“But what was their purpose here?” she asked.
“It lay elsewhere,” he said. ‘It lay in the tunnels, in the pits, in the depths. That is where the last of them died, some forty of them. They fought like crazed men. Few could stand against them. Every trap, every secret device, was sprung upon them. They sought alternate routes. In the corridors they met the war sleen and the hunting sleen of the pits. Tharlarion, even, and worse, were permitted into the tunnels. Perhaps a hundred guards died.
“Master is bloodied,” said Dorna.
“The blood is not my own,” he said.
Indeed, he seemed there at night, by the wall, in the torchlight, and the light of the small lamps, a very terrible figure. He was tall and broad-shouldered. Behind him there was a shield bearer. Over his left shoulder hung the scabbard of a sword, the hilt of the weapon visible within it. In his left hand he cradled a helmet. It would muchly enclose the head. On it, mounted over the crown, from front to back, was a crest of sleen hair. The opening in the helmet was something like a “Y” in shape. There was blood on the helmet. Blood, too, was on his thighs. I had seen him before not as a warrior. I had seen him in robes on the height of a tower, on a great chair, as might have been some ruler, some dispenser of justice, and I had seen him in the softness of lounging robes, in his own compartments. In his size, his strength, his intelligence, his power, he had been fearsome enough, even then. But I had not seen him until now in the garb of war, in the leather of the warrior, the sword at his shoulder, his helmet in hand. I did not want to look at him now. I was afraid. And I now understood, better than before, how a man might come to power on this world, and the sort of men that might rise to sit upon the chairs of state.
“The intruders wore no insignia,” he said, “but they were of Ar.”
“Master?” asked Dorna.
“There is no mistaking the accents,” he said. “I know them well.”
Dorna shuddered, it seemed, in relief.
“And many,” he said, “in receiving their death strokes, cried out ‘Glory to Ar!’”
Dorna was silent.
“It is strange that they were here,” he said, musingly. “They could not have been authorized. They must have betrayed oaths.”
“I do not understand,” said Dorna.
“It does not matter,” he said.
“There is the matter of slaves, and of free women, Captain,” said one of the men with the officer.
“Let the slaves return to their masters,” he said.
A sign was given and one of the soldiers went down the wall, permitting what slaves were there to leap up and speed from the terrace, some through buildings, some over the bridge, others, crossing the terrace, to descend by the far steps.
“This one is chained,” said one of the soldiers. I kept my head down. I did not wish to be recognized.
“Let me see her,” said the officer.
I winced, my head pulled up, by the hair. Tears sprang to my eyes. I blinked against the torchlight, which fell fully upon my countenance.
“I thought so,” said the officer. “It is the Earth-woman slave.”
I could not lower my head because of the soldier’s grip in my hair.
“Did you know that Earth women make good slaves?” the officer asked one of his men, a subaltern.
“Yes, Captain,” said the fellow.
“A stroke or two of the whip and they immediately understand the nature of their new life,” said the officer.
“Yes, Captain,” grinned the fellow.
“Why did you hid?” the officer asked me. “Were you afraid?”
I whimpered once.
“Is someone to come for you?” he asked.
I whimpered once, again. I did not know if the Lady Constanzia and the scarlet-clad figure would come back for me or not, but this seemed the most likely, and honest, answer I could give.
“Civilians will be soon be permitted to return to the terrace,” said the officer.
I whimpered once, acknowledging that I understood him.
At a sign from the officer, the soldier released my hair. I sobbed with relief. His grip had been tight and painful. It is customary on this world, of course, for slaves to be handled in such a fashion, with uncompromising firmness and authority. The men here keep us precisely in line. They do not choose to be weak with us.
“She is a pit slut,” said the officer. “If she is still here in the morning, see that she is remanded to custody, pending claiming.”
“Yes, Captain,” said the man.
After all he had made me do, after all he had had from me, was this, then, all he now had to do with me, hardly even recognizing me? But then I recalled he was a free man, and I was only a slave.
He then turned to regard the girl beside me.
“Slave,” said the officer.
“Yes, Master,” said Dorna.
“You will return home,” he said, “and prepare my bath. You will then wash me. You will then prepare a light collation and serve me. These things are to be done naked.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
Slaves are sometimes kept naked in a man’s compartments, of course. But, too, after men have risked death, it often pleases them to be served by naked women. Perhaps such a thing, so simple in itself, speaks to them of joy and life. To be sure, the flavor of nudity, as so many other things, depends much upon context. There is the foolishly outraged and defiant nudity of the stripped free woman, in her capture noose, who does not yet know how she appears to men and what will be done with her; there is her trembling nudity when she lies upon her belly in a hunting camp, awaiting her shackling; there is the nudity of the exposition cages, in which one must move and pose for potential bidders; there is the exposure on the slave block itself, as one is auctioned; there is the sweaty nudity of work, as when she scrubs tiles on her hands and knees in her master’s compartments; there is the nudity of the slave bathing her master; there is the nudity of the slave in the morning, kneeling before the master, waiting to learn if she may clothe herself; there is the beautiful warmth of a loving slave, nude and collared, serving wine in the light of a lamp of love; there is the nudity of the enflamed slave, aroused in her dance, who will beg for her master’s touch; there is the nudity of the women of the enemy serving at the feast of the victors, a nudity that celebrates the prowess of the conquerors and proclaims the fate of fair spoils of war.
There are many nudities, with nuances and flavors.
The common denominator here is the beauty of the woman, the capture of slave. It excites and delights men. Accordingly, they will have the joy of it. They will, as masters, have it subordinate to their will-and as it pleases them-fully, completely, utterly.
“Then, tonight,” he said, “you will be slept naked at the foot of my couch, chained by the neck to the slave ring.”
“Yes, Master,” she said.
I did not doubt but what she would be used before being spurned from the couch to the floor at its foot. I envied her a private master.
“Go!” he said.
I wondered if he would grant her a sheet, as he had me. But, I hoped, no more, no more! She, too, was a slave!
Doubtless she would be in the same collar and chain that I had worn. I wondered how many women had been slept thusly, the master done with them, on the tiles beside his couch, their head to its foot. I supposed a great many. He was a powerful Gorean male, and highly placed.
I wondered if I were the first Earth-girl slave who had had that experience.
It did not seem likely.
“Yes, Master!” she cried, and leaped up, and fled from the terrace, leaving through one of the buildings, that from which, earlier, she and others had been herded forth.
I wondered if she would please him as well as I. But, to be sure, much depends on the mysterious chemistries which can obtain between masters and slaves. How else explain the fascination that even a plain slave may sometimes exercise over the most powerful, rich, and handsome of men, to the puzzlement and dismay of beauties languishing in his pleasure garden? How else explain how a slave worthy of a ubar’s palace may in a market, unbidden, throw herself in her chains to her belly before an ugly, low-born, monstrous brute, pleading desperately to be purchased? Has she seen in him her master? Similarly, consider the power which such a brute may sometimes exercise over even free, beautiful, high-born damsels, such that, at the very sight of him, they will kneel and beg his collar. In him, perhaps, they, too, have seen their master.