“Yes, Master,” I said.
“In two days, with some fortune,” he said, “we should reach the Laurius.”
“I am a slave,” I said. “I cannot match the pace of Master.”
“Then three days,” he said. “It does not matter. We can think of things to do on the way.”
“I fear for the great ship,” I said.
“By now,” he said, “it has either been destroyed at the mouth of the Alexandra, where it debouches into Thassa, or it is somewhere abroad on Thassa, its course set for the farther islands, and, I fear, beyond, to the World’s End.”
“And what of the mysterious cargo?” I said.
“It is the time of winter on broad, rolling, thundering Thassa,” he said, “a time of cold and ice, of impenetrable fog, and short, dark days, of storms, of waves as high as flighted tarns and as mighty as clashing mountains, and it will go down with the ship.”
“But what if the ship does not go down?” I asked.
“Then, I fear,” he said, “it will reach the World’s End, and find its employment.”
“One pertinent to worlds?” I said.
“It is thought so,” he said.
He then turned about, and strode through the trees, and I hurried behind him, carrying the pack.
I was very happy.
I was now content with my master. I had been well taught that I was his. No longer was there the least doubt in my mind of this.
He was Gorean. He was the sort of man by whom a woman would hope to be purchased, one who would be a strong and fine master, one who would protect her, and care for her, and master her, and never let her forget she was his slave. There are such men, who so lust for, and desire, a woman, that nothing less than her absolute possession will satisfy them. She is to be owned. She is to be their belonging. They will have her, and keep her, on their terms, on their terms alone, on the terms of the master, as their rightless, helpless slave.
There are such men, and they are our masters.
I was content. I was happy. I followed my master.