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"Yes," she said.
"Excellent," he said.
Then, in fury, she had spun about and left, robes swirling.
I lifted my head. Ke
"Master," I said.
"Yes?" he said.
"May I know what was in the note which was affixed to my collar?"
"I, too, am curious," he gri
Ke
He pulled me to my feet and thrust me, stumbling, to my right, down the steps and toward the wagon way leading about the house, toward the stables.
At the corner of the house we stopped.
"Look," he said.
I looked back. The Lady Florence had come out again on the porch. She looked about, but did not see us, as we were some distance away, at the corner of the house, and shielded by trees. She bent down, furtively, and snatched up the note which had been attached to my collar. Then she hurried again into the house.
"She is a woman," said Ke
"Yes, Master," I said.
"She ca
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Did you see how furtive she was," he asked, "so fearful of discovery?"
"Yes, Master," I said.
"She is, for all her wealth and freedom," he said, "only a woman."
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Is she pleasant in the furs?" he asked.
"It was I, a silk slave," I said, smiling, "not she, who must needs be pleasant in the furs."
"Of course," he said. Then he said, "Would she look well in a collar? Would she look well naked, upon a slave block"
I was startled. "May I respond to such questions?" I asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Yes," I said, "she would look well in a collar, and would look well naked, upon a slave block."
"I had guessed as much," he gri
"If I may speak, Master," I said, "you seem pleased to learn that I have been consigned to the stables."
"I am," said he. "I expect that you will make coins for Barns and myself."
"Master?" I asked.
"Can you fight?" he asked.
"No," I said.
He laughed. "You are a big fellow," he said, "and strong. Too, you seem fast. Too, you are clearly intelligent. That is important, more important than many fools understand."
"I do not know how to fight," I said. I was very conscious of the binding fiber confining my wrists behind my back.
"Tighten your belly," he said.
I did so. He then, as I anticipated, struck me, heavily, in the gut. I was, of course, in good condition, and set for the blow.
"Good," said Ke
"I do not know how to fight," I told him.
"In the stables," said Ke
"Yes, Master," I said.
"Do you wish to live?" he asked.
"Yes, Master," I said.
"You will then do as you're told," he said
"Yes, Master," I said.
"In the stables," he said, "we have, too, besides the male slaves, some Kajirae, stable sluts, as we call them. I can assign these as I please."
I looked at him. I thought of Gorean Kajirae. I inadvertently licked my lips.
He laughed, and turned about, leading the way about the corner of the house, treading upon the wagon way.
"Come along, Stable Slave," he said.
"Yes, Master," I said, following him.
The line of kneeling, male stable slaves was straight. I knelt near the end of that line. The Mistress, not hurrying, continued her inspection. Ke
The mistress was now but five slaves from me.
The skirt's hem, some six inches from the ground, protects the skirt from being soiled by water or mud. Doubtless that is the principal reason for its height. Also, however, interestingly, it functions as a slave control device. The sight of the Mistress' ankle, of course, even booted, is tantalizing; it is exciting and provocative. The male slave, thus, if he is vital, finds himself powerfully drawn to look upon it. On the other hand he knows that such an act can be punished by death. Thus, when he is in the presence of his Mistress, she in such a habit, he becomes fearful and ill at ease. She, in effect, flaunts herself in front of him, acting however as though no such thing is going on. She knows that he is in misery. She exploits this in her control of him.
The Mistress was now some four slaves from me. I was the thirty-fifth in a long line of male slaves, some forty-two in length. We knelt, in brief brown tunics, in the soft earth. The sunlight~was bright; the air was Gorean in its exuberance and freshness. The homely smells of the stable yard and the barns, with their straw-filled stalls, are not really objectionable, when one grows used to them. The odors are distinctive but, when one grows accustomed to them, familiar and not really unpleasant. I rather liked the odors of the stables and barns, such complex mixed odors, ranging from straw, and hay and leather, to the organic wastes of our huge charges, some four species of draft tharlarion. We did not, in the great stables, raise saddle tharlarion, though in the house stables, here in the Mistress' villa, some forty pasangs south sect west of Vonda, there were several saddle tharlarion. The Mistress did not breed and raise racing tharlarion, incidentally. These are usually larger and more agile beasts than common saddle tharlarion and are smaller, of course, than either draft tharlarion or war tharlarion, the latter used almost exclusively in the tharlarion cavalries of Gor, huge, upright beasts, several tons in weight, guided by voice commands and the blows of spears. The Lady Melpomene of Vonda, incidentally, I had heard, for such stories reach even the stables, had fared badly in the tharlarion races in Ve