"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.
"That is fitting," he said.
"Yes, Master," she whispered.
"For you are a slave," he said.
"And yours," she said, suddenly, breathlessly, "yours, your slave!"
He looked at her, angrily.
"I exist for you," she said, "and it is what I want, to please and serve you." She was much in love. She wanted to give all of herself to Marcus, irreservedly, to hold nothing back, to live for him, if need be, to die for him. It is the way of the female in love, for whom no service is too small, no sacrifice too great, offering herself selflessly as an oblation to the master.
He regarded her, in fury.
She extended her arms a little, toward him, timidly, hoping to be permitted to embrace him. "Accept the devotion of your slave," she begged.
I saw his fists clench.
"I love you. I love you, my Master!" she said.
"Sly, lying slut!" he said.
"No!" she wept.
"Mendacious slut of Cos!" he cried.
"I love you! I love you, my Master!" she cried.
He then struck her with the back of his hand, striking her to one side, and she fell, turning, to her knees. She looked up at him from all fours, blood at her lips.
"Were you given permission to speak?" he asked.
"Forgive me, Master," she whispered. She then crawled to his feet and, putting her head down, kissed them. "A slave begs the forgiveness of her Master," she said.
Marcus looked down at her, angrily. Then he turned to me. "Her use, of course," he said, "is yours, whenever you might please."
"Thank you," I said, "but I think that I can find a rent wench outside in the camp, or, if I wish, buy a slut, for they are cheap in the vicinity of Ar these days."
"As you wish," said Marcus.
Although Marcus was harsh with his slave, pretending even to a casual and brutal disdain for her, he was also, it might be mentioned, extremely possessive where she was concerned. Indeed, he was almost insanely jealous of her. She was not the sort of girl, for example, whom he, as a hose, even at the cost of a certain rudeness and inhospitality, would be likely to hand over for the nightly comfort of a guest. It would be at his slave ring alone what she would be likely to find herself chained.
"Stand up," said Marcus to the girl.
"I hear some music outside," I said.
"Yes," I said.
"At least someone in the neighborhood seems cheerful," I said.
"Probably peasants," said Marcus.
I thought this might be true. There were many about, having fled before the march of Cos. Driven from their lands, their stock muchly lost, or driven before them, they had come to the shelter of Ar's walls. Still they were ready to sing, to drink and dance. I admired peasants. They were hardy, sturdy, irrepressible. Phoebe now stood humbly before Marcus, as she had been commanded.
"Wipe your face," said Marcus.
She wiped the blood away, or smeared it, with her right forearm.
"This cord," said Marcus, "may function as a slave girdle. Such may be tied in several ways. You, as a slave, doubtless know the tying of slave girdles." I smiled. Marcus would know, of course, that Phoebe would not be likely to know much, if anything, of such matters. Only recently she had been a free woman, though, to be sure, one who had been long kept, languishing, it seemed, and, of course, incompletely fulfilled, in the status of a mere captive. Only a few weeks again had she been branded and collared, and thusly liberated into total bondage.
"No, Master," said Phoebe. "I am not trained, save in so far as you, and before you, Master Tarl, have deigned to impart some understandings to me."
"I see," said Marcus. I think he was just as pleased that Phoebe had not been muchly trained. From one point of view, this suggested that she had presumably been less handled before coming into his keeping that might have been otherwise the case. Also, of course, if she was to strive to please, and squirm, under strict training disciplines, he would prefer that she do so under his personal tutelage, and in the lights of his personal taste, she thus being kept more to himself, and also being trained to be a perfect personal slave, one honed to the whims, preferences and needs of a particular master. To be sure, this sort of thing can be done with any woman. it is part of her "learning the new master."