filthy.
'I thought you had been killed,' she said.
'I thought you had been killed,' I said.
'I fell in the water,' she said.
'Apparently in a channel,' I said.
'I nearly drowned in the mud,' she said.
'You look disgusting,' I said.
'Is it dead?' she asked, frightened.
'Yes,' I said.
I thought her knees might give way, that she might fall to the sand.
'It is dead,' I said.
'You are injured,' she said. My left leg was covered with blood.
'It is nothing,' I said.
'There may be others,' she said.
'Probably not in this vicinity,' I said. The larger uls, as opposed to the several smaller varieties, some as small as jards, tend to be isolated and territorial.
'But there are many dangers in the delta,' she said.
'Some, perhaps,' I said.
Suddenly she hurried forward and dropped to her knees in the sand before me. She was sobbing and shuddering, uncontrollably. She put her head tremblingly down to the sand. The palms of her hands were in the sand, the sand coming over her fingers. She kept this position for several Ihn. Then she looked up at me, piteously, pleadingly, from all fours. 'Please,' she said. 'Please!'
She had performed obeisance before me.
'Please!' she wept.
I regarded her, impassively.
She crawled to my knees and clasped them, kneeling before me, looking up at me, tears in her eyes. She held her arms about my legs, closely. I could feel her move and tremble, and shudder. Her face was running with tears. Then she put her cheek down, against my bloody leg. I could feel her tears on my leg. 'Please,' she whispered piteously, 'Please! Please!'
'Lick the blood from my leg,' I said.
'Yes, yes!' she said, eagerly.
I looked down to see that small, lovely pink tongue addressing itself dutifully, eagerly, assiduously, to its task. How in contrast its softness, its color, and its attentive delicacy seemed to the bedraggled, filthy figure, with its matted hair, at my feet. To be sure, the figure was curvaceous.
When she had finished her task, cleaning the blood and dirt from my leg, she looked up at me, hopefully, her hands still on my legs.
'Back away,' I said. 'Stay on your knees.'
She backed away, about two yards, on her knees.
I raised the blade of the sword a little. 'Lift your chin,' I said.
She complied.
'You are filthy,' I said.
'Let me come with you!' she said.
'It is difficult to assess you in your present condition,' I said.
She looked at me, startled.
'Go make yourself presentable,' I said. Surely she would remember that the men of Ar were to make me presentable before I appeared before her, during our little interview, that which had occurred on another island, several days ago, that in which I had learned she was a Cosian spy, that in which I had first noted that that her ankles would look well in shackles.
Tears sprang to her eyes.
'Make yourself sparkle,' I said.
With a sob, she sprang up, and hurried across the sand, and out a little into the water, where she stood, the water to her knees. She then began to wash her limbs and body, and face, the water splashing and falling about her. I watched her. It was not unpleasant. A slave girl, I thought, however, would have done it much better, and, of course, in such a way that an observing master might be driven mad with passion. The Lady Ina, of course, was only a free woman. She did look back, anxiously, from time to time, but this, I think, was less to observe my interest and reaction than for the purpose of reassuring herself that I had not left. Then she knelt in the water, by the shore, and washed her hair. This she did do with a touch of sensuousness, perhaps because she was now reasonably confident I was not about to disappear into the rence. This sensuousness became pronounced when she began to comb her hair out with her fingers, and also when she began to dry it, shaking it lightly about, and lifting it, and moving it about, in her hands, to dry it. Then she threw her hair back over her shoulders and rose to her feet, and approached me, slowly, across the sand.
Now she stood again, before me, straightly, yet gracefully, her ankles in the sand, the sun on her. She was now very white, her ablutions performed, the mud washed from her, and her hair was lovely. She sparkled. She smiled. I think she knew she was beautiful, or thought she was beautiful. But as I continued to regard her, impassively, her mien became less confident, and more timid.
I pointed to the sand before me.
She immediately, frightened, dropped to her knees and again put her head down to the sand, the palms of her hands, too, on the sand.
It is pleasant to have a woman perform obeisance before one. It is also appropriate. In such a way, in such symbolisms, may the order of nature, and its profound truths, in a conventional and civilized manner, be expressed and acknowledged.
To be sure, this gesture had not been performed voluntarily by the woman at this time, in a typical reverence for the male, for nature, and for herself, and her meaning, but had been commanded by me. Also, I had not commanded this gesture merely for my own pleasure, to see the beauty before me, so marvelously, so rightly, but I had commanded it of her for her own good, that she might clearly understand the nature of our relationship, that she would understand herself, in the deepest part of her belly, as being submitted. Indeed, I had required it of her categorically, unquestioningly, as a master might require it of a slave.
'You may raise your head,' I said.
She looked up at me, her lower lip trembling.
'Kneel back on your heels,' I said. 'Open your knees, widely. More widely. Good.' I did not doubt but what she would recall that she had, back on the other island, days ago, when she had had power, the backing of numerous armed men, been the issuer of such instructions, not their recipient. 'Place the palms of your hands on your thighs,' I said. 'Lift your head.'
'This is a slave position, is it not?' she asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'I am not a slave!' she said.
'Do not break position,' I said. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
'You now wish to address a petition to me?' I asked.
'Yes!' she said.
'Do not break position,' I warned her. She kept position.
'You may speak,' I informed her.
'Take me with you!' she cried. 'Guard me! Protect me! Defend me! I cannot protect myself! I cannot defend myself! I am a female. I need male protection! I am only a female! Without your protection I will die in the delta. Without your protection I can never get out of the delta alive. I am a woman, only a woman. I need you desperately!'
'Rencer women,' I said, 'live in the delta.'
'I am not a rencer woman!' she wept.
To be sure, rencer women, as well as others, needed the protection of men. If nothing else, slavers could hunt them down and get them in their chains. All women need the protection of men, though sometimes this
