“Is there no other reason?” she asked.
“Your figure,” I said, “is not without interest.”
“My figure?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Ela!” she wept. “I am unworthy to be a free woman. I desire to be naked, and lusted for. I desire to be collared, and lavish kisses upon the feet of a master! I desire to love and serve, wholly, unstintingly, selflessly, as a slave!”
“You have work to do,” I said.
“If others know my identity,” she said, “why have I not been moved to the Venna keeping area?”
“If it were up to me,” I said, “I would keep you where you are, in the Kasra area, with low slaves, that you might the sooner learn your collar.”
“I assure Master,” she said, “I am well learning it.”
“And,” I said, “those who know your identity, or suspect an identity of some interest, would not be eager to share that information. Let her stay then in the Kasra keeping area. There is less risk then of another suspecting something, and bringing her stripped and shackled before the throne of Marlenus.”
“I love you, Master,” she whispered. “Do you not love me, a little?”
I laughed at the absurdity of the question. “Love,” I asked, “love-for a slave?”
“Forgive me, Master,” she said.
“Be about your work,” I said.
She struggled to her feet, in the yoke, with its suspended buckets, and turned about, toward the rail.
I could not resist administering a sharp, stinging slap, below the small of the back.
She cried out and stumbled forward, almost spilling some of her noisome burden. Fortunately none was lost. She turned about, to look at me, more startled than reproachful, and I pointed to the rail, and she turned about again, and went to it, to empty the pails. I thought she walked nicely. As she had suggested, she was well learning her collar. Fortunately there was no free woman present, or her beating might have been ordered.
“That slave,” said a fellow, passing by, “is well formed.”
“Many are,” I said.
I wondered if I might possibly care for a slave, one such as Alcinoe. I dismissed the thought as absurd. How soon they might attempt to exploit such a weakness. Let them remember what they are, slaves, and no more. Let them kneel, the whip held before them. Let them lick and kiss it, in all trepidation and deference, and hope that it will not be used upon them.
Chapter Nineteen
“Ho, watch,” called Tarl Cabot, from far below, on the deck.
I spun the Builder’s glass in a circle, examining the same horizon, as ever.
“Nothing, commander,” I called down, to the deck.
He then was making his way aft, perhaps to his quarters.
I was at my regular watch, at the platform and ring, on the foremast. The weather was warm, and the sea tranquil. I could not remember several successive days in which our progress had been as uneventful. I had seen little to justify the ominous nomenclature confided to me by Tarl Cabot, that this was the Raging Sea, the Sea of Fire, or such. We continued to encounter, ever more frequently, the porous, floating rocks. Too, there was often one or more of the mysterious clouds, or volumes of ash, or whatever they might be, on the horizon. The storm ropes remained in place, the hatches were kept closed, save for ingress and egress, and few were allowed on deck, other than officers, who were not about the business of the ship. There had been fights below decks, particularly amongst the armsmen, who chafed at their confinement. It was hot below decks, and the air grew foul. Men grew ugly. It must be miserable, I supposed, in the Kasra and Venna keeping areas, as well, the penned beasts sweating on their mats, in their chains. Girls now, I understood, vied to carry wastes, that they might, even in so humble and homely an activity, feel the fresh wind of Thassa tug at their tunics and sweep through their hair. The hatches and portals to the open deck were now guarded, from within, by Pani swordsmen. More than one man had died under their swords.
My conversation with Tarl Cabot, alluded to earlier, having to do with the fleet of Lord Yamada, and such, had occurred on the third day of the fifth week past the fourth passage hand. It was now four days later, the second day of the fifth passage hand.
I saw four slaves, below, with their yokes, emerging from a hatch, closed behind them, bringing wastes to the rail. One was the slave, Alcinoe. As far as I knew, she was still white silk. If there were others, I supposed them to be mostly in the Venna keeping area. Some men will pay more for a white-silk girl. Needless to say, white-silkers are rare in the markets. Many are red-silked within an Ahn of their purchase. An interesting form of white-silker is the bred slave, raised in the sheltered gardens and housings of a gynaeceum, who is raised with no knowledge of men, until, say, unhooded, say, on an auction block, chained to a man’s slave ring, cast amidst the tables of feasting warriors, or such. Such girls, of course, are quite expensive. Most men prefer red-silkers, as their slave fires have commonly been ignited. At frequent intervals they become painfully needful. One speaks of chains, ropes, thongs, and such, and they are lovely and instructive accessories, not to be overlooked or ignored, and are surely useful, as well, for inescapable custodial purposes, but it seems clear that the mightiest bonds, within which the slave is helpless, and forever ruined for freedom, are her needs, her slave needs, both physical and psychological, cruelly aroused by masters. Women, their master’s properties, find their meaning, and their true self, in bondage. They are content, and whole, only at his feet. Sometimes slaves, before their vending, are starved of a master’s touch for days. They then are desperately needful on the block, piteously supplicatory of purchase. I looked down from the platform and ring, at a particular slave, one I feared I was finding of interest, far below, Alcinoe. Already in her, I thought, even though she might as yet be white silk, there lurked a remarkable sexual latency, doubtless far greater than the naive slave now suspected. Doubtless she would be astonished at the transformation which would, as she was collared, eventually be wrought in her. Perhaps at first she might be terrified, or dismayed, to discover herself become so helpless, the victim and prisoner of needs so fierce and commanding, so uncompromising and uncontrollable, but later, though helpless in their throes, she, as her sisters, would rejoice in the thrashing ecstasies of the choiceless vessel of a master’s pleasure. In her conquest and ravishing she is raised to the stars, if only to be scornfully cast again to earth, he finished with her, to sob her gratitude, and her hope that she might be again, at her master’s pleasure, subjected to the enforced raptures of the conquered slave. Speak to such a woman of freedom? She has known bondage. She would rather die than leave her master.
From the platform and ring I looked down at the slave, in her work. She was not unattractive. How luscious are such nicely curved, worthless, meaningless, degraded objects! How men desire them! How different they are from free women, a thousand times inferior, a thousand times superior.
It is easy to understand how it is that men will kill for them.
Yes, I thought, she would doubtless be astonished at the transformation which she, the former Lady Flavia of Ar, would undergo. She would then find herself other than she had been, now irrecoverably different.
It is often amusing to see a woman who denies that she is sexual, and that she can be made so, and prides herself on her inertness, frigidity, and superiority to desire, put in chains, and, within Ehn, transformed into a begging slave. And that is the merest beginning.
Later, in her cage, she feels the collar on her throat, with both hands. She moves it about. It is well on her. It cannot be slipped. She then grasps the bars, kneeling. She squirms in the small cage, in which she cannot stand, naked, uneasy. She has begun to suspect what it might be, to be a slave. She wonders who will be her master.