In his voice there seemed terrible menace.

"The slave rejoices!" I said. "She begs to serve!"

"How clever you are," he said.

"I do not ask that you like me, even a little," I said. "I only beg, unilaterally, with no hope of the least reciprocity, that you will permit me to be your helpless love slave!"

"It is little wonder, with your cleverness," he said, "that you learned the language so quickly, that you so quickly and well learned the lessons of the pens."

"I am well advised," I said, "to learn the language of my masters as quickly as possible. It is not pleasant to be beaten. And surely I am not to be blamed if the slave in me was a little closer to the surface, a little more eager, a little less repressed than that in some others."

"You belong in the collar," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"How well you look on your knees, bound."

"Thank you, Master."

"It is where you belong."

"Yes, Master."

He looked at me. It was difficult to read his eyes, his visage. He loosened the coils of the whip, but then, to my relief, slowly, wound them back together again.

"Am I to be whipped?" I asked.

He did not respond.

"I did not expect to see master again," I said.

"Nor I you," he said, "slave."

"Is it but coincidence," I said, "that she who has come into your power is I?"

"Not at all," he said. "It is only to find you that I have come to this part of the world."

I looked at him, suddenly, in wonder, and joy.

"Master has sought me?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

He must then, I thought, share something of my feelings for him. Not lightly did one undertake lengthy journeys on this dangerous world.

"You have come far to acquire me," I said, shyly.

He regarded me, not speaking.

"I thought that master did not care for me," I said. I recalled the neglect, the contempt, the cruelty with which he had treated me in the pens. Of all the guards it seemed it was he alone who despised me, who held me in such disdain.

"You are a worthless s.l.u.t," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said, contentedly.

"Do you know my accent?" he asked. "It is not unlike your own."

"I can recognize it, of course," I said.

"It is an accent of Cos," he said. "Your accent, too, despite the barbarian influences, and others, is substantially a Cosian accent, for it is there you learned your Gorean. You were trained in pens in the capital city of Cos, Telnus."

"Yes, Master," I said. This was the first time I had heard the location of the pens in which I had been trained. They were in a city named Telnus, on Cos, which I did know was an island.

"There has been a great war," said he, "between Cos, and her allies, and Ar, and her allies.

The victory has come to Cos, but for various reasons, having to do primarily with the volatility of mercenary forces, it is thought that the permanence of this victory is not a.s.sured. You know in what city you are?"

"In Ar," I said. I knew that. I knew, too, something of the occupation, and of the hardships in the city, though we had been much sheltered from the consequences of such in the gardens.

"What you perhaps do not know," he said, "is that Ar was betrayed in this war, by traitors in high places."

"No, Master," I said.

"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 some 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, as his love slave? Unbidden then I lay before him, on my back, my bound wrists under me, nestled 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 angrily, 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 for 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 tepid 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.

FORTY SIX

I lay there, suddenly numbed and cold. He had turned away from me.