inside, belled and jeweled, otherwise unclothed. I saw a girl dancing on a square of sand between the tables. She danced slowly, exquisitely, to the music of primitive instruments. I was stunned. Then there was a jerk at my neck, on the binding fiber, and the guard prodded me ahead with the butt of his spear. Never had I seen so sensuous a woman. About noon we arrived at a slave compound north of Laura. There are several such. Targo had rented space in one compound, adjoining others. Our compound shared a common wall of bars with another, that of Haakon of Skjern, whom Targo had traveled north to do business with. The compounds are formed of windowless log dormitories, floored with stone on which straw is spread; the dormitory then opens by one small door, about a yard high, into the barred exercise yard. This yard resembles a large cage. Its walls are bars, and its roof, too. The roof bars are supported at places in the yard by iron stanchions. There had been rain recently in Laura and the yard was muddy, but I found it more pleasant than the stuffy interior of the dormitory. We were not permitted our camisks in the compound, perhaps because of the mud in the yard.
In the compound adjoining ours, crowded, there were some two hundred and fifty to three hundred village girls. Some of these, not too many, did a good deal of wailing, which I did not much care for. I was pleased that the guards, with whips, kept them silent at night. That way we could all get some sleep. They were stripped and slaves, but, each morning, they would still braid one another's long, blond hair. That seemed important to them, and they were permitted to do it, for some reason. Targo's other girls, of whom I was one, all wore their hair long and combed, straight. I was hoping my hair would grow swiftly. Lana had the longest hair of all of us. It fell below the small of her back. I had fantasies of putting my hands in it and shaking her head until she screamed for mercy. Most of the village girls taken by the raiders of Haakon of Skjern, in the villages to the north of the Laurius, and from the coastal villages, upward even to the borders of Torvaldsland. Most did not seem too distressed about their slavery. I gathered that life in the villages must be hard for a young girl. Targo would have his pick of one hundred of these women. He had paid a deposit of fifty golden tarn disks, and on our first morning in the compound, I had seem him pay one hundred and fifty more to the huge, bearded, scowling Haakon of Skjern. I had watched Targo, not hurrying, with his expert eye and quick, delicate hands, examining the women. Sometimes they would try to pull away from him. when they did they were held by two guards. I recalled that he had once similarly examined me, shortly after we had encountered our first caravan. At one point I had cried out and my body had leaped, uncontrollably. He had seemed pleased. 'Kajira,' he had said. I noted that girls who responded similarly were invariably selected, sometimes over their more beautiful sisters in bondage. I thought, however, that none of them had responded as I had responded. Targo took more than two days to make his choices. When he did make a choice the girl was removed to our compound. They did not mix with us but, with their northern accents, kept to themselves. A full day was spent in the heating of irons and the branding of them. These were not pleasant days, incidentally, for the new girl, Rena of Lydius. She was kept within the dormitory, her wrists behind her back, fastened with slave bracelets, he neck chained to a heavy ring set in the wall. Further, except when she was fed, she was kept in a gag and slave hood. She would sit against the wall, knees drawn up, head down, the leather slave hood, with its gag, drawn over her head and features. I was given the task of feeding her. When I first unhooded her and removed the gag, she had pleaded with me that I help her escape, or tell others of her plight. What a fool she was! I would be beaten for such an act, perhaps even impaled! I told her 'Be Silent, Slave!' and rehooded and regagged her. I did not even feed her then, that she might learn her lesson. I ate her portion that morning, and again in the evening. I had two extra portions that day. The next morning when I freed her head she had tears in her eyes but did not try to speak to me. I fed her in silence, thrusting food into her mouth, telling her to eat swiftly, and then giving her a drink from the leather water bag. Then I resecured her. She had been of high caste. I hated her. I would treat her as what she was, a slave.
Beyond the compound of Haakon of Skjern I could see the compound of his tarns, where, hobbled, the great birds beat their wings, threw back their heads and screamed, and tore at the great pieces of bosk thrown before them. Sometimes they tore at their hobbles and struck at their keepers with their pounding, snapping wings, with hurricanes of dust and small stones, could hurl a man from his feet. Those great rending beaks and pressing, ripping talons could tear him in two as easily as the great thighs of bosk on which they fed. Even separated as I was by three walls of bars, that of their compound, that of the far wall of Haakon's compound, and that of our common wall, these birds terrified me. The northern beauties of Haakon, too, I was pleased to see, cowered away from that side of their compound. Sometimes when one of the great birds screamed, several of them would scream, too, and run, huddling away against our bars, or flying into their log dormitory. I do not know why it is that women fear tarns so terribly, but we do. But most men do, too. It is a rare man who will approach a tarn. It is said that the tarn knows who is a tarnsman and who is not, and if one approaches him who is not, he will seize him and rip him to pieces. It is little wonder that few men approach the beasts. I had seem tarn keepers, but, except for Haakon of Skjern, I had seen no tarnsmen. They were wild men, of the caste of warriors, who spent much of their time in the taverns of Laura, fighting and gambling and drinking, while slave girls, excited and with shining eyes, served them and pressed about them, begging to be noticed and ordered to the alcoves. It was no wonder that some men, even warriors, hated and envied the arrogant, regal tarnsmen, one night rich, the next impoverished, always at the elbow of adventure, and war and pleasure, wearing their pride and their manhood in their walk, in the steel at their side and the look in their eyes. But Haakon was a tarnsman, and he frightened me. He was ugly, and he seemed treacherous.
Targo seemed nervous in doing business with him.
We remained six full days in Targo's rented compound outside of Laura. On five of these days, in the morning, I was taken with four other girls into Laura, leashed with them, to bring back supplies. Two guards accompanied us. But, interestingly, at a given building, one guard would separate me from the others and together, the guard and I, we would got into the building, while the others continued on to the market. Returning from the market they would call at the building, at which time I and my guard would go outside. There I would be leashed with the others again, the burdens would be redistributed. I would take up my share, and, carrying my burden as a slave girl, on the head, balancing it with one hand, I and the others, under guard, would return to the compound. The last two times I begged to do so, and was permitted to carry a jar of wine on my head. Ute had taught me to walk without spilling it. I enjoyed the men watching me. Soon I could carry wine as well as any girl, even Ute.
The building where I would wait on these days was the house of a physician. I was taken through a corridor to a special, rough room, where slaves were treated. There my camisk would be removed. On the first day the physician, a quiet man in the green garments of his caste, examined me, thoroughly. The instruments he used, the tests he performed, the samples he required were not unlike those of Earth. Of special interest to me was the fact that this room, primitive though it might be, was lit by what, in Gorean, is called an energy bulb, and invention of the Builders. I could see neither cords nor battery cases. Yet the room was filled with a soft, gentle, white light, which the physician could regulate by rotating the base of the bulb. Further, certain pieces of his instrumentation were clearly far from primitive. For example, there was a small machine with gauges and dials. In this he would place slides, containing drops of blood and urine, flecks of tissue, a strand of hair. With a stylus he would note readings on the machine, and, on the small screen at the top of the machine. I saw, vastly enlarged, what reminded me of an image witnessed under a microscope. He would briefly study this image, and then make further jottings with his stylus. The guard had strictly forbidden me to speak to the physician, other than to answer his questions, which I was to do promptly and accurately, regardless of their nature. Though the physician was not unkind I felt that he treated me as, and regarded me as, an animal. When I was not being examined, he would dismiss me to the side of the room, where I would kneel, alone, on the boards, until summoned again. They discussed me as though I were not there.
When he was finished he mixed several powders in three or four goblets, adding water to them and stirring them. These I was ordered to drink. The last was peculiarly foul.
'She requires the Stabilization Serums,' said the physician.
The guard nodded.
'They are administered in four shots,' said the physician. He nodded to a heavy, beamed, diagonal platform in a corner of the room. The guard took me and threw me, belly down, on the platform, fastening my wrists over my head and widely apart, in leather wrist straps. He similarly secured my ankles. the physician was busying himself with fluids and a syringe before a shelf in another part of the room, laden with vials. I screamed. The shot was painful. It was entered in the small of my back, over the left hip.
They left me secured to the table for several minutes and then the physician returned to check the shot. There had been, apparently, no unusual reaction. I was then freed.
'Dress,' the physician told me.
I gratefully donned the camisk, fastening it tightly about my waist with the double loop of binding fiber.
I wanted to speak to the physician desperately. In his house, in this room, I had seem instrumentation which spoke to me of an advanced technology, so different from what I had hitherto encountered in what seemed to me a primitive, beautiful, harsh world. The guard, with the side of the butt of his spear, pressed against my back, and I was thrust from the room. I looked over my shoulder at the physician. He regarded me, puzzled.
Outside the other four girls and their guard were waiting. I was leashed, given a burden, and, together, we all returned to Targo's compound.
I thought I saw a small man, garbed in black, watching us, but I was not sure. We returned, similarly, to the physicians house on the next four days. On the first day I had been examined, given some minor medicines of little consequence, and the first shot in the Stabilization Series. On the second, third and fourth day I received the concluding shots of the series. On the fifth day the physician took more samples.
'The serums are effective,' he told the guard.
'Good,' said the guard.
On the second day, after the shot, I had tried to speak to the physician, in spite of the guard, to beg him for information.
The guard did not beat me but he slapped me twice, bringing blood to my mouth. Then I was gagged.
Later, outside, the guard looked at me, amused.
I stood facing him, head down, gagged.
'Do you wish to wear your gag home to the compound?' he asked. I shook my head vigorously, No. If I did wear it back Targo would surely inquire, and I would doubtless be beaten. I had seem him, once or twice, tell a girl to ask a guard to beat her. The girl is then strung up by the wrists. And the guard uses not the handful of leather strap with which Lana, only with her woman's strength, had struck me, but the five-strap Gorean slave whip, wielded with the full, terrible strength of a man. I had no desire to feel it. I would be compliant, swift to obey and be pleasing in all things. No, I shook my head, no!
'Does the little slave beg her guard's forgiveness?' he asked, teasing me. I nodded vigorously. Yes. It was hard to be a slave girl. Men tease you, but, in an instant they may change, and their eyes grow hard. You must be careful what you say, what you do. They hold the power of the whip. I knelt to him, putting my head down to his feet. Then, as I had seen Lana do once, I gently took his leg in my hands and put my cheek, head down, against the side of his leg. 'All right,' he said.
He untied the gag. I looked up at him, gratefully, my hands at his hips, as I had seen Lana do.
He suddenly seized me by the arms and lifted me to face him.
Suddenly, with terror, I realized I was going to be raped.
'Ho!' said a voice, that of the other guard. 'It is time to return to the compound.'
Angrily, my guard released me and I staggered back.
'She is white silk!' said the other guard, laughing uproariously.
