There, in the proximity of the winged giant, she trembled.
"Hold still," I said. I then, with a piece of scarflike cloth taken from my pouch, a wind veil, sometimes bound across the mouth and nostrils of a tarnsman, usually at high altitudes, blindfolded her. A great many women, particularly the most sensitive and intelligent among them, fear tarns greatly. It is not unusual for them to become hysterical in their vicinity. It is not uncommon then for the tarnsman to hood or blindfold them. This aids in their control and management. Too, of course, if the woman is a captive, or slave, one may not wish her to understand where she is, or be able to retrace her route, or know where she is being taken. It is enough for her to know, when the blindfold or hood is removed, that she is in perfect custody. Sometimes a woman does not learn for weeks, sometimes until, say, the very night of her sale, where she is, in what city she finds herself.
"I can't see!" she said.
"That is the purpose of a blindfold," I said.
"You could punish me, couldn't you?" she said.
"Yes," I said.
"And you would, wouldn't you?" she said.
"Yes," I said.
I then put her on my shoulder, her head to the rear, as a slave is carried, and mounted the ladder. I put her before me on the saddle. She grasped the pommel desperately. At the sides of the saddle there are various rings, and straps, which may be used in fastening things to it, or across it. Needless to say, such may be used to fasten females in place. Lady Phoebe of Telnus was, of course, a free woman, and though she was a capture, in a sense, she had a special status with me. I did not, thus, throw her across the saddle, on her belly, or back, fastening her there in utter helplessness as I might have a common capture. I did, however, loop a left strap about her right wrist, and tie it back to its ring, and loop a right strap on her right wrist, tying it back to its ring. In this way, as she wore slave bracelets, although she might slip, she could not fall, and her hands would be kept in the vicinity of the pommel. I then put the safety strap about myself, and buckled it shut.
Once before, long ago, in the vicinity of the city of Ar, I had been lax in doing that. It had been fortunate that I had survived. It was a precaution which, if time permitted, I had seldom neglected thereafter. I thought of lithe, sinuous, olive-skinned Talena, the daughter of Marlenus of Ar until disowned, she having given evidence that she was a slave. After she had been returned to Ar by Samos, of Port Kar, into whose chains she had fallen, Marlenus, shamed, had had her sequestered, in the Central Cylinder. Now, in his absence, he having vanished in the Voltai Mountains, on a punitive raid against the tarnsmen of Treve, it seemed her fortunes were recovering. She had appeared at public functions. Her palanquin was now again seen abroad in the streets. Doubtless she was once again becoming proud and haughty. I had not seen the slave in her. On the other hand, Rask of Treve, and others, had. I, too, now, I suspected, might be more perceptive. Though she had been the daughter of a Ubar, and now, again, it seemed, stood high in Ar, she was, after all, only a female. I wondered what she might look like, naked and in chains, or writhing at my feet, trying to interest me.
"Oh!" said Lady Phoebe, softly.
"You are slim," I said, "but you are well curved."
"Thank you," she said.
"It is pleasant to caress you," I said.
She was silent.
"Do you object?" I asked.
"No," she said.
"Why not?" I asked.
"I am a full servant," she said.
Her body was unusually sensitive for that of a free woman. It was not slave, of course, but then she was not a slave. Such transformation in her, of course, might easily come with the collar, and discipline.
I again, briefly, considered the proud, haughty Talena, who had been the daughter of a Ubar, and who now, again, it seemed, stood high in Ar. Yes, she would, I thought, considering the matter carefully, look well in chains, or writhing at my feet, trying to interest me. Too, I recalled she had been contemptuous of me, and haughty and cruel to me, in Port Kar, scorning even the memory of my love, when I had been paralyzed, helpless to move from a chair, the victim of the poison of Sullius Maximus, once one of the five Ubars of Port Kar, before the Sovereignty of the Council of Captains. I wondered if she thought that I was still in Port Kar, perhaps huddled before a fire in that same chair, an invalid, its prisoner. But I had recovered, fully, receiving even the antidote for the poison of Torvaldsland. I suspected, however, she might have seen me from her palanquin in Ar. The following night an attempt had been made on my life in the Tunnels, one of the slave brothels of Ludmilla, from which the street called the Alley of the Slave Brothels of Ludmilla is named. Too, I had seen evidence near Brundisium that she was guilty of treason against Ar.
"Oh!" said Lady Phoebe.
"Ah, yes, Talena, I thought. Yes, I thought, now, upon reflection, that there had been a slave in her. Perhaps I had been a fool to let it get away. Yes, she might make an interesting slave, perhaps a low slave. Then I dismissed thoughts of her from my mind.
"Ohh!" gasped Lady Phoebe, crying out in the blindfold, squirming on the saddle before me. I heard the tiny sounds of the linkage of the slave bracelets. Her white thighs contrasted nicely with the smooth, dark, glossy leather. Sometimes they were flattened against the leather, as though gripping it for dear life, and, at other times, they rubbed, and squirmed, and moved helplessly, piteously, against it. I considered the glossiness of the saddle leather. I did not think she was the first woman who had been carried on it, or so handled. Her knees suddenly bent and she almost climbed up, about the pommel. I wondered if I should have fastened her ankles to rings, holding her thighs down and apart, on the saddle, forcing her to endure the sensations, for the most part relieflessly, within physical-restraint limits of my choosing.
"Oh, ohh," she Lady Phoebe.
"Be silent," I said to her.
"You have stopped!" she whispered.
"Be silent," I said. Had she been a slave, and not a free woman, this causing of the repetition of a command might have earned her a beating.
The attendant looked about. There was the sound of some commotion coming from the vicinity of the court.
"Here, my good fellow," I said to him.
"My thank, tarnsman!" he cried, not having expected a gratuity of such size. I was reasonably confident as to what the commotion might well be about, and so I thought I might as well take my leave of the Crooked Tarn. "You are generous, indeed, tarnsman," said the attendant, backing away now. It would scarcely do to be struck or swept from the platform to the moat some seventy or eighty feet below, particularly as one had just made an entire silver tarsk. Giving such a coin, of course, was, in its way, I suppose, a bit of braggadocio on my part, something of a gesture or flourish. On the other hand, I would not really miss it that much as I had extracted it from among the coins I had taken from the wallet of the fellow I had left in the tub, in the baths, the burly fellow who was of the company of Artemidorus.
I drew up the mounting ladder and secured it at the side of the saddle. The shouting, angry shouts, a tumult almost, was clearer now. Four or five fellows must have been involved. There were, too, if I am not mistaken, the sounds of blows, or, at least, sudden grunts and cries of pain.
I moved the harness, drawing the straps evenly, and the bird, anticipatory, alerted, stalked to the front edge of the landing platform, outside the portal of the tarn gate. From such a platform the bird, with a single snap of its wings, addressing itself to flight, is immediately airborne.
"Hold tightly," I told my servant.
She moaned. She clutched the pommel with all her strength.
"There is a fellow back there," said the attendant. "He is naked! He is fighting!"
"Oh?" I said.
"Yes!" he said.
"Interesting," I said.
"He has probably not paid his bills, and is trying to escape," speculated the attendant. To be sure, he did not seem eager to rush down and join the fray. "Disgusting," I said.