Doubtless she would be in the same collar and chain that I had worn. I wondered how many women had been slept thusly, the master done with them, on the tiles beside his couch, their head to its foot. I supposed a great many. He was a powerful Gorean male, and highly placed.

I wondered if I were the first Earth-girl slave who had had that experience.

It did not seem likely.

“Yes, Master!” she cried, and leaped up, and fled from the terrace, leaving through one of the buildings, that from which, earlier, she and others had been herded forth.

I wondered if she would please him as well as I. But, to be sure, much depends on the mysterious chemistries which can obtain between masters and slaves. How else explain the fascination that even a plain slave may sometimes exercise over the most powerful, rich, and handsome of men, to the puzzlement and dismay of beauties languishing in his pleasure garden? How else explain how a slave worthy of a ubar’s palace may in a market, unbidden, throw herself in her chains to her belly before an ugly, low-born, monstrous brute, pleading desperately to be purchased? Has she seen in him her master? Similarly, consider the power which such a brute may sometimes exercise over even free, beautiful, high-born damsels, such that, at the very sight of him, they will kneel and beg his collar. In him, perhaps, they, too, have seen their master.

But sometimes, too, a woman’s past may enhance how a man sees her in bondage. For example, it is doubtless pleasant for a ubar to have a conquered ubara at his feet, in his collar. She is then, of course, only a slave, but it is understandable that her past, like her hair and figure, may influence how she is viewed. Let her hope that, sooner or later, she will come to be viewed as only another slave. She does not wish to be tormented by her past, nor treated cruelly on account of it. Let the masters be merciful to her. Let them forget her past! Let them now treat her as only another slave! That is now all she is.

Dorna had lost no time in obeying.

I had gathered, from various things I had heard, here and there, that she may once have been an important and powerful personage in some city, perhaps in the city of Tharna, the men of which city it seemed she much feared. But such things, it seemed, must be long behind her. Her life had changed. She now wore a collar.

She was now only a slave girl, quick to obey her master. To be sure, her past might continue, in the senses which we have suggested, at least for a time, to exercise some fascination over her master. How amusing to have such a woman as a slave, to have her serve his meals, to order her, at so little as a snapping of fingers, to pose or dance, or to strip and hasten to the furs! But, sooner or later, one supposed, or might hope that, for her sake, her past would tend to be forgotten, and she might, for all intents and purposes, mercifully, if not for this master then for another, become only another slave. The officer was, as I recalled, not the first master she had had. She had had apparently at least one other, he who had first captured her, he who had first put the collar on her neck, one from whom she had been stolen, one whom she feared terribly, with all the terror of her embonded heart. When she had queried the officer as to whether or not the intruders had been his men, I supposed this former master might have been the one she had had in mind. On the height of the tower she had been reeling, sick with fear, at the very suggestion that she might be returned to him. And, of course, her fear was quite meaningful. She was only a slave. She could be simply bound and hooded, and returned to him, his then to do with as he pleased. I wondered if, sometimes in her kennel at night, hearing a sound, she might awaken, frightened, pulling the blanket about her, fearing that it might be he, her first master, who had come for her. But he would not, presumably, know where she was. Might she not be anywhere? On this world were there not hundreds of cities and thousands of slaves? No, from him she would in all likelihood be safe, unless her present master, if she might prove somewhat displeasing, might decide, perhaps as a joke, to return her to him. But then, as an option, might he not, under the same circumstances, and perhaps preferably, and perhaps more amusingly, see fit to return her to Tharna? Dorna, I was sure, would do her best to please her master.

“Did the intruders reach the lower corridors?” a man asked the officer.

“No,” said the officer.

One of the men with the officer, the captain, was clad not in the gear of war, but wore a blue tunic, and carried, on two straps, slung now beside him, a scribe’s box. It was flat and rectangular. Pens are contained, in built-in-racks, within it. Depending on the box, it may contain ink, or powered ink, to be mixed with water, the vessel included, or flat, disklike cakes of pigment, to be dampened, and used as ink, rather as water colors.

In it, too, in narrow compartments, are sheets of paper, commonly lined paper or rence paper. A small knife may also be contained in such boxes for scraping out errors, or a flat eraser stone. Other paraphernalia may also be included, depending on the scribe, string, ostraka, wire, coins, even lunch. The top of the box, the lid, the box placed on a solid surface, serves as a writing surface, or desk.

“There is the matter of the free women,” said another man to the officer.

“Yes,” said the officer.

They went then a little to their right, some few feet to my left, as I knelt.

“There are six of them,” said a man. He was one of the civilians who had stood guard over the women, keeping them at the wall.

The women looked up, frightened, the torchlight revealing them. Some tired to cover themselves.

“Kneel in a line, here, facing the captain,” said a soldier.

“We are unveiled!” protested a woman.

“Hands on thighs,” said the soldier. “Backs straight. Do not speak.”

Hurriedly they formed themselves, as they had been told. The officer considered them.

“These are the ones?” he asked.

“Yes, Captain,” said a man.

“Captain!” cried one of the women.

“Silence,” said the soldier.

“Bring a whip,” said a man.

“I have one here,” said a voice. It was handed to him. The woman shrank back, kneeling back on her heels, pressing the palms of her hands firmly down on her thighs.

“Backs straight,” cautioned the soldier.

The women complied.

Again they were regarded.

They trembled.

“What is to be done with them?” asked a man.

“They have proclaimed themselves slaves,” said the officer.“Let them be slaves.”

“No!” cried the women. “No!”

The lash fell amongst them.

Those who had leaped to their feet were seized and flung back, down, against the others. Some tried two, even three, times, to leap up, to flee to freedom, but they could not penetrate the ring of men. Each time they were thrown back to their knees, with the others.

They were then crowded together, one over the other. Down came the lash! They cried out with pain, huddling together. One tried to stand, just a little, her knees flexed, her hands and arms raised to fend blows, but she was then, blow by blow, stroke by stroke, returned to her knees, and then when another blow fell she cried out for mercy, and threw herself to her belly, her hands over her head, sobbing. She had now learned what the whip could feel like. Some of the women knelt, holding out their hands for mercy, but the lash fell upon them, too, and they put down their heads, sobbing, bending over, almost double. Some kneeling, crying out, sobbing, clasped their hands together, lifting them to the men. But the lash fell. And then they were a small, writhing knot of terrified women, each trying to hide behind the other. The whip, hitting at the edges of the group, the left, the right, forced it in upon itself, and then, sobbing, cowering, they huddled together, tiny, within the ring of angry men.