before her.'
'I warned you about that sort of thing,' I reminded her.
'Am I to be beaten?' she asked.
'No,' I said. 'Such knee positions become almost instinctive in a female slave, and I would not wish to complicate your training by punishing you for having failed to alter them in a particular case. I do not want your dispositions to respond to become too complex, or inconsistent.'
'Thank you, Master,' she said.
'Too,' I said, 'the guards were men, and had been present.'
'Yes, Master!' she said.
'But for your own sake, when you are before free women,' I said, 'I would advise you to be alert to such matters.'
'Yes, Master!' she said.
'Continue,' I said.
'The woman looked down at me. I scarcely dared look at her. Muchly did I keep my head down. I even trembled. You can well imagine how small and meaningless I felt there.'
'Certainly,' I said, 'in such a place, in the presence of such a personage, the Ubara of Ar herself.'
'Oh, yes, Master,' she said, 'certainly that. But it was not just that.'
'Oh?' I said.
'I think it was even more that she was a free woman, and that I was before her, only a slave.'
'I see,' I said.
'This note does not come from Appanius,' she said to me.
'No, Mistress,' I said.
'Do you know from whom it comes?' she asked.
'From the beautiful Milo,' I said.
'Do you know its contents?' she asked.
'No, Mistress,' I said.
'Can you read?' she asked.
' 'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
' 'But you have not read it?'
'No, Mistress,' I said.
'Have you some concept of its contents,' she asked, 'any inkling as to its purport? '
'I fear so, Mistress, I said.
'Do you know who I am, girl?' she asked.
'The majestic and beautiful Talena,' I said, 'Ubara of Glorious Ar. '
'He could be slain for even thinking of writing such a letter,' she said.
I was silent.
'He has eveb signed it,' she said.
I was silent.
'What a fool,' she said. 'What a poor, mad, infatuated fool.'
I was silent.
'How could he do anything so compromising, so foolish, so utterly mad?' she asked.
'Perhaps he has been driven out of his wits by some brief glimpse of the beauty of Mistress,' I whispered.
'Excellent, Lavinia,' I commended her.
'Speak,' she commanded me.
'He has given performances in the Central Cylinder,' I continued, 'readings, and such. Perhaps in one of those times, due to no fault of Mistress he was charmed by her voice, as by the songs of the venminium bird, or again, by her grace and manner, the consequences of a thousand generations of elegance and breeding, or again, once more through no possible fault of Mistress, perhaps in a moment of inadvertent disarray he as so unfortunate as to glimpse a portion of her briefly unveiled features, or note a width of slender wrist betwixt cuff and glove, or even, beneath the hem of her robes, fearful to contemplate, the turn of an ankle? '
'Perhaps,' she said. 'And I had no doubt, Master, that the royal hussy had seen to it that such signals, such signs, such intriguing glimpses, such supposed inadvertencies, and such, had abounded!'
'In this,' I said, 'perhaps she was not so different from you.'
'Master!' cried Lavinia, scandalized.
'At least,' I said, 'she never knelt at his side, in bangles and slave silk, and reached out to touch him.'
'Had she been in my place, and only a slave,' she said, 'she might have done so!'
'Perhaps,' I said.
'I think so, Master!' said Lavinia.
'And perhaps have found herself in the fields?'
'Perhaps, Master,' smiled Lavinia.
The thought of the regal Talena shorn and in the fields was indeed an amusing one.
'Master?' asked the slave.
'Continue,' I said.
'Do you know that he dedicated the first performance of his 'Lurius of Jad' to me?' she asked.
'Yes, Mistress'. I responded.
'And he has dedicated many other performances to me, as well,' she said. '
'Yes, Mistress,' I responded.
'Hailed as inspired performances,' she said.
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
'Surely, Master, she must understand the political aspects of such things!'
'Continue,' I said.
'But then I have inspired many artists,' she said.
'Continue,' I said. I smiled to myself. I wondered if the Ubara could be taught slave dance. If so, she might learn what it was like, truly, for a woman to inspire men. To be sure, the beauty of almost any slave is seldom ineffectual in such matters.
'I should destroy this letter,' said the Ubara to me. 'I should burn it in the flame of one of these tiny lamps. '
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
'It could mean his death if it were so much as glimpsed by one of the Council, or by Seremides, or Myron, or his master, or perhaps any free man,' she said.
'Yes, Mistress,' I said.
'But, Master, she did not destroy the letter! She folded it carefully, and concealed it within her robes!'
'I understand,' I said. I suspected that that letter was too precious to the Ubara for her to destroy it. Perhaps she would treasure it. I wondered what she would do if she leaned that it had been written by Marcus. For a brief instant, a rather unworthy one, I was pleased that my own handscript was so poor, particularly with respect to alternate lines. To be sure, it also, theoretically, gave her great power over the innocent Milo. If such a letter fell into the wrong hands it was not unlikely he would find himself keeping an appointment with sleen at dinner time. Marcus might not have objected to this, but I would not personally have approved of it. I bore Milo no ill will, though he was a rather handsome fellow.
'Milo presumes outrageously above his station!' she said to me.'
'Yes, Mistress,' I said. 'But I think she was pleased.'
'He is, after all,' I reminded the slave, 'one of the most handsome men in Ar.'
'The most handsome man in Ar!' said Lavinia.
'What?' I asked.
'Surely one of the most handsome men in Ar!' she said.
'Well, perhaps,' I said.
'What a mad fool he is!' she exclaimed.
'Perhaps he finds Mistress irresistible,' I suggested. 'Perhaps he cannot help himself.'
