The slaves were now being aligned again, at the foot of the ramp.
The fire on the wharf was roaring, some seventy yards to the east, only several yards away, now, from the stern of the great ship.
A spark stung my cheek.
“These slaves,” I said, “appear to be held in a splendidly effective custody.”
“That is not unusual, is it not?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Not really.” Still, for the latitude, the menace of the forest, and such, I was surprised at the precautions, the hoods, and a coffle not of rope, but of iron collars and chain. One would suppose that they might have been slaves in a city, or women of some value or importance.
Too, as their hands were doubtless fastened behind their backs, given the other arrangements, I supposed their hands would be fastened behind them not with thongs, cord, or rope, but metal, that their small wrists would be enclosed snugly in linked, steel circlets, in slave bracelets, designed to be put on women.
Some of the slaves wept, and cried out with pain, recoiling in their tethering, stung by sparks from the fire.
The fellow who had been in the bow looked back at the fire and then drew on the chain leash, and the first girl, whimpering, was drawn forward, she followed then by the others.
The ramp, with its slope, would be easily negotiated by the coffle.
The first girl was now on the ramp.
I saw that my conjecture as to the girls’ wrist fastenings was correct. The hands of each were pinioned behind them in steel, in slave bracelets, and, I noted, in close-linked slave bracelets.
Before the first girl reached the top of the ramp, her progress was arrested, by a whip held to her bosom.
The girls were then all on the ramp, standing.
They began to shiver and tremble, but were not allowed to proceed.
“Why have they been stopped?” I asked Lord Nishida.
“My instructions,” he said.
“It is bitterly cold by the river,” I said. “Why are they naked?”
“That they may better learn they are slaves,” he said.
I gathered then that these were new slaves. Once a girl has been a slave for a time, she has well learned she is a slave.
“What do you think of them?” asked Lord Nishida.
“You had better get them inside,” I said. “You do not wish to lose them from exposure.”
“What do you think of them?” he asked, again.
“It is hard to tell,” I said, “as they are hooded.”
“Of course,” said Lord Nishida.
“Their figures are superb,” I said.
“They are not Pani,” said Lord Nishida, “but all are comely.”
“Collar-girls?” I said.
“Perfectly so,” he said.
I considered the girls. One could not determine their features, of course, for the hoods, but their figures, their slave curves, were fully worthy of a Gorean block. Not one of the slaves, I was sure, was more than five feet six inches in height. Each was slender enough, but not in the Earth sense. Each, rather, had the exciting body of the genetically honed slave of men, the typical body of the natural human female, deliciously seizable, and lusciously curved, curves selected for, turned on the lathe of masculine lust, for centuries, the sort of female body hunted, sought, prized, enslaved, and sold for millennia. The typical Gorean male is a natural male, ambitious, possessive, energetic, powerful, a master. It is no wonder then that his taste, as is evidenced in his buyings and huntings, runs to the natural female, she whom nature has appointed to him as his proper slave.
“You do not think Gorean males would be disappointed in them?” I said.
“Certainly not,” he said, “nor Pani.”
“Excellent,” I said. “Now perhaps you might put the stock inside.”
“Do you notice, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” he asked, “anything of particular interest about the second to the last slave on the coffle?”
“No,” I said. “She does have one of the better figures.”
Lord Nishida gestured to the coffle master, and he drew his whip away from the bosom of the first girl. He then said, “Proceed,” and the coffle ascended the ramp and disappeared inside the great ship.
“Do not fear, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” he said. “They will be warmly bedded within. There will be an abundance of straw in each stall, within which each will be chained by the neck.”
I nodded.
I suspected then that Saru had probably been similarly quartered.
I wondered why Lord Nishida had asked me about the second girl from the end of the coffle. She had had one of the better figures. Too, interestingly, there had been something familiar about her slave flanks.
“The fire approaches,” said Pertinax. “Let us board.”
The third whistle, insistently, almost frantically, sounded from the stern castle.
Pertinax and I followed Lord Nishida aboard. Behind us came some other fellows, some Pani, some oarsmen, and such. Several docksmen freed the great ship from its moorings and, as the ropes were drawn upward, leaped to the ramp, and assisted in drawing it inboard. Shortly thereafter, the large side port was raised and closed. Aboard, the port closed, I sensed the ship begin to move.
I recollected the slave brought to my attention by Lord Nishida. There had seemed something familiar about her slave flanks.
Then I dismissed the thoughts of the slave from my mind. She was only another slave.
I made my way upward, from deck to deck, emerged onto the open deck, and went aft, to the stern castle.
The wharf behind us was raging with fire.
The ship was safe.
She, caught in the slow current, had begun her journey down the Alexandra.
I watched for a time from the stern castle, seeing the beauty of the river, and the forests slipping behind, to each side, and then I made my way to my cabin, where Cecily would be waiting.
Gorean men have what they want from women.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Tajima brought the tarn down, expertly, to the stem castle of the ship, and leapt from the saddle.
He cast the guide straps to a tarnster, who then conducted the bird, with its stately gait, toward the large descent way to the in-ship cots.
Tajima, sent to reconnoiter, had been awaited by Lord Nishida. I was present.
“Speak,” said Lord Nishida.
“They are waiting for us,” said Tajima.
“What of the sky?” I asked.
“The skies are clear,” said Tajima. “Ten would have opposed us, five were killed, and five fled. It seems they have learned little.”
I gathered that few tarnsmen cared to meet with the cavalry after the battle of Tarncamp. I suspected we had crippled, or reduced, the intelligence of the enemy. Their tarn scouts had been routinely dealt with, removed from the sky or driven toward the coast, pasangs before our passage. Doubtless some had reconnoitered by night. I wondered if their reports would be believed at the coast. Some may have been in the forest, along the shore, but, on foot, in our passage downriver, in its steadiness, we would have been likely to have outdistanced them. Some
