"I am rather," she said, "only the humble mistress of a small work chain."

"Surely it is unusual for an individual in your line of work to procure laborers as you did," I said.

"It is cheaper than buying them," she said.

"That is doubtless true," I admitted. I did not believe this woman was actually the mistress of a work chain. There were many reasons for this. First, there are very few women involved in such things. Secondly, she did not seem skilled in the handling of men. For example, in our present situation, I could reach her and kill her or capture her and make use of her to effect a probable escape. Thirdly, she did not seem to have the hardiness of a woman likely to be efficient in such a post. Fourthly, the tent did not suggest the tastes or appointments of such a woman. Fifthly, her garmentry revealed clearly a vanity and taste for sumptuous luxury, a penchant for self-indulgence and ostentatious elegance, also unlikely to be characteristic in such a woman. The number of guards on hand, too, which was five, was really too small to manage a normal work gang, not because of the ratios involved, but because of the necessity of maintaining night watches.Similarly, she really had no work gang but the fifteen men she had picked up in Port Kar. A work gang usually consists of fifty to one hundred men, and some contain as many as five hundred or a thousand men. If she were really the mistress of a work gang we presumably would not have constituted the work gang but would merely have been added to it. Even more obviously we did not have the equipment of a word gang with us, the implements and tools pertinent to the work of such gangs, such as levers, picks, hammers and shovels.

"What was used to drug us?" I asked.

"Tassa powder," she said. "I put enough of it in the botas of my men to stun a kailiauk."

"How long were we unconscious?" I asked.

"With tube feedings, of broth mixed with tassa, five days," she said.

"Where are we?" I asked. I knew. I wished to see what she would say.

"I think it more amusing to keep you in ignorance," she said.

"As you wish," I said. From between the location of our camp, indeed, from our chain line, between two stakes, we could see the Sardar Mountains in the distance. They were unmistakable. I assumed this woman must be an agent of Priest-Kings. Yet she did not seem to recognize me. Too, I was only one of fifteen men captured. If she was an agent of Priest-Kings, it did not seem, ironically enough, that she realized who it was, so to speak, who was on her chain.

That we were so near the Sardar, incidentally, after a presumed five days of unconsciousness, followed by two days of travel on foot, drawing her wagon, further suggested that she was not likely, really, to be the mistress of a work chain. We could not have come this far from Port Kar in so short a time, presumably, if we had not been brought most of the way by tarn, probably in tarn baskets. Common laborers are seldom transported in this fashion. But then, two days ago, we had been awakened, and had then proceeded on foot. This was presumably to make it appear, at least in the vicinity of the Sardar, that we were truly a work chain. The woman, I assumed, must be working for Priest-Kings. On the other hand, it did not seem that she knew who I was. Perhaps, then, she was not an agent of Priest-Kings. Perhaps she was a slaver, of sorts, after all, and intended to sell us, her catch, at the Fair of En'Kara. But then, if that were so, I wondered why she was having recourse to this elaborate pretense of being merely the mistress of a common work chain. I decided not to seize her, at least not yet.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"I have been called various things," I said, "at different times, in different places."

"Ah, yes," she said, "I know you fellows of Port Kar. You are all rogues, all pirates, thieves and slavers. I think I shall call you-Brinlar."

"And how shall I address you?" I asked.

"As 'Mistress, " she said.

"How is it that you made your strike in Port Kar?" I asked.

"I was in Port Kar on business," she said, "and, with the carnival, matters were convenient."

"I had thought you might be of Tyros or Cos," I said. Those two island ubarates were at war with Port Kar.

"No," she said.

I was now more sure than ever that she was of the party of Priest-Kings.

"To be sure," she said, "my sympathies lie with Cos and Tyros, Thassa's foremost citadels of enlightenment and civilization. A certain amusing fittingness was thus manifested in my choice of a location for my predations, a choice fully vindicated, incidentally, by the catch of lovely males I acquired there." She looked at me. "Would you like a rag for your loins?" she asked.

"Whatever you wish," I said.

She laughed.

"Am I, and my fellows, to be enslaved?" I asked.

"That would certainly seem to be in order, would it not?" she asked.

"Of course," I said.

"Somewhere, sometime, I would suppose," she said, "at my convenience, at a site of my choosing."

"Of course," I said.

She smiled.

"What, then, afterwards, is to be our fate?" I asked.

"Perhaps I will sell you then, somewhere," she said, "perhaps even at the Fair of En'Kara."

"I see," I said. This confirmed my conjecture that we were not truly intended to be kept as members of a work chain. She presumably had a rendezvous to keep at the fair. Her rendezvous kept, and her cover still intact, but then no longer needed, she could dispose of us in the En'Kara markets.

"You and your fellows remain legally free, of course," she said, "though totally in my power, as complete captives, until a sign of bondage is burned into your pretty hides, or you are appropriately collared, or otherwise legally enslaved."

"I understand," I said.

"Do you recall the two major criteria I used in selecting my captures in the piazza?" she asked.

"You wanted strong, large fellows, as I recall," I said, "suitable for inclusion in a work chain."

"Yes," she said. "Do you recall the other criterion?"

I was silent.

"It was," she said, "that I must, personally, find them of some sexual interest."

"Yes," I said.

"Spread your knees," she said.

I did so.

"Excellent, Brinlar," she said, "indeed, excellent."

I did not speak.

"How does it feel to be a free man, but one who is in the total power of a woman?" she asked.

I shrugged. I did not really regard myself as being totally in her power.

"Am I beautiful?" she asked.

"I do not know," I said.

"But surely you men conjecture about such matters," she said.

"I would suppose you might be beautiful," I said. "There seem the suggestions of the lineaments of a beautiful woman, particularly as you have belted and arranged them, beneath your garments."

"I like pretty clothes," she said, "and I wear them well."

"Doubtless you would be even more beautiful in the rag of a slave, or naked in a collar," I said.

"Bold fellow," she said. But I could see she was pleased. All women are curious to know how beautiful they might be as slaves. This is because all of them, in their heart, are slaves.

She regarded me for a time, not speaking. I knelt there, knees spread. She seemed in no hurry to disclose her will with respect to me. Her eyes roved me, glistening.

"Are you not curious to know why you were brought to my tent?" she asked.

"Mistress has not yet explained it to me," I said. My heart began to race. I feared she would now announce to me that she knew my true identity, that she was going to put me to her pleasure, and rape me, and then turn me over, a woman's catch, to the Sardar. It did not seem appropriate to me to attack her and perhaps kill her. She might be an agent of Priest-Kings. So, too, for all I knew, might be her men. I recalled the fellow in the booth, he in whom I had left his own knife, in the piazza at Port Kar.