After the council had broken up one of the men who had been seated there came to regard me. It was he who wore the headband of the pearls of Vosk sorp about his forehead, who had been unable ot bend the bow.
Strangely, to my mind, he carried over his left shoulder a large, white, silken scarf.
He did not speak to me, but he laughed, and passed on. I looked away, burning with shame.
It was now about the twelfth Gorean hour, well past noon.
I had been examined earlier by the girls who would compete for me.
Ho-Hak, with Telima, had summoned them away for the contests.
Most of these took place in the marsh. From where I was bound, over the low rence huts and between them, I could see something of what went on. There was much laughter and shouting, and cheering and crying out. There were races, poling rence craft, and skill contests maneuvering the small light craft, and contests with net and throwing stick. It was indeed festival.
At last, after an Ahn or so, the group, the girls, the men watching, the judges, turned their several rence craft toward the island, beaching them and fastening them on the woven-mat shore.
Then, the entire group came to my pole, with the exception of Ho-Hak, who went rather to speak with some men carving rence root and talking, on the other side of the island.
The girls, perhaps more than forty or fifty of them, stood about me, laughing, looking from one to the other, giggling.
I looked at them, with agony.
'You have been won,' said Telima.
The girls looked at one another, saying nothing, but laughing and poking one another.
I pulled at the marsh vine, helpless.
'Who has won you?' asked Telima.
The girls giggled.
Then the lithe, dark-haired girl, slender-legged and provocative, stepped quite close to me.
'Perhaps,' she whispered, 'you are my slave.'
'Am I your slave?'
'Perhaps you are mine,' whispered the tall, blond girl, gray-eyed, in my ear. She pressed a coil of marsh vine against my left arm.
'Whose slave am I?' I cried.
The girls gathered about, each one to touch me, to caress me as might a mistress, to whisper in my ear that it might be she to whom I belonged, she whom I must now serve as slave.
'Whose slave am I?' I cried, in agony.
'You will find out,' said Telima, 'at the feast, then, at the height of festival.'
The girls laughed, and the men behind them.
I stood numb at the pole, while Telima unbound me. 'Do not remove the garland of rence flowers,' said she.
Then I stood free at the pole, save that I wore teh collar of marsh vine she had fastened on my neck, and a garland of rence floweres.
'What am I to do?' I asked.
'Go help the women prepare the feast,' said she.
All laughed as I turned away.
'Wait!' called she.
I stopped.
'At feast,' she said, 'you will, of course, serve us.' she laughed. 'And since you do not know which of us is your mistress, you will serve each, every one of us, as slave. And you will serve well. If she who is your mistress is not well satisfied, doubtless you will be severely punished.'
There was much laughter.
'Now go,' said she, 'and help the women with the food.'
I turned to face the girl. 'Who,' I begged, 'is my mistress?'
'You will find out at feast,' she said angrily, 'at the height of festival! Now go and help the women to prepare the feast — Slave!'
I turned away, and, as they laughed, went to help the women in their work, preparing food for festival.
It was now late on the night of festival, and most of the feast had been consumed.
Torches, oiled coils of marsh vine wound about the prongs of marsh spears, thrust butt down in the rence of the island, burned in the marsh night. The men sat cross-legged in the outer circles, and, in the inner circles, in the fashion of Gorean women, the women knelt. There were children about the periphery of the circles but many of them were already asleep on the rence. There had beeen much talking and singing. I gathered it was seldom the rencers, save for those on a given island, met one another. Festival was important to them.
Before the feast I had helped the women, cleaning the fish and dressing marsh gants, and then, later, turning spits for the roasted tarsks, roasted over rence-root fires kept on metal pans, elevated about the rence of the island by metal racks, themselves resting on larger pans.
During most of the feast I have been used in the serving, particularly the serving of the girls who had competed for me, one of whom had won me, which one I did not know.
I had carried about bowls of cut, fried fish, and wooden trays of roasted tarsk meat, and roasted gants, threaded on sticks, and rence cakes and porridges, and gourd flagons, many times replenished, of rence beer.
Then, the rencers clapping their hands and singing, Telima approached me. 'To the pole,' she said.
I had seen the pole. It was not unlike the one to which I had been bound earlier in the day. There was a circular clearing amidst the feasters, of some forty feet in diameter, about which their circles formed. The pole, barkless, narrow, upright, thrust deep in the rence of the island, stood at the very center of the clearing, surrounded by the circles of feasting rencers.
I went to the pole, and stood by it.
She took my hands and, with marsh vine, lashed them behind it. Then, as she had in the morning, she fastened my ankles to the pole, and then, again as she had in the morning, she bound me to it as well by the stomach and neck. Then, throwing away the garland of rence flowers I had worn, she replaced it with fresh garland.
While she was doing this the rencers were clapping their hands in time and singing.
She stood back, laughing.
I saw, in the crowd, Ho-Hak, clapping his hands and singing, and the others, and he who had worn the headband formed of the pearls of the Vosk sorp, who had been unable to bend the bow.
Then, suddenly, the crowd stopped clapping and singing.
There was silence.
Then there came a drumming sound, growing louder and louder, a man pounding on a hollowed drum of rence root with two sticks, and then, as suddenly as the singing and clapping, the drum, too, stopped.
And then to my astonishment the rence girls, squealing and laughing, some protesting and being pushed and shoved, rose to their feet and entered the clearing in the circle.
The young men shouted with pleasure.
One or two of the girls, giggling, tried to slip away, fleeing, but young men, laughing, caught them, and hurled them into the clearing of the circle. The the rence girls, vital, eyes shining, breathing deeply, barefoot, bare-armed, many with beads worn for festival, and hammered copper bracelets and armlets, stood all within a circle.
The young men shouted and clapped their hands.
I saw that more than one fellow, handsome, strongfaced, could not take his eyes from Telima.
She was, I noted, the only girl in the circle who wore an armlet of gold. She paid the young men, if she noticed them, no attention.
The rence communities tend to be isolated. Young people seldom see one another, saving those from the same tiny community. I remember the two lines, one of young men, the other of girls, jeering and laughing, and crying out at one another in the morning.
Then the man with the drum of hollow rence root began to drum, and one fellow had bits of metal, strung in a circular wire, and another a notched stick, played by scraping it with a flat spoon of rence root.
It was Telima who began first to pound the woven rence mat that was the surface of the island with her right heel, lifting her hands, arms bent, over her head, her eyes closed.
Then the other girls, too, began to join her, and at last even the shiest among them moved pounding, and stamping and turning about the circle. The dances of rence girls are, as far as I know, unique on Gor. There is some savagery in them, but, too, they have sometimes, perhaps paradoxically, stately aspects, stylized aspects, movements reminiscent of casting nets or poling, of weaving rence or hunting gants. But, as I watched, and the young men shouted, the dancers became less stylized, and became more universal ot woman, whether she be a drunken housewife in a suburb of a city of Earth or a jeweled slave in Port Kar, dances that spoke of them as women who want me, and will have them. To my astonishment, as the dances continued, even the shiest of the rence girls, those who had to have been forced to the circle, even those who had tried to flee, began to writhe in ecstasy, their hands lifted to the three moons of Gor. It is often lonely on the rence islands, and festival comes but once a year. The bantering of the young people in the morning, and the display of the girls in the evening, for in effect in the movments of the dance every woman is nude, have both, I expect, institutional roles to play in the life of the rence growers, significant roles analogous to the roles of dating, display and courtship in the more civilized environments of my native world, Earth. It marks the end of a childhood when a girl is first sent to the circle. Suddenly, before me, hands over her head, swaying to the music, I saw the dark-haired, lithe girl, she was such marvelous, slender legs in the brief rence skirt; her ankles were so close together that they might have been chained; and then she put her wrists together back to back over her head, palms out, and though she wore slave bracelets.
Then she said, 'Slave,' and spit in my face, whirling away.
I wondered if it might be she who was my mistress.
