“Yes, Master,” I said.
“You are a meaningless barbarian slut,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Now sleep,” he said.
“I love you, Master,” I said.
“A slave’s love is worthless,” he said.
“But I do love you!” I said.
“Beware that you are not lashed,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“Sleep,” he said.
“Will Master not unbind my wrists?” I said.
“No,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
Chapter Twenty
I was kneeling on a mat, near the forward, right wheel of the first of our three wagons, that usually driven by Astrinax. Its tharlarion, hobbled, was grazing nearby. I was oiling its harness, softening it.
Now that I was permitted speech I, as Jane and Eve, was employed about the wagons. This morning we had made several trips to the local well with our buckets, and, returning, had filled our water barrels. We had also gathered forage for the tharlarion, and firewood. We surmised, then, that we might soon leave the six hundredth pasang stone, and the Aqueduct Road. I had hoped, after all this time and distance, we would have returned to Ar. On the other hand, the forage and firewood we had gathered suggested that we might be venturing further, and higher, more steeply, into the Voltai. As one goes higher into the mountains vegetation grows thinner. After a time, one is likely to encounter little but wild verr, and tiny snow urts, amongst the crags. Water, on the other hand, if one is high enough, may be obtained easily enough from snow, which commonly lasts all year on the summits of many peaks. I did not know the location of either Lord Grendel or the blind Kur. As we were far into the Voltai, perhaps it had already made contact with its fellows. But if that were the case it seems we should be returning to Ar, which seemed, patently, not the case. The five hunters had left before dawn, presumably to seek tarsk. From what I knew of Voltai tarsk I did not envy them their enterprise. I wondered sometimes why men did such things. Clearly they are different from us, in a great many ways. More significantly, perhaps, the ten wagons, there were ten, of the caravan of Pausanias had also departed, something like an Ahn before noon.
Astrinax, the Lady Bina, and Master Desmond, he in whose keeping I was, were conversing on the other side of the wagon.
I rubbed oil carefully into the harness, a bit at a time. Softening the harness makes it more supple, and prolongs harness life. It also tends to protect the leather from long exposure to sunlight, particularly at high altitudes. Similarly, if the harness is wet, as from rain, it may dry stiffly. Under both conditions it is more likely to weaken and crack from the strain of haulage.
Last night words had escaped me, inadvertently, unaccountably. Allison, a slave, had confessed her love for Desmond of Harfax, a free man. What presumption, what insolence! Did she think she was a free woman, whose love was of inestimable value, a priceless gift, a love worth having? She was a slave. A slave is less than the dirt beneath the sandals of a free person. What could her love be but a foolishness, a joke, a source of merriment, an absurdity, an insult, an embarrassment? How fortunate she was that she had not been beaten. Had he been her master, as he was not, she might have been sold the next morning. Is the slave not to keep her thoughts to herself? Is she not to conceal her love for her master? And yet I knew, from a hundred slaves, in the house of Tenalion, and in Ar, from the streets and markets, and from the camps, and elsewhere, that it was common, almost universal, for a girl to love the man at whose feet she knelt, he in whose collar she was fastened. This has to do, doubtless, with a great many things, but, one supposes, it has to do, given its pervasiveness, with nature, nature given the institutional enhancements of civilization. One owns and one is owned; one is master and one is slave.
A woman wishes to be reassured of her value, and on the block she is in no doubt as to the matter, as men bid on her. Of course, she is of value, for men have seen fit to buy and sell her, as goods. A woman wishes to be attractive, and she knows that she is attractive, for she has been marked and put in a collar. A woman wants to be wanted, and she finds she is wanted, as men most want a woman, as what is theirs, as a property. The woman longs to belong, and in bondage she finds herself a belonging, a rightless belonging. It is hard to wear a man’s collar and chains, his thongs and bracelets, and not be his, helplessly so, and in so many ways. It is hard to sustain the despotic depredations lengthily imposed on her, the exploitations which she must frequently and helplessly endure, without crying herself subdued, conquered, and submitted, as she longs to be, and begging for yet more, another intimacy, another caress, another ecstasy.
How innocently and hopefully we crawl to the feet of our masters!
The well-owned slave is the most content, and happiest, of women, the most sexual, and utterly female of women.
How tragic then that so frequently she dares not confess her love for her master, but must conceal it, to her misery, in the depths of her heart.
We long for our love master; might he not then, in some sense, long for his love slave?
To be sure, he must not then be weak with us!
Let him treat us as more of a slave than ever. It is what we want to be, his slave, for we are females.
Before he had joined Astrinax and the Lady Bina by the wagon box, he in whose care I was, Desmond of Harfax, had passed me.
“Tal, Master,” I had said to him, my head down, not looking up from my work.
“Tal, kajira,” had he said to me, not pausing.
He had not ignored me, so hurting me, as he had when I was under the sentence of the mute slave, but, too, he had given me no more attention than he would have given Jane, or Eve. A tear coursed down my cheek. Surely I should not have let those fateful words slip out. “I love you, Master.” But it seemed that I had not said them, so much as that they had said themselves. I knew, of course, that a slave’s love was worthless. Who did not know that? It had been fortunate that my boldness, my lapse, had not been rewarded with a whipping!
I rubbed the oil, in small, firm circular motions, into the broad harness.
It is not as though I myself, upon reflection, had said those words, I thought. I am not really responsible for them. They had spoken themselves. They were meaningless, in that sense. It is as though they had not been spoken, though, it was true, they had been uttered. Thus, I thought, I do not really love him. It could not be! It is a misunderstanding. How could I love him, truly? Had he not, on many occasions, treated me as what I was, a slave? Had he not been abrupt, cruel, not caring? Had he not cuffed me? Had he not, for no adequate reason, inflicted upon me the dreadful modality of the mute slave? Had he not, on many occasions, treated me with contempt? Had I not many reasons to despise him? I should hate him, I thought. I should loathe him, I thought. Too, had he not scorned me last night? Had he not left me bound? How embarrassing that was when Jane and Eve, shackled to the bar, awakened, and found me similarly shackled, but, too, with my wrists bound behind me. “What did you do?” asked Jane. “Nothing,” I told them. “Why, then, did he bind you?” asked Eve. “It pleased him to do so,” I said. “Ah!” said Eve, happily. “He well reminded you that you are a slave.” “Yes,” I said, “he well reminded me that I am a slave. Now untie me.” “You must be very proud,” said Eve. “Proud?” I said. “To bind a woman,” said Eve, “is surely to show that she has been found of slave interest, and, is it not, in its way, a way of putting a claim on her?” “Untie me,” I said. “That is for Master Desmond to do,” said Jane. “Then you would let him find me as I am, still bound?” I asked, my wrists angrily, futilely, fighting the cording, my ankles, as I was sitting, jerking back, again and again, in frustration, rattling the shackle chain looped about the central bar. “Yes,” said Jane. “Let me see the knots,” said Eve. I turned about, holding out my wrists. “Look,” said Jane. “Yes,” said Eve. “I do not think we could undo the knots,” said Jane. “In any event,” said Eve, “it is not for us to do. Master Desmond will soon be here, to unshackle us. Then, he may attend to the matter.” “Or, if he wishes,” said Jane, “he may have you feed, as you are, kneeling, from a pan.” Desmond of Harfax had untied me, but, too, he had tied me! I had no doubt that he found me of slave
