"What was used to drug us?" I asked.
"Tassa powder," she said. "I put enough of it in the botas of my men to stun a kailiauk."
"How long were we unconscious?" I asked.
"With tube feedings, of broth mixed with tassa, five days," she said.
"Where are we?" I asked. I knew. I wished to see what she would say.
"I think it more amusing to keep you in ignorance," she said.
"As you wish," I said. From between the location of our camp, indeed, from our chain line, between two stakes, we could see the Sardar Mountains in the distance. They were unmistakable. I assumed this woman must be an agent of Priest-Kings. Yet she did not seem to recognize me. Too, I was only one of fifteen men captured. If she was an agent of Priest-Kings, it did not seem, ironically enough, that she realized who it was, so to speak, who was on her chain.
That we were so near the Sardar, incidentally, after a presumed five days of unconsciousness, followed by two days of travel on foot, drawing her wagon, further suggested that she was not likely, really, to be the mistress of a work chain. We could not have come this far from Port Kar in so short a time, presumably, if we had not been brought most of the way by tarn, probably in tarn baskets. Common laborers are seldom transported in this fashion. But then, two days ago, we had been awakened, and had then proceeded on foot. This was presumably to make it appear, at least in the vicinity of the Sardar, that we were truly a work chain. The woman, I assumed, must be working for Priest-Kings. On the other hand, it did not seem that she knew who I was. Perhaps, then, she was not an agent of Priest-Kings. Perhaps she was a slaver, of sorts, after all, and intended to sell us, her catch, at the Fair of En'Kara. But then, if that were so, I wondered why she was having recourse to this elaborate pretense of being merely the mistress of a common work chain. I decided not to seize her, at least not yet.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"I have been called various things," I said, "at different times, in different places."
"Ah, yes," she said, "I know you fellows of Port Kar. You are all rogues, all pirates, thieves and slavers. I think I shall call you-Brinlar."
"And how shall I address you?" I asked.
"As 'Mistress, " she said.
"How is it that you made your strike in Port Kar?" I asked.
"I was in Port Kar on business," she said, "and, with the carnival, matters were convenient."
"I had thought you might be of Tyros or Cos," I said. Those two island ubarates were at war with Port Kar.
"No," she said.
I was now more sure than ever that she was of the party of Priest-Kings.
"To be sure," she said, "my sympathies lie with Cos and Tyros, Thassa's foremost citadels of enlightenment and civilization. A certain amusing fittingness was thus manifested in my choice of a location for my predations, a choice fully vindicated, incidentally, by the catch of lovely males I acquired there." She looked at me. "Would you like a rag for your loins?" she asked.
"Whatever you wish," I said.
She laughed.
"Am I, and my fellows, to be enslaved?" I asked.
"That would certainly seem to be in order, would it not?" she asked.
"Of course," I said.
"Somewhere, sometime, I would suppose," she said, "at my convenience, at a site of my choosing."
"Of course," I said.
She smiled.
"What, then, afterwards, is to be our fate?" I asked.
"Perhaps I will sell you then, somewhere," she said, "perhaps even at the Fair of En'Kara."
"I see," I said. This confirmed my conjecture that we were not truly intended to be kept as members of a work chain. She presumably had a rendezvous to keep at the fair. Her rendezvous kept, and her cover still intact, but then no longer needed, she could dispose of us in the En'Kara markets.
"You and your fellows remain legally free, of course," she said, "though totally in my power, as complete captives, until a sign of bondage is burned into your pretty hides, or you are appropriately collared, or otherwise legally enslaved."
"I understand," I said.
"Do you recall the two major criteria I used in selecting my captures in the piazza?" she asked.
"You wanted strong, large fellows, as I recall," I said, "suitable for inclusion in a work chain."
"Yes," she said. "Do you recall the other criterion?"
I was silent.
"It was," she said, "that I must, personally, find them of some sexual interest."
"Yes," I said.
"Spread your knees," she said.
I did so.
"Excellent, Brinlar," she said, "indeed, excellent."
I did not speak.
"How does it feel to be a free man, but one who is in the total power of a woman?" she asked.
I shrugged. I did not really regard myself as being totally in her power.
"Am I beautiful?" she asked.
"I do not know," I said.
"But surely you men conjecture about such matters," she said.
"I would suppose you might be beautiful," I said. "There seem the suggestions of the lineaments of a beautiful woman, particularly as you have belted and arranged them, beneath your garments."
"I like pretty clothes," she said, "and I wear them well."
"Doubtless you would be even more beautiful in the rag of a slave, or naked in a collar," I said.
"Bold fellow," she said. But I could see she was pleased. All women are curious to know how beautiful they might be as slaves. This is because all of them, in their heart, are slaves.
She regarded me for a time, not speaking. I knelt there, knees spread. She seemed in no hurry to disclose her will with respect to me. Her eyes roved me, glistening.
"Are you not curious to know why you were brought to my tent?" she asked.
"Mistress has not yet explained it to me," I said. My heart began to race. I feared she would now announce to me that she knew my true identity, that she was going to put me to her pleasure, and rape me, and then turn me over, a woman's catch, to the Sardar. It did not seem appropriate to me to attack her and perhaps kill her. She might be an agent of Priest-Kings. So, too, for all I knew, might be her men. I recalled the fellow in the booth, he in whom I had left his own knife, in the piazza at Port Kar.
"But surely you can guess," she said.
"Perhaps," I said.
"Spread your knees more widely," she said, coldly.
I did so.
"No perhaps you can guess," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"You seem relieved," she said, puzzled.
I shrugged. I was indeed relieved. She had again only been toying with me. It seemed clear to me now, as it had before, that she did not know who I was. The man in the booth, I recalled, had tried to kill me. Thus, if she had truly known my identity, she might, by now, have had me killed. That would have been easy enough to have done while I was drugged. Too, the nature of my capture did not suggest anything special about me. I had merely been one of fifteen brought into her chains.
"There is something else," she said.
"Oh?" I asked.
"I am interested in being assessed," she said.
"Assessed?" I asked.
"Yes, objectively," she said. "I have been curious about it for a long time.The richness of your garments in the piazza, the weight of your purse, suggests to me that you might have experience in such matters, that you had the means to be intimately familiar with the doing in markets, and so on."
I was silent.
"Let me remind you," she said, "that it is you who kneel before me, with your knees spread like an imbonded girl!"
"I understand," I said.
Her hand went to the pins at the left side of her veil.
"I think you will find me extraordinarily beautiful," she said, "perhaps even slave beautiful."
"Perhaps," I said.
She unpinned her veil at the left side, and let it fall, and brushed back the silken hood of her tent robe, shaking her head, freeing a cascade of long, dark hair. She looked at me, amused. "I see that you find me beautiful," she said.