inquired.
“No,” she whimpered. “No!”
“No?” he said.
She cast a wild glance at Pertinax, and trembled.
“No,” she said, “-
“Slave!” cried Pertinax, in fury.
“The tarn,” said Licinius. “Quickly!”
“Very well,” I said. “Remain here. I will see to the arrangements.”
“You cannot, Tarl Cabot, tarnsman,” said Tajima. “Lord Nishida would never permit it.”
I then turned about, and left the stable, followed by Pertinax and Tajima.
Chapter Twenty-One
“On your back, slave,” said Licinius, “over the saddle, wrists and ankles crossed.”
From the commanded distance, one of several yards, we watched Licinius fasten the slave over the forward capture leather of the saddle, tethering her crossed wrists to the saddle ring to his left, and then her crossed ankles to the saddle ring to his right.
Shortly she was secured in place.
I gathered that she was not the first capture he had helplessed in such a manner.
Pertinax was distraught.
Yet, too, his eyes glistened.
Perhaps he sensed what it might be to have a woman so before him, a tethered prize, supine, across his saddle. How far then seemed the former Miss Wentworth from the corridors of power, from the cabs of Manhattan, from the large, wood-paneled offices of the investment firm. Perhaps he wondered what it might be, were she his, and the binding fiber his own.
But I feared he did not understand that she was now a slave.
“I wish you well!” called Licinius, and drew on the one-strap.
“Lord Nishida will not be pleased,” said Tajima, gloomily.
We watched the tarn ascend, and streak away, to the southeast.
“He escapes,” said Pertinax, angrily.
“No,” I said.
“No?” asked Pertinax.
“No,” I said. “The tarn will return.”
“I do not understand,” said Tajima.
“You will see,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Growling, enraged, struggling, now awakened, Licinius Lysias, he of Turmus, fought the straps which held him, hand and foot, at our feet.
The slave, lying to the side, had not yet awakened.
“Licinius,” I said, “had not eaten nor drunk in several Ahn. There was no food, no water, in the stable. He would be hungry. Worse, he would languish in thirst. Frightened, in his haste to put many pasangs between himself and the camp, he would hesitate to bring the tarn down. Too, he would suspect himself pursued. He would remain in the saddle at least until darkness.”
“The bota at the saddle,” said Tajima.
“Fresh, cool water,” I said.
“And Tassa powder,” said Tajima. “I have heard of it.”
Tassa powder is a harmless, tasteless, swift-acting drug. It is commonly used in the taking of women. It might be introduced into the parties of maidens, into the private, candle-lit suppers of high-born beauties, into the beverages of inns or vendors. Commonly the women are innocent, guilty only of their unusual attractiveness, which will bring them to the slave block. To be sure, a woman might be less innocent, and might partake of, say, wine, with a stranger, one on whom she hopes to employ her wiles to her profit, one from whom she might hope to win some favor or advantage; perhaps she regales him with some contrived tale of hardship or woe, designed to elicit coins; perhaps she merely delights in tormenting a fellow, teasing and taunting him, leading him on to dazzling expectations and hopes which she has no intention of satisfying. She exercises her presumed beauty, seductive and mysterious within her robes and veils, to gratify her vanity, or even her dislike of males, such oafish, vile brutes. There are many ways, obviously, in which a woman can torture a male. In any event, it is not altogether unknown for such a woman to awaken later, helpless, gagged and bound, hand and foot, in a slave sack, being transported from her city. One interesting case involved a woman’s intention to arrange for the capture and enslavement of a hated rival, but it was she instead who found herself stripped and chained, and was delivered to the rival as her serving slave. From a cage, naked, branded, her throat enclosed in her rival’s collar, she was permitted to watch the ceremony of her rival’s companionship with the male she had sought. Present, too, at the celebration, was he whom she had sought to enlist on her behalf, a friend unbeknownst to her from the childhood of the male companion. Drawn from the cage, she served her rival’s feast, and, later, knelt before her, nostrils pinched shut, and head held back, was forced to imbibe not the festival wine, but bitter “slave wine,” that she might, before her rival, be readied for slave usage, before being sent to the kitchen.
Similar reflections, one supposes, obtain in the cases of many women of Earth, luscious slave fruit harvested by Gorean slavers. It is not their fault that their intelligence is high, their features sensitive and exquisite, their figures shapely. Too, I suspect that the choices of slavers are not always clear to those lacking their training and skills. One supposes more is involved in such things than the turn of a hip, the rounding of a calf, or forearm, the slimness of an ankle, the slenderness of a throat, such things. Is it a way of speaking, an expression, a hesitation, a gesture, a turning of the head, a shyness, a glance, a subtle, revealing, furtive unwillingness to make eye contact when a certain word is spoken, what? There are a hundred subtle cues, readable by the experienced and skilled. Some can read the needful slave in a woman when the woman herself fears to recognize it, and, in any event, dares not reveal it. In any event, much diversity occurs in the markets, and a multitude of choices are available to buyers. Perhaps, on the whole, the women have little more in common than the fact that they are lovely, and will be sold.
To be sure, it is clearly not the case that every woman brought from Earth to the sawdust of the Gorean slave block is so innocent, guilty of no more, say, than her intelligence and beauty. Doubtless many women, both of Earth and of Gor, have been inserted on one acquisition list or another for no reason other than the fact that it has pleased some fellow that it should be so. Perhaps some behavior, or attitude, a rudeness, a glance, a hasty word, an insolence, or such, displeased a fellow, and it was decided then that the fair creature will pay for her indiscretion, the matter made clear to her while she is awaiting her first sale.
I had no doubt, for example, that it had pleased Thrasilicus to bring the former Miss Margaret Wentworth into a Gorean collar.
She had been, in my opinion, an excellent choice.
Given the number of Gorean mercenaries in the camp I had not doubted that Tassa powder would be available in the camp, and it had been. I had then had it introduced into the bota, where its presence could not be detected.
