'Yes,' she said, 'in his arms I found myself a slave.' She smiled. 'I expect that in the arms of such a man as Rask of Treve any woman might find herself a slave.'
'No I!' I cried.
She smiled.
'If a girl is already branded,' I said, casually, but frightened, 'she would not be again branded, would she?'
'Commonly not,' said Ena. 'Though sometimes, for some reason, the mark of Treve is pressed into her flesh.' She looked at me. 'Sometimes, too,' she said, 'a girl may be branded as a punishment, and to warn others against her.' I looked at her, puzzled.
'Penalty brands,' she said. 'They are tiny, but clearly visible. There are various such brands. There is one for lying, and another for stealing.' 'I do not lie or steal,' I said.
'That is good,' said Ena.
'I have never seen the brand of Treve,' I said.
'It is rare,' said Ena, proudly.
'May I see your brand?' I asked. I was curious.
'Of course,' said Ena, and she stood up and, extending her left leg, drew her long, lovely white garment to her hip, revealing her limb.
I gasped.
Incised deeply, precisely, in that slim, lovely, now bared thigh was a startling mark, beautiful, insolent, dramatically marking that beautiful thigh as that which it now could only be, that of a female slave.
'It is beautiful,' I whispered.
Ena pulled away the clasp at the left shoulder of her garment, dropping it to her ankles.
She was incredibly beautiful.
'Can you read?' she asked.
'No,' I said.
She regarded the brand. 'It is the first letter, in cursive script,' she said, 'of the name of the city of Treve.'
'It is a beautiful mark,' I said.
'It enhances my beauty,' she said.
'Yes,' I said. 'Yes!' I found myself hoping, though I did not admit the thought to myself, that my brand might be as attractive on my body.
Ena once again, gracefully, drew on her garment. 'I like it,' she said. She looked at me, and laughed. 'So do men!' she laughed.
I smiled.
Then suddenly I was furious. What right had such brutes to brand us? To collar us? The Gorean right of the stronger, I told myself, to mark and claim the weaker as his own, should he choose to do so. I felt weak, and helpless. And then I was angry again, helplessly furious.
I, the prisoner of Rask of Treve, in his war camp, struggled to control myself. I wanted to know more of the men who had captured me, whose saddle I had helplessly graced, whose locked collar I would tomorrow wear.
'It is said that Rask of Treve,' I said, 'has a great appetite for women, and contempt, for them.'
'He is fond of us,' smiled Ena, 'that is true.'
'But he has contempt for us!' I cried, my fury, my helpless rage, my frustration, uncontrollably bursting forth.
'Rask of Treve is a man, and a warrior,' she said. 'It is common for them to view us as mere women, and see us in terms of their sport and pleasure.' 'That is contempt!' I cried.
Ena, kneeling, rocked back on her heels and laughed merrily. 'Perhaps,' she laughed.
'I will not accept that!' I cried.
'Pretty little Kajira,' laughed Ena.
I felt furious, and frustrated. I did not wish to be a mere sexual object! But I felt at my throat. It was bare now. Tomorrow it would wear a collar. What could a girl be, who wore a collar, but such an object!
'I hate men!' I cried.
Ena looked at me. 'I wonder,' she said, 'if Rask of Treve will find you pleasing?'
She removed the two pins which secured the garment I wore, stripping me. 'Perhaps,' she said.
'I do not want to please him!' I cried.
'He will make you want to please him,' she said. 'You will try, desperately, to please him. Whether or not you will be successful I do not know. Rask of Treve is a great warrior. He has had many women, and has many women. He is a connoisseur of us. He is, accordingly, difficult to please. You will perhaps not please him.' 'If I wanted to, I could,' I cried.
'Perhaps,' said Ena.
'But I shall resist him! I shall fight him!' I cried. 'He will never tame me! He will never conquer me!'
Ena looked at me.
'I do not have the weaknesses of other women,' I told her. I remembered the weakness of Verna, and of her girls, and of Inge, and Rena, and Ute! They were weak. I was not!
'What a defiant girl you are,' she said.
I looked at her.
'But we must rest now,' she said, getting up and extinguishing the brass lamp in the tent.
'Why?' I asked.
'Because tomorrow you will be collared,' she said.
I knelt, naked, on a large fur.
'Am I not to be chained tonight?' I asked.
'No,' said Ena. Then her voice reached me in the darkness. 'You will not escape.'
I lay down and pulled the fur about me. I clenched it in my fists and bit it with my teeth. Then I lay with my head against it, wetting it with my tears. I lifted my head. 'You are a slave, Ena,' I said. 'Do you not hate men?' 'No,' said Ena.
I heard her with irritation.
'I find men very exciting,' said Ena. 'Often I wish to give myself to them.' I heard her with horror. How shocking that she should speak so! Had she no pride? If such thoughts were entertained by her, surely she should have carefully concealed them, keeping them as her forbidden secret!
I, at least, hated men!
But tomorrow one of them would own mea€”fully. I would be his, by collar-right, by all the laws of Gor, to do with as he pleased.
I had not been chained. I had expected to be chained, heavily, and in short chains, fastened to rings, but I had not been. But I was secured, well secured, locked within the tall smooth palisade. 'You will not escape,' had said Ena.
Tomorrow I, Elinor Brinton, would be collared. For the first time on Gor I would wear the locked metal of a slave girl.
'You are lovely,' said Ena.
I knelt, naked, on the scarlet rug in the tent of the women. I had been washed, and my hair had been combed. The slave girl replaced the glass stopper in a small, ornate bottle of Torian scent. 'I shall touch you again,' she said, 'twice, before you are led forth.'
Another girl, one of four near me, besides Ena, again knelt behind me and again began to pass the narrow, purple horn comb through my hair.
'She is combed,' said one of the other girls, laughing.
'Aren't you excited,' asked the girl combing my hair.
I could not answer.
'You know your part in the ceremony?' asked Ena, not for the first time. I nodded my head.
It could not be I, Elinor Brinton, who knelt in this tent on this barbaric world!
One of the girls ran to the tent flaps and looked out. I could see, outside, through the tied-back opening of the tent, men, and girls, passing back and forth. The day was sunny and warm. There were soft breezes.
I was frightened.
I could smell the scent of the perfume. It was superior to any I had ever worn on Earth, when I had been wealthy and could command the customized attentions of the finest continental perfumers, and yet her, on this barbaric planet, it was used without thought to adorn the body of Elinor Brinton, a mere slave girl. I had not been permitted cosmetics.
I knelt.
I waited. For better than a quarter of an Ahn I knelt, waiting. 'Perhaps he will not collar her today,' said one of the girls. Suddenly the girl at the tent flap whispered excitedly, gesturing back toward us, 'Prepare her! Prepare her!'
'Stand,' said Ena.
I did so.
I gasped as they brought forth a long, exquisite garment, hooded, of shimmering scarlet silk.
Behind me, swiftly, one of the girls wound my hair into a single braid and then, coiling it, fastened it at the back of my head with four pins. The pins would be undone by Rask of Treve.
The garment was placed upon me. The hood fell at my back. The garment was sleeveless.
'Place your hands behind your back and cross your wrists,' said Ena. She had, in her hand, an eighteen-inch strip of purple binding fiber, about half an inch in width, flat, set with jewels.
