Outside I heard bosk being hitched to wagons. Other bosk I heard being freed and driven into the woods.
I wondered if the camp would be fired. I supposed not, for the glow of the burning silk and canvas in the night sky might too soon apprise the camp's soldiers of what had occurred. An obvious trail had been left for the soldiers to begin to follow; then the men of my master had circled about to return to the camp. The trail would become difficult to detect, then perhaps disappear. The men of the camp had not had trained sleen. While the pursuing soldiers followed a false scent, my master's men returned to their camp, from which, later, in a new direction, they might make their departure. My master prepared to leave the tent. I wanted to run beside him, but he would not permit it. He pushed me back. I must remain within. He left the tent.
The man who had coffled the girls now stood back, looking at them. "May I speak?" begged the first in the line, she who had been earlier whipped. "Yes," he said. "I hate my mistress," she said. "I am ready to love you, Master!" "Do you not enjoy being owned by a woman?" he asked. "I want to love a man," she wept. "Shameless slave," cried the last girl in the line, she who had lamented the fate of her mistress, and who had called me "Dina," and kicked me. "I am a woman and a slave!" cried the first. "I want a man! I need a man!"
"Do not fear, Slave," grinned the man who had locked her in her wrist ring, "you will not be neglected when wench service is wished."
"Thank you, Master," she said, and stood very straight, very proudly.
"Brazen slave," scolded the last girl in the line.
"Comb the hair of the spoiled brat of a merchant, if you wish," said the first. "I will dance naked before a man."
"Slave!" cried the last girl in the line, horrified.
"Yes, slave!" said the first, angrily, proudly.
I heard a wagon being driven from the camp. In it, I suspected, lay the dowry riches of the Lady Sabina of Fortress of Saphronicus. The location of the lady herself I did not know, but I had little doubt she was in a safe place, probably blindfolded, gagged and chained to a tree somewhere. I wondered if she had been permitted to retain her clothing.
"Do you have pretty legs?" asked the man of the second girl in the line.
"Yes, Master," she said, smiling.
"You are aware," he queried, "of the penalties for lying to a free man?"
"Examine them, Master," she said, smiling, boldly. "It will not be necessary to beat me."
The last girl in the line cried out with indignation.
The man, with his knife, cut away much of the long, flowing white gown the girl wore, considerably shortening it, until it was provocatively high, ragged and exciting, on her thighs.
"It will not be necessary to beat you," he acknowledged.
"Thank you, Master," she said.
The last girl in the line snorted angrily, tossing her head in the air.
"Do you have pretty legs?" asked the man of the second gowned girl in the coffle.
"I do not know, Master," she whispered. "I am only a girl's maid."
"Let us see," said the man, and, as he had with the first, transformed the flowing classic, sleeveless garment into a sweet scrap of lovely slave livery.
"May I speak?" asked the second gowned girl.
"Yes," he said.
"Are my legs-pretty?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"A girl is pleased," she said. She, too, like the others, stood straight.
"How shameless you are, all of you!" scolded she who was the third of the gowned girls in the line, the last in the line.
"And you?" inquired the man.
"I am a woman's slave," she said proudly. "I am above such things." She did not look at him. "I have dignity," she said.
"But a slave girl is not permitted dignity," he said. Then he said, "We will see your legs." He then, with his knife, shortened her gown, as he had those of the others, until its shreds, too, ragged and exciting, were high on her thighs. She stood before him, her legs, though those of a girl's maid, bared to his eyes.
"Excellent legs," he said.
She shuddered, but I did not think that she was entirely displeased with his appraisal. All women wish to be attractive to men. "I–I want to be a woman's slave," she said, I thought a bit uncertainly.
"Do you fear men so?" he asked.
She did not speak.
"What you want," he pointed out to her, "is not important." He regarded her. "Is it?" he asked.
"No, Master," she said.
He touched her about the throat and chin. "Have you never been curious about the touch of a man?" he asked.
"Come to me," said the first girl. "I will love you like you have never been loved before!"
"He is touching me!" cried the last girl.
"Wanton slave!" laughed the first.
The man then went to the first girl and took her in his arms. She cried out with pleasure and pressed herself to him, melting and yielding to his tunic and leather. He subjected her mouth and lips to a kiss which could have been only the prelude to fierce slave rape.
"I can kiss, too," cried the last girl. "Master! Please, Master!"
"No," moaned the first girl. "She is nothing. Stay with me. I am sensuous. You do not know what it is to have had a slave girl until you have had me!"
I heard a second wagon being driven from the camp. I thought it might be one of the produce wagons, but, as it later turned out, the treasure freight of the dowry wagon had been divided between two wagons, the produce in one discarded, to lighten the load and make driving swifter.
My master then re-entered the tent. "Rape her later," he said to the soldier who held the first girl in the coffle in his arms. Reluctantly the soldier put the moaning girl from him.
"Yes, Captain," grinned the soldier.
"When we are to be raped, and must serve you as slaves," begged the first girl, she who had been in his arms, "let me be the first to be raped, the first to serve you as a slave."
"You will not be forgotten, my beautiful little slut," he promised her.
"Thank you, Master, " she whispered.
"Do not forget Donna either," said the second girl.
"Nor Chanda," said the third.
"Nor Marla," said the fourth.
"Lehna is first," said the first girl.
The soldier regarded the fourth girl. Under his eyes she stood very straight in the coffle. The wrist ring was closed on her left wrist, inflexibly, fastening her with the other girls.
"Nor Marla?" he asked.
"Nor Marla," she said.
"Are you not a woman's slave?" he asked.
"Save me a place at your feet, Master," she said. "I am a man's slave."
My master walked about the coffled girls. Then he returned to his original place of stand. "Four beauties," said he, "a good catch. We shall have much pleasure with them, and then, should we choose to sell them, we will get a good price."
How right it struck me that he had said this of the beauties, and yet, in its way, how horrifying to me, an Earth girl. Why did these men not hide their dominance; why did they not pretend it did not exist; why did they not suppress it; why did they not thwart and repudiate the birthright of their nature; why did they not make themselves miserable; why did they not torture themselves and diligently cultivate weakness like the men of Earth, shortening their lives and praising themselves for the constriction and mutilation of their instincts? Were they not powerful enough to be manipulated, strong enough to be weak?
"Coffle her," said my master, looking at me.
I stiffened. Surely the coffle was not for me. I was his girl. I was not a new slave. I had served him well.
The soldier whistled, as though lie might have been summoning a pet sleen, and lifted an open wrist ring, the last ring on the chain. I ran angrily to the chain.
"We must make haste," said my master.