I did so.
“Who is there?” he said.
“Allison, a slave, Master,” I said.
“What is your errand?” he asked. It would be a bold slave, indeed, who would approach a free man, unbidden, without suitable justification. To be sure, a slave may approach her master thusly, perhaps to beg to be caressed, but I was not his slave.
“I bring a deck of cards, from Master Astrinax,” I said.
“Are you kneeling?” he asked.
The door was between us.
“I am now,” I said.
Thus, when the door was opened, I would be suitably positioned, slave before free, property before person.
He opened the door, and I lifted the deck of cards to him.
“Head down,” he said, “arms extended.”
I then lowered my head, humbly, between my two arms, and lifted the deck to him, it held in two hands.
He looked about, and then said, “Inside.” Then he said, “Kneel there.”
“It is an ordinary deck of cards,” I said.
“Do not be foolish,” he said.
I did know that messages were somehow conveyed in some decks of cards, but, as far as I could tell, this was an ordinary deck. It did have the speckling about the edges of the deck, which I had seen in the Cave, but I had seen such cards, as well, in the house of chance. Indeed, many decks came decorated, in one fashion or another.
“You are illiterate,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“But you can read cards, can you not?”
“I can tell the colors,” I said, “and recognize the pictures, the Tarn, the Sleen, and such.”
“The deck is presumably arranged in order, as might be a new deck, a sealed deck,” he said, “from White Tarn to Red Ost.”
“That would be Initiate’s Tarn through Warrior’s Ost,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “and that will make your work easier.”
“My work?” I said.
He drew forth a small sheet of paper, with tiny writing on it. It was one of several such sheets. These were removed from a small chest, which contained some tunics, and, in a drawer-like tray, a handful of nondescript objects. The room was very bare. It contained this chest, a stool, a small table, and a simple couch. I did note that the couch did contain a slave ring, with a loop of chain. Also, on the wall, on its peg, there hung a slave whip. I had never been in this room before. And I hoped no kajira had been fastened at the slave ring, at least by Desmond of Harfax. The sheet of paper, one of several, which had been removed from the chest, had been taken not only from the tray, but from beneath a paper which had seemed to floor the tray. Thus, a cursory search might not have revealed these papers.
He held the small sheet of paper which he had extracted from the tray before me.
“I assume you cannot read this,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Moreover,” he said, “the list is in cursive script.”
I was not sure that the Lady Bina could read cursive script. She could read printing. She could read the public boards.
“I can see it is not printed,” I said. “I would not have been sure that it was a list.”
The lines were horizontal, not vertical.
“It would be convenient,” he said, “if you could read.”
“Perhaps Master could teach me to read,” I said.
“As I do not own you,” he said, “that would be a waste of time.”
“Perhaps if you owned me,” I said.
“Then,” he said, “I would keep you illiterate.”
“You like me that way,” I said, “even more slave.”
“More barbarian slave,” he said.
“I see,” I said.
“Free women prefer for barbarians to be illiterate,” he said. “It helps the barbarian to keep in mind that she is a barbarian.”
“We are unlikely to forget that on this world,” I said. “We learn it from the first chain put on us.”
“Do you know the nature of this list?” he asked.
“It would seem to have to do with the cards,” I said.
“It has sixty entries,” he said, “each pertaining to a card. I shall read the list to you, and you will arrange the cards in the order of the list.”
“It will take a little time,” I said.
“Spread the cards in five columns, in order, from Tarn to Ost.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He then began to read the list to me, card by card, and I drew forth the pertinent card, rearranging the deck, card by card, to comply with the list.
This simple task actually took very little time. In a few Ehn it had been completed.
“We now have the message,” he said.
I looked at the face of the first card in the deck, and moved the cards about, a little, examining the face of several of the succeeding cards.
“I see no message,” I said. “Doubtless the order is somehow relevant.”
“Quite relevant,” he said.
I handed him the cards.
“Note,” he said.
“Ah!” I cried, softly.
“It was there,” he said. “In a moment you would have detected it. Your mistake was a natural one, namely to look for meaning where it would seem most likely to lie, on the face of the cards. It, however, lies on the edges of the cards, on sixty edges, each one meaningless in itself, a meaning which manifests itself only when the sixty edges are suitably aligned.”
“It is so simple,” I said.
“That is one of its beauties,” he said.
“After the message is written,” I said, “the cards are rearranged, and the message disappears.”
“To reappear when the proper order is restored,” he said.
“I cannot read the message, of course,” I said.
“I cannot either,” he smiled.
“Master?” I said.
“But it can be read shortly,” he said. “The substitutions are simple. It would present no great problem to one adept in these matters, provided he had enough material to examine.”
“Do not explain to me how the substitutions are made,” I said.
“There are an indefinite number of ways in which it can be done,” he said. “I suppose that is obvious.”
“I do not want to know,” I said.
“Have no fear,” he said. “I have no intention of informing you.”
“Thank you, Master,” I said. What I did not know I could not reveal.
“Besides the substitutions may be easily changed, and are, from time to time.”
“I see,” I said.
“There are several levels of security here,” he said. “First, and perhaps most effective, it is not clear that a message is involved, at all. Who would suspect a message concealed in a harmless deck of cards? It is not like a
