fools as to do that, if we were men. It would be too valuable and glorious a thing to give up. Its surrender would be a tragedy. But we are not men! We are women, and want, truly, with everything in our hearts and bellies, to be women, and we cannot be women truly if men are not truly men! Lay down the whip, and we will attack you, and undermine you, and use your own laws, institutes and rhetorics to destroy you, inch by inch. Lift it, and we will lick your feet in gratitude. Own us, dominate us! Enslave us, properly, so that we may love you as women are meant to love, wholly and irreservedly, totally, without a thought for ourselves!' She looked at me, tears in her eyes. 'Is it so wrong to want to be ourselves?'
'But there are hazards in slavery,' I said.
'I accept them,' she said, 'and would try to please my master.' 'You would be well advised to do so,' I said.
'I know,' she smiled.
'Attend to the porridge,' I said.
She removed it from the fire and covered it, to let it stand for a bit. She then set out two bowls, with spoons, and two trenchers, for some bread.
She served, deferentially.
I considered her flanks, and breasts. They were excellent. Although her garmenture was assuredly scanty, she was more extensively clothed than many of the women in the camp. There were men here.
She spooned the porridge into the bowls and set the bread, wedges, from a round, flat loaf, on the trenchers, and knelt back. She would wait, of course, until I had taken the first bite.
Considering the size of the besieging force there were not as many women in the camp as might have been expected. I hoped this would work in my favor. The paucity of women, relatively, rent slaves even bringing a copper tarsk a night, had largely to do with the coming and going of the slave wagons, which tended to carry off most of the captures, apprehended refugees, women who had fled from Ar's Station for food, giving themselves into bondage for a crust of bread, and such, to a dozen or so scattered markets, markets such as Ven, Besnit, Port Olni, and Harfax.
I bit into the bread and Phoebe then, too, began to eat, taking a small spoonful of the porridge.
It had become dark now.
We could hear the pleasure cries of a woman a few tents away.
'Do you think she is free?' asked Phoebe.
'Probably,' I said. 'There are not too many slaves in the camp now.' 'What do you think he is doing to her?' she asked.
'Mastering her,' I said.
'Do you think she is tied?' she asked.
'Probably,' I said.
She looked down, shuddering, blushing. The intensification of sexual pleasure, both physically and psychologically, by the application of selected restraints is well known.
'The women I have seen in this camp,' she said, 'do not appear to be overdressed.'
'They are prisoners of strong men,' I said. She listened to the girl's cried. 'She is passionate,' said Phoebe.
'She had probably been given little choice,' I said.
'Nonetheless,' said Phoebe, 'she is passionate.'
'Her destiny is doubtless to be the collar,' I said.
'So, too, I would were mine,' said Phoebe, boldly. 'You are already a captive and servant, a full servant,' I said. 'I would go beyond that,' she said, 'to my ultimate meaningfulness, that of the slave.'
'Eat,' I said.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
I considered, again, the women from the Crooked Tarn. They had knelt well, their knees spread as those of slaves. Liadne had done well with them. I had wanted them to learn, of course, not only discipline, but something of the arts of pleasing men. Liadne, herself, was not an experienced slave, for, I recalled, she had been startled to find herself utilized, with her ankles chained, but she would still, presumably, be worlds of sensuousness beyond the simple free women in her charge. What could she have shown them in three days? Something, I supposed. Perhaps little more than how to make slave lips and do a little squirming, naked. That might be enough, however, for my purposes. The Cosians in the front trenches, and behind the earthworks and hurdles, who would have borne the brunt of sorties in the past, and had doubtless contributed more than their share to the assaults, would not, I thought, be averse to finding a woman among them, particularly one naked and on a chain.
'She is quiet now,' said Phoebe.
'He is probably letting her subside,' I said.
'What is that?' she asked, suddenly, lifting her head.
'War trumpets,' I said. I rose up and went outside the tent. She followed. Others, too, about, from others of the small tents, had emerged.
From Ar's Station came the sounds of trumpets, far off. 'It is a night assault,' I said.
We looked toward the city.
We could see lights there. These were probably bundles of sticks set afire by defenders, and thrown, suspended on chains, over the walls, to illuminate them. 'There must be many women left in Ar's Station,' she said.
'Doubtless,' I said.
'How they must be afraid,' she said, 'hearing such alarms.' 'Perhaps,' I said.
'There are many encampments of slavers, and slavers' men, and cages, and slave wagons about,' she said.
'Yes,' I said.
The women of a city are, of course, among its prize loot. The women of Ar's Station, even the youngest and most beautiful, might now be pale, and drawn and scrawny, but water, and slave gruel, forced down their throats if necessary, could bring back their color, and fatten them for the block. Females, of course, make superb acquisitions, and gifts.
We listened for a time to the distant trumpets, watched the small spots of light in the distance.
Those about us, one after another, returned to their tents. It was only another attack, far off.
'Men are dying there,' I said, looking toward Ar's Station.
'I am afraid,' she said.
'Go into the tent,' I said.
We reentered the tent and finished our meal, in silence.
'Do not try to enter the city,' she said.
'Your thigh would probably look well, roped to a post, awaiting the branding iron,' I said.
'Master?' she asked.
'Do not move when the iron presses into you,' I said.
'Am I to be enslaved?' she asked.
'My remarks are general,' I said.
'You are planning on leaving me!' she said.
'I do not know if I will see you again or not,' I said.
'Do not try to enter the city!' she said.
'Come here,' I said. 'On your knees.'
She approached me, as commanded. She then knelt there, slimly, beside me. 'Clasp your hands behind the back of your neck,' I said, 'and do not interfere.' 'What are you doing?' she asked.
'Kneel up, off your heels,' I said.
'What are you doing?' she asked.
'This garment you are wearing,' I said, 'what is, in effect, a chatka, I am shortening and transforming into two slave strips.' I drew the long strip before the cord in front back over the cord so that it would no longer hang midway, or about midway, between her knees and ankles but was now about eighteen inches long. The garment then lopped below her body. I then cut the garment a bit behind and below the cord in front. I then moved her about and treated the garment similarly in the back, drawing the strip back over the cord so that it was now only
