“Aii!” had cried one of the fellows, leaping up.
In a moment I had been seized by both. I struggled in their arms. I felt myself being lifted from the floor.
“No, no!” laughed the chief instructress. “She is white-silk, white-silk!”
I was much shaken by this experience, but I had learned something of the power of the slave, for she is not without her power.
The two guards left, disgruntled. Doubtless they felt cheated. I am sure they made the instructresses pay later in the “coin of the furs,” not that the instructresses would much mind that. Indeed, I suspected I might have unwittingly figured in their plans.
“Disgusting slut, disgusting, half-naked slut!” hissed a free woman. At least she did not order me to kneel, to be beaten. They so hate us! Or so envy us? She was then away, somewhere. Actually, I was not really half-naked, as many men put their slaves into the streets, but reasonably modestly garbed, as I wore the tunic of a woman’s serving slave, to be sure, one rather more revealing than most.
I walked at the edge of the market, the walls of buildings to my right.
I had been told that larls stalking tabuk would sometimes delay their charge until their prey grazed beside a cliff, a wall of stone, a dense thicket. Indeed, sometimes they would herd, and drive, their prey against such barriers.
It was not so strange then that tabuk commonly grazed in open, or lightly wooded, areas.
The walls were at my right, at my right shoulder.
I gave as little evidence as I could of my fear.
I did not know how many Ehn might be left, perhaps two, perhaps three?
Suddenly an arm, abruptly, startling me, blocked my way, the palm of its hand on the side of the building.
“Serving slave,” pronounced a voice, a harsh, masculine voice. The arm before me, and the hand, were large.
“Master?” I said, stopped.
“Where is your Mistress?” asked the man.
“Somewhere,” I said.
“You do not walk like a serving slave,” he said.
“Forgive me, Master,” I said.
“Are you running away?” he asked.
“No, Master!” I said, frightened.
I was well aware there was no escape for the Gorean slave girl.
“But you have slipped away,” he said.
“Perhaps, Master,” I said.
He removed his hand from the wall, so it no longer blocked my passage. But he now stood before me. I did not try to move about him, or turn, or run away. I was a slave.
He pulled off the kerchief, and freed it of its knot.
“I see this is not the first time you have slipped away,” he said.
I did not respond to him. I let him think that my shearing was a punishment shearing, perhaps from some indiscretion, for which a woman’s serving slave might be punished.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you were also well lashed.”
“Perhaps, Master,” I said.
My kerchief dangled in his right hand.
“Turn about,” he said, “and place your hands, crossed, behind your back.”
“Master!” I protested.
“Now,” he said.
My hands were then tied behind my back. He tied them tightly.
“Kneel down, and put your head to the stones,” he said.
I obeyed, a slave, but I expected my Mistress, at any moment, to intervene.
Surely she was about!
“Aii!” I cried, startled. “Oh, please, oh!” Then I cried, “Master! Master!”
He then turned me about, and tore my tunic down, to the waist.
I was then thrown forward, on the stones.
“Is this your slave?” asked the man.
I looked up, from my belly.
“Yes,” said the Lady Bina.
“I return her to you, for the lashing she deserves,” he said.
I gathered the fellow had a righteous, proper streak. I was, after all, a woman’s serving slave.
“Did you find her attractive?” asked the Lady Bina.
“What?” he asked.
“Did you find her attractive?” asked the Lady Bina. “Could you conceive of men wanting her? Willing to buy her? Do you find her well shaped? Did she squirm well?”
I kept my head down. I had been given little opportunity to squirm.
“What are you asking me?” he asked.
“You are a man,” she said. “I am asking for your assessment of the girl.”
“She was made for the collar,” he said.
“Good,” she said.
“But she is to be as a woman’s serving slave, is she not?” he asked.
“No matter,” she said.
“I do not understand,” he said.
“She is a barbarian,” said the Lady Bina. “Does that dismay you, or give you pause?”
“No,” he said. “Barbarians make excellent slaves.”
“Good,” she said.
“They kick and juice as well as any other woman,” he said. “Forgive me, Lady, as well as any other slave.”
“Of course,” she said. “I now bid you good-day.”
“May Tor-tu-Gor warm you,” said the man.
“Thank you,” she said. “Come along, Allison.”
“My tunic, Mistress,” I said, “and I am bound.”
“No matter,” she said, “come along.”
So I followed her through the market, my head down, until we reached a stall, where the Lady Bina, I standing beside her, bargained for a stone of suls. It was late in the day, and the prices tend to be lower at such a time.
“I will need you,” she said, “to carry the suls.”
She looked about. “You,” she said to a tall, strapping fellow, in the gray and black of the Metal Workers, “untie this slave.”
He came to stand before me, and I felt his eyes, Gorean eyes, peruse me. I lifted my head, and turned away, angered. He looked at me as though I might have been on a block.
“You are in the presence of a free man,” he said. “Get on your knees.”
I suppose few women of Earth had heard such commands, but, hearing them, and in such a tone, I expect there would be few who would not obey.
I, collared, a slave, knelt immediately, frightened.
I looked up at him, from my knees, and our eyes met. I suddenly had the strange feeling that I was kneeling before my master.
I turned aside my head, no longer daring to look into his eyes.
Was I before my master?
“Untie her,” said the Lady Bina.
“I do not free slaves,” he said. “I bind them.”
