She looked at me, frightened, and swiftly knelt in the snow, in the moonlight, before me. She looked up at me. "Forgive me, Master," she said. "Please do not kill me!" She put her head to my feet, holding my booted ankles. "Please do not kill me," she said. "Forgive me! Let me placate you! Let me placate you!"
"Crawl to the shelter," I told her. She did so, head down, trembling, a terrified slave, one who had displeased her master.
I looked after her.
"Please do not kill her," begged Audrey, kneeling before me.
Imnak struck her to her side in the snow. "He will do what he pleases with her," he said.
"Yes, Master," said Audrey, his lovely, white-skiuned slave beast.
Audrey entered the hut after Arlene. Then Poalu, followed by Imnak, entered the hut.
I looked once more at the sky, at the long, shifting lights, and then went into the hut.
Inside, Arlene had already removed her furs and knelt obediently, her head down, near where I would sleep.
"A girl begs to please her master," she said.
"Very well," I said.
Soon my wrath towards her had dissipated. I simply could not sustain it. What a sweet and clever slave she was. Even had it been my intention to punish her, which it had not been, I think she might well have won her freedom from punishment by the diligent and incredible merits of her helpless slave service. A beautiful slave girl, of course, has no official or legal power. Yet it would be naive to underestimate the weight and influence of her beauty, her vulnerability and service. Her display and submission behaviors, and performances, surely influence to a considerable extent the treatment she is likely to receive at the hands of a master. The sexual placation of the dominant male by the submitting female is universal among primates. It is, thus, presumably genetically determined, or a function of genetic determinations, In the end, of course, the slave girl is ultimately without power. It is the master, in the end, who will decide what is to be done with her.
Later Arlene lay in my arms. "Did I please you, Master?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"A girl is pleased," she said.
Near us we heard Poalu moaning. Then I heard Imnak leaving her side.
"Where are you going?" I asked.
"There may be danger about," said Imnak. "I think maybe we should have a guard."
"That is a good idea," I said.
"I will take the first watch," said Imnak. I heard him nuzzle Poalu, and heard her tiny cries, and then he had soon drawn on his furs and went outside the shelter.
Poalu was soon asleep, and so, too, was Arlene.
I heard Audrey whimper from the side of the hut, "No one has touched me," she said.
"Go to sleep," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said. I heard her sob, unheld, unravished.
I was weary. I was pleased that Imnak had elected to take the first watch. I would sleep well, fearing nothing.
28
I Must Conserve My Strength
I felt her small, soft hands on my body. "Master, Master," she said.
"He is awakening," said a girl's voice.
I was drowsy. It was not easy to come to consciousness. I shook my head. Then again I dreampt.
I had had good dreams, in my own chambers feasting and sporting with slaves in pleasure silk, luscious, hot-eyed Gorean sluts, collared and perfumed, serving me and touching me. Their mouths, their fingers, their lips and tongues, were pleasant. Some danced well, the caress of others told me of their training.
"Master," said one, and I drank of the wine she proffered. I tied the goblet in her hair and sent her back for more.
"I do not know how to dance," cried one, and I looked upon her and she tore away her silk and, trembling, danced, and well.
How beautiful are women. How little wonder it is that strong men make them slaves.
I struggled to awaken.
"He is awakening," said a girl, she who had first spoken to me.
I was vaguely aware that I was warm, and lay upon furs. I did not understand this. Beneath the furs I sensed an obdurate surface.
I opened my eyes, lying on my back. The ceiling above me swam momentarily, and then I focused. It was red.
Arlene knelt beside me. "Master," she said. I looked at her. I had never seen her before in the beautiful, subtle cosmetics of the Gorean slave girl. My strap was no longer on her throat. In its place there resided a slender steel band, locked, a Gorean slave collar. Her body was clad, if one may so speak of her garment, in a brief, obscenely luscious snatch of transparent, scarlet slave silk.
"How beautiful you are," I said.
"Master," she said.
It seemed she well belonged in my dreams. Had I brought her back to Port Kar with me it was thus that I would sometimes have attired her for my pleasure. One dresses one's girls for one's own pleasure' of course.
I looked across the furs and the floors to the other girl. "Master," she whispered. I shook my head, to clear it. She was blond. She wore a curla and chatka of yellow silk. The curla was a rope of twisted, yellow silk tied snugly about her belly and knotted, loosely, at the left hip. The chatka, about four feet in length, folded narrowly, to a width of some six inches, was thrust over the curla in front, taken between her legs and thrust behind and over the curia in back. It was drawn snugly tight. It was all she wore, save for a slave collar, like Arlene, and some beads, an armlet, and a barbaric anklet. Both girls were perfumed. How soft and exciting they were. The blond came to my side, crawling, and, putting down her head, kissed me on the belly. "Master," she wept.
"Constance," I said. I had not seen her since I had been impressed in Lydius into the service of Kurii, and taken northward to labor at the wall. She had once been free, I had made her my slave in the fields south of the Laura.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Master," she wept, kissing me.
I looked up at the ceiling, which was red. I saw it clearly now. It was a deep red, and covered with fur. The floor of the room, too, was covered with fur.
I cried out with rage, and leaped to my feet. I threw my weight against the heavy bars.
I could not budge them. I tore back the furs on the floor, and there encountered steel plates, riveted together. I put my hands over my head and tested the ceiling. It, too, seemed of steel. I tore down the overhead furs. The ceiling, uniformly, as did the floor, consisted of steel. In fury I tore away the fur at the walls. The cell was a cubic rectangle, some twelve feet by twelve feet, and eight feet in height. It was closed on five sides by steel walls, and the open side was barred.
Again I tore at the bars. They were some two and one half inches in thickness. The cell would have held a Kur and, indeed, perhaps it had been originally designed with that in mind.
I spun to look at the girls, who, frightened of my fury, cowered together in the center of the cell.
"We were brought here, somehow," said Arlene. "I awakened in slave silk, collared, in a kennel. I was brought to this cell this morning."
"Where is Imnak, Poalu, Audrey!" I said.
"I do not know," she wept.
"Constance," I said. "Where are we?"
"I do not know," she said. "I was hooded long ago in Lydius, when we were captured. I was brought northward by tarn and then sled. For months I have been here. I have never seen the outside."
"Who are our jailers?" I asked Arlene.
"I have seen only men," she said.
"There are others," said Constance, shuddering. "I have seen them, large but agile beasts."
"Neither of you know where we are?" I asked.
"No," they said.
I turned to look outside the bars. Beyond them there lay a larger room, also plated with steel. There was a door in the larger room, with a small, barred window in it.
"Do you know much of this place, Constance?" I asked.