her new reality, the reality in which she how finds herself, may be other than that with which she was formerly familiar.
"I now," I said, "remove your name. Your name is removed."
She looked at me, frightened, a nameless slave.
"Your new masters," I said, "if they wish, will give you a name."
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
I then lifted up a sack I had retrieved from the concourse, on our return earlier from the slave camp.
She regarded it, terrified.
"I wish you well," I said.
"I wish you well, Master," she said.
I then kissed her and put the sack over her head, and, with its strings, tied it closed, about her neck. It was the same sack in which Octantius had apparently intended to bring her head to Saphronicus. On the other hand, it was also a nondescript sack, not different from hundreds of others. Perhaps that would have been part of Octantius' joke, bringing her head to Saphronicus in such a sack, not even in one of gold, set with jewels.
"Come, slave," said Mincon, and drew on the rope. I watched her being led from our camp, a stripped, bound, hooded, nameless slave, on her rope.
I then glanced to one side, a few yards from our small camp, to a set of stakes. There, attached to one of these stakes by an ankle chain, there was another slave. She was kneeling, and her head was tied down, to her crossed ankles, and her hands were tied behind her back, as were those of the slave who had just been conducted from the camp. The slave at the stake, moreover, was covered with a sheet. It had been put over her head, tied about her neck, that it might thus serve as a slave hood, and then draped over her. I had arranged yesterday, before Octantius had come to the camp, for her to be delivered this afternoon. I had found her here when I had returned with Ina from the camp.