by John Norman
"Masters?" I asked, frightened. Surely the guard must come down the incline now, to threaten them, to whip them back. But, kneeling as I was, in the midst of them, I could not even see the guard. "Masters?" I asked, terrified.
They said nothing. Where was the guard!
"Please, Masters," I said, "I am only a slave. Please be kind to a slave!"
"She feigns terror well," said one of the fellows.
"She is an excellent actress," commented another.
"Please, Masters!" I pleaded.
He before whom I knelt threw the cup to the side, in the sand. The water bag was removed from me. It was put a few feet from me, by the cup.
I did not dare rise from my knees. I was a slave. I had not been given permission to rise.
"You were an excellent lure girl," said one of the fellows.
"Thank you, Master," I whispered.
Even had I dared to rise, as I did not, I did not know if I, in my terror, could even have found the strength to do so. Too, even if I had dared to leap up, and had found the strength to do so, I could not have escaped them. They were all about me. Too, I could not run, chained as I was.
"She deceived me well," said a fellow.
"And me," said another.
"And me," said another.
"Forgive me, Masters!" I begged.
The guard did not appear.
"Help!" I screamed. "Help! Help, Master! Please, help! Help, Master!"
But only silence greeted my cries for assistance.
"Were you given permission to speak?" asked a fellow.
"No, Master," I whispered. "Forgive me, Master!"
The fellow before whom I knelt gave a sign and one of the men, a brawny fellow, lifted me up from the back, by the upper arms. Another fellow then, as I was held, cuffed me, twice. I was then dropped back into the sand, on all fours, a punished slave.
"Let her try to run," said the fellow before whom I had knelt.
I looked about, wildly. I tasted blood in my mouth.
The men behind me moved to one side, opening a place between them, leading back toward the top of the ridge.
My eyes fixed on him before whom I had last knelt. I rose to my feet, half crouching, and backed warily away from him, until I was beyond the line of the chain, and then, wildly, I turned about, and tried to run. I fell, again and again, and then, clawing, and scrambling, I began to ascend the sandy slope. Again and again, I slipped back, inhibited in my chains. Then I had attained the summit of that ridge. I stood there, wildly. There, now, on the summit, was not only the guard and the other work slave, now kneeling, with her head down to the sand, but the overseer, and a palanquin, with eight bearers, and a man in silken robes, fat and bald, who reclined upon it, holding a short-stemmed lorgnon, in his right hand. Swiftly I knelt, covered with sand, in my chains, before the palanquin, doing obeisance. "Look up," said the overseer. The fellow regarded me through the lorgnon. "This," said the overseer, "is the girl, Tuka, of whom you informed us, who served your supplier, Tyrrhenius, in Argentum. In accordance with your instructions we have had her purchased and brought here. As you surmised she quickly became aware of the nature of one of the chains here, to her misery and terror. We arranged, of course, as you wished, to see that she was protected, and kept well away from it, that is, until your arrival, on your tour of inspection."
I saw the lorgnon lift a little.
The overseer gestured to the guard and he opened my tunic, and pulled it back.
"As you might surmise," said the overseer, "she was an excellent lure girl. She figured in the entrapment of twenty-three of the prisoners below."
I trembled, kneeling in the soft, warm sand, it up about my thighs.
"You may greet your master," said the overseer to me.
"Greetings, Master," I said.
The man in the palanquin made a small gesture with the lorgnon, hardly a movement.
The guard seized me by the upper arms, from behind, and flung me back over the ridge, and I tumbled, sprawling, rolling, sliding, down the sandy slope, until once again I was at its foot. There two of the brawny fellows seized me by the arms and, dragging me through the sand, put me again to my knees before he whom I most feared. I looked wildly up, behind me, but there I saw naught but the unmoving, observing group. I understood now why the guard had not come to my assistance. I understood now why I had suddenly been transferred to this chain. I understood, too, now, I thought, why this group was in its present place, screened by the hills from the sight of the other groups.
I flung myself to my belly in the sand before he whom I most feared, he whose shackle was the last on that chain of fifty strong men.
I would have crawled to his feet, to press my bloody lips to them, but my ankles were held.
"Master," I wept, "forgive me!"
But, looking up from my belly, covered with sand, sand in my hair, I saw no forgiveness in his eyes.
At a gesture from him, he who seemed to be their leader, I was drawn to my knees. I tried to pull together my tunic, but one of the men pulled it open again, angrily.
"Let us kill her," said one of the men.
I shuddered.
"Kill her," said another.
"Kill her," said yet another.
"Yes," said another.
"Yes!" said yet another.
But a small gesture from their leader, he before whom I knelt, silenced them.
"Are your hips still loose?" he asked. "Do you still sway well?"
I looked at him, wildly. He had asked me this in Argentum, before I had deceived him, before he had carried me, trustingly, lovingly, in his arms, back into the alleyway.
"Master?" I asked.
I tried to read his intent, but could not.
He regarded me.
"My current master does not use me as a dancer," I said. It was in this fashion, too, that I had responded in Argentum.
He gestured that I should be drawn to my feet.
"Dance," he said.
"Master?" I asked, disbelievingly.
"Need a command be repeated, slave girl?" he asked.
"No, Master!" I cried. I wound the chain a bit about my wrists, taking up its slack. I could use it, in its different lengths, later, in the dance. I lifted my hands above my head, the backs of my hands facing one another. I flexed my knees. Sometimes a woman is permitted, even a free woman, among the fires of a burning city, the glare of the flames red upon her flesh, to dance before masters as a naked slave. She must hope to be found pleasing, and that her fate will be only the brand, chains and the collar. She dances helplessly, desperately. She hopes to be found pleasing. She dances for her life. He was giving me this chance! He must still care for me! "Thank you, Master!" I cried. It had been long, I knew, since these men had had a woman, and they were Goreans. They would be half mad with desire. Too, many of them had found me exciting, and had wanted me earlier, else I could not have lured them. Too, I was a skilled dancer. Too, I was beautiful, or had been told so. Certainly many men on this world have found me attractive, and desirable, and have not hesitated to put me to their services, and fully, as may be done with a slave.
I danced.
I looked at their faces.
Many of these men, I knew, would feel they had a score to settle with me. It was my hope then that they might be persuaded to accept in settlement of these accounts, if accounts they were, not my blood but so small and innocent a thing as my mastering, my total ravishing and subjugation. That would be vengeance enough, I hoped, for such men. Certainly I had lured them. But I had not truly chosen to do so. Surely they should understand that! Of my own will I would never have dared to do such a thing! And now I danced before them, for my life, helpless, desperate to please them, in terror. What more then could they want, saving my zealous services, those commonly to be surrendered by a slave dancer to masters.
I danced.
I saw anger, and hatred, turn to desire.
I did many cunning things with the chains.
"Hei!" cried one of them, smiting his thigh.
"Master!" I called to him, gratefully, then dancing back from him, in the sand. Others restrained him from following me and seizing me. Then I was too near the other side of the circle, and returned, quickly, gracefully, to its center, dancing to first one man and then another. More than one reached out for me. Their grasping hands were but a yard or two from me.
"You were surely never of the metal workers!" laughed the fellow who had been of that caste.
"No, Master," I assured him.
"No woman of my caste could move like that!" he cried.
"Do not be too sure, Master," I cautioned him.
I saw sweat upon his forehead, and his fists clench as he perhaps recalled some women he had known, of that caste. Surely the women of his caste, too, could be taught to dance, and to lick and kiss, and serve, and even superbly, such that they might drive a man wild with desire. Were they not, too, in the final analysis, only females? I had known two slaves who had once been of his caste, Corinne, in the house of my training, and Laura, in Hendow's tavern. Both had been superb slaves. To be sure, being slaves, they were no longer in his caste. Animals do not have caste.
I danced before another.
It was my desperate hope to turn their wrath, and their desire for vengeance, seemingly at the beginning so adamant, so fierce and unrelenting, to interest, and desire, and passion. "Do not kill me, Master," I begged another, "but let me live, I beg you, to serve and please you, and with all the fullness of the female!"
"Perhaps," he said, licking his lips.
I continued to dance.
There are many forms of placatory dances which are performed by female slaves. Some of these tend to have rather fixed forms, sanctioned by custom and tradition, such as the stately "Contrition Dance" of Turia. Some form of placatory dance is usually taught to the girl in slave training. There is no telling when it might be needed. Though I had had, because of the relatively advanced state of my dancing skills, for a new slave, very little instruction in dance in the house of my first training, I had been taught at least that much. The form of placatory dance taught to a girl usually depends on the girl in question. For example, I had not been taught the stately "Contrition Dance" of Turia. It had been felt that the nature of my body lent itself to a more desperate, needful, lascivious form of dance. I had been taught how to dance on my knees, for example, and, supplicatingly, on my back, and belly. Most placatory dances, however, are not fixed-form dances, but are "free" dances, in which the slave, exquisitely alert to the nuances of the situation, the particular master, the nature of his displeasure, the gravity of her offense, and such, improvises, doing her best to assuage his anger and beg his forgiveness, to reassure him of the authenticity of her contrition and the genuineness of her desire to do better.
"There is no garbage here, on which to make your bed," said one of the men, "and I have learned that, indeed, in any event, you are worth less than it."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Nor do I have a cloak now, doubled, to soften the cruelty of the cobblestones to your back," he said.
"Hot sand will do, Master," I said, "and chains in which my limbs are enclosed."
"Yes," he said.
I saw I did not need to fear him, save in the ways any slave must fear a master.
I danced then to those whose eyes were hardest. Some of them were not even men I had trapped, but only men who knew what I had done. Some may have been as innocent as those I had lured, and might have been lured by other girls, such as I, and others might have been murderers and brigands, suitably enchained for the expiation of sentences, their custody having been legally transferred to Ionicus, my master, at the payment of a prisoner's fee, by the writ of a praetor or, in more desperate cases, by the order of a quaestor. I danced abjectly. I danced piteously. I danced beggingly. I danced as well as I could. I could not do more. They would either be pleased or not. My fate was in their hands.
"She is pretty," said one of them.
"Yes," said another.
Hope sprang again high within me. I sought then to move another, with my helplessness, and the pleas of my body.
"Are you a good slave lay?" asked a man.
"It is my hope that I am pleasing, Master," I said. "Surely I shall endeavor to be so."
He grinned.
"She has the look of a wench who would be good in the furs," laughed a man. I heard the chain move in the heavy staple on his shackle.
"There are no furs here," laughed another man.
I had not had furs touch my body since a cool evening, five nights ago, in the overseer's tent. I had then worn the rectangle of red silk, that in which he was accustomed to put his use slaves. It is such, it thrust over a leather thong knotted about the girl's belly, that it may be easily brushed aside, or pulled away. It was my hope that I had pleased him well. Toward morning he had chained me, hand and foot, to a stake near his feet, where I could not reach him. I moaned for a time, but the kick of his foot had taught me that I must then be silent.
"She is an excellent dancer," commented a man, another whom I had lured in Argentum.
"Yes," said another fellow, another of those who owed his chaining to me.
I began to be conscious then, as I sometimes was, of the incredible power of the female slave, of how helpless men could be before her, and of what she could do to them.
"Ah," said one of the men, softly, watching.
I repeated the movement.
"Yes," said another man. "Yes!" said another.
How paradoxical I thought, that she who is branded, and collared, and owned, and is nothing, should have such power!
"Dance, slut, dance!" said a man.
And then again I danced, helplessly, piteously, suing for their favor, striving desperately to be found pleasing. In the end the power belongs to the master, totally, and not to the slave. She is his.
"Excellent," said a man. "Excellent."
I danced.
I danced in such a way that a free woman might only dream of, awakening, sweating, in the night, clutching her covers, in terror, then feeling her throat with trepidation, with the tips of frightened fingers, to ascertain that no collar has been locked on it in the night. How could she, a free woman, have such a dream? What could it mean? And what would the men do to her when they came to take her in their arms? She awakened, in terror. Perhaps she hurries to strike a light in her room. The familiar surroundings reassure her. She has had such dreams before. What could they mean? Nothing, of course. Nothing! Such dreams must be meaningless! They must be! But what if they were not? She shudders. Perhaps she then, in her long silken gown, curls up, frightened, at the foot of her bed. What, too, could that mean? She does not know. Surely that, too, means nothing. But what if it did? She lies there, troubled, but somehow comforted, somehow secure, in that position. It seems to her, somehow, that that is where she belongs.
"Superb," said a man.
I saw now that they, or most of them, were pleased. I sensed now that I might be spared, at least if I pleased them, too, well enough in the sand. I had lured many of them, but now I danced before them, to please them, begging for my life, danced before them helplessly, at their mercy, submitted and dependent on their favor, for my very life, as much as though I might be their own slave. I saw to my joy, coming gradually to understand it, that they, or surely most of them, would accept this, my beauty, my submission and service, abject and total, in lieu of my blood. It would be vengeance enough for them. How mighty they were, and kind! To be sure, I would have to continue to show them perfections of slave service and total deference. How grateful I was to he whom I had most feared, he who was last upon the chain, he who had given me this eagerly embraced opportunity to save my slave's hide! But it was
he, of all of them, who had refused to watch me dance. He stood with his back turned to me, his back straight, his arms folded, looking away. Many times I had danced to him, moving behind him in the sand, but he did not turn. He did not deign to glance upon me. Then, near the end of my dance, as it approached its climax, I was on my knees in the sand, writhing, bending forward until my hair was in the sand, bending back then, exposing the bow of my body, my thighs, my belly, my breasts and throat to them, my hands inviting attention to them, my hair back in the sand, and then I straightened, and then was on my back, and belly, twisting and moving, lifting my hands to them, begging for favor, piteously suing for mercy. Such things I had been taught as long ago as the house of my first training, but I think, truly, even had I not had such training, I would, in the circumstances, have done much the same. Perhaps it is instinctual in a woman. I had, when owned by Gordon, the musician, once seen a former free woman, new to her collar, in an alley in Samnium, performing so for a master, he with whip in hand, encouraging her to adequacy. She did well. She, shuddering, half in shock, learned that she would be spared, at least for the time. He then began to instruct her in how to give pleasure to a man. She attended fearfully, and well, to her lessons.
At the end of my dance, I was on my knees again, behind him. I lifted my hands to him. "Master, please!" I begged. "Look upon me!" But he did not turn.
With a cry of joy the men surged about me. I was lifted by my upper arms and flung back in the sand. My legs were lifted up, my knees bent. My wrist chain was pulled forward and thrust over and behind my feet. It was then jerked up, behind me. I could now not move my hands from my sides. I was helpless. My ankles, each in the grip of one man, were pulled apart, until my ankle chain, its links straightened, permitted no further extension. My opened tunic was thrust back on both sides. I, half submerged in the sand, put my head back, looking up, and back. I could see the figures, and the palanquin, seemingly small, seemingly far above me, seemingly far away from me, on the ridge. I thought my master, Ionicus, of Cos, might be looking at me, through the lorgnon. "Oh!" I cried, suddenly, as the first of them put me to his pleasure.
