32 Rendezvous
'Yes. Yes!' cried Ina softly.
Well, and prettily, had she begged again, much as might have a slave, and I had seen fit to reward her.
She had first learned to beg, rather as a slave, on the morning after the young rencer had left us, after our trek of the night. I recalled how she had crawled to me on her knees, desperately, needfully, piteously, her hands pinioned helplessly behind her, in her bonds. She had been pretty. Indeed, it had been hard to tell her from a slave. In response to her request I had, in the past few days, taught her various modalities of petition, which I had trained her in, sometimes over and over, to be sure, modalities more appropriate to the female slave than the free woman. The day before yesterday she had crawled to me on all fours. Yesterday afternoon she had crawled to me on her belly, to lick and kiss at my feet. This afternoon, she had approached me on her belly with a switch in her teeth, to be used on her liberally if she were not pleasing. It lay to one side. It had not been necessary to use it. She had been pleasing, quite.
'Yes,' she whispered.
The usages to which I had subjected her this afternoon, one might think, would have contented even a lascivious bondmaid, not to mention a mere free woman.
'Oh, yes,' she said.
Then I rolled to one side, and lay on one elbow, regarding her.
'A captive is grateful,' she said, 'for the attentions of her captor.'
She then lay on her back, in the sand, looking up. We were near a Tur tree.
'I am sure of it,' Titus called down, from the branches of the tree. 'I can see fields, some pasangs off. It is the edge of the delta!'
'Good,' said more than one man about, but surely they, as I, knew that the most dangerous part of the journey lay ahead of us.
I regarded Ina.
She seemed quiet now, but I knew that in the delta slave fires had been ignited in her belly. She seemed quiet now, but somewhere within her those fires lay smoldering, ready to spring again, persistently, predictably, mercilessly, into flame. I did not know if she could ever return to being a free woman, in the full sense. She was now, I feared, the sort of woman who belongs to men.
I would scout out the edge of the delta, at night, trying to find an avenue of escape for myself, for Ina, and the others. I doubted that it would be easy. Also, beyond the delta, one would not have the cover of the marsh, the rence.
'Are you eager to leave the delta, my captor,' asked Ina, turning to look upon me.
'Yes,' I said.
'Yet you seem apprehensive,' she said.
'I am,' I said.
'I do not know if I wish to leave the delta,' she said.
'Oh?' I said.
'I have been happier here,' she said, 'than anywhere in my life.'
'Perhaps you could remain here,' I said.
'If I were to remain here,' she said, 'if I were not devoured, I would be sure to fall to a rencer.'
'To be then kept, or sold,' I said.
'Perhaps to be recognized,' she said, 'and then put out for tharlarion.'
'It is possible,' I said.
'I was seen by hundreds of rencers,' she said. 'Any one of them might recognize me. It is possible I might not be permitted a veil.'
'That is surely possible,' I said. I smiled to myself. Not even the free women of the rencers veil themselves. I suspected that the Lady Ina's days of the veil were over. Captives and slaves are commonly denied the veil.
'Stay with me in the rence,' she whispered. 'Keep me here, with you, as you have been.'
'I have business out of the delta,' I said.
She looked at me, tears in her eyes.
'And you, too,' I said, 'should leave the delta. You are not a rencer. You do not belong here.'
She lay on her back, the palms of her hands down, her fingers in the sand. 'I know.' she said. Then suddenly her fingers clawed down, into the sand. 'But I am a captive,' she said. 'I do not know what is to become of me outside of the delta!'
'Perhaps you could return to Ar,' I said.
'Oh, yes!' she laughed.
To be sure, she was thousands of pasangs from Ar, and if she ever returned to Ar presumably she would do so only as a scantily clad slave, her former wealth, identity, station and position irretrievably removed from her, no different from other such slaves in the city.
'You cannot remain here,' I said.
'I know,' she said.
We had moved southwest for two days after the visit of the young rencer to our camp, and had then adjusted our trek to the southeast, and then to the south, to reach the point at which I wished to exit from the delta, a point far enough from both Brundisium, on the coast, and Ven, on the south bank of the Vosk, to be far from any major bases of Cosians. Presumably the Cosians would not expect many of Ar to leave the delta in this area, particularly this late in summer. Too, they would be likely to assume that most of Ar's expeditionary force in the delta would by now have either successfully effected its exit or perished. I supposed that this late in the summer most Cosian regulars would have been withdrawn from the delta watch. I had even hoped that these areas would not be heavily patrolled. The young rencer had warned me, however, I recalled, that the edges of the delta were infested by Cosians and their hirelings. That had been an unwelcome intelligence, but one I did not find it hard to credit. To be sure, I suspected that he, or his informants, would not be likely to discriminate nicely between complete and selective surveillance, between closed patterns, such as manned perimeters, and random patrols, or even between Cosian regulars and mercenaries.
'Be of good cheer,' I said. 'Out of the delta you may even be permitted clothing, other than, say, a meager pair of slave strips.'
'I might have been granted only one,' she said.
'True,' I said. I recalled Phoebe, the slim young maid of Cos whom I had taken with me, at her request, from the Crooked Tarn. I had put her in a single slave strip before I had turned her over to Ephialtes, the sutler, to hold for me. He might, by now, I supposed, be in the vicinity of Brundisium. Presumably the balance of Cos' northern forces, mostly mercenaries, would have retired to that city, for mustering out, or reassignment.
'But surely you are distressed,' I said, 'that you have been garmented as you have, in such a manner that you might at a distance, save for the collar, be mistaken for a thigh-stripped, bare-breasted slave.'
'The delta is warm,' she said, evasively. 'The slave strips are comfortable. Too, it gives pleasure to the men, I think, that they see me in them.'
'They give you pleasure, too,' I said, 'that you know how beautiful and exciting you are in them.'
'Perhaps,' she said, rising to her knees, modestly adjusting them. This she now did with her hands. When a girl's hands are bound behind her she customarily does this by movements of her hips and belly. To be sure, it might be to her advantage, in such a case, to make certain that men are not watching, lest she must then redo the work, again and again.
'I wonder if I am to be again clothed,' she said.
'You are already clothed,' I said.
'Other than slave strips!' she said.
'I would think so,' I said.
'If I am given clothing,' she said, 'I wonder what sort of clothing it would be.'
'I do not know,' I said.
