“It is warm, and close, in here, is it not?” he asked.
“Master is perceptive,” I said.
“Beware you are not cuffed, girl,” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
He seemed more amused with my insolence than annoyed. How, from the heights of his freedom, he looked upon me as nothing, only a slave! I was pleased, however, that he was not angry. I was quite certain that if a girl deserved a cuffing, or, in an ambiguous situation, it seemed she might deserve a cuffing, she would receive one, and sharply, at his hands. She must strive to keep things clear. It is dangerous for a slave to approach such borders. It is not wise for a girl to test the limits of a master’s tolerance. They do not care for such games, and the whip is theirs.
He smiled upon me, the beast!
I did not care to be so looked upon, as a meaningless chit. But before such men what could women be but meaningless chits?
“Perhaps Master has duties to which he might attend,” I suggested.
I was furious.
I lacked no confidence in my own excellencies, in my own qualities, and such, which I had deemed considerable, certainly for my former world, but I sensed, too, to my fury, that he, this brute, like so many Gorean men, was in many ways, and by far, my superior.
What could we be to such men but meaningless chits?
How angry that made me!
And yet, too, it made me want to yield to them, and serve, and please them.
How different he and so many others were from most of the men I had known on my former world. What had been done, I wondered, to the men of my former world? How superior to me, in so many ways, were these brutes of Gor! How slave I felt before them! Were such as I not fittingly owned by such as they, as the females of so many species of my former world were, in effect, owned by their males? To my chagrin such things were now, on Gor, indisputably obvious to me. I was unable to deny them, as much as I might wish to do so. And such relationships on Gor were institutionalized, fixed in law! I was collared! I sensed that I belonged on the block, stripped, before such men, who might, fittingly, purchase me as an object, or toy. It is strange how one can sense such things, but, to my irritation, I was in no doubt about it. Before such men women could be but properties; they belonged at the feet of such men, as slaves.
But if one were a slave, why should one not be a slave?
Is there not a freedom, a liberation, a relief, in such an acknowledgement?
Are the miseries of a free woman so superior to the joys of a mastered, loving slave?
Let each consider the matter for herself.
With two hands, he thrust open the canvas curtains at the head of the wagon and light, and fresh air, surged into that narrow, rectangular, hitherto oppressive wood-and-canvas enclosure.
I blinked against the light. I could see, over the wagon box, the broad, arched back of the plodding tharlarion which was drawing the wagon. It was tied by its nose ring to the back of the preceding wagon. Its reins were looped about a hook to the left of the wagon box. The Metal Worker, if that were indeed his caste, was on the Teamster’s bench, which was, too, the lid of the wagon box. Within it, parts, harness, and other tackle can be stored. Within it, too, I supposed, would be other sets of chains and shackles, should other girls be added to the party. I had gathered that two or three might be purchased in Venna, though I knew not for what purpose, if we were proceeding to the Voltai. Slave girls do, however, I knew, make lovely gifts.
I was at the back of the wagon bed, to which I had retreated, drawing back along the central bar, to distance myself from the Gorean scrutiny of the unexpected, offensive intruder.
I hated him.
I wondered what it would be, to have his collar on my neck. I knew it would be easy enough to put there.
I recalled he had stood between me and the beast nights ago, in the market of Cestias. It was fortunate for him that he had not been slain. What had he been doing there? I smiled to myself. He might have followed me there, as a man might follow a slave. If he were tangled in the coils of my beauty, such as it might be, fastened there, he might prove to be the slave and I the mistress! Much power I knew could reside within a collar. Have not Ubars succumbed to the smile of a kajira? I could taunt and torment him, I suspected, if I were clever, to my heart’s content. As long as he did not own me, I could enact a girl’s vengeance on the hapless tarsk. I reminded myself that I despised him, that I loathed him. I was sure I could make him suffer. But then I wondered what might be the feel of his bracelets on my wrists. If he were kind enough to bracelet my hands before my body I might, when no one was about, lift them to my lips and kiss them.
Strange, I thought, how a woman can desire to be owned, and helplessly so.
“Girl,” he said.
“Master?” I said.
“The air, and light, is better forward, and there is not much dust.”
The countryside was beautiful, mostly meadows. The road stretched ahead, a gleaming line between hills, beyond the first large-wheeled, lumbering wagon, that of the Lady Bina, and, perhaps Lord Grendel, a road, I learned, of layers of fitted stone blocks, feet deep. Like the Viktel Aria, the road was designed not to last some years, or a decade, but centuries, even millennia.
“With Master’s permission,” I said, “I shall remain where I am.”
He reached to the side, and bent down, and, from in front of the wagon box, lifted up a carefully folded blanket. My body roughened, and sore, I eyed it covetously. He dropped it inside the wagon, to the right of the central bar, just behind the wagon box. He then turned away, to look down the road.
The blanket lay there, neatly folded.
Why did he not cast it back to me? I knew.
“Oh!” I said, for the wagon had lurched.
The Venna road is smooth, but even so it has its irregularities. Indeed, over the years, its surface, in shallow grooves, records the passage of countless wagons. A wheel may scrape into, dip into, or climb from, such a groove. Too, the shifting of the earth, the occasional softening of the soil by rain, differences in weathering, various temperature changes, and such things, may produce a shifting of one stone in relation to another.
I crawled forward, to the back of the wagon box, the chain sliding along the wooden floor, along the metal bar.
I seized the blanket there and spread it beneath me. It was but one blanket, but it was welcome. I did not take it to the rear of the wagon, as it seemed clear its placement was meant to bring me, if I wished its comfort, to the front of the wagon. I was then close enough that he might turn and touch me, but he did not do so.
Was I not smooth, and attractive? Why did he not reach back and touch me? What difference would it make? Was I not a slave?
“A slave is grateful for the blanket,” I said.
“It rained a while ago,” he said.
I knew that, from the sound, earlier in the afternoon, the light patter on the canvas. It darkened, but, closely woven, it had not leaked.
“I think it will rain more, later,” he said.
“Perhaps,” I said.
“It rained last night,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“This morning,” he said, “I saw strange prints about the edge of the camp. Do you have an account of such things?”
“No,” I said. How would I know what beasts might lurk about the camp? I suspected, of course, that they might be the prints of Lord Grendel, or his fellow, the blind Kur.
“Perhaps you have a conjecture?” he said.