I looked down at the Vosk Road, below. There were fewer refugees on it now than last night. Perhaps many had passed through the area last night. Perhaps now, for most practical purposes, the route was cut off.

My attention was then drawn to the girl on the saddle before me. She was bent low, cowering over the pommel, sobbing, grasping it with both hands. She had had a very difficult time of it. There was no gainsaying that. I took her by the hair and straightened her, and, turning her head, twisting her body, looked upon her. The blindfold was still well in place. She moaned. Her cheeks, under the dampened blindfold, were run with tears. These, too, had run upon her body. I then turned her about again.

We flew northward, in silence.

She sobbed.

I considered feeling pity for her, and then dismissed the thought, for it was weakness. She was a woman. Her wrists, too, were in my bracelets.

We flew further, in silence.

She wept.

I saw that she, though slender, was well curved, and beautiful.

"You may beg," I informed her. "What?" she said.

"You may beg to be caressed," I said.

"You're mad," she said.

"Is it your intention to be difficult?" I asked.

"Do not beat me," she said.

"You may now beg to be caressed," I told her.

"Have I fallen into the hands of a monster?" she cried.

She was a legally free woman, but she was now before me, half naked, blindfolded and braceleted, my captive and servant. Indeed, she had even purchased her captivity and servitude. I wondered if she regretted what she had done. She now, at any rate, understood it more clearly.

"Beg," I said.

"I am not in the mood," she cried.

I laughed. How amusing are free woman! Slaves learn to be in the «mood» instantaneously, at so little as a glance or a snapping of the fingers, and a pointing to the floor.

"Please," she said. "please!"

"Beg," I said.

"I beg to be caressed," she said, weeping.

I then began to caress her, she before me, weeping, trying to resist, captive and servant, clinging to the pommel.

"Monster," she moaned. "Monster." Then she sobbed, suddenly, partly with surprise, partly with sensation.

I chuckled. Her legs looked well, split, squirming, over the glossy saddle. "Monster!" she wept, her head back.

Her hands jerked, the fingers moving. She could not reach me. I heard the small sounds of the links, jerking taut, then relaxing, then jerking taut again, joining the bracelets.

"Perhaps you are now more in the mood?" I asked.

"Do not stop!" she begged.

"And what shall you call me?" I wondered.

"Oh," she moaned. "Ohhh!"

"Surely you are curious to know what you should call me," I speculated. "Yes!" she cried. "Yes! Yes! What shall I call you? Oh! Oh!"

"You may call me "master, " I said. "Yes, Master!" she cried.

I then held her still, trying to calm her for a time.

"I called you Master!" she cried. "Am I yet legally free?"

"Yes," I said, "but I think it will be well for you to accustom yourself to calling free men Master."

"Yes!" she said.

I decided that I would not yet grant her the collar, ripe for it though she might be. She was a free woman. I would make her wait longer, in frustration, for it.

"Please touch me again," she begged.

"You liked it?" I asked.

"I have now felt it," she said. "I now desperately need it."

"Even to the surrender of all you are, and have been?" I asked.

"You have tried out your tarn," she said. "Now, try me out!"

I regarded her. I thought she would look well, naked, tied absolutely helplessly, on her back or belly, over the saddle of the tarn.

"Master?" she asked.

It was a fitting tie for such as she.

"Perhaps later," I said.

I then folded my cloak about her, to protect her from the wind.

We continued northward.

9 The Camp of Cos

"Who is it?" she asked, kneeling in the darkness of the tiny tent, the large sack covering most of her body.

"It is I," I said, reassuring her.

I crouched beside her and unfastened the drawstrings of the sack which I had tied under her body and about her thighs, to hold it on her. I then pulled it from her and unbraceleted her hands from behind her back.

"Were you successful?" she asked, shaking her head, loosening her hair. "Cook," I said.

I then sat, cross-legged, in the tiny tent. We were just within the fringes of the Cosian camp. There were, in this vicinity, clouds of tiny tents and shelters, some of them belonging to soldiers, most to civilians, sutlers, merchants, slavers, and such. The nearest investment trench was a half pasang away. One could see the walls of Ar's Station from where we were. The girl busied herself, preparing food. It seemed peaceful here. It was difficult to believe that fighting took place daily in the vicinity of the walls, indeed, sometimes at night.

"There is little but porridge," she said.

I nodded.

There would be even less, I supposed, in most homes in Ar's Station.

"Have you heard anything?" she asked. She was putting twigs and leaves in a small pit outside the entrance of the tent.

"It is said the city will soon fall," I said.

"The defenses cannot be long maintained?" she asked.

"It is thought not," I said.

"You wish to gain entrance to the city," she said.

"Yes," I said.

"Why?" she asked.

"I have business there," I said.

"Your accent is not of Ar," she said.

"I would hope not, in this camp," I smiled.

She used a tiny fire maker and set fire to the leaves and twigs. She blew on the small flame, encouraging it.

We could smell cooking fires about. It was near dusk.

"Your plans have not proceeded as you hoped?" she asked.

"I do not complain," I said. "Things might have proceeded better than they have, but they have gone much as I expected they would.

She added sticks to the small flame.

The first portion of my plan had been to reach Ar's Station as swiftly as possible, which meant, in effect, to do so on tarnback, and in such a way as to gain immunity from the attentions of Cosian tarn patrols. That I had managed. The patrols, which were thick in the vicinity, given my habiliments and accouterments, and my brandished pouch, presumably a diplomatic one, had taken me for a courier. Also, although I had not planned it, the presence of the blindfolded, braceleted girl before me, apparently a capture, presumably picked up enroute, and doubtless soon to be collared, added to the effect. The ears of the delicate Phoebe must have burned as she heard the snapping of wings near us and the shouting of ribald, raucous jests, of which her beauty and its probably disposition were the subject. At times I had even received an escort, which happily, at their patrol limits, had been suspended.

I had hoped, of course, somehow, ideally, to be able to enter Ar's Station on tarnback. As I had feared, however, this had not been possible. Even my garb as a courier had not permitted me access to the airspace over Ar's Station. I had been immediately pursued and fired upon by flights of Cosian tarnsmen. I had made the attempt in the afternoon and again in the evening of the first day I had arrived in the vicinity of Ar's Station. Had it not been for the strength of the bird and my start I might have been downed over the city. I had escaped the second time only with considerable difficulty, by taking my way over the citadel and harbor, past the chained rafts closing the harbor, and across the Vosk itself, eluding my pursuers only after a long run, under the cover of darkness.

In these attempts I had, of course, not taken Phoebe. I had no wish to risk a quarrel's penetrating that beauty, which properly refined and improved, would, in my opinion, not have shamed even the central block of the Curulean. Too, her weight, slight as it was, might have made the difference between falling to pursuers and eluding them.