likely, secretly, to be profoundly pleased. What woman would not wish to be “slave beautiful?” To be sure, given the robes of concealment, the veilings, and such, it is often difficult to know whether or not a free woman is “slave beautiful.” This is a difficulty one seldom encounters with slaves, of course, given the garmenture in which men place them. I had picked up my things, in the small pack, at the inn of Tasdron, as I commonly did in the morning, in case I might wish them. One did not know when the long poles might thrust one ship or another from the wharves, the sail take the wind, or the low-banked oars enter the water, and rise again, shedding their sparkling showers in the early morning light. Sometimes it seems that the blades have lifted rainbows from the water.
I saw nothing of much interest about.
I feared another morning might be lost.
Perhaps she had already been shipped north.
I felt the girl’s head lean toward me, and I felt her lips, soft, on my thigh. How timid, and humble, was that kiss! Did she fear to be cuffed to the planks? I recalled her startled, begging cries toward morning, and how she had clutched me. She had entered the alcove an enslaved woman; she had left it a slave.
“You may speak,” I said.
“I do not know my name,” she said. “I do not know my master’s name; I do not even know what is on my collar.”
“Be content,” I said. “I am watching.”
“Was Master pleased?” she asked.
“‘Pleased’?” I said.
“— In the alcove,” she said.
“More so toward morning, than before,” I said.
“Master well knows how to subdue a slave,” she said.
“I needed a slave,” I said.
“A slave hopes that she was pleasing to her master,” she said.
Certainly she had been zealous to please.
“A slave was pleasing,” I said.
“Then a slave is pleased,” she said.
Before we had left the tavern I had removed her bells, leaving them behind in the alcove.
As it had been chilly in the gray light, in the vicinity of the wharves, I had wrapped my cloak about me, and she had heeled me, hurrying behind me, unbidden, to the inn of Tasdron.
She had been pleasant in the bells. I wondered if a master would place bells on the other slave, the Earth slut, who had sold for forty-eight copper tarsks. What would an Earth slut make of being naked, and belled? Any woman, I supposed, would understand such things, what sort of woman would be belled, and the meaning of being belled.
In the dining hall of the inn of Tasdron, I had knelt her beside my table. As my resources had been considerably replenished the previous evening, I had breakfasted well, on larma, vulo eggs, fried sul, roast bosk, sa-tarna, and even black wine, the beans for which, I supposed, derived from the far slopes of the Thentis mountains, and may have been brought west at some risk. For the girl I ordered a bowl of slave gruel, to be placed on the floor beside the table, from which she would feed, head down, without the use of her hands. At two of the other tables, slaves, kneeling beside the table, were also given slave gruel. Their masters did permit them to hold the bowl with both hands, but were not otherwise permitted to use their hands. One of them smiled at me, over the rim of the bowl, but then lowered her eyes, and then lowered her head, to feed, shyly, humbly. Had her indiscretion been noted, I had little doubt but what she would have been cuffed. A slave must be careful with her smiles, for masters are often particular about such things. The girl is to keep well in mind to whom she belongs. Only one is her master. The other two slaves were tunicked, briefly, of course, as they were the slaves of men.
I glanced at my slave, as she fed, obediently. I supposed that she might have, the previous night, objected to such an arrangement. This morning she took it as a matter of course. She had learned much in the alcove. I wondered how a certain Earth-girl slave might appear, so feeding. As any other slave, I supposed. Interestingly, I suspected that the Earth-girl slave would welcome the opportunity to feed so beside her master. It would excite, reassure, and fulfill her. From the first moment I had seen her, her shocked, trim, well-turned, exciting, slender body seemingly arrested in motion,