"It is true, Master," she said.

"Kneel," I said.

"Yes, Master," she said.

I lay on one elbow, regarding her.

"It is my hope that I have pleased my master," she said.

"You have pleased me," I said.

"Then the slave, too, is pleased," she whispered.

"She is very pretty," said Marcus.

"Her skin is still blotchy," said Phoebe.

"It is much better now," I said. We had purchased soothing, healing lotions. "And her hair is much too short," said Phoebe.

"That is true," I said.

The slave kept her head down.

"But I suppose she is pretty enough," said Phoebe, "for a cheap girl."

"Thank you, Mistress," said the slave.

"What did you cost?" asked Phoebe.

"Oh, come now," said Marcus, irritatedly. Phoebe knew very well, of course, what I had paid for her. Indeed, she had not rested from the moment we had brought her in, braceleted and on a leash, until she had learned, and to her immense satisfaction, how little it had been.

"Five copper tarsks, Mistress," said the girl.

"I myself," said Phoebe, "sold for a hundred pieces of gold."

"That was under very special circumstances," I said.

"But that is what was paid!" she said.

"True," I said.

Much of the weightiness of this was lost on the new slave, of course, for she had very little notion of the prices of women. As she had come into the keeping of Appanius in virtue of the couching laws, she had had only one sale, that to me for a few copper tarsks. She would, of course, recognize that a hundred pieces of gold was an incredible amount of money. In a sense a woman is worth as much or as little as someone is willing to pay for her. In typical markets, if it is helpful for purposes of comparison, an excellent woman, suitable, say, for the paga taverns, would sell for between one and three silver tarsks. In such a market I thought that Phoebe would probably go for something like two or two and half silver tarsks, and that the other girl, if her hair was grown out and her skin healed, for something like two silver tarsks.

"Mistress is very pretty," said the slave.

Phoebe tossed her head, smoothing her hair about. She was pretty. I had always thought so.

"I did not know Cosians girls could be so pretty," said the slave.

Phoebe cried out with rage, and rushed to the wall to seize up a switch there. She rushed to the new slave, the switch raised. The new slave cried out in misery, putting her head down. But no blow fell. Marcus intercepted Phoebe's descending wrist. Phoebe cried out in pain and dropped the switch. But she looked down at the new slave. "Cos defeated Ar!" she said. "That is clear!"

"No longer are you of Cos," said Marcus, sternly. "Nor is she any longer of Ar. You are both only slaves, only animals!"

Phoebe struggled, angrily in his arms.

"Is it not true?" he asked.

She looked up at him, her eyes blazing. "Yes, Master!" she said.

She struggled a bit more, but was now pinioned tightly in his grasp. She could do little more now than squirm, futilely. She made a tiny, angry noise. As well might her lovely body have been wrapped in cables of iron. The sewing she had been attending to had been spilled to the side, when she had leaped to seize the switch. Originally Phoebe had known little, if anything, of sewing, but when she had become slave she must learn such things. The new slave, too, knew little of such labors. I would see to it that she received instruction of Phoebe. One expects a slave to know such things.

Phoebe ceased struggling and Marcus released her, stepped back a pace and regarded her.

She stood before him, angrily, defiantly, her small fists clenched.

"I suppose you could be thought of, as of Cos," he mused, "in the sense that you were once of Cos."

She trembled.

"So in that sense," said he, "take off your clothes, female of Cos, and get to your belly, with your legs widely spread."

"I am not of Cos!" she said, suddenly. "I am only a slave, Master!"

He regarded her, unwaveringly.

Swiftly she drew off her tunic, over her head, and put herself to her belly and as he had stipulated.

He looked down upon her.

She sobbed, subdued.

The other slave was very quiet. It seemed she scarcely dared to breathe. "Perhaps the wrong girl is first girl," said Marcus.

Phoebe sobbed, her head to the side.

"May I speak, Master," whispered the new slave.

He looked at her. "Yes," he said.

She went to her belly before him and reached out her tiny hand, timidly, to touch his foot.

"Yes?" he said.

"Have pity on her, Master," she said.

"You would speak for her?" asked Marcus.

"Yes, Master," she said.

Phoebe looked at her, in wonder.

"It is only that she loves you so much," she said.

"I do not understand," said Marcus.

Phoebe sobbed, looking away.

"She is telling you that Phoebe is jealous of her," I said.

Marcus crouched down beside Phoebe.

"Is that true?" he asked.

"Yes, Master," sobbed Phoebe, her eyes closed.

"But you are my love slave," he said to her.

She sobbed, with joy. He touched her and she trembled beneath his touch like a vulo.

He then rose to his feet, and removed a coiled slave whip from the wall. This he threw down beside Phoebe, the coils of the leather cracking on the floor, beside her head, to the right.

"You will serve," he said.

"Yes, Master!" she whispered.

He then put his hand to her hair, letting her feel the tightness of his grasp, and turning her head from one side to the other. Then he put his hand on the back of her neck, letting her feel this grip. He then took her right ankle in his hand and lifted it, bending her lower leg, his grip like an ankle ring, toward her body. Then he released it, and let it return to its former position. She lay there very quietly. Then she made a soft noise, as he had begun to caress her, audaciously and masterfully.

I went over and picked up the sewing which Phoebe had dropped to the floor, when she had leaped to her feet. It was a tunic resembling that of a state slave, done in the new fashion. The garmenture of the state slave, that of a girl owned by the city itself, some time ago, had been brief, sleeveless and gray, slashed to the waist. The collar worn by such slaves had been gray, matching the tunic, and it had been customary to lock about their left ankle a steel band, also gray, from which depended five small bells, also of gray metal. Fashions in such things tended to change, of course, even in normal times. For example, the hemlines might go up and down a bit, the garments might be accented or trimmed with color, or not, the number of bells on the ankle might be increased, say, to seven, or be returned to the original five, and so on. Currently, however, the garmenture of the state slaves, as one might have expected, given the defeat of Ar and the hegemony of Cos, had been considerably altered. No longer were the tunics slashed to the waist. Now the necklines were high, and about the throat. Similarly the hemlines had been considerably lowered, just above the knee. These alterations had been introduced to assist in the subjugation of the men of Ar, by seeking to depress their sexual vitality. Similarly, of course, no longer were the left ankles of the slaves belled. the sound of slave bells on a woman's ankle tends to be sexually stimulating to a male. To be sure, of late, with the rise of the Delta Brigade, and the undercurrent of unrest in Ar, there seethed in the city, doubtless to the dismay of Cos, a surgency of male energies. As I have mentioned earlier, many masters, not, no longer sent their slaves unescorted about the city, until they had fastened them in the iron belt. The slave tunic of the state slave was still sleeveless, however. That is common with slave garments.