they want me alive?'
'I own you,' she said to the man. 'Free me!' I recalled that he had been purchased from the pens of Lydius for her sport. Apparently she had stood the purchase price. Her arrogance, and airs, suggested that she might well have done so.
'You seem rich and educated,' I said.
'I am both,' she said. 'I am of the high merchants.'
'I, too, was of the merchants,' said Constance.
'Be silent, Slave Girl,' snapped the free woman.
'Yes, Mistress,' stammered Constance. She placed a branch upon the fire. She withdrew. She was new to her collar.
The free woman glared at the man who had captured her. 'Free me, now!' she said.
He looked at her, fingering the knife he had taken from her.
The free woman squirmed in her bonds, frightened. She looked at me. 'You are free,' she said, 'protect me!'
'What is your Home Stone?' I asked.
'That of Lydius,' she said.
'I do not share it,' I said.
The man crouched near her. His hand was behind her neck, holding her. The point of the dagger was in her belly.
'I free you! I free you!' she said.
'Have some meat,' I said to him. I had been roasting some bosk over the small fire.
He, now a free man, came and sat near me, across the fire from me. The free woman shrank back, in the shadows. Constance knelt behind me and to my left, making herself unobtrusive. Occasionally she fed the fire.
The free man and I fed. 'What is your name?' I asked. I threw a hit of meat to Constance, which she snatched up and ate.
'Ram,' said he, 'once of Teletus, but friendless now in that island, one banished.'
'Your crime?' I asked.
'In a tavern,' he said, 'I slew two men in a brawl.'
'They are strict in Teletus,' I said.
'One of them stood high in the administration of the island,' he said.
'I see,' I said.
'I have been in many cities,' he said.
'How do you work your living?' I asked. 'Are you a bandit?'
'No,' said he. 'I am a trader. I trade north of Ax Glacier for the furs of sleen, the pelts of leem and larts.'
'A lonely work,' I said.
'I have no Home Stone,' he shrugged.
I pitied him.
'How is it,' I asked, 'that you fell slave?'
'The hide bandits,' he said.
'I do not understand,' I said.
'They have closed the country north of Ax Glacier,' he said.
'How can this be?' I asked.
'Tarnsmen, on patrol,' said he. 'I was seized and, though free, sold south as a slave.'
'Why should these men wish to close off the north?' I asked.
'I do not know,' he said.
'Tarns cannot live at that latitude,' I said.
'In the summer they can,' said he. 'Indeed, thousands of birds migrate each spring to the nesting cliffs of the polar basin.'
'Not tarns,' I said.
'No,' said he. 'Not tarns.' Tarns were not migratory birds.
'Surely men can slip through these patrols,' I said.
'Doubtless some do,' he said.
'You were not so fortunate,' I said.
'I did not even know they came as enemies,' he laughed. 'I welcomed them. Then I was shackled.' He chewed on a piece of meat, then swallowed it. 'I was sold at Lydius,' he said. He looked up, again chewing, at the free woman. 'I was bought there by this high lady,' he said. He swallowed down the meat.
'What are you going to do with me?' she asked.
'I can think of many things,' he said, regarding her.
'It would be simple to untie her ankles,' I said.
'Do not touch me!' she said. 'I am free.'
'Perhaps you are a slave,' he said.
'No,' she said. 'No! I am free!'
'We shall see,' he said.
'I do not understand,' she said.
He turned away from her, wiping his hands on his thighs. He went over to the edge of the pond, and, kneeling down beside the water, drank. When he got up he looked at the tracks there. When he returned, he smiled. 'My thanks,' said he.
I nodded.
I scanned the skies for the tarn. Game must indeed be scarce, I thought.
Constance put more wood on the fire. She glanced at the Lady Tina.
'Do not look at me, Slave!' hissed the Lady Tina.
'Forgive me, Mistress,' said Constance. She looked away, frightened. She did not wish to be beaten.
'Sir,' said the free woman, addressing her captor, Ram, once of Teletus.
'Yes,' he said.
'My modesty is offended,' she said. 'I find it disagreeable to be unclothed before a slut of a slave who is not even my personal maid.'
'In the morning,' said he, 'you will be partially clothed.' She looked at him, puzzled.
'May I command your girl,' he asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'Constance,' said he.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Look well and carefully upon our prisoner,' he said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
The free woman turned her head away, in fury.
'Do you think,' he asked, 'that she might make a pretty slave.'
'I am not a man, Master,' said Constance, 'but I should think she might make even a beautiful slave.'
'Please!' protested the free woman.
'Look upon her when and as you wish,' said Ram.
'Yes, Master,' smiled Constance. I saw her make a tiny face at the Lady Tina.
'Oh!' cried the Lady Tina, in fury, squirming in the leather.
'What do you think?' asked Ram of me.
'She squirms well,' I said. 'I think she is excellent meat for marking.'
'I hate you all!' said the Lady Tina. 'And I will never be a slave! You cannot make me a slave! Never, never will I be a slave. No man can make me a slave!'
'I shall not even try,' said Ram.
She looked at him, startled.
'I shall not make you my slave,' he said. 'unless you beg to be my slave.'
