'I would suppose you might be beautiful,' I said. 'There seem the suggestions of the lineaments of a beautiful woman, particularly as you have belted and arranged them, beneath your garments.'
'I like pretty clothes,' she said, 'and I wear them well.'
'Doubtless you would be even more beautiful in the rag of a slave, or naked in a collar,' I said.
'Bold fellow,' she said. But I could see she was pleased. All women are curious to know how beautiful they might be as slaves. This is because all of them, in their heart, are slaves.
She regarded me for a time, not speaking. I knelt there, knees spread. She seemed in no hurry to disclose her will with respect to me. Her eyes roved me, glistening.
'Are you not curious to know why you were brought to my tent?' she asked.
'Mistress has not yet explained it to me,' I said. My heart began to race. I feared she would now announce to me that she knew my true identity, that she was going to put me to her pleasure, and rape me, and then turn me over, a woman's catch, to the Sardar. It did not seem appropriate to me to attack her and perhaps kill her. She might be an agent of Priest-Kings. So, too, for all I knew, might be her men. I recalled the fellow in the booth, he in whom I had left his own knife, in the piazza at Port Kar.
'But surely you can guess,' she said.
'Perhaps,' I said.
'Spread your knees more widely,' she said, coldly.
I did so.
'No perhaps you can guess,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
'You seem relieved,' she said, puzzled.
I shrugged. I was indeed relieved. She had again only been toying with me. It seemed clear to me now, as it had before, that she did not know who I was. The man in the booth, I recalled, had tried to kill me. Thus, if she had truly known my identity, she might, by now, have had me killed. That would have been easy enough to have done while I was drugged. Too, the nature of my capture did not suggest anything special about me. I had merely been one of fifteen brought into her chains.
'There is something else,' she said.
'Oh?' I asked.
'I am interested in being assessed,' she said.
'Assessed?' I asked.
'Yes, objectively,' she said. 'I have been curious about it for a long time.The richness of your garments in the piazza, the weight of your purse, suggests to me that you might have experience in such matters, that you had the means to be intimately familiar with the doing in markets, and so on.'
I was silent.
'Let me remind you,' she said, 'that it is you who kneel before me, with your knees spread like an imbonded girl!'
'I understand,' I said.
Her hand went to the pins at the left side of her veil.
'I think you will find me extraordinarily beautiful,' she said, 'perhaps even slave beautiful.'
'Perhaps,' I said.
She unpinned her veil at the left side, and let it fall, and brushed back the silken hood of her tent robe, shaking her head, freeing a cascade of long, dark hair. She looked at me, amused. 'I see that you find me beautiful,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
She stood. 'Are you familiar with the duties of a silk slave?' she asked. As she spoke, she began to casually disrobe.
'I am a free man,' I said.
'But you have some conception of their duties, do you not?' she inquired.
'Yes,' I said.
'Such duties, and others,' she said, 'will be yours.'
'I understand,' I said.
I caught my breath. She stepped from her robes, softly dropped, as though from a pool of silk at her feet.
'Well?' she asked.
She was stunningly beautiful. She would bring a high price. She then reclined, on cushions, and strewn silks. These were near the back of the small inner sanctum, near the white hangings forming its rear wall. She regarded me, amusement in her eyes. She leaned on one elbow.
'Well?' she asked.
'You are quite beautiful,' I said.
'Do you think I would sell easily?' she asked.
'No,' I said.
'Oh?' she asked.
'Your price would be much too high,' I said. 'Most men would not be able to afford you.'
'But if I were at a reasonable price,' she said.
'Then, doubtless,' I said, 'you would be snapped up immediately.'
'You do regard me then,' she said, 'objectively, as being quite beautiful?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Even slave beautiful?' she asked.
'Your beauty,' said I, 'at least in its external lineaments might well be the envy of many slaves, and if it were to become itself a slave's beauty, with the inward transformations bondage effects in a woman, it might, in time, in my opinion, attain at least the minimum standards of being slave beautiful.'
'Then only a slave can be slave beautiful?' she asked.
'I would not wish to make it a matter of meanings,' I said, 'but, empirically, it does seem to be pretty much a matter of the condition, a function of its fulfillments, and such.'
'Free women are more beautiful than slaves,' she said.
'That is false,' I said. 'Furthermore, every woman, in her heart, knows it is false. Any beauty a free woman has, for example, is enhanced a thousandfold when she becomes a slave.'
'I hate slaves!' she said.
'That is because you are not one of them,' I said. 'You envy them.'
'Beware,' she said. 'I am a free woman!'
'I know,' I said.
'And you are totally in my power,' she said.
'I understand,' I said.
'Approach me, on all fours,' she said. 'Perhaps I will forgive you, if you are skillful.'
I approached her.
'You see me more closely now,' she said. 'Have you assessed free women before?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Assess me,' she said.
'As a free woman?' I asked.
'Of course,' she said. 'That is what I am.'
'You are an incredibly beautiful free woman,' I said.
'Your body obviously agrees with you,' she said.
'Indeed,' I admitted.
'And free women,' she said, 'are a thousand times more, above a mere slave.'
'Yes,' I said. 'There is no comparison. A free woman is inordinately precious. She is a thousand times, and more, above a mere slave.'
'Your status here,' she said, 'is that of a servant, a total servant, until I have you enslaved.'
'I understand,' I said.
'I think it will be amusing to apply a free man to the duties of a silk slave.'
