"He will die in the mountains," said Terence. "He will never reach Ar."

I recalled that there had been some speculation that the holding of the peasant might be in the vicinity of Ar. To be sure, he himself had not seemed sure of it.

"I think you do not understand," said the pit master. "I betrayed my trust, my post, my oath to the city."

Fina looked up from her work.

"What we did may well be in the best interests of the city," said Terence.

"That does not alter the fact that I betrayed my oath."

"Would you have had murder done?" asked Terence.

"No," said the pit master.

"You did what you had to."

"Of course."

"Dismiss the matter then from your mind," said Terence.

"I must now do again what I must," said the pit master.

"I do not understand," said Terence.

"What I must do is quite clear," said the pit master. "The moves were determined from my first action. I have known that from the beginning. It is a forced continuation."

"I do not understand," said Terence.

"There are no alternative moves."

"Let us play again."

"No."

Fina seemed frightened. She had stopped her work.

"I will take my leave," said Terence. "I wish you well."

"I wish you well," said the pit master.

Terence then gathered together his things, and left the chamber.

The game between the two guards, unexpectedly, I gathered, did turn out to be a draw. He with the advantage had apparently been overconfident, or careless, in the endgame. The draw turned, apparently, on a single Spearman. Some games are such, that the outcome depends not on the pieces of power, which may balance one another, but on the smallest move of the most insignificant piece on the board. I suppose that this may upon occasion be true in greater games, as well, that even a child, or slave, properly placed, at a critical juncture, might serve to topple empires. The free woman knelt before the two men and kissed their feet. She was then freed of the neck chain, pulled to her feet, turned about, and thrust toward the portal. This was not done ceremoniously. She might have been no more than a slave.

She then hurried, in her manacles and shackles, as she could, toward the guards' quarters, to prepare wine for them.

They followed, their arms about one another's shoulders. She knew the way. She had served on the mats before.

Fina seemed frightened.

I did not understand her apprehension.

I returned to my sewing. I hoped the guard for whom I labored would be pleased. I did not wish to be beaten. It was my hope, as well, that he would ask for me, and that the pit master would see fit to a.s.sign me to him. Oh, how I would run to his mat! How I longed to lie in his arms, and be reminded, once again, of what I was, a slave.

THIRTY NINE

I became aware of it only dimly at first.

The sound seemed far off, a pounding, perhaps even a shouting.

Terence, the officer of Treve, had not visited in the depths for several days, not since the last game of Kaissa he had played with the pit master.

The pit master had been unusually sedulous in his duties the past days.

Too, he had seemed involved in various mysterious arrangements of which we pit slaves could make nothing, comings and goings, and conversations with various functionaries.

I knew, of course, that by now the grisly gift transmitted to Cos must have arrived.

Again I thought I heard the pounding, far off.

I changed my position, on the tiles, beside the divan of Terence. He had summoned me to him yesterday evening. He had made me serve him exquisitely well. He had accepted only perfections of service from me.

I had seldom been more aware that I was a slave than in his presence.

He was attracted to me, I am sure, as a female fit for the purposes of men, but I think, too, he took a rather special pleasure in using me, as one may, with one woman or another, for one reason or another.

The special little pleasure he had in me, a particular pleasure with me, as he might and doubtless did have other particular pleasures from other women, aside from the usual marvels, excitements, and gratifications of our slave usages, his to command and ours to provide, again and again at the cost of our own delicious, complete conquest, had to do with the fact that I was from Earth. He seemed to have some sense of what, politically, educationally, and culturally, was being done to the men of Earth, to destroy them, and cripple them, and deprive them of their masculinity. Accordingly it was with a particular pleasure that he made me, a woman of Earth, now taken from Earth, now collared, now in Gorean bondage, throb, and kick, and spasm in his arms, squirming, and crying out, leaping and writhing, gasping, and moaning, licking and kissing, a ravished, subdued, begging slave. "You are pretty in your collar, little s.l.u.t," he would whisper. "Thank you, Master!" I would moan. "You have nice slave curves,"

he would say. "Thank you, Master!" "Are there others like you, on Earth?" he would inquire. "I do not know, Master!" I would cry. "I do not know!" "How fortunate are the men of Earth," he would say, "to have women such as you in their collars." "Have mercy, Master!" I would beg.

"Have mercy, Master!" And then he would ruthlessly force again and again upon me the ecstasies of the surrendered woman, those of the subjugated female, those of the utterly vanquished slave. Afterward, sometimes when I lay at his thigh, clasping his leg, daring to press my lips to him, again and again, softly, humbly, so gratefully, so very gratefully, he would say bitterly, "I should whip you." "No, Master," I would whisper.

"Please, no, Master."

I opened my eyes. There was no light now in the room. The tiny lamp had flickered out long ago.

After his uses of me he had, as he had before, put me to the tiles, beside the divan. I lay on its left side, as one would look toward its foot. I was chained there as before, by the neck. My head, too, as before, was toward its foot. It is not uncommon to sleep the slave with her head at the feet of the master. Most usually there is a slave ring fixed in the couch itself, or on the floor, at the foot of the couch, to which the slave is chained. She is thus commonly slept on the floor, at the foot of the couch. She is also, commonly, when the heat of the master is upon him, used there, by the slave ring to which she is chained. It is a great honor, of course, to be allowed upon the surface of the couch. When one is granted this privilege, one commonly kneels at the foot of the couch, at the left side, as one looks toward its foot, and kisses the coverlets or furs, and then enters upon its surface. One enters at that point, first, because it is the foot, and, second, because most masters are right-handed, and it is thus, as they turn to their side, more convenient for them to stroke and caress the slave. To be sure, it is not at all unknown for a master who is fond of his slave to permit her to share his couch. She is well aware of the privileges entailed, and realizes that they are subject to revocation.

I had been given a sheet.

I now sat up, holding the sheet about me.

It was clearly a pounding. Someone was at the door. Too, someone was calling out, insistently, urgently.

I was afraid, for it was quite early in the morning.

His brace of yellow-clad slaves, and Dorna, as well, had been sent, braceleted and coffled, as an evening's gift to one of the off-duty shifts of the wall guard. I did not think Dorna was much pleased with being coffled with the lesser slaves, or with being charged with the recreation of common soldiers. I was sure, however, that the second or third could make her squirm, as she was handed from one to the other.

She was now, of course, a slave, and her slave needs, now ignited, would sooner or later, if not now, give her no choice in such matters. We learn to beg in the arms of any man.

I was afraid to awaken the captain.

I clutched the sheet more closely about me. I thought there were strange things going on in Treve, of late, things I did not understand, but which made me afraid.

Late last night, when he had finished with me, he had knelt me beside the divan. He had then put the chain on my neck. He had then looked down at me, I kneeling before him, he seated on the divan. He had leaned forward and taken my head in his hands, brushing back my hair a little. It was a gesture which seemed tender for so strong a man, one so imperious and brutal.

"Janice," had said he.

"Yes, Master?" I had said.

"Do you ever expect to see he who was your charge, the prisoner, 41, the peasant, he of interest to the black caste, again?"

"No, Master," I said.

"If, perchance, you saw him again, do you think you would be able to recognize him?"

"Yes, Master," I said.

"How long did you attend upon him?"

"Months," I said.

"You could then undoubtedly recognize him," he said.

"I would think so, Master," I said.

"You are doubtless one of the very few people who could do so," he said.

I supposed this were true. The pit master, and he himself, of course could recognize him.

Too, I would suppose certain guards could do so, and, of course, the other pit slaves had seen him, at least twice, once in the cell, once in the vicinity of the urt pool. But I did not doubt that I might be thought to be more familiar with the prisoner than any, save, of course, the pit master himself. Certainly I had little doubt that I was more familiar with him than he who now interrogated me.

"That makes you very special," he said. "Master?" I asked.

"You were even purchased to attend upon him," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"And many know that," he said, "not only here, in Treve, but also elsewhere, for example, even those in the pens where you were first collared, and trained."

"Are these things important?" I asked.

"Probably not," he said.

"The prisoner died in the mountains, did he not?" I asked.

"Undoubtedly," he said.

"Am I to be afraid?" I asked.

"Curiosity is not becoming in a kajira," he said.

"Please, Master!" I begged.

But he took me then by the shoulders and threw me, with a rattle of chain, to the tiles beside the divan.

He rose, angrily, from the divan. I lay there then at his feet, trembling, reminded that I was a woman, and a slave. "Forgive me, Master!" I begged. He drew back his foot to kick me, and I tensed, but he did not kick me. Rather he turned to one side, and, in a moment, cast me a sheet. "Thank you, Master," I had said.

I could hear the pounding at the door, the cries. I was sitting up, on the tiles, the sheet clutched about me. I was afraid, afraid to awaken the captain, afraid not to awaken him, afraid of what was occurrent in Treve, unknown to me, afraid of what might be the purport of that insistent pounding, those urgent cries.

I quickly knelt beside the divan and put my hand on his leg. "Master!

Master!" I said.

"Master! Awaken! Please, awaken!" I shook him then by the shoulders.

"Master!" I said. "The door! Someone is without!"

He awakened suddenly, sitting upright.

"The door, Master," I said. I had been frightened by the quickness of his response, once awake. It was the way one might awaken in a camp, perhaps. if an alarm had been sounded.

In a moment he had left the bed and thrown a robe about his broad shoulders.

I could not hear the rushed conversation at the door. I knelt beside the divan, holding the sheet about me.

In a moment he had returned to the room and hastily donned a tunic. He slung a sheathed sword about his left shoulder. When the blade is in use the sheath and belt are discarded.

He looked down at me.

"Master?" I asked.

"You had best come," he said. He unlocked the chain from my neck. I had only time to seize up a bit of silk and follow him. I ran after him, catching up with him only in the corridor. Two pit guards, I knew them both, I had served them both, were with him.

"We came as soon as he left," said one of the men.

"You did well," said the officer. Then he addressed himself, striding down the hall, to the other guard.

"What of the girl?" he said.

"He left her chained in the chamber, as you antic.i.p.ated," said the guard.