he may have dealings with various parties. To his camp, I suspect, come not only the captures of brigands, and the stripped females from the outskirts of the Salerian cities, taken by the raiding parties of Ar, but, too, even women taken by the warriors of Cos and of the cities of Saleria. Such a camp, in effect, is a truce ground, where men of various allegiances may in safety bring what prizes may have fallen to their ropes and chains.'
'Tenalion knows me,' she said. 'Doubtless he would swiftly free me.'
'He has doubtless, already in his mind,' I said, 'speculated on your slave potential.'
'He knows me,' she said.
'Do you think that will make a difference to him,' I asked, 'when, with the dispassionate objectivity of the slaver, he stands you upon his assessment platform and assesses your quality as slave meat?'
'Do not take me to Tenalion,' she said. 'I fear him.'
'As well you might, female of Vonda,' I said.
'It is all a joke you are playing on me,' she laughed, suddenly.
'Yet you are bound, and have a strap on your throat,' I said.
'You are keeping me for a time, as a hostage,' she said, 'that is all!'
'And then what?' I asked.
'And then you will release me,' she said. 'That is it.' She laughed.
I turned her about and thrust her again before me, southward.
'Where are we going?' she asked.
'To the camp of Tenalion,' I said.
'But for what reason, Jason,' she begged, 'for what possible reason?'
'He knows you,' I said, 'and he is familiar with various matters known in Vonda and within her vicinity. He will know, for example, that you have been much sought as a Free Companion by rich young swains of Vonda, but that you have held yourself too good for them, and have refused them all.'
'Oh, Jason!' she cried.
I thrust her forward again. Now she was sobbing. 'Hurry your pace,' I told her.
She stumbled. I scanned the skies.
'Doubtless such young men,' I said, 'invited to a private sale, one suitably secret, will bid high against one another to have you. Tenalion will doubtless receive a fine price for you, even though you are untrained, and he, knowing this, will doubtless make me an excellent offer for you.'
'You cannot sell me!' she wept. 'I am not a slave!'
'Times are grim, Lady Florence,' I told her. 'Keep moving.'
'I am not a slave,' she said. 'You are mad to think you can sell me!'
'We shall see,' I said. 'Keep moving.'
Suddenly she turned and knelt, sobbing, in the grass before me. 'I know you can sell me,' she wept. 'But do not, please!'
'Why not?' I asked.
'I am not a slave!' she sobbed.
'Goreans think that in every woman there is a slave,' I said.
'Return me to Vonda,' she said. 'I will get you another woman, a true slave, whom you can sell. Let me go! Sell some other woman, one who is a true slave.'
'Do you think you could find me another,' I asked, 'one to take your place?'
'Yes,' she said. 'Yes!'
'There was a girl of interest to me,' I said, 'apparently one of your own girls.'
'Yes?' she said, eagerly.
'One whom you very kindly sent to content me in the darkness of the tunnels beneath your lands.'
She turned white.
'She did not even have a name, as yet, as I recall,' I said. 'She was referred to, if I recall correctly, merely as the `new slave.''
The girl trembled, and could not meet my eyes.
'She must have been a new slave, indeed,' I said. 'As I recall she had not yet even been branded or collared.'
'Yes, Jason,' whispered the girl.
'She was pleasant in my arms, in a servile, sluttish way,' I said.
The Lady Florence looked up at me, angrily.
'She was a true slave, wouldn't you say?' I asked the girl.
'Yes,' she said, angrily, 'she was a true slave.'
'Do you think you could get her for me?' I asked.
'No,' she said, 'no.'
'Why not?' I asked.
'I told you,' she said, 'I told you in my room, before, I sold her! I sold her!'
'But you did not tell the truth,' I said.
She looked at me, warily. 'How could you know that?' she asked.
'Such news travels swiftly in the stables,' I said. 'If you had sold a slave, I would have heard of it.'
'I see,' she said.
'Why did you lie?' I asked.
'I-I was jealous of her,' she said. 'I wanted you to think she was no longer on the estates.'
'But she was still upon the estates, wasn't she?' I asked
'Yes,' she said.
'What became of her?' I asked.
'Doubtless she was captured by the brigands, when they raided my estates,' she said.
'I do not think so,' I said. 'I saw various slaves, indeed, house slaves and stable sluts, fastened at the saddle rings of the brigands, but I knew them all. No girl there was unknown to me. Thus none of them could have been the new slave.'
'I do not know what became of her,' said the Lady Florence, looking away, trembling.
'But you are certain, are you not,' I asked, 'that she was a true slave?'
'Oh, yes,' said the Lady, Florence. 'That slut was a true slave.'
'She belonged in the collar, wouldn't you say?' I asked.
'Yes, Jason,' said the Lady Florence.
'I wonder if I shall ever see her again,' I mused.
'You would not know it, if you did, would you,' asked the Lady Florence, 'since, by my will, she served you only in the total darkness.'
'I might know,' I told her.
'Oh?' she said, warily.
'Her height and weight, and the feel of her body,' I said, 'were not unlike yours.'
She shrugged, angrily.
'Her thigh, too,' I said, 'was as smooth as yours, and her throat, like yours, was innocent of the obdurate circlet of bondage. Surely such omissions are unusual in the case of female slaves.'
'I simply had not yet had her collared and branded,' she said. 'She was, after all, a new slave.'
'But are not such things among the first things which are done to a female slave?' I asked.
'Sometimes,' shrugged Lady Florence.
'Her voice, too, was not unlike yours,' I said.
'What are you suggesting!' demanded the Lady Florence, angrily.
'Her hair, however,' I said, 'was it the same as yours?'
'No,' she said, 'no! Her hair was blond, quite blond.' The Lady Florence straightened up then, and smiled.
'Your hair, then,' I said, 'is quite different.'
'Yes,' she said.
I walked slowly behind the Lady Florence. She knelt straight. 'Your own hair,' I said, 'is a rich auburn.'
'Yes,' she said.
