The Usurper by John Norman

said.
    â€œAre you all right?” he asked.
    â€œYes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”
    â€œYou may fold the robe and place it in the chest,” he said.
    â€œYes, Master,” she said. “Thank you, Master.”
    She then folded the robe, went to the chest, opened it, and placed the robe within it, carefully. Uneasily she noted certain articles within the chest, thongs, coils of cord, some lengths of chain, such things. Too, she noted, dully gleaming, reflecting the light of the nearest lamp, slender and attractive, metal slave cuffs. How easily, she thought, and how effectively, a slave might be rendered helpless!
    She was facing away from him.
    â€œI plead to be permitted the surface of the couch,” she said.
    â€œVery well,” he said.
    â€œMaster is kind to a poor, miserable slave,” she said.
    â€œPerhaps,” he said.
    I have won, she thought, elatedly. What a fool he is! How could a simple, crude barbarian, a boor of the fields or forests, from some tiny village or remote farm, but succumb to the wiles and cleverness of a woman of the empire, one of the honestori , one even of the patrician class, even of the senatorial class itself!
    â€œHold,” he said.
    â€œMaster?” she said.
    â€œTurn about,” he said.
    She did not think she could run to the couch. She must be patient.
    He went to the chest, now behind her, which was still open, and withdrew something from it. It was a short thong.
    â€œMaster?” she said, uneasily.
    He was now before her.
    â€œMaster?” she said.
    He bound her wrists together, crossed, before her body, at the center of the thong, and, with its loose ends, tied them about the chain on her neck. Her hands, then, bound closely together, were fastened before her, just below her chin.
    She tried to separate her hands, fruitlessly. The chain pulled against the back of her neck.
    â€œMaster!” she protested.
    The barbarian then lifted her, easily, and threw her, feet away, to the surface of the vast couch, where she tumbled, and rolled amidst the furs.
    She scrambled to her knees on the couch. She feared to stand, lest she lose her balance, and fall.
    She felt a mighty hand grasp her hair, and jerk her head back. She cried out. She tried to free her hands. The chain shook on her neck, the pendant metal disk, with its three languages, including its pictograph, shook, and rattled against the sturdy links of her collar, the slave necklace. Then she was touched as a slave may be touched. She shrieked with dismay. Her knees moved, wildly. Her body shook. Her fingers twisted. She jerked at the thong and chain holding her hands together, helplessly, at her collar. She could scarcely move. She could not defend the sweet, exposed latitudes of her vulnerable beauty, no more than a slave. Then she was touched, again. Again she shrieked, with dismay, and misery. She wanted to cry out, “Desist! Desist! I am a free woman! I am a free woman!” but she knew she must not do so. Too, she was in the hands of a barbarian. Would such a cry deter a man, any man, from the prey designed for him by nature?
    â€œ Civilitas !” she cried. “ Civilitas !”
    The barbarian then did desist.
    â€œ Civilitas !” she wept.
    The mighty hand was removed from her hair.
    â€œFree my hands, Master,” she begged. “Free my hands, if not for my sake, for yours! I am bound! So tethered, so helpless, how can I please you? I would touch you. I would hold you! I would caress you! I long for you! I want you! How can I, so bound, please you, and caress you? Free my hands! Free my hands!”
    He then reached to her throat, to free her hands.

Chapter Eight
    â€œThere!” cried Tuvo Ausonius, pointing.
    A blast of fire rushed forth from the rifle of Julian, of the Aureliani, and one of the large beasts spun a dozen feet into the air, twisting, and howling, alit with fire, the darkness of the now heavily clouded