I drew back, with a rattle of chain in the wagon bed, the chain sliding along the central bar. I was the only girl in the wagon. It was drawn by a tharlarion. The canvas was a common white, not the blue-and-yellow covering, sometimes silk, usually decorating, covering, a slave wagon. The central bar runs linearly the length of the wagon bed. It is hinged at the forward end and fits into a coupling, within which it is commonly locked, at the back end of the wagon bed. My ankles were shackled, and a foot of chain joined them, the chain looped about the central bar. If one wishes to remove a girl from such a wagon, one either unshackles her, or, more commonly, that she remain ankle-shackled, for example, in a camp, one lowers the back of the wagon and unlocks the bar from the coupling at the rear of the wagon, which, lifted, allows the girl to leave the central bar and wagon.
I moved toward the rear of the wagon and covered myself, as I could.
“Do not bother,” he said. “I like you naked.”
“Brute, beast, monster!” I said.
“Do not tell me the little barbarian is modest,” he said.
“I am untunicked,” I said. “Do not look at me!”
“Do you really think a tunic, a slave tunic, makes all that much difference?” he asked.
“Go away,” I begged.
“To be sure, it is nice to see you slave naked,” he said.
“Please leave,” I said.
In slave wagons, girls are nearly always transported naked.
He did not ask me to uncover myself. I was somewhat annoyed, as I think he gathered, at this. Did he not really want to see me bared before him, as the slave I was?
“I saw you at the road camp,” he said. “Your new tunic is quite nice, much better than the one you wore in Ar.”
“Go away,” I said. “Please.”
Five days ago, for whatever reason, the tunic to which I had become accustomed in Ar, one suitable for a woman’s serving slave, was taken from me.
“Put this on, Allison,” had said the Lady Bina, and handed me what seemed little more than a tiny scrap of rep cloth.
“Surely not, Mistress,” I had said.
“Yes, yes,” she said. “It is time you were put in a more revealing garment, one more suitable for a pretty slave.”
“But, Mistress,” I said, “this is the sort of garment in which a strong man might choose to display a slave, to boast of the beauty and pleasures he has at his disposal.”
“We have business,” said the Lady Bina, “and we must recruit some fellows to help us with it. If you are about, one of our beasts, especially so clothed, we anticipate things will proceed apace.”
“Mistress?” I had said.
“You will remember,” she said, “that I was concerned, even at your purchase, with your attractiveness to men.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
I recalled, too, her test in the market. How frightening had been that experience!
“It might serve my purposes,” she said.
“Yes, Mistress,” I said.
I did not inquire what purposes she might have in mind. The services and use of a slave, of course, may be bestowed as the master or mistress might wish. One advantage of a private male master is that they are commonly rather proprietary where their slaves are concerned, even jealous. It is a common act of courtesy at a feast, or a visit, to offer a guest the use of a slave, but too, it is understood that the sensitive guest will graciously forgo this gift. It is different, of course, with the girls kept at inns, and such, for such purposes. Also, feast slaves may be cheaply rented for the night, and longer. The Lady Bina, of course, was not a male master, let alone a jealous, possessive one, and I was afraid she might be generous, perhaps excessively so, in such matters. To be sure, I had not been put to slave use since the eating house and the gambling house, and that was long ago. I was uneasy, of course, for a master’s hands on my body, for which I subtly longed, but I was in no way in the sorry straits of many miserable girls, the conflagrations of whose slave fires periodically plunged them into acute torment.
And so I would have a new tunic.
To casually glance upon me, I supposed most would assume that I was a man’s slave. They enjoy putting us in such things. It was the sort of garment which, in Ar, might elicit a switching from a free woman.
“Too,” she had said, “we may buy two or three other girls, stupid girls, barbarians, as you.”
“I am not stupid, Mistress,” I said.
“Then uninformed, ignorant girls,” she said, “as you.”
“Barbarians, then?” I said.
“Of course,” she said.
“May I inquire,” I had asked, “the nature of Mistress’ business?”
“No,” she said. “Now put this on, and we will put you before men, and see if it should be shortened, or altered, a bit, perhaps slit at the hems, torn down some about the neck, such things.”
“Yes, Mistress,” I had said.
At least, I had thought, it is not a camisk.
I did not mention this, of course, for fear I would be camisked.
“Please do not look at me in that fashion,” I said.
I drew up my legs further. He did not require that I change the position of my hands.
“Yes,” he said, “I like you slave naked.”
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“Looking at a naked slave,” he said.
“Master!” I sobbed.
“I am of your party,” he said. “Perhaps if you are very nice, I will let you cook for me.”
“I would salt your food so that you could not eat it,” I said.
“Then,” said he, “it would be you who would eat it, after which I would have the pleasure of lashing you.”
“I see,” I said.
“Your ankles look well in shackles,” he said.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You may thank me,” he said.
“Thank you, Master,” I said, drawing my ankles a bit further back, with a rustle of chain.
“We are north of Ar, on the Venna road,” he said.
“We are bound for Venna?” I said.
“Doubtless for the tharlarion races,” he said. “It is the season.”
“I see,” I said.
“Actually,” he said, “I do not know.”
“I see,” I said.
“If you were to peep out, between the side boards and the canvas, you might occasionally see a tharlarion ranch.”
“Oh?” I said.
“But doubtless you are afraid to do so,” he said.
“Perhaps,” I said.
I did not know how long he had been with us. Perhaps he had noted, for all I knew, several times, the tiny lifting of the canvas. If the wagons were in the care of slavers, I supposed girls might be punished for such things. Slavers like to keep the girls in their wagons ignorant of their surroundings, their destinations, and such. Indeed, even in coffles the destination of the coffle is seldom made explicit to, so to speak, the “beads on the slaver’s necklace.” Native Gorean girls, of course, coffled, are rampant in their speculations in such matters. Here, however, in our party, there seemed to be permissiveness in such matters. Even so, I did not care to be discovered in my small, furtive reconnaissances.
