Vagabonds of Gor (37 page)

"Let me come with you!" she said.

"It is difficult to assess you in your present condition," I said.

She looked at me, startled.

"Go make yourself presentable," I said. Surely she would remember that the men of Ar were to make me presentable before I appeared before her, during our little interview, that which had occurred on another island, several days ago, that in which I had learned she was a Cosian spy, that in which I had first noted that that her ankles would look well in shackles.

Tears sprang to her eyes.

"Make yourself sparkle," I said.

With a sob, she sprang up, and hurried across the sand, and out a little into the water, where she stood, the water to her knees. She then began to wash her limbs and body, and face, the water splashing and falling about her. I watched her. It was not unpleasant. A slave girl, I thought, however, would have done it much better, and, of course, in such a way that an observing master might be driven mad with passion. The Lady Ina, of course, was only a free woman. She did look back, anxiously, from time to time, but this, I think, was less to observe my interest and reaction than for the purpose of reassuring herself that I had not left. Then she knelt in the water, by the shore, and washed her hair. This she did do with a touch of sensuousness, perhaps because she was now reasonably confident I was not about to disappear into the rence. This sensuousness became pronounced when she began to comb her hair out with her fingers, and also when she began to dry it, shaking it lightly about, and lifting it, and moving it about, in her hands, to dry it. Then she threw her hair back over her shoulders and rose to her feet, and approached me, slowly, across the sand.

Now she stood again, before me, straightly, yet gracefully, her ankles in the sand, the sun on her. She was now very white, her ablutions performed, the mud washed from her, and her hair was lovely. She sparkled. She smiled. I think she knew she was beautiful, or thought she was beautiful. But as I continued to regard her, impassively, her mien became less confident, and more timid.

I pointed to the sand before me.

She immediately, frightened, dropped to her knees and again put her head down to the sand, the palms of her hands, too, on the sand.

It is pleasant to have a woman perform obeisance before one. It is also appropriate. In such a way, in such symbolisms, may the order of nature, and its profound truths, in a conventional and civilized manner, be expressed and acknowledged.

To be sure, this gesture had not been performed voluntarily by the woman at this time, in a typical reverence for the male, for nature, and for herself, and her meaning, but had been commanded by me. Also, I had not commanded this gesture merely for my own pleasure, to see the beauty before me, so marvelously, so rightly, but I had commanded it of her for her own good, that she might clearly understand the nature of our relationship, that she would understand herself, in the deepest part of her belly, as being submitted. Indeed, I had required it of her categorically, unquestioningly, as a master might require it of a slave.

"You may raise your head," I said.

She looked up at me, her lower lip trembling.

"Kneel back on your heels," I said. "Open your knees, widely. More widely. Good." I did not doubt but what she would recall that she had, back on the other island, days ago, when she had had power, the backing of numerous armed men, been the issuer of such instructions, not their recipient. "Place the palms of your hands on your thighs," I said. "Lift your head."

"This is a slave position, is it not?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"I am not a slave!" she said.

"Do not break position," I said. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

"You now wish to address a petition to me?" I asked.

"Yes!" she said.

"Do not break position," I warned her. She kept position.

"You may speak," I informed her.

"Take me with you!" she cried. "Guard me! Protect me! Defend me! I cannot protect myself! I cannot defend myself! I am a female. I need male protection! I am only a female! Without your protection I will die in the delta. Without your protection I can never get out of the delta alive. I am a woman, only a woman. I need you desperately!"

"Rencer women," I said, "live in the delta."

"I am not a rencer woman!" she wept.

To be sure, rencer women, as well as others, needed the protection of men. If nothing else, slavers could hunt them down and get them in their chains. All women need the protection of men, though sometimes this protection is so profound and so familiar as to escape notice. But let the barriers of civilization lapse, even for a day, and their need for men would become unmistakably apparent.

"What hope," asked she, "would I, naked, a woman of high birth and gentle upbringing, a woman of station, a lady of Ar, have of getting out of the delta alive?"

"I do not know," I said.

"And I might be taken by rencers," she said, "and put out again for tharlarion."

"That is quite possible," I said.

"Protect me!" she begged.

"Do not break position," I warned her.

She moaned.

I looked out, over the marsh. It was now late afternoon. "I think," I said, "I might myself, without great difficulty, one man, alone, escape from the delta. Taking a woman with me, however, and, in particular, one such as you, seems to impose, as you might well imagine, a handicap of a very serious nature."

"I will be no trouble!" she said, eagerly.

"It is not as though you were, say, a slave," I said, "a property which one would not wish to leave behind."

"I can be enslaved," she said, an odd note in her voice.

"Also," I said, "one may assure oneself, in virtue of the strictures of the mastership, that a slave will be little or no trouble."

"Enslave me then," she said.

"But you are a free woman," I said.

"That is true!" she said.

"And did you not suggest earlier," I said, "that you would never make a slave?"

"Yes," she said.

"Have you now reconsidered the matter?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

Her knees were half sunk in the sand.

"And what is the outcome of your reconsideration?" I inquired.

"Any woman can be made a slave," she said.

"A perceptive insight," I said.

"Take me with you," she begged.

"And if I take you with me as a free woman," I said, "what conditions would you impose?"

"Few," she said. "Only that I be treated with respect and dignity."

"Come back!" she cried. "Come back!"

I turned to look back at her, across the sand. She was wild in the sand. She had not, however, broken position.

"I impose no conditions!" she cried. "None whatsoever!"

I returned to stand before her.

"I am a woman of Ar!" she said. "You are of Port Kar. Both of our cities are at war with Cos! We are allies, then!"

"You are a spy of Cos," I said.

"I impose no conditions," she said.

"If I take you with me," I said, "I will take you with me utterly conditionlessly."

"Agreed," she said.

"As conditionlessly as a slave," I said.

"Agreed," she said.

"Moreover," I said, "I would take you with me as a captive, a full captive."

"I understand," she said.

"And do you understand what it is to be a full captive?" I asked.

"Yes," she whispered.

"You will be to me as though you might be a slave," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"You will be mine to do with as I please, completely," I said.

"I understand," she said.

"You may be given away, sold, rented, slain, anything."

"I understand," she said.

"And I may," I said, "enslave you, or have you enslaved."

"I understand," she said.

"And," I said, "I may, if I wish, abandon you in the delta."

"I shall endeavor to be such, earnestly," she said, "that you will not wish to do so."

"You understand these things?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"And this?" I asked, holding the wicked point, the dangerous steel, still sticky from the blood of the ul, of the unsheathed sword to her bosom.

"Yes," she said, looking up at me.

"Lie on your back," I said, "your arms at your sides, the palms of your hands up, your knees lifted, your heels back, up a bit, your toes pressed down into the sand, your legs closely together."

I looked upon her.

Her wrists, on each side of her, were still encircled with thongs, their dangling ends dark in the sand.

"Am I favorably assessed?" she asked.

I then wiped the blade clean, carefully, using the interior of her thighs, and belly. I used also sand, and, lastly, her hair.

"Am I again to clean myself?" she asked.

"No," I said. "The delta is not a place for the excessively fastidious."

"I see," she said, shuddering.

I sheathed the sword smartly, cracking it into the scabbard.

She reacted, shrinking down, frightened, in the sand. I saw that on some level or another she understood the sheathing of the sword.

"Position!" I snapped.

Swiftly she knelt again, as she had been commanded earlier.

"You obey with the alacrity of a slave girl," I observed.

"If I do not," she said, "I could be punished as one, could I not?"

"Yes," I said, "and would be."

I walked about her, examining her. She kept her back very straight, and her head up.

I was then again before her.

I noted that the palm of her hands, so soft, so vulnerable, had turned on her thighs, so that they faced up. Among slave girls this is a common way of signaling need, helplessness, a desire to please. As she probably did not know that I took it to be instinctive, or semi-instinctive, perhaps a subconscious, or only partially understood, utilization of the symbolic aspects of the palm of the female's hand. One reason for thinking this is a very natural behavior is that almost all female slaves, in certain situations, will use it, even before it has been explicitly called to their attention by, say, a whip-master or trainer. Also, it is not uncommon, in certain situations, among captive free women, as witness the Lady Ina. In the repertoire of an experienced slave, of course, it is one of her nonverbal signals, one of those numerous signals, such as need knots, body touchings, and such, by means of which she may express herself, even if forbidden to speak. It may also be used as a begging, placatory behavior. The thongs on the Lady Ina's wrists, the ends over, and down, beside her thighs, were lovely.