“Yes,” I said.
He then drew twice more on the leash, quickly, firmly, and his hooded charge stumbled toward him. They were then standing quite close to one another. She must have sensed his nearness, for she trembled. She was, after all, a woman, quite close to a male. This doubtless made her uneasy. Too, he was a large male, and, indeed, one considerably larger than she. Then she steeled herself, with the stiffness of the free woman. He coiled the leash, and then held it, some four inches from her throat, and jerked her chin up, so that her head was lifted to him. Had she not been hooded and had dared to open her eyes, she would have found herself, close on the leash, looking into his eyes.
“Wait!” she said to him. “Wait! I shall see to it that you are punished, as well.”
Pertinax then loosened the leash, and stepped back from her, some seven or eight feet away.
“Yes,” she said, sensing his withdrawal, “keep your distance!”
The leash looped up from his hand to her neck.
She stood there, confident, now that he had retreated.
“They are right,” said Pertinax to her.
“What?” she said.
“Your dress is quite short,” he said.
She cried out with rage.
“She has pretty legs, does she not?” asked Pertinax.
“Yes,” I said. “They are very nice.” Indeed, that was one of the reasons I had shortened her tunic on the beach. Certainly that would improve her disguise, would it not? Too, slave girls often have lovely legs. That is doubtless one of the things slavers have in mind when they select them.
“We should be on our way,” said Tajima.
I joined him, keeping a soft hand on Cecily’s leash. I also allowed her a comfortable margin of slack. In this fashion, the slave is nicely guided, and she is, of course, never out of the control of the master. A hard hand on the leash is normally used only with a captured free woman or a new slave. The leash is considerably shortened, of course, if there is danger in the vicinity, say, animals, or uneven ground, or water about, or one is in a crowd, or such. In cities, sometimes display leashes are used, of colored leather, of beaded, even jeweled, leather, or of light, closely meshed lengths of chain, sometimes of silver or gold. Most leashes, on the other hand, are little more than functional, and usually of brown or black leather. Metal leashes are common if one wishes to chain the girl to a slave ring, a convenience with which Gorean buildings and streets are usually well furnished. The typical leash is long enough to permit the binding of the slave, if one should desire to do that. In walking a slave, particularly on the promenades, it is common to make certain that the leash describes a graceful curve, from the master’s hand up to the slave’s collar.
“You are from Earth,” said Tajima.
“Yes,” I said. “It is far away.”
“It is another planet,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
And it was only a moment later that I realized he had spoken in English.
Chapter Nine
“When are we to be allowed to see someone important?” asked Miss Wentworth.
“I regret my unimportance,” said Tajima.
“Go away!” said Miss Wentworth.
With a courteous bow, Tajima withdrew.
The camp was quite large.
I had expected it to lie on the northern bank of the Alexandra, but it did not. It was toward the Alexandra, but well inland.
“Someone will pay for this!” said Miss Wentworth. “I will not be kept waiting!”
“There is no ship,” said Pertinax.
“I will see that there is one!” said Miss Wentworth. “Our agreements were clear. The arrangements were clear. We completed our part of the work, and now we must be paid, and returned to Earth, with wealth, wealth!”
“There is no ship,” said Pertinax.
“We will not be betrayed!” said Miss Wentworth.
“Are we ourselves so innocent?” asked Pertinax. “Are we not, ourselves, in our way, guilty of betrayal? Did we not engage, enthusiastically and uncritically, in betrayal, pretending to be what we were not, engaging to deliver a stranger, whom we knew not, to an uncertain fate, one we did not understand, and which might, for all we knew, have proven fatal?”
In a sense, I thought, their betrayal was deeper than they understood, for they had labored, however ignorantly, in the cause of beasts, Kurii, who would covet not only Gor, but Earth, as well. In a sense they had betrayed a world, and a species.
“I think,” said Pertinax, “we have been betrayed not so much by others as by ourselves, by greed.”
“Absurd!” snapped Miss Wentworth.
“You would do anything for money,” said Pertinax.
“So, too, would anyone!” she said.
“I used to think so,” said Pertinax. “I am no longer sure of it.”
“You are a fool,” she said.
“There is no ship,” said Pertinax.
“There will be,” she said. “I will demand it!”
“Perhaps you will be successful,” he mused. “One of your smiles can twist a knife in a man’s guts. I know.”
“Yes!” she said. She laughed.
I gathered she had had little difficulty in having her way with men.
“Brew me tea,” said Miss Wentworth to Cecily.
Cecily looked to me, and I nodded.
“Yes, Mistress,” said Cecily. Cecily knew enough to address all free women as “Mistress,” and all free men as “Master.” On the other hand, having been embonded on a Steel World, that of Agamemnon, later that of Arcesilaus, an unlikely place to encounter free women, she knew little of free women, at least of a Gorean sort. The only free woman with whom she had had contact with on the Steel World had been the Lady Bina, a former Kur pet, who was less a Gorean free woman than a remarkably beautiful, ambitious, vain little animal. I had warned Cecily of free women, but I fear she took my cautions too lightly. She thought my concerns exaggerated, and disproportionate to the likely reality. In my view, however, my concerns and cautions were not excessive, but practical and judicious. She seemed to believe that since the slave and the free woman were both women that there would be a sympathy, an understanding, a rapport, between them. She knew so little. The free woman was a person; the slave was a property, an animal, and an animal which, aside from matters of social advancement, position, wealth, and status, was commonly preferred a thousand times by men to a free woman. But Cecily was highly intelligent, and she would learn quickly, if only under a free woman’s switch. Her safety, of course, would lie with men, and masters, who would to the extent practical, given a free woman’s status and prerogatives, protect her.
We were housed in a small, thatched hut.
The door of the hut was open, but it might be fastened, when one wished, with thongs.
Once in the camp, with the license of Tajima, whom we took as our mentor and guide in these matters, we had freed the girls of their impediments, removing the hoods and leashes, and then unbinding their small wrists. The wrists of women look lovely, thonged, or braceleted, or such.
“I am a free woman,” had said Miss Wentworth to Tajima, rubbing her wrists. “Bring me some decent
