I watched Phoebe pour some meal into the boiling, salted water.

Temione and Klio had had marks on their bodies. Perhaps they had dared to be initially recalcitrant, at least to some small degree. Perhaps, incredibly enough, they had even had some reservations, free women, to being handled and treated as slaves, being stripped, and chained behind a wagon, for example, or to having to obey promptly and perfectly the orders of a slave, Liadne, who had been put over them, as first girl, kneeling before her, addressing her as Mistress, and such. Perhaps, free women, they had dared, at least initially to think that they might be above such things. They had learned differently. Too, their treatment might, in some trivial ways, perhaps smooth, or make a bit less traumatic, the transition to bondage, which was a likely, as well as suitable, disposition for them. To be sure, there is probably no fully adequate way for one to anticipate, or prepare for, psychologically, the actual transition to bondage, even if one eagerly seeks it, even if one welcomes it joyously, for with it comes a new and profoundly different understanding of one's self and nature; by it, you see, a categorical and radical transformation of one's realities is effected; in it one realizes, suddenly, that one is now no longer what one was before, that one is now something absolutely different, that one is now no longer a free person, but a property, subject to buying and selling, an animal, a slave. Phoebe knelt near the fire, back on her heels. Occasionally she would kneel, up, off her heels, and stir the porridge.

"Keep you back straight," I told her.

"Yes, Master," she said.

Her body was slim, her hair was long, bound behind the back of her head with the black cord.

Others about, too, were cooking.

She still wore the garmenture so much like the curla and chatka, the cord at her belly and the long, single strip of cloth, the latter passing over the cord from the outside to the inside in front, and then up, and over it again in the back, moving from the inside to the outside, the whole then, above the cord, pulled up and adjusted, snugly.

She stirred the porridge.

The bottoms of her feet were dark with dirt.

There was a scuffling sound outside and, looking up, we saw a stumbling woman, naked, a rope on her neck, her hands tied behind her, being dragged among the tents. She cast us one wild, desperate glance, and then was dragged past. Phoebe knelt even straighter.

"I think it is a good thing that I kept you covered in my absence yesterday and today," I said.

"Master?" she asked.

"Do you know why I did so?" I asked.

"That I may learn discipline?" she said. "That I may learn that I am truly your servant, and what it is to be the servant of a man such as you? And that I may learn to be a good servant?"

"Such things," I said, "but there is, too, another reason."

"What is that?" she asked.

"That it is more likely that you will be here when I get back," I said. "I would not run away," she said.

"I was not thinking of that," I said.

"I do not want to run away," she said, "but, too, I would be afraid to run away."

"But you are a free woman," I said. "It is not as though you were a slave." "But if you caught me," she said, "you would punish me, would you not, and terribly?" "Yes," I said. "But still it would not be as though you were a slave." She shuddered. "If I were a slave," she said, "if I were to be branded and collared, I would not even dare to think of running away."

I nodded. Gorean, she was not unacquainted with the severities typically inflicted upon wayward slaves, slaves foolish enough to attempt escape. Too, escape, in effect, is impossible for the Gorean slave girl. The lay, the culture, and such, are not set up to permit it.

"But why then?" she asked.

"That it would be less likely that you would be stolen," I said.

"Really?" she asked, pleased.

"Yes," I said.

"Do you really think a man might want to steal me?" she asked.

"Of course," I said.

"Would you?" she asked.

"I might consider it," I said. "I think you would look well on all fours, bringing me a whip in your teeth."

"Phoebe has gathered, the last two nights," she said, shyly, "that she may not be without attractions to master?"

"Perhaps," I said.

"Even though I am a free woman?" she asked.

"Most slaves begin as such," I said.

"I want to live for a master," she said, suddenly, looking at me, "and to give him pleasure. I want it to be the meaning of my existence!"

"I see, free woman," I said.

"'Free woman'!" she said. "I am free in name only! You know that in my heart I am a slave!"

"True," I said.

"I want a master to be everything to me," she said, "even if he scarcely notices me, or cares if I exist."

"I see," I said.

"But you have not imbonded me!" she chided.

"No," I said.

"If I were stolen," she said, "I wager that that oversight would soon be remedied." "Probably," I said. "Particularly if it were done by a professional slaver."

She hummed a little tune.

"Surely you fear the whip," I said, "and the hazards of the collar?" "The whip is good for us," she said. "Perhaps it is hard for you to understand that, as you are not a woman. It makes our womanhood a hundred times more meaningful. The essential point here is not being whipped, of course, which hurts, but being subject to the whip, and being truly subject to it. You see the distinction, I am sure. We know that men are by nature sovereign over us. That comprehension requires no greater insight. Accordingly, men must then either fulfill their nature, or deny it, and in denying their nature, deny us ours, for ours is the complement to theirs. Accordingly we despise men who surrender their natural sovereignty. Surely we would not be so stupid, would not be such weaklings and fools as to do that, if we were men. It would be too valuable and glorious a thing to give up. Its surrender would be a tragedy. But we are not men! We are women, and want, truly, with everything in our hearts and bellies, to be women, and we cannot be women truly if men are not truly men! Lay down the whip, and we will attack you, and undermine you, and use your own laws, institutes and rhetorics to destroy you, inch by inch. Lift it, and we will lick your feet in gratitude. Own us, dominate us! Enslave us, properly, so that we may love you as women are meant to love, wholly and irreservedly, totally, without a thought for ourselves!" She looked at me, tears in her eyes. "Is it so wrong to want to be ourselves?"

"But there are hazards in slavery," I said.

"I accept them," she said, "and would try to please my master." "You would be well advised to do so," I said.

"I know," she smiled.

"Attend to the porridge," I said.

She removed it from the fire and covered it, to let it stand for a bit. She then set out two bowls, with spoons, and two trenchers, for some bread.

She served, deferentially.

I considered her flanks, and breasts. They were excellent. Although her garmenture was assuredly scanty, she was more extensively clothed than many of the women in the camp. There were men here.

She spooned the porridge into the bowls and set the bread, wedges, from a round, flat loaf, on the trenchers, and knelt back. She would wait, of course, until I had taken the first bite.

Considering the size of the besieging force there were not as many women in the camp as might have been expected. I hoped this would work in my favor. The paucity of women, relatively, rent slaves even bringing a copper tarsk a night, had largely to do with the coming and going of the slave wagons, which tended to carry off most of the captures, apprehended refugees, women who had fled from Ar's Station for food, giving themselves into bondage for a crust of bread, and such, to a dozen or so scattered markets, markets such as Ven, Besnit, Port Olni, and Harfax.