“Better chains of iron and a whip for her,” I said, bitterly.
“Among these petitioners came one fellow bringing with him the promise of a gift of wine, a wine supposedly secret, the rare Falarian, a wine only rumored among collectors to exist, a wine supposedly so rare and precious that its cost might purchase a city. She, of course, would test this. She, though only a slave, would choose to sip it.”
“Arrogant slave,” I said. The woman put down her head even more, whimpering, trembling. No slave takes wine without the permission of the master. And even then, as often as not, she takes it only on his command, and under his eye, usually kneeling before him. Sometimes, even, he puts his hand in her hair, bends her head back, and pours it down her throat. It is done by his will.
“The wine, of course,” he said, “was too precious to have been brought with him, but it is in his tent. She summons her palanquin and bearers, male slaves, and is to be carried to this place. Too, in this fashion the matter may best be kept secret from her attendants. She is often carried about the Cosian camp in her closed palanquin by bearers. This excites little curiosity. In his tent she will taste the wine, demanding even that he pour it for her. It is done. She looks at him, startled. Can this wine, which seems like a cheap ka-la-na, be the rare Falarian? But in a moment she is unconscious. Arrangements have already been made with the bearers, of course. They will receive their freedom. It could have been done otherwise but this is best. They were known. Had we substituted others for them we would have increased our risks. Too, left behind they might well have been killed, absurdly enough, by the Cosians, an unnecessary and foolish waste of able men, in my opinion, whereas I now have four more grateful, loyal fellows in my ranks, any one of whom I think would willingly die for me.”
“Of course,” I said.
“The palanquin is then brought within the walls of the outer tent. Meanwhile the female is stripped. She is placed, unconscious, in the palanquin. Binding thongs, about her ankles, her legs spread, about her wrists, they tied down at her sides, and about her thighs, belly, above her breasts and below her arms, and about her throat, fasten her to it, securing her tightly in place. When she awakens she will discover she can scarcely move a muscle. She is then gagged. Lastly the curtains of the palanquin are closed. She is now ready to be transported.”
“What drug was mixed with the wine,” I asked, “Tassa powder?” That seemed like the most obvious choice. It is tasteless and odorless, and takes effect quickly. It is a drug familiar to slavers, thieves, and such. It is a common expedient in the capture and sedation of free women, though, obviously, as in the present case, it is effective with slaves, as well. Many a fellow has awakened in the mud behind a tavern, missing his purse and robes. Many a charming young woman has awakened bruised, due to the jolting of the small, wagon-transported slave cage within which she finds herself confined, now pasangs from the walls of her city.
“Of course,” he said, “but only a dusting.”
“So little?” I asked. Usually one expects the recipient of Tassa powder to remain unconscious for Ahn, depending on the dose, commonly more for a man, less for a woman.
“She will remain unconscious, by our intent,” he said, “for only a few Ehn, for little longer than it takes to strip, bind and gag her. We want her to awaken quite soon, while still in the Cosian camp, and, awakening, to be fully appreciative of her predicament. We want her to lie there, helpless, fully conscious of what is being done to her.”
“Excellent,” I said.
“My man checked in on her once,” he said. “Her eyes were wild, frantic, over her gag. He then, again, closed the curtains.”
“It is a splendid coup,” I said, “to have stolen the preferred slave of the Polemarkos of Temos.”
“Had it not been for your arrogance and greed, it would not have been so easy, would it, my dear?” he said to the woman.
“No, Master,” she said.
“But you are not arrogant and greedy anymore, are you, my dear?” he asked.
“No, Master!” she said.
“We brought her to Torcadino,” he said. “As you may remember, she had had my man, though she was a slave, pour wine for her.”
“I remember,” I said.
“Her first beating, thus,” he said, “she received from him.”
“Naturally,” I said.
“Her next four beatings, at given intervals, she received from the four fellows who had been her bearers formerly, now free men.”
“Naturally,” I said.
“At times we had to caution them, and restrain them,” he said, “that they not kill her.”
“I understand,” I said.
“She was then ready to be interrogated,” he said.
“Interrogated?” I said.
“Certainly,” he said. “Do you think I find this slut of any personal interest or worth?”
“I can see how some men might,” I said.
“She is vain, and shallow,” he said. “Are you not, my dear?”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“But we are going to work hard to overcome those flaws, are we not, my dear?” he inquired.
“Yes, Master!” she said.
He put his hand on her.
She cried out, startled. She jerked back against the stout post. Her hands jerked in the metal fastenings. She regarded him with disbelief, with horror.
“You are no longer a high slave,” he said. “You are going to have to get used to being touched like this.”
She looked at him, wildly. Her hands twisted. She could not close her legs.
“I thought you might have had her stolen,” I said, “in order to do insult to Myron, the Polemarkos.”
“Please, no!” she cried.
“No,” he said. “I would not risk men in such an unnecessary and gratuitous enterprise. My major concern is with the expeditious and efficient attainment of certain ultimate objectives. I seldom indulge in the gratifications of such transient vanities unless they lead to these objectives, or, at the least, are not inimical to their attainment. Such an insult, stinging as it would be, would not serve any particular purpose at the moment, for example, stirring a foe to a fury of vengeance which might lead to miscalculation on his part. In this particular situation it would presumably only make it more difficult to deal with the Polemarkos, to whom I must soon give the appearance of inviting bona-fide negotiation.”
“No, no, no,” whispered the girl.
“In that way you will delay attacks and buy time,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“No, no,” whimpered the girl. “No!”
“Besides,” he said, “I bear the Polemarkos no ill will. He is a clever, if weak, officer.”
“No, no!” said the girl. “Oh, yes,” she cried, suddenly, “Yes!” Her eyes were wild. “Yes, please!” she said. She squirmed. She closed her eyes. Her knees moved piteously. “Yes, please!” she said.
“She is vital,” I observed.
“Yes,” agreed the officer.
“Perhaps the Polemarkos would not be pleased to observe how you have her leaping under your touch.”
“Perhaps not,” he said. “But he would presumably understand I mean no insult by it. She is, after all, only a slave.”
“True,” I said.
“Please, do not stop,” she said. “Please do not stop!”
“Do you move like this under the touch of the Polemarkos?” he asked her.
“No,” she said. “No, never. I did not know it could be like this!”
“Interesting,” he said.
It was indeed interesting, I thought. To be sure, it is common knowledge that one man’s haughty, critical, demanding, sexually lethargic, frigid, bored companion may be an eager, begging servitor of another man’s whims and pleasures. But one expects such inconsistencies only of free women. Once a woman is a slave, and slave fires, as it is said, have been lit in her belly, she not only wants men, but needs them. One has not seen
a woman at her best until one has seen her in a collar at a man’s feet.
I gathered that the former Lucilina, though a slave, had never really learned what it might be to be a man’s slave.
Hitherto I feared she had been something of an anomaly, little more than a free woman, in a way, in a slave’s collar.
It seemed that this might be the first time that she had ever been subjected to such caresses, those which she must endure, whether she wished to or not, those possessive, insolent caresses appropriate to a meaningless slave, caresses which would irresistibly draw her, if the master pleased, and solely at his discretion, inch by inch, touch by touch, mercilessly and ineluctably, to slave ecstasy. Apparently before she had never been so at the mercy of a man. Strange it was that she should seem only now to be learning her collar. She could no more resist what was being done to her, or what was beginning to occur in her body, than she could stay the wind or stem the tides of the sea.
She was a now only helpless female, the prisoner of her biology.
I looked upon her.
She was well chained.
She could not have been more helpless had she been staked out in the Barrens, lashed to an oar in Torvaldsland, chained as a prize to the stirrup of a war tharlarion on the Vennan road, kneeling buckled, hand and foot, waiting, in a slave harness on Tyros, fastened to a pleasure rack in a dingy, half-lit tavern in Port Kar, near the wharves.
It could be done with her as the officer pleased.
She sobbed, and moaned.
“Please,” she begged. “I am a slave! Please be kind, Master! I am a slave! I know that now! I am only a slave! I know that now! You have taught me, Master!”
The officer stepped back.
Her eyes opened. They were wild. There were tears in them. “Please,” she said. “Please!” She thrust her body forward, toward him, piteously begging the continuation of his attentions.
He had brought her to the brink.
Now he had left her there.
Such things may be done to a slave. It helps them to know that they are a slave.
She regarded him, piteously, helplessly.
“How is that you would have had her stolen, not for her own beauty, for she is prize collar meat, which I would think would have been a sufficient reason for doing so, nor as an insult to the Polemarkos, which seems plausible, but merely to interrogate?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Yes, yes!” she cried, gratefully. “Thank you, Master! Thank you, Master!”
I saw that he had had mercy upon her.
I wondered if he were kind, or merely indifferent. Did he merely wish to show her what could be done to her body, that it was susceptible to such delicious torment, that she would become more cognizant of her collar? Or did he wish to put her the more at his mercy, that she might then, knowing what could be done with her, beg again, and again, for his caress, which he might then bestow or withhold, as he saw fit.
“She is only a slave,” I said.
“Now, she is only a slave,” he said.
“Yes,” she whimpered. “Oh, yes!”
“But before,” he continued, “she was also the confidante of the Polemarkos. By means of her wiles and beauty she had ingratiated herself with him and there were few secrets of state to which she, in one way or another, was not privy. She even attended certain meetings of war, though concealed in her silks behind a modesty screen. Her presence there, as you might imagine, even concealed behind the screen, considerably discomfited several of the officers. It was partly as a result of their resentful, guarded comments, overheard by certain spies, that I came to realize her importance.” He paused for a moment. “Are you important now, my dear?” he asked.
“No, Master!” she said.
“What are you now?” he asked.
“A slave, only a slave, your slave!” she said.
He then renewed his attentions to her body.
“Yes, yes, yes!” she said.
“What was your name?” he said.
“Lucilina!” she gasped.
“You are not responding like a Lucilina,” he said. She moaned, and squirmed. “You are responding more like a Luchita,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “Yes, Master!”
“You are Luchita,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said, named. I thought this a good name for her. It was a good name for a hot, helpless, dominated slave.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Luchita, Luchita, Master!” she gasped.
“Are you a high slave, Luchita?” he asked.
“I do not know,” she said.
“No,” he said. “You are not. You are now among the lowest of low slaves.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“And I will give you, accordingly,” he said, “to one of my lowest soldiers, to a rude and common fellow, one of the lowest rank.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You will serve him well,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You will be treated as the slave you are.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“And you will be worked well,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“But have no fear,” he said. “You will receive, I assure you, in this sort of bondage, low and common, and absolutely uncompromising, your complete fulfillment, both as a female and a slave.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
She then licked and kissed his hands, cleaning them. He then wiped his hands on her sweat-dampened hair. He then left the room, I following him. I glanced back. The slave on the perch was looking after him, her dark, wet hair muchly before her chained body, her eyes filled with awe. She was pretty I thought, the slave, Luchita.
“What did you learn from her?” I asked, once the door was closed.
“You may kneel, Lady Cara,” he said.
The woman from Venna, with a movement of chains, rose from her belly to kneel beside his desk. She knelt in the position of the pleasure slave, back on her heels, back straight, head up, knees spread, palms of her hands on her thighs.
“We learned a great deal, in a sense,” he said, “but most of it we already knew, or suspected, from various other sources. Two things, however, came as a surprise to us.”
“May I inquire?” I asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Otherwise I would not have brought you here in the first place. It is because of these things I had you brought here.”
“Speak, please,” I encouraged him.
“Should I be fetched from the room, Master?” asked Lady Cara. Because of the nature of her ankle chaining, it would have been difficult for her to walk.
Suddenly cuffed, she fell to her side, blood at her mouth. “Did you ask permission to speak?” he asked. In a situation of this sort it was common, though not always required, that a slave request permission to speak. Apparently this officer, in this sort of situation, did require his women, whether free or slave, to request such permission. Lady Cara, after this, would be in no doubt about this.
“No, Master,” she said. “Forgive me, Master.”
He snapped his fingers. Immediately she resumed her former position.
“The main forces of Cos are here,” he said, “in the vicinity of Torcadino, now, at the moment, investing it.”
“I am sure that is common knowledge,” I said.
“One would think so,” he said, “but two things which disturb and puzzle me we have learned recently, only this morning, from our little informant in the other room. First, a movement of Cosian troops, originating in Brundisium, apparently several regiments, are moving eastward, parallel to the Vosk.”
“Towards Ar’s Station?” I speculated. This was Ar’s stronghold on the Vosk. It was situated on the southern bank, east of Jort’s Ferry and west of Forest Port, both on the northern bank.
“Presumably so,” he said.
“It must be a
diversion,” I said.
“Presumably Ar’s Station, if subjected to attack, could be relieved by a small force,” he said, “and a countermarch to the coast could cut off the Cosians from their base in Brundisium.”
“I would think so,” I said.
“Why then, according to our information, and this is the second item of interest here, is Ar preparing, if this is correct, to launch its main forces northward toward Ar’s Station?”
“That would be madness,” I said.
“That is the information which the spies of Cos in Ar have transmitted to the Polemarkos,” he said.
“They must be mistaken,” I said.
“Perhaps,” said the officer, moodily.
“The main forces of Cos are here, by Torcadino,” I said. “If the main might of Ar is sent northward there would be a free road from the trenches about Torcadino almost to the gates of Ar themselves. The land between here and Ar, and the city itself, would be in effect without defense.”
“I think there can be only one plausible explanation for this,” said the officer. “—That the councils of Ar do not know that the main force of Cos is here.”
“That seems incredible,” I said.
“What other explanation could there be?” he asked.
“That the spies of the Polemarkos are simply mistaken,” I said.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“There is, of course, another,” I said.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Treachery in Ar,” I said.
“Of this enormity?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“It seems it should be unthinkable,” he said.
“Surely you have thought it,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “I have considered it.”
“And seriously, I speculate,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “seriously, very seriously.”
“Why did you ask me about the delta of the Vosk?” I asked.
“Because I think the move toward Ar’s Station is a diversion,” he said. “And because the Cosians could be too easily cut off from Brundisium.”
“You think they will withdraw into the delta?” I asked.
“I would,” he said.
“So, too, would I,” I said.
“And the main forces of Ar may be marching toward Ar’s Station,” he said, grimly.
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