"It will be done, lady," said my keeper.
"Then see that he is gagged, thoroughly," she said.
"Yes, lady," said the keeper.
Already a fellow was loosening one of the shackles. In a moment my hands were manacled before my body.
"Kneel to the whip," said the keeper.
I knelt, my head to the sand.
In a moment I heard the hiss of the lash. Then it had fallen on me ten times.
I was then pulled up, kneeling, and my hands were again fastened behind my back. The wadding of the gag was thrust in my mouth, deeply. It was then fastened in place, the binding knotted behind the back of my neck, tightly, painfully. I was then flung to my belly in the sand, my ankles bound closely to one stake, my neck-rope, considerably shortened now, keeping my body stretched, to another.
There was some blood in the sand, near me. "See that he is worked well," she said.
"We shall, lady," my keeper assured her. She then, I think, withdrew.
I lay in the sand, my head turned to the side.
I heard two sting flies hum by, "needle flies," as the men of Ar called them.
It had been very hot in the marsh today. It had been oppressively hot, steamingly hot. I supposed the heat must have been hard for the Lady Ina, in her robes. Muchly she must have suffered in them. Such sacrifices must be made by the fashionable and high born, however. Much more practical for the delta would have been the skimpy garments of female slaves, the brief tunics, the short, open-sided, exciting camisks, the scandalous ta-teeras, or slave rags, indeed, the many varieties of stimulating slave garments, sometimes mere strips and strings, garments deliberately revelatory of imbonded beauty. How unfortunate, I thought, that Lady Ina had no serving slaves with her, to assist her in the intricacies of her toilet. She even had to brush her own hair.
In time my back hurt less.
It had been very hot in the marsh today.
I recalled the ankles of the Lady Ina, and her face. She had shown me her ankles of her own will, and, I suspect, had desired to reveal to me, also, her face. I wondered if it were good that I had looked upon her ankles, her face. It is not like looking on the beauty of a female slave whom one may then, with a snap of the fingers, send to the furs.
"It was hot today," said a man.
"Yes," said another.
Indeed, it had been. I had had an uneasy feeling in that heat, that quiet, oppressive, steaming heat. I had felt almost as if something lay brooding over the marsh, or within it, something dark, something physical, almost like a presence, something menacing.
"What do you think of the Lady Ina?" one fellow asked another.
"A she-sleen," said the other.
"But I would like to get my hands on her," said the first fellow.
"I, too," laughed the second.
It occurred to me how much refuge women have in a civilized world, protected by customs, by artifices, by conventions, by arrangements, by laws. Did they understand, I wondered, the tenuousness of such things, their fragility, their dependence on the will of men. Did they wonder sometimes, I wondered, what might be their lot, or how they might fare, if such things were swept away, if suddenly they no longer existed? Did they understand that then they would as vulnerable as slaves? One wants a civilization, of course. Civilizations are desirable. One would wish to have one. But then, again, there are many sorts of civilizations. Suppose an old order should collapse, or disintegrate, or be destroyed. What would be the nature of the new order? Surely it need not be built on the failed model of the old order. That was an experiment which was tested, and found wanting. It was a mistake. It did not work. What would the new order be like? Let us hope it would be a sounder order, one, for once, fully in harmony with nature. What would the position of women be in the new order, I wondered. Would women have a place in the new order, I wondered. Certainly, I thought, a very secure place.
It would be hard to sleep tonight, for the ropes.
I thought again of the Lady Ina. I wondered, idly, what she might look like, stripped, kneeling, in a collar and chains. She would probably be acceptable, I thought.
I listened to birdlike cries in the marsh. The Lady Ina had thought them Vosk gulls. So, too, did the men. They may, of course, have been right.
Eventually I slept.
13 We Proceed Further into the Delta
"Hold!" whispered a fellow ahead, wading, his hand held back, palm exposed.
I stopped in the yoke. The three-log raft, the harness settling in the water between myself and it, moved slowly forward. In a moment I felt the logs touch my back, gently, beneath the yoke. I heard weapons about me, unsheathed.
The officer's barge was to my right, he forward, with others. The fellow on the observation platform on the barge, crouched down.
"We have them now, lads," whispered the officer to some of the men wading between the raft and barge. He made a sign. Subalterns, with signs, deployed their men.
I felt an arm placed over the yoke and about my neck, holding me in place. At my throat, too, my chin now lifted, my head back against the yoke, I felt the edge of a knife. "Do not move," whispered my keeper, he lying on his stomach now, on the raft. They did not fear my crying out, as I was gagged. They would take no chances, however, with my attempting to make noise, perhaps by splashing or pounding my yoke against the raft.
Files of men waded past me. I could see other files, too, on the other side, once they were beyond the barge. Some were held in the rence, others were circling to the left, and, I suppose, on the other side, to the right.
For days we had plunged deeper and deeper into the delta, in pursuit of Cosians. Several times before we had caught glimpses of an elusive barge ahead, not of Ar. It had, rightly or wrongly, become something of a symbol, a token of the Cosians, the pursued foe. Even from a sober military point of view, of course, given the suppositions of the men of Ar, it was natural to associate the barge with the Cosians, conjecturing it to be, say, one of their transport craft or a vessel of their rear guard. The fact that it had been so difficult to close with it had, of course, encouraged such suppositions.
"Go ahead, sleen," whispered the keeper behind me, his knife at my throat, "try to warn your fellows. Go ahead!"
I remained absolutely still.
"Soon," said he, "the swords of the lads of Ar will drink the blood of the sleen of Cos."
I felt the edge of his knife at my throat.
I was absolutely still.
More men waded by, silently.
"It is for this reason that you have been brought to the delta," said he, "that you might witness with your own eyes the unavailingness of your espionage and the destruction of your fellows."
I did not move.
"But then, as a spy," he laughed, "I suppose you would not try to warn them. You would be too clever to do so. Spies are more concerned, as I understand it, with their own skin." He chuckled. "But your skin, my Cosian sleen," said he, "belongs to Ar. Does the yoke on you, and the harness on your back, not tell you that?"
I did not move. I feared he might, in his excitement, with the closing on the barge, slip with the knife, when the attack signal was uttered.
"Your skin, spy," said he, "belongs to Ar, as much as that of a slave girl to her master."
I sensed the signal would be soon given. By now the men must be in position.
"Perhaps you would like to try to escape?" he asked.
I felt the knife at my throat. It was of Gorean sharpness. Then he turned the blade a little so that I felt its side and not its edge. Almost at the same instant, from ahead and the sides, ahead, I heard the war cries of Ar and the movements of large numbers of men, hundreds of them, hastening in the marsh, converging doubtless on the barge. At the same, time, too, I felt the side of the knife press against my throat, reflexively, almost like an eye blink, given the sudden clamor in the marsh. Then, in an instant, the blade was turned again, so that the edge was again at my throat.