upon her. One of the things which many free women resent about female slaves is that they are commonly denied the veil, that men may look openly, as they please, upon them.
'I do not think we shall meet again,' she said.
'Probably not,' I said.
'Am I not beautiful?' she asked.
'I do not know if you are beautiful,' I said. 'You are pretty.'
'Beautiful!' she demanded.
'Your face is too hard, too tense, too cold, to be beautiful,' I said.
'Beautiful!' she insisted.
'If you were in a collar for a few weeks,' I said, 'your face would soften, and become more sensitive, more delicate and feminine. Too, as you learned service, obedience and love, and the categoricality of your condition, and your inalterable helplessness within it, many changes would take place in you, in your body, your face, your psychology, your dispositions, and such. Your entire self would become more loving, more sexual, more sensitive, more delicate and feminine. You would find yourself, too, more relaxed, yet, too, more alive, more eager, more vital, such things connected, simply enough, with your depth fulfillments as a woman.'
'As a slave!' she said.
'Yes,' I said. 'That is what a woman is, most deeply, most lovingly, a slave.'
She shuddered.
'And then,' I said, 'I think it possible that your face might be no longer merely pretty, but, flushed and radiant, tending to express in its way your happiness, your fulfillment, your truth, your awareness that you then occupied, and would continue to occupy, and helplessly, your proper place in nature, very pretty.'
'And then my price?' she asked.
'There are many beautiful women on Gor,' I said.
'And then my price!' she insisted.
'For a superb, cuddly slut?' I asked.
'My price!' she demanded.
'Probably an average number of copper tarsks,' I said.
'Guards!' she cried, in fury, at the same time angrily lifting the corner of her veil, fumbling with it, repinning it. Men had hurried to her side. She pointed to me. 'It is true,' she cried. 'He is a spy, a sleen of Cos. Too, he intends to spread seditious rumors among the troops. Give him ten lashes, of suitable severity!'
'It will be done, lady,' said my keeper.
'Then see that he is gagged, thoroughly,' she said.
'Yes, lady,' said the keeper.
Already a fellow was loosening one of the shackles. In a moment my hands were manacled before my body.
'Kneel to the whip,' said the keeper.
I knelt, my head to the sand.
In a moment I heard the hiss of the lash. Then it had fallen on me ten times.
I was then pulled up, kneeling, and my hands were again fastened behind my back. The wadding of the gag was thrust in my mouth, deeply. It was then fastened in place, the binding knotted behind the back of my neck, tightly, painfully. I was then flung to my belly in the sand, my ankles bound closely to one stake, my neck-rope, considerably shortened now, keeping my body stretched, to another.
There was some blood in the sand, near me. 'See that he is worked well,' she said.
'We shall, lady,' my keeper assured her. She then, I think, withdrew.
I lay in the sand, my head turned to the side.
I heard two sting flies hum by, 'needle flies,' as the men of Ar called them.
It had been very hot in the marsh today. It had been oppressively hot, steamingly hot. I supposed the heat must have been hard for the Lady Ina, in her robes. Muchly she must have suffered in them. Such sacrifices must be made by the fashionable and high born, however. Much more practical for the delta would have been the skimpy garments of female slaves, the brief tunics, the short, open-sided, exciting camisks, the scandalous ta- teeras, or slave rags, indeed, the many varieties of stimulating slave garments, sometimes mere strips and strings, garments deliberately revelatory of imbonded beauty. How unfortunate, I thought, that Lady Ina had no serving slaves with her, to assist her in the intricacies of her toilet. She even had to brush her own hair.
In time my back hurt less.
It had been very hot in the marsh today.
I recalled the ankles of the Lady Ina, and her face. She had shown me her ankles of her own will, and, I suspect, had desired to reveal to me, also, her face. I wondered if it were good that I had looked upon her ankles, her face. It is not like looking on the beauty of a female slave whom one may then, with a snap of the fingers, send to the furs.
'It was hot today,' said a man.
'Yes,' said another.
Indeed, it had been. I had had an uneasy feeling in that heat, that quiet, oppressive, steaming heat. I had felt almost as if something lay brooding over the marsh, or within it, something dark, something physical, almost like a presence, something menacing.
'What do you think of the Lady Ina?' one fellow asked another.
'A she-sleen,' said the other.
'But I would like to get my hands on her,' said the first fellow.
'I, too,' laughed the second.
It occurred to me how much refuge women have in a civilized world, protected by customs, by artifices, by conventions, by arrangements, by laws. Did they understand, I wondered, the tenuousness of such things, their fragility, their dependence on the will of men. Did they wonder sometimes, I wondered, what might be their lot, or how they might fare, if such things were swept away, if suddenly they no longer existed? Did they understand that then they would as vulnerable as slaves? One wants a civilization, of course. Civilizations are desirable. One would wish to have one. But then, again, there are many sorts of civilizations. Suppose an old order should collapse, or disintegrate, or be destroyed. What would be the nature of the new order? Surely it need not be built on the failed model of the old order. That was an experiment which was tested, and found wanting. It was a mistake. It did not work. What would the new order be like? Let us hope it would be a sounder order, one, for once, fully in harmony with nature. What would the position of women be in the new order, I wondered. Would women have a place in the new order, I wondered. Certainly, I thought, a very secure place.
It would be hard to sleep tonight, for the ropes.
I thought again of the Lady Ina. I wondered, idly, what she might look like, stripped, kneeling, in a collar and chains. She would probably be acceptable, I thought.
I listened to birdlike cries in the marsh. The Lady Ina had thought them Vosk gulls. So, too, did the men. They may, of course, have been right.
Eventually I slept.
13 We Proceed Further into the Delta
'Hold!' whispered a fellow ahead, wading, his hand held back, palm exposed.
I stopped in the yoke. The three-log raft, the harness settling in the water between myself and it, moved slowly forward. In a moment I felt the logs touch my back, gently, beneath the yoke. I heard weapons about me, unsheathed.
The officer's barge was to my right, he forward, with others. The fellow on the observation platform on the barge, crouched down.
'We have them now, lads,' whispered the officer to some of the men wading between the raft and barge. He made a sign. Subalterns, with signs, deployed their men.
I felt an arm placed over the yoke and about my neck, holding me in place. At my throat, too, my chin now
