“Oh!” I cried, in misery, stumbling, plunging over Marcella’s extended foot, sprawling between the benches, the platter of steaming meat flying ahead of me, meat and gravy showering about, then the platter clattering between the benches. Two or three men stood up, angrily wiping gravy and hot meat from their backs and shoulders. Marcella, simultaneously, had screamed, and turned, as though it might have been she who had been so discomfited. And I, too, screamed, but in pain, as the scalding kal-da soaked and burned through my tunic, and drenched my calves and ankles. “Clumsy slave!” cried Marcella. “You tripped me!” I cried. “I did not! You tripped me!” she screamed. Several of the masters laughed, some brushing themselves off, some others helping themselves to a three of skewered slices of the roast bosk, which they retrieved from the table, the floor, their laps. I was on my hands and knees, in pain, from the scalding, tears bursting from my eyes. Masters, I knew, did not look lightly on clumsiness in a slave. Too, to make matters worse, if they could be worse, the roast bosk was an item available only for the second ostrakon. I recalled that one of the girls in the kitchen, who had spilled porridge, had been put under the five-stranded Gorean slave lash. I had felt it once, in the house of Tenalion. “You tripped me!” I cried to Marcella. I did not want to be whipped! “You tripped me!” screamed Marcella. “No!” I cried. “Yes!” she screamed. She did not wish to be whipped either. “I saw the whole thing!” said the free woman. “That one,” she said, pointing at me, “is to blame!” “No, Mistress,” I sobbed. “That one, that one!” repeated the free woman, indicating me. I did not see how she, from her location, could have seen what occurred. I did know that she did not like me. A free woman, of course, may lie, for they are free. Marcella was lying, of course, but she had the words of a free woman spoken on her behalf. “Thank you, Mistress,” said Marcella, respectfully, much pleased at the course events were taking. I was sobbing, and still in pain. I did not want to be stripped, tied, and put under the whip. I feared the pain, and terribly, but, too, it is humiliating to be beaten for clumsiness, to be beaten as an inept slave, one who has failed to be pleasing. The slave is to be both beautiful and graceful. If she is not, let the lash instruct her. She is a slave. She is not permitted the woodenness, the awkwardness, of the free woman. “You should be sold for sleen feed!” said the free woman, coming angrily from her place, and hurrying about the table. I was still on the floor, on all fours, miserable, in pain. The boards were greasy. The tunic, in back, was wet, with warm fluid. It clung to my body. My legs hurt.
“Forgive me, Mistress!” I begged.
I felt the slipper of the free woman kick me, twice, viciously, in the left thigh. There would be marks there. I sensed she had spit upon me.
“I am sorry, Mistress!” I said. “Please, forgive me, Mistress!”
I went to my belly, in the grease and scraps, between the benches.
“Oh!” I wept, again kicked.
“Thank you, Mistress!” I said. “Thank you, Mistress!”
Should a slave not be grateful for her improvement?
“Aii!” I wept, again kicked.
“Thank you, Mistress!” I sobbed. “Thank you, Mistress!”
“What is going on here?” demanded a voice. Someone was making his way toward us, pushing, between the benches. My heart sank. It was the voice of Menon, my master. I had been several weeks in his establishment, but he seldom appeared in the kitchen. I was not sure he would remember the miserable, frightened slave purchased in the Metellan district. I struggled to my knees, held them closely together, and kept my head down.
“This slave tripped me, Master,” said Marcella, indicating me.
“Have you received permission to speak?” inquired Menon.
“No, Master,” said Marcella, turning white, dropping to her knees, head down.
“Well, Masters?” inquired Menon.
“They were passing between the benches,” said a fellow. “One of the girls tripped, and fell.”
“That one,” said the free woman, presumably indicating me, “tripped the other!”
“I see,” said Menon.
I kept my head down.
“You saw?” inquired Menon.
“Certainly,” said the free woman.
Menon turned about, a bit. I took him to be noting the place, across the table, with its dish and mug, where the free woman had been sitting.
“Did any others see?” inquired Menon.
No one volunteered to speak. Most, of course, would have had their backs turned to the aisle.
“That one,” said the free woman, presumably indicating me, “should be lashed bloody, to the bone, and fed to sleen!”
“There would not be much nourishment there,” said a fellow.
There was laughter.
I could not help it if I were slighter than many slaves, more slender. Many men, of late, I had been given to understand, did not find fault with me on this score. Certainly I had been one of the most beautiful girls in the sorority, and here, in the garmenture of slaves, what beauty I might possess, as that of other female slaves, left little to conjecture.
“Be silent!” screamed the free woman to the men.
There was silence.
I was afraid. As I was now well aware I was a female slave and what that meant on Gor, I would have been terrified to address a free man or men in that tone of voice, let alone utter words bearing such an import.
What would have been done with me?
But she was free.
There was no band on her neck.
She was not an animal.
She was not purchasable.
She was not owned.
“The house,” said Menon, “is distressed that your views have been shown less deference than they deserve.”
“You know,” said the free woman, “that she, that one, is a she-tarsk, a she-urt, a she-sleen, one who tunicks herself provocatively, who brushes against masters, who lingers in serving, who leans too closely to the diners, who puts her half-naked body before them shamelessly, who smiles so prettily, like a paga slut at the loading docks, advertising her master’s tavern.”
“And she is a barbarian, as well,” said Menon.
“Yes,” said the free woman, triumphantly. “A barbarian!”
Menon recalled I was a barbarian.
“My Home Stone,” she said, “is that of Ar.”
Menon nodded. Although his establishment was within the walls of Ar, it was not likely he shared its Home Stone. As he was of the Peasants, I supposed his Home Stone, the community stone, so to speak, not that of his domicile, would be that of some village in the environs of Ar.
“Is there no way to assuage your wrath?” asked Menon.
“No,” said the free woman.
Menon drew his pouch on its strings up from his belt, and opened it.
“No,” she said.
Menon fetched from within the pouch a handful of copper tarsk-bits.
“Perhaps,” said the free woman, “she needs only to be well lashed.”
Menon dropped the coins into the palm of the free woman.
“The master, of course,” she said, “will decide, as he pleases, what is to be the fate of a neck-banded she- tarsk.”
“Thank you, Lady,” said he.
I do not know if she looked again at me, but she hurried about the table, to her place and, a moment later, made away.
Menon was crouching near Marcella, who was shaking.
“There is a mark here,” said Menon to her, “on the outside of your right leg, above the ankle.”
Marcella said nothing.
