It was now five days since we had been on the barge.
Ina splashed water from the marsh on her legs, washing the mud from them. Then she dangled her legs in the water, sitting on the raft, rather toward the back.
"I told you about singing," I said.
"I'm sorry!" she said.
She regularly took great care now to keep her body clean. Too, she did what she could to keep her hair washed and combed. These things were not easy tasks in the marsh. One might even have thought she was a slave. Such must, as they can, keep their bodies, and hair, and such, attractive and clean. Indeed, they are commonly subject to discipline in the matter. They are not free women. Too, had Ina cosmetics at her disposal, even the bold, exciting cosmetics of slaves, which so scandalize free women, I suspected she might not have hesitated to use them.
"There is a movement in the water there, to the left," I said. "Beware."
Quickly she drew her legs up on the logs, sitting then, facing the front.
We saw a narrow, dark shape, about five feet long, like a slowly undulating whip, glide past. A small triangular head was almost level with the water surface. I did not think there had been much danger, but there was some possibility that the movement of her legs in the water might have attracted its attention.
"That is a marsh moccasin," I said.
"Are they poisonous," she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I never saw one before," she said.
"They are not common," I said, "even in the delta."
"Are they poisonous like the ost?" she asked.
I thought of a small fellow I had once known in Tharna. He had been called "Ost." It had not been an unfitting name for him. I had neither seen him nor heard of him since the revolt in the mines, that upon which the revolution in the city had been consequent. I did not know if he had survived the revolt and revolution or not, in that revolution the gynocracy in Tharna had been overthrown, devastatingly. Even to this day women in Tharna are kept almost uniformly as helpless, abject slaves, the men of Tharna having an excellent memory for history. The youth of Tharna is usually bred from women temporarily freed for purposes of their conception, then reenslaved. In Tharnan law a person conceived by a free person on a free person is considered to be a free person, even if they are later. Carried and borne by a slave. In many other cities this is different, the usual case being that the offspring of a slave is a slave, and belongs to the mother's owner. The education, however, of the Tharnan youth differs on a sexual basis. The boys are raised to be men, and masters, and the girls to be women, and slaves. The boys, as a portion of the Home Stone Ceremony, take an oath of mastery, in which they swear never to surrender the dominance which is rightfully theirs by nature. It is in this ceremony, also, that they receive the two yellow cords commonly worn in the belt of a male Tharnan. These cords, each about eighteen inches long, are suitable for the binding of a female, hand and foot. In the same ceremony the young women of Tharna are also brought into the presence of the Home Stone. They, however, are not permitted to kiss or touch it. Then, in its presence they are stripped and collared. They are then, by the young men, bound with the yellow cords, so that they will know their feel. Afterwards, they are usually conducted home by one of the young men, often he whose cords have bound them, and who may be interested in their acquisition, on his leash, usually to the home of their mother's owner, usually their father, to whom, in virtue of such a ceremony, they now legally count as slave, who will see to their disposition, or sale. Even free women visiting Tharna from other cities must, at the gates, don temporary collars and slave tunics, and be leashed. The ruler in Tharna, paradoxically, was for several years a tatrix, Lara. To be sure, she herself apparently had some understanding of what it was to be a female slave. It seems it had once been taught to her. I had heard, incidentally, a few months ago, in Port Cos, from a Tharnan silver merchant, that Lara had abdicated. Perhaps her abdication was in the best interests of the city. I do not know. Doubtless it ended something of a political tension in the city, and I take it that Tharna now, under the governance of its councils, and its administrator, Kron, has at last achieved a commendable political consistency. As nearly as I could determine from the reports of the silver merchant Lara's abdication was not forced, nor even the result of extreme political pressures brought on her, but a voluntary act, one apparently regarded by her as being not only in the best interests of the city but in her own best interests as well. He did not know what had become of her. I would suppose that she is now merely another Tharnan woman, another slave. It is my hope that she is happy.
"Like the ost?" she asked.
"What?" I asked.
"Are they poisonous, the marsh moccasins, like the ost?" she said.
"They are quite poisonous," I said, "but their venom, as I understand it, does not compare to that of the ost."
"Could I survive its bite?" she asked.
"Possibly," I said. "I do not know."
"I do not think I shall attempt to essay the experiment," she said.
"That is wise on your part," I said.
"Do men ever throw women to marsh moccasins, or osts?" she asked.
"Perhaps free women," I said, "as a form of execution."
"No," she said, "I meant slaves."
What interest have you in slaves?" I asked.
"I was just curious," she said.
"Anything may be done to slaves," I said.
"Of course," she said.
"Perhaps if they were not pleasing," I said. "But then it would be more likely that something less impressive would be done to them, perhaps dismembering them for sleen feed."
"I see," she said.
"Too," I said, "if even a slave's most secret thoughts harbor the least hint of recalcitrance, such an absurdity being inevitably revealed in subtle bodily clues and such, they might be summarily given to leech plants, cast to pond eels, thrown to sleen, such things."
"But if they were pleasing?" she asked.
"And truly concerned to fulfill the complete requirements of their total slavery, internal and external?"
"Yes," she said.
"I would not think so," I said.
"Good," she said.
"That would be a waste of female," I said. "How you put that!" she said.
I shrugged.
"Do I have some value, just as a female?" she asked.
"You mean, as might a slave?" I asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Of course," I said.
"Good," she said.