The slave complied.
“Let us speak together,” he said.
“You would speak with me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I am only a slave,” she said.
“You are an extremely intelligent woman,” he said.
“I am a mere slave,” she said.
“Do you think the locking of a collar on your neck makes you less intelligent?”
“No, Master,” she said.
“Intelligent women make by far the best slaves,” he said.
“Perhaps,” she said, “we are more in touch with our own feelings and needs, more ready to accept ourselves, more sensitive to our desires and depths, more open to, and more ready to acknowledge, what we want, what will fulfill our truest and most profound nature.”
She pressed the side of her face down, against his knee.
“Do not dare to love,” he said.
“It captures one,” she said. “It is stronger than chains.”
“How far you are from the glory of a free woman,” he said.
“I do not envy them their freedom,” she said. “Let them not envy me my servitude.”
“Would you not fear to be seen so, as you are, by a free woman?” he asked.
“No, Master,” she said, “for I am a slave.”
“What if a free woman should enter?” he asked.
“Many free women own slaves, of either sex,” she said. “Perhaps she might enjoy seeing a slave humbled, one of her sex collared, owned, and prostrated before her.”
“The contrast might much exalt her own freedom, and superiority,” said Iaachus, Arbiter of Protocol.
“Doubtless,” said the girl.
“And humiliate you a thousand times,” he said.
“No, Master,” she said.
“‘No’?”
“No.”
“Do you know some free women have themselves accompanied by leashed slaves, as by apes and monkeys, that their own raiment and beauty, by contrast, will seem all the more dazzling?”
“Of course, Master,” said Elena. “But I fear this stratagem may be ill-considered, as the attention of men is often the more directed to the ape or monkey.”
“Do you know that all women are rivals?” asked Iaachus.
“Of course, Master,” she said. “Collared, I need no longer deny it.”
“Doubtless there is some gratification for a free woman in finding a rival so helpless, so reduced and vulnerable.”
“I suspect so, Master,” she said.
“Particularly,” said he, “if a personal rival, and perhaps one now personally owned.”
“I would think so, Master,” said Elena.
“I am angry,” he said.
“Not with Elena?”
“No.”
“Master is tired,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“May I serve Master kana?” asked Elena.
“No,” he said.
“Master has worked hard,” she said. “He is weary.”
“The weight of the empire is heavy,” he said.
“It need not be borne alone,” she said. “There is the emperor, the empress mother, the ministers, the generals, the admirals, a thousand servants, ten thousand functionaries, on Telnaria alone.”
“Is the empire eternal?” he asked.
“Surely, Master,” she said.
“I wonder,” he said.
Once again, the girl put her lips to his knee, gently.
“How precious you are,” he said.
“I am Master’s slave,” said Elena.
Again she bent her head to his knee.
“Cease!” he suddenly cried.
She drew back, frightened.
“It is a contagion, a superstition, a plague,” he said, angrily, “an infection. It spreads through the empire like a pestilence!”
“Master?” said the slave.
“What do you know of Karch?” he asked.
“He is one of the many gods,” said Elena.
“And who speaks for him?” asked Iaachus.
“Who would dare speak for a god?” she asked. “And what god would be unable to speak for himself?”
“Are there not a billion gods?” he asked.
“I have heard, a great many,” she said.
“I know a hundred sects, with a hundred different gods,” he said, “each of which claims their god is the only god.”
“How would they know?” she asked. “And if there are so few, perhaps there are none. If most do not exist, perhaps none exist.”
“And do you know which god is the only god? In each case it is their god.”
“I am not surprised,” she said.
“Can you conceive of such colossal arrogance?” he said.
“It seems a breach of good manners,” she said, “if not of mutual respect and common civility.”
“What do you know of a prophet, Floon?” he asked.
“Are there not ten thousand prophets?” she said.
“Of one called ‘Floon’,” he said.
“As others, little or nothing,” she said. “An Ogg, from Zirus. I have heard he preached to all living things, to people, to trees, to insects and dogs. He seems clearly to have been insane.”
“He preached to the lowliest,” said Iaachus, “to the lazy, stupid, ignorant, and incompetent, to the penurious, to the miserable and failed, to the unsuccessful, to the unhappy, the frustrated, the jealous, resentful, and envious, to the secret haters, to the outsiders, to those who want prosperity by magic, without effort, who feel they are entitled to the fruits of others’ labors, who feel they are entitled to share in what they have not produced, to those who castigate not themselves, but others, for their own miseries, lacks, failures, and shortcomings, men who, having nothing, claim to have been robbed of riches they never possessed, enemies of the better, enemies of the superior, and strong.”
“Surely not, Master,” she said.
“He may have been executed on Zirus,” said Iaachus.
“But surely he was innocent, wholly inoffensive, if unusual, or strange,” she said.
“Apparently more dangerous than you realize,” said Iaachus. “He called out to the lowly, to the unhappy and dissatisfied, preaching not so much a radical reorganization of society, as, essentially, its abolition, a doing away with duty, rank, discipline, order, obligation, form, and stability. All convention is to be eschewed, as rulers and ruled, as taxes, as money, as law, as family, as marriage.”
“He is said to have been a sweet and kindly creature,” she said.
“Do you not see the volcanoes into which such ideas may tap?”
“But men need such things, discipline, institutions, law, stability,” she said.
“And they will soon have them again,” he said, “even if they are called by new, lying names.”
“I do not understand,” she said.
“There are many ways to turn the wheel of power,” he said. “Thrones will not long be empty. He who would abolish one throne intends to occupy another. He who would reform one society intends to rule another.”
“Surely not the gentle Floon,” she said.
“No,” he said, “but those who would pervert his doctrine and turn it to their own advantage.”
“I trust not,” she said.
“I am thought wise,” said Iaachus, “but I am a fool. I understand the turning of one man against another, the balancing of ambition against ambition, of jealousy against jealousy, the steel edge of honed, prepared weapons, the discharge of a rifle, the death concealed in a grenade, the destructive power of an imperial cruiser, the chemistry of poisons, but I know little of the darker poisons, the poisoning of the minds of men, the craftsmanship that can produce dupes, martyrs, and murderers, the sanctimonious technology of shaping the minds of men into a self-serving means of suppression and governance.”
“I think Master would not care to master such arts,” she said.
“True, sweet slave,” he said. “Such things would turn the stomach of even feared, dreaded Iaachus.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“Why is the temple superior to the palace?” asked Iaachus.
“Is it?” asked the slave.
“No,” he said. “The palace is real, like mortar, bricks, and wood, like steel and stone; the temple is an invention, ruling through the minds of men.”