'There is another penalty which may be inflicted upon free women,' cried the blond.
I turned again to face her. 'Do not even speak of it,' I said. 'It is too degrading and horrifying. Surely death is a thousand times more preferable.'
'I beg that other penalty,' said the blond, kneeling in the mud on the shore. 'I, too,' cried the dark-haired girl, kneeling. too, in the mud. 'I, too!'
'Speak clearly,' I said.
'We beg enslavement,' said the blond, 'Enslave us, we beg of you!'
'Enslave yourselves,' I said.
'I declare myself a slave,' said the blond, 'and I submit myself to you as my master.' She put her head down to the mud. 'I declare myself a slave,' said the dark-haired girl, and then she turned to face Turgus, 'and I submit myself to you as my master.' She then put her head down, like the blond, to the mud.
'Lift your head,' I said to the blond. 'Lift your head,' said Turgus to the other girl. The two girls lifted their heads, anxiously.
'You are now only two slaves,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' mid the blond. 'Yes. Master,' said the dark-haired girl. They had declared themselves slaves. The slave herself, of course, once the declaration has been made, cannot revoke it. That would be impossible, for she is then only a slave. The slave can be freed only by one who owns her, only by one who is at the time her master or, if it should be the case, her mistress. The legal point, I think, is interesting. Sometimes, in the fall of a city, girls who have been enslaved, girls formerly of the now victorious city, will be freed. Technically, according to Merchant Law, which serves as the arbiter in such intermunicipal matters, the girls become briefly the property of their rescuers, else how could they be freed? Further, according to Merchant Law, the rescuer has no obligation to free the girl. In having been enslaved she has lost all claim to her former Home Stone. She has become an animal. If, too, she is sufficiently desirable, it is almost certain she will not be freed. As the Goreans have it, such women are too beautiful to be free. Too, as often as not, city pride enters into such matters. Such girls, with other slave girls, both of various cities and with the former free women of the conquered city, now collared slaves, too, will often be marched naked in chains in the loot processions of the conquering cities. It is claimed they have shamed their former city by having fallen slave, and if they were good enough to be only slaves in the conquered city then surely they should be no more within the walls of the victorious city. Such girls usually are marched in a special position in the loot processions, behind and before banners which proclaim their shame. The people much abuse them and lash them as they pass. Such girls usually beg piteously to be sold to transient slavers. It is hard for them to wear their collars in their own city.
Kisu and Ayari, and Turgus and I, entered the canoe. 'Masters!' cried the blond, kneeling in the mud, her hands braceleted behind her. 'Wait!' cried the dark-haired girl.
'You are slaves,' I told them. 'You may be left behind.' The prow of the canoe swung slowly toward the center of the river.
'Do not leave us!' cried the blond. She struggled to her feet and, slipping, waded splashing to the side of the canoe. So, too, did the dark-haired girl.
The canoe was now in waist-deep water.
The blond, wading beside it, crying, thrust her body against its side. 'Please,' she begged, 'please!' Both the girls still wore the vine collars on their throats, which the small people had affixed on them, that they might be fastened more easily at the fallen tree. The blond, too, still had looped about her neck her gag lashing with its unrolled, dependent wadding looped about it.
'Let us serve you as work slaves!' cried the blond. 'Yes, Master, please!' cried the dark-haired girl. The canoe continued to move, and the two girls waded, weeping, beside it. 'Let us serve you as work and pleasure slaves!' cried the blond. 'Yes, Masters,' cried the dark-haired girl. 'Please, please!'
'Do you have the makings of a pleasure slave?' I asked the blond. I held her by the vine collar at the side of the canoe.
'Yes, Master,' she wept. 'Yes, Master!' 'I, too,' cried the dark-haired girl.
I pulled the blond into the canoe, kneeling before me, her back to me. She was shuddering. Turgus drew the weeping trembling dark-haired girl, too, into the canoe. She fainted, overcome, and he placed her on her side, knees drawn up, before him.
'Where are you from?' I asked the blond girl.
'I, and Fina,' she said, indicating with her head the dark-haired girl, 'are from Turia. The other girls are from various cities in the south.'
'Did you spy upon us once,' I asked, 'further down the river?'
'Yes,' she said. 'It was I. We then determined to try and trap you, for slaves.' Ayari, then, long ago, had, as I had suspected, seen a taluna in the forest. He had thought it might have been Janice, gathering wood.
'How came you to the rain forests?' I asked.
'I, and Fina, and the others,' she said, 'fled undesired companionships.'
'But now you have fallen slave,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Your entire band,' I said, 'will doubtless know no nobler fate.'
'Yes, Master,' she said. She shuddered. 'We now, all of us, belong to men.'
'Yes,' I said.
'You left our vine collars on,' she said. 'You knew, did you not, that we would beg slavery?
'Yes,' I said.
'But how could you know?' she asked.
'Though you and the others have fought your femininity,' I said, 'yet you and they are both beautiful and feminine.'
'You knew that we were natural slaves?' she said.
'Of course,' I said.
'I will no longer be permitted to fight my femininity, will I?' she asked.
'No,' I said. 'You are now a slave girl. You will yield to it, and fully.'
'I'm frightened,' she said.
'That is natural,' I said.
'It will make me so loving and helpless,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
'Can I dare, too, now,' she asked, 'to be sensuous?'
'If you are not fully pleasing in all the modalities of the slave girl, sensuous and otherwise,' I said, 'you will be severely punished.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Or slain,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she whispered.
The canoe moved into the center of the river. 'I do not know how to be a slave girl,' she suddenly wept. I thrust her head down, 'You will begin,' I said, 'by learning to be docile and submissive.' I then rewound the wadding and, dragging her head up briefly, by the hair, from behind, pushed it into — her mouth and lashed, it in place. I then again thrust her head down. 'Also,' I said, 'you will consider whether or not, at a given time, your master wishes to hear you speak. If you are in doubt, you may ask his permission to speak, which may then be granted or denied, as he pleases.'
She nodded, piteously signifying her slave's assent.
We then continued our journey eastward.
In a few moments she began to tremble. Tears fell from her eyes, staining her thighs and the wood of the canoe bottom. I put her then gently on her stomach, her head turned to the left. She shuddered and then, exhausted by her ordeal, fell asleep.
We paddled on.
We would let the new slaves sleep for a time. Then, in an Ahn or so, we would put our hands upon them and, holding them by the hair and the braceleted wrists, thrust them half over the side, immersing their heads and torsos in the river, that they might be awakened. We would then pull them back into the canoe, tie their ankles to a thwart and remove their slave bracelets. Paddles would be thrust into their hands. Janice, Alice and Tende might
