'Lying slave!' he said.
I looked up at him. 'It is true,' I said, 'Master.'
'You love any man,' he said.
'I wear a collar,' I said.
He laughed.
'I am a girl of Earth,' I said. 'I cannot help myself in the arms of a Gorean male. But it is you, Master, whom I most love, whom I truly love.'
'You seek to escape punishment,' he said.
'No, Master,' I said. 'Punish me.' I felt his hands on my arms, so tight. He had terrible strength. I felt weak.
'I own you,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' I said.
'You will not,' said he, 'with your smiles and pretty noises evade my vengeance.' He struck me, cruelly.
'No, Master,' I said.
He stood up, angrily on the wreckage. He stepped away from me, looking out to sea. I remained as I was. Then he turned about, regarding me.
'I lie at your mercy, Master,' I said. 'Avenge yourself.'
He drew forth the knife at his belt.
Then angrily he thrust it again in its sheath. He turned away.
I smiled, and climbed to my knees and stretched. 'A girl is hungry,' I said.
He remained, looking out to sea.
'It is strange,' he said.
'What is strange, Master?' I asked.
'Be silent,' said he to me, 'Slave.'
'Yes, Master,' I said. He would not speak to me of his thoughts.
'Can it be, Clitus Vitellius?' he asked himself, aloud. He turned about, angrily, and looked at me.
'I betrayed you, Master,' I said, 'because I so much loved you. Had I not loved you so much I could not have so much hated you. I had lived for the moment when I might avenge myself upon you, and when it presented itself, I performed delicious but unspeakable treachery. When they took you away I felt anguish, and a grief I cannot describe to you. I cried out and wept with misery. I had betrayed he whom I loved. Life then to me was but stones and ashes. Better that it had been I who had been betrayed. When I learned of your escape elation and joy flooded me. It was enough to know you lived and were free.'
'Traitress,' said he.
'I am here,' I said. 'Do with me what you want.' He regarded me with fury, but then he looked away again. After a time, he turned again to face me. 'It is near dawn,' he said. 'I am weary. It is time to bind you for the night.'
'Please do not bind me, Master,' I said. I rose to my feet, and brushed back my hair. I smiled at him. 'I promise I will not run away, Master,' I said.
I stood on the shifting piece of wreckage.
'I am well aware of the penalties for a runaway slave girl,' I said.
'Lie down by the ring,' he said, 'and be silent.'
'Yes, Master,' I said.
I lay down near the ring.
'On your side,' he said.
I complied. He was the master. I felt my wrists taken behind my back, crossed and tied together, tightly.
I wanted so much to find some way to convince him of my love for him. I wanted him to know, truly, how I loved him. After that he could do what he wanted with me.
He took two pieces of my tunic, twisting them together. He then thrust them about the collar I wore, between the metal and my neck. He then, by means of this improvised rope, tied my collar close to the iron ring on the wreckage, no more than an inch from it. He then removed the knife from his sheath, plunged it into the wood a few feet from him, and lay down. In a moment he had turned away from me, and was asleep.
I could understand his anger with me, a warrior's fury. But his distrust hurt me most.
I could move my head but little. I was tied by my collar close to the ring. I could not free my hands. They had been tied by a warrior.
I wanted to be his love slave. Instead I was his prisoner, a girl who had betrayed him, now caught by him, a captive slave and traitress, one who now lay helpless, bound, within the full compass of the displeasure and vengeance of her betrayed master, who was a warrior of Gor.
I knew he had not yet worked his vengeance upon me. I struggled, helplessly. For the first time I became terribly afraid. It became cold upon the raft.
24
I Am Chained In The Hold Of A Galley
'Awaken, Slave,' said Clitus Vitellius. He kicked me. I awakened. I recalled, looking up at him, bound, I was the girl who had betrayed him. He freed my collar of the ring and took the rope of twisted cloth, from my torn tunic, which had tied me at the ring, and crossed my ankles, and bound them together. The last bit of rep-cloth tunic, which still clung about me, he tore away, and threw it into the sea. I sat up on the wreckage, naked, my hands tied behind my back, my ankles crossed and secured.
A ship was approaching, a medium-class galley, with twenty oars to a side, dipping unhurriedly. The lateen sail was slackened. Clitus Vitellius stood on the wreckage, waiting.
At the mast line snapped two flags, that of Port Kar and the other, that with vertical green bars over a white field, superimposed on which was the head of a gigantic bosk. It had been identified to me two days ago by the conversation of officers on the Jewel of Jad. It was the flag of Bosk of Port Kar.
The galley swung about and eased to the side of the wreckage. A large man, broad-shouldered, yet lithe, with large hands, a broad face, grayish blue eyes and unruly, shaggy, windswept reddish hair, stood at the rail. There was something like an animal about him, indefinable, unpredictable, tenacious, intelligent, cruel. To look at him one knew, though it was the deck of a galley he bestrode, that he was of the warriors. I would have feared being owned by him. His eyes, appraising me, made me conscious of my slavery.
Clitus Vitellius lifted his hand, in a salute of warriors. The man returned the salute.
'I am Clitus Vitellius of Ar,' he said. 'Am I your prisoner?'
'We have little quarrel with those of Ar,' said the man. 'You have little shipping.'
Clitus Vitellius laughed.
'Clitus Vitellius of Ar, and his men,' said the man, 'by accounts rendered to me by Samos of Port Kar, of the Council of Captains, participated creditably in the action of the day before yesterday on behalf of the Jewel of Thassa.'
Port Kar is sometimes spoken of by her citizens as the Jewel of Thassa. Other men speak of her differently, rather as a den of thieves and cutthroats, a lair of pirates. The city is under the governance of a Council of Captains.
'We did the small things we could,' said Clitus Vitellius. 'Cos, as you know, wars with Ar.' Then Clitus Vitellius. looked to the man on the ship. 'My men?' he asked.
'Sound and hale,' said the man, 'on the ship of Samos, the Thassa Ubara.'
'Excellent,' said Clitus Vitellius.
'Your vessel,' said the man, grinning, 'appears seaworthy but has clumsy lines.'
'I request passage for two,' said Clitus Vitellius, 'myself and,' indicating me, 'this slave.'
The man on the ship looked at me. 'A sleek, beautiful little animal,' he said.
