"Norman, John - Gor 24 - Vagabonds of Gor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norman John)

"And what happened?" I asked.

"We were lashed," she said. "It was done by a terrible person, one named Liadne, put over us as first girl, though we were free and she a mere slave!"

I remembered Liadne. She was lovely. I had first met her under her master's wagon, shivering in a tarpaulin, in an icy storm. I had used her but had paid her master for her use, leaving a coin in her mouth. I had had Ephialtes, the sutler, purchase her in the morning. I had thought she would make an excellent first girl, to introduce her free sisters into some understanding of their womanhood.

"We were then obedient," said the girl.

I did not doubt but what Liadne would have kept them, arrogant, spoiled free women, under superb discipline. That had certainly been my impression, at any rate, when I had seen them lined up, kneeling, naked, coffled, and blind-folded, in the camp of Cos near Ar's Station.

"We were taken to the Cosian camp, near Ar's Station," she said. "There we were kept naked, in coffle, and under discipline. One morning we were displayed in blindfolds."

I had not wanted them to know, or at least to know for certain, that it was I who had redeemed them, not simply for the pleasure of it, but for my own purposes, as well. This was not that unusual. Captors do not always reveal their identities immediately to their captives. It is sometimes amusing to keep women in ignorance as to whose power it is, within which they lie. Let them consider the matter with anxiety. Let them speculate wildly, frenziedly, tearfully. It is then time enough to reveal oneself to them, perhaps confirming their worst fears.

"The next morning," she said, "when I awakened, two of our girls were gone, Elene and Klio, and there was a new girl, a slender, very beautiful girl, also free, like the rest of us, on the coffle."

"What was her name?" I asked.

" 'Phoebe'," she said.

"Tell me of her," I said.

"She wore her collar and chain lovingly and well, most beautifully," she said. "She obeyed Liadne from the first, immediately, spontaneously, intuitively, naturally, with timidity, and perfection. It was as though she intuitively understood authority and her own rightful subjection to it. Though this new girl, like the rest of us, save Liadne, was free, I think I had seldom seen a woman, so early in captivity, so ready, so ripe, for the truths of the collar."

"She had perhaps thought out those matters in the sweaty sheets of her own bed, for years," I said.

"As had certain others, too," smiled the girl, looking down.

"You are beautiful," I commented, regarding her face, and lineaments, in the light of the nearby fire.

"Thank you, Master," she whispered.

"Was this new girl proud?" I asked.

"I think only of such things as her capacity for love, and her bondage," she said.

"But you said she was free," I reminded her.

"Of her natural bondage," she smiled.

"She was not then, in a normal sense, proud?"

"Not in ways typical of a vain free woman, at any rate."

"But yet," I said, "this new girl, unlike the rest of you, was wearing a slave strip."

"Ah, Master," said the girl, "it is as I suspected. It is you who redeemed us."

"Of course," I said.