I looked at Susan.
How chaste, how modest, how demure she seemed in her brief tunic, and collar, with her lovely face and beautiful little figure, How dainty, how exquisitel How deferential, how shyl Surely she was a woman's slave, and only that, attentive, knowledgeable, efficient, respectful and selfeffacing.
But a man such as Ligurious had bought her naked off a slave block in Cos. What a sweet, bashful girl she was.
But tonight she would dance naked for guardsmen.
"Mistress?" asked Susan.
"You do not seem distressed that tonight you will dance," I observed. Indeed, it seemed she might be looking forward to it.
"No, Mistress'," she said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Must I speak?" she asked.
"Yes," I said.
"I love men, and wish to serve them, fully," she said.
"Lewd and shameless slut!" I cried.
"I am a slave," she said. "Forgive me, Mistress. Too, I have not been given to a man in eleven days. My fingernails are bloody from scratching at the tiles in my kennel."
I shuddered. I had not thought much about where slave girls might be kept at night. To be sure, I knew that they were not wandering freely about the palace. Now, it seemed, that some, at least, might be locked in kennels. This made sense, of course, considering that, like the shameless, little slut, Susan, they were animals.
"It does not seem that the whip dance, truly, would be much of a punishment for you," I said.
"Ligurious has several women," she said. "He does not know me that well. He has had me Prily a few times, and, I have improved my skills, considerably, since then."
"He thinks, then, that it will be a terrible punishment for you?" I asked. "I would suppose so," she said. "Doubtless he expects that I will be muchly lashed."
"What is it like to be In the arms of a man such as Ligunous?" I asked, as though not much interested, really.
"He devastates a woman," she said, "turning her into a tormented, whimpering animal, and then he makes her yield to him, fully, and as a slave."
"Did you spill the wine on purpose?" I asked.
"No, Mistress," she laughed. "I did not know that Ligurious was coming to your quarters. It occurred before his arrival. Too, I know you would not be so cruel as to assign me to the whip dance. Too, the common punishment for such a clumsiness is not the uncompromising, degrading severity of the whip dance but disciplines more prosaic in their nature, such as a restriction or change in rations, close chains or, most often, a switching or whipping."
"I see," I said.
I wondered what Susan would look like, her body glistening with a sheen of sweat, twisting and writhing before men, pleasing them as a naked slave, theirs then to be exploited and used however they might wish. She seemed such an ideal woman's slave, such an efficient, bashful, modest girl, it was hard to imagine her in such a context. But she had told me that her fingernails were bloody from scratching at the tiles in her kennel. It seemed then that quiet, sweet, withdrawn, retiring: Susan actually bad sexual needs and powerful ones. These needs, too, presumably, given her appearance and curvatures, bespeaking a richness in female hormones, would be deeply feminine ones. I wondered in bow many girls like Susan there might lie a pleasure slave, waiting to be uncaged and commanded.
"I dance well," she had told me.
How startled I had been when she had said that. I bad turned away.
She had looked into my eyes, in that instant, not as a slave into the eyes of a free woman, but as one woman into the eyes of another. I had felt then, in that instant, that we were both, ultimately, only women, that we were identical in our femaleness', that we were united in the bonds of a common sisterhood and what, in relationship to men, it entailed. We were both, ultimately, only women; we were both, ultimately, though I was free and she was a slave, representatives of the slave sex.
I wondered if I, too, could dance well. I knew that if I did not, I would be lashed.
"I will have no further need for you tonight, Susan," I said. "I think that you should soon report to your masters of the evening."
"Yes, Mistress," she said. "Thank you, Mistress." Susan," I said. "Yes, Mistress?" she said.
"Is there unrest in the city?"
"I do not know, Mistress," she said. "I am seldom outside the grounds of the palace."
I had resolved upon a bold plan.
"Before it: report to your temporary masters," I said, "inform Drusus Rencius that I wish to see him. He is to report to my quarters within the Ahn." "'Yes, Mistress," she said.
"It will not be necessary to inform Ligurious of this action on your part," I said.
"As Mistress wishes," she said.
"It is my recommendation, " I said, "that in reporting to your temporary masters you are a little late, but just late enough to increase their eagerness, not late enough that you are lashed for tardiness."
"Yes, Mistress," smiled Susan. "Thank you, Mistressf" She then sped from the room.
I then went again to the barred window, and looked out, over the city.
I myself had been outside of the palace grounds only infrequently in weeks, since my visit to the house of Kliomenes. I had been out, of course, in the grand victory parade, staged shortly after the seizure of the mines.
I then turned away from the window. I would now await the arrival of Drusus Rencius. I had seen him privately scarcely at all since the house of Khomenes and the inn of Lysias. Our relationship was totally professional. Twice he had requested to be relieved of his duties, to be assigned to a new post, but I had refused to grant this request. That he might be restless, tortured or bitter in my presence meant nothing to me. I was a Tatrix. He was a soldier. He would obey me. I considered his apparent discomfort in my presence. smiled. It pleased me. Let him suffer.
10 I Have Taken Cognizance in Corcyrus; We Are Returning to the Palace
Through the darkened street, along the crooked way, Drusus Rencius and I were making our way back to the palace. He carried a torch. The smaller streets of Gorean cities are often dark at night. The pedestrians carry their own light. "I would prefer," said Drusus Rencius, "that we had kept to the main thorough fares."
I wished to speak to citizens in lesser known districts, as well," I said. "Is Lady Sheila satisfied?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, "on the whole, though the people often seemed reticent, or frightened."
"are troubled," said Drusus Rencius.
I had stopped many passersby, particularly in the larger streets, making inquiries. I had even stopped in some of the more respectable taverns, those in which free women, without difficulty, might enter. The people seemed enthusiastically appreciative of the governance of the Tatrix and made light of shortages. They discounted and belittled rumors of discontentment or unrest in Corcyrus. Things in Corcyrus, it seemed, were much as Ligurious had assured me. The people were supportive of the policies of the palace, loyal to the state and personally devoted to their beloved Tatrix.
"Many of the shops," I said, "'are boarded up."
"Many merchants have left the city," said Drusus Rencius, "taking their goods with them."
"Why?" I asked.
"They are afraid," he said. "The Street of Coins is almost closed." This was actually a set of streets, or district, where money changing and banking were done. "ere are other types of establishments in the area, too, of course. "'Private citizens, too, many of them," said Drusus Rencius, "their goods on their back, have taken their leave of the city."
"Craven rabble," I said. "Why can they not be brave Re the others?" "Waitl" said Drusus Rencius, stopping. He lifted the torch, which he carried in his left hand, increasing the range of its illumination, and put out his right band, holding me back, a barrier to my advance.