Magicians of Gor

19 The Field Slave

"That is she," I whispered to Marcus.

We were astride rented tharlarion, high tharlarion, bipedalian tharlarion. Although our mounts were such, they are not to be confused with the high tharlarion commonly used by Gorean shock cavalry, swift, enormous beasts the charge of which can be so devastating to unformed infantry. If one may use terminology reminiscent of the sea, these were medium-class tharlarion, comparatively light beasts, at least compared to their brethren of the contact cavalries, such cavalries being opposed to the sorts commonly employed in missions such as foraging, scouting, skirmishing and screening troop movements. Rather our mounts were typical of the breeds from which are extracted racing tharlarion, of the sort used, for example, in the Vennan races. To be sure, it is only select varieties of such breeds, such as the Venetzia, Torarii and Thalonian, which are commonly used for the racers. As one might suppose, the blood lines of the racers are carefully kept and registered, as are, incidentally, those of many other sorts of expensive bred animals, such as tarsks, sleen and verr. This remark also holds for certain varieties of expensive bred slaves, the prize crops of the slave farms. Venna, a wealthy town north of Ar, is known for its diversions, in particular, its tharlarion races. Many of Ar's more affluent citizens kept houses in Venna, at least prior to the Cosian war. To date, Venna, though improving her walls and girding herself for defense, had not been touched in the Cosian war. This is perhaps because it is not only the rich of Ar who kept properties within her walls, but those of many other cities, as well, perhaps even of Kasra and Tentium, in Tyros, and of Telnus, Selnar, Temos, and Jad, in Cos. We were some pasangs outside Ar. We wore wind scarves. Dust rose up for feet about us. The season was dry. Where our beasts trod the prints of their feet, and claws remained evident in the dust. In places the earth cracked under their step.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I saw her only once before," he said, "on a fellow's shoulder, in Ar, in our district, carried in slave fashion, her upper body wrapped closely in the toils of a net."

"Helpless," I said.

"Utterly," he said.

"She had been taken," I said, "only moments before."

"You are sure it is she?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Her head was completely enclosed in a slave hood, buckled shut," he said. "It is she," I said. "I saw her before, in the room. I recognize her."

"I am not sure I understand your plan," he said.

"Let us approach," I said.

We had left Ar early in the morning, and had circled the remains of her walls to the west and then took smaller roads into the hills to the northeast. We then, after noting the travelers on the road, particularly on the more isolated roads to the northeast, running through the villa districts, doubled back. In this fashion one tends almost automatically to cancel through the large numbers of coincidental travelers and detect those whose relationship with you is likely to be more purposeful, those who are following you. The likelihood of a given individual following you in both directions is small. Similarly, there is small likelihood of having someone or other constantly behind you on isolated roads. This helps to compensate for the possibility that the trackers might be acting in relays or shifts, one picking up where another turns aside.

We turned the tharlarion towards the fields where the girl was filling a vessel with water.

Her figure, extremely female, exquisitely curved, was rather like the figure of another girl we had encountered earlier in the morning, some pasangs to the northeast of the city, on one of the isolated roads winding through the hills, among which, nestled back, almost out of sight, were set a number of small, white-washed villas. Apparently she had come from some stream or rivulet, or public place, where she had been laundering, for she had had in her possession a basket filled with dampened clothes. Her hair, too, which she had apparently recently washed, was wet. This sort of thing would normally be done at a cemented pool within the walls of the villa, to the back, but, I had gathered, given the dryness of the season, the villa reservoir might be being reserved for drinking water.

We had come upon her as she was about to turn into the path leading toward one of the small villas.

"A pretty one," commented Marcus.

"Hola," had called I, "slave!"

She immediately stopped and put down the basket, and hurried to the side of the road where we waited.

"Yes," I said. "She is indeed a pretty one."

She did not dally in kneeling. I noted with approval the position of her knees. "Quite pretty," I said.

She looked up. Perhaps free men wished to inquire directions of her? Then she looked down. I saw that she would be quite lively in a man's hands. She had a common band collar, flat, close-fitting. She wore a brief tunic of white rep-cloth. She was barefoot.

"You are a girl of this house?" I asked, indicating the villa behind her. "Yes, Master," she said.

"You have the look of a woman who is well and muchly mastered," I said.

She smiled suddenly, charmingly, gratefully, in embarrassment.

"It seems you have been laundering," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"I see that the water source is not far away," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Your tunic is damp," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said, shyly.

"And it seems you are a careless laundress," I said.

"Master?" she said.

"The tunic is quite wet," I said.

She lifted her right hand a bit from her thigh, as though she might cover herself, but quickly returned it to position.

"The wet tunic sets you off well," I commented.

"Forgive me, Master," she said, frightened.

"Perhaps your master will notice it," I said, "as you return flushed from your labors, delighted, your hair washed, your body freshened."

She put down her head, quickly.

"But doubtless it is not the calculated act of a scheming slave girl, one cleverly aware of what she is doing," I said. "Doubtless it is a mere inadvertence, a merely accidental calling to your master's attention of your beauty, a totally unintentional, never-dreamed-of reminder of him of the promise of its delights."

She would not raise her head.

"What a clever little slut she is," said Marcus.

"But she did not plan on meeting two strange fellows on the road," I said. "Did you, slave?" I asked.

"No, Master!" she said.

"Do you fear our armbands?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do not do so," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she whispered. Some apprehension on her part was not irrational. Those of Cos, and in the pay of Cos, could do much as they pleased in Ar and its environs, and particularly in the case of slaves. Who would have the courage, or foolishness, to gainsay them the use of such an object, to challenge the employments to which they might put such a mere fair article of property? Too, she was barefoot and slave clad. And in the garmenture of female slaves, even in spite of its customary scandalous brevity, nether shielding is almost never provided. In this way the girl is kept aware of her vulnerability and is immediately available to the attentions of the master. Also, out here, in the vicinity of the villa of her master, I doubted that she was in the iron belt. Also I did not detect, beneath her dampened tunic, any signs of the close-fitting apparatus, no sign of either its horizontal component, usually a bar or metal strap tightly encircling the waist, nor of its vertical component, usually hinged to the horizontal component in front and swung up, then, between the girl's legs, to the back, where the whole is usually fastened together, there, at the small of the back, with a padlock. She blushed, perhaps sensing the current purport of my scrutiny. She was lovely, and much at our mercy. Her apprehension was not irrational, as I have mentioned. It would not have been difficult to have her and then, with a few horts of binding fiber, leave her behind in the ditch, bound hand and foot, at the roadside. More alarmingly, we might have confiscated her, in the name of reparations, or such, bound her and put a rope on her neck and led her off, at my stirrup. In the last few months that sort of thing had happened to hundreds of slaves in Ar who had happened to catch the eye of one fellow or another. Too, if one tired of them, they could always be sold afterwards.

"Do you think I would object," I said, "to a slave girl's desire to please her master, to call herself to his attention, to signify to him her desire, to request his touch, to beg him for her mastering?"

"I think not, Master," she said, shyly.

"It is not the same as the wearing of the bondage knot in the hair, the offering of fruit, the serving of wine, the moaning, the prostrations, the obeisances, the gently, supplicatory licking of the feet?"

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"What is your master's name?" I asked.

"Teibar," she said, "of Ar."

"And what are you called?" I asked.

"Tuka," she said, "if it pleases master."

"I have seen you before," I said, "months ago, outside the walls, at the camp of refugees."

She looked up at me.

"You dance well, slave girl," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"You dance better than many women I have seen in taverns," I said.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"But perhaps you, too," I said, "once so danced." I could well imagine her in such a place, in a bit of silk, belled, with bangles, pleasing men."

"Yes, Master," she said. "Once I so danced."

"And do you now so dance?" I asked.

"When my master chooses to put me forth," she said.

"Doubtless upon occasion," I said, "you dance privately for your master?"

"It is my hope that I please him," she said.

"And if you did not please him?" I asked.

"He would whip me," she said.

"He is strong?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You love to dance?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"But as a slave?" I asked.

"I am what I am, Master," she said, looking up at me.

"I see," I said.

"Surely all women desire to appear before me as a slave, and to so move, and so serve, and to dance for them, to please them."

"Do you suggest that all women are slaves?" I asked.

"It is what I am," she said. "I do not presume to speak for all women."

"You have an accent," I said.

"Forgive me, Master," she said.

"Where do you come from?" I asked.

"From far away, Master," she said.

"What is your native language? I asked.

"I do not know if Master has heard of it," she said.

"What is it?" I asked.

"English," she said.

"I have heard of it," I said.

"Perhaps Master has owned girls such as I?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"From Earth?"

"Yes," I said.

"I have heard of it," said Marcus. "It is far away."

"Yes," I said.

"It is an excellent source of female slaves," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"Thank you, Masters," she said.

"What is your name on Earth?" I asked.

"Doreen," she said. "Doreen Williamson."

"Doreen," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Is that a slave name?" I asked.

"It was the name of a slave," she smiled. "Though at that time I was not yet collared and branded."

"So you are from Earth?" I said. I had, of course, noted her vaccination mark at the camp outside Ar months before. By such tiny signs may an Earth female be recognized among other Gorean slaves."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"What are you now?" I asked.

"Only a Gorean slave girl," she said.

I regarded her. It was true.

"Master," she said, timidly, looking up at me from where she knelt by the roadside, to where I was high above her, in the saddle of the tharlarion. "Yes," I said.

"Forgive a girl who does not wish to be punished," she said, "but I suspect that Master may not be native to this world either."

"He is from the place called «Earth», too," said Marcus. Marcus, of high caste, was familiar with various tenets of the second knowledge, such things as the roundness of his world, its movement in space, and the existence of other planets. On the other hand he remained skeptical of many of these tenets as he found them offensive to common sense. He was particularly suspicious of the claim that the human species had an extraterrestrial origin, namely, that it did not originate on his own world, Gor. It was not that he denied there was a place called «Earth» but he thought it must be somewhere on Gor, perhaps east of the Voltai Range or south of the Tahari. Marcus and I had agreed not to discuss the issue. I had no ready response, incidentally, to his suggestion that the human race might have originated on Gor and then some of these folks, perhaps transported by Priest-Kings, had been settled on Earth. Indeed, although I regarded this as quite unlikely, it seemed an empirical possibility.

For example, anthropoidal fossils can be found on Gor, as well as on Earth, and so on. At any rate, Marcus found it much easier to believe that magic existed than that his world was round, that it moved, and that there might be other worlds rather like it here and there in the universe. In fact, in his philosophy, so to speak, the universe was still of somewhat manageable proportions. Sometimes I rather envied him.

"It is true," I said. "I am originally from Earth." Undoubtedly she had detected my accent, as I had hers. To be sure there are many accents on Gor which are not Earth accents. For example, not everyone on Gor speaks Gorean. There are many languages spoken on Gor. For example, most of the red hunters of the north do not speak Gorean, nor the red savages of the Barrens, nor the inhabitants of the jungles east of Schendi.

"Strange, then, Master," she said, "that we should meet in this reality, I, once a woman of Earth, as now no more than a kneeling slave before you, once a man of Earth."

"Do you find it unfitting?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said.

"It is as it should have been on Earth," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"But such considerations need not concern us," I said. "They are in the past. They belong to a different world. You are now of Gor, and only of Gor."

"Yes, Master," she said. "But if I am not mistaken, it is not I alone who am now no longer of Earth, not I alone who am now of Gor, and wholly so."

"Oh?" I said.

"It seems that we are both now of Gor, and wholly so."

"Yes," I said. It was true.

"I as a slave," she said, "and you as a master."

"Yes," I said.

"I am not discontent," she said.

I was silent.

"Of men who are Goreans, and such as Goreans," she said, "women are the rightful slaves!"

"And is your master such?" I asked.

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"Are you happy?" I asked.

"Yes, Master!" she said. "I am happier than I ever knew a woman could be!"

"But you are a slave?" I said.

"It is what I am!" she said.

"Perhaps that is the explanation of your happiness," I said.

"It is, Master!" she said.

"The collar looks well on your throat," I said.

"It belongs there, Master!" she said. "All my life I was craving and desiring total slavery, and now I have it!"

"That is why you are so happy?" I said.

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"And has your master something to do with this?" I asked.

"Doubtless, Master," she said. "He is the most wonderful of masters!"

"But what if you had a harsh master, one cruel or unfeeling."

"I would still be a slave," she said. "I would still love my condition. It is what I am."

"I see," I said.

Her knees squirmed a little.

"She is uneasy," said Marcus.

"Yes," I said.

"May I speak, Masters?" she asked.

"Yes," said Marcus.

"I fear my master will wonder what has become of me," she said.

"Do you fear you will be whipped?" asked Marcus.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You are not yet dismissed," said Marcus.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Your tunic is still quite damp," I said.

Her hands moved a little on her thighs, but she retained position.

I considered her slave curves, which would not in any event be well concealed by rep-cloth, and certainly were not so now that it had been splashed with water, even soaked by it.

"Tuka," I said, "is a very common slave name."

"It is fitting for me, Master," she said, "who am a common slave."

"What is your brand?" I asked.

"That of most girls," she said, "the common Kajira mark. It is fitting, as I am a common girl."

"You regard yourself as a common slave?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Yet," I said, "I think you would bring a good price, stripped, and on the block."

"I would try to perform well," she said.

"Tuka!" we heard. We looked up to the villa. From where we were, over the white-washed wall, we could see the veranda of the main building, where it was nestled back, in the side of a hill. On the veranda there was a well-built fellow, with dark hair.

The girl looked up at us, frightened, agonized.

"Your master?" I asked.

"Yes, Master!" she said.

She squirmed. She looked about. In the beauty there was great agitation. Obviously she wished to rise up and run to her master, hurrying as she could. Slave girls do not dally when their masters call. That call takes precedence, of course, over a detention by strangers, but it is a rare girl who will simply leap up, not dismissed, and flee from the presence of free men.

"You may go," I said.

"Thank you, Master!" she cried, and leaped up. She was in such a hurry that she sped past the basket of laundry a pace or two, but then, suddenly recollecting it, hurried back, picked it up, and then, balancing it on her head with two hands, sped through the gate of the villa and up the path to the house. The fellow had, in the meantime, seeing her approach, withdrawn into the house. We saw her on the veranda where she turned once, to look at us, then hurried within.

"A superb slave," said Marcus.

"Yes," I said.

"I expect she will be cuffed a bit," he said, "either for dallying or for permitting herself to be seen so provocatively on the road, with a dampened tunic."

"I expect you are right," I said.

"To be sure," said Marcus, "he will doubtless understand that she did not expect to meet folks about, surely not at this Ahn, and that the tunic was dampened for his benefit."

"He will presumably, if he pleases, take such matters into consideration," I said.

"By now she has probably been cuffed," he said.

"I would suppose so," I said.

"Or stripped and lashed," he said.

"Perhaps," I said.

"And now who knows to what lingering, pleasurable purposes she is being put?"

"I do not know," I said, "but it is my conjecture that she will serve well."

"I do not doubt it," said Marcus.

I looked about, turning in the saddle of the tharlarion. "I see no one on the road," I said. "let us now retrace our steps. By noon I wish to be southwest of Ar, in the vicinity of the sul fields.

"That is she," I had whispered to Marcus.

"I am not sure I understand your plan," he had said.

"Let us approach," I had said.

The sun was now high overhead. It was much hotter here, in this area, and at this time of day, than it had been earlier in the villa districts, in the hills northeast of Ar, the Fulvians, foothills to the Voltai.

In the softness of the dust, then among the vines, moving across the field, our tharlarion in stately gait, we approached the girl, she at the large wooden tank, filling the vessels which would be slung over her yoke. She wore a brief, brown rag, perhaps from some other girl who had been given something better. Her hair had been cropped rather closely to her head, as is not uncommon with field slaves. She was barefoot and her feet and calves were white with dust. She lifted the large vessel from the tank with both hands, and then, her head down for a moment, rested it on the rim of the tank. She then, after a time, carefully, slowly, lowered it to the ground. It would not do to spill the water. She moved slowly, as though her body might be stiff and sore. I conjectured that her muscles ached. She was not accustomed, I supposed, to such labor.

As it was shortly before noon the shadows were small, and behind us, but she heard the movement of the feet of the tharlarion in the dirt behind her and spun about, frightened, immediately kneeling, putting her head to the dirt.

We halted the beasts some feet from her. She trembled. It would have done her no good, of course, to have run, even would it have been permitted that she do so. She could have been easily overtaken or ridden down, even trampled. It would not have been difficult to head off or turn her back, or to have her between us in sport, like some object in a game, a terrified, confused quarry, buffeted, or struck to the ground, again and again, until perhaps she lay quietly in the dust, trembling, and the tharlarion would come and gently, firmly, place its great clawed foot on her back, holding her in place for our binding fiber. Also, had we been slavers, she might, in her hasty flight, as we overtook her, have been roped or netted. In the south, the Wagon Peoples sometimes use the bola in such captures, the cords and weights, whipping about the girls legs and ankles, pinning them together, hurling her to the ground, where, in an instant, before she can free herself, the captor, leaping from the saddle, is upon her.

I let her remain in her current posture for a time. It is a good for a master to be patient. Let the girl well understand the meaning of such things.

"You may look up," I said.

She kept her head low, but turned it, looking up at us. Her hair was light brown, much lighter than that of the girl we had encountered to the north, in the Fulvian hills. That girl's hair had been very dark. I remembered it from the camp outside Ar long ago. This morning, as we had seen it, freshly washed, and still wet, it had seemed almost a glossy black. They were, as I have mentioned, similarly bodied. This girl, however, I would have supposed, was not a dancer. To be sure, she could undoubtedly be trained as such. As the female by nature has feminine dispositions, needs, instincts and aptitudes, such things being genetically coded within her, functions of her behavioral genetics, as opposed to her property genetics, controlling such matters as eye and hair color, there is a template, or readiness, for self-surrender, service, sensuousness and love within her. These are, of course, familiar aspects of the female slave.

Accordingly the readiness for, and the aptitude for, slave dance, so intimately associated with beauty and sexuality, displaying the female in her marvelousness, excitingness and need, scarcely need be noted. These things, incidentally, fit into a harmonious physical and psychological dimorphism of the sexes, in which the male, unless reduced, denied or crippled, is dominant. This sexual dimorphism and the dominance/submission equations do not require institutionalized slavery. It is only that that institution is an expression within the context of a natural civilization of certain primal biotruths. In this sense of civilization need not be the antithesis of nature but can represent its natural enhancement and flowering.

"Kneel straight," I said.

She knelt then with her back straight, and looked up at us.

I stared down at her, at her knees, not speaking.

She put her head down, quickly, and spread her knees more widely. They made two small furrows in the dust, and there was now a ridge of dust on the outside of each knee. Did she not know how to kneel before men?

She looked up again, and then lowered her head again, spreading her knees even more widely.

She looked up again, frightened, anxiously, seeking my eyes. Then she shuddered, in relief. Her position now acceptable.

Her skin was burned from the sun. It was red and rough, peeling. In places it was cracked from the heat and mud.

I glanced to the two vessels, to the side, now filled with water, and the associated yoke, thrice drilled, with slender leather straps wrapped about it, at the center and near the ends. The wooden vessels would be heavy in themselves for such a small, lovely creature, let alone when weighted with a filling of liquid. She, too, following my eyes, regarded these things. "Your labors seem arduous," I said.

"It is as my master pleases," she said, looking up at me once more.

"And your day is long?" I said.

"As my master pleases," she said.

"You are a field slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"And that, too," I said, "is as your master pleases."

"Yes, Master," she said, "that, too, is as my master pleases."

"Your hair has been cropped, as is not unusual for a field slave," I said. "That it might be sold, Master," she said.

"But doubtless it will grow again," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"And it may then be again shorn," I said.

Tears sprang to her eyes.

"Verr are shorn," I said, "and so, too, is the bounding hurt."

"Of course, Master," she said.

"Do you object?" I asked.

She sobbed.

"Your head could have been shaved," I said.

She looked up at me. I gathered she had not thought about that.

"Are you not grateful your head was not shaved?" I asked.

"a€”Yes, Master," she said.

"Say it," I said.

"I am grateful that my head was not shaved," she said.

Whereas a girl's hair might be cropped, just as her head might be shaved, as a punishment, such a punishment would be quite unusual. After all, the master commonly delights in the long lovely hair of a slave. Indeed, in most cities, long hair is almost universal with slaves. There are many things that can be done with such hair. not only can it please the master by its beauty and feel, but it can serve to secure the slave, to gag her, and so on. The major reason for cropping the hair of field slaves, both male and female, and certain other forms of work slaves, it to protect them from parasites. For a similar reason the bodies of the women transported on slave ships are almost always shaved, completely. Even then it is common, shortly after debarkation, and this is required by the rules of many port authorities, to subject them to an immersion in slave dip.

"Whose fields are there?" I asked, looking about.

"The fields of my master, Appanius," she said.

"He is a rich man?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"And he has many girls," I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"He must have a great many girls," I said.

She looked up at me.

She had a common black, strap collar on her neck, no more, really, than a strip or plate of black iron. It was riveted shut, behind the back of her neck. I had noted this earlier, given the shortness of her hair, and her earlier position, facing away from us as she drew water. The legend would probably be a single one, not even containing the girl's name, probably something like "I am the property of Appanius."

"That a woman such as you is in the field," I said.

Tears coursed down her cheeks.

"Keep your knees spread," I warned her.

Swiftly she once more increased the angle between her knees.

She certainly did not seem to me a field slave. Rather she seemed to me the sort of woman one would have expected to find in a house, hurrying about barefoot on the tiles, one ankle perhaps belled, in a bit of silk, serving, a small, luscious woman, well curved, smooth-skinned, and soft, her body perfumed for the pleasure of men, the sort of woman one keeps in mind, the sort of woman who is difficult to forget, the sort whom one might wish to keep close by, perhaps keeping her at night at the foot of one's couch, on her chain."

"What is your name?" I asked.

"Lavinia," she said.

"That seems rather a fine name for a slave," I said, "particularly for a field slave."

"It was my name as a free woman," she said.

"Then it is a different name now," I said, "put on you as a slave name."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Stand, Lavinia, slave," I said, "and turn slowly about, and then resume your present position."

She obeyed.

"You have good legs," I said.

She did not speak. Her legs were a bit short, but excellent, rather like those of the girl we had seen earlier. Such legs are excellent for slave dance. "I suspect you were once a rich free woman," I said. That seemed to me likely. Surely only such would have been likely to have managed a tryst with the famous, handsome Milo. She did not know, of course, that I had witnessed her netting, and taking.

She looked up at me, puzzled. "Yes, Master," she said.

"But you are not rich now," I said.

"No, Master," she said, putting her head down. Now she would not own even the rag she wore, or her collar. Such things, as simple as they were, were, like herself, the property of her master.

"How came you to be a slave?" I asked.

She looked up, her eyes clouded. She bit her lip.

"Consider your reply carefully," I said.

"I was taken to the levies," she said.

"You have earned yourself discipline," I said.

"Please, no!" she cried. "Have pity on me! I am only a poor slave!"

"Do you think it is permissible for you to lie to a free man?" I asked.

"No, Master!" she said. She put down her head, her head in her hands, and sobbed.

"Your reticence is interesting," I said. "The matter is doubtless entered in your papers."

"Yes, Master," she sobbed.

"Speak, girl," I said.

"I was taken pursuant to the couching laws," she said.

"I see," I said. Any free woman who voluntarily couches with another's salve, or readies herself to do so, becomes the slave of the slave's master. By such an act, the couching with, or readying herself to couch with, a slave, as though she might be a girl of the slave's master, thrown to the slave, she shows herself as no more than a slave, and in this act, in law, becomes a slave. Who then should own her, this new slave? Why, of course, he to whom the law consigns her, the master of the slave with whom she has couched, or was preparing to couch.

"With what slave," asked I, "did you couch?"

"I was only preparing to couch!" she said.

"But that is sufficient." I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

It seemed then that the rich beauty had received very little of Milo, scarcely the least of his favors. Perhaps, however, for what it might have been worth, she might have managed to receive a woeful glance or two, or a kissing of her gloved fingers. It is hard to say. How proud she might have been that she, of all women, as far as she knew, had managed to attract the marvelous Milo! Then, when she had kept the tryst, entering into the assignation, and had stripped herself and knelt on the couch, eager, waiting, amorous, careless and adventurous, the net had fallen upon her. Shortly thereafter he neck was in the collar. She was, it seems, to have been denied the caresses of Milo. The slave's master, and then hers, as well, Appanius, had decided it. It would be the coils of the slave net which would tighten upon her body, not the arms of the handsome bondsman. Perhaps this seemed fitting to Appanius, that the new slave, prior to her public imbonding, should be so served. Perhaps he found it amusing. Or perhaps he was jealous of his slave, and wished to reserve his caresses for himself. Or it could have been all three. One did not know.

"What was the name of the slave?" I asked.

"Milo," she said.

"The well-known Milo," I asked, "the actor?"

"Yes," she said.

"Did you not think he would have his pick of slaves in the house of Appanius?" I asked.

"I did not know," she said.

"Beautiful slaves, silked for a man's pleasure, perfumed for his delight, eager, needful, helplessly responsive, trained to please in a thousand modalities?"

"I did not know," she said.

"Did you think to be able to compete with such women?"

"I did not know!" she wept.

"Do you invite further discipline? I asked.

"I was free," she said. "I thought that I was somehow special or better!" I smiled. Marcus laughed, and struck the side of his saddle twice, so amused he was.

She looked up at us, angrily.

"But you are not free now," I said.

"No, Master," she said.

"Do you still consider yourself better than slaves?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said, "for I now, too, am only a slave."

"And only a field slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

Female work slaves, field slaves, stable slaves, and such, like kettle-and-mat girls, are usually considered the lowest of slaves. At any rate, they commonly bring the lowest prices in the markets.

"You are now quite different from what you were as a free woman," I said. "Yes, Master," she said.

"But now that you are slave, even a field slave," I said, "you are better prepared to compete with other slaves for the attention of a man than would be a free woman."

She looked up at me, puzzled.

"You at least know what is your business with men," I said, "to please them, and as a slave."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Your life could depend on it," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do you doubt your attractiveness?" I asked.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do not do so," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"You are beautiful," I said, "or could be beautiful."

She was silent.

"Consider yourself," I said.

She put her hands up to her cropped hair, and then touched the tiny, torn brown rag she wore, and then, again, put her head down, and placed her hands on her thighs.

"Have you seen yourself in a mirror lately?" I asked.

"I have looked upon my reflection in water," she said, "in the tank."

"You are interested in such things?" I said.

She was silent.

"Speak," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"As are other slave girls," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"And what do you see in the water?"

"A slave," she said.

"A field slave?" I asked.

"A pleasure slave," she said.

"Ah!" laughed Marcus.

"But yet you are in the fields," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do you think it strange that you, who were a free woman, should look upon your reflection, and see in it a pleasure slave?"

"No, Master," she said.

"From your collaring," I said, "you have seen in your reflection this pleasure slave?"

"I have seen her there for years," she said, "not just since my collaring."

"A bold confession," I said.

"I am a slave girl," she said. "I must speak the truth."

"But once before, it seems, earlier, in the matter of how you came to be a slave, you did not speak the truth."

"No, Master."

"But it is your intention now to speak the truth?"

"Yes, Master!"

"Keep the angle between your knees," I said.

"Yes, Master!" she said. Once again then, she knelt suitably.

"Is the pleasure slave whom you see in your reflection beautiful?" I asked. "It is my hope that she is," she said.

"She is," I said.

"Thank you," she said, "a€”Master."

"Do you think you are the only women who has been brought into bondage by means of the attractions of Milo, the slave?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said. "Apparently there have been several others."

"Trapped dupes," said Marcus.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Snared as easily as vulos," he said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"As you were," he said.

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"And doubtless there will be many more," I said.

She looked up, tears in her eyes. "Yes, Master," she said. "Doubtless."

"Do you know of others?" I asked. "Say, in the fields?"

"They were commonly sold out of the city," she said. "But apparently that is more difficult now, with the Cosians in power. That is probably why I am here, in the vicinity of Ar. I know of none in the fields other than myself. There are two others, however, in the house."

"Then you have been in the house," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said. "Only in the last few days have I been in the fields." This did not surprise me, as her mien had suggested to me earlier that she might be new to the onus of such labors. This was also suggested to me by the condition of her skin, which had not yet browned, darkening and toughening. "How did you get on with the other slaves in the house?" I asked.

"The three of us who owed our collars to Milo hated one another," she said. "The other slaves held all of us, recent free women, in contempt."

"Interesting," I said.

"We, too, now were only slaves, and inexperienced slaves," she said.

"True," I said.

"But they need not have been so cruel!" she said.

"Perhaps you behaved around them as though you might still think of yourselves as free women," I said.

"We did that scarcely at all," she said, "only a little at first, I think, and then we did not do it again, for they whipped us. After that, for the most part, they ignored us."

"They did not teach you their secrets then," I said, "such things as how to please men?" There are hundreds of such things, of course, ranging from the dressing and care of the hair, the application of cosmetics, such as lipstick and eye shadow, commonly thought improper for free women, and the judicious selection of jewelry, silks and perfumes, to physical and psychological subtleties, both behaviors and techniques, which can drive a master almost out of his senses with pleasure, and all this by a female totally at his disposal, one whom he can command, as it pleases him, one who is legally and literally owned by him, and in every way.

"They would not do so," she said, "though we begged them!"

"Did you put yourself as a slave before them?" I asked. "Did you weep and beg, kneeling before them and licking their feet? Did you make it clear to them that your entreaties were those of one like themselves, only another slave? Did you offer to work for them? Did you do so? Did you serve them, and wait upon them, on a lengthy probationary basis, as though you might be their own slave, that they might assess your earnestness, your sincerity and zeal?"

"As a new slave, I too much feared them," she said.

"Perhaps it is just as well," I said. "You might have been whipped."

"I think so, Master," she said.

"Perhaps, after a few months, after they had become used to you as only another slave amongst them, no more or less, things might have been different."

"Perhaps, Master," she said.

"You seem to me a highly intelligent woman," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"Surely you were aware of the couching laws?"

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You expected to violate them with impunity?"

"I gather so, Master," she said.

"You did not expect to be betrayed, or discovered?"

"I do not think so, Master," she said.

"And yet," I said, "as a highly intelligent woman, you must have realized that some danger would be involved."

"Perhaps," she said. "The matter is unclear to me now."

"That in itself is interesting," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"It seems you were very careless," I said.

"Perhaps, Master," she said.

"That seems to me very interesting," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"What was your first emotion," I asked, "when the net descended upon you?"

"It does not matter," she said.

"Surely you realized it was a slave net?"

"A capture net of some sort," she said.

"What was that first emotion?" I asked.

"It does not matter!" she said. "It was a momentary reaction, a sudden, fleeting, wild thing!"

"What was it?" I asked.

She looked up at me, agonized, miserable. She was quite lovely.

"Keep your knees widely separated," I reminded her.

Again the whitish dust, a hort deep, was pushed to the sides, to bank against the outside of her knees.

"Consider your reply carefully," I said. "You have already incurred discipline."

"Elation!" she said.

"Of course," I said.

"Then I was terrified!" she said. "I realized what had happened! I was caught! I had been discovered! I was trapped! I was within the toils of a net! I burned with shame, with embarrassment. It seemed I was afire! I choked with misery! I was naked! Men were moving about! They could see me! What of my reputation? I struggled! I was afraid! I was angry! I was outraged! I was miserable! I had been betrayed! I was helpless! I fought the net! I fought the net! But I could not free myself!"

"And what later," I asked, "in the edifice of the magistrates?"

"I was in a cell," she said, "naked, lying on some straw, chained by the neck to a wall."

"And your emotions?" I asked.

She looked up at me.

"My thigh was sore," she said. "I had been branded."

"Of course," I said.

"There were two collars on my neck," she said, "a light, temporary collar, identifying me as a slave provisionally in the custody of magistrates, and, over it, a retaining collar, that by means of which I was fastened to the wall."

"Go on," I said.

"I felt the collars on my neck," she said. "The temporary collar was flat and close-fitting. It was the first collar I had ever worn. It was put on me after my branding. The retaining collar, too, was close fitting, scarcely less so, it seemed, than the collar it covered. It was heavy and thick. The chain to it was heavy, too, with thick links. It was about four feet long, it was fastened to a stout ring in the wall, about a foot above the floor."

"And your emotions?" I asked.

"I lay there," she said, "my fingers on the chain, near the retaining collar." I looked at her.

"Serenity, contentment," she said. "Happiness. The fighting was over."

"When did you receive the collar of Appanius?" I asked.

"The next day," she said, "affixed on me by one of his agents. Later I was called for at the edifice of the magistrates by one of his slaves, driving a tharlarion wagon. He tied my hands behind my back and put a rope on my neck, by means of which he tied me to the back of the wagon. i was not to ride in the wagon. I was a female slave. I would follow it afoot, on my rope. It was thus, naked, that I was conducted to the house of my master. Twice in the streets I was struck by free women. My introduction to slavery had begun."

"Were you angry with the slave who bound you?" I asked.

"No," she said. "Rather I was afraid of him. He was a male. Too, I realized I could be given to him for his pleasure, if my master wished."

"I gather that," I said, "in spite of the doubtless large numbers of beautiful slaves in the house of Appanius, you were to be trained as a house slave."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Do not doubt, then, your desirability and beauty," I said.

"I tried to do well," she said, "to learn self-effacement and deference, to serve ably, silently and unobtrusively. I think I did well. I hardly ever felt the stroke of the house master's switch."

"And were you silked?" I asked.

"As befits slaves," she said, "clad for the pleasures of masters."

"How came you to the fields?" I asked.

"One night I, and two others, were serving not in the main hall, as we commonly did, but at a late supper, a small, private supper, laid in the very quarters of my master, Appanius, and Milo, his slave, whom you have heard of, who had returned from a performance in the great theater."

"Appanius and Milo must be on intimate terms," I said.

"Yes," she said. "The master treats him almost as though he might be a free man. They discuss matters of business and the theater. Even in the great hall, at the common suppers, he has Milo above the salt and at his right hand."

"You must have served Milo at the common suppers then?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"And as only another deferential slave," I said.

"Of course," she said.

"You must hate him," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"It was through his collusion," I said, "that you came into the collar."

"Then I should be grateful to him," she said, "for I have known for years that it is in the collar that I belong."

"I see," I said.

"Besides," she said, "he, too, is a slave. He must act on behalf of Appanius. He, too, even though he is the great Milo, must obey. Do you think he wishes to be thrown to sleen?"

"I would not think so," I said.

"I am far from bearing him ill will," she said.

"I gathered that," I said.

"Indeed," she said, "it was my hope that I might be thrown him, that I might at least feel his touch!"

"I see," I said.

"He is beautiful!" she said.

"Not a bad looking fellow," I granted her.

"And there I was," she said, "kneeling half naked in slave silk, collared, in bangles, waiting to serve, so close to him I could reach out and touch him, almost alone with him."

"Continue," I said.

"And then they began to discuss a free woman. I do not even remember her name, objectively, casually, as though she might be an animal, a mere slave, like myself. I could hardly believe my ears. And then I realized that at one time I, too, had doubtless been so discussed."

"You were angry?" I asked.

"Not then," she said. "I think I was rather more scandalized that the woman should be discussed in that fashion. After all, she was not, as I, an animal, a slave."

"But perhaps she was an animal, a slave," I said, "only one not yet in her collar, as once you were not yet in your collar."

"That is undoubtedly true!" she laughed.

"But you became angry later?" I said.

"Yes!" she said.

"At whom?" I asked.

"At both of them!" she said.

"Because of the trickery they would practice," I asked, "because of the toils of the slave net?"

"No," she said. "It is rather that I did not want Milo to have anything to do with the other woman, whoever she was! There were already enough women so captured in the house! What if she were more beautiful than I? What if he liked her, when he saw her naked in the net?"

"You were jealous of a possible rival," I said.

"Yes!" she said.

"But there have apparently been a great many," I said.

"I was distraught," she said. "I was furious! My heart was beating wildly. Then I felt futile, helpless and miserable. I could do nothing! Such as I are completely at the mercy of our masters! I was only a slave! And then there were tears in my eyes, and Milo was so beautiful! I wanted him to see me, to notice me. I did not wish to be just another slave in the background, unrecognized, so simply taken for granted, serving but almost unnoticed, present but scarcely seen. I reached out, with tears in my eyes, and put my fingers on his arm."

"Continue," I said.

"He seemed startled that I had done this, as though he might not believe it. I looked at him, tears in my eyes, kneeling there, appealing to him, that he might take notice of me, though I were only a slave."

"Yes?" I said.

"This was noted, of course, by my master, Appanius. Appar ently I had not realized the grievousness of what I had done. He leaped to his feet! His eyes blazed. He was beside himself with anger. "Guards! Guards! he cried, clapping his hands. I knelt small there by the table, trembling, my head down. I knew I had done wrong, daring to touch Milo, I, he so favored by the master and I only a house slave, but I had been unable to help myself. I so wanted to be brought to his attention! But never yet had he requested me, nor had I been put naked to my knees before him, my hands bound behind me in slave bracelets, the key about my neck, for his pleasure. I knew I had done wrong, but I had not understood that it was so terrible. I had only wanted to call myself to his attention, and had hoped doubtless that he might sometimes be moved to take pity on a poor slave. "Guards! Guards! cried Appanius. I was terrified. I trembled, not understanding the immensity of his anger, the enormity of his response to my tiny, pathetic deed. Guards rushed into the room, blades free of scabbards, the doors bursting open. Perhaps they had feared an attempt was in progress on the master's life. In a moment they were about me. I feared I was to be cut to pieces. He struggled, it seemed, to control himself. "Forgive me, Master! I wept. I crawled to him, my head down. "Forgive me, Master! I wept. I kissed his feet, fervently. He pulled away, in anger. He moved to the side. He kicked me twice, in fury. I returned to him on my belly, and showered my hair upon his sandals, and then again kissed his feet, again and again. "Forgive me, Master! I wept, an errant slave, one who had done wrong, pleading for mercy, and forgiveness. He pulled back, away from me again, and then stood there, some feet before me, looking down at me. I was still on my belly. I looked up at him, a slave regarding her master with terror, lying before him, his property, on the tiles of his house. "Have her lashed, he said. "Then have her hair cropped, and sent her to the field!»

"And it was thus you came to the fields," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"And how did Milo respond to all this?" I asked.

"Imperturbably," she said. "I was, after all, only a female."

"Do you think that Milo finds you attractive?" I asked.

"Master?" she asked.

"That he would like to strip you, collar you and throw you to the furs at his feet, there to vent his lust upon you, his slave?"

"I do not know if his drives are that strong, Master," she said.

"Would you object?" I asked.

"No, Master," she said. "It had always been my hope that I might prove attractive enough to provoke such desire. I am a slave girl. I live to be the obedient, grateful, vulnerable object of such lust and power. I have always dreamed of it. I wish to be choiceless, to be overpowered and made to serve!"

"Milo must have exhibited some interest in you, or seemed to exhibit some interest in you," I said, "if only during the period of your seduction, when you were being trapped."

"Yes," she said, "then."

"But after you were in the house as a slave, collared, scantily clad, utterly vulnerable?"

"No, Master," she said.

"He never asked for you to be brought to him?"

"No, Master."

"Why do you think that is?" I asked.

"I am insufficiently beautiful," she said.

"Did he call for other women?" I asked.

"I do not know, Master," she said.

"Did you not see names written on the call boards in the kitchen?"

"No," she said.

"Interesting," I said.

"One of the girls, another one of we three who had been trapped by Milo, claimed to have been with him, but it was proven that she had lied. She had been chained in the stable that night. The house master found out about it and she was whipped, before us all."

"As far as you know, then," I said, "none of the girls of the house were put with Milo."

"As far as I know, not," she said.

"But surely there would be no cause for secrecy about such a matter," I said. "I would not think so," she said.

"Milo was important in the house," I said. "He is famous. He is of great value to Appanius."

"Certainly, Master," she said.

"It would make sense then," I said, "to suppose that a girl would be sent to him, at least once in a while."

"Perhaps, Master," she said.

"So much is done even for quarry slaves," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"But as far as you know this was never done?"

"Not as far as I know," she said.

"And if it had been done," I said, "it is my speculation that you would have heard of it, such gossip flowing quickly through the corridors of such a house."

"I suppose so," she said.

"If Milo had requested a girl, do you think he would have received one?"

"I would suppose so," she said, puzzled.

"Perhaps he did not request one," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"Possible Milo does not find women attractive," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Are you a virgin?" I asked.

She laughed. "How long can a slave remain a virgin, Master?" she asked.

"Whom have you served?" I asked.

"Mostly men in the house, on the staff," she said, "those who wanted me for the night. We are free to them, you know. I was muchly cuffed at first. I was clumsy. I knew so little."

"You are more accomplished now?" I asked.

"One learns quickly under the whip," she said.

"And in the fields?"

"Mostly the whip masters," she said. "But twice I was tied to a stake, for the field slaves."

I noted that her knees had moved a little further apart, probably unconsciously, or without really thinking about it, after she had said this. In such ways can a slave, sometimes not even conscious of what she is doing, or fully conscious of it, beg. I glanced at Marcus, and he smiled. He, too, had noticed the tiny movement.

"May I speak, Masters?" she asked.

"No," I said.

She put her head down.

"Have you experienced slave arousal?" I asked "Master?" she asked, looking up.

"Have the slave fires been lit in your belly?" I asked. She was, after all, a relatively new slave, and had been a house slave, apparently primarily consigned to domestic duties, serving table and such, and was now a field slave, whose primary services would presumably lie in such labors as the carrying of water and the hoeing of suls. It was not as though she had been in the attentive and exacting ownership, for example, of a particular master, who would see to the summoning forth and cultivation of these intimate, exquisite, exigent latencies which once initiated seem to blossom and grow of their own lovely, imperious will, which cannot be suppressed or silenced, and which make a girl so much their prisoner, more so than collars and chains.

"Sometimes," she said, "I sense their beginnings in me."

"How do you feel about them?" I asked.

"I love them," she said, "but I am afraid of them."

I nodded. Well she might be.

"May I speak?" she asked.

"Very well," I said.

"Who are you?" she asked. "Are you men of my master, Appanius?"

Perhaps she thought we had come from her master, to question her. But surely, too, our armbands should have suggested to her that our origins, and intents, were not indigenous to the house of Appanius.

"No," I said.

"You are not slavers, are you?" she asked.

We did not speak.

"Please tell me!" she begged.

"It is not in that modality that we have come," I said.

"You are members of the caste of slavers!" she said.

"No," I said.

"But you are slavers!" she said.

"Do not concern yourself with the matter," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

The distinction, of course, is between belonging to the caster of slavers and being a slaver. Whereas members of the caste of slavers are slavers, not all slavers are members of the caste of slavers. For example, I am not of the slavers, but in Port Kar I am know as Bosk, and he known as many things, among them pirate and slaver. Too, both Marcus and myself were of the warriors, the scarlet caster, and as such were not above taking slaves. Such is not only permitted in the codes, but encouraged by them. "The slave is a joy and a convenience to the warrior." Neither of us, of course, was a member of the caste of slavers. It, incidentally, is sometimes regarded as a subcaste of the merchants, and sometimes as an independent caste. It does have its own colors, blue and yellow, whereas those of the merchants are yellow and white, or gold and white.

"Have you come to collect taxes?" she asked. "Have you come from the levies?"

"No," I said. Her questions were doubtless motivated by our armbands. It was not unknown in recent months in Ar and her vicinity for properties of various sorts, including such as she was, to be taken for taxes. Too, of course, there might have been new requisitions from Cos, or even from the camp of the pokemarkos, calling for new levies of women, both free and slave.

"You are not going to carry me off are you?" she asked.

"Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira," I said.

"Forgive me, Master," she said. She squirmed in agitation. It would not be difficult, of course, to carry her off. In a matter of moments we could have done so with impunity. In a matter of moments she could have been ours, gagged, hooded and bound. There are a great many ways in which a girl may be carried captive by a mounted warrior, and many saddles have been designed with the accommodation of such a prisoner in mind. Some of these arrangements are quite simple and others are complex. Perhaps the simplest is to have the girl mounted before you with her hands tied to a ring before her body. Some of the more complex involve saddle cages and nets. A reasonably common arrangement, and that with which our saddles were equipped, involves paired rings, one on each side of the saddle. With this arrangement the usual technique is as follows: The girl's hands are tied are tied before her and then tied, in turn to a ring on the left side of the saddle. When she is thusly fastened, her hands up, tied together and fastened to the left saddle ring, she is lifted up and put over the saddle, on either her back or belly, as pleases the captor, after which her ankles are fastened together on the other side, then, of course, also lashed to the ring there, the second of the pair of rings, that on the right side of the saddle. In this arrangement the girl is quite safe, protected against the danger of a fall. She is also, of course, completely helpless.

"Would you not like to be carried off?" I asked.

"No!" she said.

"But surely you are not so enamored of the labors of the field slave," I said. "No," she said.

"And you have already begun to sense in yourself the beginnings of slave fires" I said.

She looked at me, and then put her head down, quickly. She clenched her small fists.

"Speak," I said. "Have they not already begun to burn in your belly?"

She looked up, agonized, her small fists clenched.

"Remember," I said, "you have already incurred discipline."

"Yes, Master!" she sobbed.

"Good," I said.

She put down her head, sobbing. How helpless one must feel at times, I thought, as a female slave. But such admissions are good for the development of their character, and their discipline. Too, they are very helpful and beneficial for the slave. They help them to understand who and what they are, and who is master.

"I would think you would be an excellent house slave," I said, "silked, pattering about, perhaps belled, serving, heated and excited by the nearness of your master."

She looked up.

"Perhaps you might even be chained to his slave ring at night, at the very foot of his couch."

"It is such things I want!" she said.

"It is easy to imagine you kneeling before him, begging for his touch."

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"And will he consent to content you?" I asked.

"It is my hope that he would take pity on one who is only his slave."

"Yes," I said. "I think you would be hot, devoted and dutiful."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"I think you would make an excellent house slave," I said, "indeed, an excellent pleasure slave."

"Oh, yes, Master!" she said.

"And perhaps in time," I said, "even a love slave."

"It is thusly that I want to live!" she said.

"Then surely you wish to be carried off," I said.

"No," she said. "No!"

"Why not?" I asked.

She sobbed.

"Ah," I said. "It seems you do not wish to leave the vicinity of the house of Appanius."

"No, Master," she said. "I do not wish to leave the vicinity of the house of Appanius."

"Apparently you are very devoted to your master," I said.

"I do not even know him," she said, "except as I, and others, are utilized for such purposes as serving his table. Even when he passes us in a hall we kneel in obeisance, our heads to the floor."

"Still," I said, "it seems you must be very devoted to him."

She put her head down.

"But in any event," I said, "your wishes are unimportant. You are a female slave. It will be done with you as men, and masters, please."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"I wish certain details as to the techniques utilized by Appanius and Milo in the capture of free women, thence to be enslaved."

"Master?" she asked.

"Surely from the conversation which you overheard, and from your own experience, you have some ideas of what these must be."

"Surely master can have no interest in such things," she said.

"You have now twice incurred discipline," I informed her.

"Forgive me, Master!" she said.

"How will you speak?" I asked.

"Fully, and perfectly, to the best of my knowledge!"

"As befits what you are?"

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"Which is?" I asked.

"A slave girl, Master," she said, "only that!"

"Who initiates these relationships?" I asked.

"In one of two ways, I think, are they initiated," she said. "In the first, the free woman puts herself in Milo's way, she compliments him, she calls herself to his attention, perhaps she lowers her veil a little, perhaps she lowers her veil a little, perhaps her tones to him are soft, and special, making clear to him that there is an eager lover awaiting him beneath her veils and robes, perhaps she even lets him lift and kiss the coverlets of her palanquin, near her feet, such things. These advances, so calculatedly ambiguous, and yet so obvious and meaningful, are reported to Appanius. He then makes a judgment as to whether they are to be encouraged or not, and then, later, perhaps after she has lowered her veil for Milo, and let him gaze upon the revelation of her beauty, and he has seen her move in the palanquin, apparently inadvertently, but in such a way that he can conjecture something of the fairness of her limbs beneath her robes, and has perhaps even seen her ankles, a second judgment, this again from the reports of Milo, is made by Appanius. If this judgment is favorable and it is decided that the female, after having been perhaps subjected to a rigorous regimen of dieting, exercise, training and discipline, might not preposterously be put upon a slave block, the arrangements for her capture are completed. In the second way the matter is initiated by Appanius himself, he himself selecting a candidate for approach, scrutiny and cultivation."

"On what grounds initially?" I asked.

"Usually from rumors of a certain free woman's beauty," she said.

"I see," I said.

"Too," she said, "it is my understanding that information is sometimes furnished for a fee, by some of the female proprietors of women's baths in Ar. Too, in some cases, Appanius is permitted to observe the women from a secret coign of vantage."

"In what way did you come to attention of Appanius?" I asked.

"In the first way, doubtless," she smiled, "as I did not frequent the public baths and I doubt very much that rumors of my beauty were abroad in the streets."

"They might have been," I said.

"Master is kind," she said.

"Continue," I said.

"Although master might regard me as having been a spoiled, pampered free woman, and although that was undoubtedly true," she said, "I was nonetheless too shy in the beginning even to approach one such as Milo. Certainly there must be free women richer and more beautiful than I in Ar. Accordingly, in the beginning, I only worshipped him from afar. I attended his performances. I dreamed of him. But I did not dare call myself to his attention."

"In the beginning," I said, "your responses to Milo were more humble and slavelike?"

"Yes, Master," she said. "I even dreamed of crawling to him, putting my head down and kissing his feet."

"Continue," I said.

"But soon, of course, the free woman in me became outraged at such things! They were too feminine! I was not a slave!"

"And you became bolder?"

She laughed. "Well," she said, "perhaps not so much bolder. But I would station myself and my attendants where he might pass, if only to catch a glimpse of him between the curtains of my palanquin."

"In effect," I said, "your responses were still shy, and slavelike."

"Yes," she said, angrily.

"You felt you belonged at the feet of such a man?"

"Perhaps," she said.

"But you truly belonged at the feet of any man," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Continue," I said.

"Certainly he must soon note my palanquin," she said. "Surely it was often enough in his way, outside the great theater, on streets which he frequented, even in certain markets. At that time, perhaps he had reported to Appanius, and his agents had ascertained my identity, that of the owner of the palanquin. To be sure, such thoughts did not occur to me then. Rather I castigated myself for my timidity, and reminded myself, again and again, that it was I who was the free person. I who was in control. I who was in command. I who could have my way, as I pleased. Then I took to having the curtains of the palanquin opened, that I might be seen within, in my most beautiful robes and veils, as though I might wish fresher air and greater light, paused there perhaps in the midst of some business, waiting for some acquaintance. I even let him see me glance at him once and then turned my head away, quickly, too quickly, as I now realize. Perhaps I should have behaved more like a free woman, and had him ordered to the side of my palanquin, to kneel there and be questioned as a slave. Doubtless some women did, arrogating to themselves, as free women are free to do, the prerogative of males. I wonder how they felt when the net descended on them. At least I was not a slave. I could be forward, I could call myself to his attention, demanding it, as I wished."

"Slaves," said I, "as you must now know, have many ways of calling themselves to the attention of a man, subtly, effectively, pleadingly, vulnerably, helplessly, deferentially, humbly."

She looked up at me.

"The palms of your hands are facing upward," I said. "Oh!" she said, and quickly turned them downward, and clutched her thighs. The rag she wore, given her knee position, that of a pleasure slave, was high on her thighs. Her hands, her fingers on her thighs, digging into them, as though they would anchor themselves there, half covered it. He grip was partly through the cloth and partly on her thighs. Midway in her grip came the garment's frayed hem, pressed down on her fair, sweet thighs. The contrast was attractive, like slave silk against flesh, or a narrow cord sustaining such silk at the shoulder, perhaps an inch from a disrobing loop, or the metal of slave bracelets locked on small, downy wrists, a rope on a waist, snug above a sweetly, rounded belly, or a collar on the neck. "Indeed," I said, "slaves in their subtle, vulnerable, helpless ways, in their beggingness, in their humbleness, in their deferentiality, in the very nature and entirety of their condition, have many better ways of calling themselves to the attention of a man than a free woman."

"But I did not understand that at the time," she said.

"I would suppose not," I said.

"Free women," she laughed," are not likely to whimper and lick ankles."

"They do so quickly enough after they have become slaves," I said, "and have experienced slave arousal, and realize their need and helplessness, and their dependence on the master."

"Yes, Master," she said. "And I sense the beginning of such things in myself."

"So what did you do?" I asked.

"Actually," she smiled. "I had to do very little. I have little doubt now that I had been discussed by Milo and Appanius. Milo approached my palanquin when I had the curtains back, begging for forgiveness for approaching me, proposing even that he be beaten by my bearers for his boldness, but that he could not help himself, that for days he had struggled with himself, but now, regardless of what sorry consequences might ensue, even though it might mean he be hurled to sleen, that he had at last, against his sternest will, been drawn irresistibly to my side, as though in chains by tharlarion. Then, tears in his eyes, he begged liberty only to salute my beauty, and then hurry away, in joy."

"You were fully veiled?" I asked.

"In my most beautiful robes and veils was I bedecked," she said.

"You did not wear your street veil," I said.

"No," she said.

"Then," I said, "I suspect that you were veiled in such a way that the lineaments of your visage might, though perhaps with some difficulty, be discerned."

"Yes!" she said, tossing her head.

"What a slave you were!" laughed Marcus.

"And am!" she said.

"Yes, and are!" laughed he.

Now no longer need the lovely Lavinia concern herself with matters such as veiling. She was slave. Would you veil a she-tarsk, a she-sleen?

"And so he saluted your beauty?"

"Yes," she said, "with a beautiful gesture."

"And did it not occur to you that he probably had numbers of sinuous little sluts in the house of Appanius who would snake about his legs and feet, and lick and kiss, and beg to serve him in any way he might desire, to his heart's content?"

"I did not think of such things," she said.

"He then hurried away?"

"Yes," she said. "Obviously he was in consternation, and in terror at the affrontery he might have offered me, or so I thought."

"And what had you said?"

"Nothing," she said. "I was as tongue-tied as a new slave girl thrown for the first time before her master."

"I see," I said.

"Afterwards I was frantic that I must set him at his ease, that I must let him know that I was not offended. I must encourage him to return. I must see him again! I sent him a note, informing him that I would permit him to speak to me."

"And then?"

"He did not come for two days," she said, "and when he came he contritely confessed that he had lacked the courage, he so unworthy, to approach one such as I, so high born and free. Soon one thing led to another, he even claiming that he was my slave in right, and in his heart, and not that of Appanius, his legal master. I was overcome. What free woman has not coveted such adulatory attention, though in her heart she knows it is she who in nature belongs worshipfully at the male's feet? Oh, yes, I was a pretty little vulo, ripe for the snare. There is a special room in which we agreed to meet."

"I know the place," I said.

"Oh?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "It is in the Metellan district."

"Yes," she said. "Well, it was there that the net fell. Now I am in a collar."

"Yes," I said.

I looked down at her, she kneeling so far below us, in the hot, whitish dust. "Where I belong," she said.

"True," I said.

"May I be of further service to Masters?" she asked.

"I have obtained from you the information I wished," I said.

"Then a girl is pleased," she said.

I then slipped down from the saddle of the tharlarion.

"Master?" she asked. She had moved suddenly, almost involuntarily, as though she might have thought of leaping to her feet and fleeing, as I had dismounted, but she had had the good sense to think the better of it. Certainly she had not received permission to break position. She then knelt there, her back very straight, trembling.

"Lift your head," I said. "Look up."

She did so. Her lower lip trembled.

I regarded her short brush of hair, the brief, tattered rag, scarcely more than a ta-teera, which was her only garment, the simple collar, no more than a strap of black iron curved about her throat, its small, right-angled, pierced terminations flush to one another behind the back of her neck, held together by the rivet, her blistered, burned skin.

"Field slave," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

"You have lied to free men," I said.

She regarded me in terror.

"You told us that you had been brought in as a consequence of the levies, whereas it was in consequence of the couching laws."

"Forgive me, Master," she whispered.

"But I am not particularly angered," I said.

"Thank you, Master!" she said.

"You hastened to rectify your account."

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"And were on the whole exact, voluble and diligent in your subsequent responses."

"Yes, Master!" she said.

"Do you think you would have lied to me, if I owned you?" I asked.

She looked up at me. "No, Master!" she said.

"I do not think you would have either," I said.

She shuddered.

"But, of course, I do not own you."

"No, Master," she said.

"But as you know, an errant slave may be disciplined by an free man."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"For example, her master might not be present."

"Yes, Master," she whispered.

"Her slavery does not exist only in his presence," I said.

"No, Master."

"It is uncompromised, categorical and absolute, at any moment, wherever she is," I said.

"Yes, Master."

"And thus it is fitting, is it not, that she be subject to the discipline of any free man?"

"Of course, Master."

"And Marcus, my friend, and I are free men."

"Yes, Master."

"And you are thus subject to our discipline."

"Yes, Master."

"And you lied to us."

"Forgive me, Master!" she begged.

"If I were your master," I said, "I do not know what I would have done with you. It is an interesting question. Surely, at the least you would have been stripped and tied, and given a lashing."

She swallowed, hard.

"And I do not think you would soon forget it," I said.

"No, Master," she said.

"Do you think you would then lie to me again?"

"No, Master!" she said.

"You would attempt to improve your behavior, in all ways?"

"Yes, Master."

I regarded her.

"Master?" she asked.

"I am thinking that since we do not own you that perhaps it might be fitting if your discipline were decided by your master, the noble Appanius."

"Please, no, Master!" she said.

"It would be easy enough," I said, "to strip you and tie your hands behind your back, and then write upon your body some brief but suitable message."

She seemed to pale beneath her burns.

"The left breast, as you know," I said, "it the usual place for such messages." This is, one supposes, because most masters are right-handed.

"Please do not inform my master, Appanius!" she wept.

"You seem to fear him," I said.

"Yes!" she wept.

"It is good for a girl to fear her master," I said.

"You do not understand!" she said. "I have already it seems muchly displeased him. Already I have been shorn and put in the fields! If I gave him further cause for discipline I do not know what he would do with me!"

"You might be whipped?" I said.

"He might have me thrown to the eels in his pool!" she said.

"Have no fear," I said, "you have been helpful and cooperative, and I have obtained much of value from our conversation, more doubtless than you understand. Similarly, as this is the first time we have met, at least formally, I am inclined, somewhat against my better judgment, to be initially lenient. It might be pointed out, for example, that you did not know the sort of men we were. Perhaps some men ignore lies in a slave, pretending not to notice them, or, mistakenly, graciously accept them as trivial, as merely a girl's peccadilloes. But we are not such men. We are not patient with such things. Even had you lied about something as small as a candy or pastry we would not have accepted it. We approve of, and expect, truth from a slave. In short, had you known the sort of men we are, it is my speculation that you would not have lied to us."

"No, Master," she said.

"But, as I have suggested, I am inclined to be lenient, in this first offense."

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"Also, of course," I said, "we are not your master, and it seems that serious or grievous discipline should be the prerogative of the master. These prerogatives we do not desire to usurp."

"No, Master!" she said.

"Accordingly," I said, "your discipline is to be light."

"Thank you Master," she said.

I then lashed her head back and forth, first with the palm of my right hand, and then its back. Then, with the last backhand stroke, I struck her from her knees, to her side, and she was lying on her side, twisted, her palms down in the white dust. She looked back at me, disbelievingly, startled, tears in her eyes, over her right shoulder.

"Position," I said.

She crawled back to where she had knelt, and resumed her former position, her head bowed.

I walked about her and then crouched before her.

I put my hand under her chin and lifted it. Her face was red from the cuffing. There were tears on her cheeks. Her lip was swollen. There was some blood at the side of her face. I removed my hand, and let her once again lower her head. "Oh!" she said.

"You have a good belly," I said.

"Ai," she said, softly.

"And an excellent figure," I said.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, softly, helplessly.

I removed my left hand from the small of her back, where I had held it, that she might not draw back more than I would permit. "And you have at least the glimmerings of slave vitality," I said.

She moaned.

"You are not going to lie to us again, are you?" I asked.

"No, Master!" she sobbed.

I then rose to my feet and stepped back a little.

She squirmed a little. "May I speak?" she begged.

"Yes," I said.

"That was a light discipline?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, "naught but a mere cuffing."

Normally, of course, one cuffs with a single blow. She had, however, lied. Even so, I had, of course, pulled the strokes. One does not wish to injure the slave, only punish her. Had I struck her heavily, with the force easily summonable by a strong man, I might have broken her neck.

"I am sorry, if I have displeased Masters," she said.

I did not speak.

"But Masters are wrong in one thing," she said. "What is that?" I asked.

"I have in me more than the glimmering of slave vitality," she said.

"It seems so to you now," I said, "but in some months, when you are truly helpless under the lash of your needs, and you understand the prison in which they have placed you, you will better understand my words."

"Even so!" she wept.

Her eyes pleaded with me.

"You may break position," I said.

She flung herself to her belly before me, and pressed her lips to my feet. "Please," she said. "Please!"

"You grovel as a slave," I said.

"I am no longer a free women," she said. "I no longer have to pretend. I no longer have to lie."

I looked down at her, pondering her needs. Her lips were soft on my feet, timid, petitioning.

"I am now half naked and in a collar!" she sobbed. "I am at your mercy. Take pity on me!"

"You wish to placate masters?" I asked.

"If I have displeased them, yes!" she said.

"You would like to escape further punishment?" I asked.

"Surely it is understandable that a girl such as myself, one so helpless, one in bondage, would seek to avert the wrath of men, that she would seek by her curves, her service and love to soften the hearts of masters."

Yes, I thought, that is understandable. Slave girls are, when all is said and done, in spite of their beauty, so vulnerable, so owned, so ultimately helpless. "Please, Master," she said.

"You wheedle and beg well," I said.

She looked up at me.

"Doubtless you learned that in your first days as a slave, in the house of Appanius, perhaps desiring to be fed."

"I am begging!" she said.

I looked down at her.

"Surely master understands for what I am begging," she said.

"Oh?" I said.

"Command me to strip," she wept. "There is shade on the other side of the tank. The dust is cool there. You do not need a blanket or a wrap. Put me in the dust itself!"

I did not speak.

"If you wish," she said, "I shall serve you here, in the hot dust, in the glare of the sun."

"A begging slave," I commented to Marcus.

"Yes," he said.

"Please," she said.

"Kneel over there," I said. I indicated a position near the yoke and the buckets, near the tank. Quickly she rose up and went and knelt where I had indicated. I then lifted up the yoke, which, as I have mentioned, was thrice drilled, once in the center, and once near each end. At these points leather thongs were wound in and around the yoke.

"Master?" she asked.

I put the yoke across her shoulders.

"Master!" she said.

I loosened the thongs at the center of the yoke and then, by means of them, looped about her neck and tied, fastened the yoke on her. I then used the thongs on her right to fasten her right hand to the yoke there, and then, to her left, similarly served her left hand. I then stepped back to regard her, fastened in the yoke, her hands widely separated.

"As you may recall," I said, "you incurred discipline twice, once for lying, for which you were cuffed, a preposterously light discipline considering the offense, and secondly for daring to suggest that a master might not be interested in the answer to a question which he had asked."

"Forgive me," she said.

"It is your business to answer questions, with exactness, and with the fullness desired," I said, "not to comment on such matters as their propriety or appropriateness."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"Your needs are apparently on you," I said.

"Yes, Master!" she said, delightedly. "But I am helpless!" She moved her head about a little, turning it a little from side to side, her neck within the loops of the thongs; too, she moved her hands a little, futilely, they held back against the wood, by the thonged wrists.

"Surely you are aware that a woman may be used in a yoke," I said.

"Yes, Master!" she said.

Indeed, it is quite pleasant to use a woman in a yoke. Too, a girl is sometimes given to field slaves that way, cords attached sometimes to the ends of the yoke, that she may be pulled about, turned this way and that, and, in general, moved about and controlled as the slaves wish, until they weary of the sport and choose to have their way with her. I gathered, however, that this had not been done, at least as yet, with the lovely slave before us. She had, apparently, been tied to a stake for the men once or twice. The usual procedure, of course, is simply to put the girl in the common kennel after dark, where she is utilized, serving muchly, sometimes handed about, from man to man.

"But that is not our intention," I said.

"Master?" she said.

I put one of the vessels of water on the yoke. She had to bend down, that its weight was on the ground. Then I put the other vessel, too, on the yoke. She squirmed in the yoke, she sobbed.

"What is to be my second discipline?" she asked.

"Stand," I said.

With difficulty she stood. She could hardly stand upright. She wavered a little. "Am I not to serve?" she asked.

"No," I said.

She looked at me in misery.

"That is the second discipline," I said.

She closed her eyes, and tears forced themselves between those clenched eyelids. "I am not a free woman!" she said. "I am a slave. I need your touch!"

"It is the second discipline," I said.

"Please, please!" she wept.

"You are dismissed," I informed her.

"Please, Master!" she wept.

"Turn about, and be about your labors," said I, "field slave."

She moved then a little from the vicinity of the tank, a few steps. The weight was considerable for her. She staggered once or twice. She turned to regard us, pathetically.

"Away, field slave!" I said, with a gesture.

"Yes, Master," she sobbed, and turned away. We watched her moving slowly away, staggering at times, across the fields.

"How could you do that to her?" asked Marcus.

"Cuff her?" I asked, puzzled.

"Of course not," he said. "That was nothing."

"She thought it something," I said.

"She was let off easily," he said.

"True," I said.

"Doubtless she will in time, in trembling gratitude, realize how easily she was let off."

"Even as easily as she was let off," I said, "I do not think she will soon again consider lying to a free man."

"Probably not," he said.

I took saddle.

"What would you have done?" I asked.

"I would have put her under the belt," he said.

"And had it been Phoebe?"

"Phoebe knows better," he said.

"But if it had been her?"

"A number of disciplines," he said, "over successive days."

"What did you meant then," I asked, "how could you do that to her?"

"Sending her packing," he said, "rather than putting her to use."

"Should you speak that way," I asked, "of the former free woman, Lavinia of Ar?"

"Be serious," he said.

"Was it not merciful?" I asked.

"Certainly not," he said.

"As a discipline?" I asked.

"No," he said.

"Speak," I said.

"You dominated her, making her feel her womanhood, and its relationship to the male," he said, "and then, her belly ready, aching, vulnerably aflame, helplessly stirred, you sent her packing."

"What would you have done?" I asked.

"Nothing so heartless, so cruel," he said.

"You are speaking of the second discipline," I said.

"Of course," he said.

"What, then? I asked.

"I would have whipped her." He said. "Then I would have flung her to the ground, thrust her about, let her feel the side of my foot, such things, and then, when I wished, I would have knelt her, her head to the ground, and used her."

"In such fashion? I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"I see," I said.

"Slaves understand such things," he said.

"Of course," I said.

"And I do not think she would have been likely to commit the same error again."

"Probably not," I said.

"No," he said, "I do not think so."

"You grant, however," I said, "that my discipline is also likely to be effective?"

"I would think so," he said. "But I think mine might have been measured more perfectly to the slave, her needs and her act."

"You would have subjected her to use discipline?"

"Of course," he said.

"But we do not own her," I said.

"It does not matter," he said.

"True," I said.

Use discipline is within the prerogatives of a free person.

"You think my discipline was too severe?" I said.

"Yes," he said.

"I know a place," I said, "where such would commonly not be thought to be discipline at all but an escape from one."

"That is hard to believe," he said.

"A place in which it is culturally acceptable for the most basic needs of females to be denied, frustrated and ignored."

"Do not jest about matters of such gravity," he said.

"There are complex ideologies involved," I said, "the purport of which is that nature and biology are mistaken, and the ideologies, whatever they happen to be, for there are several of them, even if contrived and inconsistent, are correct."

"Such a mad place cannot exist," he said.

"Perhaps not," I said.

"Surely you grant that your discipline, denying her slave use, was severe."

"She is a slave," I said. "Anything can be done with her."

"By her Master," he said. "Not just anyone."

"True," I said. One did not have the right, for example, to kill or maim the slave of another, any more than any other domestic animal which might belong to someone else. In this sense the slave is accorded some protection from free persons who do not own her in virtue of certain general considerations of property law. The power of the master over the slave, on the other hand, is absolute. He can do whatever he wishes with her. She belongs to him, completely. "You do grant then," he said, "that your treatment of her was severe?"

"But intentionally so," I said, grimly, looking after the girl, not small in the distance.

"Unnecessarily severe?" he asked.

"I do not understand," he said.

"It was measured perfectly to her, and her act, and my plans."

"Your plans?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "That is the difference between your measurements and mine."

"I do not understand," he said.

"I wish her to understand what can be done to her," I said.

"You speak as though you intend to own her," he said.

"I do intend to own her," I said.

"Oh?" asked Marcus.

"Yes," I said. "She will figure in my plans."

"I see," he said, softly.

"She is a field slave," I said. "I would suppose Appanius, who does not seem enamored of her, will let her go for a pittance, perhaps no more than a handful of copper tarsks."

"That is a curvaceous female to acquire for a few copper tarsks," he said. "You noticed?" I said.

He laughed.

"There she is," I said, pointing.

"Yes," he said.

Her figure was now tiny, far away. She had stopped at the crest of a small hill, and was kneeling there, wearily, apparently to rest, her head down. The vessels of water were on the ground.

"I am touched by your concern, or reservations, pertaining to the severity of my discipline for her, denying her slave use," I said.

He shrugged.

"Perhaps it is motivated by your well-known kindness toward animals," I said. "Perhaps," he said.

"But I wonder, too, if your concern might not have been self-regarding in some respect, motivated at least in part by a certain disappointment that you were, in accordance with my decision, denied an opportunity to search out, locate and exploit the vulnerable pleasures of the slave?"

"Perhaps," he laughed.

"She is struggling to rise," I said. The small figure was trying to get her legs under her, and rise in the yoke, lifting the vessels. One does this by crouching and lifting up, trying to do most of the work with the legs.

"The weight is really too much for her," he said. "She is not large enough and strong enough for such labors."

"But those are the labors to which she has nonetheless been set by her master, Appanius, and the whip masters in the fields."

"Much must she had offended Appanius," I said.

"Apparently," he said.

"She is on her feet now," I said. She stood, unsteadily, the vessels swinging on the yoke ends.

"Yes," he said.

"Did you think she was pretty?" I asked.

"Very much so," he said, "even in her present wretched condition, shorn, roughened and burned."

"Look!" I said.

"I see," he said.

The girl, at the crest of the hill, had thrown her head back, to the sky. We could not hear her, of course, but she must have cried out, or sobbed, with misery and frustration. Her shoulders shook. Her small arms moved, at the yoke, pulling. But she could not, of course, free them, fastened as they were in place, by her wrists, widely separated, at opposite ends of the yoke, thonged back against the wood.

"Her needs are still much upon her," said Marcus.

"Apparently," I said.

Then she staggered down the other side of the small hill, and disappeared from sight. The sun was now well behind us.

"Surely she would make an amusing, squirming armful of slave," I said.

"You noticed?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Do you not think it was cruel not to put her to slave use?" asked Marcus. "Not nearly as so cruel," I said, "as it might be a few months from now, when she will have been longer a slave."

"True," he said. Slave needs tend to develop and deepen in the course of a girl's bondage. At Lavinia's present stage of bondage she could not begin to suspect that her needs would be like later, how helplessly she would become their prisoner, how hopelessly she would become their prisoner, how hopelessly they would put her at a master's mercy. In the face of such needs, the stoutest collars, the heaviest chains, are but as gossamer. The depths of a slave's sexuality, and love, I think, have never been sounded.

"She was cruelly deprived, even so," he said.

"We will make it up to her," I said.

"Oh?" he asked.

"Well, perhaps we will," I said.

"Oh?" he asked.

"Assuming, of course, that the intensity of her zeal, and the perfection of her service, warrants it."

"You are serious then," he said, "About bringing her within the scope of your whip?"

"Quite," I said.

"How does she figure in your plans?" he asked.

"You will see," I said.

He wheeled his tharlarion about, and dust rose.

"Where are you off to?" I asked.

"I want Phoebe!" he said.

"It seems then," I said, "that it is not only the lovely Lacinia, former free woman of Ar, who has been frustrated."

"True," he laughed.

"But she is helplessly yoked, and must depend upon men, even to be released," I said, "while you are free to ride to your slave.

"And what of you?" he asked. "Are you so unmoved by the charms of your little field slave?"

"I? I said. "I think I shall to a paga tavern."

I, too, then turned my tharlarion.

"And perhaps some former free woman of Ar in such a place will have five pierced metal tokens, purchasable for so little as a tarsk bit, threaded on her ankle cord tonight?"

"I shall race you to Ar!" I said.

Losing not a moment then, eager and laughing, we raced toward Ar.