men, Thurnock and Clitus, with our slaves.
I had pounded on the beamed door of our quarters. 'Paga!' I had cried. 'I bring paga!'
Thurnock took down the beams from the door, and swung it open.
'Paga!' he shouted, pleased, seeing the great bottle.
Midice, startled, looked up from where she knelt, polishing the hoops of brass upon my shield. About her throat were the five coils of binding fiber, knotted there in token of her slaver. I had given her a brief tunic of silk, briefer even than had been the rence tunic she had worn when she had taunted me at the pole, and when she had danced before me, which had been taken from her by the slaver after she had been netted on the island.
'Good, my Captain,' said Clitus, from one side, where he sat working on a net, reinforcing its knots one by one. He grinned at the sight of the bottle. 'I could use some paga,' said he. He had purchased the net in the morning, with a trident, the traditional weapons of the fisherman of the western shore and the western islands. Kneeling quite near him, holding cord for him, fiber on her throat serving as collar, knelt short, dark-haired Ula. She, too, wore a slight bit of silk.
Thura, the large, blond girl, gray eyed, knelt near a pile of wood shavings. Thurnock, though in Port Kar, had found a piece of Ka-la-na stock, and had been carving a great bow, the long bow. I knew he had also found some bits of bosk horn, and some leather, and some hemp and silk. In two or three days, I expected, he, too, would have a bow. Piles he had already commissioned from a smith; and Thura, on his command, this afternoon, with a bit of stick, had struck down a Vosk gull, that the shafts he fashioned, whether from Ka-la-na or tem-wood, would be well fletched. She had been watching him make the bow, apparently, for most of the afternoon and evening. When I entered she dropped her head, saying 'Greetings, my Master's Captain.' She, too, wore binding fiber on her throat, and a bit of silk. I saw that Thurnock had had her put a flower in her hair, a talender. Kneeling, she looked up at him, and he gave her head a rough shake, getting shavings in her hair. She put her head down, smiling. 'Where is the Kettle Slave!' I cried.
'Here, Master,' said Telima, not pleasantly, entering the room and dropping to her knees before me.
On her throat as well were wound the five coils of binding fiber, declaring her slave.
Of the four girls only she did not wear silk, for she was only a Kettle Slave. She wore a brief tunic only of rep-cloth, already stained with grease and the spatterings of the kitchen. Her hair was not combed, and there was dirt on her knees and face. Her face was tired, and strained, and red, flushed from the heat of the cooking fires. Her hands had been blistered from scrubbing and burned from the cooking, roughened and reddened from the cleaning and the washing of the bowls and goblets. I found great pleasure in seeing the proud Telima, who had been my Mistress, as mere Kettle Slave.
'Master?' she asked.
'Make a feast,' I said, 'Kettle Slave.'
'Yes, Master,' she said.
'Thurnock,' cried I, 'secure the slaves.'
'Yes, my Captain,' he boomed.
Midice stood up, timidly. Her had was before her mouth. 'What are you going to do, Master?' she asked.
'We are taking you out,' I cried, 'to be marked and collared!'
The three girls looked at one another in fear.
Already Turnock was putting them in a coffle, blinding the right wrist of each. Before we set out we broke open the great bottle of paga, and Thurnock, Clitus and I clashed goblets and emptied them of their swirling fires. Then we forced each of the girls, choking and sputtering, to themselves upturn a goblet, swilling down as best they could the firey draught. I recall Midice standing there in her silk, teh leather on her wrists, shaking, coughing, paga on her mouth, looking at me with fear.
'And then,' I cried, 'we will return and make a feast!'
Thurnock, Clitus and I once more clashed and emptied goblets, and then, leading Midice, first in the coffle, by the lead end of the binding fiber, I stumbled through the door, finding my way down the stairs, with the others, hunting for a smithy.
My memories are confused of the night, but we did find a smithy, and we had the girls marked, and purchased collars for the, lock collars, which we had suitably engraved. Ula's collar read I AM THE PROPERTY OF CLITUS; Thurnock has his slave's engraved THURA, SLAVE OF THURNOCK; I had two collars engraved, one for Midice and one for Telima; both read simply I BELONG TO BOSK.
I remember Midice, who had already been branded, standing with her badk to me and my standing behind her, quite close, with the collar, and placing it about her throat, then, decisively, closing it.
Holding her thus I kissed her on the throat.
She turned to face me, tears in her eyes, fingering the gleaming band of steel. She had been branded, and doubtless her thigh still stund from the fire of the iron. She knew herself then animal and slave, and so marked.
Now, about her throat, she wore as well the graceful badge of servitude. There were tears in her eyes as she extended her arms to me, and I took her into my arms and lifted her from her feet, turning and carrying her back to our quarters. As we walked, Thurnock following, carrying Thura, and Clitus then, Ula weeping in his arms, Midice put her head against my left shoulder, and I felt her tears through my tunic.
'It seems,' said I, 'Midice, I have won you.'
'Yes,' she said, 'you have won me. I am your slave.'
I threw back my head and laughed.
She had taunted me at the pole, Now she was my slave.
The girl wept.
That night, the girls in our arms, we feasted, lifting many cups of paga. Clitus, after returning to our quarters, had left and returned with four musicians, bleary- eyed, routed from their mats well past the Twentieth Hour, but, lured by the jingling of a pair of silver tarsks, ready to play for us, past the dawn if need be. We soon had them drunk as well and though it did not improve their playing, I was pleased to see them join with us in our festivities, helping us to make our feast. Clitus, too, had brought two bottles of Ka-la-na wine, a string of eels, cheese of the Verr, and a sack of red olives from the groves of Tyros.
We greeted him with cheers.
Telima had prepared a roast tarsk, stuffed with suls and peppers from Tor. There were great quantities of the yellow Sa-Tarna bread, in its rounded, six-part loaves.
We were served by the Kettle Slave, Telima. She poured paga for the men, and Ka-la-na for the women. She tore the bread for us, broke the cheese, ribboned the eels and cut the tarsk. She hurried from one to the other, and the musicians as well, scarcely serving one before being summoned to another. The girls commanded her as well as the men. She was only Kettle Salve and thus, they were of a higher sort than she. Further, I gathered, on the islands, Telima, with her beauty, her skills and arrogance, had not bee popular, and it pleased them no little that she should be, in effect, slave for them as well as their masters. I sat cross-legged at the low table, quaffing paga, my left arm about the shoulders of Midice, who, kneeling, snuggled against me.
Once, as Telima served me, I caught her wrist. She looked at me.
'How is it,' I asked, 'that a Kettled Slave has an armlet of gold?' Midice lifted her head and kissed me on the neck, 'Give Midice the armlet,' she wheedled.
Tears appeared in the eyes of Telima.
'Perhaps later,' I told Midice, 'if you well please me.'
She kissed me. 'I will well please you, Master,' she said. Then she threw a look of contempt at Telima. 'Give me wine,' said she, 'Slave.'
As Midice kissed me again, lingeringly, holding my head in her hands, Telima, tears in her eyes, filled her cup.
Across the table I saw Ula, eyes timid, lift her lips to Clitus. He did not refuse her, and they began to kiss, and touch. Thurnock then seized Thura, pressing his lips upon hers. Helpless in his great arms she struggled, but then, as I laughed, she cried out as though in misery and began to yield to him, and then, moments later, her lips eagerly were seeking his.
'Master,' said Midice, looking at me, eyes bright.
'Do you recall,' I asked pleasantly, looking down into her eyes, 'how some days ago you taunted me when I was bound at the pole?'
'Master?' she asked, her eyes timid.
'Have you forgotten,' I asked, 'how you danced before me?'
She drew back. 'Please, Master,' she whispered, her eyes terrified. I turned to the musicians. 'Do you know,' I asked, 'the Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl?'
'Port Kar's?' asked the leader of the musicians.
'Yes,' I said.
'Of course,' said he.
I had purchased more than marking and collars at the smithy.
'On your feet,' boomed Turnock to Thura, and she leaped frightened to her feet, standing ankle deep in the thick pile rug.
At the gesture from Clitus, Ula, too, leaped to her feet.
I put ankle rings on Midice, and then slave bracelets. And tore from her the bit of silk she wore. She looked at me with terror.
I lifted her to her feet, and stood before her.
'Play,' I told the musicians.
The Love Dance of the Newly Collared Slave Girl has many variations, in the different cities of Gor, but the common theme is that the girl dances her joy that she will soon lie in the arms of a strong master.
The musicians began to play, and to the clapping and cries of Turnock and Clitus, Thura and Ula danced before them.
'Dance,' said I to Midice.
In terror the dark-haired girl, lithe, tears in her eyes, she so marvelously legged, lifted her wrists.
Now again Midice danced, her ankles in delicious proximity and wrists lifted again together back to back above her head, palms out. But this time her ankles were not as though chained, nore her wrists as though braceleted; rather they were truly chained and braceleted; she wore the linked ankle rings, the three-linked slave bracelets of a Gorean master; and I did not thing she would now conclude her dance by spitting upon me and whirling away.
She trembled. 'Find me pleasing,' she begged.
'Don not afflict her so,' said Telima to me.
