"Master," said Bikki, approaching me. "If you owned me, would you free me?" "No," I said. "May I ask why not, Master?" she inquired. I looked at Beverly, but spoke to Bikki. "Because you are too desirable to free," I told her.
Beverly looked at me in fury, and Bikkie turned to her in triumph. "See?" asked Bikki."There are slaves and slaves it seems!"
"So it seems," said Beverly. I smiled inwardly. Should she come again into my power, let her try to break the chains in which I would put her.
"Have you ever been mastered, Beverly?" asked the red-haired girl. "Of course, Many men have mastered me." said Beverly. "I am a slave girl."
"To me," said Bikki, "you seemed a true slave girl, fully, only when you had emerged from the chambers of the courier of Ragnar Voskjard."Beverly smiled, "It was he who first fully mastered me," she said. "He was fully dominant over me.
He was overwhelming, and I nothing, only an amourous, compliant, frightened slave in his arms. I had not known such a man could exist. He made me weep myself his, it seemd a hundred times in his arms. That night I was devastated and taught my collar. It was in that night that i first truly learned my womanhood and my slavery."
"I see that you have never forgotten him," said one of the girls. "No," she said. "Do you love him?" asked the red-haired girl. "Yes," sahe said. I was pleased that she had said this. To be sure, I had made her yield as the salve she was.
"Perhaps sometime you will be his," said one of the girls softly. "He did not try to buy me, nor did he ask Policrates to give me to him," said Beverly. "To him I am only another female slave, a meaningless slut, doubtless already forgotten with whom he pleasured himself one night in a strange holding."
"It is sometimes hard to be a slave," said one of the girls. "We are all slaves," said another girl. "The masters are all, and we are nothing," said another. "Yes," said another.
"I will take our fleet east on the river," said Policarates to Kilomenes. "That will discourage interference from towns east on the river." "Yes Captain," said Kliomenes.
Policrates then turned about and regarded me. "Do not look for pretty slaves in the chamber of the windlass," he said. I was silent. "Oh, Beverly," said Policrates. "Yes, Master," said the girl, hurrying forward and falling to her knees before him. «Earlier,» said he, "you hesitated, if only briefly, in carrying out a command. "Forgive me Master," she begged, turning white.
"Leading position," he said. Sobbing, she rose to her feet and put her had down at what would be the height of a man's waist, her legs flexed. A guard walked over and fastened his hand in her hair. "Have her whipped," said Policrates. "Yes Captain," said the man.
He then left the chamber, pulling the girl sobbing at his side. I was pleased to see that Policrates was a strict master. The girl was of course, guilty, she had clearly hesitated in carrying out a comman. How can a girl expect such laxities to go unnoticed or unpunished?
Policrates then, nodded to the men who held me. "Take him away," he said.I was then dragged from the room.
31. The Chamber of the Windlass I Begin to Put my Plan into Effect
"Cease your lying!" cried the pirate."Put your back into it." "Yes Captain," I said to him, though surely he was not a captain. The whip cracked across my back.
I, sweating, chained, pressed my bare feet against the flot wooden slats nailed on the large, raised wooden deck, the treading platforme, some five feet above the floor, encircling the windlass. I could hear the chain turning on its winding axle below the level of the platform. The gate is raised by muscle power, abetted by two heavy, drumlike weights which partically balance its weight, transmitted to the windlass by means of metal windlass poles or bars, these being used to rotate the windlass. The gate, which is heavier than the drum-like weights has a gravity descent. In lowering the gate, the windlass, under the control of the workers, serves primarily as a brake, sufficing to regulate the speed of its descent. The principles and gearing of the winlass, which is an upright windlass, are analogous, of course to those of the capstan.
I pressed against the heavy metal pole, or bar, almost five inches in diameter, fixed now, like a spoke in the shaft of the windlass. My neck, in its collar, by a chain, was fastened in this pole. It was thus that I was kept in my place. My wrists and ankles were also chained. I had some 18 inches of play for my feet.
I had some 24 inches of play for my hands. These arrangements represent what is theoretically an optimum compromise between prisoner secuity and the degress of freedom essential to efficiently operate the windlass.
"Push!" cried the pirate. Again the whip struck across my back, I thurst again against the bar. The chip, then, struck elsewhere, too, and thre were cries of pain and the sounds of men moving in chains. There were five large poles, or bars, set in the windlass. At each, five men, chained as I was, labored. There poles may be inserted into the windlass and if one wishes, removed from it. The collars and neck chains keep men fastened to the pole, whether it is inserved within the windlass or not. When moving about, the pin-and-lock device opened, the men will carry the pole with them. When the pole is on the ground, and not lifted, one can rise no higher of course, then on one's knees with one's hands deferentially lowered.
"Push, push! Move!" called the pirate. The last struck amongst us. As the windlass turned slowly, creaking, we heard, too, overhead and to the side, the movement and swining of the great drumlike sounterweights on their chains. Without these counterweights, we could not have moved the sea gate.
I again felt the lash, as did the others, too. The pirate walked about us. It is dim and musty in the chamber of the windlass. It can be hot during the day. My hands slipped on the bar. Then I had it gain. Too, at night, it can be extremely cold. There was a smell of wastes in the chamber. Perhaps it would have been less unplesasant if our captors had permitted us clothing.
"Work, work!" called the pirate. "Work!" But he did not strike us again. The weights were no in motion.
There is little to amuse one in the chamber of the windlass, save, I suppose, eating and drinking and dreams. There is a shallow trough for water, cut in the stone, near one wall, where we would be chained when not working. This is filled twice daily. Too, at the well, we would be thrown crusts of bread and scraps of meat and fruit, usually the garbage of the feasts of pirates, our captors.
Then at night, chained, cold, when we would fall asleep, we would have our dreams. These dreams would usually be of slave girls, soft and warm, lucious, licking and kissing in our arms. Then we would awaken to the straw, to the cold, to the stones, to the damp cold, heavy iron of our chains. There were no pretty slave girls in the chamber of the windlass, as Policrates had told me. But we had our dreams. One girl, more than any others, Beverly Henderson, though she now appeared generallly inmy dreams not as the lovely, free Earth girl, Miss Henderson, but under a variety of names, as a Gorean slave girl, perhaps suddenly turning to greet me perhaps in a market, imploring me to buy her; perhaps on a rounded slave block, I with a purse of gold in hand, having ready the means with which to buy her; perhaps an escaped slave, pilfering in my compartment, then turning, then knowing herself caught; perhaps being pulled from a slave sack I had bought on speculation; perhaps drawn by the hair from the tend of an enemy; perhaps chained in the darkness, and then illuminated; it would generally, almost always, suddenly, somehow, seem she. "My Master!" she would say, knowing herself mine, acknowledging herself mine, kneeling before me. One dream I had had several times. We were having dinner in the restaurant, as we had had long ago. She was wearing the white, off-the-shoulder dress. She had the beaded purse. We finished the dinner and our coffee and I told her, "I am going to make you a slave girl." "You cannot do that," she told me. "You are mistaken," I told her. "How can I be mistaken?" she asked. "It is very simple," I said. "You do not know the nature of men," "This is a public place," she said. "That is all right," I told her. She turned to a man at a nearby table. "He intends tomake me a slave," she said to him. "That is all right," said the man. "You are a slave." "Strip now, and do not daily longer, Woman," I told her. Then, in my dream, slowly and gracefully, the clothing put aside, seeming to float from her, Miss Henderson standing beside the stable on the carpet of the restaurant, stripped herself. I then unbound her hair, so that it fell loosely, almost floating, about her shoulders. No one in the restaurant paid the least attention. I then removed a black leather cord from my pocket and bound her small wrists behind her back.