Klio looked back at me, frightened.
"I think I would prefer this one, too," said one of the fellows who had come back with me.
"She is a well-shaped beauty," said one of the men.
"Sirs!" protested Klio.
"We should have the best," said a fellow, "as we are the closest to the enemy." "Keep a lookout," said one of the men to another, one standing on a low wooden platform, at the forward edge of the trench.
"I think I would prefer her, too," said another.
"Yes," said another.
Klio looked about, I could see she was pleased to be so approved of, in her basic elements, as a naked female, but, too, she was alarmed, having some inkling as to what might be the entailments of such preferences.
"Have her perform," said one of the men.
I shook the slave leash, now on her. This movement was transmitted through the leather, until it jerked and snapped at the ring, on the leash collar.
"No," said Klio, "please!"
"What?" I asked, puzzled.
"Sirs," cried Klio, "soldiers of Cos, warriors for truth and justice, redressers of wrongs, kinsmen from across the sea, I am Lady Klio, of Telnus, of Cos! I am a free woman! I beg your kindness, your indulgence, your protection! Rescue me from this barbarian. Clothe and honor me! Return me in dignity to freedom!" "Many of these fellow," I said, "are not of Cos, but are mercenaries in the service of Cos."
She looked about the faces, frightened. On many faces there was amusement. "I am of Telnus," said a fellow.
"I, too," said another.
"Free me!" she cried. "I demand it!"
They smiled.
"Some of these fellows have not had a female in a long time," I said. "Had?" she stammered.
"Yes," I said.
These men were front-trench fighters, most of them. Probably in defense, and in support of assaults, and in assaults themselves, they had been muchly employed and risked. The siege had been long and bitter. Those who were not of Cos, and were mercenaries, fighting only for their fees, and some loot, perhaps a female or two, and gold, would presumably not be much moved by appeals to Cosian heritages or patriotism. Their loyalties would be less to Cos than to their captains and comrades. In some cases, they might be loyal, as well, to their word, to their oaths and pledges, and, if they understood what they were marking at the recruitment tables, their contracts. And the fellows from Cos itself, and from Tyros, and their close allies, were surely by now, if they had not been before, hardened veterans, men unlikely to be swayed by the self-serving appeals of beautiful women, men accustomed to seeing such women, of whatever city, in terms of the collar and chain.
"Why are you not in Telnus?" asked a fellow.
Klio was silent, in consternation.
"She lived from men, following them and exploiting them," I said.:She was a debtor slut. I paid her bills and thus came into her de facto ownership, through the redemption laws."
"But he did not free me then!" she cried.
"No," I said.
"Where did you pick her up?" asked a fellow.
"South, on the Vosk Road," I said, "at the Crooked Tarn."
"I know that place!" said one of the men.
"I, too," said another.
"I was once well taken at the Crooked Tarn," said the first man, "by a wench whose redemption cost me three silver tarsks, plus travel money, supposedly to get her back to Cos. For all this I received not so much as a kiss, she informing me that that would demean our relationship, putting it on a physical basis. She only laughed at me, from a fee cart, moving rapidly away, with my purse, waving the redemption papers, signed for freedom, in her hand. I was a fool. Often since I have dreamed of her in my power, naked and in a collar, my slave! I would use her well! Her name was Liomache."
I was interested to hear this. Had I known it I would have brought Liomache along. It seemed to me quite possible that the Liomache I had on the chain of Ephialtes might be the same woman. if so, she would be doubtless delighted to renew her acquaintance with the soldier. Certainly he, at any rate, would be delighted. Even if she were not the same woman, she had been making her living in the same way, and had had the same name. That might well have been enough to interest him in buying her. If she were the same woman, I did not think I would envy her, to find herself in the possession of her former dupe. She might too, I supposed, discover that their relationship might have, indeed, something of a physical aspect. Indeed, it would then be a totalistic relationship, the most totalistic relationship possible between a man and a woman, that in which she is total slave, and he absolute master. "This woman, in effect," I said, "made her living in the same way as your Liomache."
"Kill her," said a man.
"Do not kill me, please!" said Klio.
The eyes of many of the men were hard upon her.
"She exploited men," said a fellow.
"I will not do it again!" cried Klio.
She looked from face to face, but found little to comfort her in those countenances.
Too, besides their anger, these men were Goreans, and many of them regarded women in terms of the perfection of the collar. Too, many had been frustrated by free women, and free women in their own city. It was a rare fellow who did not, from time to time, regard the women of his own city as quite as suitable for collaring as those of other cities. Were they not all women? Many Goreans, for example, rejoiced in the situation in Tharna, where almost every female is a slave.
"I will not do it again!" whispered Klio.
"You may attempt to do it, as you please, in the future," I said, "but I think you will do it within the limits of the collar."
"Oh, please, no!" she wept.
"I have shaken the leash, once," I said. "You did not then perform. Fortunate it was for you then that you were a free woman, and not a slave. Even so, I was not pleased. Do you understand?"
"Yes!" she said.
"Now, when I shake it again, you will perform."
She put her head down, trembling.
"Do you understand?" I asked.
"Yes," she whispered.
"You must remember, gentlemen," I said, "she is only a free woman." I shook the leash and Lady Klio, naked, attempted to perform.
Some of the men laughed.
"Surely you can do better than that," I said.
She sank to her stomach, in the dirt, at the bottom of the trench, weeping. "Whip her," said a tall fellow, watching her, with his arms folded. She looked up at him, frightened.
His eyes suddenly glinted. I had not seen what passed between them but I suspect that he had seen in her eyes something swift, some flash of sudden fear and recognition, that she had seen him as her master.
Then she put down her head again and there, in the dirt, shuddered.
"On your knees," I said. "Now,"
She cried out, and rose quickly to her knees.
"Knees spread," I said.
She knelt there, her knees spread. She blushed crimson. It seemed she could not take her eyes off the tall fellow.
"Perform," I encouraged her. "Move. Call attention to your charms." Again the Lady Klio began to perform, as she could.
"It may not be much, gentlemen," I informed them, holding the leash, "but surely for such a woman it is an unusual activity. I suspect that she is not accustomed to doing it. Perhaps in the future she will be better at it. Look, gentlemen. Little as it may be, I suspect this is far more than was provided for the many chaps who paid for her meals, her lodging, her wardrobe, her transportation, her luxuries, her claimed needs, her numerous bills."
"Continue to perform," I said. "You may leave your knees, but do not rise to your feet."
She regarded me, in wild protest.
"Yes?" I said.
"Do not make me do these things," she begged. "Do not make me dance and writhe so. I am a free woman!"
"Your freedom will soon be a matter of the past," I told her. "How well you do now could influence the quality of your life in the future."