The Usurper Read Free Page A

well, the display, the revealing to all who look upon you what you are; do they not well impress upon you your helplessness and vulnerability; do they not mark you as a mere property, an object whose very raison d’être is to delight. Have not women been bred over millennia for the pleasure of men? And what is an enslaving but putting the confirmation and seal of legality, of implacable law, on the decree of nature? And surely the touch of such things on your skin, a rag, a rope, a leather strap, a collar, heats your limbs and belly.”
    â€œPlease do not speak so!” cried the blonde.
    â€œAnd is there not a reciprocity here, between women and men, between slaves, and Masters?”
    A tiny cry of anguish escaped the blonde.
    â€œHave I dismayed Cornhair?” said the brunette.
    â€œOf course not,” said the blonde, looking away, adding, “—Mistress.”
    â€œYou are a slave,” said the brunette, “a plaything for men. Make them cry out for the having of you. What other power do we have?”
    â€œWhere are the others?” asked the blonde.
    â€œThey prepare themselves elsewhere,” said the brunette.
    â€œI am then different, special?” said the blonde.
    â€œApparently,” said the brunette.
    â€œHow so?” asked the blonde.
    â€œI do not know,” said the brunette. “But I do not think you are surprised.”
    â€œMistress?”
    â€œThere are subtleties here,” said the brunette, “things I do not understand.”
    â€œWhat sorts of things, Mistress?” said the blonde.
    â€œDo not concern yourself,” said the brunette.
    â€œHas it to do with a Master, or Masters?” asked the blonde.
    â€œDo not concern yourself,” said the brunette.
    â€œPerhaps I have been spoken of, or you have noted my behavior being unusually observed or monitored?”
    â€œThe things are subtle, hard to place,” said the brunette.
    â€œPerhaps you have seen one with a closed package, a small, flat box, one storing it, one who might have glanced at me?” said the blonde.
    The brunette regarded her, puzzled.
    â€œPerhaps I am to be given something, a gift?”
    â€œA gift?” said the brunette.
    â€œYes,” said the blonde, “a gift, in a small, flat, black, leather case, perhaps an anklet, a strand of beads, a bracelet.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” asked the brunette.
    â€œNothing,” said the blonde.
    â€œAre you mad?”
    â€œNo, Mistress.”
    â€œYou smile?” said the brunette.
    â€œForgive me,” said the blonde.
    â€œConsider our group,” said the brunette, “shipped from Lisle on the Narcona , brought to Venitzia on Tangara, and then carried here, into the wilderness.”
    â€œMistress?” said the blonde, uncertainly.
    â€œAre we not a very unusual group, an anomalous group?”
    â€œHow so?” asked the blonde.
    â€œThere are twenty of us, twenty,” she said.
    â€œMistress?”
    â€œSurely you are aware of what we all have in common?”
    â€œWe are all slaves,” said the blonde.
    â€œOther than that,” said the brunette.
    â€œWhat?” asked the blonde.
    â€œNot one of us is branded,” she said.
    â€œSo?” said the blonde.
    â€œAn unbranded slave is extremely rare,” said the brunette. “Many markets will not handle an unbranded slave. Many ships will not transport them between worlds. You can understand the commercial and societal wisdom of marking slaves. It is an almost universal practice. On many worlds, it is required by law.”
    The blonde smiled to herself. She was not a slave, of course, but, if she were the only unmarked girl in the group, that would have surely excited undue speculation and interest. Accordingly, brilliant Iaachus, in his cunning, had arranged that she would not be conspicuous in her group on account of the absence of an expected slave mark,