“No,” he said. “They assumed, of course, that I would participate in the voyage. Otherwise they would not have sold you, and, I suppose, would have slain me.”
“That is more than forty-eight copper tarsks,” I said.
“More than four times as much,” he said, “as Brundisium counts tarsks.” I knew there were considerable differences in coinages from city to city. Gorean polities are fiercely independent, and many are substantially isolated from the others. That is why money changers commonly rely on scales, at least for gold and silver. For example, in some cities there are eight tarsk-bits to a copper tarsk, and in others, such as Brundisium, a major commercial port, a hundred tarsk-bits to a copper tarsk. These divisions, it seems, might facilitate subtle distinctions in pricing and trading.
“What would I go for on the open market?” I asked.
“It would depend on the market, and season, and the supply, and such,” he said. “There is no simple answer to that. But I would suppose, in an average market, you might go for two and a half silver tarsks.”
“So much?” I said.
“Possibly,” he said.
“It seems then,” I said, “that I have become more beautiful.”
“Women do, in the collar,” he said.
“And how high might you have gone if the bidding were close, and fierce?”
“That is my business,” he said.
“As high as a gold tarsk?” I asked.
“Do you think me weak?” he asked.
“Not at all,” I said.
“I could have bought you in Brundisium,” he said. “I might have kept you for myself, even before Brundisium.”
“But you did not,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“Why did you not do so?” I asked.
“I do not know,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“What had happened?” he asked. “What had you done to me?”
“Nothing, Master!” I said.
“Was there some spell in this, some drug?” he asked.
“No, Master,” I said.
“Why was it that I wanted you so?” he asked.
“I do not know,” I said.
“To be sure,” he said, “I thought you would look well in ropes, and a collar. Else you, a confused Earth slut, knowing nothing of your place, and your nature, would not have been brought to Gor. You should have been left to pine and languish in your shallow, tepid world, left, if anything, to the timid, polite, fumbling attentions of psychologically emasculated pseudomales, conditioned from infancy to disown their own nature, and deny their own blood, the creatures of a pathological world where nature and truth are against the law, against laws brought into being by those who would deny both truth and nature.”
“It is a great honor,” I said, “for a woman of my world, such a world, to be adjudged worthy of a Gorean collar.”
“‘Worthy’?” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
“Do you think you, a woman of your world, any woman of your world, is worthy to be the slave of a Gorean male?”
“No, Master,” I said. “We, the women of my world, so taught and conditioned, so shallow and trivialized, are not even worthy to be the slaves of Gorean males.”
“Still,” he said, “you look well on the block, and in chains.”
“It is our hope that our masters will be pleased with us,” I said.
“One does not need a worthy slave,” he said, “only a beautiful slave, however unworthy, from whom we will require much work and from whom we will derive much pleasure.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“It is common, of course, for a man to desire a slave,” he said.
“And for a slave to desire a master,” I said.
“You know I followed you from Brundisium,” he said.
“On the dock at Shipcamp,” I said, “seeing you, I had hoped for as much.”
“‘Hoped’?” he said.
“I wanted you as my master,” I said, “from the first moment I fled from you.”
“Liar!” he said.
“No, Master!” I said.
“I do not understand these things,” he said angrily, his fist clenched. “Am I a fool, a joke, a weakling, a traitor to codes?” He looked down at me, and I was frightened. Why was he angry, so angry? I feared his fury? What had I done? Did this have to do with him, or with me, or both? How dark was his visage, how twisted his frown!
“You are a mere slave,” he said, “a mere slave!”
“Yes, Master,” I said, uncertainly.
“You are worthless,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“No different from countless others,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I said, frightened.
“And yet,” he said, “how I have fought the wanting of you!”
“Master?” I said.
“How I tried to drive the thought of you from my mind!