No, no, I thought, and then yes, yes, please.
We are removed, from time to time, we are changed. Even since I was here, girls had come and gone.
“Oh!” I said.
“Good,” he said.
I wanted to resist, and I did not want to resist.
I cannot be this, I thought, but I knew it was what I was. My thigh was marked, clearly, incisively. Clearly there was no mistaking that. I wore a heavy metal collar, to which was attached a chain, fixed to a stout ring, anchored at the side of my mat. Beneath that collar was a light, close-fitting metal collar. It was there, visible, locked, even when I might be up and about the camp, being summoned, fetching and carrying, cleaning, laundering, ironing, digging roots, picking berries, tidying, being about whatever duties might be given me. And there would be the tunic, so exciting to men, in which I felt so exposed, and so vulnerable! Well was I displayed for their perusal! I scratched at the mat, tears in my eyes. And how exciting were such things to me, as well, the mark, the collar, the tunic! How right they seemed to me! How female I felt, marked, collared, and tunicked, how much then a distinctive, lovely part of nature, so different from men!
How could I have felt more woman?
And how thrilled I was, so set forth. Never on my world had I felt so female, so woman! Here I was what I was, at last, gladly, rightfully, woman, owned, helpless, slave!
No, I thought, no! I must escape. I must escape!
“Oh, oh!” I said.
“Easy, little vulo,” he said.
“Ai!” I said.
“We are going to fly, are we not, little vulo?” he asked.
“You have done enough to me,” I said. “Let me subside!”
“I am curious to see what you are,” he said.
I felt myself lifted, turned about, and thrust down, on my back, for his convenience, as the meaningless object, and animal, I was.
“I will show you what I am!” I cried, angrily, rearing up.
I was thrust back, rudely.
I was given three strokes of the switch. I recoiled beneath them, turned to my side, and tried to make myself small.
“Forgive me, Master!” I begged.
He laid aside the switch, but it was at hand.
“Let us see what may be done with you,” he said.
He was patient, and his hands were strong. His touch was sure. Gorean, he was well practiced in the handling of slaves. He had perhaps had hundreds of helpless slaves at his mercy, as I was now. How could we help ourselves, even if it were permitted?
I whimpered a little, and then, suddenly, gasped.
“Yes,” he said, “someday you will be a hot little urt.”
A whimper escaped me.
“One day,” he said, “you will crawl to men, begging, the bondage knot in your hair.”
Surely not, surely not, I thought.
“You are not a fine, noble, proud, free Gorean woman,” he said. “You are only a barbarian.”
Did he think Gorean women any different, I wondered. Did he not know we were all women? Did he not understand that in this very slave house almost all the slaves, perhaps all but I, writhing, bucking, begging, crying out, pleading, had been such “fine, noble, proud, free Gorean women”? Doubtless he meant free women, women not yet collared. There, I supposed, was a dramatic difference. I had had no encounters with Gorean free women, but I had been much apprised by my instructresses, and many fellow slaves, of their alleged nature. These putative informants had entertained what I supposed to be not only a dim, but a radically distorted, and, I hoped, a certainly extreme view, of Gorean free women, regarding them to be haughty, short-tempered, impatient, supercilious, rigid, demanding, unbending, arrogant, boastful, pretentious, hostile, suspicious, cruel, severe, unhappy, unfulfilled, egotistical, and self-centered. Perhaps this evaluation, insofar as it might pertain to anyone, pertained only to certain free women of the high cities, and, perhaps then, of the higher castes. I did not know. I did think it likely that Gorean free women, given the culture, were probably far more conscious of their position and status, of their freedom, their exalted station, and such, than those of my former world. Consequently their reduction to slavery, a condition alleged to be universally despised, would seem to constitute, culturally, a cataclysmic reversal in fortune, one likely to be particularly traumatic and devastating. On the other hand, many, it is said, “court the collar,” and it seems to be the case that “free captures,” in their hundreds or thousands, as in the wars, the raids of slavers, the seizures of caravans, the depredations of pirates, the fall of cities, and such, once collared, once owned, find fulfillments until then no more than suspected. In any event, Gorean or barbarian, we were all women, and once collared, once owned, it seemed there was little to choose between us. Certainly we went for similar prices.
“Yes,” he said, “you will crawl to men.”
I suddenly feared I might.
Were slave fires growing in me? Surely not! What if they should begin to rage? I would be their victim, and prisoner! How helpless I would be! I recalled slaves pleading for the touch of a guard, begging to be brought soon to the block.
At the first opportunity, I thought, before it is too late, while I yet retain a shred of my former self, I must attempt to escape! But who would want to escape, I thought. What had freedom to offer, which might compare with the fulfillments of belonging to, of being possessed by, a master? I had heard of slaves, pathetic collared animals, mere properties, who had undertaken long journeys, undergone terrible hardships, and braved fearful dangers, to find their way back to the feet of a master.
I suddenly, unexpectedly, moaned.
I felt my hips lift, pathetically.
“Steady,” he said. “Wait.”
“Oh,” I said. “Please, now!”
“Soon,” he said, softly, soothingly.
I began to whimper, pleadingly.
“What shall we do with you?” he asked.
I was about to speak, to cry out, to beg, but his hand cupped itself over my mouth. I looked up at him, in the light of the taper. My eyes must have been wild, pleading, over his hand. “Beware,” he said. “Think before you speak.” He then removed his hand from over my mouth. “You may now speak,” he said. “What is your wish?”
“That it be done with me as master pleases,” I whispered.
“Only that?” he asked.
“Yes, Master!” I sobbed. “Yes, Master!”
I was sweating, and quivering, in expectation. My body was alive, my belly begging.
I tensed.
He must not leave me so! Please, Master, I thought. Do not leave me so!
I did not know him, save that he was now my master. I knew him not, not from the market, not from the dungeon, not from the ship, not from the camp, not from the dock.
He could be anyone, and I could be any slave.
Surely it was not he for whom I longed in whose power I was. It was not he whose voice it seemed I had heard a hundred times, only to discover myself mistaken, not he whose image I had conjured up so often, he before whom I had hastened to kneel in my dreams. It was not he in whose power I longed to lie helpless, whose voice and image had so often figured in my hopes and heart. I recalled him from the emporium on my former world, from a warehouse, from an exposition cage! It was on his chain that I longed to yield; it was in his ropes that I yearned to find myself cast on the altar of his lust, a helpless offering to his mightiness.
No, no, I thought. I must hate them all, all, even he whom I had unsuccessfully attempted to banish from my least thoughts. How I must hate him, I thought. Was it not he who brought me choiceless to this world, on which I was marked, collared, and sold! Was it not he who had brought me even to this chain, to this degradation, to this rude, primitive place, on a far world?
What fate is this, I asked myself.
How could one such as I, intelligent, educated, refined, sensitive, proud, be here?
“You are ready,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I whispered. Be merciful, Master, I thought. Do not leave me like this!
“I wonder if you think yourself a free woman,” he said.
“Master?” I said.
“I wonder if you think yourself a free woman,” he said.
“No, Master,” I said.
“We shall see,” he said.
“Master?” I said.
“I shall now release the catch on your cage, little vulo,” he said, “and you may fly.”
“Master?” I said.
“Aiii!” I cried.
“Fly away,” he said.
“Ai!” I cried, again, and again, and he could scarcely, with all his strength, hold me.
He stood up then, and I lay at his feet. Surely I had been the choiceless vessel of his pleasure, and he was now done with me. But surely he must know, too, even if it is of no interest to him, that the slave, too, feels, trembles, cries out, and endures the thousand raptures consequent on her condition and collar. To be sure, he had been kind, and patient, with me, if only as a matter of curiosity. In a thousand ways we may be put to use, and sometimes with little more meaning than a casual cuffing. Our feelings are nothing. We are done with as the masters please. We are slaves.
“Please, stay with me, but a moment, Master!” I begged, reaching out to him. I wanted to be held, to be kissed, to be sheltered, to be warmed by his presence, to be spoken to.
I saw the light of the taper disappear down the aisle.
I could not believe what had been done to me, what I had felt, how I was changed, my responsiveness.
“Master!” I called after him.
He was gone.
I remained behind, as I must, on the mat, a ravished slave.
No more dared I think of myself as a free woman, if I had ever done so. I knew how I had yielded. It was a slave yielding. There was no doubt in my mind now, if there ever had been. I now knew myself a slave. I was that, only that.
There had been nothing of the free woman in that yielding. It was the yielding of worthless, meaningless slave, spasmodic and helpless, in the arms of a master.
I was angry, and miserable.
I had been abandoned, as a slave may be abandoned.
I must escape, I thought.
Never again could I be a free woman. I knew that. But I was determined to flee, not as a free woman might flee, but as a flighted slave might flee, the slave I knew myself to be. I would always be a slave, but I could, at least, be an escaped slave!
Slaves came and went in the slave house. They were brought in, and taken out. I supposed the stock was to be freshened, from time to time. Sooner or later, I would be again outside, in the camp. I would then again be assigned familiar tasks. What if I might dig roots, or venture out, to gather fire wood? It would be easy to slip between the wands and hurry away, into the forest. One could do this in the morning, before the larls are released. Commonly they are released, or most of them, at night.
I would escape!
How I hated men!
And I knew that I was owned by them.
And mostly I hated one, he who had brought me here from my own world, he who was responsible for my collaring. He had forgotten me, the virile, gross beast, not even recognizing me when I had stood before him, within the bars of the exposition cage in Brundisium, but I had not forgotten him.
At the first opportunity I would escape.
I had come to Shipcamp with the wagons, and something like fifteen hundred or more men. The smaller cohorts of Pani accompanied us.
The journey took the better part of four days.
Slaves were generally tied behind the wagons.
The road was muddy, and the travel difficult.
Behind us, Tarncamp was gone. The barracks, the sheds and shops, the huts, the storerooms, the workshops, the arsenals, the bath houses, the food halls, the slave houses, the pavilions, large and small, had been burned. Blackened debris had been dragged into the forest. Gray ash had been cast about. The winds would rise, and the rains come, and the winter, with its ice and snow, and the awakening, green spring, and in two or three years the insistent, patient forest would repair and cover what men had done.
I was pleased to leave Tarncamp, and so, too, were the men. Some even sang, wading in the mud. This sometimes came to the axles of the wagons, to the bellies of the smaller tharlarion. Logs and planks bridged many holes. Their packs seemed light. They were moving. Things were changing. Few of us were woodsmen. Most of us were mercenaries, some mariners, many ne’er-do-wells, some landless men, and some fugitives. Most, I supposed, were veterans of the forces which had garrisoned Ar. Our tools were the sword and spear, not the ax, the adz, the plane, the saw. An end had apparently come to the seemingly endless round of cutting and hauling, lopping, the rough shaping, and rude trimming, to the backbreaking labor in the forest, the purpose of which was never explained to us. On the morning of the fourth day, we came to a rise from which we could see the Alexandra, like a ribbon below us, and, ahead, men cried out in wonder. I hurried forward, with hundreds, thinking to see, for the first time, a great trade fort which might control the trade of the Alexandra, but I stopped, stunned, as others, at the forest’s edge, for below, seemingly small in the distance, was what I knew must, from the distance, be the remains of an enormous framework, now empty, a long, wide dock, and, moored at the dock, what seemed a ship, a great ship, a ship like no other, less a ship than an island of wood, a floating city, carved in a ship’s likeness.
“It is the ship of Tersites!” said a man.
“There is no such thing,” said another. Surely we had all dismissed the rumors, the stories told in the taverns.
“See!” said the first man pointing. “See!”
“Move,” said a Pani officer. “Move!”
The wagons began to roll, descending, their brakes clamping, grinding, against the wheels. The traces of the tharlarion, wagon after wagon, were suddenly slack, and some of the beasts squealed, frightened.
“Careful!” called the officer.
Men began to make their way down the slope. It was slippery from the rains. “Paga!” said a man. “War!” said another. “Slaves!” called another.
I remained on the crest for a time.