“Without such treachery it is unlikely that Cos could have secured her success.”
I was silent.
“In particular, it was needful to deprive Ar of competent leadership.”
He was then silent.
“Master?” I asked. But it seemed he felt he had spoken more than he wished.
“It was not easy to find you,” he said. “There were attempts made to conceal your whereabouts. Interestingly, the clue to your location, came, so to speak, from the other side, from the side of those favoring Ar, or perhaps one might say, better, from the side of the same who are suspected of favoring Ar, whose activities, unknown to themselves, are closely monitored.”
I understood very little of what he was saying.
“Must we speak of such things, Master?” I asked.
“You do not know your role in these things, do you?”
“No, Master,” I said, “nor is it important.”
“Sometimes,” said he, “the slightest movement of a leaf, stirring in the wind, is important. Sometimes the particular position of a grain of sand may be of the utmost consequence.”
“Love me,” I said.
“Love you?” he asked.
“Please,” I said.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“Have you not come from far away, perhaps from halfway across a world, to find me?”
He looked at me.
“You have now found me,” I said. “I am yours.”
“I know that you are mine,” he said.
“To do with as you please.”
“I know that,” he said.
“I beg to be done with then as master pleases,” I said.
“Oh?” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He smiled, bitterly.
“I love you,” I said.
“Liar!” he cried.
I looked down. I felt helpless. I did not know how to make him believe me. How could I convince him of the authenticity of my feelings? How could I prove to him that I was his, wholly, and in the most complete and perfect way a woman can give herself to a man and his love slave?
Unbidden then I lay before him, on my back, my bound wrists under me, nested in the small of my back, my left knee lifted. It was one of the ways in which I had been taught to lie before a man.
“You are a bold slave,” he said.
“Beat me,” I said, “if you are not pleased.” This, too, this saying, I had learned in the pens.
“I have dreamed,” said he, “of you before me, so.”
“Oh, Master,” I said, “I do love you!”
He regarded me, skeptically.
“If you do not believe me, Master,” I said, “do not concern yourself with the matter. I am before you, as a slave. Simply put me to your purposes, that I may serve the imperious will of my master.”
I felt overwhelming desire fro him. My entire body seemed aflame. I was hot. I lifted my body to him. I was juicing, as a slave.
“I am not a man of your world,” he said to me.
I lay before him, eager and ready for my subjugation. I wanted to be overwhelmed, to be carried away, to be loved with need and desire onto ecstatic madness. “Do you think I want the trepid caresses of tamed men?” I asked. “Do you not know, truly, what I want and need, that I want, and need a master!”
“I have not been sent here for the purpose of acquiring a slave for my personal delectation,” he said.
“You have been sent here?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Oh, I have come of my own will, as well,” he said.
I recalled that he hated me.
“Master?” I asked.
“Do not think that I did not want to come,” he said. “No. It was others, who could also recognize you, who did not wish to come. It was I who was eager to come.”
“Who could recognize me?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Surely you must understand why I have been sent here,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Do you not know, truly, why I have been sent here?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“To kill you,” he said.
46
I lay there, suddenly numbed and cold.
He had turned away from me.
“You know why you were sold to Treve, of course,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Anyone with similar properties would have done,” he said, “but it was you whom they purchased.”
I lay on the stones, looking at the ceiling above me.
“They wanted one to attend upon a prisoner, one who would be utterly ignorant of the affairs of our world, one who could be depended upon to innocently and naively discharge the duties of a keeper, relieving free men of that responsibility, thus, too, enabling the contacts with the prisoner to be the better limited, particularly those of free persons, one who would be unlikely to have any relationship, either before the collar or after it, with the parties in question, one who, a slave, would be completely within the power of the authorities, one who could not, rationally, be expected to participate in any way in the affairs in question, for example, in bargaining, in tendering or accepting bribes, and such.”
He cast down the whip, into the straw. This frightened me. I would rather he had held to it.
“We have our sorces of information,” he said. “It has come to our attention that the prisoner has escaped. This was a long time ago. It seems almost certain he would seek to return to Ar. His presence in the city could significantly alter matters. Furthermore, there is some reason to believe that he may now be in the city.”
I understood almost nothing of this.
“Strangely enough,” he said, “it seems he is unaware of his own identity, the result, I take it, of some trauma or injury. Further, perhaps, in part due to the consequences of the aforesaid trauma or injury, he may no longer be easily recognizable. In short, at present, it seems he knows neither himself nor is he known by others.”
He turned to face me.
“You, of course,” he said, “could recognize him instantly, for you know him as he is now, from Treve.”
I lay on the stones, frightened, bound.
“It is he who was Prisoner 41, in corridor of nameless prisoners, in the pits of Treve. We have all this from the administration in Treve. Indeed, you are apparently one of the very few people who could recognize him, and the only one whose location we know.”
He approached me, a stop or two.
I rose to my knees, frightened. I pulled at the cords on my wrists.
“You might suggest, of course,” he said, “that your life be spared, that you might identify this fellow for us, the party of Cos, that we might then repair the oversight of Treve, by removing him from the picture, but we have considered, and rejected, that possibility. As you are a slave, and he is a free man, you cannot be trusted to identify him. You would surely suspect that you would be marking him out for death. You would then, presumably, pretend not to recognize him, even if you did. Too, you would be clever enough to know that your life might then be worthless, that either we, or those of Ar, learning of what you have done, and, in particular, as you are a slave, might deal with you summarily, and those of Ar rather unpleasantly. As a slave, too, you would know the penalties for bringing harm, either directly or indirectly, to a free person.”
I shuddered.
“I see you do,” he said.
“The danger then,” he said, “is that you might identify him for others, for those favorable to the cause of Ar. The underground in Ar, you see, the resistance to the occupation, in particular, a band of brigands, the Delka Brigade, mostly veterans of the campaign in the delta of the Vosk, must not locate him. He could be used, you see, even in his state, as a rallying point for resistance.”
I recalled the man in the garden, and his questions, which had frightened me so. I doubted that he was in league with the Cosians.
“Accordingly,” he said, “given the information at our disposal, and your putative location, I have been sent to Ar to preclude that possibility.”