facilitate our journey, buying tharlarion and wagons, hiring teamsters, putting in supplies, arranging the stages of our journey, and such. Clearly such matters could not have been well handled by the Lady Bina, Lord Grendel, or myself.
I was pleased to have been permitted to come to the stadium. It would have been easy enough to have left me in the wagon, in the fenced-in wagon lot, shackled to the central bar.
I looked about myself. As I, the other slaves I noted in the audience were tunicked, and some more scantily than I. One, I saw, who regarded me disdainfully, and tossed her head proudly, was even camisked. How proud her master must have been of her, the arrogant brute, to so display her. And how smug, and how vain, she was, how proud of her beauty, to be so displayed, camisked.
“I am going below, to bet anew,” said he in whose care I was.
“Yes, Master,” I said.
I felt my left ankle gripped, and, a moment later, it was shackled to the iron ring anchored in the cement under my seat.
He then departed, to seek the betting tables beneath the stadium tiers. The Lady Bina, Astrinax, and Lykos accompanied him.
I sat on the tier, alone, moved my ankle a little, and pulled a little at the bracelets. Had my hands been free, I would have better adjusted the tunic at my left shoulder.
I was an unattended slave. I was apprehensive. I realized what that might mean. Such a slave might be accosted, even fondled, with impunity. Still, there were many about.
We had arrived in Venna early this morning.
Apparently the small collation I had prepared for the Metal Worker yesterday evening had proved satisfactory. In any event, after he had eaten for a bit, I kneeling back, he signed me to all fours, a simple gesture, and indicated that I might approach, beside the small fire. Then, from time to time, as he fed, he held out tidbits to me, and I fed, too, delicately, from his hand. Afterwards he permitted me to lie by his side, “bound by the master’s will,” I crossing my shackled ankles, and holding my hands behind my back, my left wrist held in my right hand.
He said, “Speak.”
“Surely Master is not interested in hearing a slave speak,” I said.
“Speak,” said he.
“Of what shall I speak?” I said.
He then told me to speak, as I would, telling him about my former world, my former life, my capture, my training, my sales, my owners, even my thoughts and feelings.
I fear much that was foolish gushed forth from me, but words had tumbled forth, seemingly endlessly, for Ahn, even amidst grateful tears.
“What have you done to me?” I said, at last, lying in the dirt beside him, by the reduced embers of the fire, looking up at him from my side, bound by his will.
“Is it not clear?” he asked.
“Master?” I said.
“I have stripped you,” he said.
“I see,” I said.
“It is time to put you on the common chain,” he said. “You are unbound.”
I struggled to my feet, and he then conducted me, his right hand on my left upper arm, to the common chain, on which several girls were already placed. He sat me by the chain, removed the shackle from my right ankle, looped it about the chain, and fastened it on me again, thus tethering me to the common chain. In this camp it was strung not between two trees, but between two heavy posts, to which it was bolted, the posts some twenty paces apart.
“So, Master,” I said, “the slave is stripped.”
“There are many ways to strip a slave,” he said.
“I understand,” I said.
“Ordering her to disrobe, or tearing away her tunic, are but two,” he said.
“I understand,” I said.
“To be sure,” he said, “that is pleasant.”
“Doubtless,” I said.
After I had confessed so much of myself to him, so revealed who was in my collar, I had almost hoped I would hear the issuance of a disrobing order, or that his hands, at my neckline, would have torn away my tunic.
But he had conducted me to the girl chain.
“It is all of the slave which is owned,” he said.
“That is understood by the slave,” I said.
“The slave’s every thought,” he said, “even her subtlest, least feeling, is owned by the master.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
He rose to his feet. I swiftly knelt, and looked up at him. “Master,” I said.
“Keep your knees closed,” he said, annoyed, his voice brusque.
I quickly closed them. I smiled to myself, a little. I do have power, I thought.
“It seems this slave is in the care of Master,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“You hold the key to her shackles?”
“As of now,” he said.
“You knew the slave’s name, ‘Allison’, even from Ar,” I said.
“So?” he said.
“But the slave,” I said, “does not even know Master’s name.”
“Desmond,” he said.
“That is not a Gorean name,” I said.
“It is,” he said, surprised.
“Surely not,” I said.
“It is, in the vicinity of Harfax,” he said.
“Oh,” I said.
“My Home Stone,” said he, “is that of Harfax.”
“What was Master doing in Ar?” I asked.
“Curiosity,” said he, “is not becoming in a kajira.”
“Yes, Master,” I said.
“I have heard,” said he, “there are tharlarion races in Venna tomorrow. To be sure, it is the season. Would you care to attend?”
“Yes,” I said, “yes, Master!”
“You may, if you wish,” he said, “remain chained in the wagon, with the curtains tied shut.”
“I beg to accompany Master,” I said.
“If you do so,” he said, “you will do so as a kajira.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“You will see,” he said.
“Yes, Master,” I had said.
* * * *
The crowd milled about, some descending the tiers, others climbing them.
The robing of a Gorean crowd is colorful, particularly on holidays, or in attendance at public events, races, and such. Doubtless that is all very familiar to you, but perhaps, as it is so familiar to you, you do not much note it.
Some slaves, as I, were on short ring chains, but many were loose, wandering about, though back- braceleted. I supposed it would then be difficult for them to pilfer small objects, dared they to do so. On the other hand, I suspected there were subtler reasons underlying this lovely constraint. Does it not remind the girl that she
