“Please, stop, Master!” I said.
“You must have a use fee,” he mumbled, the words now blurred against my bared shoulder.
“Oh!” I said.
“Ah!” he said, triumphantly.
“Please, stop, Master!” I begged.
“You want it, slut,” he said.
“Please release me, Master,” I said.
“Do you resist?” he asked.
“I may not,” I wept. “I am a slave.”
“Do you doubt that I could make you leap to my touch?” he growled.
“No, no,” I said. I knew any man could do this to me. I was kajira.
How defenseless we are, in our collars!
“You do not own me!” I said.
“Who will dispute my use?” he said. “A woman, a Metal Worker?”
“Honor, honor!” I said.
“Honor,” said he, “is for fools.”
I was miserable, and his hands were strong, and I was kajira!
“Allison,” said a voice, pleasantly. “You have torn your tunic.”
I pulled away from Trachinos, and slipped to the side. I held the tunic, as I could, about me.
Trachinos had turned about, angrily, to see Desmond of Harfax.
“Be off,” growled Trachinos, “Metal Worker.”
Desmond of Harfax was unarmed. Trachinos, claimedly of Turia, had his blade at his left hip, suspended from the belt slung over his right shoulder.
“Do you find her pleasant to hold?” inquired Desmond. “I would think she would be such.”
“Go,” said Trachinos.
“It is not I alone with whom you might deal,” said Desmond, “but with Lykos, and Astrinax, and perhaps others.”
“Others?” said Trachinos, uneasily.
“I believe so,” said Desmond, politely.
I noted that Akesinos, lean and swarthy, as though from nowhere, was now in the background, rather behind Desmond. His shadow, however, was on the wagon, so I am sure that Master Desmond was aware of his presence. I supposed he was not so much concerned to conceal his presence as to have Desmond placed between him and Trachinos. One can face in only one direction at a time.
“What is her use fee?” asked Trachinos, angrily.
I suspected Trachinos was unwilling to bring his enterprise, his band in the hills, to a premature closure, thus perhaps precluding an access to a greater wealth, one which might await a more patient man.
“That would have to be arranged,” said Desmond, “with the Lady Bina, but I think I can speak for her, and that she would support my recommendations in the matter.”
“So?” said Trachinos.
“For most,” said Desmond, “I would suppose her use fee should be a tarsk-bit. Unfortunately there is no smaller coin. Perhaps one might split a tarsk-bit in two.”
I backed against the wagon, clutching my tunic to me. The boards were rough and hot.
How angry I was!
How I hated Desmond of Harfax! Was I, the former Allison Ashton-Baker, worth so little?
To be sure, she was now only kajira.
A tarsk-bit is not unheard of for a use, but the use would presumably be brief, as, say, for a coin girl, used on the stones of a street. It might be two or three tarsk-bits if one is going to keep a girl for the evening. To be sure, a slave may be rented for a day, or two or three, at some negotiated rate. Sometimes this is done to try out a prospective slave, to see if she is worth buying. If she wishes to be bought, she is zealous to please her rent master. If she is bought, and is truly owned, she may be sure that her former rent master, now her owner, will see to it that she is now held to standards of performance which she had scarcely dared to conjecture might exist when she was a mere rent girl. This is to be expected, of course, as he then owns her. The rent fee, incidentally, is often applied to the purchase fee. Apparently this encourages sales.
“A tarsk-bit then,” said Trachinos.
“For most,” said Desmond of Harfax, “but for you, a golden tarn disk, of double weight.”
Trachinos smiled.
“It is not that I think her worth that, of course,” said Desmond. “I would suppose her use worth would be something like a quarter or an eighth of a tarsk-bit, if that. Indeed, one would be embarrassed to charge anything for the use of such a slave, so inferior she is, but it is, rather, that, this afternoon, I do not feel disposed to deal with fellows from Turia.”
“I am not from Turia,” said Trachinos.
“You said you were,” said Desmond.
“Teletus,” he said.
“I see,” said Desmond.
“So?” said Trachinos.
“And I am even less disposed to deal with liars,” said Desmond of Harfax.
The blade of Trachinos leapt from its sheath.
I screamed.
At that moment, from somewhere on the other side of the wagons, I heard Jane scream, and Astrinax cry out, “Tarsk, tarsk!”
Trachinos turned about, startled.
I heard something, several things, seemingly large things, scrambling, and grunting and squealing, descending the hillside on the other side of the wagon.
“Into the wagon!” said Desmond.
Something from the other side buffeted the wagon, and it tipped toward us, and I heard a squeal, angry and piercing. Then, emerging from under the wagon, half lifting the wagon with its passage, was a large, hairy, humped, four-footed form, shaggy and immense, and it sped past. The wagon righted itself. I had had a glimpse of tiny, reddish eyes, a wide head, and a flash of four curved, white tusks, two like descending knives, two like raised knives, on each side of a wide, wet jaw.
Trachinos ran to the left, and Akesinos darted to the first wagon, and drew himself within.
“Into the wagon!” cried Desmond.
Dust was all about.
I coughed. It was hard to see.
The tharlarion had been unharnessed.
Master Desmond seized me by the upper right arm and right ankle, and thrust me into the wagon, over the wood, under the canvas, and I found myself on all fours, over the central bar. In a moment he was beside me.
The wagon shook, as it was struck again.
I heard Eve scream. She was sheltering herself behind the first wagon.
The wagons for the most part divided the running tarsk, like rocks dividing a stream.
These were the first Voltai tarsk I had seen. Though they were shorter and squatter, they were like small bosk. Several might have come to my shoulder. The wagon, struck, tipped again, and I cried out, but it settled back into place. Then it was half turned about, in a swirl of dust. There had been a splintering of wood. The wagon tongue had been half snapped apart.
Desmond of Harfax lifted the canvas and peered out.
I could see past him.
Suddenly a new form came bounding down the hillside, scattering rocks, and I put down my head as a bipedalian tharlarion, mounted by a brightly capped, lance-bearing rider, literally leapt over the wagon, and landed on the far side.
“Hunters,” said Desmond.
