undeniably confirmed at the party. Under Nora’s switch, she clad in regalia akin to that of the Gorean free woman, I actually camisked at her feet, I had cringed as the slave I was, being beaten. I had feared her afterwards, on my former world, and even here, on Gor, as Mistress, and knew myself fittingly a slave at her feet, or at the feet of any such as she. I wept at my work. How cruel she was! How helpless I was! Surely she must understand that I was trying to please her, and was striving desperately to do so. Could she never be satisfied? Could she not understand I was no longer what I had been, her haughty, pretentious, shallow, despised rival, Miss Allison Ashton-Baker, but was now only a humbled, helpless kajira at her mercy?
“Allison,” said a voice.
I went immediately to my belly on the wet, slick floor. I was terribly frightened. “Please do not beat me, Mistress!” I begged.
“How is the task proceeding?” she asked.
“I have not yet finished!” I said, trembling.
“That is obvious,” she said. “When was the task to be finished?”
“The Fourteenth Ahn,” I said.
“It is past that time,” she said.
“I have not even begun to rinse the floor, Mistress,” I said.
“That is obvious,” she said. “Do you think you could finish by the Seventeenth Ahn?”
“Yes, Mistress!” I said.
“Do not dally,” she said.
“No, Mistress!” I said.
“Have you pleased men?” she asked.
“As they have summoned me,” I said.
“Have they been pleased?” she asked.
“It is my hope that they have been pleased,” I said. “I have striven to please them.”
“Have slave fires begun to burn in your belly?” she asked.
“A little, Mistress,” I said.
“I see,” she said.
“I cannot help myself, Mistress!” I said.
“Have you been in the hands of Kleomenes?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
I went to my knees before her, as was appropriate, for she was first girl. I looked up. She touched her collar, dreamily.
“Mistress?” I said.
“We are all kajirae, Allison,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“Am I beautiful?” she asked.
“Extremely beautiful, Mistress!” I said.
“Today,” she said, “I was put to the slave ring of Kleomenes.”
“Chained?” I said.
“Of course,” she said.
“Your beauty would grace any ring,” I said.
“Do you think so?” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
“I have been severe with you, Allison,” she said. “Tomorrow you will be unshackled. Tomorrow it will be with you, as with the others.”
“Mistress!” I exclaimed.
I threw myself to my belly before her on the wet floor, and pressed my lips to her feet, again and again. My eyes were flooded with tears. “Thank you!” I said. “Thank you, Mistress!”
“There is to be no slacking in your work,” she said, “or in the pleasures you give the masters. If I am not satisfied, or if I hear complaints, you will lashed, and well.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said. “Thank you, Mistress!”
“Now return to your work,” she said, “and do not dally.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said, and seized up the brush, immersed it in the soapy water, and bent again to my task.
“I will have Jane and Eve hold a plate for you,” she said.
“Thank you, Mistress,” I said.
The strokes are to be firm, and circular.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Lord Grendel!” I exclaimed.
He lifted his head, behind the heavy bars, but did not otherwise acknowledge my outburst.
A Kur guard crouched, as though somnolent, a few feet behind me, near the gated portal through which I had been admitted to the place of cells, the prison area, bearing the tray of food and drink. It was my first visit to this place.
“What are you doing here, Lord Grendel?” I asked. “The Lady Bina is in this place. Others, too. Where have you been? What has happened to you? I do not understand. I am sure the Lady Bina would desire to speak with you. I have seen the blind Kur in a feast room, but not you. How is it you are here?”
I heard sounds of Kur from the guard. They had a hint of menace about them. Though the guard seemed quiescent, even distant, I knew that those huge shaggy forms, sometimes almost like an enormous ball of muscle and fur with eyes, could spring alive in an instant, raging and snarling.
With an easy movement, and an extension of his long arm, the guard, turning about, unhooked a translator hanging on its chain of iron links from a peg on the wall behind him.
Again I heard some sounds in Kur, to my ears still little more than a bestial rumbling, reminiscent of sounds which one might expect from something like a larl, or sleen, but, oddly enough, different, seemingly articulated. Shortly thereafter, I heard, in Gorean, “You need not speak to him, kajira. He cannot understand you, he has no translator.”
“Yes, Master,” I said. “Thank you, Master. Forgive me, Master.”
The tray I bore was heavy.
The guard, who now had the translator slung about his neck, presumably that it might be convenient, as I was about, reached back and, with a small mallet, removed from a peg, struck a hanging bar, which emitted a sharp, clear note, in response to which signal a second Kur shortly appeared at the portal and, the gate open, entered. He carried a large bow-like device, with four tiered, horizontally placed quarrel guides, each guide containing its missile. There were four triggers on the device. The slotted quarrels were heavy, and of iron, almost like short javelins. The four cable tensions, tiered, were such that I supposed few but a Kur could have readied the weapon. It seemed to me a terrible weapon, one which might splinter beams, perhaps shatter rocks, but, also, I supposed that it complied with the weapon laws of the Priest-Kings. It was, in its way, a form of complex crossbow. It would have been difficult for a human to lift, and, if it were not mounted, to fire.
The guard, backed now by the second Kur, the armed Kur, motioned that Lord Grendel should retreat to the rear of his cell, which he did. The gate to the cell was then opened and I entered, bearing the tray. I put it down on the floor toward the center of the cell. Lord Grendel’s eyes watched me, closely. I knew he required no translator to understand me, and I knew, too, he could speak, in his way, Gorean. Clearly these things were not understood by the guard.
As I was preparing to withdraw, Lord Grendel said something in Kur to the guard.
The guard stood at the gate to the cell. I tried to slip past him, but was prevented from doing so. “Master?” I said.
“The prisoner would be groomed,” said the guard, by means of the translator. “Do you know how to groom?”
