"Oh!" cried Lola, wincing, standing with her back to Calliodorus. He had tied her wrists behind her back.
He then turned her to face him. "Do you object, Lady Lola, of Port Cos?" he asked.
"I am not the Lady Lola, of Port Cos," she said. "I am only your lowly slave."
"Do not forget it," he said, lifting her head up with his fingers and, bending down, kissing her gently on the lips.
"No, Master," she whispered.
The last of the musicians had now filed from the house. I thought they had been superb. I would later, in a few days, send a tip for them to the tavern of Tasdron.
I glanced at the small, dark-haired slave. I expected that I would be spending the next few days muchly in the house. She, watching Calliodorus and Lola, did not realize that I had glanced upon her. That, I suspected, was just as well. Such heat and desire as might have been revealed in even so casual a glance might have frightened her. She would learn soon enough, lovely little collared beast, what it was, fully, on Gor, to be a master's slave.
I saw that Callimachus had now removed the binding fiber from Peggy, with which he had so joyfully asserted his power over her, that he might bind her and make her helpless, and his ownership over her, that she was his to so bind and to so make helpless. She was on her knees before him, kissing at his feet and weeping. "Do you have another binding strap," asked Callimachus, sheepishly, "something to take her home in?"
"By some odd chance, I do," I said, grinning, and threw him such a strap. I had brought three such straps to the table, one for each of the girls who was to be awarded as a gift. In a moment Peggy was on her feet and her head was back. She winced and then laughed with joy. Her wrists had been tightly tied. She knew then that her life with Callimachus would not be easy, nor did she wish it to be. She did not want a weak man; she wanted a man strong enough to elicit, dominate and control the woman in her; Callimachus, a Gorean master, she now realized, would do so; she now realized that he would not compromise with her; she would be kept in total slavery, under the strictest of disciplines, fully owned and uncompromisingly mastered; she would serve him perfectly; she was joyful.
"Please, Master," begged Florence, "bind me in some way."
"Very well," said Miles of Vonda, kindly.
Peggy, her hands tied behind her back, went to kneel before Tasdron. He had given her to Callimachus. She kissed his feet in gratitude. "Thank you, Master," she wept, "thank you!"
"Thank you, Master," breathed Florence to miles of Vonda. He had locked her hands behind her back, in slave bracelets. She, too, now had been bound by her master.
His desire for her, and his mastery over her, had now been, to her joy, by the steel of the confining bracelets, attested. She extended her head to him, her lips pursed, her eyes closed, to kiss him, but he seized the sides of the opening of her slave tunic, the left side in his right fist, the right side in his left fist.
"Master?" she asked, opening her eyes. The sides of her tunic were held tightly. "Master?" she asked. "Are you not a slave?" asked Miles of Vonda. "Yes, Master," she said. Then, suddenly, laughing, Miles of Vonda jerked open the tunic and tore it down about her lovely, flaring hips. He then thrust it open and back on her hips. Its upper portions hung back, depending from the belt, still in place, about her braceleted wrists. "Yes, Master!" she said. "March me naked through the streets as your slave. I love you!"
Miles of Vonda then picked up the lyre, which she had used earlier in entertaining us. With its strap he slung the small, lovely, curved, stringed instrument about her body, the strap over her right shoulder, the instrument behind her left hip. The delicacy of the instrument, with its suggestion of refinement, gentility and civilization, contrasted nicely with the barbarity of her luscious, enslaved nudity, the shreds of her tunic and her helpless, steel-clasped wrists.
"I love you, Master!" she cried. She pressed her body to him and he, clasping her to him, with force and possessiveness, kissed her as his desired and owned slave. I had little doubt that when he arrived home he would play well upon her body, making it the instrument of his attentions. He would draw forth from her by his skills rhapsodies of movements, cries, moans, utterances and admissions, a music to the ears of both the conquering master and the delicious, yielding slave, she who finds, and can find, her most glorious victory only in her most complete and devastating defeat. "I love you, Master!" she was weeping. "I love you!"
Tasdron, with a snapping of his fingers calling Peggy to her feet, removed his collar from about her neck, and she ran to stand, head down, deferential and bound, near Callimachus. I threw Aemilianus the key to the collar of Shirley, and he removed it from her. I myself took the steel of my collar from Lola's throat.
"Thank you for giving me to Calliodorus," she said.
"Serve him well," I said.
"I shall. I shall!" she said.
Slave girls, of course, may speak the name of their masters to others, for example, as in locutions such as, "I am the girl of Calliodorus of Port Cos," or "I come from the house of Calliodorus." It is only that they are seldom, in addressing the master himself, permitted to use his name. He is usually addressed simply as "Master," or as "my Master."
"I have an announcement to make," said Tasdron, "for which I have waited until now." We regarded him. The slaves knelt. A free man was speaking. "The forces of the Vosk League are soon to be organized," said Tasdron. "It is my honor and pleasure to inform you that one among us has agreed to act as the commander of these forces. He is, of course, Callimachus, of Port Cos!"
"Congratulations!" I cried to Callimachus, shaking his hand. There was Gorean applause.
"The appointment was made earlier this afternoon, in a secret session of the High Council of the Vosk League," said Tasdron, "that body sovereign in the league, composed of representatives drawn from all the member towns." Tasdron smiled at me. "This time and place," he said, "seemed appropriate for making the first public announcement of the appointment."
"Thank you, Tasdron," I said. He had honored my house. Peggy was looking up at Callimachus, from her knees, her hands bound behind her back. Her eyes were shining. How proud she was of her master.
"But what of Port Cos?" asked Calliodorus. "Are you not to return to Port Cos, to replace Callisthenes, to become High Captain?"
"That post is yours, my friend, Calliodorus," said Glyco.
"My thanks!" said Calliodorus.
We applauded him, congratulating him and expressing our approval of the wisdom of the appointment. On her knees beside him, her hands tightly bound behind her back in the black binding strap, Lola pressed her lips fervently against his leg, and looked up at him. Her eyes shone, too. How proud, too, she was of her master!"
Tasdron reached into his pouch. "I am sure that you recognize this," he said. He held, in his hands, two pieces of rock.
"The topaz!" said Aemilianus.
"The topaz!" said Calliodorus.
"What you do not know," said Tasdron, "is that long ago, over a century ago, this stone, unbroken, was the Home Stone of Victoria."
We were startled. There was silence in the room.
"Over a hundred years ago," said Tasdron, "it was carried away by pirates, and broken. Since that time Victoria has not had a Home Stone. What had once been our Home Stone served then as nothing more than a pledge symbol among the buccaneers of the river. In a few days we of the council of Victoria will go down to the river. There, from the shore of the Vosk, we shall select a common stone, not much unlike others. That, then, shall be the new Home Stone of Victoria."
There were tears in my eyes.
"What of the topaz?" asked Aemilianus.
"It has been broken," said Tasdron. "No longer may it serve as a Home Stone."