from my eyes.
“I do not understand,” said Jane. “What is wrong?”
Eve tried even to communicate in our native tongue, which you would understand to be a barbarian language. Forgive me, Masters and Mistresses, it is, of course, a barbarian language! But she was seized by Trachinos, cuffed brutally, and thrown to the dirt, in her bracelets. “Gorean!” he said. “Gorean, slave slut!” “Forgive me, Master!” she wept, kneeling and pressing her lips, again and again, to his feet. It is a common placatory behavior of slaves. Slaves are expected to speak in the language of their masters. This helps them remember that they are slaves. Too, of course, the masters wish to understand whatever slaves may say. This is an additional form of control, and surveillance. Trachinos then fastened Eve’s bracelets to the ring chain, and turned away. “Please, forgive me, Master!” she called after him. “So,” said Jane, “even when we are alone, we must speak in Gorean!” I nodded. I was pleased that she had said that in Gorean. We were learning well that we were slaves! “Can you not say something to us?” asked Jane. I shook my head, negatively, tears running down my cheeks. Jane was already on her chain. “What did you do?” asked Jane. I shook my head, again. “Surely,” she said, “you may use language to petition to speak.” I shook my head, again. Jane looked at me, disbelievingly. Commonly, of course, a slave will have a standing permission to speak. This permission, of course, is revocable at will, by the master or the mistress. Thus, in a very real sense, the slave requires permission to speak. This is similar to clothing. Usually, the slave will have a standing permission to clothe herself, if a slave garment can be dignified in such a way. On the other hand, some masters require a slave, each day, to explicitly request permission to clothe herself. This tends to impress her bondage on a girl. If she does not receive the permission, of course, she may not clothe herself. Her clothing, like her speech, is at the discretion of the master. Some masters expect a slave, each day, as in the matter of clothing, to request permission to speak that day. If she does not receive that permission, she may not speak. “May I clothe myself, Master?” “You may.” “May I speak, Master?” “You may.” What Jane had in mind, of course, were the usual formulas by means of which a slave, denied speech, may request to speak. Some typical petitionary formulas would be “I beg to speak,” “I would speak,” and “May I speak, Master?” The common understanding here is that the slave requires the master’s permission to clothe herself and to speak. She is, after all, a slave. The master’s permission is, actually, implicitly involved in many aspects of the slave’s life. To be sure, most of these permissions are standing permissions. And much depends on the particular master and slave. For example, it is almost universal that the slave may not leave the domicile without requesting permission, and it is often required that she will state the purpose of her departure and make clear her expected time of return. The master will be the first to partake of food, and his permission may be required before the slave is permitted to feed. The slave will commonly kneel when a free person enters the room, and, if knelt, will usually await permission to rise. If a slave is ordered nude to the furs she will remain there until the master sees fit to join her, or, if he wishes, put her about, say, her domestic labors. Sometimes the slave, nude and bound, must await the pleasure of the master. This can well heat her.
I heard, ahead, at the first wagon, the voice of Trachinos. The wagons were soon to move. Both Jane and Eve, in their brief tunics and close-fitting collars, were already attached to the back of the wagon, the last wagon, each by a chain looping up from their braceleted wrists to a wagon ring, bolted into the back of the wagon. I was with them, my wrists braceleted before my body, but was not yet on the wagon chain.
I heard steps approaching.
It was he in whose keeping I was! I instantly knelt, and lifted my braceleted wrists to him, pathetically, tears on my cheeks. I pointed to my mouth with my pinioned hands, and whimpered, pleadingly. It was only last night, in the paga tavern, that I had been put in the modality of the mute slave, but almost from the first moment I was suffering. I had struggled again and again last night, in the tavern, on the way back to the wagons, when my shackling was being attended to, to make clear my contrition, and my resolve to be more pleasing. I so desperately wanted to speak to him, to return myself to his favor, such as it might be, to express my shame and sorrow at my overweening, unconscionable pride, my insolence. I so wanted to prostrate myself before him, to lie before him on my belly, to cover his feet with kisses, to beg his forgiveness. I was in a collar! I had failed it! Did I think I was a free woman? I was no longer a free woman, if I had ever been a free woman. I was a slave, and knew myself a slave. And yet I had been a poor slave. I had not been pleasing! Did I not know I belonged in my collar? Yes, I knew I belonged in it. I had learned that well on Gor. Did I not know then how to behave in a collar? Yes, I knew! How then could I have behaved so ignorantly, so foolishly, so stupidly, so badly? I pleaded as I could, without words. But my protestations had been ignored. Master Desmond had declined to relent. It is hard to make clear, one supposes, to one who has not been put in such a modality, one who has never been “gagged by the master’s will,” how this deprivation can so sorely affect a woman, particularly a slave, the most helpless and vulnerable of women. We are not men, with their large bodies, their strength, their ferocity, their callousness, their speed, and power. We are different, so different! What have we, in our collars, what means, to win our ways? We have our slightness, our softness, our wit, our beauty, and our speech. Is not our speech our delight, our pleasure, our joy, our recreation, our weapon, our instrument, our gift? Is it not that whereby we can make known our feelings, our hopes, and fears; that whereby we can express ourselves, plead our causes, make known our wants, needs, and desires, that by means of which we can petition, influence, and wheedle? Is it not that by means of which we may beg for mercy, hope to be heard and understood, hope to placate the large, dangerous beasts who own us? Without it we are muchly helpless; without it how even can we best surrender and submit; without it how can we best acknowledge and serve our masters? Without it how can we well profess our love?
I knelt before him, pathetically, tears on my cheeks. I pointed to my mouth, with my braceleted hands, and whimpered, pleadingly.
He stepped back.
I threw myself to my belly before him, and reached with my closely linked hands, to seize his ankle, that I might hold it, and press my lips to his feet, kissing them, again and again. Do men not enjoy having women so before them, as helpless, prostrated slaves? But he seized the linkage between the bracelets and pulled me to my knees, and then to my feet, and then snapped the wagon chain on my bracelets. I whimpered, pleadingly, but he had turned away.
Again I had failed to please him, a free man.
I looked up, at the stone channel of the aqueduct, some hundred feet over my head.
Such structures are majestic, the products of, to me, almost incomprehensible feats of engineering, and I had wanted to express my wonder and awe at them, their size and massiveness, their efficiency, their beauty, the loveliness of the sky and mountains behind them, but I was not permitted to speak.
How helpless and alone, how miserable, one soon is, if placed in the modality of the mute slave!
He in whose care I was, and the others, the free persons, ignored me. Would it not have been more merciful if they had lashed me? I was no longer on the wagon chain, nor were Jane or Eve. They, at least, were kind to me, and spoke to me, though I could not speak back. They no longer spoke of running away. The country now was lonely. The small villages were far behind. The terrain grew steeper, and more formidable. Twice we had heard, at night, when we were shackled in the slave wagon, from somewhere back in the mountains, the roar of a larl. During the day we remained close to the wagons.
We had left Venna four days ago.
The last night at Venna we had visited the paga tavern, The Kneeling Slave. Master Astrinax had been unsuccessful in his recruiting. I had apparently displeased he in whose care I was, for I had been put in the modality of the mute slave. A tavern’s man was extinguishing the lamps.
The masters were preparing to rise from the table when suddenly a flat, linear object of metal clattered, ringing, on the table.
“That is the sword of Trachinos, he of Turia,” said a fearsome voice, that of a large, bearded fellow, clad in the brown of the Peasantry.
But I feared this was no Peasant.
Certainly he carried no staff, no great bow, no sheaf of long arrows, at his left hip.
The blade was the gladius.
“That blade,” said the fellow, pointing to it, “is for hire.”
“We are hiring,” said Astrinax.
“You are far from Turia,” said Lykos.
Turia, I knew, was far to the south, even beyond the equator.
“What brings you this far north?” asked Lykos.
