attractive,” said Axel. “It is only that they are stupid.”
“May I speak, Master?” I asked.
“No,” said my master. “Barbarians,” said my master, “are not simply found under a veil when a city is falls or a caravan raided. They are selected for beauty and intelligence.”
I straightened my body, and lifted my head a little more.
“And passion,” he added.
I reddened. I could not help the nature of my belly, the needs of my body, the helplessness of my responses to a man’s touch. But why, I asked myself, should I be embarrassed by, or shamed by, or disconcerted by, signs of, and the obvious consequences of, health, life, hormonal richness, and vitality? Had not nature made me so, designed me to be a yielded, surrendered slave in the arms of masters? And in the collar, and in bondage, and on Gor had not nature liberated me a thousand fold to be myself? In a natural world does not nature thrive?
“Both are excellent slaves,” said Axel.
“One at least,” said my master.
“Put either one of them in with a crowd of free women, all stripped,” said Axel, “and one would see her as the slave.”
Perhaps that was the case, I thought. I did not know. Certainly I was a slave. I had often thought that my master, when he had first seen me on my former world, had seen me as such, and immediately, even without thought, as a slave.
Both men then turned to the river, and we two, slaves, standing, followed their gaze. The great ship was nearly out of sight. Momentarily it would reach a bend in the river, and we would no longer be able to follow its course from our vantage point.
“Tyrtaios would have paid well,” said Axel.
“Gold, women, fleets, cities, a ubarate or ubarates,” said my master.
“We might have been mighty men,” said Axel, fondling the shaggy, lifted head of Tiomines.
“It is quite possible,” said my master, “that the World’s End would never be reached.”
“Thassa,” said Axel, “is treacherous, deep, and cruel.”
“It is a voyage, as no other,” said my master.
“Tersites,” said Axel, “would challenge the winds and the sea, fearful Thassa, in the fiercest and most ruthless of seasons.”
“He is mad,” said my master.
“Perhaps, it is so,” said Axel, “of all who, so to speak, build great ships.”
“Do you trust Tyrtaios?” asked my master.
“No,” said Axel. “He would be as likely, when he had of us what he wanted, to pay with steel as gold.”
“Still,” said my master, “we might have been well rich.”
“Then it seems our desertions were ill-advised,” said Axel.
“Masters may have sacrificed much,” said Asperiche.
“And have little to show for it,” said Axel.
“Two slaves!” laughed Asperiche.
“Your slave is insolent,” said my master. “Does she have permission to speak? Have you suffered her to speak?”
“She has always spoken freely before me, owned or not owned,” said Axel. “I enjoy having her speak her mind.”
“I see,” said my master. I did not think he would be as permissive as Master Axel.
“It makes it all the more pleasant then,” said Axel, “to bring them again to their knees.”
“I see,” said my master, with satisfaction.
“A privilege not granted is not much missed,” said Axel, “but a privilege granted is more missed when it is withdrawn.”
“Of course,” said my master.
As is well known we speak well, and love to speak. It is one of the delights of our being. Accordingly few things more impress our bondage upon us, and with greater keenness, than the fact that our speech, as other aspects of our being, is subject to our master’s will. Unless we have a standing permission to speak, which might, of course, be rescinded at any time, we are commonly expected to request permission to speak, and are not to speak without such permission, which permission might or might not be granted. How painful it is, and how frustrating, to wish to speak, to desire fervently to do so, and not be permitted to do so! But it is not we, but the master, who will decide these things. They do not always wish to hear us speak, and then we may not do so.
Perhaps, I thought, lovely Asperiche could thus be well reminded that she is a slave. The whip, too, of course, is useful in this regard.
The great ship of Tersites was no longer in sight.
“We will trek,” said Axel. “I think it best to do so separately.”
“I agree,” said my master.
“Axel,” said my master.
“Yes?” he said.
“Genserich,” said my master, “speculated as to the possibility of two