Then another girl, the tall, blond girl, she who had held the coil of marsh vine, stood before me, moving with excruciating slowness, as though the music could be reflected only from moment to moment, in her breathing, in the beating of the heart.
'Perhaps it is I,' she said, 'who am your mistress.'
She, like the other, spit then in my face and turned away, now moving fully, enveloped in the music's flame.
One after another of the girls so danced before me, and about me, taunting me, laughing at their power, then spitting upon me and turning away.
The rencers laughed and shouted, clapping, chering the girls on in the dance. But most of the time I was ignored, as much as the pole to which I was bound. Mostly these girls, saving for a moment or two to humiliate me, danced their beauty for the young men of the cicles, that they might be desired, that they might be much sought.
After a time I saw one girl leave the circles, her head back, hair flowing down her back, breathing deeply, and scarcely was she through the circles of rencers, but a young man followed her, joining her some yards beyond the circle. They stood facing one another in the darkness for an Ehn or two, and then I saw him, gently, she not protesting, drop his net over her, and then, by this net, she not protesting, he led her away/ Together they disappeared in the darkness, going over one of the raft bridges to another island, one far from the firelight, the crowd, the noise, the dance.
Then, after some Ehn I saw another girl leave the circile of the dance, and she, too, was joined beyond the firelight by a young man and she, too, felt a net dropped over her, and she, too, was led away, his willing prize, to secrecy of his hut.
The dance grew more frenzied.
The girls whirled and writhed, and the crowd clapped and shouted, and the music grew ever more wild, barbaric and fantastic.
And suddenly Telima danced before me.
I cried out, so startled was I by her beauty.
It seemed to me that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and before me, only slave, she danced her insolence and scorn. Her hands were over her hand and, as she danced, she smiled, regarding me. She cut me with her beauty more painfully, more cruelly, than might have the knives of a torturer. It was her scorn, her contempt for me she danced. In me she aroused aginies of desire but in her eyes I read that I was but the object of her amusement and contempt.
And then she unbound me.
'Go to the hut,' she said.
I stood there at the pole.
Torrents of barbaric music swept about us, and there was the clapping and the shouting, and the turning, and the twisting and swirling of the rence girls, the passion of the dance burning in their bodies.
'Yes,' she said. 'I own you.'
She spat up in my face.
'Go to the hut,' she said.
I stumbled from the pole, making my way through the buffeting circle of dancers, through the laughing circles of rencers, shouting and clapping their hands, and made my way to Telima's hut.
I stood outside in the darkness.
I wiped her spittle from my face.
Then, falling to my hands and knees, lowering my head, I crawed into the hut. I sat there in the darkness, my head in my hands.
Outside I could hear the music, the cries and clapping, the shouts of the rence girls dancing under the moons of Gor.
I sat for a long time in the darkness.
Then Telima entered, as one who owns the hut, as though I was not there. 'Light the lamp,' she said to me.
I did so, fumbling in the darkness, striking together the flint and steel, sparks falling into the small bowl of dried petals of the rences. In this tiny flame I thrust a bit of rence stem, from a bundle of such, and, with it, lit the tiny tharlarion-oil lamp set in its copper bowl. I put the bit of rence stem back, as I had seen Telima do, in the small bowl of petals, where, with the flaming petals, it was soon extinguished. The tharlarion-oil lamp, now lit, flickering, illuminated the interiour of the hut with a yellowish light. She was eating a rence cake. Her mouth was half full. She looked at me. 'I shall not bind you tonight,' she said.
Holding half the rence cake in her mouth she unrolled her sleeping mat and then, as she had the night before, she unlaced her tunic and slipped it off over her head. She threw it to a corner of the hut, on her left, near her feet. She sat on the sleeping mat and finished the rence cake. Then she wiped her mouth with her arm, and slapped her hands together, freeing them of crumbs.
Then she unbound her hair, shaking it free.
Then she reclined on the mat, facing me, resting on her right elbow. Her left knee was raised. She looked at me.
'Serve my pleasure,' she said.
'No,' I said.
Startled, she looked at me.
Just then, from outside, there was the wild, high, terrifed scream of a girl, and suddenly the music stopped. Then I heard shouts, cries of fear, confusion, the clash of arms.
'Slavers!' I heard cry. 'Slavers!'
6 Slavers
I was out of the hut.
My response had been instantaneous, that of the trained warrior, startling me. The girl was but a moment behind me.
I saw torches in the night, moving at the periphery of the island.
A child ran past me. The circle of the dance was empty. The barkless pole stood alone. A woman was screaming among the refus of the feast. The marsh torches burned as quietly as they had. There were shouts. I heard the clank of arms, overlapping shields. Two men, rencers, ran past us. I heard what might have been a marsh spear splinger against metal. One man, a rencer, staggered backward drunkenly toward us. Then he wheeled and I saw, protruding from his chest, the fins of a crossbow bolt. He fell almost at our feet, his fingers clutching the fins, his knees drawn to his chin. Somewhere an infant was crying In the light of the moving torches, beyond them, toward the marsh, I saw, dark, the high, curved prows of narrow marsh barges, of the sort rowed by slaves. Telima threw her hands before her face, her eyes wild, and uttered a terrifying scream of fear.
My had caught her right wrist and locked on it, like the manacle of a slave. I dragged her stumbling, screaming, toward the opposite side of the island, the darkness.
But we found rencers running toward us, men, and women, and children, their hands outstretched, stumbling, falling. We heard the shouts of men behind them, saw the movement of spears.
We ran with them toward yet another part of the island.
Then, from the darkness before us, we heard a trumpet, and we stopped, confused. Suddenly there fell among us a rain of crossbow bolts. There were screams. A man to the left of us cried out and fell.
We turned and ran again, stumbling in the torchlit darkness, across the woven mat of rence that was the surface of the island.
Behind us we heard trumpets, and the beating of spears on shields, the shouts of men.
The before us a woman screamed, stopping, pointing.
'They have nets!' she cried.
We were being driven toward the nets.
I stopped, holding Telima to me. We were buffeted by the bodies of running rencers, plunging toward the nets.
'Stop!' I cried. 'Stop! There are nets! Nets!' But most of those with us, heedless, fleeing the trumpets and beating of spears on shields, ran wildly toward the nets, which suddenly emerged before them, held by slaves. These were not the small capture nets but wall nets, to block a path of escape. Between their interstices, here and there, spears thrust, forcing back those who would tear at them. Then the long, wide net, held by slaves, began to advance. I heard then from another side of the island as well the terrifying cry, 'Nets, nets!'
Then, as we milled and ran, here and there among us were men of Port Kar, warriors, some with helmet and shield, sword and spear, others with club and knife, others with whips, some with capture loops, some with capture nets, all with binding fiber. Among them ran slaves, carrying torches, that they might see to their work.
I saw the rencer who had worn the headband of the pearls of the Vosk sorp, who had been uable to bend the bow. He now had the large, white, silken scarft tied over his left shoulder and across his body, fastened at his right hip. With him there stood a tall, bearded helmeted warrior of Port Kar, the golden slash of the officer across the temples of his helmet. The rencer was pointing here and there, and shouting to the men of Port Kar, crying out orders to them. The tall, bearded officer, sword drawn, stood silently near him.
'It is Henrak!' cried Telima. 'It is Henrak.'
It was the first I had heard the name of the man of the headband.
In Henrak's hand there was clutched a wallet, perhaps of gold.
A man fell near us, his neck cut half through by the thrust of a spear. My arm about Telima's shoulder I moved her away, losing oursleves among the shouting rencers, the running men and women.
Some of the men of the rencers, with their small shields or rence wicker, fought, but their marsh spears were not match for the stell swords and war spears of Gor. When they offered resistance they were cut down. Most, panic-stricken, knowing themselves no mathc for trained warriors, fled like animals, crying out in fear before the hunters of Port Kar.
I saw a girl stumbling, being dragged by the hair toward one of the narrow barges. Her wrists hwere bound behind her back. She had been the girl who, this
