But, too, sometimes Rask of Treve, after touching me, would hold me, and kiss me, for long hours. I did not truly understand him in these hours, but in his arms lay content and fulfilled. And then one night, when the fires were low, for no reason I clearly understood, I begged that I might be permitted to know him. "Speak to me of yourself," he said. I told him of my childhood, my girlhood, and my parents, and the pet my mother had poisoned, and of New York, and my world, and my capture, and my life before it had begun, before he had seen me naked in the cell of the Ko-ro-ban pens. And, too, in various nights, he had spoken to me of himself, and of the death of his parents, and of his training as a boy in Treve, and his learning of the ways of tarns and of the steel of weapons. He had cared for flowers, but had not dared to reveal this. It seemed so strange, he, such a man, caring for flowers. I kissed him. But I feared, that he had told me this. I do not think there was another to whom he had ever spoken this small and delicate thing.
We had begun to take long walks beyond the palisade, hand in hand. We had much spoken, and much loved, and much spoken. It was as though I might not have been his slave. It was then that I had begun to fear that he would sell me. Oh when his need was upon him he would sometimes use me as a slave girl, with harsh authority, sometimes even making me suffer under his domination, and, too, sometimes when my need was upon me I would beg him for chains and cords, that I might be fully owned, or would present myself to him as a contemptuous, untamed girl, who must be conquered, provoking him to my utter conquest, but, too, now, we would sometimes love tenderly, and at sweet length. It depended much upon our moods. Sometimes we were master and slave, and sometimes we were something else, that I dare not speak, but I feared now, much, that he would sell me. For what place could there be for this other thing in the war camp of Rask of Treve.
But mostly we sported and pleasured, hiding from ourselves this other thing, both of us perhaps not wishing to speak it. In one week I had even begged him to place in my nose the tiny golden ring of a Tuchuk slave girl, and in that week I had served him as such, clad even in the Kalmak, Chatka and Curla, my hair bound back with the red Koora. In another week, I had, the nose ring removed, served him as a Torian girl, and in another as a simple wench of Laura, and in another as an exquisite pleasure slave of Ar.
Then one day we had done little but speak to one another, at great length, with much gentleness and intimacy, and in the night, after our lovings, had spoken together, long, lying before the fire. He had held me, sadly. I had known then that he would sell me.
In the morning, after I had returned to the shed, he again summoned me to his tent.
"Kneel," he had said.
I did so, his slave.
"I am tired of you," he told me, suddenly, angrily.
I put down my head.
"I am going to sell you," he said.
"I know," I said, "master."
"Leave, Slave," he said.
"Yes, Maser," I said.
I did not weep until I returned to the shed.
I felt the knots of my wrists being checked, and I winced, as they were tightened. Then my throat, by the straps, was drawn back tighter against the wicker, and this bond, too, was tightened. The other girls, too, winced in protest, some crying out.
I had asked one thing of Rask of Treve, before, stripped, I had entered the tarn basket.
"Free Ute," I had asked him.
He had looked at me strangely. Then he had said. "I will."
Ute, freed, might then do what she wished. she might go to Rarir, or Teletus, I supposed. But I knew that she would seek out one named Barus, of the Leather Workers, whose name she had often moaned in her sleep. I did not even know his city.
"Into the basket," had said the man who would fly the tarn.
"Yes, Master," I had said to him. I was no longer the slave of Rask of Treve. I now belonged to this stranger, to whom I, and the others, had submitted ourselves. It was he, now, who held absolute power over my life and body. There was now a fresh, but locked, steel collar on my throat.
The man now was checking the knots at the lid of the basket. It was tight. Our ankles were bound together at the center of the basket; our wrists were bound behind our back, to the wicker; our throats were independently secured, the knots outside, keeping us in place. He had finished his lunch. We were stripped, helpless slave girls, his.
I had been sold for nine pieces of gold.
The man mounted to the saddle of the tarn. The tarn screamed and began to beat its wings. Then the basket jerked forward, on its leather runners, and skidded across the clearing, and then, swung below the tarn.
I was on my way to the market.
I was sold from the great block of the Curulean, in Ar, for twelve pieces of gold, purchased by the master of a paga tavern, who thought his patrons might enjoy amusing themselves with me, a girl who wore penalty brands.
I served for months in the paga tavern. Among those I served were guards, formerly of the caravan of Targo. They were kind to me. One was the fellow whom I had fought, by the fire, but to whom I must now completely yield. Another was the guard who had escorted me to the house of the physician, whom I had once provoked. Another was the one who had caught me, when I had fled from the hut in the forest, and returned me to Targo. And there, too, were others, even he who had driven the slave wagon in which I had been often confined; even he who had first harnessed me to the tongue of Targo's one wagon, when I had first been captured by him. after serving them completely I would press them with questions of Targo, and the other guards, and their slaves. They told me much. Targo had recovered many girls, and was now rich. He was intending another trip northward, though not to do business with Haakon of Skjern. The men I served, Targo's men, and others, who might have me for the price of a cup of paga, I gave much pleasure, and from them, too, I received much pleasure. But none of them were Rask of Treve. That master had won the heart of the slave girl who was Elinor Brinton. She could not forget him.
Then one night I heard, "I will buy her," and I stood transfixed with fear. I could scarcely pour the paga into his cup. The bells on my ankles and wrists rustled. I felt his hand on the bit of diaphanous yellow silk I wore in the tavern. "I will buy her," he said. It was the small man, who had touched me intimately when I had lain bound in my own bed on Earth, the small man who had threatened me in the hut in the northern forests, who had been the mountebank, the master, I had thought, of the strange beast, the terrible beast. It was the man who had wanted me to poison someone. I knew not who.
His hand was now locked on my wrist. I had not escaped him. "I will buy her," he said. "I will buy her."
The small man bought me for fourteen pieces of gold. I was taken, on tarnback, braceleted and hooded, to the city of Port Kar, in the delta of the mighty Vosk. In a warehouse, near the piers, I knelt, head down, at their feet.
"I will not serve you," I said.
The small man was there, and the beast, squatting, shaggy, regarding me, and, too, to my surprise, Haakon of Skjern.
"I have felt the iron," I said. "I have felt the whip. I will not kill for you. You may kill me, but I will not kill for you."
They did not beat me, nor threaten me.
They lifted me by the arm, and dragged me to a side room. I screamed. There, his wrists bound by ropes to rings, stood a bloodied man, head down, stripped to the waist.
"Eleven men died," said Haakon of Skjern," but we have him."
The man lifted his head, and shook it, clearing his vision. "El-in-or? he said. "Master!" I wept.