But would that he caressed me! But even if I hated him I would want him to caress me.
I need to be caressed.
I am a slave!
We had begun to move generally southeastward, across the grasslands. We did not encounter more sleen. Such beasts, burrowing, six-legged, sinuous, carnivorous, unless on a scent, tend to be territorial. Perhaps as early as the morning following our departure from our earlier camp, that which had been the scene of such conflict and carnage, we had traversed, and left behind, their usual hunting range. The prairie sleen is, incidentally, I have been told, much smaller than the forest sleen, which can upon occasion reach lengths of eighteen feet and weights of several hundred pounds.
The slave lay, sleepless, needful, uncaressed, at the thigh of her master.
The grasslands were muchly quiet.
The slave, in her duties, could scarcely have avoided hearing the casual conversations of masters. Soon, she gathered, Mirus and his fellow, now muchly recovered, though still unable to walk, would leave the group and make their way toward Brundisium, Mirus dragging an improvised travois, constructed of rope, a pair of poles and a tarpaulin. This device had been constructed the preceding evening, their trek having come to a small grove of dark temwood, bordering a tiny stream. In a day or two it was anticipated that worn trails might be encountered. They had already passed two small streams.
The slave’s master had not touched her. She could not have been more deprived if she had been weeks in a dealer’s house, in a cramped, readying cage, in which she might be kept until she was ready to scratch and scream with need and beg to be sent to an auction block. Portus Canio and Fel Doron scarcely looked upon her. She tried, as though inadvertently, as though not really intending to do so, to put herself before Mirus, and as a slave. But he, too, had paid her no attention. I need relief, she had shrieked to herself. How she then cursed the very thought of men, and, in particular, of honor.
On his other side, opposite the restless, discomfited slave, Selius Arconious had laid an unsheathed weapon.
“If you will not use me, Master,” she whispered, “rent me, or assign me, to another!”
“You wish to be ordered to report to another?” he asked.
She shuddered; she could easily be put in such a situation; she could be ordered to report to another, in the full sense that is meant by “reporting to another.” She could, she knew, at her master’s merest word or whim be thusly put, in the fullness of her slaveness, to another’s feet; she was branded; she was collared; she was slave.
“No, Master,” she whispered.
He seemed to be listening, intently.
“I love you, Master,” she whispered.
“As a slave loves?” he asked.
“Yes, Master,” she said. “But even if I were a free woman the love I feel for you would make me your helpless slave! But I am not free, but am a true slave, and belong in the totality of my being to my master! There can be no greater love than the love of a loving slave!”
He was silent.
“Use me,” she begged.
“No,” he said.
“Use me in any way you please, as is your right, Master! Use me with rudeness, with brutality, if you wish! Claim me with the whip, teaching me my bondage, should it be your pleasure! But see me, look at me, hear me! Let your fingers stray but idly to my hair. Let your hand but lightly touch my forehead. Cast but a glance upon me! Though I am only a slave and animal I exist! I am here! Do not be cruel! Be kind! I am yours, wholly yours! Do not ignore me!”
“Rest,” said he.
“Are you my master?” she asked, angrily.
“Yes,” he said.
“Prove to me that you are my master,” she said.
“Beware,” said he.
“If you will not use me,” she said, angrily, “sell me to one who will! Sell me to one who is a man!”
He turned then angrily, suddenly, to the slave but, at the same moment, there was a great roar splitting the silence of the camp and a dark, monstrous, violent shape leapt into the camp and Fel Doron, at the wagon, cried out, and the slave screamed, and Selius Arconious grasped for the weapon beside him and Kardok, gigantic and wild in the cold morning light, jaws slavering, eyes blazing, seized up Mirus and bent toward his throat, and Mirus, with his feet and arms, tried to fend the beast away, but he was lifted from his feet and brought, struggling, toward the distended jaws, the wet, long, curved, whitish fangs and Selius Arconious, his blade held in two hands, was hacking at the back of the beast’s neck, and then at the side of its throat, and it turned about, enraged, and put up a paw which, severed, was flung into the grass, and it turned full then upon Selius Arconious and Selius Arconious, with a cry of rage as hideous as that of the beast, thrust his blade deep into the chest of Kardok and the beast spun about wresting the blade from his hand.
Fel Doron rushed forward, Portus Canio had thrown off his blankets.
The second beast then seemed to appear from nowhere and scrambled its way on all fours, dirt spattering behind it, toward Selius Arconious and the fallen Mirus.
But at that moment it stopped, suddenly, abruptly, and lifted its hands, a great spear thrust into its body, the point and a quarter of the shaft emerging from its back.
“Bosk, Bosk of Port Kar!” cried Portus Canio.
Behind him was the warrior known as Marcus, of Ar’s Station.
Ellen could not even speak so frightened, so breathless, was she. The force of the spear thrust must have been prodigious, and its might was compounded by the charge of the beast.
He called Bosk of Port Kar, that fearful larl of a man, drew then his blade and went behind the beast, seized the fur of its head, thus holding the head, and then, with two terrible strokes of that small, wicked weapon, cut away the head.
Kardok back on its haunches, bleeding, forced the blade of Selius Arconious from his own chest, wedging it away by the hilt with one paw and the flowing stub of the other. It turned then and staggered about. Wavering, it bent down to pick up the blade, but the bootlike sandal of Bosk held it, pressed, to the grass.
Kardok, snarling, blood now bursting with air, hissing like foam, spreading about its jaws and fangs, looked about himself, from face to face.
The slave covered her face with her hands, seeing herself so regarded.
Kardok then turned about, and staggered out, into the grasslands.
Bosk of Port Kar picked up the warmed, bright, red-rich, drenched blade of Selius Arconious, and held it out to him.
Selius Arconious then followed Kardok from the camp.
“No, Master! No, Master!” cried the slave.
She would have fled after her master, but her arm was seized by the mighty hand of Bosk of Port Kar, and she, small and female, struggling, was held as helplessly as in a vise.
“Let me go! Let me go!” she screamed.
But in a matter of moments Selius Arconious returned to the camp, wading through the grass; in his right hand was a bloodied sword; in his left hand, dangling, was the massive, bleeding head of Kardok.
“Master! Master!” cried the slave, overjoyed.
“On your knees,” said Bosk of Port Kar.
Then she looked up at him from her knees. From his accent, she was certain that his origin was, like hers, Earth. She took him to have been English. Doubtless, if her surmise was correct, as to his world, and nation, of origin, he would have known her, from her accent, as easily as she knew him, known her to have been once of Earth, and doubtless it was as easy for him to conjecture her country or nation as it was for her to conjecture his. So he was an Earth man and she was an Earth woman, but here, on Gor, it was he who stood, and was perhaps even of the caste of Warriors, and she who knelt. Yes, she thought to herself. Here, on this world, it is he who stands and I who kneel! He does not in confusion, in guilty embarrassment, summon me to my feet but rather, in the order of nature, keeps me on my knees before him, where I belong!