"You seemed to find it amusing when the Earth slave was at the ring,"

he said.

"Be kind," she begged.

"But then she is only an Earth slave," said the man.

"Yes! Yes!" said Dorna.

"But you would doubtless wriggle at the ring, as well as she," he said.

I did not want to meet the eyes of any of them. I was frightened, kneeling before the dais.

Dorna and I were the only two women on the terrace. We were both slaves.

"Please, no, Master!" said Dorna. I noted she called him "Master."

"Perhaps you would enjoy being at the ring, and then being publicly utilized, as was she,"

said the man in the chair.

"No, Master!" cried Dorna.

"Your silk can be taken from you," said the man in the chair.

"Please, no, Master!" she said.

"Perhaps it could be given to the Earth slave."

"No, Master, please!" said Dorna. She cast me a wild glance. I saw she was genuinely frightened.

"The Earth girl might be made a high slave and you a low slave," he said.

"Please, no, Master!" she said.

"The word 'Master' sounds well on your tongue," he said.

"Yes, Master!" she said. "Thank you, Master!"

"I think you do not use it frequently enough," he said.

"Forgive me, Master!" she said. "I will try to improve my behavior, Master!"

"Does Dorna want to keep her silk?" he asked.

"Yes, Master!" she said.

He regarded her.

"Dorna wants to keep her silk!" she cried. She clutched the silk about her, desperately.

"But perhaps I have a better idea," he mused.

"Master!" she asked.

"Perhaps you should be returned to Tharna in chains," he said.

At this Dorna turned white and flung herself to her knees at the foot of the dais.

"Oh, no, Master!" she cried.

"They might enjoy seeing you again," he said.

She began to weep and tremble. She looked small, and piteous, and female, at the foot of the dais.

"Look up," he said.

She did, through wild tears.

"They might enjoy having you again within their walls," he mused.

"No," she sobbed.

"I wonder what it might be, after the procession through the streets, you naked, in chains, on a chain neck-tether, conducted through the jeering crowds, goaded by spear points, hastened by whips, and after the public humiliations, would it be torture and the spear? Presumably not, as that is too simple.

Too, that is too honorable. And you are now merely bond. Perhaps then you might be nailed to the great gate or to the public boards. It can take days to die in such a fashion. There is little bleeding. Or, more quickly, you might be cast to sleen, or fed to starving urts, or be flung to the fangs of dry, thirsting leech plants."

"No," she whispered. "Please, no."

"You might be spared," he said. "You might be enclosed in a cage, suspended in the piazza.

Others might then learn from your fate a lesson. You might be put in a dozen chains and flung into the deepest dungeon in the city. Perhaps then, eventually, you would be forgotten, save perhaps by a warden and some urts. You might even be kept chained in the public tarsk pens, in the mud, for years, there to compete naked, mocked by all, for your swill."

She put her head down, trembling.

"To be sure," said he, "as you are only a slave, it might be amusing for them to keep you chained to a ring in the lowest brothel in the city, your use free to any and all."

"Lift your head," he said, sharply.

She looked up. Tears streamed down her face.

"Your face is bared," he said.

She sobbed.

"The faces of slaves should be bared," he said, "that their tiniest expressions may be read."

Again she wept.

"No longer," said he, "can you hide behind a mask of silver, or gold."

"No, Master," she wept.

"Your face is bared," he said, "as is fitting for the face of a slave."

"Yes, Master," she said.

"But there is another possibility," he mused, "an interesting one, one other than merely returning you in chains to Tharna."

"Master?" she asked, frightened.

"You could be returned to he from whom you were stolen," he said.

"No!" she screamed, in terror. "No! No!" She suddenly, wildly, crawled up the steps of the dais, and flung herself to her belly before the man in the chair. She pressed her lips again and again to his feet, fervently, in terror, covering them with frantic kisses. "No," she begged.

"Please, no, Master!"

"Do you not know how to kiss a man's feet?" he inquired.

She sobbed, and then delicately, humbly, softly, submissively, devotedly, with much care, with great attentiveness, with exquisite sensuousness, with her tongue as well as lips, addressed her ministrations to his feet and sandals.

"Better," said he.

I was frightened at the terror exhibited by the slave. The mere thought of being returned to some former master, from whom, I gathered, she had been stolen, was apparently more dreadful to her, more fearful to her, than the a.s.semblage of fates which had just been outlined before her, those possibly consequent upon her being returned to Tharna, some city into the power of which, it seemed, she would be ill-advised to fall.

"I would think you might enjoy being returned to your former master,"

said the man in the chair, "he who first captured you, and put the collar on you."

"No! No!" she said.

"He is rumored to be one of the finest swordsmen in the world," said the man.

She sobbed, and continued to kiss his feet.

"Did he not slay a retinue of one hundred men before he reached the curtains of your palanquin, to tear them aside?"

She did not raise her head, but trembled.

"It was he who first removed the mask from you," he said.

"Yes," she whispered, shuddering.

"And did you not, even as a free woman, kneel in the dust beside the palanquin, your mask taken from you, and kiss and lick the blood from his sword?"

"Yes," she said.

"I wonder that he was interested in you," said the man.

"Master?" she asked, lifting her head a little.

"His sword could have won him many women, women whose attractions he would presumably have had little difficulty in detecting," he said.

I a.s.sumed he meant women such as I-slaves, suitably clad, lightly and revealingly, women of whose charms there could be little doubt.

"Could he have known that you were as beautiful as you are?" he asked.

"Thank you, Master," she said.

"It would not seem so," he said.

"But doubtless he was pleased to see that you were beautiful," he said.

"Perhaps, Master," she said.

"But he must originally have had you in mind for some other purpose,"

he said. "He must have had some use in mind for you."

"Master?" she asked.

"But the first use was doubtless merely that you would follow him naked, and collared, bearing his shield."

"That was the second use," she said.

"Of course," he said.

"I would think," he said, "that you would have enjoyed belonging to him."

"No!" she said, in terror.

I was frightened to think of such a master, one who inspired such terror. I shuddered, What manner of man might he be? As slaves, of course, it is appropriate, and not at all unusual, for us to retain a healthy fear of our masters, particularly if we suspect we may have been in some detail remiss or may have been in some respect less than perfectly pleasing, for we are, after all, their slaves. We are totally dependent on them in all things, and they have absolute power over us. More simply put, they are master.

"For you two would seem to have much in common," he said.

"Do not return me to him," she wept.

"But you would seem much the same as he."

"No, no!" she said.

"No?" he said.

"No," she said. "I am a female."

"You now understand that?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.