Swordsmen of Gor

Chapter Thirteen I SEEK INFORMATION IN THE SLAVE HOUSE

It was night.

I entered the slave house and received a lighted taper and a switch.

Others, similarly accoutered, were in the slave house, as well, perhaps seven or eight. The house was more than a hundred feet long, and built of thick logs, with a roof of branches and thatch. The structure was some twenty feet in width, and windowless. Its ceiling was some eight feet from the flooring. On each side there were aligned some twenty-five to thirty mats. These mats were some three to four inches in thickness, and something like a yard wide. They were sewn of heavy, striped canvas, and stuffed with straw. When I had entered I heard tiny sounds in the darkness, whimperings, small noises of fear, here and there the movement of a body on the straw-filled mat, the rustle of a chain.

I was interested in a particular slave.

I moved slowly down the aisle, lifting the taper first to the left, and then the right.

Each slave was chained by the neck, to a ring anchored in the floor, to the left of her mat, as she would look toward the aisle. Each had some four feet of chain.

As I lifted the taper one slave, kneeling, head down, crouched down, and tried to cover herself.

Surely she knew that was not permitted.

I did not strike her.

Another lay on her side and drew up her legs, and, bent at the waist, held her arms, too, tightly, frightened, about her.

That, too, was not permitted.

Nor did I strike her.

Both were dismayed, and terrified. I gathered they had not been long on the mats.

Torgus, the mercenary leader whom I had met on the beach earlier, had rented some of these, former high women of Ar, to the house.

I had ascertained those he had sold, either to the loggers, or craftsmen, or suppliers, or trainers, and such, or to the Pani themselves, and she whom I sought was not amongst those.

Accordingly I sought her here.

Several of the mats were empty, but I conjectured there might be some sixty or so girls in the house.

I lifted the taper again.

A girl, illuminated, but much in shadows, too, shrank back, half kneeling, half lying.

“Do not be afraid,” I told her, and went on.

Surely several of these were new to the mats, unfamiliar with being illuminated in the darkness by tapers, fearful of the chain on their necks, wary of the switches of masters, women who knew themselves no longer free but did not yet fully understand what it was to be a slave, an understanding which would be soon and perfectly achieved.

She whom I sought, and had considered buying for Pertinax, was she whom I had noted on the chain of Torgus, on the beach, kneeling with others, neck-chained, in the surf and sand, she who had seemed most ready or needful, she whom I thought would be the first to plead for a man’s touch. Sometimes a woman’s igniting ensues as soon as she feels a collar put on her neck, one she cannot remove. Other times it may be a thing as simple as stripping her and binding her wrists behind her body. Sometimes it may be as simple as finding herself slave-naked, on her knees, before a man. Sometimes it may be when she first licks and kisses the feet of a man, when she feels the weight of a chain on her body, and so on. These things in themselves, interestingly, are often no more than keys which open a door which has long imprisoned a distressed and yearning slave. She has in her heart desired to be taken, owned, and mastered. She has never been more free than when most his.

I lifted the taper again, and one of the slaves scrambled, frightened, to her knees, and put her head to the mat, assuming first obeisance position. Her hair seemed sweaty. There were welts on her back.

Her response was in the vicinity of what was expected of her, but was not what it should have been.

When the slave is illuminated, she is to display herself as provocatively as possible. This can vary from girl to girl. Many are the suitable posings of the female slave. Indeed when a woman is put through slave paces, whether leashed or not, what is this but an exhibition, a detailed and sometimes tormentingly lovely display of property? If the fellow with the taper lingers, or seems interested, she then goes to first obeisance position, and begs to be found pleasing. Interestingly there was no coin box on the necks of the slaves, as would be the case with “coin girls” in some cities, usually port cities, or coin dishes beside the mat, as in great camps, and such, in which coins might be left by clients or patrons. Indeed, I had not even given a tarsk bit at the entrance. These slaves were furnished as a perquisite of the camp, to content the men who might not have their own slave or slaves. The rent money given to Torgus for his girls then, as with others, was furnished by the Pani, rather as they might have underwritten other forms of expense, clothing, bedding, housing, tools, weapons, food, ka-la-na, paga, kal-da, and such.

I continued on my way.

She whom I sought, I had learned, upon inquiries, was the former Lady Portia Lia Serisia of Sun Gate Towers, an exclusive district, near Ar’s Street of Coins, where were found most of the banking houses of the city. The name of the enclave was derived from the Sun Gate, one of Ar’s major gates, though it was better than two pasangs from the gate itself, the gate’s name being derived from the fact that it was regularly opened at sunrise and closed at sunset. Many of the larger merchant enclaves were found near the walls, within which were several warehouses. This is convenient for the receipt of goods coming into the city, and for those being sent from the city. Caravans are usually formed outside the walls. Goods from these warehouses, of course, are often later distributed for retailing throughout the city. The Lady Serisia, as we may say for short, was a scion of the Serisii, one of Ar’s older banking families. It was predominantly wiped out in the rising, it seems, for its collaboration with the occupational forces, its extending of credit to them, to meet its payrolls, when the funds for these failed somehow to reach the city, its purchases of great quantities of loot, including women, for later retailing elsewhere, its arranging for the confiscation of rival house’s assets, and so on. For a time it had become the wealthiest and most powerful house in Ar, but then had come the rising. The Lady Serisia, I suspected, might be the last surviving member of the house. Proscription lists tend to be exacting, and Gorean justice, which tends to be expeditious and efficient, tends to pursue such matters with diligence. I did not doubt but what many a profiteer, traitor, and such, burdened impaling stakes within Ahn of the rising. Free women take part in the commercial life of Gorean polities as men do, owning and managing businesses, lending coin, negotiating loans, organizing caravans, investing capital, conservatively, or risking it variously, in real estate, voyages, commodities, and such, in translating goods about to find the most favorable markets at a given time, and so on. To be sure, much of this is done through male agents, as, in theory, such concerns are regarded as beneath the dignity and attention of a free woman. She is supposedly, in her dignity and nobility, above such crass concerns. That she exists, in the glory of her freedom, that she is so different from the shameful female slave, that she adds luster to the city and its Home Stone, is enough; that she be dedicated to refined and tasteful pursuits, such as attendance at the theater, at song dramas, poetry readings, and such, is deemed sufficient. In essence, the free woman, aside from being regarded as a priceless treasure, so different from the slave who, as a beast, may be purchased for a given amount of coin, is considered an ornament to the city, an adornment to her polity. But many grow wealthy and powerful, and others fail, and so on.

I lifted the taper again, now to the left, as I made my way down the aisle, and the woman, actually now a girl, as she was a slave, put her hand before her eyes, shielding her eyes.

It was she.

There was a rustle of chain as she sought first obeisance position.

“Kneel up,” I told her.

She did so. I do not think she recognized me, at first.

“Have you not been taught the way of the mat, girl?” I asked.

“Master?” she said.

“Do you not understand the meaning of the mat and chain?” I asked. “Interest me.”

“I do not know how,” she whispered. “Is my body, before you, a male, not enough?”

I smiled. How like a stupid free woman was she still! Did the free woman not think there was nothing more to attracting a man than that she be a woman? To be sure, the hint of a bosom, the suggestion of the sweet width of hips, within the robes of concealment, was indeed attractive, and even free women understood this quite well, for not all slaves were in collars. Similarly a tone of voice, a turning of the head, perhaps provocatively, the hurried readjustment of a veil, it having somehow become inadvertently disarranged, could turn the knife in a fellow’s belly. Yes, I thought, I suppose she is right, in a way. That a woman is a woman can be a thousand times more than enough, so to speak. Had not nature, in her indifferent judgments, brought these complementarities together? Suppose there were somehow ten thousand randomnesses. Amongst these some would be more likely to result in the replication of genes than others. Is the swiftest of the tabuk not most likely to escape the sleen or larl? How is it that the vision of the tarn can discern the movement of even an urt at a thousand feet? The shark who detects the trace of blood in remote water, will he not be the first to feed? Will not the moth who detects the odor of its female four pasangs away through the warm, night air be the first to flutter to her side? The beast which, somehow, sees fit to defend its young, is likely to have young which will survive it. Amongst all adventitious assortments some embody the future, not all. Yes, I thought, I suppose it is enough for the female to be a female. Something in that luscious configuration will trigger a genetic response selected for over millennia. From the point of view of rationality one shape is presumably little different from another. What is to choose from between the circle and triangle, but blood and time are attuned to a different geometry.

And, of course, the slave, as the others at their mats, was bared to the vision of free men. How different they are from us, I thought, and was therein well pleased. It also occurred to me that women go to great lengths, almost always, unless subglandular, moronic, insane, culturally suppressed, or somehow ideologically perverted, to dress themselves attractively. For example, the robes of concealment, prescribed for, and almost universally accepted by, Gorean free women, certainly of the higher castes, were not uniform, drab garmentures imposed on them by, say, an oppressive society which regarded women as inferior, unclean, and morally dangerous, but, in their abundance, in their layers and veilings, in their arrangements and drapings, were tasteful and attractive, and, above all, surely, bright and colorful. One may not see that much of a woman in the robes of concealment but there is no doubt that there is one in there somewhere, and there is no missing that. Yes, a woman can be quite attractive in the robes of concealment, and there is no doubt of that. Once again we note that not all slaves are collared. To be sure, the robes of concealment are, in their way, a tease, a provocation. Surely the women are not unaware of that. Perhaps that is one reason that men so relish the removal of such garments and the placing of their occupants in the more revealing and delightful garmentures of slaves. “You will tease no more. I will now look upon you as I wish, for you are now no longer yours, but are now ours, the property of men. Rejoice, the games are over. You are beautiful. Know yourself exhibited, and owned.”

But the girls on the mats, of course, were not even accorded a slave strip. They were mat slaves, and bared suitably.

Was her body not enough?

In a sense, one supposed, surely, but, so far beyond that, so far indeed, were the fluidities and graces, the appetitions, the performances, the subtleties, the movements, the needs, the readinesses, the petitions, of the female slave!

“In one sense,” I said, “your body is enough, and more than enough, but, in another sense, and one more important than that of brief, mindless couplings, that body is no more than a beginning, something needed, but something not enough in itself, something far from enough in itself.”

“But, why, Master?” she asked.

“Because you are no longer a free woman,” I said. “Because you are now a slave.”

“I do not understand,” she whispered.

“Because you are now a thousand times more female than before,” I said.

“Master?” she said.

“Because you are now a slave,” I said.

“Have pity on me!” she wept.

“Display yourself,” I said, “girl.”

“I do not know how!” she said.

“It is instinctual in you,” I said. “It is in your blood. You are a female.”

“Do not so humiliate me!” she begged.

“Begin,” said I, “slave.”

“Yes,” she wept, “I am a slave!”

“Now,” I said.

“Yes, Master,” she wept.

“Ah,” I said, “I see you have thought of these things before, perhaps in your dreams, perhaps in the secrecy of your boudoir, perhaps in your imaginings, perhaps in putting the loop of a strap about your left wrist, and, suddenly, dramatically, drawing it tight.”

She sobbed.

“Excellent,” I said. “It is a shapely limb, is it not? Would it not look well in an ankle shackle?”

“Have mercy!” she begged.

“You are well aware, are you not, of the weight of the chain on your collar, of the sound of its links, and how you are fastened to the floor ring, naked, before a male?”

“Master!” she protested.

“Continue,” I said.

“Must I?” she said.

“Now,” I said.

“I was free,” she said. “You are making me behave as a slave!”

“And how are you behaving?” I asked.

“As a slave!” she said. “I am behaving as a slave!”

“Is it not appropriate?” I asked.

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I am a slave!” she said.

She collapsed to the mat, sobbing.

“Kneel up,” I said to her, kindly. “You did well.”

She then knelt before me.

“Keep your knees together,” I advised her. I was, after all, only human. I then put the switch before her, and she leaned forward and, timidly, licked and kissed the supple leather implement.

She looked up. “Have me,” she whispered. “Please.”

There was a small stand, near the mat, in which a taper might be held.

“As a free woman?” I asked.

“No, Master,” she said, “as what I am, a slave.”

I gathered she had often thought of what it might be, to be a slave in the arms of a master.

“You are,” I said, “the former Lady Portia Lia Serisia of Sun Gate Towers.”

She regarded me, terrified.

“Do not deny it,” I said. “I know it is true.”

“Do not kill me!” she begged.

“That is not my intention,” I said.

“You are of Ar?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“You want me, for a bounty,” she said.

I supposed there were bounties on certain citizens of Ar, who had managed to escape the wrath of vengeful crowds, the pursuits of licensed and unlicensed capture squads.

“No,” I said. “And, as far as I know, there is no bounty on you.”

“I saw my name on a proscription list, posted on the public boards,” she said.

“I do not doubt it,” I said.

“They want me, to kill me,” she said.

“Perhaps in the heat of the moment,” I said. “But I would suppose, after a time, that their sense of vengeance would be more than satisfied if they found you wore a collar in the north. Indeed, I have learned from others that various women of your sort were merely publicly flogged and collared, some then to become state slaves, most to be sold out of the city, to be distributed with contempt amongst inferior markets.”

“Does the proscription list not mean death?” she asked.

“Strictly,” I said, “it means apprehension, but it is true, that it is commonly a warrant for death, certainly for males, and often for women, free women.”

“They wanted our blood,” she said.

“At the time, in the rage of the crowd, I do not doubt it,” I said. “But, now, you might rather be brought before a praetor, for the iron and the collar.”

“Is that true?” she said.

“I do not know,” I said. “We could always take you there, and see.”

“No,” she said. “No!”

I smiled.

“I am not what I was,” she said. “The Kef has been fixed in my thigh, the steel is on my neck.”

“It is true,” I said. “You are not what you were.”

“I was not high amongst the Serisii,” she said. “I did not enter into their business. I was a lowly daughter, pampered and spoiled, given to a life of luxury and indolence! I had no control over the affairs of the house!”

“But you bore the name,” I said.

“Yes,” she said. “I bore the name.”

“But no longer,” I said.

“No,” she said, “no longer.” This was true. There was no longer a Lady Portia Lia Serisia of Sun Gate Towers. She was gone. There was now, not even really in her place, only an animal, a lovely animal. As far as I knew Torgus had not even, as yet, seen fit to give her a name. She then regarded me, frightened. “You know me,” she said, “or who I was. What do you want of me? If you do not want my blood, or to bind me, and trade me for a bounty, what do you want? Why have you sought me out?”

“No woman in a collar,” I said, “should be curious as to why a man might seek her out.”

“No, no,” she said. “You want more.”

“Perhaps I wish to buy you for a friend,” I suggested. I had, indeed, toyed with the idea of buying her for Pertinax. She was quite attractive. Might she not look well chained to his cot in the barracks? A strong man needs a slave, and is never content with less. Pertinax could certainly do worse than having his collar on one such as this.

She looked at me, frightened. I think it had not really occurred to her, other than as an abstract possibility, that she might be simply purchased and given to someone.

“Buy me?” she said, weakly.

“Yes, like a kaiila or tarsk,” I said.

“And then I would belong to another?”

“Of course,” I said.

“No,” she said. “There is something else, and I am frightened.” She looked up, blinking against the light of the taper. “What is it?” she asked.

“I want to speak to you,” I said. “I will question you. I want information.”

“I know nothing,” she said. “I am naked. I am on a chain. I am a slave.”

“The Serisii were high in Ar,” I said, “close to the throne. You, and others, sought escape from the city. Plans must have been laid against such eventualities as the rising. You must have heard one thing or another.”

“Master?” she said.

“What of Seremides?” I asked. “He was powerful in Ar, a deputy, so to speak, of Myron, the polemarkos.”

“Surely he was apprehended and impaled,” she said.

“I have not heard so,” I said. A capture and impalement of such consequence would surely have been noted, and broadcast, I thought, throughout a dozen cities and a hundred camps.

The slave was silent.

“You have heard nothing?” I said.

“Nothing,” she said.

Too, I thought his capture would be a coup of considerable dimension, and one whose fame would be soon registered on the public boards of a dozen cities, whispered about a thousand campfires, even as far north as the forests, but, here, too, I had, as yet, heard nothing.

“Were you,” I asked, “as a scion of the Serisii, a confidante of the Ubara?”

“Surely not, Master,” she said. “But, as of the Serisii, whose fortunes were closely intertwined with those of Cos and Tyros, I, and others, were often entertained in the Central Cylinder.”

“What was the nature of these entertainments?” I inquired.

“They were not unusual,” she said, “for the occupation. There were exquisite feasts from the largesse of Ar. While some in the streets hunted urts to live, we enjoyed the most delicate of a hundred viands, the richness of a hundred rare wines. The foremost poets of the city sang their works for us. The preeminent musicians, of those who remained within the walls, played for us. Theatricals were staged. Acrobats and jugglers were engaged. Former free women of Ar, collared, but decorously attired, served the tables. Sometimes slaves were brought in, to dance for us, though probably, in particular, for the men, officers of Tyros and Cos, mercenary captains, bankers, such as the Serisii, high merchants, well-known traders, and such. One slave, a very beautiful slave, who had been given to Myron, the polemarkos, was brought forth several times, and forced to dance before the men, bejeweled, bangled and necklaced, but otherwise naked, under whips. Her name was Claudia.”

“Once Claudia Tentia Hinrabia,” I said, “the last of the Hinrabians.” Claudius Tentius Hinrabius had been an administrator of Ar, later deposed. He who acceded to the rule of Ar had been Cernus, in effect, a usurper.”

“Yes,” said the slave.

Talena had held Claudia as a rival to her own considerable beauty, which was alleged to be unsurpassed on all Gor. These sorts of claims, of course, were absurd, as there was no dearth of beauty on Gor. The markets were filled with it. Who is to say that this very beautiful woman is more or less beautiful than this other? To be sure, both Talena and Claudia, in their different ways, were very beautiful women. I suspected the hostility of Talena toward Claudia was as much motivated by considerations of politics as of vanity. Claudia had been the daughter of a former administrator of Ar; and Talena was merely the disowned daughter of the great Ubar, Marlenus, whose whereabouts had then been unknown. Her position had been bestowed upon her by foreign enemies, who had found it expedient to have a puppet on the throne of Ar. Indeed, Claudia’s claim to stand high in Ar was far sounder than that of Talena herself, who had been disgraced, and sequestered shamefully, in effect imprisoned, in the Central Cylinder, while Marlenus carried on the business of the state, prior to his hunting trip to the Voltai, in which it had been feared he had perished.

“Once,” said the slave, “Claudia, at the conclusion of her dance, seized up a goblet of wine and dashed it upon the Ubara. We feared the slave would be instantly slain, and she was flung to the floor, under a dozen blades, and it was only the hand of her master, Myron, the polemarkos, interposed, which saved her. The Ubara was outraged and screamed and screamed and struck and kicked the slave repeatedly, and pressed and stamped upon her with her tiny jeweled slippers. And finally the slave, sobbing, and groveling, trembling and shuddering, bruised, miserable, her pride broken, her spirit vanquished, well informed now that whatever she might once have been, she was now no more than a slave, wholly submitted, and helpless, crawled to the feet of the Ubara, kissing them, as a slave, begging mercy, and forgiveness. She was spared, I think to please the polemarkos. It was said that after that Claudia became a true slave to her master. She was never again, of course, permitted by the polemarkos to dance at the entertainments in the Central Cylinder. She was used, often, however, it was said, to dance in the headquarters and garrison camp outside the walls, for Myron and his high officers. He was, it was said, much envied for his slave.”

“Speak to me of the Ubara,” I said.

“She was very beautiful,” said the slave, “as I am sure she well knew, and as we might easily discern, for in privacy we might all dine unveiled, it not being unseemly.”

“Of course,” I said.

Veiling was common amongst free women in public. In private. veiling would be an encumbrance. Few women would veil themselves in their own household, unless in the presence of strangers. In public dining the woman might feed herself discreetly, delicately, beneath the veil. Some lower-caste women, on the street, will literally drink through the veil.

“Speak further,” I said.

“It is interesting,” said the slave. “For a long time the Ubara was as a Ubara, informal or stately as the occasion demanded, a ruler, or a host, witty and charming, or cold and demanding. At one moment she would warm one with a smile and in the next moment chill one with a frown. Within limits, Ar was hers. She was an exceedingly proud woman, and was confident, sure of her place and of herself. It was well to struggle to please her. A word from her could demote an officer of Ar, a phrase exile a councilor, or break or banish a merchant, and another could reduce another woman, even one of high station, to the collar. She was charming, vain, secure, and arrogant. Muchly did she relish her power, such as it was. Limited as it might be in great things, it was formidable in that which did not concern the occupation. Men and women strove to please her. She was muchly feared. But then, strangely, a change came over the Ubara. An entertainment had been planned, but it was canceled, presumably because the Ubara was indisposed. But, after that, she was different. Entertainments became fewer, and then ceased. The Ubara seemed distracted, even fearful. She would not leave the Central Cylinder. We understood, even in her private chambers, which were locked and guarded, she would keep candles ablaze during the hours of darkness. She became frightened of food and drink, lest, perhaps, it might be drugged, or poisoned. Frightened slave girls, former free women of Ar, were used as tasters. It was as though she were hunted. It was as though she feared somehow, as absurd as it might seem, she being so secure, and being Ubara, that she might feel the capture rope upon her any instant, like a common or private woman, and be carried away into what fate she knew not, perhaps even one as frightful as the collar itself. Imagine she, a Ubara, in a collar! What state would be powerful enough, clever enough, bold enough, to seize a Ubara? What Ubar mighty enough to have her naked, in chains, at the foot of his throne! It was strange, incomprehensible, the change that had come over her. Then, later, of course, the rising took place.”

“What then,” I asked, “was the fate of the Ubara?”

“I do not know,” said the slave. “The rising came suddenly, and there was terror in the streets for many. I and some others were taken in hand by mercenaries and, stripped, and self-pronounced as slaves, and neck-roped, were used by them as a ruse to approach the walls, they pretending to be citizens of Ar conducting us to impaling stakes. At the wall they managed to fight their way free to the outer country, and join Cosians in retreat. Our hair was shortened, that we not appear free women to flighted tarnsmen, and we were soon chained by the neck, and conducted from camp to camp, until we reached the vicinity of Brundisium, from which port, subsequently, we, cargoed, were shipped by sea to the north, where we made landfall.”

“Do you recognize me?” I asked.

“It is dark, Master,” she said. “The light is tiny, and poor. There are shadows. Do I know you?”

“Not really,” I said. “But we have met. I met your party on the beach.”

“You are he?” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“I thought perhaps,” she said. “But I dared not speak.”

“You impressed me,” I said, “as a slut well collared.”

“Master!” she protested.

“Just now,” I said, “you displayed yourself well.”

She put down her head. “Yes,” she said, “I am a slut well collared.”

“Talena,” said I, “must somehow have escaped.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “but it seems impossible. The Central Cylinder was surrounded even before the bars sounded the rising.”

“I have heard no word,” I said, “of the capture, the torture, or impalement of the Ubara.”

“No,” agreed the slave.

I was sure the Central Cylinder would have been examined with care, each chamber, even to measurements of the thickness of walls, and such, being considered.

“She must have escaped,” I said.

“Perhaps the crowds found her, tore her to pieces, and fed the scraps to sleen,” she said.

“By tarnflight, from the Central Cylinder,” I suggested.

“Perhaps, Master,” she said.

To be sure, this was highly unlikely, for a careful watch would have been kept. As this would be a most obvious possibility, a most likely route for escape, it would have been guarded against with zealous care.

“If she escaped, Master,” said the slave, “I think it unlikely she will long remain at large.”

I nodded. Her conjecture seemed to me plausible.

“I heard the masters speaking,” she said, “in the camps. A price of ten thousand tarn disks, of double weight, has been placed on the Ubara’s head.”

I nodded, again. I had heard that, too, from Torgus, on the beach. Every bounty hunter on Gor, professional or amateur, would seek the Ubara. Too, it was unlikely that she would be long shielded from discovery, given the price on her head, and the hostility with which she was so generally regarded. Her vanity, her arrogance, the insolence with which she had abused power, her betrayal of her Home Stone, and such, militated against her concealment. Perhaps, as Torgus had suggested, she had already been captured, and her captors were negotiating for an even higher remuneration.

“You have been helpful,” I told the slave.

“You are not going to take me back to Ar?”

“No,” I said. “Such things are behind you.”

I turned to go.

“Master,” she called, softly.

I turned back.

“What are slave fires?” she asked.

“Put your knees apart,” I told her.

She gasped, but obeyed.

She seemed pathetic, in the darkness, kneeling on the small, striped straw mat, her skin so white, illuminated in the light of the taper.

The light reflected from the chain, dangling from her neck.

“Can you not sense what slave fires might be?” I asked.

“Yes,” she whispered, “I think so.”

“Fear them,” I said. “Resist them mightily. For once they burn in your belly, you can never again be truly free. You will always be a man’s slave.”

“I am not permitted to resist them,” she said, “for I am a slave.”

“That is true,” I granted her.

“Master,” she whispered.

“Yes?” I said.

“I can sense what they can be,” she said. “I do not want to resist them.”

“They will change you,” I said, “forever.”

“I want to be changed,” she whispered.

“Put your knees together, and go to first obeisance position,” I told her.

With a rustle of chain, she obeyed.

“You are a mat girl,” I told her. “You may now beg as one.”

“Master?” she said.

“You may kiss the free man’s feet, and beg to be found pleasing,” I said.

I then felt her lips at my feet.

“You may both kiss, and lick, lovingly, deferentially,” I said. “It is a great honor for a slave girl to do this, for he is a free man, and she is a mere slave.”

This was true, for some masters will not permit a slave to perform this simple act, even when she begs for the privilege. From the point of view of a free woman this act may seem humiliating, and perhaps it is, for a free woman, but, for the slave, it is a beautiful act of submission, even of love, in which she testifies to her joy in bondage, and expresses, humbly, and symbolically, her gratitude to her master, that he has consented to have her, one such as she, only a slave, in his collar.

Many free women cannot even begin to understand the love of a slave for her master, but it may be the deepest and most profound love possible between a human female and a human male. Indeed, in the view of many, it is exactly that, the deepest and most profound love possible between the human female and the human male, that of slave for master, and of master for slave.

What else can so fulfill the natures of both?

She knelt at my feet, her head down, her neck in the chain. There was a rustle of chain as she trembled, understanding where she was and what she was doing, and then she, again, bent to her task.

“What are you?” I inquired.

“A slave,” she whispered, “a mat girl.”

I considered her hair. It had not been well shortened. It was ragged, and uneven.

“It is enough,” I said. “Keep your head down.”

She was quite beautiful. That had been clear when she had knelt at the beach, the cold surf coming and going, washing up, now and again, about her thighs, feet, and calves. She was beautiful now, too, in the flickering light of the taper.

“You may beg,” I said.

“I beg to be found pleasing, Master,” she whispered.

Torgus and his fellows, in my opinion, had shown her, and her chain sisters, too little respect. They had regarded the chain as raw, poor stuff, as largely worthless slut merchandise, little better than free women. Could they not see the females as what they might become? Washed, combed, brushed, trained a bit, silked or tunicked, their slave fires ignited, taught to fear the whip, they might prove exemplary merchandise. I wondered again if Pertinax might like her. He had never owned a slave. How then could he know what it was to be a whole man?

“You may kneel up,” I told her.

“Master?” she said.

“You are beautiful, and you did well,” I said. “It is my hope that you will be permitted to live.”

“Surely you are not leaving,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“But you sought me out!” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Did you not want my body?” she asked.

I smiled. How much like a foolish free woman was she still, who so often so little understood men. The Gorean master possesses the whole slave, and the slave understands she is wholly possessed. He will have everything out of her, her feelings and thoughts, her imaginings, her hopes, her dreams, her fears, everything, and, if necessary, he will have this out of her by the whip. And soon the slave desires, too, desperately, to convey the wholeness of her to the master. She knows her beauty is to be placed at his feet, his to do with as he pleases, but she learns that he will have, too, if it pleases him, as it may or may not, spilled at his feet like her tresses, the treasures of her inner life. It is a miserable slave who is kept as a mere body.

Much, of course, depends on the master and the slave.

Bondages are plentiful, and various.

A slave may be kept in contempt, as nothing. She may grovel in fear at her master’s presence. She may crawl to him, not knowing if she is to be struck or not.

She may be a delight to him, and be much as a companion, but at a mere word be naked before him, on her belly.

There are the slaves of great houses, those ornamenting pleasure gardens, those chained behind palanquins for display, those sold to brothels and taverns, those of the fields, and mines, and laundries and mills, those of the stables and barracks, and inns, those belonging to regiments, to shipping lines, to caravan masters, and so on. Many and various are the countries of bondage.

The master may have many slaves, but the slave may, by law, have but one master, even if it be the state, or some corporate entity.

Most slaves desire a private master, and they hope to be his only slave.

The most personal and intimate relationship possible between a man and a woman, is that she is his slave. What greater intimacy can there be between a man and a woman than that the woman is wholly his, that she is literally owned, that she is his possession, his slave?

“Your body is well worth wanting,” I said, “but if it were not animated, not living, not whole with feelings, emotions, and thoughts, it would not be worth wanting. It would be only meat, not slave.”

“All of me is wanted?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “and do not forget, it is the whole of you which is in the collar.”

“In my heart and mind,” she said, “I want to yield!”

“Of course,” I said, “all of you is in the collar.”

“But you are leaving?” she said.

“Yes,” I said, turning away.

“Wait!” she begged.

I turned, again, lifting the taper, to face her. Tears had coursed her cheeks.

“Why did you come here?” she asked.

“To question you,” I said, “as a former high woman of Ar, of an important house, one who might know aught of the Ubara.”

“But, why, Master?” she asked. “What is the Ubara, and her fate, to you?”

“Curiosity,” I said, “is not becoming in a kajira.”

“Do not go!” she wept.

I paused.

She put the chain over her left shoulder, behind her.

Tears were in her eyes, her lips trembled. “I beg to be found pleasing,” she said.

“Do you have a name?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

I put the taper in the stand near the mat.