'It is too brief,' said Marcus.
'Nonsense,' I said.
'It is altogether too brief,' said Marcus.
'The better that my master may look upon my flanks,' said Phoebe. They were well exposed, particularly with the notching on the sides.
'And so, too, many other men,' he said, angrily.
'Of course, Master,' she said, 'for I am a slave!'
'She is extraordinarily beautiful,' I said. 'Let her be so displayed and exposed. Let other seethe with envy upon consideration of your property.'
'She is just a slut of Cos!' said Marcus, angrily.
'Now only your slave,' I reminded him.
'You are a pretty slave, slut of Cos,' said Marcus to the girl, grudgingly. 'A girl is pleased, if she is found pleasing by her master,' said Phoebe. 'Surely, by now,' I said to Marcus, 'you have thought the better of your mad project.'
'No,' said Marcus, absently, rather lost in the rapturous consideration of his lovely slave.
The Home Stone of Ar's Station, as I have suggested, was in Ar. It was primarily in connection with this face that Marcus had come to Ar.
'She is marvelously beautiful,' said Marcus.
'Yes,' I said.
'For a Cosian,' he said.
'Of course,' I said.
Given the anger in Ar at Ar's Station, and the fact that the Home Stone of Ar's Station had been sent to Ar, supposedly, according to the rumors, not for safekeeping, given the imminent danger in the city, but in a gesture of defiance and repudiation, attendant upon the supposed acceptance of a new Home Stone, one bestowed upon them by the Cosians, the stone was, during certain hours, publicly displayed. This was done in the vicinity of the Central Cylinder, on the Avenue of the Central Cylinder. The purpose of this display was to permit the people of Ar, and elsewhere, if they wished, to vent their displeasure upon the stone, insulting it, spitting upon it, and such.
'The stone,' I said, 'is well guarded.'
We had ascertained that this morning. We had then gone to the Alley of the Slave Brothels f Ludmilla, on which street lies the insula of Achiates. I did not enter the insula itself, but made an inquiry or two in its vicinity. Those whom I had sought there were apparently no longer in residence. I did not make my inquiries of obvious loungers in its vicinity. I went back., with Marcus and Phoebe, later in the afternoon. The loungers were still in evidence. I had assumed then they had been posted. There was a street peddler nearby, too, sitting behind a blanket on which trinkets were spread. I did not know if he had been posted there or not. It did not much matter. Normally in such arrangements there are at least two individuals. In this way one can report to superiors while the other keeps his vigil. As far as I knew, no one knew that I was in the vicinity of Ar. I did know I could be recognized by certain individuals. The last time I had come to Ar, before this time, I had come with dispatches to Gnieus Lelius, the regent, from Dietrich of Tarnburg, from Torcadino. I had later carried a spurious message which had nearly cost me my life to Ar's Station, to be delivered to its commanding officer at the time, Aemilianus, of the same city. I had little doubt that I had inadvertently become identified as a danger to, and an enemy of, the party of treason in Ar. I did not know if the regent, Gnieus Lelius, were of this party or not. I rather suspected not. I was certain, however, from information I had obtained at Holmesk, at the winter camp of Ar, that the high general in the city, Seremides, of Tyros, was involved. Also, secret documents earlier obtained in Brundisium, and deciphered, gave at least one other name, that of a female, one called Talena, formerly the daughter, until disowned, of Marlenus of Ar. Her fortunes were said to be on the rise in the city.
'I am well aware,' said Marcus, 'that the stone is well guarded.'
'Then abandon your mad project,' I said to him.
'No,' said he.
'You can never obtain the stone,' I said.
'Have you come to Ar for a reason less likely of fruition?' he asked.
I was silent.
The girl did not understand our conversation as we had not spoken before her of these things. She was a mere slave and thus appropriately kept in ignorance. Let them please and serve. That is enough for them.
'Well?' smiled Marcus.
I did not respond to him. I thought of a woman, one now high in Ar, one for whom I had once mistakenly cared, a vain, proud woman who had once, thinking me helpless and crippled, mocked and scorned me. I though of her, and chains. It would be impossible to obtain her, of course. Yet, if somehow, in spite of all, I should obtain her it was not even my intention to keep her but rather, as a gesture, merely dispose of her, giving her away or selling her off as the least of slaves.
'I see,' said Marcus.
'Master?' asked Phoebe, turning before Marcus.
'Yes,' he said, 'you are very pretty.'
'Thank you, Master,' she said, 'for giving me a garment.'
'For permitting you to wear one,' Marcus corrected her.
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'For at least a moment or two,' he said.
'Yes, Master!' she laughed.
'You have an exquisitely beautiful slave, Marcus,' I said.
Phoebe looked at me, gratefully, flushed.
Marcus made an angry noise, and clenched his fists. I saw that he feared he might come to care for her.
He whipped the cord, some five feet in length, from his shoulder.
Phoebe approached him and held her wrists, crossed, before her. 'Am I to be bound, Master?' she asked. In extending their limbs so readily, so delicately, for binding, slaves express and demonstrate, their submission.
'Do you like the garment?' he asked.
'Whose use I may have, if only for a moment,' she smiled. 'Yes, Master. Oh yes, my Master!'
'Are you grateful?' he asked.
'Yes, Master,' she said. 'A slave is grateful, so very grateful.'
'It is not much,' he said.
'It is a treasure,' she said. I smiled. To her, I supposed, a slave, such a tiny thing, little more than a brief rag, would indeed be a treasure.
'You understand, of course,' he said, 'that its use may be as easily taken from you as given to you.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Do you wish to retain its use?' he asked.
'Of course, Master,' she said.
'You now have an additional motivation for striving to please,' he said. 'Yes, Master,' she smiled. The control of a girl's clothing, and many other things, such as her diet, chaining, name, whether or not her head is to be shaved, and so on, are all within the purview of the master. His power over the slave is unqualified and absolute. Phoebe, of course, was muchly in love with Marcus, and he, in spite of himself, with her. On the other hand, even if she had been, as he sometimes seemed to want her, the hating slave of a hating master, she would still have had to strive with all her power to please him, and in all things, and with perfection. It is such to be a Gorean slave girl. 'Do you think me weak?' he asked.
'No, Master!' she said.
He regarded her, torn with his love for her, and his hatred of the island of Cos.
She lifted her crossed wrists to him, for binding.
But he did not move to pinion them. The cord, of course, was not for such a purpose, though that was a purpose which it could surely serve.
She separated her wrists timidly, and looked him, puzzled, with love in her eyes.
'I am eager to be pleasing to you,' she said.
