'Do you strive to please him?' I asked.
'Yes,' she said, shuddering. 'I do.'
'This ship,' I said, 'in league with the _Telia_, captained by Simak, of the holding of Policrates, took recently upon the river a merchantman, the _Flower of Siba_.' I had learned this in the court of Kliomenes, in the holding of Policrates. The loot had been divided. Part of that loot had been Florence, a curvaceous, auburn-haired slave, who had belonged to Miles of Vonda.
'Perhaps,' she said.
'Prisoners, then, from the _Flower of Siba_,' I said, 'are still on board.'
'Perhaps,' she said. I gathered from the nature of her response that this was, indeed, true. More importantly, I gathered from her response what I had been truly after, that the _Tamira_ had made her rendezvous with the Voskjard's fleet in the western Vosk, and not at his holding. Had the rendezvous been made at the holding the prisoners, presumably, would no longer be on board.
'The captain of the _Tamira_,' I said, 'is an important man, and much trusted by Ragnar Voskjard.'
'Yes,' she said, proudly.
'The rendezvous of the _Tamira_ with the fleet of the Voskjard,' I said, 'took place then not at his holding, but in the river.' I recalled that in open battle the _Tamira_ had been supported, and, indeed, convoyed, by two heavy galleys. This had further confirmed my suspicion that she carried a cargo more precious than many understood.
'Perhaps,' said the girl.
'Has Reginald boarded the flagship of Ragnar Voskjard since the return from the holding of Policrates?' I asked.
'No,' she said, 'though signals were exchanged. Why?'
'Then what I seek,' I said, 'must still be on board.'
'I do not understand,' she said.
'Doubtless it is in this very cabin,' I said.
'I do not understand,' she said, uneasily.
'When Reginald returned from the holding of Policrates, doubtless you met him, either on deck, or in the cabin, as a naked, kneeling slave, licking and kissing at his sea boots, begging to serve him.'
'Yes,' she said, shrinking back.
'He would have been carrying an object, so precious that it would have been in his hands alone.'
'No,' she said.
'Then it would have been papers, in his tunic,' I said. 'You, in his cabin, undressing him, bathing him, serving him, would have seen what he did with the.'
'No!' she said.
'Do not look to the place where he concealed them,' I said.
I saw her glance wildly to my right, to the side of the cabin.
I smiled.
Then, knowing she had betrayed herself, she slipped, frightened, half crouching, from the berth.
'Were you not to remain in the berth until Reginald came for you?' I asked.
She looked at me, frightened.
'Do you not fear you will be slain?' I asked.
She glanced beyond me, across the cabin. I stepped back, that she might have free passage.
'But I do not object,' I told her. 'I did not order you to remain in the berth. I own you now.'
I saw her tense her lovely body. I stepped further back. Then, suddenly, she darted past me, falling to her knees at the side of a great sea chest. She flung up its lid and, frantically, with two hands, rummaged in the chest.
I slipped my knife in my belt. I removed an object from the cabin wall.
Then she had leaped to her feet, wildly, clutching, holding over head, what appeared to he two, flat, rectangular sheets of lead, bound together. She ran to the windows of the cabin, those between and above the rudders, through which I, breaking the frames and glass inward; had entered. She drew back her arms, holding the bound lead sheets over her head, to hurl them into the Vosk.
The whip cracked forth, lashing, snapping, whipping about her startled wrists, binding them together, causing her, crying out with pain, to drop the leaden sheets. By her wrists, temporarily caught in the coils of the whip, I jerked her back and to the side, and she fell, stumbling, among the glass and wood, to my right. With my foot I spurned her to the side of the berth, on the cabin floor. The coil of the whip was then freed.
She whimpered.
I had gathered from the fact that the chest had not been locked, that it had been open to her, and that she had acted with such alacrity, that a charge had been placed upon her in the matter with which I was concerned. That charge, of course, could only have been to see to the immediate destruction of the documents in the event of an emergency. On shipboard, of course, it would be possible to immediately dispose of the documents only by casting them overboard. The lead weighting, of course, would carry them to the mud at the bottom of the Vosk. In a short time, then, the inks would run, and the papers held between the sheets, would disintegrate. My surmises in these matters had been correct. The girl had proved useful.
Whimpering, she was now on her hands and knees at the side of the berth. She extended her hand toward the leaden sheets. The whip clacked savagely and, quickly, she drew back her hand.
'I do not wish to become impatient with you,' I told her.
'You do not own me,' she said.
I smiled. I lifted the whip before her. 'You are mistaken,' I told her.
She eyed the leaden sheets. 'Who are you?' she asked.
'Jason,' I said, 'of Victoria, your master.'
'I am the woman of Reginald, captain of the _Tamira_,' she said.
'No longer,' I said.
She looked at me, angrily. 'I am a captain's woman,' she said.
'You are a mere slave,' I said, 'who must crawl to any man.'
'No!' she said.
'Are you haughty?' I asked.
'If you like,' she said.
I turned from her, to search for oiled cloth and wax, something, anything, with which to make a sealed packet.
I heard wood and glass suddenly move, as she scrambled across the cabin floor, on her hands and knees, toward the leaden sheets.
With a cry of rage I spun about and smote down with the whip. The stroke caught her across the back and buttocks and struck her to her stomach on the floor, amidst the wood and glass. Her extended hand was a foot from the leaden sheets. It had not occurred to me that she would attempt to reach the leaden sheets. Apparently she did not yet know who owned her.
I looked down upon her.
She lay there on her stomach, in the wood and glass, absolutely quietly. She did not move a muscle. She had felt the whip.
'I am not pleased,' I told her.
'No,' she cried. 'No!'
I then, displeased, her Gorean master, savagely lashed the slave. She tried to crawl from the whip, but could not do so. Then she tried to crawl no more, but knelt, her head down, her head in her hands, weeping, at the side of the berth, a whipped slave.
'Forgive a slave for having been displeasing, my Master!' she begged.
She looked up, and I held the whip before her. Eagerly, crying, she took it in her hands and kissed it, fervently.
'Fetch oiled cloth, a lantern, sealing wax, a candle, such things,' I said.
She hurried to obey, and I replaced the whip on the wall. In Gorean domiciles, wherein serve female slaves, it is common to find a whip prominently displayed. The girls see it. They know its meaning. Too, displayed so, it is
