“Are you sure of that?” I asked.
“No,” she said. She then looked at me uncertainly. Perhaps for the first time she sensed she was looking into the eyes of a man who could bring the whip to her back and legs. I saw she was trying to deal with this thought. Too, I saw a flicker in her eyes, perhaps of fear, but, too, perhaps of something else, as well.
She had never before been, I suspected, subject to a male.
Certainly one does not go about punishing the slaves of others, though free women tend to be rather free in this regard, and most Goreans are not above reprimanding errant slaves, whether their own or those of others. An errant slave girl is not above being, say, knelt and cuffed by a free person. Do not all slaves call free men “Master,” and free women “Mistress”?
Too, Constantina was clearly in need of discipline, and I suspected I might be willing to make an exception to my general reservations in her case.
To be sure, if she were a free woman, the whip would not do at all. Free women on Gor, as on Earth, are free to do much what they wish, with little or no fear of consequences. They are free to do almost anything, without fear of punishment. This indulgence and latitude are not extended, of course, to the slave.
“Master?” asked Cecily.
“Begin,” I said to her.
“You are before your master,” said Cecily. “Split your knees.”
I sensed Cecily would enjoy this.
“Never!” said Constantina.
“Now, slave!” snapped Cecily.
Constantina threw me a pleading glance, but I fear she found little comfort in my gaze.
“Ai!” said Pertinax, softly.
Constantina knelt before him, her knees spread, in the position of a Gorean pleasure slave. I gathered he had never had this woman so before him.
Obviously he, if not Constantina, was muchly pleased.
“Press the metal of the goblet to your belly,” said Cecily. “Press it in there, so that you can feel it. Really feel it, the metal against your belly. Surely you understand this, the metal against your belly. More. Better. More. Good. Now, to your breasts, softly but firmly. Feel the metal.”
There was a change in the breath of Constantina. She cast me a glance, almost piteously. I think she did not understand her sensations.
“Look at your master, not mine,” said Cecily, unpleasantly.
Constantina turned to Pertinax, unwillingly, it seemed, the goblet at her breasts.
“Now,” said Cecily, “lift the goblet to your lips, and, gazing over the rim at your master, kiss the goblet, tenderly, and lick it, lovingly, lingeringly, for he is your master, and he is permitting you, a mere slave, to serve him. Keep your eyes on your own master, slave!”
Constantina turned back to Pertinax.
Then she put down her head, frightened, for perhaps it was the first time she had seen him regard her as what she was, or supposedly was, a slave.
“Now,” said Cecily, “extend your arms, holding the cup, to your master, and put your head down, humbly, between your extended arms.”
This is, of course, a beautiful sight.
Pertinax, it seemed, would almost forget to accept the cup. Perhaps he was unwilling to let the moment go. Then he accepted the cup, and drank.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You do not thank her,” I informed him. “It is a great honor and privilege for a slave to be permitted to serve her master. Too, it is what she is for.”
“True,” said Pertinax.
“That was not so hard, was it, girl?” I asked Constantina.
“No,” she said.
“No, what?” I asked.
“No,” she said, “— Master.”
“You may now draw back,” I said, “but you will remain in the vicinity, kneeling. You may be required later.”
“‘Required’,” she said, uncertainly.
“For further serving,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “— Master.”
Pertinax seemed unable to take his eyes from her. I wondered what their relationship might be.
“May I serve Master paga?” inquired Cecily.
“Yes,” I said, and she served me paga, and well. I trusted Constantina was attentive.
How incredibly beautiful was the former Miss Virginia Cecily Jean Pym!
Then she withdrew, a bit, to kneel in the background, where, unobtrusively, she would be at hand, should she be needed, or wanted, or desired. The slave does not withdraw from the master’s presence without permission.
I finished the paga and set down the goblet.
“I thank you for your hospitality,” I said to Pertinax.
“It is nothing,” he said. “I hope you will stay the night.”
“The others, I gather,” I said, “have not yet arrived.”
“What others?” he said.
“I do not know,” I said.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“Perhaps we should talk,” I said to Pertinax.
“Remain as you are,” I said to Constantina, for it seemed she stirred, and would have risen to her feet.
She was not accustomed, it seemed, to obeying men. I found this odd, as she had a collar on her neck.
“By all means,” said Pertinax, uncertainly. “But talk of what?”
At that moment, far over the roof, high, outside the hut, far overhead, there was a thunderous noise. It was like a sudden, passing surf, a storm in the sky. It lasted no more than a part of an Ehn.
“Master?” said Cecily, startled.
Constantina seemed frightened.
Perhaps she had at one time seen tarns.
I did not leave my place.
“Migratory tarns,” said Pertinax.
“The tarn is not a migratory bird,” I said.
“Forest tarns,” he said.
“Tarns are of the mountains and the plains,” I said. “They do not frequent the forests. They cannot hunt in them, for the closeness of the trees.”
“Perhaps it was thunder,” he said.
“You may be unfamiliar with the sound,” I said, “but I am not. That was the passage of several tarns, perhaps a tarn cavalry.”
“No,” he said, “not a cavalry.”
“Not one disciplined, at any rate,” I said.
In a tarn cavalry the wing beats are synchronized, much as in the pace of marching men. Normally this is facilitated, unless surprise is intended, by the beating of a tarn drum, which sets the cadence. One of the glorious sights of Gor is the wheeling, the maneuvering and flight, of such cavalries in the sky, a lovely sight, in its way not unlike that of a fleet of lateen-rigged galleys abroad on gleaming Thassa, the sea.
“A very large band of mercenary brigands?” I suggested.
“They are not mounted,” said Pertinax.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Do not speak,” snapped Constantina. “Be quiet, you fool!”
Pertinax subsided, and looked down.
I rose to my feet and went to my things, gathering in some few articles, and then returned to face Constantina, where she knelt. I took her by the hair and, as she cried out, twisted her about and threw her to her back, and knelt across her body. She squirmed, helpless, pinioned. She looked up at me, wildly, protestingly, frightened, as I thrust the wadding into her mouth, and then, turning her to her belly, secured it in place behind the back of her neck. I then, with binding fiber, as she lay on her belly, lashed her wrists together behind her back, tightly, and so served her ankles, as well, which I then bound, high, to her wrists. Such a tie is very unpleasant. I then lifted her in my arms, carried her outside, and threw her to the leaves, in the darkness, some feet from the hut entrance. I then returned to the hut, and resumed my place, cross-legged, across from Pertinax.
“I have no interest in killing you,” I said to Pertinax, “but I think we should talk.”
“By all means,” he said.
“I doubt that you are Gorean,” I said. “Certainly you are not of Port Kar, and you are not a forester. My slave and I were set down on the beach, doubtless to be met. You arrived, supposedly, as a matter of coincidence. I do not believe that. Whom do you serve?”