Smugglers of Gor

Chapter Fifty-Two



It was damp, and chilly, on the plankings. I had slept but little. In the kennel in Shipcamp, we had had blankets. If these slaves were so special, I thought, why are they not better cared for? Is it to impress upon them that they are, however special, only slaves? Even had I a blanket, I could not have well covered myself, chained as I was. I wondered how early it was. The door to the kennel was shut. I thought I could see a sliver of light, lamplight, through the crack, at the bottom of the door. Last night I had heard the two beams dropped into place which sealed it, from the outside. I thought it must be very early.

I heard a girl to my left, somewhere, moan in her sleep.

I had run away. I had been punished, lashed, near the shore of the Alexandra by my captor. I did not know if I were to be further punished, or not, and, if so, how. They tell us little.

I had heard yesterday afternoon that the ready banner had been lowered. The ship, then, must be on the verge of beginning the descent of the Alexandra. The stockade slaves, I supposed, would have to be transported across the river. I supposed a boat, or boats, would be waiting. I had seen various boats on both the north and south side of the river.

“They are coming for us!” I heard, a slave’s voice, frightened, from somewhere in the darkness.

I had heard nothing.

I did see part of the sliver of light blocked, from the outside.

Then, clearly, I heard men outside, and men’s voices. A moment later, one after the other, I heard the two beams outside removed from their brackets.

The door was then swung outward, and I could see four or five men outside, with the guard, who held a lamp, upraised. I heard, too, a rattle of chain.

“Slaves outside!” I heard. “Stand, single file, facing the gate, tallest girl first, in order of height.”

It was not yet dawn.

The order of marshaling was a common one, in which a slave line is organized in terms of height, in descending order. Goreans tend to have a sense of proportion and harmony, of propriety, and beauty. This tendency may be expressed in innumerable ways, from the design of cities to the bright colors of buildings and walls, and porches and pillars, from long garden paths, a pasang in length, characterized by a planned music of scent as well as a scenic melody of blossoms, to the shaping of vases and lamps, from the boss on a shield or a clamp on a kaiila harness to the intricate, subtle carving which might be lavished on the handle of a common tool or a humble wooden spoon.

I was then alone in the kennel. The door had been left open. Outside I could see the lamp, and, in the light and shadows, the men and slaves. The slave who had been gowned was toward the rear of the line.

I watched as the slaves were coffled. Then I learned what had been in one of the two small boxes brought yesterday afternoon to the stockade. The wrists of each slave were drawn behind her, and braceleted. It then, a bit later, became clear what had been the contents of the second small box. It contained slave hoods. One by one the slaves were hooded. How helpless one is in a slave hood, how confused and disoriented, how much at the mercy of the masters!

I saw the gate to the stockade opened. Two men were outside, with torches.

“Prepare to move,” called the guard, the lamp held over his head.

“No, no!” I heard. “Please, Masters! Do not take me away, Masters!”

It was the voice of she who had been gowned. How frightened she sounded. What did she so much fear? Where did she think she might be taken? Presumably to the ship. Possibly elsewhere? What did she think might be done with her? Did she think her fate might be different from that of the others? Was there something special about her? Was she not merely another slave?

“Where are you taking us?” cried a slave.

“They will take us to the ship!” said another.

“The great ship!” said another.

“No!” said another.

“Not to the ship!” cried another slave.

“I do not want to go to the World’s End!” cried a slave.

“Beat us, sell us, take us elsewhere!” begged a slave. “But do not take us to the ship.”

“Have mercy on us!” cried another. “We are slaves!”

“Forward,” said the guard. “Step carefully.”

“Masters!” I called.

I was not sure, fully, what was going on. It did seem that the ready banner was down, and the great ship might soon depart.

Certainly the girls in my kennel at Shipcamp had feared to be placed on the great ship, and it seemed the stockade slaves had similar trepidations.

It seemed reasonably clear to me, certainly highly probable, that slaves, both here and at Shipcamp, were to be embarked on the great ship. Were they not slaves, goods, to be sold or traded at the World’s End, or the farther islands, whatever might be the destination of that mighty frame now poised for its journey downriver to Thassa?

Why, I wondered, had they been hooded? Surely it was not necessary for purposes of security. They were back-braceleted and coffled. I supposed it might be to make clearer to them that they were slaves. But then I thought it might be more likely that they might be hooded that their faces might be concealed. If so, it did not seem likely that the fear was their beauty, and its possible effect on strong men, for, although they were beauties, it seemed there were many in Shipcamp who were their equals, if not superiors. So, I thought, the hooding must be that they not, or one or another of them, be recognized. But what difference would it make, I asked myself, if one slave or another might be recognized?

I saw the coffle begin to move slowly toward the stockade gate. The left arm of the lead girl was held by one of the fellows who had accompanied the guard. The guard himself, with his lamp, was to the left of the coffle. The two fellows with torches had turned about, and were moving toward the broad stairway leading down to the river, that which I had ascended yesterday.

“Masters!” I called out, plaintively.

But no one turned about.

The coffle proceeded on its way.

“Masters!” I cried.

If Shipcamp were abandoned, and, with it, the stockade and buildings here, on the south side of the Alexandra, what of me? Had I been forgotten? I could not free myself.

“Masters!” I cried. “Masters!” I shook the chains. I pulled at them, futilely.

Then I was alone, not only in the kennel, but in the stockade.

I had run away.

Was this my punishment, I wondered, to be left behind, alone, chained, without food and water?

Better, I thought, the brief attentions of sleen or, more lingeringly, those of leech plants.

“Masters!” I screamed. “Please, I am here! Do not leave me! Do not leave me! Have mercy on me!”

I pulled at the chains, again and again. “Masters!” I cried. “Masters!”

Tor-tu-Gor, Light-Upon-the-Home-Stone, the common star of two worlds, Earth and Gor, was rising.

It was a cold, damp morning.

In a few Ehn I could see the points on the palings, and, later, in the grayness, the clearing beyond the door of the kennel, with the food trough to the side and near it the catchment, the small reservoir or water tank, where I had been permitted to drink yesterday, though only on all fours, and leashed. I could see that the gate had been left open. Doubtless that was because they thought the stockade was empty.

“Masters!” I wept. “Masters!”

Then I was very frightened, for I smelled smoke. The torch, I feared, was being set to the local buildings. Probably the stockade, too, then, would be burned. I wondered if, too, across the river, Shipcamp was to be destroyed.

Men would be setting such fires, which would spread from building to building, and, possibly, to the stockade. Possibly the stockade itself had already been set afire, from the outside. I heard the crackling of flames. I called out, again and again, shrieking for attention, but if any heard me I received no indication that they had done so.

How I cried out! How helpless I was in the chains. I felt heat behind me, so anomalous and frightening in the cold morning. The back wall of the kennel might be aflame. Through the door I saw smoke, billowing like dark, ugly, suffocating clouds, and then there was a sudden gust of wind, which tore apart the smoke, and flung before it a shower of sparks, and then more sparks began to fall about, the wind softening, in the clearing, these now descending like hot, bright rain. I began to choke. I pulled, weeping, at the chains, coughing.

A large, dark figure appeared in the doorway. I saw it outlined, black, with flames bright behind it. It coughed, and cast about. I think it had one hand before its face. “Master!” I cried. It felt its way, through the smoke, uncertainly, toward me. I could hardly keep my eyes open, for burning tears, for the stinging of smoke in my eyes. I was aware of a key being forced into locks. A beam, burning, dropped from the ceiling to my right. Then, by a powerful hand grasped on my wrist, I was jerked to my feet, and dragged, stumbling, from the kennel, out, into the clearing, and then I was pulled across the clearing and out the gate.

“Master!” I wept, my hand imprisoned in his grip.

We stopped several paces from the gate, and I sank to my knees, gasping for air, on the grass between the stockade gate and the head of the stairway leading down to the river, and he was crouching beside me, his head down, coughing. It was he who had chained me there, to whom my keeping had been allotted.

The air seemed acrid with smoke. Behind us the stockade and kennel was aflame. I could see across the river, and Shipcamp, too, was aflame. There was a crash behind us where, I conjectured, the roof of the kennel had collapsed.

“Master has risked his life to save the life of a slave,” I gasped.

“You are valuable,” he said.

“Valuable to Master?” I said.

“Certainly,” he said. “You might bring two silver tarsks off the block.”

“You risked much for two silver tarsks,” I whispered.

“I would have done as much for a tethered verr,” he said, “or an urt on a neck string.”

“A slave is grateful,” I said. “May her lips not repay Master?”

“Do you wish to be cuffed?” he asked.

“No, Master!” I said.

“A slave,” he said, “has nothing, nothing with which to either pay, or repay. One simply takes from her whatever one might wish, whenever one wishes it, and however one wishes it.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

He rose to his feet, looking across the river.

I remained kneeling. It is seldom wise to rise to one’s feet in the presence of a master, if one has not received permission. I did go to all fours, which seemed acceptable for a beast, and joined him, in looking across the river. “Shipcamp is afire,” I said.

He looked down upon me, and reached into his wallet. He flung me a small handful of wadded cloth. “Put it on,” he said.

“Yes, Master!” I said, gratefully.

“I had little time,” he said.

In a moment I had pulled on the tunic, and fastened the disrobing loop at the left shoulder.

“It is too long,” he said, “but it can be considerably shortened later.”

I thought it already short, quite short.

“A slave thanks Master for the privilege of a garment,” I said. How strange, I thought, remembering my former world, that a girl would be almost tearfully grateful for so tiny a bit of cloth, in which she was next to naked, a Gorean slave tunic. A Gorean free woman, I thought, might almost die of shame at the mere thought of being placed in such a garment, but would learn to prize it soon enough if she were collared.

My rescuer, whom I shall choose to refer to as my “captor,” for it was he who had captured me, and he in whose keeping I remained, suddenly looked about, to his right.

“On your stomach,” he said, “hands behind your back.”

Instantly I was prone, as directed. A Gorean master is to be obeyed instantly, and unquestioningly.

“Look toward the river,” he said.

I turned my face, on the grass, toward the river, which was to my left. I felt my hands fastened behind me, in slave bracelets.

“Ho!” said a voice. “What have we here?”

“On your feet,” said my captor, and I rose to my feet, and kept my head down. “A slave,” he said.

Two men had approached; each carried a torch. They had doubtless been firing the buildings and stockade.

“The ship will soon depart,” said one of the men. “Where did you get her?”

“The stockade,” said my captor.

I felt a thumb push my head up.

“She is pretty,” said the second fellow with a torch.

I put my head down again. It is usual for a slave girl, if she is permitted to stand, to stand so before free persons, humbly, head down, self-effacingly, respectfully.

“The stockade girls are being boarded,” said the first fellow with a torch. It was still burning. I could hear it crackle.

“She should have been put in the coffle, stripped, braceleted, and hooded,” said the second fellow.

“She was housed in the stockade, but she is not a stockade girl,” said my captor.

“A runaway?” asked the first fellow.

“Once,” said my captor.

“Stupid slut,” said the second fellow.

“She is a barbarian,” said my captor, I thought unnecessarily.

“Why is she clothed?” asked one of the men.

“I prefer to get her to the ship without incident,” said my captor. “It will delay things if she is jeered, accosted, or beaten.”

“She should have been fed to sleen,” said the first fellow.

“Come now,” said my captor. “Look at her. Surely you can think of something better to do with this than feed it to sleen.”

“Yes,” said the first fellow, “but there is no time. There are boats waiting. You had best come with us.”

“We will follow, shortly,” said my captor. “I wish you well.”

“And we you,” said one of the men, and then they began to descend the long stairway leading down to the beach. We watched them. They extinguished their torches in the water. Behind us the stockade was raging with flame.

“We had best descend the stairway,” said my captor. “There will doubtless be others.”

“May I speak?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“A slave is grateful that Master has seen fit to save her life,” I said.

“It is not saved yet,” he said, “or mine.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“It is political,” he said. “Do not concern yourself with it.”

“Please, Master,” I said.

“It is not pleasant to carry a live ost in one’s hand,” he said.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“Surely you do not think it would be pleasant, do you?”

“No, Master,” I said.

“Step carefully here,” he said. “The steps are broad, but, as you are braceleted, it would be well to exercise caution.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Do you not know how to follow a man?” he asked.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said.

“No!” he said, suddenly. “Precede me. I wish to keep my eye on you.”

“I welcome the scrutiny of Master,” I said. “I hope he finds a slave pleasing.”

“I do not wish you to escape,” he said.

“I fear Master is not candid,” I said, “as I am braceleted.”

“Keep moving,” he said, “or I will use my belt across the backs of your thighs.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Do not think,” he said, “that I find you of interest.”

“Yet Master risked his life for me,” I said. “And he pursued me in the forest. And I think he followed me from far Brundisium.”

“I came for sport, and gold,” he said.

“And perhaps for a slave,” I said.

“It is an unwise slave who tempts the lash,” he said.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said, contentedly.

He growled with anger.

“Here,” he said at the foot of the stairway, “move to the left, toward the small boats.”

But near the foot of the stairway there were several men, mostly mercenaries. Some were entering boats, long boats, six-or eight-oared, and small boats, two-oared, thrusting oars outboard, and some were partly in the water, preparing to launch the boats, and several were about, with weapons, supervising the beach.

It was chilly on the beach, and there was fog, flat about the surface of the stirring water, and in the sky there was smoke, drifting westward, toward Thassa. Here, close to the river, no sparks fell. Across the river one could see Shipcamp afire.

“Hold!” said a mercenary, a large fellow, bearded, with a helmet crested with sleen hair.

“Yes, Captain?” said my captor.

“We have received the signal from the dock,” he said. “The first whistle has been blown.”

“I see,” said my captor. “Then we must hurry to our boat.”

“Take your place there,” said the mercenary, indicating an eight-oared craft.

“My accouterments,” said my captor, “are in the far boat, there, along the shore.”

He pointed west along the shore, where, to be sure, there were some small boats.

“What are you doing here, on this side of the river?” asked the captain.

“Fetching a slave,” said my captor, indicating me.

“She is a camp slave,” said the captain. “Ship her here,” he said, indicating the specified craft. “It makes no difference.”

“No,” said my captor. “She is a private slave.”

“That is a camp collar,” said the officer.

“It has not yet been changed,” said my captor.

“Put her here,” said the officer, unpleasantly, indicating the same vessel he had earlier suggested.

“She was privately purchased by a high officer,” said my captor, confidentially.

“Who?” asked the captain.

“Others are interested in her,” said my captor. “It will not do to make that public until her collar is changed.”

“Am I to believe that?” asked the officer. I noted that some three or four of his men had now, perhaps sensing some difficulty, approached more closely.

“She is to be unobtrusively, privately, delivered,” said my captor.

“Seat her there, on a thwart there!” said the captain, pointing to the designated vessel, angrily.

“Of course, as you will,” said my captor. “But may I inquire your name?”

“Why?” asked the officer, warily.

“I will not have this on my head,” said my captor. “I must report it.”

“To whom?” asked the captain.

My captor leaned forward, and said, softly. “To Lord Okimoto, lord in Shipcamp, high lord of the Pani.”

“Ah,” said the officer. “Proceed.”

“My thanks, Captain,” said my captor, and he hurried west, toward the small boats drawn up, tethered, some one hundred paces or so to the west.

“Hurry!” called the captain, from several paces behind. “We are expecting any Ehn now the signal that the second whistle has sounded; then we must leave.” I supposed a keen ear could hear the whistle from across the width of the Alexandra, but those on this side of the river were apparently reading a flag signal, or such, informing them of the state of departure.

“There should be only one boat here,” said my captor, uneasily, “my boat,” as we approached two, small, two-oared boats. There were two I now saw, farther west on the beach.

He reached into the boat and gathered up a pack.

“Master!” I cried.

From the trees and brush nearby an armed figure had emerged. “I have been waiting for you,” he said. “Tyrtaios feared this.”

“Tyrtaios,” said my captor, “is very clever.”

“I think so,” said Axel of Argentum.

“He leaves little to chance,” said my captor.

“Very little,” said Master Axel.

My captor put down his pack on the beach, and stepped away from it, and away from the small boat.

“We trekked together in the forest,” said my captor.

“True,” said Master Axel.

“What are you doing here?” asked my captor.

“Surely it is clear,” said Axel.

“It seems,” said my captor, “that indeed I hold a live ost in my hand.”

“I do not understand,” said Axel.

“It is unimportant,” said my captor.

“You were to cut the throat of the slave, and report to the ship,” said Axel.

“I forgot,” said my captor. “Or I did not wish to dull the edge of a fine dagger, or I preferred to avoid the task of cleaning the blade, or such.”

“Or such, I think,” said Axel.

“I thought you were my friend,” said my captor.

“It seems,” said Axel, “that your head has been turned by a slave.”

“I have occasionally thought of her at my slave ring,” said my captor.

“Master!” I cried.

“Be silent,” snapped my captor. There was about five or six paces between the two men. That, I supposed, would give each the time necessary to draw a blade, and, unrushed, begin with care to attend to the exigencies of private war.

“It is then the sword?” said my captor.

“It is only necessary,” said Axel, “that you cut the throat of the slave and return to the ship.”

“I do not choose to do so,” said my captor.

“So it would seem the sword,” said Axel.

“Yes,” said my captor.

“You would risk your life for a slave?” asked Axel.

“For sport,” said my captor.

“I see,” said Axel.

“We are one to one,” said my captor. “I am not unskilled.”

“Nor I,” said Axel. “Nor are many who have taken fee north.”

“It is strange to me,” said my captor, “that Tyrtaios would trust this business to one man.”

“Not strange,” said Axel. “Few are to know of these things.”

“He deems one man sufficient,” said my captor.

“Apparently,” said Axel.

“It still seems strange to me that you would be alone,” said my captor.

“I am not alone,” said Axel. He then, without turning his head, gave a soft, low whistle. A moment later, its belly almost on the ground, with a quick, serpentine twist, the long body of the hunting sleen, Tiomines, emerged from the brush.

“It seems,” said my captor, “that one man was not deemed sufficient.”

“I think one would do,” said Axel.

“But noble Tyrtaios wishes an additional assurance,” said my captor.

“Possibly,” said Axel.

“Or you?” said my captor.

“It is true,” said Axel, “that I do not know the nature of your skills.”

“Tiomines, old friend,” said my captor. “Surely you remember me from the forest.”

“I returned first to Shipcamp,” said Axel. “We have been separated for days. The interval is sufficient.”

“I see,” said my captor.

“It is only necessary, if I wished,” said Axel, “that I engage you defensively. It is difficult to penetrate an exclusive defense. If your skills are such as I suppose, you will know that. And, in the meantime, Tiomines may attack. If you turn to defend yourself against him, you will be open to my blade.”

“If you set the sleen on me,” said my captor, “he is likely to reach me before you, and I might then strike him before you can reach me. I will be sure to have his body between us. Then, again, it is one on one.”

“The force of his attack, even if struck to the heart, a difficult blow, would carry you to the ground, where you would be an easy mark,” said Axel.

“Possibly,” said my captor. “Such things are difficult to tell.”

“True,” said Axel.

“So the game is to be played?” said my captor.

“Obviously,” said Axel.

“I am sorry,” said my captor.

“So, too, am I,” said Axel.

“May I secure the slave?” asked my captor.

“Certainly,” said Axel.

“I will not run away!” I said.

“No,” said my captor, “you will not.”

Axel withdrew a few paces.

He had no crossbow, nor was one at hand. His dagger remained in its sheath, as did his sword, the gladius.

How confident he is, I thought.

My captor drew a short lace from his wallet, and pointed to the beach. “On your belly, cross your ankles,” he said.

My ankles were bound. I could not rise to my feet. As soon as he rose from my side, I twisted about, to see the men, propping myself up on my left elbow.

“Do not fight, Masters!” I begged.

“You were told to be silent,” said my captor.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said.

I watched.

They seemed to measure one another, warily. Neither had unsheathed his weapon.

“Are you ready?” inquired Axel.

“Yes,” said my captor.

I struggled against the bracelets, against the lace which fastened my ankles together. I could not rise to my feet. I lay to the side, on my side, where I had been left. A slave, I must await, helpless, the outcome of the doings of men. Would it not be the same with kaiila, or verr?

I became aware of men calling out, from down the beach, by the stairs. I could not make out what they were saying. I twisted about. Some were pointing to the great ship.

“The second whistle must have sounded,” said Axel. “There is little time.”

On the hill, behind us, the buildings were burning, and the stockade. I could see smoke billowing, too, from Shipcamp, across the river. To my horror, I saw, too, across the river, that the dock was afire.

“This is your last chance,” said Axel, menacingly.

“I welcome it,” said my captor.

“Cut her throat, and return to the ship,” said Axel.

“I decline,” said my captor.

How swiftly, with so little sound, two blades left their sheaths! Tiomines began to growl.

Down the beach, behind us, the last of the boats were making their way across the river.

“Why do you sheath your sword?” asked my captor.

“The game is done,” said Axel.

“I do not understand,” said my captor.

“I have learned,” said Axel, “what I came to learn, that you are not the creature of Tyrtaios.”

“I do not understand,” said my captor.

“Nor am I,” said Axel.

“It seems betrayals are afoot,” said my captor.

“On the great ship,” he said, “unbeknownst to most, contraband is stored.”

“Two great boxes, disguised,” said my captor.

“To be secretly disembarked at the World’s End,” said Axel.

“I gather so,” said my captor.

“It is rumored some contest is to take place at the World’s End, on which may hang the fate of worlds.”

“I have heard hints of such from our friend, Tyrtaios,” said my captor.

“But it seems cards may be marked, or dice weighted,” said Axel.

“Possibly so,” said my captor.

“What is in the great boxes?” asked Axel.

“I do not know,” said my captor.

“Surely something which might secretly and unfairly alter the outcome of a world’s games.”

“I fear so,” said my captor.

“And in whose favor?” he asked.

“I do not know,” said my captor.

“But it is unlikely that the great ship will reach the World’s End,” said Axel. “No ship has hitherto done so. Were it possible it would have been done a thousand times.”

“Perhaps,” said my captor, “Thassa has her secrets as well as her ferocities.”

“The knowledge we bear is dangerous,” said Axel.

“It is the ost,” said my captor, “borne in the palm of one’s hand.”

“Tyrtaios?” said Axel.

“Yes,” said my captor, “our friend, Tyrtaios.”

“We must begin our trek south,” said Axel.

“I would give you Asperiche,” said my captor, “if you would find her of interest, but, I fear, she is already housed in the great ship.”

“Not in the great ship,” said Axel. “But in the small boat.”

He then went to one of the two small boats drawn up on the beach, that other than the one my captor had apparently used, from which he had removed his pack. There was a tarpaulin there and he flung it aside. Within, bound hand and foot, briefly tunicked, was the unconscious form of Asperiche.

“Tassa powder,” said Axel.

I had heard of Tassa powder in my slave training. The instructresses had delightedly informed us of its properties. It is a powder which may be undetectably added to any beverage, most commonly Ka-la-na, with the result that the individual who partakes of the beverage is soon rendered unconscious. The length of the unconscious state is partly determined by the individual involved and partly by the amount of the drug administered. The approximated weight of the individual involved and the desired length of the unconscious state are used to determine the dosage. It is a favorite of slavers. The delight of my instructresses, in regaling us with accounts of its effects, had to do largely with its administration to free women, who might sip it discreetly behind their veil in some assignation or tête-à-tête, in their rich robes of concealment, and later awaken naked and in chains, perhaps in sight of some flaming brazier from whose burning coals protrude marking irons.

Axel lifted Asperiche from the boat and put her half in the chill water, at the beach’s edge, and she began to cry out, and shudder, and was then lifted up, wide-eyed, and placed on her back, not far from me. She was bound with thongs. I was not pleased to see her here, so close to me. She was very beautiful. She belonged to my captor.

“Untie her,” said my captor. “See to whose feet she runs.”

Axel unbound Asperiche, and she looked at my captor, frightened. “Forgive me, Master,” she said. And then she ran to Axel of Argentum, knelt, and put her head down to his feet, trembling.

“Here,” said Axel, who drew from his wallet a small coin, a yellow coin, a gold tarsk, perhaps from Besnit or Harfax, where such coins are popular, and tossed it to my captor, who caught it. “Is that enough?” inquired Axel.

“I would give her to you, in friendship,” said my captor.

How pleased I was that he was ridding himself of her! But would he want me?

“No, no,” said Axel. “Is it enough?”

“Yes,” said my captor. “It is more than enough. It is several times her value. She is yours.”

Asperiche had her head to Axel’s feet, and was sobbing, with relief, and joy.

How, I wondered, could my captor bring himself to give up that beauty, for any amount of gold? To be sure, she, as I, was a property and would go for whatever coin or coins might be agreed upon by masters.

How joyful was Asperiche! She had found her master. But I had not found mine.

“Free my ankles,” I said, “and see to whose feet I run!”

Axel undid the small lace with which my ankles had been tied together, and I, tunicked, my hands braceleted behind me, sped to my captor, knelt, and put my head down to his feet.

“I would that I was yours,” I said.

“You are,” said Axel. “He is your master.”

“He is not my master!” I said.

“He bought you yesterday, from the Pani,” said Axel.

“Master?” I said.

“Yes, worthless slut,” he said, angrily. “I own you!”

I was then, suddenly, terrified to learn that I was his, that I belonged to him. He owned me, as a pair of sandals or a sleen might be owned. I had been shaken with the very sight of him long ago, in the great emporium, when I, who had so frequently fantasized myself a slave, and had profoundly sensed I was a slave, and I belonged in the collar, had found myself, for the first time in my life, to my trepidation and consternation, looked upon, regarded as, what I had so often conjectured myself to be, a slave, looked upon, regarded, literally, as a slave. I had fled in terror. Then I recalled how helplessly I had lain at his feet, naked and bound, in the warehouse, with other women. In the exposition cage in Brundisium, I had had the bars between us, so I was not so frightened. But he had turned away, and I had felt not so much relieved, but rejected. When I was sold, I could not well see the crowd. On the block, turned and exhibited, naked, under the torches, I had wondered if he were out there, somewhere, in the crowd. I did not think he had made a bid on me. Then I had been sold, as it turned out, to an agent for Pani, for forty-eight copper tarsks. I had not seen him, again, until the dock at Shipcamp, when I had been scorned at his feet. In anger, misery, and humiliation, I had fled, to be captured by Panther Women, who, in turn, had fallen to Genserich and his band. My captor and Master Axel had earlier been apprehended by Genserich. Both Genserich and Master Axel had independently sought the Panther Women, Genserich from the south, from the vicinity of the Laurius, to preclude their reporting to forces gathered at the mouth of the Alexandra, and Master Axel, from the north, to locate them as spies and summon assistance, were he successful, and it needful, from mariners and mercenaries come from the coast, placed there by those of Shipcamp, should the occasion arise, to cut off the escape of possible spies. Master Axel had somehow managed to contact this latter group, bringing it into play. Eventually Genserich, his task accomplished, although scarcely as he had anticipated, returned to the coast, the captured Panther Women in his custody, and Master Axel, with the sleen, Tiomines, had returned to Shipcamp, to report the outcome of his pursuit, which outcome would assure that the security of Shipcamp was, as yet, unbreached. My captor had accompanied Master Axel, he said, for sport, but did not accompany him back to Shipcamp. Rather, as I had again fled, distressed and frightened, for I had richly humiliated him in his helplessness, not anticipating that he would soon be free to deal with me, he followed me in the forest. Was that for sport, or vengeance? In any event I was soon captured, to be returned to Shipcamp and my masters, the Pani. In the return to Shipcamp he had well revenged himself on me for the indignities to which I had subjected him, and had soon, in his vengeance, stirred my slave fires almost to the point of madness. No longer did I fear he would touch me, but only that he might not touch me. How I wanted to hate him, who was so uncaring and cruel, but I soon hoped for permission to lick and kiss his feet. Returned to Shipcamp, I had been placed in the stockade, a facility of maximum security. Why had that been? As the great ship prepared for its departure, Shipcamp was fired, and the buildings and stockade on the south side of the river, as well. He had rescued me from the burning stockade, at no little danger to his own life. Perhaps he would have done as much for a tethered verr or urt. I did not know. I thought perhaps he would. But did he, too, I wondered, care for me, or, better, more likely, want me, for I now knew myself a comely slave. Perhaps he saw me from a commercial point of view, merely as an item he might sell, on which he might make a profit. I did not know. Or did he buy me to ventilate on my collared flesh all his scorn and hatred of me, recalling my public humiliation of him, when he was helplessly bound in the camp of Genserich. What amusement that provided for the men of Genserich!

“Be kind to me, Master,” I said.

“You are a slave,” he said.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said.

“Behold!” said Axel, pointing across the river.

The great ship was moving away from the flaming dock.

Smoke billowed from Shipcamp, as well as the buildings and the stockade on our side of the river.

“The voyage is begun,” said my captor.

“There are forces massed at the mouth of the Alexandra to stop her,” said Axel.

“Straws might as well struggle to impede the rolling of a dislodged boulder,” said my captor.

“Thence it is to raging Thassa,” said Master Axel, “and its winter.”

“I do not think it will reach the World’s End,” said my captor. “But, if it should, a strange cargo, contraband, may tip the balance in the scale of war, the stakes perhaps two worlds.”

“Is there no way in which this may be drawn to the attention of the Pani?” asked Axel.

“It is too late,” said my captor. “The voyage is begun.”

The large vessel was now in midriver. I marked a slight adjustment of the large, single rudder. Most Gorean vessels with which I was familiar were double ruddered, with two helmsmen. The vessel was six-masted but no sail was set. She would be carried by the current.

“Tal,” said my captor, half moved from his place of stand, by the rough caress of the sleen’s snout, and the brush of its long, furred body.

“He is fond of you,” said Axel.

“I did not think so before,” said my captor.

“We were together in the forest,” said Axel.

“He was prepared to attack,” said my captor. “Did you not note the menace of the growl?”

“You know little of sleen,” said Axel. “The growl was one of recognition.”

“It sounded threatening enough,” said my captor.

“Only to one unfamiliar with sleen,” said Axel.

“He would not have attacked me?” said my captor.

“No,” said Axel.

“You knew this?” said my captor.

“Of course,” said Axel.

“I did not know it,” said my captor.

“Neither did Tyrtaios,” said Axel. “Else others might have been consigned to accompany me.”

“You said the interval of separation had been sufficient,” said my captor.

“I wanted you to believe that,” he said.

“I see,” said my captor.

“The sleen is a terrible beast,” said Axel, “but, too, it has a long memory, and it is capable of affection.”

“There is much I do not know of sleen,” said my captor.

“That was fortunate for me,” said Axel.

“How did you know I would not do the bidding of Tyrtaios and join the ship?”

“I did not know,” said Axel.

I shuddered.

“I would have known,” said Asperiche. “He is mad to possess this slave.”

“No!” said my captor.

“He followed her from Brundisium, and sought her for days in Tarncamp,” she said, “before finding her in Shipcamp.”

“Silence,” said my captor.

“It is my master, noble Axel of Argentum,” she said, “who should silence me, if I am to be silenced, not you, Master. You are not my master. You sold me,” and here Asperiche looked pleasantly at me, smiling, “— for a gold tarsk.”

“Far more than you are worth,” snapped my captor.

“Not more than I was worth to Axel of Argentum,” she said.

“His aberrations are of little interest to me,” said my captor.

“My judgment is notoriously suspect,” said Axel.

“Master!” protested Asperiche.

“But she does have lovely ankles,” said Axel.

“I have always found then so,” said my captor.

I glanced at my ankles. I was told they took shackles, and thongs, well.

“What if I had done as you seemed to wish,” said my captor, “slain the slave and rejoined the ship?”

“You would not have rejoined the ship,” he said. “I would have struck you down from behind, you unsuspecting, as you entered the boat.”

“Why?” asked my captor.

“That Tyrtaios have one less minion at his disposal,” said Axel.

“You would have permitted me to slay the slave?” asked my captor.

“I would have attempted to intervene,” he said.

“Honor?” asked my captor.

“You have heard of that?” asked Axel.

“It is within my recollections,” said my captor.

“I suspected so,” said Axel, “from the forest. But, too, aside from questions of honor, there are better things to do with a slave, I am sure you will agree, than cut her throat. We have two lovely slaves here. It would be absurd to slay them. It would be a waste. Slaves have their uses.”

“Slave uses,” said my captor.

“Certainly,” said Axel. “And if one does not want one, give her away, or sell her.”

I was suddenly frightened. For all my fear of him, I did not want my master to sell me. And yet I knew he could do so. I must try so to please him that he would not wish to do so.

“On your feet,” said Axel to Asperiche, who leapt up.

“Rise,” said my master, and I, too, stood.

The two men then regarded us, and we stood as slaves, regarded. I recalled that Axel had spoken of two lovely slaves. Asperiche had her head lifted, so I, too, lifted mine. The men were obviously comparing us, as properties.

“Nice,” said Axel. “But mine is better.”

“Obviously,” said my captor.

I jerked angrily at the slave bracelets which confined my hands behind my back.

“I think, however, Master,” said Asperiche, “that we must admit that Laura, for a barbarian, is attractive.”

“Many barbarians are attractive,” said Axel. “It is only that they are stupid.”

“May I speak, Master?” I asked.

“No,” said my master. “Barbarians,” said my master, “are not simply found under a veil when a city is falls or a caravan raided. They are selected for beauty and intelligence.”

I straightened my body, and lifted my head a little more.

“And passion,” he added.

I reddened. I could not help the nature of my belly, the needs of my body, the helplessness of my responses to a man’s touch. But why, I asked myself, should I be embarrassed by, or shamed by, or disconcerted by, signs of, and the obvious consequences of, health, life, hormonal richness, and vitality? Had not nature made me so, designed me to be a yielded, surrendered slave in the arms of masters? And in the collar, and in bondage, and on Gor had not nature liberated me a thousand fold to be myself? In a natural world does not nature thrive?

“Both are excellent slaves,” said Axel.

“One at least,” said my master.

“Put either one of them in with a crowd of free women, all stripped,” said Axel, “and one would see her as the slave.”

Perhaps that was the case, I thought. I did not know. Certainly I was a slave. I had often thought that my master, when he had first seen me on my former world, had seen me as such, and immediately, even without thought, as a slave.

Both men then turned to the river, and we two, slaves, standing, followed their gaze. The great ship was nearly out of sight. Momentarily it would reach a bend in the river, and we would no longer be able to follow its course from our vantage point.

“Tyrtaios would have paid well,” said Axel.

“Gold, women, fleets, cities, a ubarate or ubarates,” said my master.

“We might have been mighty men,” said Axel, fondling the shaggy, lifted head of Tiomines.

“It is quite possible,” said my master, “that the World’s End would never be reached.”

“Thassa,” said Axel, “is treacherous, deep, and cruel.”

“It is a voyage, as no other,” said my master.

“Tersites,” said Axel, “would challenge the winds and the sea, fearful Thassa, in the fiercest and most ruthless of seasons.”

“He is mad,” said my master.

“Perhaps, it is so,” said Axel, “of all who, so to speak, build great ships.”

“Do you trust Tyrtaios?” asked my master.

“No,” said Axel. “He would be as likely, when he had of us what he wanted, to pay with steel as gold.”

“Still,” said my master, “we might have been well rich.”

“Then it seems our desertions were ill-advised,” said Axel.

“Masters may have sacrificed much,” said Asperiche.

“And have little to show for it,” said Axel.

“Two slaves!” laughed Asperiche.

“Your slave is insolent,” said my master. “Does she have permission to speak? Have you suffered her to speak?”

“She has always spoken freely before me, owned or not owned,” said Axel. “I enjoy having her speak her mind.”

“I see,” said my master. I did not think he would be as permissive as Master Axel.

“It makes it all the more pleasant then,” said Axel, “to bring them again to their knees.”

“I see,” said my master, with satisfaction.

“A privilege not granted is not much missed,” said Axel, “but a privilege granted is more missed when it is withdrawn.”

“Of course,” said my master.

As is well known we speak well, and love to speak. It is one of the delights of our being. Accordingly few things more impress our bondage upon us, and with greater keenness, than the fact that our speech, as other aspects of our being, is subject to our master’s will. Unless we have a standing permission to speak, which might, of course, be rescinded at any time, we are commonly expected to request permission to speak, and are not to speak without such permission, which permission might or might not be granted. How painful it is, and how frustrating, to wish to speak, to desire fervently to do so, and not be permitted to do so! But it is not we, but the master, who will decide these things. They do not always wish to hear us speak, and then we may not do so.

Perhaps, I thought, lovely Asperiche could thus be well reminded that she is a slave. The whip, too, of course, is useful in this regard.

The great ship of Tersites was no longer in sight.

“We will trek,” said Axel. “I think it best to do so separately.”

“I agree,” said my master.

“Axel,” said my master.

“Yes?” he said.

“Genserich,” said my master, “speculated as to the possibility of two large and complex forces, each of which might well have spies in the camp of the other, perhaps even highly placed spies.”

“I recall,” he said.

“I think you are such a spy,” said my master.

“Possibly,” he said.

“For whom do you work?” asked my master.

“I do not know,” he said.

“You are hired through agents,” said my master.

“Of course,” he said.

“To what end?” asked my master.

“To inquire into the doings of Tyrtaios, and others,” he said, “to see if deceit is practiced, to see if there is treachery amongst the Pani, to see if the cards are marked, the dice weighted.”

“And it is so?” said my captor.

“As you have confirmed,” he said.

“And what is to be done?” asked my master.

“Nothing now,” said Axel. “It is too late. The ship is upon the river.”

We looked after the ship, which was now gone from sight. There was only the empty river, quiet in the morning sun, and the cries of some birds, fishing, skimming its surface, sometimes diving under the water, and there was smoke, here and there, drifting about. It seems there had been fires in the vicinity.

“Are you a spy?” asked Axel.

“No,” said my master.

“I wish you well,” said Axel.

“I, too, wish you well,” said my master.

Asperiche hurried to me and kissed me. “I wish you well, Laura,” she said. “And you are very beautiful.”

“I wish you well, Asperiche,” I said, kissing her. “And you are very beautiful.” I could not hold her, as my hands were braceleted behind me.

“Hoist my pack,” said Axel to Asperiche.

“Yes, Master,” she said, happily, and slung it about her shoulder.

Shortly thereafter Axel made his way up from the bank, south, into the forest, heeled by his slave. Tiomines rubbed his snout, head, and coat against the thigh of my master, and then, turning about, padded away, in the wake of Axel and his slave, Asperiche.

My master turned to face me.

“No,” he said. “Do not kneel. Turn away.”

I felt the key inserted into the bracelets, and they were removed from my wrists. I then turned about, to face him.

He pointed to the ground, and I knelt.

“Do you think you are a tower slave?” he asked.

“I do not know what sort of slave I am,” I said.

“Get your knees apart,” he said. “Widely! More widely!”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“Do you now know what sort of slave you are?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I said. There was now no doubt about that. I was frightened, but excited and thrilled, as well. How frightening it is to be wanted, wanted not as a free woman is wanted, but wanted as a slave is wanted, to be wanted with all the power and force, and uncompromising authority, that a slave is wanted! And yet, too, what woman would wish to be less wanted? What woman does not wish to be so desired that she will be collared and possessed? A slave is many things to her master. Among them is his beast and pet, his plaything. I hoped he would not be difficult to please. I did not wish to be whipped.

“I grant you a standing permission to speak,” he said.

“Thank you, Master,” I said. “I thank you for saving my life. I thank you for freeing me of the bracelets.”

“You will wear them frequently,” he said.

“As Master wills,” I said.

“Do you think to escape?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said. “I am collared, tunicked, and marked. There is no escape for me.”

“Do you fear me?” he asked.

“Yes, Master,” I said. How small, helpless, and weak I felt, kneeling before him. I was a scion of a far world kneeling before a Gorean master.

“It is well,” he said, “that a slave fear her master.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“You well humiliated me in the camp of Genserich,” he said, “with the tortures of the provocative slave girl.”

“Forgive me, Master,” I said.

“The men of Genserich were much amused,” he said.

“I was angry,” I said. “You had turned away from me! You had scorned me. I hated you. I wanted to make you suffer! I wanted to have my vengeance on you!”

“You do not seem so forward, so bold, so impudent, so insolent now,” he said.

“I am not, Master,” I said. “Is it true you bought me?”

“Yes,” he said.

“May I inquire for what sum?”

“You vain she-tarsk,” he said.

“Master Axel paid a gold tarsk for Asperiche,” I said. “Perhaps you were as keen to buy Laura.”

“Do not flatter yourself,” he said.

“What did you pay?” I asked.

“The standard Pani price for changing the collar of a camp slave,” he said. “Two silver tarsks.”

“There was no bidding or negotiation?” I said.

“No,” he said. “They assumed, of course, that I would participate in the voyage. Otherwise they would not have sold you, and, I suppose, would have slain me.”

“That is more than forty-eight copper tarsks,” I said.

“More than four times as much,” he said, “as Brundisium counts tarsks.” I knew there were considerable differences in coinages from city to city. Gorean polities are fiercely independent, and many are substantially isolated from the others. That is why money changers commonly rely on scales, at least for gold and silver. For example, in some cities there are eight tarsk-bits to a copper tarsk, and in others, such as Brundisium, a major commercial port, a hundred tarsk-bits to a copper tarsk. These divisions, it seems, might facilitate subtle distinctions in pricing and trading.

“What would I go for on the open market?” I asked.

“It would depend on the market, and season, and the supply, and such,” he said. “There is no simple answer to that. But I would suppose, in an average market, you might go for two and a half silver tarsks.”

“So much?” I said.

“Possibly,” he said.

“It seems then,” I said, “that I have become more beautiful.”

“Women do, in the collar,” he said.

“And how high might you have gone if the bidding were close, and fierce?”

“That is my business,” he said.

“As high as a gold tarsk?” I asked.

“Do you think me weak?” he asked.

“Not at all,” I said.

“I could have bought you in Brundisium,” he said. “I might have kept you for myself, even before Brundisium.”

“But you did not,” I said.

“No,” he said.

“Why did you not do so?” I asked.

“I do not know,” he said.

“I do not understand,” I said.

“What had happened?” he asked. “What had you done to me?”

“Nothing, Master!” I said.

“Was there some spell in this, some drug?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said.

“Why was it that I wanted you so?” he asked.

“I do not know,” I said.

“To be sure,” he said, “I thought you would look well in ropes, and a collar. Else you, a confused Earth slut, knowing nothing of your place, and your nature, would not have been brought to Gor. You should have been left to pine and languish in your shallow, tepid world, left, if anything, to the timid, polite, fumbling attentions of psychologically emasculated pseudomales, conditioned from infancy to disown their own nature, and deny their own blood, the creatures of a pathological world where nature and truth are against the law, against laws brought into being by those who would deny both truth and nature.”

“It is a great honor,” I said, “for a woman of my world, such a world, to be adjudged worthy of a Gorean collar.”

“‘Worthy’?” he said.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said.

“Do you think you, a woman of your world, any woman of your world, is worthy to be the slave of a Gorean male?”

“No, Master,” I said. “We, the women of my world, so taught and conditioned, so shallow and trivialized, are not even worthy to be the slaves of Gorean males.”

“Still,” he said, “you look well on the block, and in chains.”

“It is our hope that our masters will be pleased with us,” I said.

“One does not need a worthy slave,” he said, “only a beautiful slave, however unworthy, from whom we will require much work and from whom we will derive much pleasure.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“It is common, of course, for a man to desire a slave,” he said.

“And for a slave to desire a master,” I said.

“You know I followed you from Brundisium,” he said.

“On the dock at Shipcamp,” I said, “seeing you, I had hoped for as much.”

“‘Hoped’?” he said.

“I wanted you as my master,” I said, “from the first moment I fled from you.”

“Liar!” he said.

“No, Master!” I said.

“I do not understand these things,” he said angrily, his fist clenched. “Am I a fool, a joke, a weakling, a traitor to codes?” He looked down at me, and I was frightened. Why was he angry, so angry? I feared his fury? What had I done? Did this have to do with him, or with me, or both? How dark was his visage, how twisted his frown!

“You are a mere slave,” he said, “a mere slave!”

“Yes, Master,” I said, uncertainly.

“You are worthless,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“No different from countless others,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said, frightened.

“And yet,” he said, “how I have fought the wanting of you!”

“Master?” I said.

“How I tried to drive the thought of you from my mind! What storms of hate and denial I invoked to banish you from my heart! Was not the thought of you, or your image, in the corners of darkened rooms, in clouds, everywhere, in rain, in shimmering leaves, in high, green, bending grass? What had you done to me, you, merely another meaningless Earth female, branded and collared, brought to our markets? Yet I would own you! I was driven to own you, and be your master! What tides and currents bore me to seek you out! Do you think I can forgive you what you have done to me, you only a slave and I a free man! So I have followed you, and I have pursued you, from a far world, from Brundisium, even into the dark, green, trackless terrors of the northern forests, to get a chain on you, to get you to my feet, as mine! Can you wonder why I hate you so, hate you for what you have done to me, for what you have made me?”

“On the great ship,” I said, “I have heard there are two major holds for housing the public slaves, the Venna hold and the Kasra hold.”

“So?” he said.

“In which hold would I have been housed?” I asked.

“The Kasra hold is on a lower deck,” he said. “The better slaves are housed on the next deck, the Venna deck, in the Venna hold. Asperiche, were she a public slave, would have been housed in the Venna hold, and you in the Kasra hold.”

“I see,” I said.

“Does it make no difference to you,” he asked, “what you have made me, what you have done to me?”

“Naturally I am concerned,” I said. “You hold the whip.”

“What power,” he said, angrily, “lies in that small, soft, curved body of yours, in an ankle, a shoulder, the movement of a hand, a lifting of the head, a glance, the soft, brightness of eyes, the tremor of a lip.”

“A slave cannot help what she is,” I said.

“Is it nothing to you,” he asked, “that you have wrenched my heart, that you have tormented my nights and distressed my days, that you have half torn me out of myself with desire?”

“A slave does not object to being wanted,” I said.

“What power you have!” he cried, angrily.

“I have no power,” I said. “I am before you, on my knees.”

He howled with rage, and seized up his pack, and from it, to my alarm, drew forth a whip. He hurled it from him, perhaps fifty or more feet. “Fetch it,” he said, “as a whip is fetched!”

I crawled to the whip on all fours, and put down my head, and took the long handle, it is made to be held in two hands, just behind the blades, in my teeth, turned about, and returned to him, on all fours, and lifted my head to him, the whip between my teeth.

When he had taken the whip from me, I knelt, in position, back on heels, back straight, belly in, shoulders back, head up, hands down, palms down, on my thighs, my knees spread, as befitted the sort of slave I had learned I was.

“I think,” I said, lifting my head to him, “Master cares for a slave.”

He lifted the whip, and I feared he would strike me. His hand wavered, with anger, and then he lowered it. His scowl was fierce. I had not meant to anger him. I had not meant to insult, or demean, him. Was it so unthinkable that a free man might care for a slave? Was he to be ridiculed by his peers, and scorned by free women? If a man might care for a sleen or kaiila, why not for a female slave? But no, I thought, the female slave is different. She is to be despised, scorned, and held in contempt, for she is a female slave.

He thrust the whip roughly to my lips.

I was frightened.

Surely that was not the action of one who might care for a slave. How foolish had been my remark. Did I not know I was a female slave?

“Have you not been trained?” he asked.

I began to attend to the whip, kissing and licking it. I did this softly, slowly, tenderly, carefully, humbly, deferentially, and, I fear, seductively.

When he drew back the whip, I leaned back, and waited, in position.

If a girl does not do this well, she must expect to be whipped.

To my relief, he replaced the tool of discipline, unopened and unapplied, back in his pack.

The ritual of kissing the whip can be a lovely ritual. In it, one acknowledges one’s submission, one’s subjection to the mastery. It can be very beautiful. The whip itself, of course, is a symbol of the mastery. As the whip, however, had been so rudely put to my lips I had no difficulty in gathering that my supposition that a master might care for a slave had borne little resemblance to reality. Indeed, that action had been more an expression of annoyance, or contempt, an indication that a master might disapprove of, and fail to tolerate, an unwarranted presumptuousness on the part of a property, a mere beast.

I should have known better.

“Do you think a slave is to be cared for?” he asked.

“Forgive me, Master,” I said.

“A slave,” he said, “is to be dominated, mastered, used, worked, and put to one’s pleasure, until she weeps and screams with need.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“You should be whipped,” he said.

“Lash me then,” I said, “that I may the better know myself yours.”

“I have said things I did not wish to say, but had to say,” he said. “I have spoken truths which have alarmed and shamed me. I have acknowledged a mighty wanting of you, fierce as the tides of Thassa, and as irresistible and inalterable, that I have fought to free myself from this inexplicable, terrible wanting, and have failed to do so. My intentions vanished like smoke, my resolve collapsed. I must have you. I would not rest until you were mine. I must own you. And you, stupid Earth slut, dare to speak of caring? Rather, tremble, and speak of owning, mastering, and possessing, yes, possessing, as any object, article, or animal may be possessed. For that is what you are, and only that, an object, article, and animal, and that is what you will be, that, and only that, in my collar! Yes, you are desired, you are wanted, but you are desired, and wanted, as what you are, a slave, a worthless, meaningless slave!”

“Yes, Master,” I said. I saw that he would be my master. But what slave would want it otherwise?

“Do you wish to be a free woman?” he asked.

“No, Master,” I said. “I am a slave. It is what I want to be.”

“That is unfortunate,” he said. “If you wished to be a free woman, it would be pleasant to keep you as the most abject of slaves.”

“I think, Master,” I said, “that such a woman would soon beg to be kept as your slave, and fear only that you might sell her.”

“It is interesting,” he said, “the effect of a collar on a woman.”

“We belong in it,” I said.

“I hate you,” he said.

“I will try to please you,” I said.

“I will own you as few slaves have been owned,” he said.

“And it is thus that I would be owned,” I said.

“I have waited long,” he said, “that you would be mine.”

“And I,” I said, “that I would be yours.”

“We shall trek,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said.

He turned about, and suddenly stiffened. His head was up. I looked, too. He shaded his eyes. I did not see it immediately. Then I saw it. It was a dot in the sky, in the distance. “Into the brush,” he said, curtly. I rose to my feet, and hurried into the brush to the side, from which, earlier, Master Axel had emerged. My master seized up his pack, and, in a moment, had joined me. We crouched down.

“He is probably back scouting,” he said, “looking for stragglers, deserters.”

“Perhaps only to see if the ship is followed?” I said.

“Remain motionless,” he said.

I regretted that my tunic was white. How much better would have been the skins of Panther Women which would have blended with the background, the branches, the shadows, and foliage.

He removed his dagger from its sheath, and held it, lightly, by the tip of the blade.

“Do not move,” he said.

I had seen men playing near the dock, hurling knives into an upright plank or post. A tiny circle is drawn on the target, and the winner is he whose blade comes closest to the center of that circle.

Some Ihn later we saw the shadow of the giant saddlebird pass.

“He is gone,” I said.

“No,” he said.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Upriver, circling Shipcamp, the ruins of the dock, of the stockade, who knows.”

“Would it not be best for us to be on our way?” I said.

“Not yet,” he said.

“He is on tarnback,” I said. “He could not follow us in the forest.”

“If he detects us,” he said. “He could report our existence, our approximate location.”

“Do you think he will land?” I asked.

“I do not think so,” he said. “Stragglers, deserters, fugitives would be dangerous men.”

“He may land,” I said.

“It would be for the best if he does not,” he said.

“You would kill him?” I said.

“Or he us,” he said.

“I am afraid,” I said.

“Let him be afraid,” he said.

“Where is he?” I asked, again.

“I do not know,” he said.

Four Ehn or so passed.

I looked up, frightened.

“Do not move!” he said.

There was a blast of wind which shook the brush about us. The great bird had descended, not yards from us, on the beach.

I had never been this close to a tarn before, not even on the training field east of Tarncamp, en route to Shipcamp. How small the man appeared next to this terrible, winged monster, its broad wings restless, its head, with its fearful beak, high above the beach, moving alertly about, the large, wicked, round, shining, black eyes.

The rider descended the mounting ladder, and looked about himself, warily.

I saw my master half rise, and his hand drawn back, the knife held lightly by its tip. The usual cast with such a knife is overhand, with a powerful snap of the wrist. But the distance, I feared, was much too far for either accuracy or a suitable penetration. The men near the dock, who played the knife game, sometimes gambling on its outcome, threw not even half the distance.

“He does not wear the gray of the Pani’s cavalry,” I said.

“He would be of the cavalry, but not on the cavalry’s business,” said my master.

“On whose business then?” I asked.

“On that of the Shipcamp conspirators,” said my master. “Better then that the uniform not be worn.”

“What is he doing?” I asked.

“I fear,” said my master, “searching for me. It is I who carry the live ost in my hand.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

The tarnsman made his way to the two small boats tied up on the beach. He examined them, but, one supposes, found them of little interest, two boats left there, apparently abandoned on the beach. He did lift and cast aside the tarpaulin which had been in the boat brought by Axel, which had covered the unconscious form of Asperiche. He then threw three oars out into the river, and, with the remaining oar, punched an opening in the bottom of each boat, following which he thrust them out into the current, and then hurled the last oar after them. He then turned about, and, again, regarded the beach, east and west, and then, again, he looked out, into the brush, to the south.

I muchly feared he would see us.

“We should have freed the boats,” said my master.

“They would seem abandoned,” I said. “They lack goods, and supplies; they give no indication of preparation for flight.”

“Let us hope he judges the matter so,” he said.

“Do you recognize him?” I asked.

“No,” said my master, “but I fear it is a man of Tyrtaios.”

I shuddered. “I have heard him spoken of,” I said. Men usually spoke of him in whispers.

“My absence on the great ship may have been noted,” he said.

“Surely not so soon,” I said.

The tarnsman then climbed the mounting ladder, and drew it up, fastening it in its place.

He gave one last, long, sweeping glance about him.

“What a fool I am,” whispered my master.

“My master is no fool,” I said. I had long sensed he was a man not only of formidable size and strength, and virility, and desire, but of formidable intellect, as well. I would have been frightened to lie to him, not simply because I was a slave but because I had the sense I would be helplessly transparent to him, that he could simply look through me and immediately discern in me the least particle of deceit or dissimulation. Also, he might, without a second thought, put the liar’s brand in my thigh, marking me as a mendacious kajira.

The tarnsman drew on one of the straps, threaded through its ring, and the huge bird screamed, and smote the air with those great wings, scattering sand and pebbles about, and was into the air, low, several feet over the river.

“No,” said my master, “a fool! Did you not see he carried, slung at the saddle, a crossbow, and quarrels?”

“I did not notice,” I said.

“If our tarnsmen had been about,” he said, “that fellow could not have come within fifty pasangs of Shipcamp. He would have been slain over the forest or the river.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“Our tarnsmen,” he said, “are differently armed. They carry the short, horn-reinforced saddle bow. It is a powerful bow, capable of rapid fire, like any string bow, and is designed for use from a saddle, which it may easily clear, from any side, or front and back.”

“I did notice,” I said, “the broad leather pad before the saddle, and the rings at the saddle’s side.”

“What do you think they are for, pretty barbarian?” he asked.

“I do not know, Master,” I said.

“The pad,” he said, “is useful for stretching a stripped captive over, on her back, belly up, her wrists crossed and tied to a ring on one side of the saddle, and her ankles crossed and tied to a ring on the other side.”

“I see,” I said, uneasily.

“She may then, in the leisure of flight, if the tarnsman wishes, be caressed into submission.”

“I see,” I said.

“At the conclusion of the flight,” he said, “she is ready for the iron.”

“Doubtless,” I said.

“And the rings on the side of the saddle,” he said, “and they are on both sides, are useful for tying stripped women.”

“I see,” I said.

“It is not unusual for tarnsmen to raid for females,” he said.

“To be made slaves?” I said.

“Certainly,” he said, “is that not what females are for?”

“Some, at least,” I said, “surely.”

“Such as you,” he said.

“Yes, Master,” I said, “such as I.” Even as a young girl, I had longed for a master, and the chains of a slave.

“I am pleased,” I said, “that the tarnsman withdrew.”

“And I, as well,” he said.

“You were too far away to strike him,” I said. “You would have had to rush upon him, sword drawn, and hope he had no time to react.”

“I had the knife,” he said, puzzled.

“I have seen the men play by the dock,” I said. “He was too far away, and the penetration, at the distance, would be insufficient, even if the blade reached him.”

“I had no idea,” he said, “that you understood so much of these things.”

“I watched,” I said.

“And now,” he said, “you will watch again.”

“Master?” I said.

“Stand before that tree,” he said, “face me, and do not move.”

“This tree?” I said, uneasily.

“That will do,” he said.

“Should I not face the tree,” I asked, “and my arms be bound about it, that I may be conveniently whipped?”

“You are not to be whipped, kajira,” he said, “at least not at the moment, however richly your smooth skin invites the lash.”

“What is Master going to do?” I asked.

He strode away from me.

“Am I as far now,” he called, “as was the tarnsman on the beach?”

“Farther,” I called back. “What is Master going to do?”

He slipped his dagger from the sheath.

“Do not, Master!” I cried.

“Do not fear,” he said. “How could the blade even reach you from this far, and, if it could, how could it produce an efficient wound?”

I saw his hand draw back.

“Do not!” I cried.

“Remain in place,” he said. “Do not move. You are in no danger, unless you move.”

“Please, no, Master!” I called.

“The blade,” he said, “will enter the wood three to five horts from your throat, on the left. If it is easier, close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes, trembling. It seemed I had them closed for a long time, though I would suppose the interval was actually quite short. I had just decided that he, mercifully, had decided not to cast the knife after all, when there was, close, to my left, at the level of my throat, a sudden, firm, unmistakable sound, like the slap of metal driven into wood, followed by the tremor of a briefly quivering blade.

I opened my eyes just long enough to catch sight of the handle still vibrating, a hand’s breadth from my throat, and then, I fear, I slumped into unconsciousness at the foot of the tree.