I was close to him. I wanted to be close to him.
Following were four other riders, similarly mounted.
One tarsk, snorting, spun about, head down, to face the riders. They were then about him, lances thrusting. I saw blood on the hump, running in the dust with which the beast was covered, and the beast then, with an enraged squeal, charged the nearest hunter. The tharlarion, its jaws unbound, moved to the side, and bit at the tarsk as it lunged past. The rider lost his saddle, and plunged to the dirt. The tarsk spun about to charge, again, but the tharlarion, apparently trained, interposed its body between the tarsk and the rider, its head down, jaws gaping. The beast never reached either the tharlarion or the rider, for its body had been penetrated by three lances, which pinned it in place. The dismounted rider then hurried about the beast, and leapt on it from behind, seized its long hump mane, and plunged his dagger into its side. The lances, which are smoothly pointed, to allow for an easy retrieval, were removed from the animal. The dismounted rider then regained his saddle and he, and the others, sped about the wagon, raising dust, following the first rider, and the running tarsk. The struck beast rolled in the dirt, bleeding, blood coming in gouts from its mouth, as the heart might beat, reddening the tusks, and then, after a time, it lay still, beside the wagon.
“Tarsk normally do not cluster and run like that,” said Master Desmond.
“Master?” I said.
“They were herded,” he said. “Our friends, the hunters, are suggesting that we discontinue our journey.”
“I hope we are all well,” I said.
“We shall hope so,” he said.
“Even Trachinos and Akesinos?” I said.
“Certainly,” he said. “We may need them.”
“I am afraid,” I said.
“The wagons provided cover,” he said, “and some were probably away from the wagons.”
“Thank you for rescuing me from Trachinos,” I said.
“I thought I told you to be responsive to him,” he said.
I was silent.
“Some men,” he said, “speak freely when a slave is in their arms.”
“I hate you,” I said.
“Did you wish to be rescued?” he said.
“Of course!” I said.
“Pull up your tunic, what is left of it, slut,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“I saw you in his arms,” he said. “I saw your readiness. I heard your little, begging cry. In another handful of Ihn, with a proper caress or two, you would have melted to him, whimpering and begging like a paga slut.”
“I cannot help myself, Master,” I said. “Have you not noted I am in a slave collar?”
“Beware,” he said.
“And I am still in one,” I said.
“The collar,” he said, “does not make the slave. It merely identifies the slave.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. “Master,” I said.
“Yes?” he said.
“I note,” I said, “that you did, in fact, interfere. You did, in fact, interpose yourself.”
“True,” he said.
“Perhaps,” I said, “Master does not truly desire to see me in the arms of Trachinos.”
“I thought,” he said, “it might be amusing to frustrate Trachinos.”
“Perhaps there is another reason,” I said.
“What might that be?” he asked.
“Perhaps Master can guess,” I said.
“Oh?” he said.
“You inquired of Master Trachinos,” I said, “if he found me pleasant to hold, and, as I recall, you expressed a view that you would think me such.”
“Certainly,” he said. “If you were not such you would not have been put in a collar.”
“I think Master finds me of slave interest,” I said.
“I do,” he said, “though I also think you are worthless.”
“I am here,” I said, within reach, slave-clad, if that. “Perhaps Master would like to take me in his arms.”
“Perhaps,” he said.
I inched more closely to him.
“I may not resist,” I whispered. “I am a slave.”
He thrust me back, rudely, away from him.
“Master!” I said.
“I do not own you,” he said.
“What difference does that make?” I asked.
“You are indeed worthless,” he said, “and not simply worthless as any slave is worthless, as a meaningless property-girl, an article of collar meat, a vendible beast, but beyond that.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Astrinax was right about you,” he said, “even from Ar.”
“Master?” I said.
“Honor,” he said.
“Is honor not for fools?” I asked.
“Some men are fools,” he said.
“And perhaps Master is amongst them!” I said.
“That is my hope,” he said.
“You kissed me in Ar,” I said. “You even made me respond to you, and as a slave!”
“You were not then in my keeping,” he said.
“I want you to own me!” I said. “What are you doing?”
“Shackling you,” he said. “I think the hunters will return. I think they will want a feast, with roast tarsk. You and the others, later, will be needed to prepare and serve the feast.”
“Can you not understand, Master?” I wept. “I want you to own me. I have wanted this from the beginning, even from the Sul Market! I want to be at your feet. I want to be yours, helplessly so, to be done with as you will. I want your collar, the stroke of your whip, should you be pleased to lash me! Whip me if you want, but I want to be yours! I beg you to buy me!”
“Only a slave begs to be bought,” he said.
“I am a slave, and I want to be yours! Please, Master, buy me! Buy me!”
With two clicks my ankles were fastened in the shackles, the chain looped about the central bar. Then he was gone. I jerked at the shackles and chain, but only abraded my ankles, and then I wept, for a slave is not permitted to lessen her value, in even so small a way. I trusted I would not be struck.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You must forgive us,” said Kleomenes, leader of the hunters, to Astrinax. “We had no idea your wagons were in the path of our drive.”
“It is nothing,” said Astrinax. To be sure, his right thigh, beneath his tunic, was bandaged, as it had been gashed by the tusk of a running tarsk in the confusion at the wagons.
Surely the hunters had seemed concerned, even contrite, and had not made their own camp, but dragged, on ropes, through the dust, the bodies of two slain tarsk back to our wagons. They had also assisted in the repair of the wagon tongue.
Grease from the tarsk, on the spit, dripped into the fire, hissing there. Eve and I turned the spit.
