I lightly touched the interior of her right thigh.
“Yes,” she said. “A touch will free me, the least touch!”
I bent gently to her and, to her astonishment, put my tongue to her heat.
In an instant I had to place my right hand over her mouth, tightly, that her cries might not disturb the camp. It was hard to hold her in place, even with my right hand over her mouth, and my left hand grasping her arm, above the elbow. She thrashed wildly, gratefully, kicking mud about, half rising up, and twisting from side to side, and then lay back, and still. I became, only a bit later, aware that she was kissing and licking at the palm of my right hand, desperately, gratefully. I drew it away a bit and she still sought it with her kisses, on the side of the hand, on the back, and fingers, and wrist.
“Thank you, Master,” she whispered. “Thank you, Master!”
“You are not a Talena,” I informed her. “You are a Lita.”
“Lita, Master?” she said.
“You are a camp slave, are you not?” I asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said.
“You have been renamed ‘Lita’,” I said. “If any object, have them bring their complaint to me.”
“And who is Master?” she asked.
“Tarl Cabot,” I said.
“He who is captain, commander, of the cavalry?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Then I am Lita,” she said.
I then stood up and brushed away some mud, and wiped my hands on my tunic. I gathered in the edged buckler.
“Master!” called another girl.
“Please, Master,” called another.
“No,” I said, and continued on my rounds.
I had not realized that others had been aware of my presence.
I supposed we were bound for the Alexandra.
If there were ships there, they could not make voyage, of course, until the spring.
Yet, from the time of the attack on the camp, Lord Nishida had made it clear to me that his plans, whatever they might be, must be advanced. It seemed he would, at least, change camps. That must be all. He surely could not be mad enough to contemplate braving Thassa unseasonably, between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.
My interlude with the needful slave, a girl once of Cos, who had been named ‘Talena’, now ‘Lita’, put me naturally in mind of the former Ubara, and her possible fates.
I recalled that, long ago, Miss Margaret Wentworth, before she became the slave, Saru, had spoken of a hold over me, by means of a woman. This had made little sense to me at the time.
I thought now, however, from my rendezvous with Seremides, once of the Taurentians, the woman would be Talena.
But how could someone or something think they had a hold over me, in virtue of one such as she, a false Ubara, now deposed, last seen bound on the height of the Central Cylinder in Ar, kneeling at the feet of men, fearing apprehension, fittingly placed in the rag of a slave?
How could anyone, or anything, think that?
But, if so, how grievously then had someone, or something, whether human, Kur, or Priest-King miscalculated!
What now would Talena be to me?
I did not want her.
I would not now buy her, even as a pot girl for my kitchens in Port Kar.
She had been beautiful, but, too, she had been proud, ambitious, selfish, vain, and cruel. Had I not understood that, long ago? Had I not then understood that she belonged, if at all, only under the whip? I recalled how badly she had treated me and how with such delight and venom she had scorned me in the holding of Samos of Port Kar, when I had been confined to the chair of an invalid, thought perhaps never to walk again, imprisoned there by the lingering effects of a poison contrived by Sullius Maximus, a renegade captain of Port Kar, then in the fee of Chenbar, the Sea Sleen, Ubar of Tyros. Later, at the first opportunity, escaping her sequestration in the Central Cylinder of Ar where she, disowned by her father, had been confined in dishonor, having begged to be purchased, a slave’s act, in the northern forests, she had betrayed her Home Stone, conspiring with the forces of Cos and Tyros to bring down, belittle, and subdue her own city, mighty Ar, to achieve a meretricious ascent to a Ubara’s throne, to reign there as a puppet, her strings in the keeping of enemies and invaders. But then her father had somehow returned, it seemed from the Voltai, and the insurrection had subsequently occurred, casting forth, violently and bloodily, the occupying forces and restoring the rightful governance of the city.
I smiled to myself.
How fitting that I had had her trapped and embonded in the Metellan district, then arranging that she should be returned to the throne of Ar, though knowing herself, so secretly, as then a slave. How she must have lived in terror, fearing that this secret might be revealed, which was then indisputable and certifiable. What hubris that a slave should dare to don the garments of a free woman, let alone take a place on a Ubara’s throne! Would not each tiny particle of her flesh, one after another, have been publicly removed over weeks, or months, on a needle’s point?
I had seen to it that she was enslaved, in her own city, making use of a couching law of Marlenus himself, Ubar of Ubars.
It had been easily and perfectly done. I trusted that she, to her rage, consternation, and chagrin, in all her utter helplessness, that of a female in the hands of men, had realized that.
How pleasant it is to enslave a woman.
How better can one degrade them? But how strange it is that they so thrive in their degradation. Do they not understand what has been done to them, or do they understand it only too well? How is it that they kiss your feet in gratitude, leap instantly to do your bidding, kiss their fingertips and touch them to their collars, buck and squirm in your arms, gasping and writhing in grateful, uncontrollable, orgasmic ecstasy, kneel, heads bowed, before you. How radiant and joyful they are in their collars! Are they not born to thongs? Is it so strange that they find their joy and fulfillment at a man’s feet, or is it merely to be expected, given a genetic heritage of the surrenders of love, without which a woman cannot be whole?
Who is the man who truly loves a woman, he who denies reality or he who recognizes it, and embraces it, he who betrays her and panders to propagandas, or he who consents to answer the cries of her heart?
So Talena was now a slave, no different from any other slave, save for the bounty on her head.
Excellent, I thought, save for the bounty.
I did not think I would buy her even for a pot girl. And surely many were the slaves more beautiful than she!
She had thought herself the most beautiful woman on all Gor.
How absurd that was!
She had never been ranged naked in a coffle, standing, legs widely spread, hands clasped behind the back of her head, for assessment.
Yes, she was beautiful, but there were thousands more beautiful than she. Had she not once been the daughter of a Ubar, what might she have brought? Perhaps three silver tarsks? Much would depend on the market, and the season. Spring is a good time for selling slaves.
If then some thought to have a hold over me in virtue of a slut named Talena, doubtless even now somewhere in a collar and a slave’s rag, if that, they were muchly, and profoundly, mistaken!
I wondered where she might be.
In any event, it was no concern of mine.
There was suddenly a rush from my left, and something emerged from the darkness, from the trees, and I knelt down, on my right knee, heard the scrape of a blade on the metal, and, almost simultaneously, rose up, swinging the edged buckler up, violently, to the left, and it met resistance, and there was an ugly gurgling cry, and something stumbled back, and fell, away from the buckler. I crouched down, alert. At the same time, from within
